Accosted by a Clown!
Leaving the Woodland Park Zoo today, I noticed an older, rather sullen-looking overweight man on a chair. Normally, this might not be so out of the ordinary in the United States. But this particular older, rather sullen-looking overweight man was wearing a Spongebob Squarepants shirt and had a long inflated balloon, of the type for shaping an animal, next to him. Odd.
As I walked past, he asked "Are you with the ACLU?," apparently cluing in on my ACLU of Washington t-shirt which I had worn to the Seattle Pride Parade earlier in the morning. Rather than have an in-depth conversation about the meaning of the term "with" I simply responded that I was.
"When are you going to get your act together?" he asked.
Doing a quick bit of mental calculus about the merits of debating a sad clown, I replied, with a little laugh, "Probably never."
"And help me," he continued, if one is permitted to continue a sentence after a 15 second pause.
"Well, we can't take many individual cases," I pointed out.
He then went on about how Seattle Center now requires id badges of street performers.1 It appears the ACLU didn't file an amicus brief, but the ACLU simply cannot participate in every single case. Was this a reasonable time, place, or manner restriction on speech? Certainly debatable. Is this a point of law I felt like debating with a sullen clown? No. So I bid him a good day and departed, hearing muttering about me not understanding as I went.
All in all, awesome experience.
1 Apparently referencing Berger v. City of Seattle, which came back down from the Ninth Circuit in January of this year - indeed, looking at a photo online, this may have been "Magic Mike" Berger himself! What an honor!
As I walked past, he asked "Are you with the ACLU?," apparently cluing in on my ACLU of Washington t-shirt which I had worn to the Seattle Pride Parade earlier in the morning. Rather than have an in-depth conversation about the meaning of the term "with" I simply responded that I was.
"When are you going to get your act together?" he asked.
Doing a quick bit of mental calculus about the merits of debating a sad clown, I replied, with a little laugh, "Probably never."
"And help me," he continued, if one is permitted to continue a sentence after a 15 second pause.
"Well, we can't take many individual cases," I pointed out.
He then went on about how Seattle Center now requires id badges of street performers.1 It appears the ACLU didn't file an amicus brief, but the ACLU simply cannot participate in every single case. Was this a reasonable time, place, or manner restriction on speech? Certainly debatable. Is this a point of law I felt like debating with a sullen clown? No. So I bid him a good day and departed, hearing muttering about me not understanding as I went.
All in all, awesome experience.
1 Apparently referencing Berger v. City of Seattle, which came back down from the Ninth Circuit in January of this year - indeed, looking at a photo online, this may have been "Magic Mike" Berger himself! What an honor!