Sunday, May 24, 2009
It really was must-see TV
Dan Radmacher
Recent columns
- Heading back to the debate in Appalachia
- Redistricting process must be taken from pols
- A shutdown remains a very real possibility
- U.S. Navy Vets case argues for campaign limits
From the RoundTable blog
"I will not allow these people to sit on the sidewalk and impede vehicle, er, foot traffic. I will charge them." -- Roanoke Police Officer Reinhold Lucas
I walk around downtown Roanoke daily, usually passing by the City Market Building that was the scene recently of, well, a scene involving small, scattered groups of individuals watching blank televisions and Officer Reinhold Lucas, the police officer who wanted them to stop.
Often, on those daily walks, there will be people sitting on the sidewalk and leaning against the building, just hanging out. They might be smoking cigarettes or playing guitars. It's never an issue; the sidewalk in front of the building is broad. At other times, people are gathered waiting for the trolley. That can make for a bit more of a crush, depending on the time of day, but it's still easy enough to work your way through the crowd.
"Anyone walking here has to go around you. So unless you break this up, I'm going to consider this an unlawful assembly. Is that understood? Take your TV and leave the area. Now."
I happened to be walking through the market area the day of the "Must See TV" event. I thought the number of people lugging small televisions around was odd, and figured there was something different going on. I got lunch in the Market Building and, as I was walking out, I asked the police officer behind me (not Lucas) if he knew what was going on with the televisions. He didn't.
I stopped to ask the small group right outside the door what was going on. "Just watching TV," one of them replied.
Thursday is our busiest day here, so I didn't have time to hang out and see what happened. I shrugged and walked on back to the office.
The next day, I read about Lucas' arrest of a young woman who refused to break character when he tried to roust her. I saw the video of the confrontation and shook my head.
"Y'all want to create this disturbance, y'all go right ahead."
The thing is, if you look at the video, it's quite clear that the people taking part in this weren't impeding the sidewalks -- at least not more than occurs regularly on any given day. There was plenty of room to move around them. They weren't causing a scene.
I'm sure Lucas believes he was doing his job. But there are different ways of going about that. He decided to be confrontational and authoritarian rather than calmly assessing what harm, if any, this admittedly odd activity was causing.
As a result, he caused a greater disturbance than those he berated.
n n n
I was surprised by the intense reaction when we published an editorial cartoon about Bristol Palin's unlikely decision to become a spokeswoman for a national abstinence campaign.
The May 11 cartoon, by The Philadelphia Daily News' Signe Wilkinson, showed a pregnant girl knocking on the door of the "Bristol Palin Abstinence Only Center," asking if the center were hiring. Strollers were parked outside the center, and a sign in the window advertised breast-feeding classes.
The point the cartoonist was trying to make seemed obvious to me: Abstinence-only education doesn't work, a fact that Palin, perhaps the most well-known unwed mother in America, demonstrates quite well. That makes her decision to become Abstinence Ambassador for the Candies Foundation a bit ironic, to say the least.
Many readers jumped on us for publishing the cartoon. One letter writer accused us of attempting to crucify Palin. Another said publishing the cartoon was "cruel, unprofessional and unacceptable." A third accused us of trying to destroy Sarah Palin's chances for a 2012 run for the presidency.
I'm sorry some readers were upset. I hope that most of those who were upset didn't realize that Palin had volunteered to become a national spokeswoman for an abstinence campaign, and that such knowledge might make them realize that the cartoon was not some out-of-the-blue attack on an unwed mother who had been thrust into the limelight months ago by her mother's decision to run for vice president.
Bristol Palin put herself at the center of this debate once again. She may truly believe that "abstinence is the only ... 100 percent foolproof way you can prevent pregnancy" and that someone who fell off the abstinence wagon can make an effective spokesperson for the cause.
There is nothing cruel or unprofessional in an editorial cartoon that makes the opposite case.
Radmacher is the editorial page editor of The Roanoke Times.
