Tag: profanity

Ticketed for cussing?

Wow. My understanding of the First Amendment with regard to profanity was recently challenged. I’m glad to see that at least the ACLU sides with me.

Law.com’s recent article explains the happenings in Pennsylvania where apparently there has been a rash of state troopers citing or even arresting citizens for disorderly conduct, including a pizza delivery driver who had to take off an entire day without pay to defend himself against the bogus charge.

[ACLU legal fellow Marieke] Tuthill said disorderly conduct charges for use of profanity have become common in Pennsylvania despite being routinely rejected and condemned by the courts. The suits allege that use of language that is “merely profane” and “not obscene” is protected by the First Amendment, and that criminal charges of any sort for the use of mere profanity therefore violate free speech rights.

It’s not surprising to me at all to see the ACLU’s Pennsylvania chapter has their hands full with this kind of thing. This is a classic case of “badge-itis” and an example where cops are at least nominally above the law, their badge becoming a “get away with it” card. I wonder how many cited for this so-called “disorderly” conduct are police officers? Probably none. I defy you to watch more than ten episodes of the TV show “Cops” or a similar reality-based show involving police officers without hearing one word from a cop beeped out. (While it’s probably possible to find ten such episodes, it would involve quite selective viewing habits.)

I do keep my three blogs profanity-free; this blog is the only one of the three that would be anywhere near likely to contain saltier language on occasion, and I still keep it clean as a matter of personal taste. The same cannot always be said of my Twitter stream and my Facebook feed. I’ll admit it; I can have quite the penchant for profanity. If this biases my perspective, so be it. But please remember, life is not a G-rated Disney movie!

I’d rather see cops writing speeding tickets for a known underposted stretch of road than writing tickets for swearing under the guise of “disorderly conduct.” And that says a lot, given I know a lot of speed limits are underposted on purpose.

Skittles adds Twitter turquoise to its rainbow

So I was up late checking out Twitter, reading some of the URLs posted, as well as the occasional refresh on Flickr to see the latest happenings in a couple of groups I’ve gotten really active in, and other miscellaneous things. And then this caught my eye:

mashable: Skittles has changed its entire homepage to a Twitter search – brave! http://skittles.com/ #skittles

Well, not entirely true. As served, there’s a Flash movie overlay that first asks for your birthdate (I never found out exactly what changes for over/under 18 or 13, and I am assuming nothing changes for over/under 21 since the last Skittles I had weren’t vodka or rum flavored). Get past this, though, and indeed you see the Twitter search as a backdrop.

I think from then on the next few tweets of mine tell the story best:

skquinn: @mashable and it didn’t take long for someone to say “%$&# you Skittles, %$&# you in the eye”

skquinn: wow. news of Skittles changing the site to mainly show a Twitter search spread, and the profanity/vulgarity starts *flying*!

skquinn: We have a “%$&# you in the eye”, a “suck my %$&#”, a “spam the %$&# out of that”, and it gets even better #skittles

skquinn: someone did a “#$%* #$%* #$%* #$%* #$%*#$%*er mother#$%*#$er and #$%” — yes, Carlin’s seven dirty words! #skittles

There were certainly others I missed or didn’t really think were quite as notable. I think things have calmed down enough now, of course we will no doubt see the occasional bozo that says “look I can tweet a swear word and it shows up on skittles.com” but overall this is the gutsiest marketing move I have seen in a while (except for the unnecessary dependency on Flash), so much so that I’m probably going to buy a couple of bags of Skittles next chance I get.

Incidentally, the rest of the Flash movie-based navigation on the new skittles.com takes you to a Facebook page, a YouTube account (or a YouTube search, can’t remember right offhand), and the Skittles account on Flickr. There is also a link to the Wikipedia article on Skittles which shows up if you have Javascript disabled; I am guessing this may be what’s switched in by the birthdate check.