Month: February 2011

A Texas-sized Super Bowl seating snafu

I didn’t watch the Super Bowl this year; the only reason it’s on my DVR is so I can watch the commercials and study them like any other marketing guy. And the story I’m writing about here is on a PR disaster that’s probably going to leave Jerry Jones with a Texas-sized headache–and which may well preclude the Dallas Cowboys franchise from hosting another Super Bowl any time soon.

The New York Times and the New York Daily News reported on a seating snafu caused by the failure to complete some sections of temporary bleachers in time for the game. The story also hints that part of it had to do with Jerry Jones’s desire for a Super Bowl attendance record, which was ultimately unsuccessful (103,219 versus the record set in 1980 at the Rose Bowl of 103,985).

To their credit, the NFL did something to try and make things right, offering the fans who were not able to be relocated to other seats in the stadium free food and merchandise and the chance to watch the game from one of the stadium’s private clubs and/or the standing-room-only rooms, as well as a refund of three times the face value of the tickets.

The refund may well not cover what some scalpers charged for tickets. But I’ve ranted about scalpers before, and my opinion of them has not changed at all. Suffice it to say I have a low opinion of those who would profit at the expense of the NFL and their fans, and I’m disappointed the NFL and its member teams have done almost nothing about Super Bowl ticket scalping. It’s entirely possible the NFL doesn’t care, but that’s kind of a side issue here.

Anyway, this quote from Ashante Green of Pittsburgh (at the end of the NY Times story), who was relocated from an unusable section 240A seat to one in section 448 (in the upper deck), sums it up nicely:

It’s ridiculous… What am I supposed to do? Not go in?

I consider what happened here an embarrassment to all of Texas. Mr. Jones should be ashamed of himself and the bad PR he brought to not only his franchise, but the NFL, his city, and his state. Look, guys, if you’re going to put in temporary seating to try and break the attendance record, make sure it’s ready to use by game time. Otherwise, you just look like a bunch of idiots. And let’s be honest here, there are enough people that have this mistaken stereotype in their heads about Texas being full of “dumb cowboys” or worse. Mr. Jones, and his greedy, selfish quest for a Super Bowl attendance record, didn’t exactly help.

The least that could have been done, was to acknowledge that there were tickets out there for unusable seats prior to game time, and have the contingency plan ready to go and announced. It’s much better from a PR standpoint to admit a goof like this before you have hundreds of disgruntled fans rather than after.

Is lack of intelligence a requirement to be a judge in Illinois?

I honestly don’t know what else to conclude after reading this article than it must be a requirement to have next to zero intelligence to be a judge in Illinois. This is sort of a follow-up to the Christopher Drew case that I blogged about back in 2010 June. It involves a very similar abuse of the state’s wiretapping law.

AlterNet reports on the plight of 41-year-old Michael Allison of Bridgeport, Illinois. His crime was keeping non-working cars on his mother’s property in the nearby town of Robinson. Both cities have “eyesore” laws requiring inoperable cars to either be registered or kept in a garage. The nasty part of this is that in Illinois, registered vehicle owners can be randomly selected for liability insurance verification questionnaire mailouts, and a failure to respond to such a questionnaire results in the suspension of the registration. (In Texas, by contrast, one only needs to show proof of insurance at the time of registration and–since Texas requires it as well–annual safety inspection. Though it is technically frowned upon, in Texas one can get insurance, renew registration and/or bring the inspection current, then immediately cancel the policy.)

Anyway, Michael sued the city of Bridgeport in 2007 claiming the “eyesore” law was a violation of his civil rights and the city’s impound fees amounted to a cash grab. This resulted in local police harassment and threats of arrest over the next couple of years.

Fast forward to 2010 January. Michael requests a court reporter for his hearing and is denied. In the letter he made it clear that he would be recording the proceedings himself were his request denied–an understandable action from a citizen who feels he is being wronged by the system and merely wants to document himself for his own protection.

Quoting the story, here’s what happens next:

Just after he walked through the courthouse door the next day, Allison says Crawford County Circuit Court Judge Kimbara Harrell asked him whether he had a tape recorder in his pocket. He said yes. Harrell then asked him if it was turned on. Allison said it was. Harrell then informed the defendant that he was in violation of the Illinois wiretapping law, which makes it a Class 1 felony to record someone without his consent. “You violated my right to privacy,” the judge said.

Allison responded that he had no idea it was illegal to record public officials during the course of their work, that there was no sign or notice barring tape recorders in the courtroom, and that he brought one only because his request for a court reporter had been denied. No matter: After Harrell found him guilty of violating the car ordinance, Allison, who had no prior criminal record, was hit with five counts of wiretapping, each punishable by four to 15 years in prison. Harrell threw him in jail, setting bail at $35,000.

This is a blatant attempt at intimidation which the entire citizenship of Illinois should be ashamed of. I don’t know where Mr. Harrell (a man I believe unworthy of the title of “Judge” or “The Honorable”) gets off claiming he has some kind of privacy rights in a public courtroom, especially after Michael asked for a court reporter.

I’m not sure how Mr. Harrell became a judge. But I do know lawyers and judges are supposed to uphold the concept of equal justice for all. This abuse of a poorly written wiretapping law flies in the face of anything resembling justice.

Indeed, the story also refers to Carlos Miller’s excellent blog, Photography Is Not A Crime, which he started after being arrested on trumped-up charges for exercising his legal right to photograph police officers in a public place. I can’t blog about every one of them, but the media is full of stories about police abusing their power. Intimidating citizens into giving up their rights is wrong, and is the hallmark of a police state run amok.

I refuse to quietly let the USA become a police state. A lack of resistance and public outrage in cases of clear official intimidation and harassment such as Christopher Drew’s and Michael Allison’s is all it takes for us to quietly slip into such a police state. If you are in Illinois, please make your objections known to your elected officials and the local news media. I would love to do a follow-up post about protests related to either of these two cases, or similar cases involving the abuse of this absolute garbage they call a wiretapping law in Illinois.

For residents of the other 49 states, I quote Thomas Jefferson: “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” In this case, it’s keeping up with proposed legislation, and voicing emphatic and angry (but polite) objection to your state passing laws or amending existing laws similar to those laws currently on the books and being abused in Illinois.

Together, we can stop the police state. Enough is enough.