Brooksville City Council's underwear rule rankles Keith Olbermann

Published Monday, June 15, 2009

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BROOKSVILLE — Keith Olbermann's nightly "Worst Persons in the World" segment on his MSNBC show usually targets conservative commentators such as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly. On Monday night's broadcast of Countdown, the seat of dishonor belonged to the Brooksville City Council.

Olbermann took the council to task for passing a dress code for city employees that he felt went too far into personal space. As detailed Sunday in a St. Petersburg Times story, the new policy dictates that employees use deodorant, keep their tattoos and wounds covered, do not wear spandex or revealing clothing, and only wear piercings in their ears. Oh, and they must wear underwear.

The last part got under Olbermann's skin. Quoting the Times story's references to Mayor Joe Bernardini's questions about who will monitor compliance with the skivvies' rule, Olbermann compared the council to the character Woody Allen played in his 1971 movie Bananas. In it, Fielding Mellish, president of the fictional country of San Marcos, decrees that everyone must change their underwear every half-hour and so they must wear their underwear outside of their clothing.

When they say "cover wounds" do they mean scars or fresh ones?

get over myself? You're the one who fancies himself some sort of internet celebrity.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/bizarre/article1010455.ece

So basically, there's a new dress code for city employees, saying that they must wear clothes that fit, cover wounds and tattoos, wear deoderant and underwear. The mayor was the sole opposing vote, mentioning how hard this would be to inforce.

Thoughts?

DADE CITY — Here's an unusual way to handle vandals:

Give them a canvas.

In an effort to combat a growing problem with graffiti and tagging, Dade City will soon begin constructing an "expression wall" in Price Park for artists and would-be vandals.

The wall is one of many popping up around the country. The theory goes that giving graffiti artists a legal outlet for their work will reduce unwanted tagging elsewhere. And by "allowing" graffiti, it may reduce the thrill some vandals get in breaking the law.

The idea was first floated around the City Commission in December. At the time, a local church group volunteered to build three expression walls with city-provided materials in lieu of paying $2,100 in permit fees for some construction work.

But the church's construction plans — and the walls — fell through.

So the city took the matter in its own hands, soliciting donated materials for the 5-by-10-foot wall from local builders in an effort to reduce costs. (The city may also use some of its own surplus materials.)

That could make the wall more palatable to taxpayers. In Cornwall, England, an angry taxpayer snuck into the construction site of a £3,000 expression wall (worth about $5,000) last October and spray painted his sentiments on the project: "I paid my tax and all I got was this lousy wall."

Dade City officials couldn't come up with a number on how much this expression wall would cost. The only taxpayer burden should be the time it takes city personnel to build the wall over the course of about two weeks, and to cover up any obscene or vulgar writings, which will not be permitted.

"We'll just roll over it, or spray it and be done with it," said City Manager Billy Poe.

Last week, Teri Butterfield watched as her 11-year-old son Dylan played on Price Park's playground equipment.

On the slides and swings around him were the telltale, indecipherable scribbling of a tagger. Someone had written "U R All Gay" in marker on the slide.

Butterfield thought the wall was an "okay idea." Her main concern was the possibility of hateful writing about another child.

"You don't know how it's going to be monitored," she said. "What if someone writes something on Monday that's not cleaned off until Friday?"

The Dade City Police and Public Works Department plan to send workers by the park every day to monitor the wall.

"We'll set some rules — no profanity, no gang tagging, nothing derogatory or threatening," said Police Chief Ray Velboom.

The wall should be built by mid July, weather permitting. If the concept works, more expression walls may be built in other city parks.

"I've seen some tagging that's pretty artistic," Velboom said. "Let's give it a try."

I probably woudln't hire someone with lots of tattoos or piercings showing.

I hate going to a store and being served by a worker whose face is covered in piercings.

What about emotional wounds?

what about mah dik fellahs

God forbid people working for the taxpayers look a little professional and practice good hygene.

You know, like the vast majority of people working in the private sector.

what about mah dik fellahs