Miraculous. Common sense has prevailed over lunacy thanks to Judge Jed Rakoff, whose ruling captures perfectly the absurdity of Bloomberg and Vallone's, err, "reasoning":
He even poked fun at Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's argument that the party would incite the defacement of real subway cars. "By the same token, presumably, a street performance of 'Hamlet' would be tantamount to encouraging revenge murder," the judge wrote. "As for a street performance of 'Oedipus Rex,' " he added, "don't even think about it."
"The First Amendment would be a weak reed indeed if the utterance of such expressions could be banned from the city's streets because, in the mayor's view, 'It's trying to encourage people to do something that's not in anybody's interest,' " the judge wrote, citing Mr. Bloomberg's public musings last week... "Such heavy-handed censorship would, moreover, fall particularly hard on artists, who frequently revel in breaking conventions or tweaking the powers that be"
Thank you. How did it come to pass that our city, supposedly the most sophisticated city in America, is being run by people who lack a basic understanding of the Bill of Rights? These people make me want to vandalize something.
See y'all tomorrow at 22nd st. and 10th Ave, where our very own DJs 3d and Avee will be pitching in on the turntables (along with others such as RJD2, I'm told?).
