This post on the NY Times blog was interesting. It's about a cake seller who was shut down by NY health inspectors.
Notice that comments are disabled on this post (but not others). Someone probably was publishing comments criticizing State regulation of the food industry.
That's a common trick on mainstream media websites. If people publish comments that contradict their lies, then they disable the comment section.
"Food safety" laws are a type of tax. They're designed to impose extra costs on small businesses. Food safety laws make it illegal for someone to bootstrap a restaurant business, working out of their home kitchen.
I have no idea if he was targeted because he had an unsafe kitchen, or if he was competing too successfully. It's probably the latter.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
An Example of State Censorship
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4 comments:
Yeah, I've seen comments being disabled on some UK newspaper websites. You can tell why they are doing it, because only certain articles have comments turned off and those articles tend to be able certain parts of government or really bad things.
Absolutely, the comments issue is huge. I sometimes find a forum on a topic I am interested in and notice the strangest thing - everyone in the comments has the same perspective, and obvious other perspectives are missing. Sometimes I will post a test post with a contrarian position just to check, and sure enough, the message is never approved. When a site has community commenting enabled but then deletes all messages contrary from the approved viewpoint, it is not community but cult.
Usually I am right there with you, but.....I don't think your shorter than usual post paints an accurate picture of the scenario. The full story was linked in the link you provided. http://fort-greene.thelocal.nytimes.com/2010/10/08/cake-man-raven-closed-by-health-department/
Apparently his water was shut off, and the employees couldn't flush the toilet or wash their hands. It was the last straw after the guy wasn't paying them on time for months, and they raised a stink about it. Frankly, I'm not sure I would want to eat a cake there under those circumstances.
I have a story about food safety bullies. There is a small sandwich place near my house that is the model of what fresh veggies should look like on a sandwich, and although the place is cramped in there behind the counter for sure, it is clean and fresh as can be. A city tree root poked into a sewer line, causing his sink to back up. When he called to get the city out there, the guy that showed slapped a health violation paper on his door (and did nothing else), and the poor guy had to hire a plumber himself just to fix the problem in a reasonable time so he could reopen. Oh, and he also got dinged for a mop bucket too close to the grill as well. That will teach him to call the city!
P.S. If you get an email saying that you need to reset your blogger password or something, I am really sorry, but that was me. I was trying to reset this google comment account and I guess I got lost and clicked on the wrong section. Once again, sorry:(
Food safety is just like any other type of "safety". If you eat at a state certified restaurant, get poisoned and die then the state is not responsible even though they certified location as clean.
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