Nanny State Update: Chicago and Yale

Big Brother is Big Nanny. The government bureaucrats and their philosophical cousins in academia just knows they can run your personal life better than you can. And by God, they're out to control every aspect of your life. Bit by bit, drip by drip, the State's claws dig a bit deeper into your soul every day, the Constitution be damned. Here are two examples, one from Chicago's City Council and one from Yale University: City: Smoking Ban Will Apply To Actors Onstage Broadway In Chicago: "Ruling Violates 1st Amendment" Imagine those Broadway classics -- or plays about Prohibition, organized crime or smoke-filled political rooms -- being performed in Chicago by actors who don't have cigarettes dangling from their lips or smoldering in their hands. It could happen, now that aldermen have taken a stand that, a colleague warns, runs contrary to the First Amendment. By a 4 to 2 vote, the City Council's Buildings Committee voted Friday not to exempt actors from Chicago's smoking ban -- not even when smoking is an "integral part of the theatrical performance." FULL STORY, CBS-2... Yale’s theater edict — Thumbs down A New Haven Register editorial 05/02/2007 In a weird overreaction to the massacre at Virginia Tech, Yale banned realistic stage weapons from student productions. For a brief moment, Yale actors were staging sword duels with balloons or wooden cutouts. The edict by Betty Trachtenberg, dean of student affairs, has been reversed by Yale administrators who cited concerns about inhibiting free speech. It should have been dumped for simply being silly. Now, however, student productions must warn audiences in advance when performances will contain scenes with fake weapons. The requirement of a warning is as fatuous as the ban. Will the next production of "Hamlet" at Yale carry a triple-X rating for extreme violence? (Source: