A retired French professor in Colorado is in trouble for giving a dog turd to her congresswoman. Apparently the professor, Kathleen Ensz, was angry at receiving mailings from Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave, and retaliated by wrapping the poo (or "merde") in one of the mailings and leaving the package at the representative's office. The professor is now facing misdemeanor charges for "use of a noxious substance."
Ensz's lawyer claims that this is protected by the First Amendment. Regardless of the legal outcome of this, I think it takes a very special type of individual to actually go through with this sort of thing. Sure, lots of people think of sending poo in the mail (myself included), but if you sit down and trace all the steps that were involved in this transaction -- gathering the poo from the backyard, wrapping the poo in the mailing, presumably putting it into a box, and then personally transporting it to the congresswoman's office -- that's a lot of chances to stop handling poo that the professor didn't take. And how did she get it over there? Did she drive to the office with a box of crap in her car? Did she take a bus? A taxi? Did she walk?
Let's face it, this is a pretty crappy way to engage in participatory democracy.
