Dear Mahatma: I recently saw a license plate that read "Ta Ta, God." What do you think this was saying? -- J.H. in Sherwood
SEARCH: Rejected vanity plates
Dear J.H.: Vanity plates are limited to seven characters, so best guess is this says TATAGOD. The meaning? Reads to us as if the owner of the vehicle has relinquished the sacred for the secular. He's an atheist, or agnostic. Probably not a monotheist.
We asked the Department of Finance and Administration to verify the plate, but the agency won't confirm or deny the spelling or even its existence. This has something to do with the federal Driver's Privacy Protection Act of 1994, which prohibits the release of most information states collect on drivers in the normal course of licensing them and their vehicles.
Then we asked: Does the agency have a policy on religious messages on vanity plates? Nope. But what it does have is a practice against the issuance of any vanity plate that is vulgar or profane.
And who decides what is vulgar or profane? Why, the agency.
Makes sense, since over the years the agency has compiled a giant, honkin' list of about 11,000 proposed plates which it has, in its wisdom, declined to issue, permit or have any truck with. It's a dirty job -- make that dirty-minded -- but someone has to do it.
Mass media scholars, steeped in the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, might concede that being licensed to drive a licensed vehicle is a privilege, not a right. Neither is freedom of speech a limitless right. States which grant those driving privileges have authority to reasonably set limits on messages conveyed by vanity plates.
(Our legal fee is $300 an hour. Tips accepted.)
The Department of Finance and Administration said any proposed combination of letters and numbers will be rejected if it's identical to one in use, uses inappropriate symbols or marks, or is identical to something in the giant, honkin' list currently in our possession.
Whoa. Stop. This list is now in the possession of The Mahatma? Yes, in electronic form. Normally, we like words on paper, but this checked in at 252 pages.
The list was acquired via the state's Freedom of Information Act, which mandates the release of most documents generated by state agencies. And as we say from time to time, using the Freedom of Information Act makes us feel like a real reporter.
We have skimmed through the list. Our hair burst into flame. METH, anyone?
Is you is, or is you ain't, curious? You is! You is!
We are going to print some of the rejected vanity plates -- the ones judged not too obnoxious, unruly, or crude for a family newspaper. Be assured that editors wiser than us have carefully read this column.
0M1G0D. 0MERTA. 0RGASM. 1AMG0D. ASASIN. B1TCHY. BABYBM. BDAZZ. BREAST. BRKWND. BRSTFEE.
D0RK. DAMFOOL. DUMWOP. EXLAX. JCHRIST. LUC1FR. MAFIOSO.
And ... DUMSHT. (We concur.)
We could go on but instead offer this: http://www.arkansasonline.com/vulgarplates/
Browser beware.
Mahatma@arkansasonline.com
Metro on 04/23/2016