The Nation: The Law as Scrooge

Is nothing beyond the law's reach?

When Now Thank We All Our God pealed from the loudspeakers on the steeple of Central Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Mich., at 9 a.m. on Thanksgiving, who inside the church could have suspected that the law was being violated? But Police Sergeant John Mordas, 36, awakened in his home across the street, felt differently. He was so annoyed by the intrusion of the sound of a very fine carillon on his rest that he promptly wrote up a citation and mailed it to the church's pastor, Herman J. Ridder. The charge: noise pollution. A city...

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