Now, I'd be more sympathetic to the constitutional issue if the handbills were political speech (like, say, these KKK leaflets distributed in a black neighborhood), but this stuff is just plain litter. TRASH. It accumulates and it is annoying to have to clean it up. As a practical matter, I see very little difference between a Domino's Pizza leaflet on my porch and a discarded candy wrapper or empty McDonalds bag. I realize that the former is intended to persuade me of something, but in my mind a pizza leaflet is actually less "persuasive" than an empty McDonalds bag -- for the simple reason that I know the pizza company caused it to be put there deliberately, while McDonalds did not, and I refuse to patronize companies that deliberately place litter my porch.

Am I being an angry crank complaining about one of the minor annoyances of life?

Perhaps, but I just saw a story in the Detroit Free Press (on the front page, no less) about a campaign in Harper Woods to ban the distribution of ad flyers:

Debbie Kien doesn't feel as safe in her Harper Woods neighborhood as she once did.

The fear began in August when someone broke into the Eastwood Drive home that she shares with her husband and two daughters. The couple suspected that the person who burglarized their home was one of the men who regularly walk through their neighborhood delivering flyers from grocery stores.

The Kiens' suspicion was heightened on a March morning when David Kien, a contractor, caught a man rummaging through his van.

"We've been victimized twice," Debbie Kien said.

In response to the Kiens' and others' complaints about handbill distributors littering neighborhoods, peering into windows and being linked to crimes, Harper Woods officials are considering banning the distribution of commercial handbills on public and private property.

The issue is one that has drawn free-speech challenges nationwide.

Free speech is fine, but I think unwanted advertising is littering, and coming into someone's yard or onto their front porch is trespassing.

Anyway, here's how this sort of free speech works in practice:

About 11:15 a.m. March 7, Kien said he saw one of the handbill deliverymen rummaging through his van. Police arrested the man, who was identified as Larry Williams, 44, a homeless man from Detroit. He was distributing circulars from Vega's and Family Foods markets at the time of his arrest.

Williams had a piece of copper in his pocket along with a crack pipe, police said.

"It's that kind of element that I don't want. I prefer not to see them," Kien said. "They're looking for crimes of opportunity."

Harper Woods Police Lt. William Snider said Williams pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors -- larceny from a motor vehicle and possession of narcotic paraphernalia -- and was sentenced March 14 to pay a $395 fine or receive 14 days in jail.

"It's a concern for the community," said Harper Woods Deputy Police Chief Jim Burke. He said the biggest complaint is that the deliverymen are walking across lawns and looking into windows.

Exactly the sort of thing that goes on in Ann Arbor.

I realize this post is a complete waste of time, and nothing can be done, but since I've gotten this far I'm just wondering about something. If it's OK to throw unwanted commercial trash onto porches, then why isn't spam constitutionally protected? Or leaving pork in front of a mosque? (The latter is done in protest, so I guess it should be more proected than spam even if it isn't, but these issues are confusing.)

And if spam is protected, then why not littering? Suppose you're some kind of environmentalist nut who believes in confronting America's wasteful practices by engaging in acts of "guerrila recycling" consisting of throwing used paper in people's yards to dramatize the plight of endangered virgin trees in Canada's Boreal forests? Why wouldn't that kind freedom of expression every bit as protected as flag-burning or desecration of religious objects? Because it would be offensive? No, that can't be the reason, because almost everything is offensive. Time place and manner? No, that can't be it, for why would commercial littering be any more protected than serious acts of political street theater?

I think there might be an unstated double standard where it comes to trash. Some forms of trash are more equal than others.

I suspect the distinction may involve one of those legal "I know it when I see it" deals.

So why am I not seeing it?