Spare The Rod, Spoil The Campaign Issue

Children are our greatest natural resource. And apparently California legislators are our greatest unnatural resource.

By now you’ve probably heard of the crusade of California assemblywoman Sally Lieber, who has drafted legislation to criminalize the spanking of children under four years of age. Although first-time offenders might get away with a simple brainwashing session, they theoretically face a $1,000 fine and one year in jail.

Among the words people have used to describe Lieber’s idea: “absurd,” “intrusive,” unenforceable,” “a blatant violation of parental rights.” To those of us some distance from the “Left Coast,” California’s innovations seem to be a mixture of good intentions and good weed.

Yes, there are alternatives to spanking. Sometimes you can reason with a child. But don’t get your hopes up about negotiations. Remember, this is the kid who can’t reliably articulate when he needs to use the potty. You ain’t gettin’ the dadblamed Treaty of Versailles out of him.

And, yes, you can always withhold privileges instead of giving the little darling a whack on the seat. That works really well with the brat who is about to run out into traffic. (“Okay, James, there goes your open casket ceremony!”)

Lieber and her ilk regard corporal punishment as barbaric. Sure, I remember my history lessons: when the unwashed hordes invaded the civilized countries, they raped and pillaged as a last resort, if they couldn’t find any little tushies to smack.

Lieber considers spanking to be morally indistinguishable from wife beating. Hey, I’m no male chauvinist pig, but if your wife has made a habit of willfully throwing the silverware in the toilet or running the cat’s tail through the sewing machine, maybe she needs a little more than a “time out.”

Lieber (who has no children of her own – only cats) accepts as incontrovertible fact the premise that spanking teaches kids to use violence – or at least to hack up a hairball on the new carpet. Yup, even the mildest and most infrequent applications of spanking supposedly teach children that it’s okay to bully and dominate weaker people. Especially weaker people who are trying to jam a fork into the electrical outlet.

Ten European countries have banned spanking, and of course Lieber wants California to emulate them. (“But, Ma, all the cool countries are staying up until 4 a.m. on school nights and hanging out with 30-year-old escaped convicts.”).

Good liberal that she is, I’m sure Lieber will write some common sense exemptions into the law. Although there will be a ban on corporal punishment for something trivial like decorating a motel room with permanent markers, parents will probably be allowed to tackle the child and give him a full Nelson if he’s doing something self-destructive like eating red meat or reciting “Now I lay me down to sleep…”

The law supposedly targets parents and other caregivers applying physical discipline, but once the camel’s nose is under the tent, you can look for siblings to be under scrutiny for causing emotional scars. NBC may soon be airing “Law And Order: ‘Suzie Looked At Me!’ Unit.”

* Sigh* Don’t bother trying to reason with Lieber about different personalities and different situations. Just get in line for a campaign T-shirt. (“C’mon, quit clowning around and pretending to trip on the shirt hem. You know one size fits all!”)

The County That Weighs Together...

“I’m from the government, and I’m here to aerobicize you.”

That may be the new catch phrase as some Rutherford County (Tennessee) employees prepare for the second series of their own weight loss/fitness program inspired by NBC’s “The Biggest Loser.”

Rutherford County is going all out to make the program a success, tapping the expertise of nutritionists, physicians, and motivational speakers. The county seems to be doing better than one mercifully unnamed town, which made the mistake of going with the low bidder to run a similar program. (“Okay, judge, you’ll need to ditch the black robes and go with these vertical stripes…”)

“The Biggest Loser” seems to be a winning formula. Rutherford County is lucky to have missed out on earlier reality show-based competitions, such as “Tap Dancing With The Budget Figures,” “Supervisory Nanny,” and “Garbage Route Swap.”

The county benefits from the program because physical fitness makes the employees more productive, but productivity has its downside. Perhaps only certain departments should be allowed to participate. I don’t think anyone wants to hear, “I’m from the Codes Department, I’ve been living on carrot sticks for three days, and you look like red meat to me!”

Furthermore, healthier employees will stimulate the economy via job growth. Insurance companies will have to hire extra personnel to concoct new reasons to keep premiums up. (“Let’s see, if the moon is in the seventh house, and Jupiter aligns with Mars…”)

If the anti-obesity campaign enjoys continued success, the county may expand to help its employees by discouraging other potentially harmful behavior, such as smoking, drug abuse, skydiving, whistle blowing, etc.

It takes a lot of guts for the participants to post their “before” photographs on the Internet for the world to see. Not many people can bear to display their physical shortcomings on the Web, unlike the tens of millions who have no qualms about displaying their mental shortcomings. (“There was no Holocaust. The Trilateral Commission and the Knights Templar staged it out in the desert somewhere.”)

Be prepared for stress from the diet regimen may take its toll on the dignity of even the strongest public servants. (“We intend to uphold government of the people, by the people, and for the luvva Mike will you get those carbs out of here!?!”)

Taxpayers face a stressful situation as well. This is a real paradigm shift for them to get used to. After years of wrangling over “separation of church and state,” it’s now “separation of employee and doughnuts.” Cornered government figures will now wag their fingers and insist, “I did not have chocolate éclairs with that woman.”

Citizens will have to get used to the sheriff climbing out of his patrol car at a traffic stop and drawling, “You in a heap of triglycerides, boy!” Instead of scheduling government debate, the calendar committee will focus on employee pin-ups. ( Actually, it’s nice to have government employees all buff and glowing. They’ll look better in photos for the ribbon-cutting of the latest Lardburger franchise.)

In spite of the culture shock, voters should show their support for the government employees’ weight reduction. Maybe someday we’ll see politicians competing for prizes in other reductions. (“It’s only January, and I’ve already taken down 22 percent of my November campaign posters, on the way to my goal of 60 percent. I approve removing part of my message.”)

Do I Feel A Draft?

It was sometime between 1970 and 1972. In one of my rare brushes with the occult, I nervously approached the Magic 8-Ball with the question that hung over my young head: “Will this Vietnam War end before I’m old enough to be drafted?”

The answer was unclear. (The 8-Ball also waffled on urgent questions about cooties .) Now a new generation may have to sweat the answers, as Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., prepares to reintroduce legislation to revive draft registration.

A lot of the people who are unhappy with our current all-volunteer military are nostalgic for the shared sacrifices of “the last good war.” They’d love to see us return to war taxes, rationing books, curfews, air raid drills, and the like. They’d probably be ecstatic if they could dig up Clark Gable and sort of prop him up against the wall to sell war bonds. (“Frankly, my dear…my left femur fell off.”)

Yeah, we whipped Hitler with draftees, but those recruits had been toughened up by rural life and/or the Great Depression. Nowadays a drill sergeant’s call for a 10-mile hike would be met with whines of “If the jostling hurts my PlayStation 3, what is the procedure for filing a class action suit?”

I can understand the concerns about poor and minority recruits being disproportionately represented in a dangerous occupation like the service. But I wonder how the draft proponents would react if a mugger was whuppin’ up on them with a tire iron and someone who had chosen a career as a police officer came to the rescue. (“No, thanks. I’m waiting for the draftee police program to start.”)

I don’t think I would sleep a bit safer knowing that rich politicians’ sons were forced to defend me. . Cries of “Hey, cap’n, I need another tank – the ashtrays in this one are full” just don’t inspire me. And when the privileged lads get into hand-to-hand combat, I don’t think, “Have your people call my people” will cut it.

I’m concerned that forcing celebrity kids into the military would create an expensive new bureaucracy: the Department of Hey, Dad, Get Me A Deferment Or I Swear I’ll Show Up At Your Campaign Rally Stoned.

Just watch some shrewd politician exploit the draft and appeal to the hawk vote. (“My opponent is a card-carrying member of the Hug Your Kids And Tuck Them In At Night Club. A good deadbeat dad is what this country needs in Congress. Vote for me and I’ll get the job done.”)

Of course Rangel and his supporters don’t really want a draftee military going to war. They want the draftee force to make Congress “think twice” about launching a war. Instead of viewing the war in an abstract sense, congressmen would theoretically be more cautious and diplomatic if they thought they were putting youths from their own district in harm’s way. I guess that depends on what sort of relationship they have with the folks back home. (“Let’s declare war on Luxembourg! That’ll teach that snot-nosed kid not to throw my newspaper in the bushes.”)

The Associated Press gives Rangel’s legislation little hope of passage, but the soreheads out there will never ever let go of their class warfare schemes. (“I think Bush’s daughters ought to be out there on the front line. C’mon, honey, throw your walker at ‘em!”)

The NFL Crossroads: Pigskin's Progress?

Maybe you thought NFL stood for National Football League, but it may soon stand for Negligently Forgetting Loyalists.

According to a flurry of recent press releases, the greedy league risks watering down its core appeal by (a) seeking to establish a foreign franchise within the next decade, (b) making its entire game slate available internationally via the Internet, and (c) marketing the product more toward women.

An initial foreign franchise (if it materializes) would most likely be in either Mexico City or Toronto. I have nothing against the Great White North, but can Canadians really handle anything other than Canadian football? Players are supposed to be role models for youth, and I think we should stick with good old U.S. player values like assault, robbery, and DUI – not Contributing To The Delinquency of A Caribou.

And all six people left in Mexico by 2017 would naturally love watching their own team, but is that goal worth having the NFL become entangled with the corrupt Mexican government? Quarterbacks and halfbacks would be replaced with kickbacks. Disputes would be settled with “totally unaltered instant replays” showing Howard Cosell fumbling a pass from Jim Thorpe.

What exactly have foreigners done to deserve receiving American football via the Yahoo! Web portal? Shut down the time-honored domestic foam finger industry with cheap imports and sent good Americans scrounging for third-shift jobs at the beer hat factory, that’s what! Okay, I guess the overseas guys have shown their football spirit by keeping up with statistics -- like Official Who Intercepted The Most U.S. Foreign Aid Funds. They deserve the baggage that comes with the Internet: listening to Al Gore lecture about how he invented pigskin.

The NFL should certainly cherish the large contingent of female fans it already has. Their backgrounds, temperaments, and lifestyles fit in with the world of professional football. But I question the value of desperate attempts to brainwash those who are only casually interested.

What sort of harebrained schemes will be utilized to make the sport more female-friendly? Do we really want team owners trying to solve their salary cap dilemmas with cents-off coupons? Will youngsters really develop a love for football by participating in the NFL’s Punt, Pass, and Accessorize program? Will the players union feel any safer if team doctors begin treating multiple fractures by prescribing a gift certificate from Bath & Body Works?

Supporters of change bemoan the fact that Super Bowl commercials are slanted toward testosterone-charged products like beer, automobiles, and electronics. I don’t think the husbands and boyfriends of America will take kindly to new hybrid ads that encourage them to drink responsibly before getting into their new sports car and going from zero to 180 on a mission to pick up feminine hygiene products.

You may think it possible to double the NFL audience with a little tinkering, but most likely you’ll see a male revolt when the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders have to synchronize their choreography with the Dallas Cowboys Chippendales.

I can see why the lure of the Almighty Dollar makes the league want to seek out more rabid fans. But if they persist on tampering with success, on “any given Sunday,” they may find themselves getting bitten in the rear.

The Gospel According To Elton

Speaking in a special “gay edition” of the “London Observer” newspaper’s monthly music magazine, pop legend Elton John recently pontificated that organized religion should be outlawed because it lacks compassion and promotes hatred of homosexuals.

I think the singer paints too sinister and conspiratorial a picture of clergy and congregants. Maybe he has read “The DaVinci Code” one too many times, but it’s as if he has unlocked the existence of The Patron Saint of Stealing Handicapped Parking Spaces or the “We’ve secretly replaced the baptismal water for gays with Folgers flavor crystals” scam.

I know, you’re wondering how a music superstar gets to be such an expert on deep theological issues. Surely you remember “Menorah In The Wind,” “Don’t Go Breaking My Commandments,” “Goodbye, Yellow-Brick Damascus Road,” and “On This Crocodile Rock I Will Build My Church.”

Forty years ago, Sir Elton’s tirade would have led to public album burnings, barricading of radio stations, and – if all else failed – preachers nationwide condemning him to an eternity of “ring around the collar, ring around the collar.”

As it is, we’ve become so desensitized to assaults on worship, that the typical response will be “As soon as I finish my Tae-Bo class, I’m sending God a fiery text message about this assault on … Hey! ‘Deal Or No Deal’ is on tonight!”

Admittedly, Sir Elton’s message lacks urgency because he doesn’t really envision putting it into action. It’s more of a “if I had my druthers” or a whimsical magic wish list. (“I want a unicorn, and the First Amendment beaten to a bloody pulp, and a big mountain of chocolate ice cream…”)

Sir Elton told the interviewer that organized religion “turns people into really hateful lemmings and it’s not really compassionate.” Or maybe he just sets unreasonably high standards for charity. (“Here’s a nice hot meal, and we’ve paid your rent for a month, and here are some tracts about saving your soul. Uh, if that’s not enough, I have this nephew you’d really love to sodomize…”)

Sir Elton plays on the emotions of those who can’t stand church hierarchy, assembling with the saints, “Sunday go to meeting clothes,” and the like. He appeals to people who prefer hobnobbing with Mother Nature or communing directly with God. That system worked so well in ancient times, with zany incidents such as Adam and Eve pilfering fruit, Cain whacking his brother, etc.

Yes, Sir Elton exploits the knuckle-draggers who look for any excuse to get out of the church building. These mellow, laid-back religious freelancers (Favorite song: “I’ll Fly Away By The Seat Of My Pants”) like to brag about the revelations they get straight from the Creator, without interference from elders, deacons, sobriety, etc. (“And Jehovah told me, “I thought it was a double bogey, too!”)

To his credit, Sir Elton did wax nostalgic for the simpler times of his childhood Sunday school classes. It’s just that he doesn’t like rules and regulations to grow up. In the World According To Elton, highway patrolmen would probably tell motorists, “You were driving 180 miles per hour on the wrong side of the road. I’m throwing the book at you – a sticker fun book. Enjoy—and don’t let me catch you running with the rounded scissors!”

Up next, the classic, “I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Hissy-Fits”…

Don't Run, Forrest, Don't Run

Is the glass half empty or is the glass dragging you behind a speeding pickup truck?

Perceptions are at the heart of an ongoing controversy in Murfreesboro. The student government at Middle Tennessee State University has urged the administration to remove the name Forrest (for Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest) from the ROTC building.

One side perceives the building name as a tribute to a military genius who saved the city from an invading army. The other side chooses to perceive the name as (at best) a slap in the face, or even a trigger for a post-hypnotic suggestion to resume lynching.

I’ve heard the arguments underlying the latter view. “Forrest was a traitor.” “Forrest was on the losing side.” “Forrest was a slave trader.” “Forrest was linked to the original Ku Klux Klan.” “It’s time to put the Civil War behind us and heal.”

The issues of “state sovereignty” and “right to secession” were still up for grabs at the time Forrest chose to side with the Confederacy, so it’s a stretch to question his loyalties.

And so what if the South lost? After winning World War II, the U.S. magnanimously let Japan keep its emperor as a figurehead, with no dire consequences. When a high school football team has a losing season, the principal doesn’t ban the players from the yearbook (not even the ones who bullied smaller kids, made poor grades, or became deadbeat dads). While we’re dissing losers, do the students want to take a wrecking ball to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial???

The slavery era is a tragic part of American history, but the fact remains that the slave trade began with Africans selling fellow Africans. So it’s strange to denounce the name “Forrest” while giving babies phony African names or celebrating faux African holidays like Kwanzaa.

And, as many writers have pointed out, it’s intellectually dishonest to hold historical figures to modern standards. If you really want to nail Forrest on multiple counts, he probably didn’t rewind his videotapes, recycle his plastics, or support Hillary for president, either.

What will the student government do next – picket a school exhibit of Neanderthal artifacts because the cave men weren’t paid the federal minimum wage for making the tools?

It seems petty to demonize Forrest (who ordered the original Klan disbanded) because of what the Ku Klux Klan devolved into. I’ve never heard a single person hold Jesus Christ (founder of Christianity) personally responsible for the excesses of the Crusades or the chicanery of televangelists.

Being “divisive” is the new liberal bogeyman, but just how harmonious is it if one side always says, “I know you’re a lying racist scumbag when you say ‘Heritage, not hate’”?

One has to admire the wide-eyed idealism of the student leaders. They’ll probably hammer at this issue until they’re distracted by something more urgent, like, I don’t know, the right of endangered mussels to visit their life partners in the hospital or something.

But their view that certain groups have ownership of historical events and personalities is regressive, not progressive. If one side is allowed to trot out history when it suits its purpose and otherwise pretend the history didn’t exist, future generations will be denied the opportunity to study and debate issues.

“Putting the Civil War behind us” makes us forever prisoners of that war.

Note: Shortly after this column was written, the anti-Forrest resolution was withdrawn.