Three things this columnist doesn’t care much about
I heard on the radio today that TV screenwriters are threatening a strike, which would mean that many if not all of this season’s TV shows may be cancelled in a few weeks, leaving America with nothing to watch except sports, so-called news, and so-called reality shows.
I don’t care.
To be more precise, inasmuch as I care at all, I hope that all TV screenwriters go on strike, and all America stops watching TV, and switches to reading books and playing with their children and taking long walks and painting pictures and raising prize dahlias in the seven hours a day that the average American spends watching TV.
I furthermore hope that even if the screenwriters get hungry and go back to work, that America decides to never go back to watching TV because roller-skating and playing piano in their spare time is so much more rewarding than watching a stupid screen.
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Campaign spending on Gilroy’s local elections has increased by 40 percent in the past eight years. Most of the increase is due to inflation, especially in the areas of postage, printing, and advertising costs. But the Dispatch editorial board decries the fact that the Republican and Democratic parties have also ponied up funds for fancy fliers for boys and girl of their party affiliation, in this nominally non-partisan election.
It does not bother me.
The web of law surrounding campaign fundraising and finance is already Byzantine in its arcane complexity. The decent, law-abiding candidate must spend a lot of time, energy, and money complying with the restrictions. The unscrupulous candidates (none of whom reside in Gilroy) look for loopholes, however unethical or shady they may be.
Raise it, spend it, report it: any constraints in excess of these will hamstring the virtuous and be ignored by the crook.
I also question whether there is any point in fliers these days. Perhaps it’s only me, but campaign fliers stay in my hand just long enough to make it from the mailbox to the blue bin, and get scrutinized just enough that I can tell they are campaign fliers, not bills or personal correspondence.
What I pay attention to are interviews, ballot statements, forums, debates, letters to the editor, straight news articles, editorials, columns, and yard signs. These seem to be much more effective means of getting the candidate’s name and message to the electorate.
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“And what did you do in high school, dear?”
“I was on the debate team.”
“I served on student council.”
“I sang in chamber choir.”
“I ran track.”
“I paid $300 to a stranger to inject ink under my skin.”
Teenagers can be remarkable. Or they can be remarkably stupid. This is why our society does not allow minors to enter into contracts, or drink alcohol, or vote, or marry, or enlist, without their parents’ permission. We hope that by the time they are adults, they will have developed some sense.
Following that rationale, my husband and I forbade our children to mutilate their bodies while we were paying expenses. No tattoos, no piercings. (Hair was relinquished to their control, to be grown, cut, dyed, spiked, dreadlocked, or otherwise tampered with. Hair grows back.)
Some adults seem to experience developmental delays, as far as developing sense goes. Take for example, the Gilroy High School yearbook advisor, who allowed a spread of the tattoos that grace (or dis-) the bodies of various GHS students to appear in the yearbook.
Of course, the advisor required parental permission. Some parents (and I use the word in strictly a biological sense) seem to be experiencing those same delays.
Nonetheless, allowing one’s child to get a tattoo or have it photographed is a parenting decision, and although I don’t understand it, I don’t care if some parents make that decision.
But I hope that Ms. Julie Robinson and her three children do not end up with hepatitis C as a result of the way she decided to celebrate their 18th birthdays. It seems a high price to pay for what Ms. Robinson calls Art with a capital A.
Cynthia Anne Walker is a homeschooling mother of three and former engineer. She is a published, independent author. Her column appears each Saturday.
