Saturday, February 02, 2008

To the Rescue

One of my favorite comic book superheroes as a child was Captain Marvel. Just by uttering the magical word Shazam young boy newscaster Billy Batson would instantly be transformed into that mighty defender of the universe Captain Marvel.



Lately it seems that government has been donning cape and tights to try and save various groups of people from the evils that lurk everywhere in contemporary society. I have three recent examples from this week's headlines that bring this point home most poignantly.

First we bring you the enlightened efforts of a group of selfless heroes in the Mississippi legislature who want to make it illegal for restaurants in that state to refuse service to people who have the wrong body mass index in the eyes of the government.

New bill would make it illegal for restaurants to serve the obese

FEBRUARY 1--Mississippi legislators this week introduced a bill that would make it illegal for state-licensed restaurants to serve obese patrons. Bill No. 282 is the brainchild of three members of the state's House of Representatives, Republicans W. T. Mayhall, Jr. and John Read, and Democrat Bobby Shows. The bill, which is likely dead on arrival, proposes that the state's Department of Health establish weight criteria after consultation with Mississippi's Council on Obesity. It does not detail what penalties an eatery would face if its grub was served to someone with an excessive body mass index.

Next we have some caped crusaders in New Mexico who want to prevent folks from ever getting that fat by urging the state government to levy a tax on video games and television sets, which, in theory, would offset the pernicious effects these products have in creating grossly obese people in the first place. Read on: http://snipurl.com/1yuwd

Finally we have the heroic Georgia state legislature voting 151-9 on Friday in favor of a resolution urging the NCAA to create a playoff system for college football. It seems that the good ol' boys in Atlanta were less than happy that their beloved college football team, the University of Georgia Bulldogs, were only afforded the opportunity to destroy the hapless University of Hawaii in a lopsided blowout in this year's edition of the Sugar Bowl and wind up finishing #2 in the national rankings. What an outrage of justice!

This certainly sounds like a call for governmental action if I ever heard one. A playoff system would have supposedly given the Dawgs a chance at the national glory that went instead to the Tigers of LSU. Sounds like a worthy crusade to me: http://snipurl.com/1yux5

All in all I must say that it is comforting to know that there are real Captain Marvels out there every day attempting to save us from the nasty slings and arrows of outrageous fortune which by courageously opposing them will surely end them. Shazam indeed!

3 comments:

Devastatin' Dave said...

Don't forget Arlen Specter and his outrage over the NFL Commissioner's handling of the Patriots' Spygate scandal. Of course, there are no other pressing issues the good Senator has to deal with.

Audie said...

And why is the United States Congress involved in Major League Baseball's steroid-use issues? I have never understood that.

beamis said...

I believe that it has something to do with the fact that baseball has been granted an antitrust exemption from Congress, which allows them to poke their noses into the affairs of an entertainment enterprise.