Finding a Condom Sense Solution to the Education Crisis

By Chuck McKay

In Wisconsin, which is a lot like Maine in terms of the number of crazed politicians per capita, one district attorney recently wrote a "friendly warning" to health teachers that they could be prosecued for "contributing to the delinquency of a minor" if they follow a new state law allowing them to teach about contraception.

"Contributing to the delinquency of a minor" carries a maximum sentence of two years to You've Seriously Got to Be Kidding Me.

According to the Associated Press, Juneau County District Attorney Scott Southworth warned that health classes would become "a radical program that sexualizes our children as early as kindergarten. This, in turn, will lead to more child sexual assaults."

Of course! The more a child knows about sex, the more appealing they become to older individuals who may want to victimize them. Obviously, perps mainly seek out kids who are well-educated about condoms and STDs.

"Wisconsin school districts aren't required to teach sex education," notes AP writer Todd Richmond. "But the new law, which took effect March 11, lays out requirements for those that do, including teaching the benefits of abstinence, criminal penalties for having underage sex and the benefits and proper use of contraceptives."

I could write all day about how virtually every study on this topic not funded by the Bush Administration finds that abstinence-only programs don't work, but that's not important. 

Instead, think back to when you were young and zitty. Were your decisions about sex even slightly impacted by what you learned in public school?

As a teenager, I learned that condoms can prevent pregnancy about 98% of the time, when used properly. I did not learn this in health class, I learned it from a condom package.

Now, at the risk of drawing the attention of law enforcement officials here in Maine, I am about to reveal, for the benefit of young people who may be uninformed, how to use a condom:

Read the instructions inside the condom box. It's not rocket science.

Please, Mr. District Attorney, don't send me to jail for providing the exact same information that is available to everyone for free on the Internet, or for a nominal fee in the pharmaceutical department at Wal-Mart!

The fact that an elected official thinks he can score points with the public by threatening to prosecute teachers for doing what their legislature and local school boards tell them to do makes Juneau County, Wisconsin the newest addition to my list of Top Ten Places to Stay the Hell Away From.

Also on that list: any Internet message board where people are discussing Maine's education funding crisis.

Prevailing opinion on many of these forums would indicate that teachers are the problem, particularly since their bloated salaries and benefits suck up 75% of education funding.

And what do we get in return? Armies of children who can't overcome their parents' inadequacies. If public education is going to hog two percent of the federal budget (Center for Budget and Policy Priorities), shouldn't we expect it, at the very least, to render generational poverty and other entrenched social patterns completely irrelevant? 

Why should we mind laying off teachers if they weren't doing their jobs to begin with?

Of course, if you're going employ cut teachers and expect better results, it's only fair to cut students, too. Maybe part of the problem is that there are just too many of them.

So, back to that condom thing...

Thank God for Materialism

When I read on abcnews.com about the bargain-crazed Wal-Mart shoppers stampeded and killed Jdimytai Damour, 34, on Long Island the day after Thanksgiving, I shook my head in utter disgust at the inhumanity of our materialistic, consumerist society.

But then the article listed some of the prices that had been slashed – slashed, I tell you! – by that little yellow smiley face.

A Bissel Compact Upright Vacuum for $28! A Samsung 10.2 megapixel digital camera for $69! DVDs such as "The Incredible Hulk" for $9!

Thank you, ABC News, for providing such crucial context to this story. Had I not known how much money these shoppers were saving, I might have just assumed it wasn’t worth the loss of a human life.

Given the urgency of compensating for the fact that we never spend any time with most of the people for whom you buy gifts, it’s easy to see why we innocent holiday shoppers get a little carried away with ourselves, especially in this economy. No wonder people at the Long Island Wal-Mart “shouted angrily and kept shopping” when they tried to close the store for a few hours after the fatality.

Clearly, the shoppers are not at fault. If anything, the “victim” himself should shoulder most of the blame.

Not convinced? Consider a law in Kentucky passed in 2006 that requires the state’s homeland security department to acknowledge God as the first line of defense.

“Specifically, Homeland Security is ordered to publicize God's benevolent protection in its reports,” says the Lexington Herald-Leader, “and it must post a plaque at the entrance to the state Emergency Operations Center with an 88-word statement that begins, ‘The safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God.’"

Now, I never met Mr. Damour, the Wal-Mart stampeding victim, but it seems fair to suppose that he had probably not been giving God enough credit for his own personal security.

In fact, with a name like Jdimytai Damour, it’s hard to imagine he was even a Christian. Why has the media spent so much time mourning this guy, when he clearly had it coming? He was practically begging to be pureed under a mob.

As you might expect, I daresay the Kentucky law doesn’t go far enough. When you think about it, don’t we need God for basically everything?

We should require the government to acknowledge God’s role in making sure we have air to breathe and food to eat. If corporate mismanagement of our fragile food production and distribution system ever leads to widespread famine, or if pollutants render our air unbreatheable, we will rue the day that we didn’t give God His props.

Without God, we would have no public education, because without God, there would be no children. Duh.

Tell you what. Let’s just cover all our bases by turning government into one massive prayer session. You can never be too sure that you’re worshipping ardently enough to avert catastrophe.

As for you degenerate heathens out there who don’t believe God interposes His will in human affairs on a regular basis… well, I know of a job opening at a Wal-Mart on Long Island that would be perfect for you.

Creepy Weather Alert

Here is another reason to be glad you live in Maine, especially if you have regained any of the feeling in your fingers and toes after going out to get the mail.

A 66-year-old man in Brazil had to beat a 16-foot anaconda snake with rocks a couple of weeks ago in order to save his eight-year-old grandson. Anacondas don't normally attack humans, according to an Associated Press report, but it does happen once in a while.

In case you're not sure, a 16-foot snake is considered “heavy-duty.” The anaconda kills its prey like a boa constrictor, gradually squeezing until you can’t breathe.

As you know, we don't have such creatures in Maine. The closest thing we have matching this description is Wal-Mart, which has proven immune to all wildlife management efforts and can adapt itself to any environment.

But the fierce anaconda could not survive our winter, at least not without one of those remote car starters. To live in Maine, you have to take the weather in stride.

That’s why it perplexed me last week to see Governor Baldacci declare a “State of Emergency” before it even started snowing.

Does that inspire a lot of confidence in your state leadership? That the Governor himself would roll out of bed and start screeching spasms of panic before he even looks out the window? Maybe he just can’t get that creepy “StormCenter” music out of his head.

Anyway, it turns out that “State of Emergency” is a legal term that allows the government and certain businesses to ignore some laws (like behind-the-wheel time limits for truck drivers, or 55 percent state funding for education) for a specific period of time (years on end, apparently).

So a “State of Emergency” may or may not reflect what a non-government person would consider an “emergency.” We need some extra terms to let the public know the governor’s approximate armpit humidity level.

Here's what I propose:

State of Paxil-Induced Relaxation: Default setting.

State of Mild Nervous Twitches: Some troublesome weather which might cause inconvenience for tourists and other people who have no idea how to drive.

State of Genuine Concern: A storm of some kind that might require certain people to work for 154 hours straight and later require therapy. Maybe a few power outages.

State of Severe Anxiety: We might need the National Guard for a while, but things should return to normal before the next election.

State of Underwear-Staining Alarm: Extreme loss of life and property. Good luck finding anything from your previous life among the piles of rubble But things will still return to normal by the next election, at least as far as the national media are concerned.

State of Massachusetts: Complete apocalyptic chaos.

My system sure beats the terms we have now. Does anyone know the difference between a “winter storm watch” and a “winter storm warning?” We also have the “winter weather advisory,” “wintry wonderland watch,” “advisory on watchful weather warning,” and “wicked-high-wind wariness of doom.”

I’m just waiting for there to be a “snake advisory.” I want to see how the governor reacts to that one.