News from the Plains: All this RED can make you BLUE
In the clearing stands a boxer
by Barry Friedman
My publisher over at
TulsaPeople, Jim Langdon, recently asked if I could balance my snark a little. It seemed to him, after reading my columns the past few
years, I always pick on Republicans.
He has a point. In my defense, though, Republicans in this state are as intimidating as acne on a teenager's forehead, while Democrats here couldn't get laid in a woman's prison with a fistful of pardons.
But I digress.
Anyway, Jim, I think I found something.
City Councilor Jack Henderson said Thursday that he will propose an ordinance amendment limiting how "baggy" Tulsans' baggy pants can be.
That's Tulsa
Democratic City Councilor Jack Henderson staking his entire career on the billowing boxer.
Henderson put his fellow councilors on notice that he plans to address the issue, saying it "is probably going to get me unelected."
Granted, this idea is not as batshit crazy as this
one; still Henderson, who represents a predominately African American district, should know the danger in these laws.
ACLU executive director Marjorie Esman.
If enforced against those who choose this style and not enforced against everyone whose pants may inadvertently sag, it will almost certainly be enforced disproportionately against a particular group of people who will be singled out by law enforcement for nothing other than their attire.
And there's no definitive proof that baggy pants have any more effect on crime than I have on the sale of ceramic Christmas ornaments.
But that may not be the point. It may simply be a matter of ewww, which is a really bad way to write legislation.
"It is just a decent and proper thing to do," he said. "It's not an ethnic deal now - it's everybody's kids.
You didn't really make the distinction, did you, between "ethnic kids" and everybody else's?
I'm going to hope you were misquoted.
"They just think that it's the cool thing to do - but it's not cool when your wife or your mother or your girlfriend has to look at somebody's dirty shorts."
Jack, really, dirty shorts? You went there?
Thing is: on some level, the President Obama agrees with the counselor.
"You are walking by your mother, your grandmother, your underwear is showing. What’s wrong with that? Come on!"
Right up until the time he doesn't.
"I think people passing a law against people wearing sagging pants is a waste of time. We should be focused on creating jobs, improving our schools, health care, dealing with the war in Iraq, and anybody, any public official, that is worrying about sagging pants probably needs to spend some time focusing on real problems out there."
That has to sting a little, huh, Jack?
If you wonder how on God's well-tailored earth an ordinance like this would be enforced, Henderson has a plan.
"What they do, in the normal course of their everyday jobs, if they (police) happen to see somebody, they can give them a ticket," he said.
Sure, that'll work. What else do cops have to do?
Many cities, including Dallas, have such ordinances, Henderson said.
Not exactly.
The Dallas city manager's office said Thursday that no such ordinance exists. Dallas District 4 City Councilor Dwaine R. Caraway included baggy pants regulations on his platform as a candidate for office but is not currently pursuing legislation to address the issue.
That was in the guy's platform?
Oy!
We head now to Louisiana--yes, Louisiana--for some wisdom and to Lafayette Parish Councilman Kenneth Boudreaux (District 4).
"I could come up with at least three or four things that could be offensive to the eyesight. Do we start passing laws for everything that people say we don't like the way it appears?"
In Oklahoma, where open carry of firearms is legal, legislators should implode from shame before considering ordinances like this. It's not the boxers sticking out of the jeans that's the problem--it's the Ruger 9mm semi-automatics sticking out of the boxers.