Child Spoiler Alert!

Today at the market, a smallish child, in the 4-6 year range, didn't get the right sort of cheese doodle. He created a sound that made us wonder if we should run for an air-raid shelter. The tow-headed cherub turned fifty shades of fuchsia as he half-squatted, like a linebacker prepared to do battle, and pointed at a specific snack that would save all our eardrums from utter annihilation. His parents both stood there looking lost. The mother eventually rallied enough to squat down and murmur a few soft and unheeded words with him. The father threw the desired treat into the basket and peace was restored.

I said, "What a weenie."

The cashier said, "We would have gotten our butts smacked. None of this 'time-out' bullshit."

I concurred.

When we were little, the thought of a public tantrum never crossed our minds. Why? Because we experienced what happened when we threw a private tantrum...once. That was generally enough. There were consequences. And being children, the memory of the consequences didn't fade with passing time, they expanded. They grew in epic proportion. A few well-timed, short, sharp swats transformed into images of gigantic straps of leather, covered in spikes, trailing shreds of bloody flesh, wielded by enormous parents who laughed maniacally as they raced through the house to wreck havoc on your pitiful hide. After it was over, they'd give you that horrible, disappointed-in-you look.

Granted, this didn't work with my sister. We used to plead with her to STFU. I even used her greatest weakness against her... bugs and public nudity. I told her we adopted her from an aborigine tribe, bleached her so she'd fit in, and if she threw a tantrum our parents would ship her back where she'd have to live naked and eat bugs. It worked, but only intermittently. On the upside, it meant that she was left behind with an unfortunate sitter on many family outings because she couldn't be trusted not to horrify the family. At least when my brothers blew it in public they were hilarious. But i digress.

When did parents become afraid of their kids? About the same time the government stepped in. Granted, there are lots of abused chillun out there who desperately need help. However, there's a whole world of chillun out there now who never got to hear the story of the boy who cried wolf. And if they do get caught crying wolf, they get a time-out and years of pricey therapy to find out why they're compelled to act-out. The only imagination kids still nurture is the avenue of how they can get back at grownups for trying to make them clean their rooms.

Parents have totally given up on imagination. In our house, there was the threat of gypsies for random fits. These were a special breed of gypsies...not the real-life ones, who i explained were different and fun and lived exciting lives. These gypsies were a nomadic band of child-catchers who only stole bad children... and when a child was bad, these gypsies could smell it. They'd freeze like a dog catching the scent of a rabbit. They'd all turn as one. They'd point the wagons towards the scent and drive the horses hard. We had a map to show where they were. I'd call my mom (so there'd be a voice on the other end of the phone) and plead with the gypsies not to come take my boy. The number was 1-800-Don't-Come-Here. (He could never find the apostrophe on the dial.) Mom would laugh her butt off and i'd hold out the phone and announce that they didn't care. He would instantly mind his manners. Then we'd talk and get to the bottom of the problem. Ok, he's still terrified of gypsies, but not on a therapy-level.

Bottom-line; parents need to grow a spine. They need to stop fearing the government and rule their own households. Encouraging an asshole to grow will only result in developing a huge, gaping asshole. Imagine the stench we'll all be surrounded by some day when we end up living in a world run by gaping assholes. We're spending so much time trying to figure out how to save the ozone, and parents are encouraging young assholes to express their methane.

Stop raising a generation of stinkers. Remember, only you can prevent gas-fires.

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Ringworld

Do we need to start frisking parents before they watch their kids perform in the Olympics? Should we just place the Olympiads in a bullet-proof bubble and have everyone watch from a distance? We could pipe in pre-recorded cheers to urge them on depending on how many people tweeted in votes for each athlete. Granted, every athlete from China, Russia and the U.S. might incite deafening noise levels for the poor kids. There's a lot of voting potential in those countries. When they won, they could accept their awards while watching a group of their countrymen Skyped on the big screen.

We could also have some M.I.T. overachievers scan the event staff's brains for evil intent.

And what about the athletes? They show up with all this high-tech, custom made gear. It could be made of anything! We don't know that the Swiss haven't suddenly decided they're sick and tired of being neutral. Who wouldn't give weapons-grade plutonium to the Swiss? They aren't dangerous, right? Maybe we should snag those with physical potential from their cradles then shove them into a government-run athletic creche where all they learn is sports, competition and love-thy-neighbor philosophy. Every Olympiad would be a sweet-natured, athletically-honed idiot, but they'd be harmless. Probably.

While we're at it, let's dump archery, the biathalon, the javelin throw, and anything with a stick. Hockey is right out. Oh, yeah. No more photographers with Cannon cameras, either.

In my PBH, security at the Olympics shouldn't even be a consideration. Seriously, it's one of the rare venues where kids from every damn country show up to compete for their countries in a good-natured way. They're there to show off their skills, compete for personal and national pride, and make friends from places they may not have ever heard of before. The majority of them are kids. Not only has the security the kids are surrounded by gotten completely insane, but the fact that they need it in the first place is loonier than a Warner Brothers cartoon.

What's next? Armed guards at Little League games? Police patrols at Pop Warner? Riot gear around the ring around the rosies? The only thing an Olympic athlete should have to watch out for is a Heavy Metal Detector roaming the hotel hallway telling them to keep the music down so the 6am marathon team can get a little sleep.

Entertainment Toomuch

"And the Oscar Winner for Best Performance by a Psychotic Jackwad goes to..."

It seems Entertainment Tonight is doing a piece on the Colorado Massacre. How did someone find a way to even remotely classify this as entertainment? I'm a huge fan of horror movies, but horror reality is just a wee bit different, wouldn't you say?

Perhaps they'll follow up that piece with the inside story on how a rash of rotten kids pulling wings off butterflies is being filmed as a WifeTime channel movie. They could follow that up with footage from a camera surgically implanted in the forehead of a suicide bomber. They could show it on their new segment, "Roll, Police Tape!"

ET is, naturally, focusing on the bastard's Joker fixation. I'd be willing to bet they'll also voice "concerns" about how some of the movie goers initially mistook the smoke and gunshots for part of the movie experience. I predict that within a week the Synchronized Finger Pointing Mom Brigade will launch a campaign to have all special effects in non-Disney movies scaled back to Harry Harryhausen levels. After all, it's much easier to blame Hollywood for something than to take responsibility for your own actions. Look, a wicked smart guy knew perfectly well that if he took it into his head to randomly kill a bunch of innocent people, the best way to get out alive would be to set up an alleged psychotic break and end up in a psych ward for a bunch of years instead of getting the death penalty. Period.

In MPBH, the guy (I won't give his name the air-time) should get a swift trial and be dropped from public attention forever. Let his name be struck from the pyramid walls. Psychologists can puzzle over his behavior throughout time to learn what they can, but yammering on about everything he ever ate for breakfast on the front page of every paper and giving him top billing on every news station will only encourage other glory-seeking whackrabbits around the world.

CIA agents who do heroic things and die to save lives get an anonymous star on a wall. Entertainment Tonight is ready to give this walking disease a star on Hollywood Boulevard. If people accept this as right, pretty soon Americans will be demanding daily doses of destruction to maintain their ghoulish figures.

I like villains. I also like that all the best villains are intelligent, systematic, amusing, and most important, fictional.

Papa Ratsies

This morning i was watching the GMA cast don concerned expressions as they covered the sad sad turmoil of poor little Suri Holmes and her divorce-stricken parents. They covered a theoretical high-speed chase allegedly perpetrated by Cruz's driver in an effort to shield his child from predatory photographers. They mentioned how Holmes had been stalked by paparazzi that may or may not have caused car accidents. Then they had a guest psychologist, Janet Taylor, speak about how this broken family needed a little privacy. Dammit, Janet! Gimme an I! Gimme an R! Gimme an O-R-N-WHY are you sitting there on public TV talking about it?!

"Doctor Taylor, please give the entire nation your PBH on the effects of privacy invasion on families going through a divorce."

"Well, Robin, after greedily sucking supposition out of every picture my invasive, stalking photographer could glean as he popped out of bushes and side-swiped the family vehicles, it's my strong PBH that these people need a little privacy. I've hired a Roman decade of dedicated assault photo snipers to follow them around and see if they ever get any."

Ok, Taylor didn't really say that, but she may as well have.

Here's what i want to see when i watch the news. I want to know if a nor'easter is headed my way. I want to know if gas prices jumped another fifty cents a gallon. If someone on my football team got traded; tell me! I want to know about world-shaking events. Tell me if i'll need to dodge bullets if i go to the market today. Throw some scientific breakthroughs in there. Do all that and i'll even sit through a schlock story about a falling sloth that was saved by a quick-thinking walrus. I won't even send you a letter demanding to know why the walrus was under the sloth.

Here's what i don't think is news in the first place and should incite you to stop calling yourself the news if you keep reporting it. I don't care how many human dominos made the Guinness Book of World Records this week. Who Angelina Jolie may or may not be cheating with is none of my damn business. The reactions of family members of victims who were horribly killed ten minutes ago shouldn't be seen on film by anyone. Shocked reactions from the relatives of people who ran around slaughtering folks shouldn't get any air time, either. And for God's sake, do any of you pseu-news stations think you can go just one freaking week without mentioning Justin B.?

Frankly, it's getting a little difficult to tell the difference between the "morning news" shows and the "reality tv" shows.

Oh, and one more thing. Whoever writes the teasers really needs to settle down. I'm getting a little tired of hearing, "Up next: How common baking flour can kill you in your sleep!", only to see it followed by a piece about some napping Pillsbury factory worker who got hit in the head with a silo. One day they'll announce, "Up next: Wolves in your street!", i won't believe them anymore, and i'll step outside for a smoke only to be consumed by fangy furry things. Killing me, my friends, will only piss me off.