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David Spates Osama might be the exception 'Tis the season for a cerebral download. I'd
prefer to start the new year with fresh gray matter. Notions
gather in my head and, if left unaddressed, they pile up like
my wife's tear-stained Kleenex as she watches Steel Magnolias.
That's why, from time to time, I unburden my cerebrum and put
these half-ideas to paper. Call it mental housekeeping, if you
will. The first thing that tops my list is what
to do with Osama. As my regular readers (both of them) know,
I'm anti-death penalty. It's not because I think the death penalty
is barbaric or that I think every life is precious and sacred.
The primary reason I'm anti-death penalty is because it's too
light a sentence. If you kill one person, or thousands, I'd much
prefer you spend the rest of your days in a sunless, damp 6-by-9-foot
cell where you can reflect on what you've done. I'd rather be
dead than endure a life behind bars. Put simply, you're getting off easy with the
death penalty. I also have more practical oppositions to the
death penalty, such as the fact that an execution is more expensive
to the taxpayers than a life sentence, and I've delved into those
in previous columns. But Osama, Osama, Osama. You might just be
a special case. I'd be willing to fire up the old Black &
Decker chainsaw and build a brand new gallows for you. I'd have
to get some blueprints from Doityourself.com, but I think I could
get it done in a weekend. After a few coats of high-gloss lacquer,
I could overlook my death penalty objections. I know worldwide terrorism is not a one-man
show, but Osama's death would make the world a better and safer
place. Of that I have no doubt. Also, he would continue to be
a very dangerous man, even while behind bars. I'm not eyeing two-by-fours at Home Depot
just yet, however. I strongly suspect that we'll never get our
hands on Osama. He's deranged, but he's not stupid. Like Hitler,
he's got to realize that suicide would be a much more attractive
option compared to whatever the U.S. military has in store. Maybe
instead of daisy-cutter bombs, we should be dropping cyanide
tablets into the Tora Bora caves. Cap it off with round-the-clock
radio broadcasts of Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear The Reaper"
and Osama won't be much of a concern for too much longer. Another idea that's been bouncing around in
my head is the idea of dog years. (Quite a segue, eh?) I'm not sure dogs are benefiting from medical
advances as much as we humans are, as evidenced by the fact that,
as far as I know, a dog year is still one-seventh of our years.
That means that one human year is equal to seven dog years, right?
That's the scale I've been working with my entire life. It seems to me, however, that people's life
expectancy has gradually been climbing over the past few decades,
but dogs' life expectancy has remained stagnant. Between 1980
and 1998, the world's average life expectancy at birth rose from
61 to 67 years. (That's the average for everyone in the world.
We Americans actually live longer than that, nearly 77 years.
I attribute that to Doritos.) However, Fido is stuck with the generally
accepted 1:7 ratio. We're getting older and our pooches are relegated
to dog years. That means we can squeeze more dogs into our lifetimes.
"Life is a series of dogs," George Carlin once said,
and thanks to increased public health and better nutrition, we
humans can enjoy another dog or two in the series. Perhaps, however, the 1:7 dog year ratio has
stayed the same and therefore dogs have kept pace with humans
in life expectancy. If they haven't kept up with us, I would
expect the dog year ratio to decrease slightly, like maybe down
to 1:8 or 1:9. I'm not sure. Maybe I should ask a statistician
or a veterinarian. I'll bet a veterinarian who minored in statistics
would be a great help. Lastly, have you heard about the California
man who is suing the New Haven Unified School District for $1.5
million because his sophomore son was cut from the varsity basketball
team? Dad is irked because the family had already rearranged
its schedules to accommodate the varsity team's practice times,
and he calculated the damages based on potential wages lost from
his son's possible professional basketball career. Dad is also
mad because the coach didn't consult him before cutting his son
from the team. What I find most unbelievable about this story
is that somewhere in California there is a lawyer who actually
took this case. The father's overinflated opinion of his son
is bad enough, but it's a fairly common story. Some parents do
stupid things thinking that it's best for their children. We've
all seen it. But to represent one of these parents in court and
to file a $1.5 million lawsuit on his behalf is inexcusable. There's no way a lawsuit like that would have
been filed 20 or 30 years ago. What's going on here? Have we
lost complete control? Is reality a thing of the past? And since
when does a coach need to consult a parent before cutting his
son or daughter from the team? Maybe an English teacher should
check with Little Mary's parents before grading her book report. There. My brain is a little less congested, and I feel better. I'll enjoy the holidays with a relatively tidy frame of mind. Have a holly, jolly Christmas. · · · |