What Are the Common Elements?
These 3 events have at least 2 things in common. What are they?
First, the father who microwaved his 2-month-old “loves his baby” and today refused to give up his parental rights.
Second, some un-heroic Transportation Security Administration workers have been accused of having forced a woman to remove her nipple piercings with pliers in order to board her domestic flight.
Third, a Dallas strip club that allowed a 12-year-old girl to dance nude won’t be shut down.
OK, the first one is really too easy. All of these events are freaking ridiculous!
Dude, you put your baby girl in an oven and turned it on. You’re not a man at all, let alone a father, and the 25-year sentence in the state pen probably won’t improve your disposition, sense of right and wrong, or ability to guide a child to maturity. The other guys in the pokey will make that clear enough, I expect.
As for the nipple-piercing removal scandal, the Houston Chronicle says:
“I wouldn’t wish this experience upon anyone,” Mandi Hamlin, 37, said at a news conference. “My experience with TSA was a nightmare I had to endure. No one deserves to be treated this way.”
…
She said she heard male TSA agents snickering as she took out the ring. She was scanned again and was allowed to board even though she still was wearing a belly button ring.
…
TSA officials said they are investigating Hamlin’s allegations to see if its policies were followed.
“Our security officers are well-trained to screen individuals with body piercings in sensitive areas with dignity and respect while ensuring a high level of security,” the agency said in a statement.
Right. I certainly feel safer with these fine, upstanding officers in charge of our air travel system. I’d hate to go through this airport with a metal screw in my hip joint, that’s for sure.
Finally, it’s obscene that a strip club not be smacked down hard for allowing a pre-teen to dance naked in front of its “clientele”. Small wonder that smutty club owners think that laws don’t apply to them if such an obvious case warrants no response.
(Meanwhile, the FBI is breaking down doors and arresting people who click on fake web links - that they put up - advertising child pornography, regardless of the fact that no illegal content was served in response.
Logic? Sense of proportion? Anyone?)
Any ideas about the second common element?
It’s a tricky one, but all 3 cases took place in Texas.
Ya think Davy Crockett brought Old Betsy down here and had his head blown off by the Mexicans at the Alamo fighting for a state that calls this kind of bull**** good? I don’t think so.
All of which reminds me of the recent report that the U.S. is ranked 22nd in the world in “stability and prosperity”. Some theorized that small nations have an inherent advantage in that regard because there is simply less to manage and fewer chances to screw up.
That sounds right and should lead to questions about the wisdom of increasing centralization of power in democratic nations, for that is the very thing that the framers of the American Constitution guarded against when defining the framework for this nation. Coming from a monarchial world, they understood the danger and folly of putting too much power in the hands of the king. Or the federal government. Texas, with the 15th largest economy in the world, seems to suffer from some of the same issues.
The owner is being held with charges of aggravated kidnapping (the child was a runaway and she was forced to work there, apparently) and TWO charges of aggravated sexual assault on a child (so the poor girl had to deal with more than stripping). It’s true that they can’t automatically close the club because of this, not because it’s not considered wrong, it looks more like an oversight, it hadn’t occurred to the authorities to put it there, BUT the owner, and a stripper who collaborated, are not going home free.
This guy’s going to jail in Texas with a pedophilia conviction. His life will not be fun, count on it.