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Jewish World Review August 8, 2005 / 3 Av, 5765 There are distractions and then there are distractions By Dean P. Johnson
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Whether you're in private industry or public service, no one likes to be micromanaged.
Like when someone from the flagship office, or the main branch, or the state believes his way is the best and thus only way to do something, and so he comes down from that hallowed corner corporate office with the view and walks among (or upon?) the little people — being very careful not to speak directly to any of them — informing them of what they must do and how they must do it even though the people have been successfully doing it longer than Mister Head Office has been with the company.
New Jersey has two such legislators who want to micromanage our lives.
Recently these two micromanagers, I mean Democrats, introduced a bill in the New Jersey State Assembly that would make smoking while driving a car illegal. Offenders, according to the bill, could be fined up to $250.
While property taxes skyrocket, education is under-funded, and security is always a concern, these two want to legislate our behavior.
It's pretty safe, though, to attack smokers and smoking. Smokers are one of the last remaining groups of people who can be slurred to death without the fears of retaliatory demands of political correctness.
It's like the Italians. For some reason Italian ethnic slurs become great television hits. Slurring Italians is so prevalent that no one seems to notice or even care. This past year, my son told me about a new kid at school. "We call him Meatball," my son told me. When I asked why, he told me the boy was Italian. And that's okay? The school sees no problem with this? I explained to my son that calling the new kid Meatball just because he was Italian was what is called an ethnic slur. You wouldn't call a Hispanic kid Taco, or an Asian kid Egg Fu Yong, or a French kid Petit Fois Gras, I told him. He shrugged his shoulders. "Well, that's what everyone calls him, anyway," he said and then left the room.
The reason for the bill, the assemblypersons tell us, is that smoking while driving is a distraction.
While such a law may be a hat tip in the direction of common sense, if attention could be legislated, wives of sports fans would have petitioned lawmakers years ago.
This bill leaves one asking why one distracting behavior would take precedence over any other distraction while driving.
Personally, I cannot listen to just one radio station. If a song I don't like comes on, or there is banal banter from pseudo political analysts who act as though their entertainment is anything more than just that: entertainment, I am desperately seeking the search button; and if I find a song I really like, I need to know what station it's on. If two good songs come on in a row, then I'm placing this station on one of my pre-sets while doing 65.
You want to talk distractions? I've got four kids ages 13, 10, 4, and 2. Enough said.
Then there are some distractions that we'll never be able to do anything about.
I glanced out my window and there it was: a classic crescent low in the sky dangling as though by an invisible necklace casting small glints of radiance fastened to a velvet background. The dimmed weekend glow of Philadelphia gave the picture and orange frame that merged into the black.
It seemed I was merging, too. My wife nudged me and asked if I had chosen a lane yet. As I was momentarily appreciating the moon, I had begun to drift into the next lane. Fortunately there was little traffic and the nearest car was far enough away to be in any danger. Nonetheless, I was distracted.
I'm not a smoker, but I'll defend their right to light up in their cars because no one likes to be micromanaged, and, besides, who would want a smoker who's having a nicotine fit behind the wheel of a car? Talk about distractions.
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JWR contributor Dean P. Johnson's columns appear in Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, Hartford Courant, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, San Francisco Examiner, Newark (NJ) Star-Ledger, Atlantic City Press, Philadelphia Inquirer among other smaller papers. Comment by clicking here. © 2005, Dean P. Johnson |
Mitch Albom | |||||||||||
