From the Bench

(Ed. Note: Continuing "reruns" until some personal family problems settle down. Our older daughter is in the hospital getting tests. Keep her in your prayers. This column, from 2001, is new to Neganews. With Mother’s Day around the corner, and considering our recent display of male chauvanism in Iraq ("Georgie", "Rummy", "Tommy" and the gang), it seems appropriate. Despite Martha Burke and Gloria Steinhem, we salute the women in our lives.)

IF WOMEN RAN THE WORLD

"Boys will be boys." I think some female chauvinist like Gloria Steinhem popularized that phrase to denigrate men.

There is enough truth in it, however, to make me uncomfortable. For example, from the time little boys grasp their first toy truck on Christmas morning til their children wrench the car keys from their brain-dead, arthritic hands, men are in love with cars.

As little boys, they sit in the dirt, making roads to wreck their missiles on.

Not much changes when they grow up. Just look at the news in recent days. In Atlanta, little Billy Campbell and little Ronnie Thornton apparently liked to move dirt. They liked it so much that when Billy got big and began playing "Mayor of Atlanta", he decided to buy a lot of dirt from Ronnie. Thirty million dollars worth!

Now that’s a lot of dirt, even if you ARE using other people’s money. And Ronnie was so grateful that he gave Billy’s playmates fifty-six thousand dollars of his own money to say thank you. This got Ronnie in trouble, but not enough to keep him from joining some other playmates to try and sell more dirt to Billy….this time, three hundred and fifty million dollars worth!

Right now, it seems they bit off more than they can chew, and all that dirt, both real and political, is in a mess.

Little Roy Barnes liked to build roads, too. When he got big, they let him play "Governor of Georgia", where there is much more dirt, both real and political, to play in. He set up his own little group, called it the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority, and started planning to move dirt.

One of Little Roy’s plans is to build a big rainbow around part of Atlanta. He calls it the Northern Arc, but it’s really a rainbow. Instead of just one pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, however, Little Roy will have pots of gold all along the rainbow for his playmates who have bought land or want to help him build his road.

We call this democracy.

Another thing that boys like to do is kill things. They evolve from killing chipmunks and birds with BB guns to annihilating deer and other big things with high-powered rifles. Then they get together and form nations so that they can band together and kill EACH OTHER. It is well organized and a highly-regarded sport, complete with flag waving, shouting, and all manner of neat things.

We call this civilization.

While all the little boys were playing in the dirt and shooting BB guns, their little sisters were cuddling dolls and playing house. When they grew up, the boys told them to just keep on doing the same thing. Many of them did, but in recent years more and more of them have been horning in on our fun. A disturbing trend.

Trying to imagine what would happen to civilization if women took over is a nightmare.

Here in Georgia, for example, emphasis might switch from road building to education. Instead of being near the bottom in literacy and the top in roads, things might reverse. What would this do to our economy, not to mention our political climate. Literate voters? Horrors.

If women were running the state, we might even find different ways to finance education. Our precious lottery, the finest hidden tax on the poor ever devised, might be eliminated. (I like what my son had to say about the lottery….."Folks who play the lottery flunked math.")

What is worse is to imagine women running the good old U. S. of A. They would control the media, and might even start comparing the number of anthrax deaths each day to the number of deaths due to long-term nicotine inhalation. The contrast would destroy cigarette sales. Could our economy stand the tax loss? And what about our poor tobacco farmers?

On the international scene, think what might happen if all the chiefs of state were women? Can you imagine the international incidents and the subsequent negotiations? The smallest slight or insult, perhaps over an inauguration gown or a hairdo, could lead to another CNN "World In Crisis."

But would we start shooting and bombing, as any normal civilized society should? Probably not. Instead, the women would arrange a Tupperware party or, if there were a Baptist in the mix, a covered-dish dinner, to talk things out. After a day or two of swapping recipes, looking at baby pictures, and watching the latest episode of "As the World Turns", they would go home.

Now, I ask you, is that any way to fight a war? Can you imagine a D-Day movie of the Allied invasion of Europe, run by women? Watching it would certainly seem to be "The Longest Day."

Let’s face it, men. We cannot stand idly by and allow women to take over and destroy the great civilizations we have so carefully crafted over the centuries.

After writing this column, I sat in the bathroom for a long time, contemplating the seriousness of a female-dominated civilization. (I have some of my deepest thoughts there.) When I came into the kitchen, I began expounding my theories to my wife.

She was unimpressed.

"Take out the garbage", she interrupted. "And zip up your pants! Why do you always forget to zip your pants when you come out of the bathroom?"

I rest my case.

(Footnote: Prophetically, late this afternoon----Thursday-----I was afforded a view of our Commander-In Chief, complete with flight gear, emerging to a hero's welcome after landing on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. What planning! What a photo-op! America loves you, Georgie!)