Cagle World

Ah, July, the wedding season. What a great time of the year to NOT marry.

So suggest Jessica Bennett and Jesse Ellison in the June 11 edition of Newsweek magazine.

The two young, urban women write that marriage no longer makes sense — they cite an anthropologist who says humans are wired for a series of relationships over time.

Cartoon by Nate Beeler - Washington Examiner (click to purchase)

They say that, thanks to the feminist movement, women no longer need husbands for financial security.

They say that divorce rates are high — that with our life expectancy into the high 70s it is unrealistic to commit to one other person for life.

They cite all kinds of statistics and anecdotes to document why they believe marriage no longer works.

Of course they’re looking at the institution of marriage from the vantage point of youth. When you get older, you realize most people are better off married.

Men who are single too long are a scourge on society. We take chances, eat badly, smoke too much and are far likelier than married men to wake in a pile of newspapers still clutching the bottle of tequila we began sipping from just before the party broke up.

We forget important dates — we arrive at our parents’ 50th wedding anniversary a week AFTER the celebration occurred.

Single women do better, but not a lot better. The longer they go without marrying — the more relationships they pass through in their pursuit of the perfect man — the more cynical and disappointed they will become.

The average male can barely drink a beer and rub his belly at the same time. How the heck can he ever fulfill the job requirements of “soulmate?”

The women who penned the Newsweek article believe we have been liberated by our enlightened, progressive era — our era of unlimited choice and freedom.

I think the opposite is mostly true. With all our wealth, you see — the recession notwithstanding — we are strangled by choice.

When we wake in the morning, we choose among hundreds of breakfast cereals, drinks, coffees, toothpastes, shampoos, towels, clothes …

Picking out a lousy pair of blue jeans — stone-washed, acid-washed, relaxed fit — can take an entire Saturday if you’re nutty enough to allow it.

And now we’re applying the same approach to dating, relationships and marriage in our fruitless search for our “soulmates?”

Sorry, but there is no soulmate, this lazy sense that someone will enter your life and keep you in a perpetual state of bliss.

Isn’t human love as much the result of work, commitment, kindness and sacrifice as it is chemistry or dumb luck?

Unlimited choice — holding out for our soulmates — isn’t making us happy. It is making us miserable.

Rather, the act of making, and sticking by, a decision to love and care for someone — before your family, your community and your God — is the only way meaningful happiness can be found.

G.K. Chesterton said marriage brings a man and woman happiness because it limits their choice.

Could you imagine being an artist, he said, who is trying to paint a canvas as large as the moon? Where do you start painting?

By being boxed into a small rectangular area, the artist gains a point of reference and perspective. It is the frame that sets the artist free.

That is what marriage ultimately is: a decision. We’ve become a nation of adolescents, with unrealistic expectations, who aren’t much in the mood to make adult decisions.

The authors of the Newsweek article are trying to paint the moon. It’s just a matter of time, as I have learned, before they run out of paint.

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©2010 Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, a freelance writer is also a humor columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For more info contact Cari Dawson Bartley at 800 696 7561 or email [email protected]. Visit Tom on the web at www.TomPurcell.com or e-mail him at [email protected].

Here’s a sentiment that helped make America great: Necessity is the mother of invention.

Ted Conley offers a fine example.

Conley, a 48-year-old software engineer, was laid off from a large financial services firm in February 2009.

With four children to support — two teenage daughters from a prior marriage and a young daughter and son from his current marriage — he began looking for work immediately.

His 3-year-old son, Pierce, added to his worry.

Pierce suffers from cerebral palsy (CP), a form of paralysis believed to be caused by a prenatal brain defect or injury, and cortical vision impairment (CVI), also caused by a brain defect.

With CP, normal pathways in the brain are damaged. Children suffering the illness have limited motor skills and difficulty processing basic information.

Rigorous therapy, however — physical, occupational and speech — can establish new pathways in the brain.

However, Conley was shocked by the “Stone Age” devices therapists were using to train his son.

One device uses a large, bright, colored button that, when pressed, plays a single recorded word: “thirsty” or “hungry.” The child is taught to press the button to communicate thirst or hunger.

“To help our son communicate basic messages, such as ‘I want more eggs,’ therapists had us take a picture of the eggs, print it out, laminate it and tape it to the button!” says Conley.

Pressing the large buttons is another challenge, requiring motor skills that younger children with CP have not yet developed.

Conley searched high and low for more advanced devices, but found none. He concluded he’d have to build them himself.

But he faced other challenges. Despite 25 years of software-engineering experience — despite a master’s degree in software engineering from prestigious Carnegie Mellon University — job offers were not forthcoming.

Eager to preserve his family’s savings, he took odd jobs — painting, repairing drywall, wiring security systems — while he pounded the pavement for work in his field.

One evening, while struggling through a therapy session with his son, he’d had enough.

He bought a Mac Mini and joined Apple’s iPhone developer program. He began working day and night to develop a better solution.

Four months later, he launched TapSpeak Button, a simple-to-use application that teaches simple messages — about thirst, hunger, etc. — on an iPhone or iPad.

“It allows parents take a picture of eggs and instantly upload it into the program,” says Conley. “It requires very little skill for a child to touch the picture on the screen and cause the recorded message, ‘more eggs,’ to play.”

Conley quickly discovered he was onto something. More than 50 speech therapists at the Children’s Institute of Pittsburgh, the Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children and other organizations were ecstatic to learn he was developing modern training solutions.

Conley’s wife began marketing the $10 application (conleysolutions.com). Sales began coming in from all over the world.

Though his TapSpeak products are moving in the right direction — he’ll soon introduce TapSpeak Sequence and TapSpeak Choices — the revenue is not yet enough to sustain his family. Without outside investment, he’ll need to return to a corporate job.

“The fact is the earlier and more effectively you train a disabled child, the more dramatic the results,” says Conley. “Our passion is to perfect solutions that will help my son, and, hopefully, many others, improve as quickly as possible. We have no choice but to overcome any obstacle that stands in the way of that goal.”

Ah, yes — a challenge, a father’s determination, a solution. Such is the genius that made America the most innovative, prosperous nation on the planet — the genius we need plenty more of to get our economy going again.

I told you Ted Conley offers a fine American example of necessity being the mother of invention.

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©2010 Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, a freelance writer is also a humor columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For more info contact Cari Dawson Bartley at 800 696 7561 or email [email protected]. Visit Tom on the web at www.TomPurcell.com or e-mail him at [email protected].

It could turn out to be a good thing.

According to CNNMoney.com, the traditional full-time job with benefits is being displaced by temporary or contract positions.

With unemployment high, you see, employers have their pick of skilled workers. Why hire full-timers and fund costly benefits when they can pay a flat hourly or monthly rate instead?

Cartoon by Dave Granlund - PoliticalCartoons.com (click to reprint)

Few full-time employees are aware of it, but their benefits package — health, life, dental and disability insurance, “free” college tuition, workers’ compensation insurance, 401(k) matching, etc. — is income.

An employee who earns $70,000 in annual salary is probably costing his employer closer to $100,000 total.

Employers also must pay half of the 15.3 percent FICA tax (Social Security and Medicare combined). Though half of that 15.3 percent is paid by the employer and half by the employee, many employees have little idea that all of the FICA tax is, in reality, coming out of their pockets.

Employers also must comply with a multitude of government mandates — such as providing health insurance under President Obama’s new plan — that make them wary of hiring full-timers.

Firing an unproductive employee, for instance, could open them up to a host of costly lawsuits.

Why bother with such burdens and risks when they can simply hire a contractor?

They can part with the contractor if work slows — part with him if his work is poor — and not have to worry about getting sued.

To be sure, government meddling has caused employers to prefer contractors over employees — but wouldn’t the country be better off if every worker were a self-employed contractor, if only for a little while?

I’ve been self-employed for many years. For the past 11 years, in addition to this column, I’ve contracted my communications services to a large technology firm in Virginia.

I manage my own invoicing and taxes. I know to the penny — once my CPA explains it to me — how high my income taxes are.

I manage my own health care. That’s why I shopped around for the best policy — a high-deductible policy. Since I pay the first $500 out of my own pocket, I also shop around when I need medicine or treatment — you’d be shocked at how much costs vary.

If all Americans had health plans such as mine — if all Americans shopped around and managed their employer’s health care dollars as though they were their own dollars — our health costs would surely be less than they are.

If Americans knew the real costs of health care, taxes and the burdens of hiring full-timers, they’d be more appreciative and sensible about the way they manage their affairs — certainly more sensible about which politicians they put into office.

CNNMoney.com says the percentage of contract workers is soaring. In 2005, roughly 31 percent of U.S. workers made their income as self-employed contractors. Experts say that number could increase to well beyond 40 percent in the next 10 years.

Which would do our country good.

Imagine a country rife with opportunity – one in which the majority of workers ask for nothing but the opportunity to compete and produce.

Imagine a country in which the harder you work, the more you earn.

Imagine a country in which the majority of citizens fully comprehend how government policy affects the economy — fully comprehend how bad government will cost them.

If only we could create a country like that — again.

In such a country, our companies might become so prosperous, again, that they’ll finally start hiring full-timers!

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©2010 Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, a humor columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For more info contact Cari Dawson Bartley at 800 696 7561 or email [email protected]. Visit Tom on the web at www.TomPurcell.com or e-mail him at [email protected].

My father was right — though it took me a while to realize it.

He was born in 1933, when 25 percent of Americans were out of work. His father died when he was only 3, leaving his mother to raise him and his older sister alone.

The young family moved from a comfortable house into a cramped apartment. There was little money to spare.

Cartoon by Joe Heller - Green Bay Press-Gazette (click to reprint)

My father learned from his mother how to stretch a dollar — skills that would serve him well.

He married in 1956 when he was 23 — an optimistic time for America. The Depression had ended, the economy was blossoming.

He took a job with the telephone company. He supported six children by working overtime every chance he could. As he generated income, my mother clipped coupons, sewed clothing and worked her mastery at reducing costs.

Though my father was a master at saving money, too.

When it came time to buy a new (or used) car, he had a more polished act than a veteran actor. Wearing his torn “car-buying” coat, he told the salesman and manager about the braces his daughters just got, the private-school tuition, the cost of milk for a family of eight…

A few hours later, he’d drive off in the new vehicle, the dealership people eager to never see this man again. If any man claims to have bought a car more cheaply than my father, he’s a liar.

My father’s chief skill was never spending more than he could afford — a skill he struggled to instill in me.

Whereas my father’s world view was shaped by struggle and financial worry, mine was shaped by security and optimism.

He and my mother provided us a comfortable home. We were never rich in a material sense but we had an abundance of wealth in every other sense. So strong was my parents’ love and devotion to their children, optimism came naturally to all of us.

When I cut the neighbor’s grass and earned my first $4, my inclination was to spend, not save.

I spent all of it on baseball cards and bubble gum.

“When you earn money,” he told me, agitated by my spendthrift ways, “put at least half in the bank. You need to save for a rainy day.”

I thought of him then, and for years afterward, as a pessimist, a relic from the Depression era.

I was relatively young, after all, when the economy hit the skids in the ’70s. I was unaffected by its lessons.

I graduated from Penn State in 1984 — just as an economic boom was under way. I took work with a high-tech company and marveled at its growth.

Restless to make real money, I got into sales. I soon jumped to another job, then another.

At 28, I joined with an older, established advertising executive. We did very well initially and quickly invested our earnings into a high-tech venture — both of us were ready for big riches so we could retire to the good life.

The venture failed. My savings were gone. The rainy day my father had warned me about had arrived.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 28, I was astonished by how much he’d learned in 14 years.”

I have plenty to celebrate this Father’s Day. I’m 48 already. My father will be 77 next month. I’m blessed to still have him in my life.

I’m grateful he has lived long enough to see his son — and other Americans lucky enough to still have jobs — finally saving for a rainy day.

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©2010 Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, a humor columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For more info contact Cari Dawson Bartley at 800 696 7561 or email [email protected]. Visit Tom on the web at www.TomPurcell.com or e-mail him at [email protected].

“Who cares about a bunch of guys playing footsie with a little ball?”

“Ah, yes, you speak of the World Cup. The fact is BILLIONS care. The World Cup is the most-watched sporting event in the world!”

“It is?”

“Absolutely, though Americans aren’t watching much. According to a Rasmussen poll, only 8 percent of Americans are following it closely. Perhaps if we knew more about football — we Americans call it soccer — we’d understand why so many countries are so passionate about it.”

Cartoon by Daryl Cagle - msnbc.com (click to reprint)

“Passionate?”

“According to about.com, soccer has been played in various forms around the world for 3,000 years. Organized soccer dates back to England in 1863, when an association was formed that began to standardize the rules of the game.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Each game is referred to as a ‘match.’ A match is comprised of two 45-minute halves. The field is called a ‘pitch.’ And cleats are referred to as ‘boots.'”

“How do players insult their opponents? ‘Your mother wears army cleats?'”

“Each football team has 11 players, with ten on the field and one protecting the goal. Players may use any part of their body but their hands and arms. The object is to kick the ball into the other team’s goal. The team with the most goals wins.”

“I thought the team that put the most people to sleep was the winner.”

“Because of the sport’s beauty and simplicity — all you need is a ball and a makeshift field and you can play anywhere — it quickly spread all over the world.”

“Kind of like the Bird Flu!”

“In 1930, the World Cup was born. It’s an international competition that takes place every four years. During the three years leading up to the event, teams compete to qualify for 32 World Cup spots.”

“OK, the origins of soccer sound interesting enough, but the average American would still rather watch third graders play badminton.”

“But Americans should be interested in soccer. The United States has two of the world’s best midfielders. We also have Tim Howard, one of the world’s best goalkeepers. England was supposed to clobber us last Saturday, yet we battled them to a 1-1 draw!”

“Two scores in 90 minutes. How exciting.”

“You raise a fair point. Michael Mandelbaum, author of The Meaning of Sports, says Americans are results-oriented. We like lots of activity in our sports. One reason we haven’t embraced soccer is the low scoring.”

“Who is the World Cup’s leading sponsor? NoDoz?”

“Mandelbaum says another reason Americans don’t follow soccer is because of its similarity to basketball. Both are simple games that seek to put a ball into a goal. He believes it’s not possible for both to prosper in the same place.”

“At least there’s lots of scoring in basketball. And you don’t have to walk as far to get a beer.”

“Another challenge is that America already has four popular team sports — basketball, football, baseball and hockey. Some argue that there’s no room for another.”

“Maybe there’s no room for a sport in which skinny guys fall down writhing in pain every time someone bumps into them. In fact, if the World Cup people want more Americans to tune in, they out to turn a couple of cameras to the stands.”

“The stands?’

“Sure. Some of those soccer fans are real fanatics. After they suck down several beers, multiple brawls are likely to break out. That’s the kind of action Americans are looking for!”

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©2010 Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, a humor columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For more info contact Cari Dawson Bartley at 800 696 7561 or email [email protected]. Visit Tom on the web at www.TomPurcell.com or e-mail him at [email protected].

As Afghanistan attempts to reach a peace accord with Taliban leaders, U.S. lawmakers, says USA Today, “have made clear that they want women’s rights preserved in any potential deal to integrate former insurgents into the government.”

My five sisters took it upon themselves to prepare Afghani women for equality.

“We hear the Taliban men made you cover your faces and wear floor-length shrouds,” said one of my sisters to one Afghan woman.

Cartoon by Olle Johansson - Cagle Cartoons (click to reprint)

“It is true,” said the woman.

“And they wouldn’t let you work or allow your daughters to go to school?”

“Also true.”

“And men got to marry multiple women, whereas if a woman’s husband died, she was reduced to begging for food for her starving children,” said another sister.

“Yes.”

“And so repressive was your country that women faced beatings just for laughing out loud,” said another sister.

“All of this has been so,” said the woman. “But is this not also true in your country?”

“Hah!” shouted one sister. “In our country, men finally know their place. In America, men are good for only one thing. But how often do you need to parallel park anyway!”

“You confuse me,” said the woman.

“Look,” said one sister, “women have equality in America. We are educated like men. We have equal rights in every way.”

“Show me how to do this,” said the woman.

“For starters,” said one sister, “you shouldn’t walk five paces behind your men. It is high time your men follow you.”

“Huh?” said the woman.

“When they show interest in you, ignore them,” said another sister.

“Ignore?”

“That’s right. Pretty soon, they’ll want to marry you and after you marry, the real ignoring begins.”

“Precisely,” continued another sister. “The more you ignore them, the more they will want to please you. They’ll work hard to make money. They’ll take care of the yard, cook, clean, do the grocery shopping, watch the kids, and they’ll love every minute of it.”

“But how do you get them to do this?” said the woman.

“Keep them guessing,” said one sister. “When they think you’re going to laugh, be angry. When they think you’re going to be angry, laugh. They must remain in a constant state of confusion.”

“I see,” said the woman.

“The more you confuse them, the harder they will work to please you,” said another sister. “They must also fear you.”

“Fear?”

“That’s right,” said one sister. “They must know that if they do anything to harm you or their children, they may wake in the morning missing some of their parts.”

“Oh, my,” said the woman.

“It is through constant displeasure and fear that your men will begin to do the only thing they know how to do well.”

“Parallel parking?” said the woman.

“No,” said one sister. “Begging. Begging for your forgiveness.”

“This is amazing,” said the woman.

“Look,” said another sister. “Women have always known they are smarter than men. It took us a while, but now we’re finally running things, too — as it should be.”

“As it should be?” said the woman.

“That’s why those Taliban idiots have been so hard on you,” said one sister. “It was fear and respect.

They knew what you would do to them if you acquired the equality women have in America.”

“I like this America,” said the woman.

“We’ve got our men properly trained,” said another sister, “and if you follow our guidance, you’ll train your men, too. So what do you say?”

“I say men in Afghanistan are good for only one thing. But how often do you need to saddle a donkey anyway!”

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©2010 Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, a humor columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For more info contact Cari Dawson Bartley at 800 696 7561 or email [email protected]. Visit Tom on the web at www.TomPurcell.com or e-mail him at [email protected].

If only more Americans had bought fixer-uppers.

Maybe I better explain.

My first house was in need of major renovations. Boy, did my father and I suffer when we improved the bathroom.

The project started well enough. We tore down the old wall tile and put up wallpaper and a tub surround. We repainted, then put down a new floor. All we had to do to was reinstall the commode.

Cartoon by John Darkow - Columbia Daily Tribune (click to reprint)

The bolts that had secured the toilet to the floor had both broken. The hardware-store guy sold me a kit to reattach them.

My father spent an hour reattaching the bolts. But as we attempted to fish the bolts through the commode’s bolt holes, we discovered they were too short.

“Son of a … !” said my father.

“The idiots gave us the wrong bolts!” I said.

I raced to the hardware store and bought longer bolts. My father spent another hour getting them in place. We were finally able to reattach the commode.

But another problem arose: the wax goop that seals the commode to the sewage pipe wasn’t thick enough to seal anything.

“Son of a … !!” said my father.

“The idiots gave us the wrong goop!” I said.

After another visit to the hardware store, our third attempt to secure the toilet succeeded. But we needed to reattach the water fittings.

To reattach the water fittings, you have to wedge your body between the tub and the commode. Then you have to screw the water-line bolt, made of metal, into a plastic pipe coming from the commode. But they won’t screw together.

So you have to keep trying to screw them together until you bang your head on the commode, which makes you angry, so you attempt to stand quickly, which kicks the newly-laid tile out of place, and then you bang your shin on the toilet, which causes you to throw whatever you’re holding through the bathroom window.

Eventually, we got the metal water-line bolt to screw into the plastic pipe — but we stripped the threads. When we turned the water back on, a leak sprouted that made Niagara Falls look like a lap pool.

“Son of a … !!” shouted my father.

“The idiots!” I said.

I raced back to the hardware store and bought every plumbing fitting ever designed by man: glue, sealant, putty, rubber washers, pumps.

Eventually, we got the commode installed. We got the sink installed. We sealed every leak. The miserable job took several hours more than we had planned.

If more Americans were willing to have such experiences, we’d all be better off.

You see, in the sensible old days, before Americans bought massive houses they couldn’t afford and paid more than those massive houses were worth, Americans were cautious and frugal.

The smarter folks shopped around — they bought modest, fixer-upper houses for less than market value. They weren’t afraid to get their hands dirty to produce wealth.

They came to appreciate how difficult it is to grow wealth — they knew that eventually they could sell their house at a gain and use it to buy a nicer house.

Of course, that was before our government kicked off the housing bubble by lowering lending standards — before Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bought millions in bad mortgages written by reckless brokers who knew they could sell the bad loans.

It was before greedy Wall Street morons overexposed their firms for millions in short-term bonuses — before American home buyers routinely assumed the boom times would never end.

Well, the bubble finally burst and the economy hit the skids. Now millions are learning about wealth creation the hard way.

If only they’d bought a fixer-upper.

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©2010 Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, a humor columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For more info contact Cari Dawson Bartley at 800 696 7561 or email [email protected]. Visit Tom on the web at www.TomPurcell.com or e-mail him at [email protected].

Boy, have sensitivities changed since I was a kid in the ’70s — especially where sexual harassment is concerned.

I speak of an incident that occurred three years ago at an elementary school in Oregon. According to abcnews.go.com, two 13-year-old boys were arrested for “slapping girls on the rear end.”

Cartoon by Rob Tornoe - PoliticalCartoons.com (click to purchase)

Both spent five days in a juvenile detention joint. Both were charged with several counts of felony sex abuse.

If convicted, both would have had to be registered lifelong as “sex offenders” — and spend up to 10 years in the clink.

That surely wasn’t the reaction when I was a victim of sexual harassment in my sixth-grade year.

A girl in my class — I’ll call her Susie Smitten — had the hots for me. Who could blame her? I was one of the better “keep-away” players. And even though I had big ears and a bad haircut, I wasn’t a bad catch by sixth-grade standards.

One day during recess, I noticed that Susie was looking at me with misty eyes.

I’d never seen a girl look at me like that before. The only female look I’d known prior was the one my sisters gave me when I failed to change the toilet paper roll when the paper ran out.

During the last month of school, Susie tried multiple times to hold my hand under our desk in biology class.

She followed me into the hall and tried to hug me.

One day she really crossed the line. Our biology class was in the woods, studying leaves, when she tried to blindside me with a kiss.

Tommy Gillen shouted out a warning and I managed to jump from her path. She nicked me, but, for the most part, I got away clean.

Susie’s harassment was relentless, but there was nothing I could do about it.

Had I reported her conduct to our teachers, they wouldn’t have believed me.

Had I told my parents and sisters about it, they would have made fun of me.

And a lawsuit was clearly out of the question.

It was 1973, after all — well before numerous sexual harassment laws were on the books.

It was before women’s groups, such as the American Association of University Women, released numerous studies that claimed sexual harassment is rampant in American schools.

It was before the courts could hold schools responsible for sexual harassment under ambiguous laws.

It was before Congress was appropriating millions of dollars under laws such as the Women’s Educational Equity Act to provide “gender-equity training programs to make boys treat girls more sensitively and to ensure an environment free from sexual harassment and abuse.”

I had little recourse to get Susie to back off — at least until I made it through puberty.

On one hand, it’s good that our society is now more aware of, and sensitive to, legitimate sexual- harassment concerns.

On the other hand, with all our laws, rules, policies, research and advocacy groups in place, aren’t we delegitimizing genuine sexual-harassment cases by overreacting to marginal ones?

Which brings us back to the incident at the Oregon middle school.

Police investigators soon discovered that “slapping girls on the rear end” was a fairly common practice at the school — some girls were doing likewise to boys.

Most agreed that the behavior was inappropriate. But criminal? Four females listed as victims asked the judge to drop the charges and the judge finally did.

According to the News-Register of McMinnville, Ore., a settlement was reached that called for both boys to pay the four girls $250 each, apologize to them and complete a “boundaries education” program, whatever the heck that is.

As I said, sensitivities sure have changed since I was a kid in the ’70s.

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©2010 Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, a humor columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For more info contact Cari Dawson Bartley at 800 696 7561 or email [email protected]. Visit Tom on the web at www.TomPurcell.com or e-mail him at [email protected].

May is “National Hamburger Month,” an annual “tradition” that began 18 years ago when White Castle, purveyor of small, tasty, high-calorie burgers, initiated it.

It should be “Ban the Burger Month” instead.

Cartoon by Alen Lauzan Falcon, Santiago, Chile

It figures that a capitalistic organization would promote such a thing.

According to about.com, White Castle, in 1921, was the first to introduce the mass distribution of the burger. The concept was an immediate hit.

By the ’30s, Americans were getting too fat and lazy to get out of their cars to order their burgers. Greedy corporations created the drive-in burger joint to exploit them.

In the late ’30s, fat, lazy Americans began demanding bigger burgers. Bob’s Big Boy took advantage by introducing the first double-patty burger.

But it was during the postwar years, when Americans had expendable dough, that burger makers would really begin exploiting Americans.

In 1948, the first McDonald’s opened — and the modern fast-food era was born. To fuel the American addiction to fast, high-calorie burgers, McDonald’s opened joints across the country like some kind of roadside litter.

Thanks to corporate exploitation, hamburgers now account for nearly 60 percent of all sandwiches eaten.

But rather than celebrate the burger every May, we must do the opposite: give the highly-educated, caring people who run our federal government the power, through a nationwide burger ban, to protect us from exploitive corporate interests.

Americans are among the fattest people on Earth. This is largely because the fast-food hamburger is little more than a high-calorie injection system.

Now that the federal government has assumed regulatory command over America’s health care — now that federal money will be used to subsidize it — the government has every right to limit behavior that will increase health care costs.

The government must also ban any advertising and/or media programming that seeks to promote, and/or profit from, America’s lingering obsession with the burger.

That it is still legal for Ronald McDonald to brainwash our children into consuming a mass-produced corporate Happy Meal leaves highly educated people everywhere unhappy.

Further, the Federal Communications Commission must censor television shows, such as “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” and “Man vs. Food.”

In the former show, host Guy Fieri exploits the reckless calorie consumption of average-intelligence Americans who, when they are not clinging to their guns and their religion, are stuffing their gullets at the local diner.

In the latter, host Adam Richman travels the country to participate in grotesque contests to see who can consume the most high-calorie comfort foods.

Both food opportunists are tantamount to food pornographers.

Banning and censoring American burger-mill operations, however, is only part of the solution.

The government must also ban the American pastime of freely grilling burgers, and the flesh of other dead animals, on backyard barbecues — all of which emit carcinogens and other harmful pollutants into the atmosphere.

I know it is difficult for Americans of average intelligence to comprehend, but a federal ban on burger consumption is what is best for them.

It will reduce calorie consumption, reduce federal health care expenditures and protect the environment.

It will result in less cow grazing, which will minimize cow flatulence, a menace to hundreds who deserve the right to an odorless countryside drive in their electric cars on Sundays.

Change is hard — giving up backward, primitive American traditions will be difficult for many — but we must work together to bring about this needed change.

In a truly progressive society, May must become Ban the Burger Month instead.

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©2010 Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, a humor columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For more info contact Cari Dawson Bartley at 800 696 7561 or email [email protected]. Visit Tom on the web at www.TomPurcell.com or e-mail him at [email protected].

I don’t know who they are, but I’ve got to hand it to them. I’m too cynical to do what they do.

I speak of the Americans who, every year, donate money to pay down America’s national debt.

The Bureau of the Public Debt — part of the Treasury Department — began allowing such donations in 1961. According to Title 31, Chapter 31 of the U.S. Code, any citizen is free to give a “gift” to Treasury, under the condition that the money will be used only to pay down the debt.

Cartoon by David Fitzsimmons - Arizona Star (click to purchase)

Last year, the government received $3 million in such gifts. Who are the gift-givers? Nobody knows for certain.

Mckayla Braden, senior adviser at the Bureau of the Public Debt, told me that all the bureau does is tally the totals. It keeps no records on the number of individuals who give or the average amount.

Braden was able to share some interesting details and anecdotes with me:

. Gift-givers generally mail in checks — rarely do they include a note of any kind.

. Sometimes they donate their tax-refund checks, after signing the checks over to Treasury.

. Occasionally, someone leaves a large portion of his or her estate to the government. That happened in 1992, when the largest gift on record, $3.5 million, was received.

Over the years, Braden was able to learn about some of the givers.

In the early ’90s, a teacher sent in a large jar of dimes and nickels. The teacher explained that she’d conducted a class exercise on the national debt. Her students had contributed what they could.

Braden remembers one gift-giver who mailed a small money order from a convenience store.

She remembers another fellow who mailed in $10 or $20 every payday. He did so for years.

Though little is known about the gift-givers — it isn’t entirely clear what motivates them — Braden got a sense that most are patriotic people who want to do their own small part to help their country.

“Small” is, unfortunately, the right word.

For the past decade, Treasury has received between $2 million and $3 million in gifts every year. But our debt, growing a few trillion a year, now stands at $13 trillion.

If our debt remained fixed at $13 trillion — and if we applied $3 million every year to pay down that debt — it would take 4.3 million years to pay it off.

And that is with zero-percent interest.

Besides, the gift donations technically aren’t paying down the debt anyhow. All the donations are deposited to the receipts ledger of Uncle Sam’s general fund.

Since we’re running large deficits, the donations simply reduce the amount of money our government will borrow.

The last thing I want to do is give our spendthrift government an opportunity to spend even more.

Nonetheless, I wish more people were as thoughtful as the silent givers — particularly the people who are so eager to expand our government and raise our taxes.

Hey, big spenders, here’s your chance to put your money where your mouth is. You can send your own money to Treasury right now. Just go to www.pay.gov.

How about it, big spenders.

Hello?

Just as I figured.

No wonder I’m such a cynic.

©2010 Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, a humor columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For more info contact Cari Dawson Bartley at 800 696 7561 or email [email protected]. Visit Tom on the web at www.TomPurcell.com or e-mail him at [email protected].