"Uncle Shazam and his Magical Logic"

Published 01 June 2002

(word count: 750)

Definitions:

Practical Magic is a movie.  Magical Logic is a mental impairment of the governmentally afflicted.

Exhibit A

Now we know where all the Hefty Humans came from.  Uncle Shazam created them.  In 1998, the government changed the way they calculated peoples’ weight and POOF! Thirty million normally proportioned people went to bed one night and woke up as Super-Sized Citizens.  Thus, sixteen basketball players in the Final Four playoffs were officially “overweight.”  So is NBA star Michael Jordan.  Actor Tom Cruise is formally “obese.”  Apparently impressed by this legerdemain, the IRS withdrew its collective hand from our wallets long enough to flourish it in the air and, perhaps with a muttered “abracadabra” or “presto change-o,” transmuted the heretofore culturally defined value judgment of  “obesity” into a tax deductible “disease.”

Exhibit B

Judges in two separate cases refused to dismiss inciting-to-riot charges against a pair of alleged humanoids who praised the 9-11 attacks in front of angry citizens with moronic drivel like “It’s good that the World Trade Center was bombed” and “More cops and firemen should have died.”  As odious as these oral cavity droppings are, it’s really no different from American Nutsy Party goofballs goose-stepping through a Jewish community or Klansmen duded out in their January White Sale finery parading down MLK Boulevard.  If everybody always agreed with everybody else we wouldn’t need a Bill of Rights.  So, be careful, libertarians.  Stand up in a city council meeting packed with welfare recipients to protest a taxpayer subsidized day care center and you may be called a baby-hater and charged with inciting a riot.  The judges’ logic, apparently, is that feelings and political correctness trump freedom of speech and assembly.

Exhibit C

Joseph Boomer of Michigan fared better with his Appeals Court judges.  When Boomer’s tippy canoe dumped him in the drink he melted the ear wax of nearby Moms and minors with a copious medley of unhygienic wordplay.  The law under which he was fined, using “indecent, immoral, obscene, vulgar or insulting language” in front of women or children, was ruled unconstitutional on vagueness grounds.  This time, it seems, it was the Magical Logic of the original judge that determined a 105-year-old anti-cussing ordinance trumps our free speech rights.

Exhibit D

Lin Drake of Utah couldn't find any protected prairie pups on his property so he started building homes.  The US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) fined him $15,000 for harassing and harming the nonexistent critters.  A federal administrative law judge (ALJ) upheld the fine based on the following logic (quoting the FoxNews story verbatim):  “The ALJ ruled that FWS employees had no reason to lie because they were simply doing  their jobs.  Also, ruled the ALJ, because those employees testified that prairie dogs were once on the property and are not there now the animals must have been killed; there was no need to prove their death.”  Why bother with hearings and trials?  One bureaucrat vouching for another bureaucrat should satisfy everyone.  So, based on this judge’s logic, I once lived in Minnesota but now I live in Texas so that means I’m dead; no proof is needed.  (smart-alecky Oklahomans need not comment.)

Exhibit E

Sometimes Ye Grande Elected Ones get swept away by their own hyperbole.  After reports that anti-Semitic and racist leaflets were found tossed into driveways and yards in Southboro MA, State Senator Pamela Resor shrilled that people who distribute hate literature are “no different from the terrorists involved in the September 11 tragedy.”  Perhaps Ms Resor would agree to a little experiment.  First we’ll hire a troop of Junior Woodchucks to throw wads of bigoted handouts at her house.  Then we’ll fly a very large scale model radio controlled airplane through her front window.  Still think pamphleteers are “no different from the terrorists involved in the September 11 tragedy,” Madame Senator?

EXHIBIT F

President Bush waved his hocus-pocus pen and signed a bill declaring that only Mississippi Delta catfish can be called “catfish.”  This outraged the Vietnamese, whose catch of the day formerly known as “catfish” hail from the Mekong Delta and make up 20 percent of the US market.  The magically monikered domestic “catfish” monopoly quickly drove up prices.  But the Viets had their own juju.  They dubbed their former catfish “basa” and promoted it as a trendy delicacy.  The price of  “basa” increased by 33 percent and enlarged its American market share by eight percent.  Now consumers pay more for “catfish” and “basa” alike.  Thanks, political prestidigitators.  Go fish!

- by Garry Reed