Fry-fry, Miss American Pie

Whatever happened with the decree by the 'Nanny State' -- aka the sourpuss Vancouver Island Medical Health officer -- who wanted to keep young girls from baking their bods in the tanning parlors?

He wanted it passed into decree that no juveniles were to be entitled to partake of excesses of UV and, while he was at it, since he was in the territory of body geography, he wanted it rendered illegal for minors to adorn those fried bodies with tattoos.

I think the tattoo thing is carrying state control to a ludicrous extreme. In fact, after a vacation in Hawaii last year, I came to believe that it was some sort of generational genetic manifestation that all young females are now thrust from the womb bearing some sort of inscription on the lower back just above the panty-line. Such tattoos were so common there, that rare was the junior miss who did not bear one. Even demure looking young creatures had them. I think even those spending their summers at tropical Bible camps were so adorned. Hardly the biker bitches of yore who might have sported such epidermal art work.

Personally, I am not so much of a tattoo-person, since I am of a generation who associated such decoration with seafarin' men, criminals and assorted low-lifes. Doubtless, in modern context I am wrong, but I am comfortable with my biases and choose to keep them, thank-you.

But, back to the tanning salons, will the MHO also be mounting beach patrols to chase the scalliwags from the seaside, since the same rays as can be found in the parlors, also exude from the sun? But, back to reality. Why should I, as a citizen of an ostensibly free society, be particularly exercised if young females want to fry their little titties off? They are their little titties, to do with as they like. If they want to court melanoma, then that is their concern. Or, at the very least, their parents' concern, it certainly isn't mine. I would suggest instead that if our 'protect the people from themselves' fascists want to go around banning things that young people indulge in, why not ban those obnoxious, noisy, clattering and a thousand times more dangerous skateboards? I'd buy into that one. At the same time, how about upping the minimum driver's licence age to 21, so acned boneheads with thudding boom-boxes don't scream up and down my street (a park zone) at freeway speeds? That one would have my support, as well. In other words, if you're going to go around banning stuff, ban stuff that pisses me off. Tanned young females just do not piss me off.

Otherwise, increased state incursions on the freedom of the public to be stupid cuts nowhere with me. It is my right, and my kid's right to court destruction as he or I would choose. It's the way of a democracy, so leave my freedom alone.

Oh, and about body piercings, also faddish in recent years. When I read about 'corset' piercings, it just creeps me out. A female acquaintance of mine got her nipples pierced a few years ago, and that was enough for me. She chose to share that information. She even asked if I would like to see. Non-pierced -- oh, possibly, pierced, not so much? Just a little too 'pagan' for me. I won't even go to the other bits of anatomy that some, male and female, choose to skewer. But, corset piercity, for the uninitiated, consists of getting the body pierced in such a manner that then corset-like ties can be passed along the studs stuck in the body. The mind boggles, and I can only ask, why?

Anyway, I am losing the basic gist of all this. My premise is only that I do foolish things, you do foolish things, and if none of us are putting anyone else at risk, why should some sort of curmudgeonly authority deny us the right to be as silly as we damn well please?