Legislate This! by Buster McNutt There is certainly no shortage of laughing stock in state government. Our legislature (“the best representatives that money can buy’’) has done it once again. Two years ago they passed the Road Kill Bill, making it legal to pick up dead animals on the side of the road. The theory was that this would save the government millions each year in animal removal fees, and provide a cost- effective source of protein to people who were new to the state and had not yet learned where the grocery stores were. The problem was that except for mor- ticlans matried to soccer moms, nobody wanted to carry dead animals in their family sleds. So people started carrying grills in their vehicles, and then just pulled over and made little roadside meals whenever the opportunity came up. There was even a start-up company, Critter Kitchen, you could call on the cell phone and they’d come out in a specially equipped van and cook it all up for you. And it was surprisingly good. In a blind taste test, three out of four motorists actually preferred not-too-distantly- deceased road kill to the quarter pounder with or without cheese at a certain national chain of fast food restaurants. This chain shall remain nameless because their lawyers are bigger than our lawyers, and hey, call me shallow, but writing about road kill is better than being road kill. (Hint: clowns, golden arches, visible body piercings and English as a second language). So naturally the fast food industry took the state to court to have the law overturned on the grounds that roads are public places, and by law anybody engaged in activities relating to the preparation or serving of food in public places is required to have a health card, hair net, visible body piercings, and of course, a silly hat. The ASA (American Scavenger Association) also filed suit, arguing that the state’s population of vultures had decreased 73 percent since the bill was passed. This carried more weight than you might think, since just three years ago this same legislature passed legislation proclaiming the vulture as the state bird. Then last year we got the law making it illegal to have open alcohol containers in moving vehicles. The immediate effect was that along about beer-thirty every afternoon, thousands of vehicles started pulling over to the side of the road to enjoy their happy hour beverage of choice. When the police would tell them to move on, they would politely inform the police that it was illegal to drink while driving or drive under the influence. So therefore they’d need five minutes to finish their beverage and then another two hours to allow nature to reestablish a more appropriate percent- age of blood in their alcohol stream. This soon led to altercations between the roadside drinkers and the family groups who were simply trying to finish grilling that evening’s road kill dinner. So the law was amended to also make it ille- gal to have open alcohol containers in a non-moving vehicle. This led to two other developments. One, sales of portable bottle capping presses on the home shopping channel increased a gazillion fold. And two, three revenue-challenged counties in the east- ern part of the state took the new law lit- erally and started arresting owners of mobile homes if they found any open beverage containers in their weekly trash pickup. So more amendments were added to exclude mobile homes, country music tour buses, limousines, and, of course, vehicles with state legislature license plates. But this year’s lawmakers are really out to prove that there’s still way too much lead paint in the walls of state buildings. They actually have a bill pending that would make ours the first state to officially ban obscene movies in vehicles. This came about because a motorist happened to glance over at a minivan in the next lane, and was horri- fied to witness a “graphically objection- able” movie being shown on a screen in that vehicle. Just to be certain she wasn’t mistaken, the offended driver stayed in the next lane for 47 additional miles, and just missed the ending of the movie because she ran over a possum, realized she hadn’t taken anything out of the freezer for dinner, and pulled over to rectify that situation. Take a minute to wrap your mind around this one. It will still be legal for drivers to roll their windows down and blast out rap “music” full of verbal obscenities and hate messages that pas- sengers of all ages in vehicles within a hundred yard radius will be exposed to. That is protected by freedom of speech. But it will be illegal to show an R-rated video, even if the passengers in that vehicle are 60 years old, wearing head- phones, aren’t drinking from open con- tainers, and/or aren’t grilling left over road kill on the roof rack. Where are our priorities? If you don’t like it at home, switch channels. On the highway? Switch lanes! Understand that I think watching anything other than the road in a moving vehicle is a bad idea. A