BY STEVE BATES
I’d like to unveil my platform. I’m not running for anything—officially, anyway. But there are some things I feel strongly about. (Such as: A preposition is something that one should not end a sentence with.) But I digress. I am proposing some essential new laws. Specifically:
PRESCRIPTION DRUGS: No prescription drug should cost more than $50. If you have any kind of health insurance, it shouldn’t cost more than $25. I’m not including voluntary medical substances and procedures, because it’s too late for me to benefit from hair restoration.
FIVE-SECOND RULE: Let’s formalize this classic but oft-ignored principle. If it’s a cookie, or a doughnut, or a medical cannabis gummy, or any other edible, if it is picked up within five seconds of landing on the floor, it can be consumed without parental or spousal permission. Remember: Five seconds is a loose term if you count real slow, like if the cookie goes under the fridge.
MOVIE CREDITS: They must run at the end of the film, not at the beginning. Enough said.
OPENING DAY: Major League Baseball’s opening day should be a national holiday. Yes, I hear the arguments from football fans that the day after the Super Bowl should be a holiday. But it’s just a Monday in the middle of winter and not good for much of anything other than shoveling the sidewalk. Why not move the Super Bowl back to 3 p.m. As a bonus, that would get it over in time for “60 Minutes”.
DAN SNYDER: Speaking of football, ban Danny Boy from owning any NFL team. Period.
FOOD LABELING: No food sold to the public can carry the label “fat free” unless the seller is not charging you for the fat content, which is usually quite significant.
FOOD STORAGE: I know that this flies in the face of the principle of “live and let live”, but the peanut butter and the jelly should be on the same shelf of the refrigerator. How many years of our lives have we wasted searching for one or the other when it’s on the door or way back behind the year-old celery.
FOX NEWS: Require that their broadcasts feature the following warning label at all times: “The contents of this network are harmful to your mental, physical, and emotional health. Not to mention being bad and wrong.”
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: Sentient computers, bots, algorithms, and holograms should carry warning signs saying something like: “I am an artificial construct rather than a flesh-and-blood person. I might or might not be smarter than you. But did you know that the warranty on your car has expired? And, have you considered whether you have enough life insurance?”
NEW GOLDEN RULE: Let people live their lives the way that they want as long as they are not bothering other people. That means they can decide how they identify themselves, what they do with their bodies, what they do with their money, whether they wish to sacrifice small furry animals in their back yards, and the like. However, I draw the line with the teen-ager who fires up his Mustang and revs the motor for five minutes at 4 a.m. across the street. Lock him up.
In Sight 