My little girl, The Biscuit Nazi

Whenever I think I have it bad, I am brought back to reality by a number of things. I have the most wonderful, most beautiful, most talented wife in the world who, for some reason, puts up with me. I have a house in the less-than-half completed Housing Bubble Burst Acres subdivision. And I have two gorgeous daughters, the two-year-old ham sammich and the seven-year-old Biscuit Nazi.

Making biscuits this morning reminded me you can't take the Biscuit Nazi out of the Biscuit Nazi, even as she gets older. When she was two, we first began making biscuits together based on a recipe from Alton Brown, just about the only person worth watching on Food Network any more. Given that she is mildly autistic, this means that Mr. Brown's biscuit recipe might as well have been etched in stone by the Lord long before He gave the Ten Commandments to Charlton Heston. Hell hath no fury like the Biscuit Nazi if you are out of baking powder and try to substitute some cream of tartar.

It took almost two years to convince BN that, if you happened to be out of buttermilk, you could use regular milk. No, BN said, Mr. Alton said BUTTERMILK, you MORON. The biscuits will get up and run out of the oven, out the door, shake their flaky booties at the neighbor's dog, then explode on contact with the asphalt of the street. It's a good thing that, when we first began making biscuits together, we didn't tell her that Mr. Alton did not use only shortening in his biscuits. He cuts both butter and shortening into his dry ingredients, which does taste better, but we were trying to avoid having to buy butter every other day during that time a few years ago when dairy was more expensive than beer. We might have brought about the return the Four Horsemen by now, which would really have pissed off Ric Flair and Knute Rockne.

We don't make biscuits quite as much anymore, but when we do, the Biscuit Nazi returns, albeit in a somewhat milder form. She isn't as anal about ingredients anymore. Instead, BN has to do everything by herself, measuring the ingredients, mixing them, kneading and rolling - everything except put them in the oven, which she still understands she can't do. It makes me wonder what she'd be like if I had been a fish monger; "you can't use that fillet knife on a MONK FISH. The Monk fish Mafia are gonna GET YOU!"

If this sounds like a pain, it isn't. I wouldn't change anything about BN, and not just because her anal retentiveness helps her make a damn good biscuit. Besides, she is now forever the Biscuit Nazi as christened by Mr. Alton himself in an autographed picture he sent to BN after I got the chance to tell him the story. I think Mr. Alton understands completely, being somewhat of a food Nazi himself. Now, off to the store. We're need baking powder and buttermilk, and I don't want to be eaten by the giant invisible cow monsters who attack the owners of inadequate ingredients.

And The Winners Are....

It's wonderful to be an independent. Especially an independent who has so many good friends on every side of politics. As the cliche goes, some of my best friends are liberal Democrats, conservative Democrats, libertarian-leaning Republicans, super-conservative Republicans, drunkards, sportos, motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, waistoids, dweebies; shoot, I've even made friends with a Communist and a New Black Panther. This means that when I talk politics, I am always guaranteed an argument, usually a polite argument since this is Savannah and not Cowpens, South Carolina. So, after girding my loins and even my non-loins, here is a fearless and likely inaccurate forecasts of some of today's primary race for governor of Georgia. The Winners will be...

Karen Handel and Roy Barnes, and it won't be close.

Yes, there might be a runoff on the Republican side, but the GOP race for Governor was over the day Sarah Palin endorsed the former Secretary of State. Some may not understand the appeal of Mrs. Palin. Some may not comprehend her use of the language or Mrs. Handel's mishandling of the Log Cabin Republican issue, but Mrs. Palin is one of the most popular people among conservatives today. That will easily carry her past any of the GOP challengers she faces in a runoff.

Eric Johnson would have had a shot had it not been for two factors, his lack of charisma and Nathan Deal, who seemingly got into the race to avoid a Congressional ethics investigation. Recent polls seem to have exposed John Oxendine, also an ethics casualty even if he turns out to be innocent. Ox lost a lot of people in this area when he arrogantly tried to take over the distribution of information after the tragic explosion at the Imperial Sugar refinery in Port Wentworth, telling some in the media that then-Metro Police Chief Michael Berkow "didn't know how we handle things in Georgia." After being the front-runner in a mostly boring race, Oxendine may not even make a runoff now that Mrs. Handel has Mrs. Palin's support.

Former governor Roy Barnes may be a dead ringer for Charles Durning "The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas", but he will win the Democratic primary in a landslide against a slew of jibronis. No offense to General David Poythress, who seems like a nice man, but he should have known better than to be in this race against Roy. Thurbert Baker should have known better, too, especially since his entire platform appears to be a single word, Bingo. That and he needs better hair next time he decides to run.

While Barnes will be a runaway winner today, he will be hard pressed to return to the governor's mansion unless Mr. Oxendine or Mr. Deal pull off a major upset. They are beatable, even by a Democrat in a Republican year. Unless she makes a major gaffe, and not just a gaffe in the eyes of liberals but a gaffe that will resonate among independents, I don't see how Karen Handel loses in November. Sorry my liberal friends, but not being able to explain exactly why marriage is between one man and one woman is not enough. Mrs. Handel will have to screw up in a way that can be replayed a gazillion times by the Barnes campaign, because as we found out eight years ago, Barnes is not very electable on his own.

If things don't turn out this way, this entire post was written by Tim Rutherford while drunk on spicy green curry shrimp at the Noodle Bowl. No, that won't work, 'cause Tim can destroy me in one sentence flat.

And now, the News From the Ham and Beyond

First, the news from the Ham, which if you don't know, is Effingham County, Georgia, home of wide open spaces, great public schools, and meth (shaken, not stirred).

The renovation at the Rincon Wal-Mart (motto: "Yes, ma'am, we do carry bras in your size, and we'd appreciate you buying one immediately!) is ongoing. The pharmacy is still under construction, so it is temporarily housed at the former location of the checkout counters on the side of the store nearest to health and beauty. Those are the same checkouts that were never manned, or womanned, even though your checkout line snaked all the way back to the discount bikinis.

I am very upset at the Rincon Wal-Mart because they apparently no longer carry Post Raisin Bran, only the more sugary and salty Kellogg's and Sam's Choice versions. What does a guy have to do to get his recommended daily amount of fiber in a tasty way? I suppose I will just have to pay extra and get my Post RB down the road at Kroger. Either that or revert to the days when I would combine a box of All-Bran with a box of Cocoa Puffs or Peanut Butter Crunch.

In news from Savannah, the Savannah Morning News reports that Metro Police Chief Willie Lovett has instituted a ban on visible tattoos on police officers. Good thing Herve Villechaize has passed on. If you think this is an unusual policy, you would be wrong. The Georgia State Patrol will not hire you if you have any tattoos visible below the cuff of a short-sleeved shirt. The Garden City Police Department has been working on a tattoo policy, but officers there have been too busy pulling over people for driving 45.0001 in a 45 mile-per-hour zone, so as soon as they finish giving you a speeding ticket, they will get around to body ink.

In Sports, yesterday's Savannah Sand Gnats game in haiku:

Gnats Lose to Greenville
The Family Had Fun, but
Pitching Was Stinky

The positive news from Gnatsville; despite the loud guy on the public address speakers who one day will pass out while attempting to hold the word 'Savannah' for 30 seconds during pre-game introductions, attendance is up this season. Even though the Gnats are still last in the South Atlantic League in attendance, the average crowd of 1,812 through the first 48 home games is up over the same time period last season. Kudos to new team president John Katz for an outstanding year, and props to the team for giving Savannah a few extra home games by making the playoffs for the first time in 14 years.

With apologies to the Savannah Tobaccostapo, the smoke of the day is the Romeo Y Julieta Habana Reserve, an outstanding medium-to-bold cigar. It's wrapper and binder are grown in Nicaragua while the filler is grown in Nicaragua and Honduras. Unlike some, I don't rate cigars on a particular flavor - no "hints of dark chocolate and coffee" or "aroma of active paper mill." I just pick a cigar that I enjoy and recommend it. Speaking of the Savannah Tobaccostapo, there will be more to say about them down the road, but Mayor Johnson, while I love you as much as one man can platonically love another man, you are dead wrong on the smoking ban idea. We cigar and pipe aficionados are considering a smoke-in at your next town hall meeting because, unlike the Tobaccostapo, we believe in the Constitution.

The jazz record of the day is actually a double album, one that got virtually no recognition for being great in its time. "The Astaire Story" was recorded in December 1952 when Fred Astaire was 53 years old, still making good movies but long after his glory years with Ginger Rogers. Jazz impresario (are there college classes you can take on becoming an impresario?) Norman Granz conceived the album, which mostly featured songs made famous by Mr. Astaire in his films. Rather than the lush arrangements of "The Gay Divorcee" or "Top Hat", this album is pure jazz with the music played by an all-star sextet led by legendary pianist Oscar Peterson. Though it was not a huge seller after it's original release, Mr. Peterson spoke lovingly of this album - he and the other musicians all received gold bracelets from Mr. Astaire with the inscription "With thanks, Fred A", a bracelet Mr. Peterson would wear for the rest of his life. A personal highlight is an updated arrangement of one of Mr. Astaire's few hits as a songwriter, "I'm Building Up To An Awful Letdown", with lyric by Johnny Mercer. If local musicologist Roger Moss is, as he has suggested, recording an album of Mercer songs, I hope that song is included simply to hear Moss's enormous baritone utter the opening line "I'm like Humpty Dumpty...."

That's the news from the Ham, Savannah, and the half-point in between. Tomorrow, how the Ham desperately needs a mathematician. No, not a methamatician. Also tomorrow, how polls flat out lie, especially polls that claim you are just fine and dandy with higher property taxes. Speaking of lies, tomorrow is Primary Election Day in Georgia, otherwise known as Bend Over, This Won't Hurt a Bit Day, Part One.

"Awakening", a really bad poem, by Moi

Crack
(no, the wood movement from a cabinet opening is softer).....crack
Clink, thump
fffffffffffffffwah...man, got to replace that sugar canister
ouch, steak knife, not a teaspoon
there's a teaspoon
sshhh....whoops, how did I miss this giant Tim Horton's mug?
pooooooooooooooouuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrr
thhhhhwp, ummmm, half-n-half.....ah, behind the gin
poouurr
tink tink tink tink
sssssslurp
ahhhhhh, still dead to the world
but goooooooooooooooooood

Karen Handel's Log Cabin Fumble

Karen Handel knows her football. Georgia's former Secretary of State-turned candidate for governor is as conversant on the spread offense and cover-two defenses as any of the ex-jock phony "analysts" on ESPN. It's just one reason the repeated fumbles by Handel and her campaign on the issue of her membership in the Log Cabin Republicans are startling.

First of all, I know what some are thinking - what's wrong with Log Cabin? That's some dang good syrup! Why, I used to have Log Cabin on my Momma's pancakes every week, and now they make a syrup that has no high fructose corn syrup. Yes, wrong Log Cabin, though the group does take it's name from the structure in which the 16th President was born.

The Log Cabin Republicans are, for the most part, just as conservative as Rush Limbaugh. They also are, for the most part, gay men and lesbian women, though Log Cabin membership is not exclusive to homosexuals. Enter Ms. Handel, circa 2002 during her campaign for the Fulton County Commission. She sought and received the endorsement of the Log Cabins that year and again the following year while seeking the commission's chairmanship. You don't have to have the brain of Stephen Hawking to understand the reasons why. The gay community in the Atlanta area, both Republican and Democrat, is very active, and as the cliche goes, every vote counts. Marc Yeager, the president of Georgia's Log Cabins during those years, also says Ms. Handel was a dues-paying Log Cabin member at the time. Big deal, you say? It is if your name is Deal and you are trying to turn attention away from your own shady deals.

Nathan Deal, like Ms. Handel, is seeking the Republican nomination for governor this year and had to be wondering how in the world he was being out-polled by Ms. Handel and Georgia's insurance commissioner John Oxendine. He had been in Washington, WASHINGTON for crying out loud, for almost two decades with a perfect 100 rating from the American Conservative Union. How could Georgia Republicans be supporting anyone but this good-ole-boy in a state that has loved good-ole-boys in both parties since Reconstruction ended? Something had to be done. He could take out Ox in a runoff, but Deal needed to take out Ms. Handel to get to the runoff, and he found the issue with which he thought he could get her - ladies and gentlemen, Karen Handel used to hang out with, GASP, gay people!

This shouldn't be an issue, and if the election were being held 10 or 20 years from now it most definitely wouldn't be, not even in a Republican primary in Georgia. Such is the nature of the rapidly changing consensus about gay people, particularly among the next generation. A recent survey from Columbia University showed that if folks between the ages of 18 and 29 were the only ones who voted, gay marriage would be legal in 38 states. But Nathan Deal is banking the future of his campaign on it still being a big deal to enough conservatives in 2010 that they will not pull the lever for Ms. Handel. It doubt it will hurt her, but Ms. Handel could have put Mr. Deal in his place a long time ago. Instead, for whatever reason, she and her campaign have chosen to be just as deceptive on the Log Cabins as Mr. Deal has been in discussing his ethics while a Member of Congress.

When Mr. Deal first brought up whether Ms. Handel was once a Log Cabin member, the correct answer should have been the Phineas And Ferb answer, "Yes, yes I was." If Deal had said, "so, you like hanging out with gay people", Handel could have replied, "Yes, just as much as you like those no-bid contracts your salvage business used to receive from the state, the no-bid contracts you lobbied the state to continue providing while you were in Congress." Instead, Ms. Handel and her campaign have decided to ignore the exploding e-mail trail of evidence and deny any past connections to the Log Cabins.

One didn't need the e-mail evidence to know the Handel campaign was flat-out lying. It became evident when her spokesman, Dan McLagan, uttered the typical politician response - Ms. Handel "doesn't remember ever having been a member." If Ms. Handel truly remembered the atypical political background from which she came - leaving an abusive home when she was 17, never graduating college, working her way up in a political world that still isn't very nice to women, she would have fired McLagan for sounding like every other shady political character with something to hide. Instead, she echoed Mr. McLagan with her own conditional denial during yesterday's debate at Atlanta's Fox 5-TV - the Log Cabins' "official records" show she wasn't a member.

Perhaps the same political hack who told former state senator Eric Johnson that people wouldn't vote for goatees told Ms. Handel that most Georgia Republicans still think being friends with gay people is akin to rooting for Notre Dame during football season. Even if Ms. Handel comes correct and owns up to what appears to be the truth, Mr. Deal has hurt her credibility, even though he was attempting to do something else by playing the hate card. Should Ms. Handel win the Republican nomination, her multiple fumbles on the chance to tell the truth about her history with the Log Cabins will be exploited, as they should be, by Democrat ex-governor Roy Barnes during the general election campaign. In what could be a bad year for most Democrats around the country, it is mind boggling that a football nut like Karen Handel would keep running the toss-sweep to the right on the Log Cabin question even though she is losing yardage every time.

I Missed The Tea Party

High tea was served at Savannah's Forsyth Park on the 5th of July, and I missed it. How depressing. First, every Tea Party needs a mad hatter, and secondly, the food would have been outstanding because I just watched the high tea episode of Two Fat Ladies the other day. The grub I could have brought would have been a delicious companion to the pork that was there.

Although it's name presents a bit of irony for a Tea Party, the Queen Alexandra sandwich would have been the perfect snack for Monday's gathering. You start with a mustard butter, tart and Southern all in one. Add some simple chicken salad - poached chicken with some mayo, salt, pepper, and some hot sauce. Finally, you top the sandwich with an ingredient for which there is never a shortage at a tea party - tongue. You could 'bam' it a la Emeril, but since 'bam' is also the middle of 'Obama', that might not be a good idea for a Tea Party.

A Tea Party also needs good tea, no Mal-Wart generics please. Some folks prefer blends such as Earl Grey or Irish Breakfast, some prefer green tea, but since most Tea Partiers likely prefer 'made in the USA', the only place growing tea in the States is the nearby Charleston Tea Plantation on Wadmalaw Island in South Carolina. Savannah Bee Company on Broughton and Brighter Day Natural Foods on Bull Street are among the places you can find Charleston Tea around here. A cup with a teaspoon or two of Savannah Bee Company honey will make your innards wanna dance. I have never made Charleston Tea iced, but I don't see why it wouldn't make a fine old fashioned sweet tea, and you'd definitely need iced sweet tea for a Tea Party down here. Of course, one of the perfect companions to sweet tea is a barbecue pork sandwich, which perhaps explains why Jack Kingston spoke at the Savannah Tea Party.

Congressman Kingston knows that I can make that crack and remain his friend. I like Jack and always have. When the radio station budget cut me and many others out of jobs last year, Jack called my house twice over the ensuing month to ask after me and my family (John Barrow also called, but then again, I live in his district. Kidding, John!). Unlike some Members, I have no doubt that Jack believes in his convictions, one of which just happens to be that earmarks, the Member of Congress euphemism for pork dollars, are a good thing. Many times on my old show and in private conversation, Mr. Kingston passionately defended earmark spending saying good projects, particularly those dealing with the military and national defense, wouldn't see the light of day if he wasn't able to steer that money around the grubby hands of the faceless Washington bureaucrat. Perhaps that's true, but it doesn't make it right, and it contravenes what the Tea Party appears to be about.

Surveys consistently show that the Tea Party is, primarily, a revolt against government spending, something President Obama and many Democrats (and some Republicans) don't seem to understand. This is why it was puzzling to see under the list of Savannah Tea Party speakers, next to the young patriots and the professional name-callers, a Congressman whose John Hancock has been attached to more than $200 million in earmarks over the last three budget years. Sure, $200 million is to Washington what the size of a 'rhymes-with-hiss' ant is to a human, but regardless of the worthiness of a pork project, most folks have figured out that you can't talk about the need for deficit reduction while simultaneously adding tens of millions to that deficit each year.

Correction, you can if you are Jack Kingston, since he represents about as safe a Republican District as you can find. As I said, I still like Jack a lot, so we will just have to agree to disagree on that type of pork and maybe enjoy the other type from Wiley's or Wall's if I am invited to the next Tea Party. I will even bring another Fat Ladies special, delectable chocolate-painted Fruit Tarts....well, I'll bring the fruit tarts as long as Nathan Deal isn't coming.

Is the Mini-Whoooooooore Dead? Man, I Hope So

When I was a teenager, my mother used to describe the mode of dress of some of my female friends and acquaintances as such: "She dresses like a mini-whore." Being an average teenage boy at the time, I probably responded, "Oh yeaahhh," at least that was the censored version, and of course, non-verbal in front of Mom. But the more I thought about the term "mini-whore", the funnier it became, with images of a horde (or whored?) of floosie midgets or little plastic, wind-up hookers - "It's Chatty Chatterly! She says 37 different phrases that usually only accidentally end up on a handful of ordinary talking dolls. New from Hasbro!" Now that I am a dad, I understand what my mother was saying, at least I did a few years ago when I dreaded what I was certain would be the new line of floss fashion from Oral-B that my daughter would want to wear because "everyone else is wearing it." Recent shopping trips, however, have showed that I could be dead wrong.

What the heck is attractive about butt crack? I spent the better part of my college years missing too many classes because I was planning the perfect way to Spackle-over the frequently appearing butt crack of a roommate, appearances caused by a combination of genetics and multiple visits to Acapulco, the Mexican joint across from the now-former Fort McClellan, Alabama. Unfortunately, four years of strategizing with other friends also offended by the crack yielded no coverage. Little did we know that my roomy was not an offender of the senses, but actually ahead of his fashion time.

Had he come along just a few years later, my roommate would have been just another hole in Butt Crack Nation. A decade or so ago, a decree was issued by some fashionista who desperately could have used my elementary school speech teacher and who walked, with apologies to the late Lewis Grizzard, as if he were trying to carry a corncob without using his hands; showing your butt - literally - was IN. If you weren't wearing jeans or a skirt low enough to see the Maginot Line, you might as well be wearing a burqa. The size of your rump didn't matter, and neither did your gender. About 27 seconds after the issuance of the crack decree, the only place you could buy women's jeans that actually fit properly, at least by prior standards, was next to the magnetized bracelets that cure hemorrhoids in the coupon section of the newspaper.

The new butt crack style was immediately taken up by clothing stores in malls such as Slut and it's companion store for tweens and younger, Lil' Slut. Well, that wasn't the exact name of the store, but it might as well have been. There was, perhaps, just enough fabric on the racks in the typical Lil' Slut store to make an average man's sport coat. What I, to this day, still wonder is why parents thought this was okay, why allowing your 9-year-old daughter to hang out with their friends while wearing nothing but a couple of strategically placed straps was supposed to be normal. One can see why a parent who actually believed in the clothed-lifestyle would be worried, which is the main reason I was shocked a couple days ago during a family outing at Savannah's Oglethorpe Mall and a subsequent trip to the Rincon, GA version of the blue-tinted big box store we will refer to as Mal-Wart.

At the mall's equivalent of the Lil' Slut store, we saw mannequins in the windows....wearing clothes! Real clothes; shirts, skirts WITH LEGGINGS ON UNDERNEATH! Pants that rose above the equator. My stunned wife checked to see if I had a goatee to make sure she hadn't gone through a temporal shift into a parallel world, but The Doctor never showed up, and I can't grow facial hair, so we knew it was true. What had happened? When did King/Queen Fashionista end their 347th consecutive day of watching Jerry Lewis DVD's, sashay to Bryant Park and declare that fabric covering your parts was okay?

A few days later, during a visit with the kids to Mal-Wart's toy section, we were in an aisle that used to hold the ultimate slutty doll, the Bratz - the "We're showing your kids it's cool to be mostly nekkid AND have enough collagen to where your lips touch your cleavage" doll. The maker of Bratz has been embroiled in a court battle with Mattel, the maker of Barbie, as Mattel argues that Barbie was mostly nekkid before mostly nekkid was cool. However, on the rack in the absence of Bratz were another brand of dolls who were clothed modestly and who were not made up like they were going to work at the Chicken Ranch. Not only that, but some Mal-Wart shoppers who hadn't gotten the memo that clothing was in again - and who DESPERATELY needed the memo in bold print - were accompanied by tween and teenage kids who were wearing twice as much fabric as mom/stepmom/Great Aunt Margie Nell. If this is Bizarro-World, I don't want to go home.

My wife thinks that parents our age are in rebellion against the previous parental generation. They apparently believed that dressing as a ho was okay, since they apparently missed out on being Poison and Whitesnake groupies during their youth, and if the ho-biscuit clothing line was good enough for them, it should be good enough for their kids. Maybe it has something to do with the increasing use of school uniforms and kids discovering that clothes that cover one's butt are not a sign of Armageddon. Frankly, I don't care as long as the trend continues for the next 70 or 80 years. If Mr. Fashionista decides to reverse the clothing trend again, he and I will have a serious talk over a bottle of chardonnay and the biggest corncob I can get my hands on, just in case I need to use it.

The End of Distracted Driver Crashes Is Finally Here!

The reign of tears is over. We will turn our prisons into factories. Men will walk upright now, women will smile, and children will laugh. Hell will be forever for rent.

Those are not original words. To whom they belong is to be addressed later, but it is a glorious day as the Georgia Legislature and governor, in a law taking effect today, have brought an end to one of the most insidious activities known to man, and by man, I mean woman. Farding in cars has been banished, as the little kid with the glasses in "The Sandlot" would say, for-ev-errr.

Gentleman, how many times have you been in the passenger seat of a car driven by your wife, girlfriend, sister, friend who happens to be a drag queen, or any other woman when, out of the blue, while you are zipping along at 75 on the interstate - or worse, while doing 55 in a 25 mile-per-hour zone in bumper-to-bumper downtown traffic - she starts farding like there was no tomorrow? As the farding continues, with the car swerving every which way, you take some time in between fards to ask her to stop, to be more considerite of the non-farding passenger, meaning you. Her response is either (a) if I don't fard, you complain, (b) shut up, or (c) something unprintable, depending upon her religion.

By now, you probably realize that 'fard' is a synonym for applying makeup, and as someone who doesn't wear makeup, I can only imagine how impossible it would be to drive a vehicle while attempting to even out one's rouge or applying eye liner without (what your mother warned you!) poking your eye out. So it is about time our state's lawmakers got together and rid the roads of these dangerous drivers who..... wait a second.

The Legislature didn't outlaw farding while driving? Oh, wait, my mistake. It was a different driving distraction lawmakers targeted. That's right, the law actually targeted men according to a conspiracy theory posited by supporters of goobernatorial candidate Nathan Deal. According to the conspiracy, Governor Perdue is trying to help snag the female vote for the person whom Deal thinks is Perdue's teacher's pet, Karen Handel, so the governor bribed enough, I mean, he rounded up enough votes to outlaw an activity that only men are engaged in behind the wheel. Guys, you'll just have to set the alarm clock a few minutes earlier, because shaving while driving is now illegal.

True, women also shave, but everyone knows women are responsible enough to remember to take care of their follicle expulsion at home, since they can always put on their makeup on their way to work. Besides, can you think of a bigger distraction than whipping out the razor, the sharpening strap, putting the bib on, plugging the electric kettle into the former cigarette lighter, balancing your Napa Soap Company lavender-cedar shaving soap cup on the other seat, not to mention wetting the badger badger badger brush - come on, real men shave wet! It is not only a danger to other motorists, it is potentially deadly for the shaver himself.....um, hold on.

Shaving while driving is still legal. Even with a wussy Norelco. Oh, that's right, it was another cause of distracted driving that lawmakers went after, Taco Bell and who can blame them for taking out the chihuahua?

You know how difficult it is to try to navigate a road while putting away a grilled stuft burrito? No matter how well it is wrapped, you take one bite, and a little bit of rice and/or sour cream squirts out of another part of the tortilla. You try to cover it up with some of your wrapper, but you just open up an even bigger hole with your next bite. Goodness only knows where your car is going while you fight with the Americanized-Mexican-American version of plugging holes in Hoover Dam with old chewing gum. So, God bless our fearless lawmakers as they finally put an end to.....hey!

You can still eat Taco Bell and drive? Oh, you can still eat anything and drive, even those delightful little crunchies in the bottom of your Long John Silver's combo. Doggone it, did our Legislature do anything to...oh yeah, now I remember.

It was radios and CD players in cars and the ridiculous distraction they are to drivers our fearless legislators took on. How many times have you almost run off the road trying to get rid of that stupid Pina Colada song CD your wife left in the CD player? Well, we'll just have to tough it out having it stuck in your head from now on. Ladies, if your husband was listening to Rush Limbaugh and you get in your car the next morning to the dulcet tones of Bill Edwards, your out of luck (just kidding Bill!). Thank goodness our Legislature....wait, not again.

Okay, I think I have it now, the Legislature has made fighting among siblings in the back seat illegal! Yes! What an incredible distraction that is for me and other parents. I can't wait to lay that one on my daughters...oh, nope, that isn't it.

GPS and other shiny new dashboard devices are history. How many distractions have automakers added to their wares over the past few years? Thank goodness.....nope, those are still legal, too.

Say au revoir to smoking in the car. After all, I think the Legislature has already voted to add "Thou Shalt Not Smoke" to the Ten Commandmants.....um, wait, smoking in the car is still okay.

Muffy and Mittens will have to stay home, as there will be no more pets bouncing back and forth inside your...oh, never mind again.

Aw geez, I almost forgot, when in doubt, blame Bill Clinton! How many times have you almost been broadsided by a driver on the receiving end of a Lewinsky? Well, thank goodness our governor and lawmakers have put a stop to....oh come on, not even that? Well, I suppose that's covered by indecent exposure laws, though is the guy really exposed if....well, that's another show.

Okay, the truth. Texting on a cell phone while driving, or doing anything with a cell phone if you are a teenager, are now against the law. We could debate how nonsensical it is to say it is okay for adults to talk on cell phones while driving while taking away that right for the generation that is actually proficient in cell phone use. Instead, I would rather reveal the identity of the man who uttered the quote at the beginning of this piece. It was taken from a sermon by evangelist Billy Sunday delivered on June 16, 1920, the day the 18th Amendment to the Constitution - Prohibition - took effect. As you know now, his clairvoyance was off just a little bit that day.

This is not meant to trivialize a genuine problem, that of distracted driving and the injuries and deaths caused by it. But if those who make our laws were actually interested in ridding the roads of driver distraction, they would not be their typical spineless jellyfish selves and only target a tiny part of the problem. Sure, the part they targeted is politically attractive, not to mention it is heavily promoted as a "good law" by some media barons who probably hope drivers will spend more time reading hard copies of newspapers and magazines, listening to the radio, or watching their in-car TV's, all of which remain, as far as I know, perfectly legal. Most lawmakers don't have the guts to take on the list of driving distractions mentioned above, many of them more distracting than cell phones, and they never will. And let's face it, a whole lot of us will break this law and not feel that badly about it.

This leads me to wonder, when cell phones are obsolete in five years after Steve Jobs develops the Apple Vulcan, where we can send any message, get news content, or download our favorite songs via Apple's exclusive mind meld cloud technology, how will lawmakers ban that? Georgia's legislators and governor think they have made the roads safer by outsmarting the latest technology. As they have many times, they forgot about a little thing called human nature, and as for technology, they are a few million iPads behind the times.