Posted on 07/05/2005 5:14:25 AM PDT by rhema
Growing up in my part of New York, you went to one of two barbers. Mr. McDougal was the old guy who gave you a slick crew cut when you were 7, parted on the side, and sent you out the door with a lollypop and a pat on the butt.
When you got older, if you were cool, you went to Tony Palermo. He was a hip young neighborhood guy who picked up hair-cutting who knows where. Even though we were only 11 or 12, he'd let us look at his Playboys while he cut hair in his living room. You could always tell if someone had just gotten their hair cut at Tony's because he only knew one style: parted down the middle with a poofy blow dry on each side, a la the Bee Gees.
I tell the story of Palermo because it's pertinent to the state government shutdown (trust me, I'll get there). A June 26 Pioneer Press story featured state employees fretting that no one would notice if parts of the government shut down. "What if they closed state government and no one cared?" the story asked.
It went on to detail a number of state agencies that worried they wouldn't be missed and listed a Web site, www.doer.state.mn. us, where you'll find a list of the state agencies that mostly waste your tax dollars. Among them — tah-dah! — the Barbers and Cosmetology Examiners Board.
Have we really let government get so out of control we now have a state agency to tell us whether or not we're getting a good haircut?
Or that our nails are done right? Believe me, in some of the Brooklyn neighborhoods I lived in, if you screwed up some person's nails, the whole block would hear about it.
Same goes for the Accountancy Board, which the state Web site said would lay off four of its five employees during a shutdown. Do we really need to "license" accountants? It takes most people more than one try to pass the CPA exam. Isn't that proof enough that they know what they're doing?
And how about the 40-employee Public Utilities Commission, which sets utility rates? 40 employees? One person with two semesters of macroeconomics could set utility rates. What is this, Minnesota or 1970s Moscow? (I know, they're interchangable.)
Another state agency that has always bugged me is the Metropolitan Airports Commission. Have you ever looked at who's on that board? Talk about political patronage.
There's like one guy who knows the business end of an airplane (or an airport). One's a dentist; another buys gourmet food and wine for Marshall Field's (pertinent, I guess, if Northwest still served peanuts or you could call the food at the airport "gourmet"); one's a car dealer; another owns a "cake, candy and wedding supply company." The majority — surprise, surprise — are lawyers, the carriers of the disease that's eating our country alive.
Over at the Transportation Department, they suspended "message boards and traffic information for motorists." Some loss. If they say it's smooth sailing, you're guaranteed to run into a tie up. If they say there's a delay, the wreckers were gone a half hour ago.
The most ludicrous statement leading up to the shutdown came from Cal Ludeman, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Employee Relations. He theorized that the only unknown to a shutdown was "how much time it takes for the wheels of commerce to come off."
The "wheels of commerce" hummed along quite nicely long before the Nanny State, thank you very much. Which brings us back to Tony Palermo.
He may have started out as a mediocre barber, but he stayed in business because people liked him. More important, the free market — not the state — decided to let him keep cutting hair. Last I knew, he was still in business (and had learned more than one hair style).
I'm writing this column on Friday, in advance of the holiday weekend. Whether or not state government is still shut down today, my point is pertinent. We should be constantly looking for large swathes of unnecessary state — and federal — government to shut down — permanently. The shutdown should be seen as a boon — not a boondoggle — to economic freedom and liberty.
"Even though we were only 11 or 12, he'd let us look at his Playboys...."
Now he's serving 20 years.....
LOL - I didn't think that was the best example either.
He probably ceased and desisted when he saw the imminent arrival of the Nanny State.
""Even though we were only 11 or 12, he'd let us look at his Playboys...."
Now he's serving 20 years....."
So funny, 20 years ago it was a right of passage, stealing glances at the big kahunas playboys. Today it is pedophilia.
45 years ago, on the night I was born, my mother sat in the doctors office wondering when the moment will arrive. Apparently she was a couple of cm dilated and wasn't getting any further. Both my mom and the doctor had a cigarette going. The doctor told my mom to have a martini and get to the hospital.
I was born a couple of hours later.
It amazes me how PC we have become over the last 1/4 century. If that happened today, first off, the doctor would get fined for smoking in his office and DYFS would have taken me away because of tobacco abuse by my mother.
There is a whole lot of waste in the state licensing business. In my state nursing home administrators are licensed, but anyone can become a hospital administrator no license needed....go figure.
It was a kinder, gentler time.
I love this guy, and of course, the liberals hate his guts. lol
The only reason the wheels of commerce would start wobbling in the first place is because of the sticks thrust into their spokes by goverment mandates and regulations.
They interviewed a tourist from Wisconsin who was travelling to the Dakotas. This woman went on and on about how un-neighborly it was to close the rest areas and that now she and her family now had to find somewhere else to go to the bathroom and how inconvenient it was. And, worst of all, they couldn't have their picnic so they weren't sure what they were going to do for food. (FYI: This interview took place at a local gas station.) I wonder how long it took them to find this genious.
Pathetic.
"In very serious tones, they described what they apparently felt was one of the most devastating effects of the shut down: the state's highway rest areas are closed."
What they didn't tell you is that only 9,000 of the 50,000 rest stops were closed.
exactly, in the navy anyone can cut hair on board the ship, all you have to do is get a quick medical eval (questionaire) and you can go at it, there is a course you can take, ojt of course, but it is very quick and it deals mostly with sanitation. ships servicemen might have a bit more training in their school.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Right on. Ever notice that when a group petitions for a license requirement, THEY are grandfathered in?
Bears repeating:
The majority — surprise, surprise — are lawyers, the carriers of the disease that's eating our country alive.
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