State Rep. Alvin Holmes (D-Montgomery) has introduced a bill that tackles that pressing problem of the State of Alabama. No, not high unemployment or crime or foreclosures. He is moving a bill that would ban saggy pants. That’s right, the legislature of Alabama is close to passing a statewide ban on saggy pants. The only thing more questionable than its constitutionality is its necessity. While it may put him at odds with Arizona Democratic state Rep. Katie Hobbs to require airbrushing of any saggy images, they both seem to be working off the sense of legislative priorities.
For the record, I find saggy pants to be facially moronic and I will not deny that I find them disturbing. However, I find a lot of things disturbing in the modern culture. I find the song Muskrat Love to be deeply disturbing, but I do not advocate banning Muskrat Love or calling for the arrest of Captain & Tennille . . . well, not banning Muskrat Love.
Holmes bill passed the House by a 59-0 vote on Thursday. It only applies to wearing saggy pants in public. You can still prance around in your saggies at home.
Source: ABC
I am sure the plumbers may have something to say about this bill.
If this won’t fix a plumbers crack….I am unsure what will…The audacity of them folks….
Otteray,
All men with beer bellies better beware the saggy pants police!
AY,
A plumber’s crack is cleavage of another kind.
How is the amount of saggalocity in the pantaloons determined?
Are officers going to be trained to evaluate the difference between 1 inch of sag, and 2 inches of sag?
Just what will be the threshold of measurement of droop to snugness be in determining probable cause for ticketing or arrest?
Oh! Hell I can’t even continue this asinine post.
Off Topic Inquiry…..
Surprised JT hasn’t written on the new “Personhood” law in VA. I’m anxious to know if it is probable that it will be challenged in the courts and if you expect that the challenge will be successful.
What !!! With the airbrushing of models problem running amok they have time to fool with saggy pants. Saints preserve us.
Curious,
Read this:
Virginia’s Proposed Ultrasound Law Is an Abomination
Under the new legislation, women who want an abortion will be forcibly penetrated for no medical reason. Where’s the outrage?
By Dahlia Lithwick
Posted Thursday, Feb. 16, 2012
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2012/02/virginia_ultrasound_law_women_who_want_an_abortion_will_be_forcibly_penetrated_for_no_medical_reason.single.html#pagebreak_anchor_2
Excerpt:
This week, the Virginia state Legislature passed a bill that would require women to have an ultrasound before they may have an abortion. Because the great majority of abortions occur during the first 12 weeks, that means most women will be forced to have a transvaginal procedure, in which a probe is inserted into the vagina, and then moved around until an ultrasound image is produced. Since a proposed amendment to the bill—a provision that would have had the patient consent to this bodily intrusion or allowed the physician to opt not to do the vaginal ultrasound—failed on 64-34 vote, the law provides that women seeking an abortion in Virginia will be forcibly penetrated for no medical reason. I am not the first person to note that under any other set of facts, that would constitute rape under state law.
What’s more, a provision of the law that has received almost no media attention would ensure that a certification by the doctor that the patient either did or didn’t “avail herself of the opportunity” to view the ultrasound or listen to the fetal heartbeat will go into the woman’s medical record. Whether she wants it there or not. I guess they were all out of scarlet letters in Richmond.
So the problem is not just that the woman and her physician (the core relationship protected in Roe) no longer matter at all in deciding whether an abortion is proper. It is that the physician is being commandeered by the state to perform a medically unnecessary procedure upon a woman, despite clear ethical directives to the contrary. (There is no evidence at all that the ultrasound is a medical necessity, and nobody attempted to defend it on those grounds.) As an editorial in the Virginian-Pilot put it recently, “Under any other circumstances, forcing an unwilling person to submit to a vaginal probing would be a violation beyond imagining. Requiring a doctor to commit such an act, especially when medically unnecessary, and to submit to an arbitrary waiting period, is to demand an abrogation of medical ethics, if not common decency.”*
Well….Maybe they can air brush this out….Or….maybe they can declare them enemy combatants and detain them for national security purposes….
People take issue with this?
Elaine,
Don’t forget this is lunch time for some…and some reason or another I just lost my appetite….
Elaine, Thank you for pointing out the need for an invasive ultrasound if very early in the pregnancy. I think there are about a half dozen states that already require ultrasounds and I hadn’t connected the dots. I guess states can regulate that. But what about this “personhood” at conception – which would seem to eliminate all abortion? Your thoughts on that…
Elaine M:
I suspect a quick injunction barring effect of this law until the grown-ups at the Robinson/Merhige Federal Building can knock it out all together. It’s just the General Assembly pandering to the torch and pitchfork crowd again. It’s quite the sport now that the Republicans have an practical majorities in both the VA House and VA Senate. We’re all wondering when they will pass a state holiday honoring Massive Resistance. Anytime now. And if Gov. Bob McDonnell want to be VP on the Romney ticket, he’ll sign it, of course.
Hope you’re right, Mespo. Another reason I detest the politics in this state. The throwbacks are always trying to one up each other. And the one-term-only governor never has to take responsibility for consequences.
——————-
On the subject of the lead post: “This is a serious country, people, and don’t you ever forget it.”
— Alfred E. Newman (I think)
NSAfixer. Steppin for TalkinDog here:
I would wiggle a jury trial on a prosecution for wearing saggy pants. As defense counsel I would wear shorts so as not to appear too saggy pants. Then I would subpoena the sponsor of the bill to court. Ask her to tell the jury just what is wrong with this kids saggy pants. Are they below his Anthony Weiner? Do they mock his Aftro hair style? Do they offend the Confederate Flag? Do they offend the Ten Commandments?
It would be a fun trial.
Curious,
A vaginal ultrasound is very different from the usual type of ultrasound performed on a pregnant woman.
One has to consider what effect a personhood bill could have on a woman who suffers a miscarriage/spontaneous abortion. I wrote a post last year about Bobby Franklin, a Georgia legislator who introduced legislation that would have required proof that a woman’s miscarriage was the result of natural causes. If a woman couldn’t prove that, she could could have been charged with a felony if the legislation passed:
The Right’s War on Women Continues…at the State Level
http://jonathanturley.org/2011/02/19/the-rights-war-on-women-continues-at-the-state-level/
My thoughts: This kind of personhood/anti-woman legislation is scary. It makes me think we could be heading toward some type of dystopian society–at least for women–if we aren’t ever vigilant.
Alabama, as usual, lags behind the brilliant progressives in the Florida legislature, who adopted a baggy pants prohibition a year ago. And I’ll bet those folks are still using 3G.
Elaine, I don’t know the laws in other states, but in California it is assault and battery if a physician or nurse touches a patient without consent. The procedure now being legislated would be rape by instrumentality. One law would be in direct conflict with the other, in requiring doctors to commit rape, in order to obey the new law. If this passes, I’d recommend that doctors take it to court.
An American Tragedy…2012
First they came for the baggy pants,
and I didn’t speak out because I still had my oversize orange shoes.
Then they came for the oversize orange shoes,
and I didn’t speak out because I still had my red stick-on nose.
Then they came for the red stick-on noses,
and I didn’t speak out because I still had my slapstick.
Then they came for the slapsticks,
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
(Inspired by and plagiarized from Pastor Martin Niemoller)
Aye, Henman, but I bet it’ll be a different story when they come for the bobcats.
Gene H.-
The last guy who came for the bobcats was “Stumpy” Johnson.
When one of my sons was 12, his circle of friends thought that the uniform of a skateboarder should include size 52 black jeans cinched at the waist and rolled up at the cuffs, a heavy metal band t-shirt, and a Fedora worn backwards. Since I wouldn’t let him shave his head, get a Mohawk, color his hair with a tube-writer, or pierce any body parts; I let him have his baggy black jeans. (He got really offended when retail store clerks followed him throughout the premises.)
At a later teacher conference with one of his 8th grade teachers (who’d also allowed the size 52 pants), I was asked if I had some old clothes stashed in my attic or basement. I told her that I had a box of old clothes in my garage attic and hadn’t seen them in years. She told me that my son had handed out bags to 10 or 12 male friends. The boys all started arriving in blue and yellow striped jeans or 1970s flared corduroy pants (forest ranger green, powder blue, maroon), shirts with collars to their elbows, and pullover sweater vests. She made it clear that she was sharing an amusing story – not complaining.
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/08/10355099-texas-begins-enforcing-strict-anti-abortion-sonogram-law The republican super majority in Texas passed the most extreme anti-abortion measure last year. Now it is being put into practice. Virginia’s might be more extreme.
Oh NO!
This will destroy one of the tenets of revolution, and restore one of the tenets of propaganda … (covering up assholes)!
It could wipe out years of academic advance brought on by researchers, by Agnotologists … a moment of silence please … as a tear trickles down a crack hole …
I’d like to see a sensible licensing arrangement for mini skirts. Only women who could pass the inspection, having the right kind of legs and figure would be licensed to wear them.
Dennis-
Great story! When I was in high school there was a fad for wearing slacks that had a small 6 inch cloth belt sewn on the back just above the pockets. The belt had a small metal buckle in the center. After my Mom noticed that there were scratches on the wooden backs of the dining room chairs my brother and I sat in, the belts suddenly disappeared from the belt-in-the-back pants. The other guys were soon beltless, too- end of fad!
Bette Noir: “The procedure now being legislated would be rape by instrumentality. One law would be in direct conflict with the other, in requiring doctors to commit rape, in order to obey the new law.”
———–
Right, it’s only transvaginal ultrasound if it’s voluntary, it’s object rape if it’s not. It didn’t take long for the Republican lege in Virginia to get to their bottom line regarding women.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
When I see baggies I think it’s cute. The last time the young man had the tip of a couple of his fingers in a belt loop and that hand pressed firmly to his lower hip (but with the fingers slightly curled so it looked casual) to keep his pants from falling and all the while he was working diligently to walk, carry a bag full of stuff with his other hand and look totally cool. It’s hard to look good in baggiess and I found this guy’s commitment to fashion endearing. I have noticed that fingers in loop/hand on hip as a prerequisite; it always makes me smile. Makes me think of the weird and often difficult to wear fashion I wore at that age, LOL, good times. Leave the kids alone.
http://jimmyroger.blogspot.com/2012/01/baggy.html
It’s incredible busy bodies like this ever get elected?!! I mean is this part of his platform? What were the elderly complaining that the “whipper-snappers” should pull up their pants and he decided to legislate it? It’s absurd what some people in politics claim to do in the name of the people. It’s the farthest from the truth, it’s small minded men like this that seem to make it into politics and simply want to control others, someone find a picture of this man with baggy pants and he’ll remove the law.
“Leave the kids alone.” (lotta)
second that
What has the world come to when the people in power are more woried about their next election than the long term affects of the idiotic laws they force onto people or even care when what they are doing tramples peoples rights. I may be some dumb kid, and i do belive it is inappropriate to sagg your pants but to address something this miniscule when there are real problems that are causing real harm to people every day makes me dread what the future has instore for us.
Saggy pants or saggy mind..which shall I choose?
Another vote for “Leave the kids alone.”
The history I heard is that belts were not allowed in jail and so many young men were in jail at one time or another that they, and their friends in solidarity, adopted the beltless, baggy look.
I approached an intersection and saw two young men on a street corner fighting. Each was trying to get in punches (unsuccessfully) while also holding up their pants (also unsuccessfully). I had to pull over I was laughing so hard.
As already said: leave the kids alone.
Bettykath: “I approached an intersection and saw two young men on a street corner fighting. Each was trying to get in punches (unsuccessfully) while also holding up their pants (also unsuccessfully).”
Were they squinting into the sun, while wearing backward caps?
funny thing is alvin has just discovered the reason why kids wear baggy pants.
Ben, Were they squinting into the sun, while wearing backward caps?
——
This was at night. Maybe they had caps for the street lights – a detail that I might have missed. : )
NRA Bumper Sticker:
If saggy pants are outlawed, only saggy outlaws will have pants.