By Jim Hagarty
1994
The interesting thing about news is that readers can never predict, with any certainty, what it is they’ll be confronted with on the front page of their paper from day to day. Yes, there are government budget stories, elections and scandals, civil wars and natural disasters. And then there are endless ramblings about the economy, the recession, the recovery, the interest rates, blah, blah, blah.
But who could have guessed one of the hot stories of the past few weeks would be about an American teenager being caned with a rattan reed across his bare buttocks as his punishment for vandalizing a bunch of cars in Singapore? Not since Lorena Bobbitt dealt out a bit of punishment of her own a while back, has such a bizarre story made the headlines.
And while the story couldn’t have been predicted, the reaction to it was anything but a surprise. Michael Fay’s bum rap has, of course, touched off a North American firestorm of discussion about the “issue” of corporal punishment and whether or not our society is too lenient with offenders.
What’s to discuss? Of course we’re too lenient. What we need, especially in this country, is a bunch of canings. Maybe even a few floggings. And to heck with this behind-closed-doors nonsense. Let’s have ’em right out in public and show ’em live on CNN.
If Michael Fay got four lashes for painting up a few cars, then the following North American offenders deserve the various punishments listed below.
• Ontario Premier Bob Rae – eight slaps on the you-know-what with a long piece of a used tire for not allowing companies to burn tires for fuel, preferring instead to see them pile up in ditches and woodlots;
• Ontario Attorney General Marion Boyd – ten flips of a rolled-up wad of legal paper for treating Ontario residents with contempt by churlishy muttering “no comment” to questions about what’s going on in the Paul Bernardo murder trial as if it was absolutely none of our business;
• American comic actor Roseanne Barr – ten snaps of her husband’s bathtowel on the place in which she’s been such a pain for the past few years. As she has been known to “moon” large crowds of people for fun, getting her to prepare for her punishment might not be the problem it would at first appear to be;
• Former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney – twelve smacks on the backside with Jean Chretien’s Red Book for wanting a $60,000 private washroom built at the National Archives for his convenience while he works on his “papers”;
• National Parole Board member Gil Bellavance – fourteen claps from an inmate’s belt, two for each of the seven people who were murdered because he released five notorious criminals who continued killing when they hit the streets. As well, two extra flips of the belt for taking no responsibility for his decisions and calling criticisms of him, “cheap shots”;
• The person who invented TV “infomercials”, those half-hour carnival barker’s dream come true designed to drive late-night viewers crazy – twenty smacks from a rope made out of shredded TV Guides.
Administered personally by yours truly.
