HEY! Watch that fucking language in California this week!Oh, shoot! Not Cuss-Free Week!
Posted: 02/26/2010 08:13:59 PM PST
You are hanging a picture in the front room when the hammer misses the nail and hits your finger. Instantly, some kind of colorful expletive passes your lips, and it isn't "Oh, shoot."
If it were up to Assemblyman Anthony Portantino of La Cañada Flintridge, you would owe the kitty for that utterance and every time you cuss. At least during the first week in March, which he and fellow legislator Cameron Smyth want to declare as California's Cuss Free Week.
Of course, Portantino and Smyth's idea is voluntary and so there would be no real fines. That's why their measure is an Assembly Concurrent Resolution and not a bill that carries the potential of becoming law.
The idea, you might remember, comes from the then-14-year-old in South Pasadena, McKay Hutch, who started a No Cussing Club at his junior high in 2007. McKay thought if people didn't cuss, they would be more likely to stay away from violence, drugs, pornography and turn their thoughts to more productive things. Part of his club's positive message was to "leave people better than you found them."
It's hard to argue with such a sentiment.
These days, civility is a lost art. Our legislators and members of Congress tear each other down with sharp tongues, and the Twitter-obsessed and 24-hour cable news cycle report every line while viewers lap it up. There's even one celebrity, popular pop singer/songwriter John Mayer, who is known for tweeting when he breaks wind. Seems that vulgarity is in.
One can't listen to a rap song without being barraged by the obscenity. People in the grocery store line, the bank line or just on the street are yakking away into their cell phones using all sorts of four-letter words and topics of conversation you don't have any desire to hear.
Often, the profanity is within earshot of our young children or grandchildren. One story Portantino likes to tell is when he got a phone call in his home and put it on speaker phone. When the caller resorted to cuss words, he switched off the speaker but not before his children could hear every four-letter word.
To kick off the week, Portantino and Smyth will give each legislator a cuss jar. Portantino advanced his jar $5 - sort of a modern version of a medieval indulgence.
McKay's idea has caught on and spread to 100 clubs in schools and churches with 35,000 members, according to the resolution. Seems that the Legislature may be the next place for this movement to sprout.
If only the cuss jars were kept in the halls of Sacramento and in every single town in California. The money raised would be enough to retire the state's $20 billion budget debt.
http://www.sbsun.com/editorial/ci_14480473
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