KID'S LESSON ON PARTY POLITICS GOES DOWN EASY.Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY Dennis McCarthy may refer to:
The kid's pushing 12 - time to sit him down for The Talk. No, not that talk. The other talk. The one about what's really messing up this country. Party politics. Yeah, I know, dicey dic·ey adj. dic·i·er, dic·i·est Involving or fraught with danger or risk: "an extremely dicey future on a brave new world of liquid nitrogen, tar, and smog" New Yorker. stuff for a kid. He may still be a little young for such graphic language and violence, but I figure he's got to learn it's out there - waiting for him to turn 18 and step into a voting booth. The time comes when we all have to cut our kids loose from the apron strings to see if they'll sink or swim in this swamp, right? Look at my own father. He waited too long to give me the talk, and it set me back a decade. I grew up thinking LBJ and Nixon were telling the truth. I wasn't going to make the same mistake with my kid. I figured if he could handle professional wrestling Noun 1. professional wrestling - wrestling for money sport - the occupation of athletes who compete for pay rassling, wrestling, grappling - the sport of hand-to-hand struggle between unarmed contestants who try to throw each other down , "Melrose Place  This article or section needs copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone and/or spelling.You can assist by [ editing it] now. ," and the local news on TV without showing any outward sign of aberrant aberrant /ab·er·rant/ (ah-ber´ant) (ab´ur-ant) wandering or deviating from the usual or normal course. ab·er·rant adj. 1. behavior, he could handle watching the 1996 presidential race. Besides, the timing seemed right, what with Abe Lincoln and George Washington's birthdays putting kids in the right frame of mind for a civics civics, branch of learning that treats of the relationship between citizens and their society and state, originally called civil government. With the large immigration into the United States in the latter half of the 19th cent. lesson this week by giving them two Mondays off from school so they can roam the streets and get into trouble while their parents are at work. I decided to throw caution to the winds, and cut to the political chase with my kid - bypassing Washington chopping down the cherry tree, Lincoln freeing the slaves, or any of that textbook stuff my generation had to learn before we grew up and got to the good stuff in the newspapers. The in-fighting, sex scandals, and dirty back-room deals that make our political system and politicians the envy of the world. I let the kid watch the Republican presidential candidates debate from New Hampshire New Hampshire, one of the New England states of the NE United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts (S), Vermont, with the Connecticut R. forming the boundary (W), the Canadian province of Quebec (NW), and Maine and a short strip of the Atlantic Ocean (E). on Thursday night on CNN CNN or Cable News Network Subsidiary company of Turner Broadcasting Systems. It was created by Ted Turner in 1980 to present 24-hour live news broadcasts, using satellites to transmit reports from news bureaus around the world. . Yeah, I know, a pretty graphic start, but I had to find out if he had the stomach for this game. Could he handle all the screaming, finger pointing, and name calling, or would he wimp out and want to watch "Friends" with his mother? To be fair, I put a warning label on the debate before it began. "These are Republicans you'll be watching fight tonight, son, but I want you to know the Democrats can be just as mean, low-down and dirty when they're trying to grab back the White House," I warned him. He seemed to like that, especially the mean, low-down, dirty part. I think it reminded him a lot of WWF See Windows Workflow Foundation. tag team wrestling Tag Team Wrestling is a 1983 arcade video game developed by Technos Japan and released in the U.S. by Data East. In 1986, the game was ported to the Famicom and the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). . The kid proved to be a natural-born political skeptic, picking right up on the absurdity of calling a fight a debate. "Why are they yelling and mad at each other when it's President Clinton they want to beat up?" he asked. "Because they have to destroy each other first, and then the winner gets to fight President Clinton for the White House," I answered. "This is called a primary." The kid smiled. "Then a primary's like steel cage wrestling, where only one guy walks out the winner?" Exactly, I said, my heart swelling with pride. The kid was picking up on dirty politics faster than I ever did. "Will we know who wins tonight?" he asked. "No, this is just a debate. The primary vote is Tuesday night." "Then we'll know Tuesday who will fight President Clinton?" "No, not exactly. There are fights like this in every state, and the winner of most of them goes on to fight President Clinton in November for the White House." The kid sighed. He wanted to see the bloodied hand of the winner of the White House raised tonight before he went to bed, not way off in November sometime. Besides, I could tell he was getting a little bored watching a bunch of old guys yelling at each other, but throwing no punches - not even one headlock. I couldn't blame him. I was getting a little bored of the screaming and finger pointing myself. "Had enough?" I asked him. He nodded, and I flipped on the UCLA UCLA University of California at Los Angeles UCLA University Center for Learning Assistance (Illinois State University) UCLA University of Carrollton, TX and Lower Addison, TX basketball game. All in all, I think the kid had a very successful first outing in politics. One or two more presidential debate warmups, and I figure he'll be ready for the Whitewater hearings. |
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