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Honolulu Lite
I wanted to say some snotty things about state Sen. Rod Tam's plan to give state workers naptime and snacks, but everyone beat me to it. Editorial writers, cartoonists, letter-to-the-editor contributors, disc jockeys, comedians, internet wags, spray-paint graffiti artists, sky writers, crossword puzzle creators and mentalists all piled on Tam's goofy idea and smashed it to bits, leaving not a crumb for a professional investigative humorist to play with, damn their eyes. Capitol volcano
spews sillinessEasy ones like that don't come along too often. So, Mr. Tam, please fax me all of your proposed bills beforehand so I have a decent chance to make fun of them before everyone else.
I love this time of year, though. You never know what kind of zany ideas will come wafting out of that big square building. The capitol is built to resemble a volcano and oh what spews forth!
A caucus of women representatives is proposing a law, for instance, that allows "spouses" to physically protect themselves if they are physically or psychologically abused by their mates.
THE idea, I believe, is to give women the legal right to blow their husbands away while they sleep if the husbands have been mean to them.
Unfortunately, in their effort to camouflage their intentions by using the word "spouse" instead of "drunken idiot husband," they've opened the way for the "self-defense" to be a two-way street. Such a law might allow a husband to smack around his wife is he feels psychologically abused by constant nagging.
The women of the Legislature are being a bit reckless here. Everyone already has a legal right to self-defense, even to the point of using deadly force if the situation calls for it.
What women want is a little more leeway to retaliate since they are generally on the losing end of any physical altercation.
That's understandable. But this proposal would escalate violence in the home, not decrease it.
Besides, there already are court cases that cover this problem. Back when I had to work for a living, I covered a number of federal court trials over incidents where women killed or attempted to kill their husbands. One lady fed her partner a sandwich laced with about 200 hits of LSD, not knowing that you can't die from an LSD overdose, you just get really, really messed up. When that didn't work, she had her boy friend stab him to death. All in all, a weird, bad week for the husband.
In another case, the wife poked her husband with a knife several times in the chest, got a lucky nick on a major artery, and left him spewing blood like the Blow Hole in the hallway.
She didn't mean to kill him, she said. She had stabbed the gentleman many times in the past and he never died on her.
In the old days, the defense was simply that the guy was a creep so she killed him. Juries didn't appreciate the subtleties of that defense and usually sent the wife to the slammer.
Then women started using the "battered-spouse defense," in which the woman claimed she had to kill the creep because he abused her. Most of these guys were killed as they slept because, hey, it's easier that way. Juries were warmer to the "I Just Couldn't Take It Anymore" defense and some women have used it to beat the rap.
The women's caucus proposal would shore up that defense, should it ever become law. But it won't. Most legislators are men. And while those of Mr. Tam's ilk may be severely nap-impaired, they are not suicidal.
Charles Memminger, winner of
National Society of Newspaper Columnists
awards in 1994 and 1992, writes "Honolulu Lite"
Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Write to him at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, 96802
or send E-mail to charley@nomayo.com or
71224.113@compuserve.com.
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