Anguiano Held Hostage: Day 151

Over the holidays, I was occasionally asked what it was like to live in Lafayette.  My usual answer was simple:  fattening.  I have a theory that the best food emerges in areas where the people can’t go out and do anything else with their time.  Living in a swamp, for example, is great incentive to stay indoors and learn to cook.  Of course, the “baby, it’s cold outside” theory doesn’t explain Scottish cuisine, but they’re all drunk anyway, so they won’t mind eating it as long as it doesn’t bite back.

Living in Lafayette has definitely been an adjustment.  Tallahassee, with the state capital and a major (if annoying) university, has more diversity might be expected for a southern city of its size and geographic isolation.  Lafayette does not.  With neither a huge university nor a state capital to boast, Lafayette is smaller, a bit more conservative, and distinctly less diverse than Tallahassee.

I certainly can’t think of any other reason why I’ve been getting such odd looks.  It surely wouldn’t be the tropical shirts.

Unfortunately, developments of recent weeks have illustrated some of the problems with living in a more conservative area.  I speak, of course, of the “I sed bad wurds” controversy.  Back in November, a young boy was disciplined by a teacher:  when asked by another student about his mother being ‘gay’, the boy explained that gay means when a girl likes a girl.  I doubt that I really need to go into any more detail, since the story made front-page national news.  If you need to get more background information, go to any online search engine and use the keywords “Lafayette”, “gay”, “ACLU”, and “stupid dumbass redneck half-witted moronic inbred clueless shit-for-brains useless school system”.

The alert reader might infer some level of personal opinion.

Of course, later news reports might not have covered the school board’s ham-fisted denial of homophobia, asserting that the boy was engaging in disruptive behavior and that he was not being disciplined for saying “gay.”  The superintendent of schools stood behind the teacher.  Indeed, much of the community has rallied around the teacher, the superintendent, and the general cause of aggrieved stupidity.  A popular opinion is that the real villain in this melodrama is the ACLU.

I have my own opinion, but I’ll get around to it later.

The local newspaper is called the Daily Advertiser, part of the Gannett chain.  Sitting on the desk in front of me is the December 30^th edition, with which I have been loathe to part.  Across the top is the masthead and a banner headline:  “LSU roots won’t sway Sooner players.”  Across the bottom is an advertisement for the Shangri-La restaurant, featuring sushi and hibachi.  Somewhere in the middle, below the fold, is a small headline which I find to be a heartwarming source of irony.

“CDC:  La. holds worst gonorrhea rate in nation”

Inspiring, isn’t it?  We’re so proud that we were able to hold onto this title for the second consecutive year.  Of course, the pride doesn’t stop there.  Louisiana is also ranked in the top 5 for chlamydia.  This state was even No. 2 for syphilis as recently as 1999, but that has sadly dropped in recent years to our current ranking of No. 7.  Thankfully, the state is being proactive on the matter by ensuring that abstinence is the only message about sex which reaches students in Louisiana schools.  Condom use or monogamy might serve to mitigate the spread of sexually transmitted disease, so those options are certainly not to be advertised.

Fortunately, we can be sure that this message is reaching our young people as clearly as possible.  The article goes on to note that Louisiana perennially has one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy and motherhood.

It’s a proud achievement.  I’m proud.  Aren’t you proud?  We’re all very proud around here.  Which brings me to my opinion, which is this:

People are stupid.

Try to stay with me on this one, because it’s brilliant.

We’ve got a basic refusal to understand simple cause and effect.  See, there is this stuff called puberty that involves hormones, and kids develop it eventually.  Sexual interest usually follows, to some degree, and sexual behavior will usually follow that.  By stubbornly refusing to openly address issues of sex with the very people who are most likely to engage in it, we thereby make sure that they’re not likely to get it right and consequently we maximize the most negative consequences possible.  After all, you can’t just bitch about how society is going to hell, you have to pitch in and do your part to make sure that it gets there.

I think we should take drivers education out of the schools, too, but that might just be going a little too far.