Although I was never summoned to the restroom by the urinalysis fairy throughout my four years of high school athletics, the possibility for testing was there. But why should athletes take aim at the base of a Dixie cup when no other after-school club endures similar regulations?
It's not like the school board is concerned with the sort of doping characteristic of past East German she-male swimmers. Are athletes just so brutish or so popular that they constitute the sort of student most likely to retreat to the momentary comfort drugs might provide? Maybe coaches just want to ensure their students' health as they push themselves to the limits of their physical abilities.
Believing all students are susceptible to the same addictions, a school board in rural Tecumseh, Okla., feels that all students participating in interscholastic competition should submit to testing. That means no more doing lines between song and dance numbers for chorus members. No steroids for the chess team. The Future Farmers of America can no longer grow its own stash. And I can't imagine how a fellow academic bowler could cope with the pressure of "Battle of the Brains" without a shot or two to take the edge off.
But seriously, this is a step toward wiping our ass with "probable cause" and initiating unrestricted universal testing. Recognizing this, the constitutionality of the extended testing has been challenged and now awaits the Supreme Court's judgment. The Tecumseh program will probably get the axe due to the test results, which did not produce a single nonathlete drug violation during its one year of implementation.
Such a ruling is not only constitutionally sound, it would also provide an outlet for users looking to replace drugs with hobbies outside the realm of Nintendo 64 and prostitution.
Porno Preferences Pose Problems
Speaking of whoring one's body for a quick fix, have you seen "Traffic"? If you have, you'd probably fail to comprehend how a porno industry rep could compare its cinematic artistry with child pornography.
Juxtaposing such polar opposites results from a recent Supreme Court hearing to determine if "virtual" child pornography legally tiptoes around the Child Pornography Prevention Act. Free speech advocates and voyeuristic kiddie molesters everywhere question the 1996 act's decree that it is illegal for any sexually explicit material to "convey the impression" that a real child participates in the act.
So no one should be getting their rocks off to computer-generated images of children acting as pawns in the perverse manifestations of their deviant fantasies. The law exists to protect both the particular child that would be harmed in the filming as well as any children that could be potential targets of vile sexual predators.
H. Louis Sirkin, the attorney representing adult entertainment interests (surely not his own) in the suit, makes the point, "If there's a murder that looks real on the screen, we don't go out and charge anyone with murder."
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True, but then again we don't market bloody violence to stimulate sexual arousal. The moral of such violence is never "flaying people alive is a healthy way to cope with stress." Kiddie porn, however, doesn't deal with physical or mental pain suffered by child victims. Such movies inaccurately depict the crime as a win-win situation for all parties involved.
Watching porn for its plot is like coming to college for an education. It helps pass the time, but you're really there for the entertainment value. Refuting Sirkin's claim, you should see that all "virtual" XXX child pornography falls under the guidance of the CPP Act.
Michael Carlton would gladly whiz in a cup if need be. This is the sort of sacrifice he'd make for you, the reader. Send appreciation to carlton@email.unc.edu.
