BY PETER BRONSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Try to imagine someone more obnoxious than Dennis Rodman, more juvenile than shock jocks on WEBN and more rude and delinquent than the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee.
If your mental TV just tuned in President Bill Clinton biting his lip and wagging his finger - close, but no cigar. Change the channel to someone who actually has an alibi for being on the Most Wanted list for arrested development:
A genuine juvenile delinquent.
As you can see, the specimen we have selected is shrink-wrapped in Levis, has exotically weird hair and wears a Marlboro dangling from a mouthful of profanities - just like the prehistoric "hoods" and "hippies" who evolved into modern "punks" and "skaters."
Take it from a former "troublemaker," anti-social adolescents wear a carefully designed uniform of non-conformity for a reason: To defy authority, you must first draw attention. Pierced body parts are just another way of shouting, "Look at me so I can tell you to stop looking at me!"
So who should tell these mall-rats and video-arcade vagrants to stop smoking? The answer chosen in the historic tobacco-extortion settlement is as strange as a pierced tongue: Government.
That's right, hundreds of billions will be spent to send state and federal authority figures to scold teen smokers to "Cut it out. And while you're at it, turn down that music."
It's like sending Ken Starr to lecture Bill Clinton on ethics. Good luck.
Here's a better idea.
Let's use the money for something that matters: Abused and neglected children.
There's even the kind of remote connection do-gooders love. The tobacco prohibitionists who think teen smoking is more hazardous than unsafe sex have declared that cigarettes are an "addictive drug." Most child abuse is linked to drug abuse; so use tobacco billions for victims of child abuse.
Politicians who say everything from battleships to turnip research is "for the children" have an chance to actually do something for abused and neglected kids who really need help.
At the Children's Home of Northern Kentucky, state aid covers only about 90 percent of the costs to house and care for boys who have been severely abused. The average cost per day for each boy is $172. And the state's "allowable" reimbursement is not keeping up with treatment needs.
"The incidence is increasing rapidly, and the severity is increasing rapidly," said Executive Director Kathy Stephens. The Children's Home and other homes for neglected and abused kids in Kentucky have sued the state to recover unpaid costs.
On the Ohio side of the river, public funding equals 60 percent to 90 percent of costs, depending on the case, said Jim Mason of Beech Acres in Anderson Township. "Nationally, funding is 75 percent to 85 percent of costs," he said. "There is a fragmented public-funding system."
In Arizona, the average cost to care for abused and neglected children at Tucson's Casa de los Ninos is $115. The state provides $80 - about 70 percent.
For the record: I'm biased about child abuse. I'm a board member at the Children's Home of Northern Kentucky. Before that I served on the board of the Casa in Tucson. Before that I was a volunteer there. And before that I wrote news stories about child abuse victims who still haunt my memories with snapshots of ugly cider-colored bruises, purple scald marks, giant-sized handprints on tiny bodies and sad, tearless eyes pleading, "Help me."
The people who try to mend the damage say it is getting worse. There are many reasons: broken families, alcoholism, drug abuse and a culture that is too morally deaf to get involved in "private matters" that are "nobody's business."
The typical child molester is a relative; the typical child beater is the live-in boyfriend of a single mom who doesn't do anything to stop it.
And while the children are being terrorized, tortured and raped, do-gooders want to spend billions on government programs to stop teen smoking - "for the children."
Put the government in charge of deserts and we'll have a shortage of sand. Put government in charge of teen smoking, and there will be a national shortage of Kools, as teens light up just to annoy authority.
I'd say anyone who thinks Joe Camel is a bigger threat to kids than child abuse fits the description: genuine juvenile delinquent.
Peter Bronson is editorial page editor of The Enquirer. If you have questions or comments, call 768-8301, or write to 312 Elm Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202.
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