[Boston Herald] Hey, what’s in the news, hmm? Turns out that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is well upon its way to instituting formal regulations on body piercing—rules that, apparently, do not currently exist. They actually seem pretty reasonable, though! Rep. Bruce Ayers (seen in the video on the right) sponsored the bill, which prohibits people under the age of 18 from getting pierced without being accompanied by a parent (ear piercings excluded) and seeks to establish rules regarding cleanliness within shops, which, hey, that’s a good thing. Ayers is a decent chap, by the sounds of things; he makes it very clear that there are body piercing shops that are setting a fine example, and that the goal of these new regulations will not be to marginalize or restrict body art and its practitioners and clients in any way, but rather to ensure that these things are done safely and responsibly. The anchor even plays devil’s advocate and poses the question of how he would respond to people who would reject the age restriction on the basis that the government shouldn’t play a role in telling citizens what to do with their bodies, and even then, he’s convincing enough about not wanting to impose any sort of “nanny state.” The interview is certainly worth a look.

What we’ve linked above, however, is one of your common hilarious editorials about people just freakin’ the hell out when their little demon children coming strolling in the door covered in satanic metals and such. Take it away, columnist Margery Eagan!

When Adam Femino, 23, came home with his latest body art – ear “plugs” that can stretch earlobes to the size of dinner plates – his mother “started to cry.”

The fashion forward might say his plugs, a modest half inch or so, nicely complement his Mohawk and his huge, black FEMINO tattoo dominating his upper arm. Femino says, removing the plugs to reveal an empty cylindrical hole in his lobe, like a mini Ted Williams Tunnel, proved too much for mom.

It’s for the sake of Adam’s mom, and moms everywhere, that I hope state Rep. Bruce Ayers finally gets somewhere today with legislation to outlaw body piercing on anyone under 18 unless accompanied by a parent.

Ha ha, this “Adam” guy sounds like a real weirdo, huh? The circus is that way, crazy! But really, here is a 23-year-old man who has some stretched lobes, and this happens to be the case to which the author chooses to refer when discussing a bill that will restrict body piercing to those under 18 years of age (without a parent present), excluding ear piercings, which are the only piercings the above mentioned scoundrel seems to have. So far, so good! So, so good.

[Consider] this. Almost nobody over 40 has pierced anything save ears, discreetly. Aged 26 to 40? Twenty-two percent have pierced nipples, tongues, whatever. Aged 18 to 25? The numbers rise to 30 percent. And those numbers are three years old, but the latest available from the Pew Research people.

Look around your local high school. It’s an epidemic. Look at your own teenagers. Who knows what dastardly plot they’re hatching?

First of all, nobody over 40 ever gets pierced because, gross, right? Keep your clothes on, grandpa! (We kid, we kid.) Anyway, the last part is very true. If your kids have or want or have ever even thought about body piercings, the least you can do is check their rooms for trenchcoats and bombs and Barack Obama’s hidden birth certificate. It’s for the good of the land!

Ayers said yesterday he does not propose regulating ear “plugs.” So no matter what happens today, we’ll continue enduring those 45 rpm-sized holes in the lobes of skinny, young artists dressed in black, cashiers at Whole Foods and anyone “expressing their individuality,” as Eric Leger, 32, of Hopedale said yesterday. He’s the father of five. He insists his “plugs” and skull tattoos have cramped neither his fathering nor his work as a property manager.

Clearly, he is a liar and thoroughly unfit to father his five (!) children. Someone please tell him to surrender these youngsters to the state, at which point they will be handed over to our fair lady Margery here who will raise them with the proper respect for authority, so as to ensure they do not let their damn earlobes dangle like some filthy stripper’s nipple tassels, which is just not the sort of thing anyone needs to see when they’re grocery shopping.

[Dallas News] Looks like Massachusetts isn’t the only place trying its hand at instituting fancy new regulations! Turns out that the Dallas Police Department is tired of its esteemed police officers looking like common thugs, and is telling its employees that visible tattoos aren’t part of the damn uniform.

The next time you see a Dallas police officer wearing a long-sleeved shirt when it’s hotter than a furnace outside, it may be because he or she is hiding something.

A tattoo.

The department is planning to require police officers to cover up their tattoos, even if it means wearing makeup or a skin-colored patch over a hard-to-obscure place such as the neck or wrist.

“A lot of officers are coming in with tattoos,” said Lt. Andrew Harvey, a police spokesman.

“It’s more normal now than it ever has been,” he said but added that the department wants officers “to display a more professional image.”

Luckily, up here in the wintry north, our officers are free to get tattooed to their hearts’ content, seeing as it is a vast icy tundra where people are discouraged from leaving their homes without several thermal layers, a Gortex-brand jacket and the carcass of a freshly slaughtered Tan-Tan. Dallas, however, is a sweltering sweat-bucket where “Naked Days” are held several times a summer, just to make sure everybody doesn’t die. Now, tattooed police will be the first to go.

Officer Nick Novello has four tattoos on his arms, including an American Indian on his right forearm that was there when he was hired by the city in 1982. He said he believes the department should consider grandfathering in current officers and thinks it’s a mistake to have an across-the-board policy.

“If I got hired in 1982 and had that tattoo on my forearm, how can you expect me to cover my tattoo up in 2009?” Novello asked. “If you have to cover up your arms, they’re going to have a lot of problems staying hydrated. You put a guy in long sleeves and he’s not going out of the car unless it’s an absolute emergency” during the hot summer months.

Novello, who also has an eagle bursting out of an American flag on his left arm, said he can understand requiring officers to cover up tattoos if they are offensive in some way.

“In culture at large, tattoos are extremely prevalent,” he said. “We’re not divorced from society at large.”

This seems like a reasonable solution—some sort of grandfather policy would surely need to be put into place, unless the DPD really wants to be a bunch of pricks. It makes perfect sense to want your police officers to abide by a certain sense of decorum, and “inappropriate” tattoos should surely be discouraged or left covered, but are you really going to tell a 20-plus-year veteran of the force with an American flag tattoo to shut it down and wear a goddamn snowsuit in the middle of a Texas summer? Come on now.

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