TAKE A BITE OUT OF MISINFORMATION AND FEAR

One Night, While Drunkenly Perusing The Internet, I Stumbled Upon A
True Gem.

The National Crime Prevention Council Web site was offering free
copies of its "McGruff the Crime Dog" comic book to anyone who filled
in the required information. With every last shred of sobriety in my
body, I plugged in the appropriate data and then reclined, waiting for
my find to arrive.

Eight weeks later, my McGruff illustrated workbook showed up in the
mailbox.

Like a 13-year-old unwrapping his first Playboy, I ran upstairs to my
room and pored over the comic.

What I discovered horrified me.

I remembered McGruff the Crime Dog as a lovable, anthropomorphic
bloodhound. In a film-noir, Chicago-detective voice altered by a
slight speech impediment, McGruff taught me to tell my parents if I
encountered the "bad touch," to have someone watch as I light Black
Cats and M-80s off in my hand and to inspect all my Halloween candy
for razor blades so I wouldn't become just another bizarre scare
tactic statistic.

After reading this new edition of McGruff, I have come to the chilling
conclusion that our former friend, the crime-fighting mutt, is really
no more than a mere tool for breeding mental disorders into today's
youth. By establishing unwavering truths that are not founded in
reason, McGruff has done a major disservice to the future of our
country. He is dangerous and must be stopped. We need to get Bob
Barker on this pious pooch.

This fear-breeding begins right on the cover of the comic. The list of
topics includes guns, bullies, drugs, alcohol and the contemporary
danger - the Internet.

With each story, McGruff's nephew Scruff and his friends are presented
with a different situation, and Scruff mentally consults his uncle in
a spatial, imaginary thought bubble. Scruff chooses the inevitable
"right," and happiness ensues.

I'm all for warning the youth of today about the dangers of society.
But McGruff instills fear rather than critical thinking skills. There
are no counterarguments made, only blanket statements disguised as
empirical truths.

For example, in the section about drugs and alcohol, McGruff uses the
powers of telepathy to inform Scruff that "Smoking cigarettes is like
licking an ashtray. Alcohol can make you drunk ... and sick. And think
of your parents. Do you want to let them down?" You can just see the
accusatory finger wagging in your face while reading the words. It's
this kind of zealous dogmatic teaching that caused my neurosis and
high anxiety. Now I'm a goddamned bed-wetting overachiever with so
many psychological disorders I make the Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorders look like Cliffs Notes.

If we want to protect children from the dangers we've created, we must
be frank. To protect the innocence of a child, some innocence must be
lost. To tell a youth that bad people exist who do bad things for no
reason is honest. To instill unnecessary fear by preaching that there
exists a supreme right and wrong is narrow-minded.

I love cartoon spokesmen just as much as the next guy. But I'm sorry,
McGruff. Next time you feel like taking a bite out of crime, I have a
suggestion for you: Bite me.