Along with the arrest of suspected "Shoe Bomber", Phillip Reid, has come a
new outcry for shoe control. Amid reports that Imelda Marcus recognized
photos of Reid, activists on both sides of the volatile question rushed to
make charges and countercharges.
"We should have known something like this would happen, what with everyone
just running around with un-registered shoes", said Harvard professor Alan
Dershowitz. "Not so", said actor Tom Selleck, long time shoe proponent and
president of the powerful NSA, National Shoe Association. "Shoes don't kill
people, matches kill people", he said. "There are plenty of shoe control laws
on the books now, if we only enforced them".
While editorials in the Tennessean, Boston Globe, Washington Post, and the
L.A. Times advocated further legislation to force people to register their
shoes, citizens throughout the country expressed their love affair with
shoes.
In Texas, where shoes are considered a part of the rugged image, Harold
Murphy stated defiantly, "Damn right, I own un-registered shoes. Keep a pair
right next to my bed. You let some intruder enter my house late at night,
he'll get a pointy- toed cowboy boot up his ass". In the hills of East
Tennessee, Thomas Greene said he only has two bumper stickers on the bumper
of his rusted-out pickup truck. One deals with prying shoes off cold dead
toes, while the other proudly states, "Tom Selleck is MY president!"
Hopefully, a compromise can be reached. Perhaps shoe education and efforts to
keep shoes away from children, a tradition that has worked well for
generations in Mississippi.
Selleck added in closing, "Remember, if shoes are outlawed, only outlaws will
have shoes".
Reporting from the battleground, I am Geraldo Rivera at the Payless Shoe
Store right here in Nashville, Tennessee. (Whoa, was that a brogan that just
sailed past my head?!!)
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