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Surgeon Generals and Other Generals (Generally Speaking)
Bring on the brass!
By Ed Goldman
The surgeon general of the United States, who doesn’t have to be either a surgeon or a general (though the current one, Vivek Murthy, is an actual physician), has again weighed in with warning labels—this time the target audience is parents and the targeted villain is social media.
In the past, the villain’s been cigarettes—and according to every statistic I can dig up, that label warning, combined with an endless flow of public service announcements, really did accomplish something: smoking declined “from 20.9% (nearly 21 of every 100 adults) in 2005 to 11.5% (nearly 12 of every 100 adults) in 2021,” according to the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Sneezy writer
If the anti-social media label works, I think we should appoint a lot more faux-generals to help things along. For example…:
The STURGEON GENERAL of the United States could command spawning salmon to get their fishtails up those ladders in military double-time. He or she could also inspect the seafood sold in delicatessens for taste and cream-cheese compatibility.
A MERGIN’ GENERAL could stand in the middle of the freeway with a blowhorn to remind drivers how to gracefully slide from one lane into another without resorting to road rage. Because of the location, this would qualify the officer for combat pay, especially on days when repaving and its resultant lane closures are scheduled during Rush Hour.
The country’s SPLURGIN’ GENERAL could be deployed to everyone from lottery winners to employees who get unexpectedly generous year-end bonuses, and to youngsters who receive cash gifts for their bar or bat mitzvahs, confirmations or quinceañeras—though the latter, who are 15 year-old girls, will likely have already learned to spend. The SG would be there to make sure recipients didn’t blow their bounty on time-shares in Fallujah (lottery winners), lifetime passes to Taylor Swift concerts (bar and bat mitzvah kids) or 25-carat nose rings (las quinceañeras chicas).
Holders of garage sales may want to hire a PURGIN’ GENERAL to make sure that temporary proprietors, in a burst of enthusiasm, don’t let neighbors walk off with their not-for-sale kitchen tables, waffle irons, labradoodles or hybrid SUVs. The PG will help you choose between what you really want to rid yourself of and what you feel a need to hang onto. Teens living in their parents basements should stay on alert until the sale is over.
Every farmer’s market should erect a kiosk to house a MERCHANT GENERAL to help buyers choose between actual fresh produce and mangos still bearing Safeway labels. A catchy motto to hang on the MG’S booth may be “Don’t Get Farmed-and-Forked Over.”
Public tot-lots, which now need to carry about $20 million in liability insurance, would benefit by bringing in an URCHIN GENERAL—a retired “old-school” kindergarten teacher who realizes it’s perfectly natural for children to fall off slides, self-propelled merry-go-rounds and one another without making a federal case out of it. As you may have guessed, the UG’s main task will be to supervise hovering parents, whose excessive protectionism is undoubtedly a bigger cause of playground accidents than monkey bars.
Then we have the PERSIAN GENERAL, who’ll be on hand at local carpet stores that hold going-out-of-business sales every three weeks. This individual—who, similar to the Surgeon General’s needing to be neither a sugeon nor a general—doesn’t have to be Persian or hold a military rank. If bald, he or she may opt to wear a festive Persian rug on his or her scalp but storeowners aren’t required to purchase those. The experienced Persian Generals will bring their own, just as top clowns and Kardashians do their own makeup.
You’ll want to keep the contact info for the DIRGIN’ GENERAL in your phone in case the singer you’d hired for the funeral of someone you despised catches a last-minute cold or flight to the Bahamas. The DGs maintain a vast repertoire of elegies and Taylor Swift breakup songs they can sing from at the drop of a nemesis.
Finally, the URGIN’ GENERAL is a sort of “floater,” moving among each of the above-named generals to encourage them in their work, inspect their military bearing and hand out extra warning labels for everything from nicotine to Nintendo. He’s come a long way since his first assignment, during which he pasted abstinence labels on erotic literature and became known as—what else?—the VIRGIN GENERAL.
Don’t forget! A new Goldman State Podcast drops every Friday!
Ed Goldman's column appears almost every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. A former daily columnist for the Sacramento Business Journal, as well as monthly columnist for Sacramento Magazine and Comstock’s Business Magazine, he’s the author of five books, two plays and one musical (so far).