You’ve seen them on pets. You’ve seen them on cars. You’ve even seen them on celebrities like Martha Stewart and Paris Hilton. No, your Gay Uncle is not talking about studded leashes, gingham fabrics, or conversions to run on recycled french fry oil. He’s talking about…Electronic Monitoring Systems! According to the venerable New York Times the Dallas school district has had great success in reducing truancy by furnishing its tardiest and/or school-skippiest students with little portable global positioners, which can then be monitored from a central location. The Gay Uncle only skimmed the article in the interest of making fun of it here, so he’s not sure if the devices are equipped with the ability to send an electric shock from the home base–or if a youth can text or “chat” on them–but he does know that, like all neo-fascist surveillance systems, they’re being touted as somehow having “saved lives.” So he figured, since all the other grotesque accoutrements of teenage life–attitude, Gossip Girls, slutty clothes–are creeping down into the world of pre-schoolers, why not usher in one that can actually do some real good, and design an early-childhood version? It would free contemporary parents from myriad debilitating worries: their kid being abducted by a stranger, their kid falling into an empty pool or steam tunnel, finding the location of the nearest Old Navy. Gunc suggests either hiding the device in the folds of a child’s clothes or–for more permanent protection–simply placing it under the skin in an un-invasive location like the nape of the neck or that weird empty spot just in front of the ankle bone. He’s looking for investors. And product names. Any ideas?
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Mother Jones did a cover article about these shock-collar devices they use on kids who have been sent to these juvenile homes in Mass. and CA., sometimes put there by their parents. And some of the parents testify that they really worked great!