To hide our heads or overreact?

By: JIM TRAGESER - Staff Writer | Thursday, September 27, 2007 12:30 AM PDT ∞

Somebody lend me a dime -- I think it's going to come down to a coin flip this week.

Some weeks, writing a column will drive you crazy -- there's just nothing going on to write about.

Then there are weeks like this last one, weeks in which we have a Carlsbad woman who has hired a lawyer in her crusade to track down some kids who TP'd her house, and also an Oceanside City Council member who wants to convince us that a proposed Orange County freeway through a state park on the north end of Camp Pendleton is of no concern to his city's residents.

It's a tough choice, this one, deciding whether we should devote this week's column to mocking a grotesque overreaction to having one's house covered in toilet paper or to skewering a local politician who wants no reaction at all to one of the most inane proposals in many a year.

On one hand, we have Jeanne Brandone, who complains that people aren't taking seriously enough the modern tragedy of being a victim of a good TP'ing.

On the other is Oceanside Councilman Jerry Kern, who says that the proposed Foothills-South Tollway -- which the Oceanside City Council is officially on record opposing -- is none of Oceanside's business.

One could -- and, OK, I will -- make the argument that any time a state park is seized for development we all have a stake in trying to prevent it. But to argue that Oceanside in particular, which lies just a few miles down Interstate 5 from this proposed toll road, won't be impacted if that road is ever built is to step beyond all bounds of, well, reality. Pouring more cars onto southbound I-5 at San Onofre each morning will most assuredly impact the ability of Oceanside residents to use I-5 for their own commute.

Beyond that, the San Onofre State Beach is a regional treasure, the last publicly accessible spot in Southern California between the Central Coast and Baja California where we have an undeveloped swath of land from the beach to the mountains, interrupted only by the obviously necessary I-5. Running another concrete barrier through the state park (taking out a popular campground in the process) is a fundamental betrayal of the purpose of a state park.

And one that provides absolutely no benefit to anyone in North County.

Not that coming down hard on teenagers for draping one's house and shrubberies in toilet paper provides any readily apparent public benefit, either.

Brandone told this newspaper that her house was TP'd twice in a two-week period. Having a teenage daughter at home, Brandone assumes -- and probably correctly -- that it was friends or admirers of her daughter who did the deed.

To which a reasonable person might simply shrug their shoulders and clean it up.

But Brandone tells us she's busy tracking down the perps, intends to bill them for the cleanup costs.

"Boys will be boys" was an attitude that excused a lot of abusive behavior in the past. But adolescent males do need something rowdy they can do to get all that energy and rebellion out of their systems, and TP'ing a girl's house is about as harmless as it gets.

Siccing lawyers on their parents just reminds us why we love Dennis the Menace and laugh at Mr. Wilson's grumpiness.

-- Contact columnist Jim Trageser at (760) 631-6628 or jtrageser@nctimes.com.

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