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The latest
Batman movie “The Dark Knight” is being filmed in Chicago this
summer. Not having seen the script, I have no idea of the
storyline.
However, there could be a revision in the works. With the
latest negative news about our biggest toy maker, Mattel, Inc., I
have been imagining an opening scene.
Looking out over the city from the Sears Tower on a starlit
night, Batman receives a call on his Bat phone. The caped crusaders
find themselves in a quandary.
Batman: Robin, I just received word that they have done
it to Barbie, too.
Robin: Heavens no, Batman, not beautiful, babelicious,
blonde Barbie?
Batman: I’m afraid so, Boy Wonder. Last week they
filled my likeness with lead and flooded the international market.
Now this week, they have tainted Barbie. Her blonde hair has
streaks of pewter.
Robin: It’s enough to make a person jump from here.
Batman: Not so fast my little friend. Something,
somewhere, out there in that vast darkness is a reasonable answer.
We must find it, and with bat speed.
In less than a month, America’s largest toymaker has issued a
recall of some of its toys that were made in a foreign country.
Mattel, Inc. has issued a worldwide recall of over 10 million toys
that were produced in China. Among the recalled are the popular
Barbie, Batman, and some cars from the animated movie “Cars.”
The primary safety concerns forcing the recall are toys
containing lead and small magnets that can be swallowed. Swallowed
magnets from toys have caused one American child’s death.
It’s one thing to eliminate American jobs by outsourcing
production to cheap labor countries. We have come to accept
appliances and other products and technology produced in other parts
of the world and sold back to us as “the American way”. We are one
of the world’s biggest electronic- and technology-consuming
countries. We don’t need to mention oil.
Our government has allowed many American companies to take
their manufacturing businesses to other countries, thus eliminating
good living-wage American jobs. Our government also allows those
same American countries to bring those cheaply, sometimes unsafely
produced goods back into this country to be purchased by Americans
making substandard wages. Other good paying American jobs are being
taken by cheap illegal labor that comes into this country.
We import more than we export. We get most our fruit and
athletic shoes from outside America. Even baseball has its balls
made in a country that uses below-market labor. Our trade deficit
is as big as our trust deficit. If millions of dangerous toys can
get past our border security, what is to say other destructive
devices can’t or don’t.
Off to stop the influx of unsafe toys from reaching our kids,
Batman and Robin begin their descent down the Sears Tower by the Bat
rope. A puzzled Robin pauses and wonders out loud.
Robin: So, Batman, just who is responsible for this,
and don’t they realize all the millions of kids they have
disappointed? Our movie release depends on toy sales, and what
about Christmas season that is fast approaching? Is it the Joker?
Could it be the Riddler? Maybe it’s Mr. Freeze?
Batman: Not this time, my little friend. We have a new
nemesis. He has been growing in stature for some years now. It’s
none other than the unjust, un-American, uncaring “Mr. Outsource,”
with the aid of his silent partners, American manufacturers and the
federal government.
Robin: Holy outsourcing, Batman. First we gave a
foreign country the business of putting us out of American jobs, and
now they are supplying our children with dangerous toys. That’s
almost treasonous. To the Bat cave, Batman?
Batman: To the Bat cave, Robin.
“Pow.” “Bam.” “Poof.” Stay tuned next week when the Dynamic
Duo take on the forces that are trying to prevent Don Imus from
returning to the airways. |
