Oscar Goodman, the mayor of Las Vegas, Nevada, proposed today on the television show "Nevada Newsmakers" that "those who deface freeways with graffiti should have their thumbs cut off on television." Mayor Goodman also, if live quotes are accurate, appears to believe that everyone ever beheaded in France was a criminal, and that there are not currently enough whippings and canings of children in the Good Old US of A.

This is just a suggestion, Mayor Goodman, but you might want to consider learning the distinctions between graffiti taggers, more elaborate bombers, and the piecers who are, truly, artists, before campaigning to randomly hack off the opposable thumbs of anyone caught within city limits with a can of spray paint. Perhaps devising a sliding scale of caning-to-amputation (dependent on degree of artistic expertise) would be a more politically astute move? You know, since, last time I checked, Las Vegas was still located in the Constitution-based Republic, with a strong Democratic tradition, of The United States of America - and not in some other country where, say, adulteresses are publicly stoned to death. On television or otherwise. (Which is not to suggest that anyone ever commits adultery in Your Fair City, Yer Honor. With all due respect.)