Oops, she did it again.
Or did she? Pop star Britney Spears is once again suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous tabloid incursions into her private life. Not long ago, the as-yet baby-bumpless blonde was castigated for driving down the highway with 8-month-old son Sean on her lap. She was violating all known state traffic laws, granted, but as many a parent will attest, she was merely honoring the laws of common sense -- you know, the ones that suggest you may be a safer driver with a happy child on your lap than with a wailing, screaming, tearful hellion at your back.
Nonetheless, she learned her lesson well, and at last report, she was using her child safety seat just as Inspector McGruff intended -- for all the good it did her. Yesterday, the hapless singer was caught on camera driving a Mini Cooper with young Master Sean safely strapped into a child safety device in the back seat. (Do Mini Coopers really have back seats?) But there was one problem: The car seat was facing forward.
Horrors.
Everybody's got an opinion
According to the California Highway Patrol, children younger than 1 must, when occupying a child safety seat in the back, be placed facing toward the trunk. Ms. Spears' publicist begs to differ, rejoining that California Vehicle Code 27360 requires only that children younger than 6 be strapped into a rear child safety seat, period.
Living on the opposite side of the country as I do, I'm far from being erudite enough to say who's right in this debate. But as a concerned public citizen, with a vested interest in having young Master Sean surviving to an age at which he can contribute to financing my Social Security benefits, I feel compelled to chime in anyway. After all, not knowing the facts doesn't stop the paparazzi and tabloid "reporters" from sticking their noses into Sean's mom's business. So who am I to remain silent?
I hereby call for a broader investigation of this national scandal. Ms. Spears is playing fast and loose not only with the life of her little one, but also with the retirement hopes of the countless Americans whom his salary (or trust fund income, perhaps) must support in the coming decades. And that's not all ...
Save our nation's automobile industrial complex
So long as we're telling Ms. Spears how to raise her child, I think it's essential that we forbid her from carting the tyke around in a fuel-efficient sports car. According to press reports, Ms. Spears was photographed while driving a Mini Cooper. Contrary to what you might expect, the Mini Cooper has no relation whatsoever to American film icon Gary Cooper. On the contrary, it's the product of a foreign land -- and of Motley Fool Stock Advisor recommendation BMW, to be exact -- and thus a bane to American automakers.
While I mean no offense to the Audubon Society (or the Autobahn Society, either) in saying this, Ms. Spears could kill two birds with one stone by switching, post-haste, from the fuel-efficient and ultra-tiny Mini Cooper to one of the juggernauts of the American auto industry. Imagine how much safer young Sean, and Ms. Spears herself, would be once ensconced within the heavy metal walls of a Ford (NYSE:F) Expedition or a GMC Yukon from General Motors (NYSE:GM). "Safety seats? Pshaw, Constable. I'm driving a safety car!"
Save our struggling steelmakers
The important question here is, of course: "What about the children?" And by children, I mean our nation's orphaned steel industry -- unloved, ignored, and abandoned almost entirely thanks to the international attention that's being focused on the ongoing takeover battle between foreign titans Mittal Steel (NYSE:MT) and Arcelor. One thing that's truthiness-in-advertising about the Mini Cooper, after all, is that it's quite, well, mini. The thing hardly uses any steel at all, and it uses certainly nowhere near as much as our Michigan monstrosities. Meanwhile, April's earnings reports show that local steel companies AK Steel (NYSE:AKS) and U.S. Steel (NYSE:X) are suffering from ever-higher raw-material costs that sap their profits, even as sales growth stagnates.
Buy an SUV, Ms. Spears. Do it for the children.
And last, but not least ...
We've all heard by now about the $400 million pay package that ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM) paid departing CEO Lee Raymond this year. And Fools, $400 million doesn't grow on trees.
Well, technically, I suppose it does, as long as the trees subsequently die, are buried, and are eventually transformed over several hundred millions of years of intense heat and pressure into hydrocarbons. But that's a time-intensive process, and ExxonMobil needs to keep its profits coming in today if it's to continue to afford paying outrageous sums of cash to its executives. And with the Mini Cooper getting an estimated 36 miles per gallon, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the car poses a clear and present danger to the profits of American oil companies.
Ms. Spears, take a page of advice from fellow paparazzi fodder Spike Lee and "do the right thing." Trade in that Mini Cooper. Buy yourself a made-in-Mexico, American-branded SUV.
And this time, make sure to splurge on the tinted windows.
Fool contributor Rich Smith has nothing against Mini Coopers, per se. Why should he? Since being recommended by Motley Fool Stock Advisor two years ago, Mini maker BMW has grown 24% in value, a rate that's nearly twice as fast as the S&P 500's. Want to find out what other stocks rock stars love? Take a 30-day trial to Stock Advisor, for free.
Pursuant to the Fool's ironclad disclosure policy, Rich Smith is compelled to admit that he does not own shares of any companies named above -- no matter what you read in the Enquirer.
