PHIL WIELAND: When lawmakers get an itch, we end up scratching

Chiggers.

That's what I think of when I think of the Indiana General Assembly — which ought to be busted to Private Assembly or dishonorably discharged — or the U.S. Congress. And, as has been pointed out in a recent Internet mailing, is it just coincidence a group of baboons is called a congress?

When I was a kid and we visited relatives in Kentucky, my mom often warned us about chigger bites. She told of walking through fields or along sandy stretches and ending up with a chigger bite scratchathon on her legs and ankles.

The result was, whenever we went anywhere that might have a chigger within a 10-mile radius, I took every precaution my young, and even then feeble, mind could conceive.

This mostly involved walking or running through the potential chigger zone as though traversing a bed of hot coals in bare feet, lifting my feet as high and as quickly as possible to minimize contact with the ground.

Either there were no chiggers or my strategy worked because I was never bitten by a chigger. I never even saw one, but they reportedly are flealike in stature, and I certainly wasn't going to look more closely and risk having my face assaulted by ravenous chiggers.

I recently read a piece by New York columnist Calvin Trillin describing a chigger bite as an 8 on his milamos scale with each milamos being equal to 1,000 mosquito bites. As hellish as that sounds, it pales in comparison to the purgatory our alleged legislative leaders seem dedicated to inflicting on us.

Instead of protecting the rights of the powerless and needy, they work hardest protecting those who need the least protection and promoting fundamentalist Christian agendas that would give Jesus severe dyspepsia.

The latest example is the Indiana Senate committee voting to allow schools to teach creationism as an "alternative" theory of history. It also would allow other theories, but creationism is the only one mentioned specifically.

Since every religion has its own myth of how the world began and there are scores of religions, covering them all wouldn't leave much time for other history or anything else, not that I would have been sad to miss out on the whole fractions thing.

Do we then make sure we cover the flat Earth theory and the "disease is caused by demons" theory? The Tea Party wants to recapture the good ol' intolerant days of the 1950s. These boneheads seem intent on taking us back to the Dark Ages of superstition and persecution of anything and anybody who is different. Or intelligent.

The chiggers are attacking our souls, and no amount of scratching can make them go away.

The opinions are those of the writer. He can be reached at phil.wieland@nwi.com or (219) 548-4352.