Have you ever listened to somebody talk and all the while you are asking yourself, “Where did they ever come up with that?”

Well, I had one of those moments recently while watching a political ad on TV.

There is a man running for Congress — he impressed me so little that I don’t even remember his name — who’s running on a platform of keeping adult video games out of the hands of children and making sure home computers are safe from the evils of society.

Well, on the surface, I say good idea.

But then I got to thinking about his agenda and began asking myself, “What does a member of Congress have to do with the things that should be regulated by parents?”

Think about it. How many other more important things can you think of that a person of power, one who serves at the highest level of government, could be dealing with instead of these two.

n The war in Iraq

n Threats from Iran and North Korea

n Immigration

n Keeping good jobs from being sent offshore

n Trade/budget deficits

n Campaign finances

And that’s just a few of the things I would hope my Congressman and Senator would be working on for me.

As for his chosen two, if parents are not going to monitor what their child is doing and watching then the government certainly can’t.

If this guy is going to continue in this vein, I have a few more issues he might want to tackle on the ‘home front.’

n Making sure all children brush their teeth at least twice a day. He could call it TB (Toothbrush Bill) 101;

n A child cannot leave the dinner table until all vegetables are eaten, called The Green Consumption Bill;

n Bedrooms will be cleaned up to mother’s satisfaction before TV privileges are allocated, commonly referred to as the Clean Room Act;

n Children must wear clean underwear every day. This way, in the event of an accident, and the child is taken to the hospital, mom isn’t embarrassed. Come up with your own name for this one. I’m not going there.

n Children should be prohibited from running with scissors or other sharp instruments, the You Could Put Your Eye Out Act;

I think if this man is planning to use his office, should he be elected to it, to protect the children, then he needs to go all out.

Heck, if I had kids I might even vote for him — if I could remember whose name to look for on the ballot.

Turn it down, please

I agree with columnist Robert Pocklington — something that I don’t always do — on the issue of the loud noises coming from cars.

I refer to it as loud noise and not music, because it is anything but the latter.

You’ve heard them, and probably felt them as well, as they sit in front, behind, or God forbid, next to you at a traffic light.

They are playing some primitive kind of music, something my stepfather calls “chomp, chomp,” because that is all it does.

They turn everything but the bass off and then crank the volume up.

I was pumping gas Tuesday and a lady next to me, waiting her turn in line, turned her’s all the way up, and then walked away to talk to somebody, leaving the rest of us to be attacked and annoyed by her choice of tunes.

And it’s worse for me because of my hearing aids.

The medical issues aside — going deaf at a young age — I wish there was something we could do to put a stop to this. Maybe I’ll put some classical music in my stereo and crank it up. Or better yet, opera!

Grant is the managing editor of the Suffolk News-Herald. Contact him at doug.grant@suffolknewsherald.com, or 934-9603.