Lawrence (Mack) Hall, HSG
So That’s Why Texas
Jails Beauticians
The concept of essential jobs and nonessential jobs
eludes many of us. If you have a job it’s an essential job because food,
clothing, and shelter are essential. Who
is it who sits enthroned on high with the authority from some planetary
overlord to determine whether your job is essential?
Beauticians, whose daily practices and spaces have always
been required to meet strict education, re-education, safety, health, and
hygiene requirements, have of late been shut down, shut out, and shut up, and when
several of them got all uppity about needing to work – work – have been
investigated and sometimes jailed (https://reason.com/2020/05/07/texas-governor-greg-abbott-will-not-jail-people-shelley-luther-for-violating-coronavirus-social-distancing/).
And we the people understand: law-abiding citizens must
be protected from wild-eyed barbers and beauticians wielding semi-automatic
assault scissors with 30-round banana magazines. No one knows the horrible
death rate inflicted on innocents by those out-of-control clipper-crazies.
Why can’t beauticians and barbers be more like, oh,
hot-air balloon pilots who charge people for flights?
According to the FAA (http://www.pilotfriend.com/training/flight_training/faa_bal.htm),
requirements to fly as a commercial balloon pilot begin with:
Subpart
E -- Commercial Pilots
·
The
age requirement for a commercial pilot certificate is 18 years.
·
Read,
speak and understand the English language.
·
No
medical certificate required. Same as paragraph 3 above.
·
The
applicant must pass a more advanced written test on the subject matter listed
in paragraph 4 above, additional operating procedures relating to commercial
operations, and those duties required of a flight instructor.
·
Advanced
training must be received from an authorized instructor including those items
listed in paragraph 5 above plus emergency recovery from a terminal velocity
descent.
·
The
applicant for a commercial certificate must have at least 35 hours of flight
time as a pilot, of which 20 hours must be in balloons, 6 under the supervision
of an instructor, 2 solo flights, 2 flights of at least one duration, and one
flight to 5000 feet above the take-off point.
The holder of a commercial
pilot's certificate may operate a balloon for hire and may give flight
instruction.
Want to go for a balloon ride?
According to the State of Texas, requirements to work as
a cosmetologist or barber (https://www.tdlr.texas.gov/cosmet/cosmetlaw.htm)
(pour yourself a cup of coffee; this is going to take a while) begin with:
OCCUPATIONS CODE
TITLE 9. REGULATION OF BARBERS, COSMETOLOGISTS, AND RELATED OCCUPATIONS
CHAPTER 1602. COSMETOLOGISTS
(Effective date September 1, 2019)
Table of Contents
These strict requirements wisely keep beauticians and
barbers from killing people by flying them into power lines or by dropping them
thousands of feet to their deaths when the balloon catches fire.
So, yeah, that’s why Texas jails beauticians.
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