The War (Against Baggy Pants) Grinds On

"WHEREAS," begins Ordinance 2007-17, "the Town Council of the Town of Baldwin has found that the welfare of the residents of the Town of Baldwin is hampered and imposed upon by persons intentionally wearing their pants below their waist for the purposes of exposing themselves and their undergarments ..."

Baldwin has joined a debate that's gone national, raising issues of freedom of expression, indecent exposure and the possibility of racial profiling because the majority of the wearers of the baggy pants are young, black and mimicking hip-hop stars. Over the past few years, this has popped up from Connecticut to Missouri, with laws actually being passed in a handful of mostly small, southern towns - Louisiana, then Georgia, then Opa-locka in South Florida. Now here.

Ambrose read in the Jacksonville paper about Hawkinsville, Ga., and decided to follow along.

"Pull up your pants!" he said in a recent interview. "It's common decency, y'all!"

"They are underpants," said Marvin Godbold Jr., the longtime mayor. "They are to be worn under your pants."

"It's offensive," council member Libby Willis said.

The people here blame all this on lots of things: DCF, MTV, the Internet, Roe vs. Wade, Bill Clinton, Dennis Rodman, the end of corporal punishment, the breakdown of family values, just general godlessness. They say this mess started in the '90s, or maybe the '60s, or maybe right around World War II.