It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood

So, it's a beautiful October day, I took a day off from work to enjoy a long weekend and I feel like blogging.  Nothing says got to blog like getting new license plate tabs, untangling a dental bill/insurance issue and setting up an appointment at the vet.  For the dog.  Not me. 

I'm leisurely perusing some newspaper articles from the last couple of weeks.  I gotta tell you, this stuff wasn't in the paper when I was a kid. 

One from today, in the Oakland Press via the AP wire service, was about a Viet Namese woman who cut off HALF her husbands' penis and threw it in a river.   The headline read "Viet Namese Woman Cuts off Taiwanese Husband's Penis." He had been out of work and messing around with another woman while the wife slaved as a singer in her parents' Karaoke bar.  You can't make this stuff up.  The wife, we'll call her BLADE, says she did it after her husband fell asleep after taking sleeping pills and drugs.  Tell 'ya what, Blade, I figure he did the drugs, you slipped him the sleeping pills.  And why cut off just half?  Was it longitudinal or lattitudinal?  It's not in the story.  She's been booked for assault.  If they're in the US there would be an ethnic intimidation charge, too.  Now, cutting off the guy's, you know, is a state charge, but the other one, that's Federal.

There's another story from the front page a couple weeks ago.  Now, the Oakland Press in Oakland County,MI is a real newspaper, just google 'em.  But they print some wacky stuff.  The next story was, indeed on the front page.  I believe the headline was "Man Dies after Sex and Drug Party at Chaplain's House".  So I had to read it.  It got better.  The Chaplain for the Ferndale Police Department was also gay, and a leading gay activist in the city Plus he leads a church congregation in the city.  You're jumping ahead, now, aren't you?  So apparently the chaplain has a guy come over, they inject methamphetamine to increase their libido or performance, or whatever, and the guy becomes unresponsive, not just to the sex part but TOTALLY unresponsive.  So the FERNDALE POLICE CHAPLAIN, activist and church pastor PHONES A FRIEND to come over.  The friend then calls the police and ambulance, the unresponsive guy dies.  So, Ferndale fires the chaplain, I don't know what his church will do.  I had a totally different idea going on in my head before I read the story.  So we can put this guy up with Ted Haggard, Jim Bakker and other pandering pastors, I suppose.  Oh, yeah, there are charges pending.

In that same paper on the front page was a story about bullies.  Scotch Elementary school in West Bloomfield, MI.  hosted a FunD run (FUND run,not just fun run, get it ?) against bullying.  The kids got pledges and ran around the school's track for about 20 minutes.  The article stated  "Proceeds this year will fund multiple character education initiatives that target bullying."  What was that, again?  Anyway, it seems like a good idea, builds cameraderie among the older and younger students and has one major benefit:  these kids, when chased by a bully, will be able to outlast him for up to 20 minutes.  Most bullies can't run that long, I'm guessing.  I'm pretty sure this program is more about outrunning bullies when character education initiatives prove fruitless.

Ahh, the world is indeed a changing place.  Character initiatives to target bullies, Police Chaplains having meth and sex parties, and another member amputation. This stuff probably was going on when I was 8 years old, I suppose, but we didn't read it in the papers.  I'm not sure we need the Chaplain and the Blade in the paper, really.  The anti-bully thing is a good thing, but if these character education initiatives involve water boarding or sensory deprivation, I think it'll end up on the front page again.

While I feel sorry for the unnamed man who died at the Chaplain's house, and the guy who ran afoul of Blade, and I wish no children be bullied, a simpler world sure allowed us to sleep peacefully, and without armor-plated undies.  Truth is stranger than fiction.  Until next time....Oh, yeah, click on the title for some fun.