1973 vs 2006

[Josh]

This is so true...


Scenario: Jack pulls into school parking lot with rifle in gun rack.

1973 - Vice Principal comes over, takes a look at Jack's rifle, goes to his car and gets his to show Jack.

2006 - School goes into lockdown, FBI called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again. Counselors called in for traumatized students and teachers.

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Scenario: Johnny and Mark get into a fist fight after school.

1973 - Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up best friends. Nobody goes to jail, nobody arrested, nobody expelled.

2006 - Police called, SWAT team arrives, arrests Johnny and Mark. Charge them with assault, both expelled even though Johnny started it.

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Scenario: Jeffrey won't be still in class, disrupts other students.

1973 - Jeffrey sent to office and given a good paddling by Principal. Sits still in class.

2006 - Jeffrey given huge doses of Ritalin. Becomes a zombie. School gets extra money from state because Jeffrey has a disability.


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Scenario: Billy breaks a window in his father's car and his Dad gives him a whipping.

1973 - Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal, goes to college, and becomes a successful businessman.

2006 - Billy's Dad is arrested for child abuse. Billy removed to foster care and joins a gang. Billy's sister is told by state psychologist that she remembers being abused herself and their Dad goes to prison. Billy's mom has affair with psychologist.


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Scenario: Mark gets a headache and takes some headache medicine to school.

1973 - Mark shares headache medicine with Principal out on the smoking dock.

2006 - Police called, Mark expelled from school for drug violations. Car searched for drugs and weapons.

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Scenario: Mary turns up pregnant.

1973 - Five High School Boys leave town. Mary does her Senior year at a special school for expectant mothers.

2006 - Middle School Counselor notifies ACLU which calls Planned Parenthood. Mary is driven to the next state over and gets an abortion without her parents' consent or knowledge. Mary given condoms and told to be more careful next time.

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Scenario: Pedro fails high school English.

1973: Pedro goes to summer school, passes English, goes to college.

2006: Pedro's cause is taken up by state Democratic party. Newspaper articles appear nationally charging that the English requirement for graduation is racist. ACLU files class action lawsuit against state school system and Pedro's English teacher. English removed from core curriculum. Pedro receives high school diploma but ends up mowing lawns for a living because he can't speak English.

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Scenario: Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers from the 4th of July, puts them in a model airplane paint bottle, blows up a red ant bed.

1973 - Ants die.

2006 - BATF investigates Johnny charged for domestic terrorism, FBI questions parents and confiscates hard drive, CPS interviews siblings and Johnny's dad goes on a terror watch list and can't fly anymore.

[hernesson]

Dead Cats Hear No Screams
House smell a little sour? Hear strange mewling in the walls? Maybe you, too, can be a crazy cat lady

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist


So you'd think if you lived in a densely populated town in Virginia and were 58 years old and spent a good number of your postmenopausal years hoarding feral cats to the point where you finally reached a grand total of 88 diseased and inbred felines all flopped like used rags around your house, well, you'd think you might have accomplished something just a little special.

Especially if 29 of your cats happened to be, you know, dead, and your neighbors finally complained of the smell so aggressively that the cops and animal control finally showed up, and they knocked on your door and you opened it and the Great Wall of Cat Stench hit them and they exclaimed oh my freaking God what the hell is going on here?

And hence they hauled away all the diseased feral cats and charged you with animal neglect and went so far as to condemn your house and kick you out because of all the toxins and bacteria and animal waste and just overall reeking grossness -- well, you'd think you might at least win the award for Creepy Sad Cat Lady of the Month. Right?

Alas, you would be wrong.

Because then you discover that, just down the road in Burke, Virginia, a woman 25 years your senior, a woman named Ruth Kneuven, clocking it at 82 years old, has managed to rack up a staggering total of not 100, not 200, not even 300, but over 420 diseased feral cats (some reports put the number closer to 500) spread over two separate homes.

And a whopping 100 of her cats are dead (that's more than you had, alive or dead!), and the dead ones are stuck in plastic bags and in bins and jammed behind walls and lodged between the decaying brickwork all over the house, and the stench became so otherworldly that the cops and animal control finally came and hauled away all her cats, too.
And they condemned both disgusting houses and told Ruth and her husband and her daughter to leave ASAP, or else, thus completely obliterating your otherwise very impressive accomplishment.

And now you're all, like, oh man, what was I thinking? My collection of 88 cats was so lame! A pittance! Child's play! I am ashamed and humbled and I stand in awe of Ruth Kneuven's creepy sad crazy-cat-lady greatness!
And what's more, that Ruth woman had a husband and a daughter living with her, among all those reeking cats! A triple-threat of creepy weird sadness! Amazing!

It is then that it strikes you that 82-year-old Ruth Kneuven from Burke, Virginia, had the advantage of a whole extra house, thus giving her far more room to pack in far more inbred mangy cats than you, 58-year-old Jane Baldinger of Falls Church, Virginia, and she could build her morbid collection with ease and just stuff the little diseased fur balls into every nook and cranny and cupboard space and domestic orifice, thus making you scream "unfair advantage!" in a strange cackling mewling voice....

;D