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Moral
Decay
by
Peary Perry
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Have you ever noticed that events seem to run in some sort of cosmic cycle? Like
celebrity deaths….I’ve always heard they die in groups of three. I can’t verify
this, but it does appear to be this way to me. Probably just some old wives tale,
but still interesting.
Well, this week I’m going to comment upon a series
of recent events that I’d bet even money on you haven’t heard about in the past.
I’m talking about physical violence…with food.
Yes, friends in this fair
land of ours, there seems to be current trend, unhealthy one at that, of using
food as a dangerous weapon.
Take this first example. Just recently in
the Oklahoma state prison, one Ernesto Rosales allegedly tried to stab another
inmate by the name of Jermaine Portillo with a pork chop. He was charged on December
3rd, 2004 with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, i.e. a sharpened pork
chop bone. The charge goes on to say that the defendant, Rosales ‘ did therefore
inflict serious and grievous wounds on or about the left eye of the said Jermaine
Portillo with the unlawful and felonious intent then and there to do him bodily
harm’. The article did not say if the pork chop was recovered as evidence. Prosecutors
handling this matter say there is enough meat in this case to keep Rosales behind
bars for many years to come.
In our next example, on December 10th, 2004
a man in Houston was arrested when he flew into a rage over being served a cold
sandwich. He then attacked the manager with the sandwich, threatened to kill her
and blow up the restaurant. No other information was available at this time. Seems
like a pretty cheesy deal to me.
Finally, in Austin, Texas this past week,
we find that a woman has been charged with assault after getting into some type
of argument over some part of her inheritance. Seems the woman got mad at her
husband and threw a beefsteak at him. Apparently these incidents provoked the
husband into saying more than he probably should have which caused his wife to
then get her pistol and shoot him. Obviously she didn’t feel the beefsteak had
done the job in the proper manner. My guess is that the steak wasn’t loaded.
Anyway, I suppose the steak throwing charge won’t be the main focus of her trial.
I’m thinking she would have gotten off more easily if she hadn’t gotten the pistol
and put a hole or two into her beloved. She clearly wasn’t thinking properly since
she threw the weapon away into her swimming pool. A place it would most likely
be noticed before too long. “Hey look, is that the new model Creepy Crawler…?
No, it looks like a forty five.”
She could get twenty years. For the
shooting, not the steak throwing. They’ll forget about that small incident.
I am just totally aghast. What in the world is our society coming to? I was in
a discussion yesterday with a bunch of folks and we got to talking about the moral
decay in this country. Well, you can just see that movies such as “Animal House”
are most likely to blame for some of the root causes of these heinous acts of
violence. Food fights are now being accepted as normal behavior in most of the
country. Not a month goes by; we don’t read or hear about somebody getting hit
in the face with a cream pie.
Degradation starts so slowly, doesn’t it?
Just look at where this may lead. Whole societies have fallen over events such
as these. Rome wasn’t destroyed in a day, you know. It took thousands and thousands
of pizzas to do it in.
First cream pies, then steaks, pork chops and
sandwiches.
Can casseroles, soufflés, cakes and green beans be far behind?
Be
afraid, be very afraid.
© Peary Perry
Comments go to pperry@austin.rr.com
Letters
From North America - February
, 2005 column |
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