Thoughtless for the Day

Two households, both alike in dignity,

In fair Commerce City, where we lay our scene,

From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,

Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

Last week, I happened to catch one of those odd little news items that for some inexplicable reason failed to catch fire in the public imagination (even our own venerable John Sopkins somehow missed it). As it turns out, one Joseph Manzanares was charged with attacking his girlfriend in the video store where she worked. Supposedly, the catalyst for the alleged assault was an earlier argument the couple had over which street gang their four-year-old son should join. Apparently, Mr. Manzanares was insistent on his son eventually becoming a member of the oddly innocuously named Westside Ballers, while his girlfriend hoped that the beaming toddler would one day be jumped into the Crips. I'm sure that there was a fair amount of hand wringing over this story by many of the other people who happened to come across it, to which I can only say "Fuck you."

C'mon people, tribal conflicts have plagued humanity from before John McCain was in short pants. If you think that none of your ancestors ever killed, let alone threatened to kill, someone over a dispute about whether or not the Saber-Toothed South Siders sucked wooly mammoth balls, you are either sadly delusional or sadly delusional and Mike Huckabee.

Look, I'm not defending Mr. Manzanares or his unnamed girlfriend...OK, maybe I am defending them a little bit... but they took a hard look at the economic realities surrounding them and they made their choices accordingly. Right now, some WASP is slapping his trophy wife around their tastefully decorated kitchen because she had their infant photographed in a Yale jersey and he went to Harvard (the WASPY wife-beater, not the infant). It's the sort of thing that never makes the news because WASPs have the common decency to commit all of their crimes indoors.

*Phun Phact: In most Native American cultures, the "Line of Heredity" ran through the mother. In other words, if mom was a member of the Elk tribe and dad belonged to the Wolf tribe, then junior would be considered an Elk.

Not So Phun Phact: jaanabanana lists Clan of the Cave Bear as one of her favorite books.

Expelled