They were even talking about this one here in the village today. Last week, a fire department in Tennessee let a man's house burn down because he hadn't paid the $75 fee he owed. The man, Gene Cranick, lives in a rural area, close to the town of South Fulton. The town offers fire coverage to rural residents, but only for a fee. Cranick said he "forgot" to pay the fee, and he called 911 when his house caught on fire. He volunteered to pay the fee, but that wasn't good enough. Some fire department personnel actually came out to the site and sprayed water on a neighbor's property to keep it from catching on fire. But they let the Cranick house burn down, all because he had forgotten to pay the rural $75 fee.
I guess Solomon was right: "money answereth all things."
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California finally got something right, but they had to undo an idiotic wrong for it to happen. The state will no longer issue welfare debit cards at casinos around the country or on cruise ships. Sorry, you welfare bums, you can no longer draw from the taxpayer's till to go to Vegas or cruising around the world. What a crying shame.
Firefighters who won't put out a burning house? Welfare debit cards for casinos and cruise ships? I keep thinking I'm not going to be shocked or amazed any more by what I hear, but human beings continue to invent creative stupidity at a light-speed pace. And I don't suppose it will ever cease. Some of it is still mind-boggling, though.