Maggie's Farm

"Gee: What do you call an intellectual one-trick pony?"

(From the cracked young staff at Hatemonger's to his dear readers...)

Your essay, Chip. Man.... you did exactly with your essay what you griped about in that essay. One-trick pony.... giddyap! :)

The article on China explains the dog food problem. I asked my ex, a veterinarian, about this, and he said the problem comes from having one or two huge companies producing most of the dog food. They buy from the same supplier and sell under various labels. He said it's a shame because no one was at fault in terms of malice but that the company would probably go down. Then he said the real problem lies in the huge producers of human food. He said it's just a matter of time before an episode of e. coli or salmonella or something worse exponentially trumps the dog food problem.

Retriever,

Unless they've seen it, no one should call you anything for what you had to do. I think you suggested your situations were family related: I have a couple that are student related. I can't tell the whole stories because it would take too long, but I can give enough details to give anyone an idea of how scary it is to deal with a person who has become pathological. (If 'become' is the right word.)

First off, let me say that I do not sweat/perspire. Not so it shows in even the slightess dampness. I can run a marathon and not even glisten.

I ran into a tall black guy who had been kicked out of the state of South Carolina. He was living with an aunt and, of course, as he'd committed no crime in my state, we had to take him. I met him on a first day of duty when he started circling me and taunting me by grabbing his crotch and by speaking in some ghetto-speak I could not understand. I was fearless as a teacher and felt nothing but annoyance as this thug tried me out in front of all his friends. He kept on and I turned to him and had to look way up, but I looked right into his eyes and saw *nothing*. Black holes. I turned and walked a long way to the office for help, found none, and grabbed one of the principal's walkie talkie's and went back to my duty station. He was waiting for me. He started in again and I called for help. A couple of coaches showed up and the principal - who carefully talked Kahlil (that was his name) away from me and down towards the office. The principal was clearly afraid of this guy. The bell rang and the halls cleared and the two coaches stood by me and explained about Kahlil. He'd been kicked out of every class he had since he was enrolled in our school, and they said things like, "Well, he'll be in jail or dead before he's 21." I listened to them and suddenly the walls closed in on me. I had on a shirt and khaki pants and felt rivulets of water running down my side just before I blacked out. When I came to, I saw that I had soaked the waistband of my pants in about a five-inch half-circle on both sides.

The thing is - I acted professionally, coolly, ..I did what I had to do without flinching or feeling fear whatsoever. But when I looked into his eyes and saw the depths of evil I saw there, something in my subconscious kicked in and didn't bother to alert me until after the fact. My body responded long before my thought processes did. Scary stuff.

Too long to tell the other one, but anyway... we can't get away from this. By the way, Kahlil stalked me for two weeks and the office did nothing. I got him, though. It's a good story, but, again..too long.
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