The Captain has been taken by surprise by the vitriol engendered by the local news story below. The sensational mainstream media once again has taken a mundane non-event and blown it up like the overstretched bladder of an aging, hobo rummy. Never one to pass on an opportunity to defend the underdog, I offer the following apologia for our everyman from Massachusetts. See apologia commentary below in red.
Police say Mass. man offered to give 3-month-old daughter to maintenance man for 2 beers.
CHICOPEE, Mass. (AP) — Authorities say a Massachusetts man offered to give his 3-month-old daughter to a maintenance man outside a gas station convenience store in exchange for a pair of 40-ounce beers. The author betrays his bias by failing to point out the incredible generosity of our alleged sinner. There are couples who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for fertility treatments or for actual babies like the one so selflessly offered up by our shopper. Why should he be excoriated for refusing to participate in the shameful practice of adoption profiteering? I can’t even remember how many times I’ve unsuccessfully offered people cash money to take my kids. Or even if you take a more cynical view and accuse our man of devaluing human life by trading one for a couple of beers, I would remind you jaded souls that that they were two forties! A regular beer is 12 ounces, so even the mathematically challenged can figure out that this savvy businessman would have been up 16 ounces had the deal gone down. That’s a win any way you look at it.
Chicopee police say 24-year-old Matthew Brace of Northampton made the offer on Monday. The maintenance man called police, who found Brace hiding with the girl behind a trash container. He wasn’t hiding, just employing some hardscrabble negotiating tactics which, in my estimation, could have netted him the forties and an extra pack of cigarettes had the stupid state worker not butted in and ruined the deal.
State child welfare officials took the baby into custody. Think about the irreparable damage the welfare state has done to this poor girl; she could have been with a family who bargained for her, or, more importantly, grown up and attended parties where she would be able to regale guests with the cool story about being swapped for a pair of Colt 45s!
Police say Brace was not arrested but will be summoned to court to face a charge of reckless endangerment of a child. Speeding. Running a stop sign. Bartering with a baby for booze. If I’m Brace I’m framing this one! A phone number for him could not immediately be found.
The child's mother was in the store at the time buying cigarettes. She has not been charged. Of course not; she knew better than to try and swap the kid for some Camels. If you think kids are expensive, you should try supporting a smoking habit. That’s right – have another forty!
Believe The Captain when he says: Bartering is a lost art in America.
Yours settling for 12 ouncers,
The Captain
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