News Roundup

• From the "Mother of the Year" Department - A female genetic provider in New York left her seven year old on the street with a stranger, went into a store with her two year old daughter, used the child as a lookout as she shoplifted, then tried to use the two-year-old in her stroller as a battering ram to escape when she was caught.  Wow, two days in a row, and I have two women who endanger their children so they can behave badly.  I hope I haven't discovered a meme.
• From the "Well, Duh" Department - Authorities in Virginia are criticizing a television show in which they are portrayed attempting to find and arrest people brewing illegal whiskey.  What?  You mean a television producer might lie, cheat, steal, and run over puppies in order to make a show that he can sell to a cable television network?  Did these guys actually think that rural law enforcement would be shown in a light more flattering than Roscoe P. Coltrane?  And color me unsurprised that said producer would dramatize those parts of his show about illegal activity that were, you know, actually illegal.  TV producers might tend towards the slimy side of the population, but they're not normally stupid.
• From the "Nothing Can Go Wrong Here" Department - A couple busloads of high school students caught a break the other night when police in rural Nevada let them give up their illicit alcohol and marijuana rather than be arrested.  The police admit that arresting the entire group would have been difficult due to a lack of facilities to hold them, but I'm sure there's an unused high school gym somewhere they could have used.  The kicker here:  the 'chaperones' for the group were themselves under 20.  So you've got high schoolers being minded by 19 and 20 year olds on a trip two states over from their parents.  Yeah, that's a big bag of fail waiting to happen.  Someone's daddy needs a dope slap.
• From the "Domesticated Barbarian" Department - Retailers are coming to grips with the reality that men are doing their fair share of grocery shopping and other household tasks.  Wow, only took them 30 years to figure that out.  Personally, I've been doing about half of the cleaning, shopping, and child rearing for oh, about 20 years now.  I have never had a problem finding what I need.  I'm a little insulted that they think it's necessary to make aisles just for men to find the things on their list.  Heck, you give me a grocery list, 30 minutes, and an ATM card, and I'll stock the pantry and have time to drive through Wendy's to get a milk shake for Boo because he behaved.