It’s the end of the world as we know it… and I don’t feel fine.

Phoenix has been in the news a lot lately, and I can’t say much of the news has been good.  Okay there’s the Diamondbacks making it into the playoffs, but other than that we aren’t exactly being bastions of society.  I’d say that the heat here finally melted people’s brains (and with it their common sense and human decency) but it’s cooling off and the mercury is actually dipping into the low 70s at night.  No, I think society as a whole is collapsing like a Jenga tower with one too many pieces taken out.  And Phoenix, sadly, seems to be right in the thick of the badness that is enveloping the American culture.

Case in point:  Today an elderly man was struck by a truck while waiting at a bus stop.  That’s awful, right?  No wait, it gets worse.  After the out-of-control truck struck and killed the man, the onlookers STOLE HIS GROCERIES!  Yes, that’s right, as the man lay dying the people around him didn’t attempt to help him, they took his eggs and milk and flour.  That is just sick.  Sick and twisted and makes me seriously doubt the idea that people are inherently good.  If the first thing that comes to someone’s mind when a person lay before you DYING is to steal their belongings, then maybe George Carlin is right when he says that humankind is just a disease that has taken over the earth.

Earlier this week, also in the lovely Mecca known as Phoenix, a woman held in custody after “causing a disturbance” at the Phoenix airport died after she somehow managed to strangle herself with her own handcuffs.  Wasn’t she supposed to be in custody?  Isn’t custody supposed to entail someone actually watching her?  I mean, when I was a teen and was babysitting people’s children, I had to watch them to ensure they didn’t light each other on fire or run with scissors or … I don’t know, STRANGLE THEMSELVES WITH HANDCUFFS!  I was a minor at that time and understood that if I was in charge, I needed to be responsible and watch the people I was entrusted with.  Why did that not happen with the Phoenix police?  I’m baffled first that someone can strangle themselves with their own handcuffs, and secondly that it would happen while they were in “custody”.

What has the world come to?  And what are we devolving into?