Woody Cavenaugh

I heard on the local news last night (best article I could find about the attack) (best article I could find about the murder)...Isn't it strange that there si so little news about this? Anyway, last night I heard that at a rest home in Alamance County someone who was insane, murdered someone who was elderly. A good deal of time was spent on soundbites of how these two ignored groups managed to get lumped in together. Apparently, it is perfectly legal to do this in this day and age.

I can just see someone with two stacks of files on their desk. They are in the office of "Dealing with people the rest of society is trying to ignore department" (A division of the Department of Social Services). They were cursed with all the cases of "What to do with the elderly", and "What to do with the mentally ill." Dazed and over worked a plan was hatched deal with the problem one day when the two piles were knocked over on each other and all the files got mixed up. "Hey," the overworked beurocrat thought, "one pile is surely easier to deal with than two." And so money is regularly mailed out to neighborhood houses that have been converted to small homes for the crazy and old. They have the same needs, entertainment, food, sanitation, and supervised medication. What could go wrong?

Then one day something did go wrong. Someone insane kills someone elerly and the whole world errupts in shock and awe.
"How could this happen in our own back yard?"
"Things were going so well."
"They were so easy to ignore, and now this."
"We have insane and elderly people, when did that happen?"

So I am sure as the drama unfolds, the two political parties will square off like they always do.

The Democrats will say, "We should divert funds to create new segregated care facilities, this will create jobs for caregivers, and we would only need to raise the taxes a little bit. We put the crazies over there, and the elderly people over there, and put a bunch of people to work."

The Republicans will say, "We should close those facilities right away and cut the taxes that paid for them. The elderly and the insane should be at home with their love ones who with the help of the tax break will have plenty of money available to buy medications, adult diapers, Ensure, and live in nurses. If they don't, they don't diserve loved ones to begin with!"

The rest of the political parties will blame one, the other, or both the Democrats and the Republicans. Some will blame the overworked beurocrat, while others will push for recycling of this new untapped natural resource, and offer samples of Soylent Green, at fairs, and other public gatherings. Still others will blame the media for bringing it up in the first place. Others will applaud the media for bring this whole mess to our attention.

Meanwhile the homes will be closed and the insane and the elderly who could not be otherwise placed will be released in the wild to fend for themselves as beggars, petty thieves, and in hippy communes. A few will make it, many won't. Some will thrive as leaders of religious cults.

Otherwise, nothing at all will ever be done about the original problem and soon the whole mess will be forgotten. Again.