Idiocy

I continue to be amazed at the sheer number of stupid people there are. Not just garden variety, "that was something dumb you said" or "your thought processes are like that of an alien with shit instead of a brain" stupid... I mean, honestly, we've all been there at one point or another. No, I mean day-to-day "what the hell could this person be thinking?" stupid.

Example? OK. How about Clayton, California Mayor Gregg Manning sending police to shut down a card-table produce stand run by an 11-year-old and 3-year-old girl selling produce from their garden? I mean, the weak justifications of "it was causing a traffic hazard" (which at least one neighbor denies) don't make a lot of sense. But really, how did this even appear on the Mayor's radar? Did the one complaint mentioned in the article come from one of Manning's family members? How do you get the Mayor's ear so hard that you can get a little girl's produce stand shut down with a police raid?

Beyond the sheer amazement I have that this even happened, I have to marvel at the total lack of awareness and the huge balls it takes for the Mayor to defend himself in print. He worries that they could escalate to selling chickens and eggs... and that is the best he can come up with! Does this guy just not want to get re-elected? Maybe he's decided mayor-ing is really hard, and he should get another job where he gets to bully children a lot more. I mean, this is cartoonish level abuse of power. The *Mayor* of the city took it upon himself to shut down a fruit and vegetable stand... based out of a card table on someone's front lawn... run by two pre-teen girls.

My poor wife. Every time I see a story like this, I think about how I as a father would have reacted... and the usual commonality is "not well." She's either going to have to be calming me down (or bailing me out) a *lot* as my kids get older and run into this kind of idiocy.