It’s a jungle over there…

While the Commonwealth is stewing about our crime problems, the folks in the United States have been cooking up some mischief as well.

Take Detroit for example (really, go ahead. Nobody else wants it). News item: A man in the Detroit area has been accused of murdering his wife, then chopping her up and cooking her.

Where did he allegedly cook her? In the family restaurant, of course.

He is said to have embarked on this culinary crusade to heat up his marriage after looking at his wife of 12 years and realizing that she was the devil. Now, really. It takes most guys two, maybe three years tops to realize their wife is the devil. Twelve years betrays a man so slow of wit that there must be some defense angle his lawyers can put on the kitchen table of jurisprudence in this case.

Meanwhile, in civilization (as opposed to Michigan), the California town of Santa Barbara is pondering the four person fatality resulting from spoiled punk run amok in the car that daddy bought him. It’s yet another troubled youth gig, with the alleged perpetrator, “Psycho Dave,” having been one of the weirder freshman to grace the lawns at the UC Santa Barbara Campus.

The place, you know, is, like, best known for like surfers, who, like, study marine biology and, well, like sociology and stuff, you know. It’s known for VW vans and Vans tennis shoes, not for violence. But Psycho Dave changed that tune when he is alleged to have mowed down a number of hapless pedestrians, for what reasons, we know not what.

Which brings to mind a song from the 1980’s… “White punks on dope…”

And then we’ve got the naked burgler guy, who has been breaking into houses in southern California. Presumably he’s not stealing clothes. And note I said “houses,” plural. His birthday suit is part of his modus operandi. I leave this to the criminologists to ponder.

I was going to slap you with a list of the car chases that are daily fare in California, but there are too many to list. The television news copters are burning up all the gas in the state as they wiz from one fleeing felon to the next. A pal of mine flies one such chopper, and offered this reason for the mischief: California has a “three strikes” law, meaning that a crook with two convictions is looking at something like life in the big house if they collar him for a third crime. So, with nothing to lose, they flee. But they inevitably get caught, of course.

Oh, and don’t forget Mardi Gras. Celebrations in a number of cities turned into violent riots, as, in many cases, the welfare constituency behaved like barbarians. I have to admit I enjoy such events. It’s nice when the community gets a more intimate look at its economic wards. The welfare state has produced generations of economic and moral Frankensteins, and when they run amok and scare the living feces out of the villagers who have been feeding them all these years, it’s merely a modern twist on the old horror movies.

Ok, late flash, some punk with a .22 revolver in the San Diego (Calif.) area just went berserk on a high school campus and shot a bunch of kids. You see? I can’t even write about violent atrocities in the United States without getting pelted with new crimes mid-essay.

I can’t keep up.

And there you have it: My crime and dumbishment files based on shenanigans committed elsewhere. Maybe we’re not so bad after all…but I’ll still be checking my food in the restaurants pretty closely from now on. You just can’t be too careful…

Ed Stephens, Jr. is an economist and columnist for the Saipan Tribune. “Ed4Saipan@yahoo.com”