In perhaps the ultimate expression of everything that is wrong with American culture, a 19-year-old man in a Humvee intentionally ran over ducklings in a McDonald’s parking lot in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Dillon Pearce faces up to four years in prison after being charged with a felony.
My money is on him getting off with community service.
Corey is a New Yorker who lived most of his life in upstate New York but has lived in Queens since 2008. He's only been birding since 2005 but has garnered a respectable life list by birding whenever he wasn't working as a union representative or spending time with his family. He lives in Forest Hills with Daisy and Desmond Shearwater. His bird photographs have appeared on the Today Show, in Birding, Living Bird Magazine, Bird Watcher's Digest, and many other fine publications. He is also the author of the American Birding Association Field Guide to the Birds of New York.
While it’s a nasty story I think describing it as “the ultimate expression of everything that is wrong with American culture” is a bit much. One guy comes over as a dick, but everyone else seems pretty angry, including the employees of Maccy-Dees who reported him to the police and were welcoming of the ducks.
Nineteen year old Dillon Pearce may not “get off” quite as easy as you say. You see, young Pearce seems to have a penchant for destruction. In March of 2010, he and four of his buddies destroyed an Ann Arbor, MI police car which was caught on video camera (smashing the rear window with a hammer, pouring feces all over the vehicle, etc.) He faced two felony charges of malicious destruction of police property. I don’t know what the outcome of that was but, having done that, I don’t think that any judge will look on him with any compassion and just give him a “slap on the wrist”. It seems that getting his kicks by destroying inanimate objects wasn’t enough….now he’s moved on to living creatures…..what’s next???
Sick people are all over the Globe 🙁
But at least in the US he gets punished for it.
And in my town…..darn
@Duncan: well, I think Corey’s got a good point there. The one thing that I found most … er … confusing about the US while I was living there was that some people tend to take their idea of freedom a step or two too far as in being free to do whatever they please regardless of the interests of others. Of course these people are a minority (and one would hope a tiny, tiny minority), but they have a tendency of behaving particularly conspicious.
Having said that, I agree with you and Nicole that this should not be taken as an indicator that the entire society is “wrong”. It certainly isn’t, and I have found US Americans to be generally very friendly, polite and considerate of others. These positive traits were more conspicious there than in most other nations I have had the chance to visit. But these extreme cases are a disturbing little detail…
McDonalds is also the ultimate expression of everything that is wrong with the world.