Sheep Charged With Loitering In His Own Field
After one sheep was charged with loitering in his own field, the flock began to suspect the country has developed a broader discomfort with people simply being where they already are.
The sheep were shaken this week after one member of the flock was charged with loitering in his own field, an incident Janet described as “jurisdictionally creative” and Marvin described as “what happens when a society starts treating ordinary presence like an unattended backpack at an airport Chili’s.”
According to witnesses, the sheep in question had been standing in a perfectly routine patch of grass, facing west with a thoughtful expression and no immediate plans beyond existing, when he was informed that his lingering posture had raised concerns. Fancy Pants said the case represented “a troubling new distinction between being somewhere and being authorized to seem comfortable there.” Bruce and Frankie called it “visually unfair.”
The flock said the episode felt painfully current. Across the country, people are increasingly being confronted, detained, or processed while doing ordinary things in ordinary places. A recent investigation found that a large majority of ICE arrests in New York and New Jersey targeted Latinos, often during street encounters while people were walking, shopping, or heading to work. At the same time, federal officials have drawn up plans that could halt immigration and customs processing at airports in so-called sanctuary cities, extending the same mood of scrutiny into spaces once associated with movement and routine travel.
Whitney called the field incident “anxious governance with boundary issues.” Simone said the real offense was ease, because systems built around control eventually start reacting to comfort the way Victorian aunts reacted to ankles. Janet asked for a copy of the citation. Marvin requested the metadata, a soil sample, and the names of everyone who had been near the fence line since Tuesday.
By sunset, the sheep had reached a broader conclusion. A field works best when the creatures in it can graze, pause, and look mildly contemplative without triggering an intake procedure. A country probably does too.
Visual profiling and detention the next level of ICE in he absence of any real data to indicate an individual meets their criteria for engagement… it’s how they meet their “numbers”
The sheep and the country is watching … smells of past history
It’s interesting, I get shade all the time, my town, 7 churches, poputlation about 1,000, what’s worse, we have a tiny church, I am a convert to catholicism, from Book or Moron creepyness. I like the liturgy, and I appreciate the message and since we are so far from anywhere our priests come from central Africa or Mexico… I usually attend Spanish mass because their are figitting kids and louder singing, it’s always acapella because nobody can play the old Hammond. So, I get smashed in town for actually being catholic, am how I am not actually a christian, one guy called me a papist, had to look that one up. I learned a lot about fighting in Belfast because of that comment. Just sayin’ you don’t gotta like me, talk to me or anything. But, please, bear with me. I don’t and can’t hop around, the only tongues I know are english and spanish, snakes creep me out, I’m not deadset on Sunday Mass or a you-messed-up, it’s Saturday, dummy. Sometimes I go to tuesday morning mass when going down to the feed store, sometimes I invite the father up for a good homecooked meal. I am not a rabid religionist, but I kinda feel that even good atheists are going my way… do good, don’t do bad, love your neighbors, don’t beat on your partner, your kids or even that guy who still has your plumbing wrench.
But there is actually only one great commandment to rule them all. That commandment Jesus gave, the one that supercedes all others takes out huge chunks of the old testament and leaves nothing except the ‘who begat who’, and throwing folks in pits, lion’s dens, big smokey fires, and one army at another.
So, this is a learned thing, a thing to practice daily, and something, I admit, am not a role model, some kind of biblical scholar, or an authority of any kind.
Jesus said, “Love one another.” Simple as that.