A story just came across the AP wire that a man in South Dakota has been convicted for sending in a traffic citation, cash payment, and a note smeared in animal excrement. The man pleaded guilty to “mailing injurious articles” and has to pay a $500 fine, $451 in restitution, and will be on probation for the next three years.
It’s not something we’d normally comment on. But we happened upon a strange backstory to this “News of the Weird”-worthy episode. This site seems to establish that the man in question, Jeffrey DeZeeuw–we could find only one person by that name in local listings–is a coordinator at a local Christian divorce crisis center. In that capacity, he uses a Bible-based program to help his clients move past their “anger” and “resentment” issues and put them on a path toward “reflection, spiritual growth, personal study, prayer and journaling.” He’s also the point man on divorce at the fundamentalist Good News Reformed Church in Sioux Falls.
So, in moments of great personal crisis–with savage feelings of anger, jealousy and betrayal at play–this is the guy who’s been doling out the advice? A man willing to create a biohazard for some faultless bureaucrat and publicly shame himself over a traffic citation? Yikes.
(Photo: LivingStonesNews.com)
April 6th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
Oy. The cursor hovered over the “Publish” button for a while with this story. But traffic tickets are kind of infrasturcture-ish. Right?
The thing I really love about this story though (but didn’t mention in the post) is that there was zero chance of him getting away with it. This wasn’t some potentially anonymous passive aggressive act. His name was *on the ticket.* That’s some pretty serious suspension of consequence-based thinking.
Well, let this be a lesson to everyone.
-Jebediah
April 6th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
[...] View original here: WWJD? Probably Not Mail In Traffic Tickets Smeared In Dog Sh*t … [...]
April 12th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Lol, Jeffrey and his rationality may need divorce counseling.
April 13th, 2009 at 9:36 am
Hmmm… a precursor to what the IRS will be receiving this year? One can only hope - beats the sh*t out of teabags!