TENNESSEE FIRE DEPARTMENT SINGS, LET THE HOUSE BURN, BURN, BURN M'FUCKER, BURN!

Only in America, the land of every possibilities and all things imaginable. A fire department in South Fulton Tennessee stood hands akimbo and watched as a man's house burnt to the ground because he has not yet paid an annual fire fighting and protection fee of $75, a somewhat fire-fighting insurance policy payable in the county. All his pleas to pay a premium fell on deaf ears as he was told to learn the hard lesson that had everyone behaved like him and waitied for their house to be on fire before making their payment, there would have been no money to buy fire trucks and train for such fire emergency. Icheoku says, what a bitter pill trailer-parker Gene Cranick was forced to swallow just to prove a point and put it on record that if you don't pay you won't be allowed to play. Tough love, nay, tough hate, Tennessee style!

Rural dweller Gene Cranick did not pay the annual fire-fighting subscription fees, a policy in place since 1990 and when fire struck his house, the county fire service refused him from drawing on the benefit of the covered policy. He lost his house and everything therein to the fire. However when the fire threatened to spread to his neighbors properties, the fire fighters standing nearby and watching his home consumed by fire, fought off the threatening fire, his neighbors having paid their protection fees accordingly.

Icheoku says this ordinance is simply ruthless, callous and has no heart in it; it also makes nonsense of the term emergency and ridicules "be your brother's keeper and America the beautiful." What if the Cranick has no money to pay? What if the man forgot to pay or the check was lost in the mail? What if Mr. Cranick dies of a broken heart or even commits suicide having lost everything to the fire and after watching his beloved America allow such a misfortune to befall him. Who takes the blame but America and southern Tennessee which accommodated such "Benjamines-only America?" Or is this no longer America where we help our brothers in need? Icheoku says the only way this absurdity could be properly recompensed is for the county or the state of Tennessee to immediately rebuild Mr. Cranicks house and do everything possible to restore him to his status-quo ante. There is no rational mind that will accept the basis for the disproportionate loss of property over a non payment of ordinary $75.

If one fails to comply with a law, and provided it is not a criminal violation; he is usually assessed a penalty and this is what would have applied to Mr. Cranicks provided his home is saved. Until this inhumanity to an American is fully redressed and his home restored, Icheokusays there is really no point carrying on with all these nation building Washington does in far away countries and far-flung territories when one of its own is treated in this shabby manner. It is simply pretentious that tax-payers money will be deployed to develop dessert Iraq and Afghanistan while an Americans home in South Fulton Obion County Tennessee is lost deliberately in this manner just because of the owner's inability to come up with $75. It is callous; it is wicked and it is un-American!