Phunny Float-os
Every Independence Day the town of Beverly, Mass. holds a parade, with some floats designed for political satire or crude humor (this year, an Amy Winehouse “Rehab Cab” was one such participant). However, the neighboring town of Gloucester is unhappy because several floats referenced the alleged teen pregnancy pact (whereby seventeen high school girls vowed to simulatenously birth and raise their children, and one was supposedly impregnated by a homeless man). One such float displayed a group of girls dancing on a platform with beach balls under their dresses, with a poster reading “We didn’t use a rubber, now we’re stuck cooking supper” below them. Calling it tasteless, three of the parade’s judges quit and the Gloucester school committee chairman was infuriated. Personally, I hope no apologies are issued—the floats were making fun of the idea of a pregnancy pact, not of the plight of single teenage mothers collectively. Besides, no one seemed to get angry during the 2006 parade, in which a float poked fun of New Orleans in the wake of Katrina:
