Word: pets
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...proposal for the new Congress: institute a national users' fee system called Licenses on Surpluses and Excesses (LOSE). An annual LOSE fee of $5 each could be levied on all pets (except perhaps goldfish). All pet food could be subject to a LOSE sales fee of 5%. Annual LOSE fees could also be considered on: art holdings, books, magazines, newspapers, records, candy, greeting cards, caskets, cosmetics, jewelry, liquor, tobacco, air conditioners, and many other goods, services and diversions...
...table d'hôte is presented daily in countless American households. Samantha the cat, Buddy the beagle, Carol the canary, and myriad other furred, finned, scaly and feathered creatures are not only members of the great extended U.S. family; they are more equal than most. The U.S. pet set gets not only more nutritious meals but also better medical care and vastly more affection than the great majority of the world's people...
...Purr. Pets are the surrogate children- and husbands and wives- of Western society, returning, for kibbles and kisses, companionship and devotion, or at least a cool tolerance accepted as love. Like pharaohs and czars and Caesars, Americans surround themselves with absurdly exalted animals. In a disjointed society and a disquieting world, these anthropomorphized adoptees can be counted on to wag and purr and warble, warming human hearts and hearths until they pass expensively on to await us in the Great Pet Sheraton Upstairs...
...today is undergoing what can only be described as an animalthusian explosion. There are enough pet species in this country alone-some 5,000-so that just one pair from every category would require, come the deluge, a Noah's ark the size of the U.S.S. Enterprise...
...view of alarmists, the revolution may already have begun. Pet alligators have fled their habitats and begun to multiply in city sewers. South American piranhas have checked out of private aquariums to infest Southern waterways. Pet snakes of many deadly varieties escape and terrorize whole neighborhoods. Argentine monk parakeets are fleeing the cage and filching the fruit from Midwestern orchards. Land snails slither out of home aquariums to gnaw the stucco outside. A fugitive kangaroo has hopped 250 miles through Illinois and zapped several cops. In every city in America, abandoned dogs rampage in wild packs through vacant lots...