Sunday, April 26, 2009

Two News Stories That Left My Mind Boggled

I am one of those so called "news junkies." I go to sleep watching the news and I wake up watching the news. I read the news on my Blackberry and computer. You can say that I love to be informed about the daily events of the world.

One thing that amazes me when I watch or read the news is how many stupid people that are out there. I came across two stories on one website.

Story 1: Six Arrested When Party on Dinkytown Gets Out of Hand - http://kstp.com/news/stories/S899192.shtml?cat=1

What a shocker. It just had to happen on the weekend of the University of Minnesota's annual spring party: Spring Jam. It was reported earlier this week in the Minnesota Daily that the U of M had to cut police patrol in Dinkytown due to funding issues. Community leaders didn't want this to happen because it would create problems in the Dinkytown community. They knew parties were going to happen. I wonder how many of them actually read that article and were planning on taking advantage of the low police patrol? Apparently 400-500 people did.

My only question is: How many of them were A) Drinking, B) Underage or C) Both? My best guess would be letter C - both. The University campus is one small town itself - with at least 11,000 students, faculty and staff on campus. Is this what today's society is all about? Underage drinking. These people think that their invisible. Nothing bad will happen and if it does, mommy and daddy will take care of it. But if it's death, then it's a different story. Take the Amanda Jax story. While I'm sad that she died from drinking, I'm upset by the fact that her friends continued to encourage her to drink and the bartenders that kept serving her. Parents blamed the bar and her friends but didn't take into the account that Jax drank a lot previously.

I'll even admit that in my early 20s, I wanted to go out and drink. Heck there are times today that I want to go out and have a drink. Since I act mature for my age, I can keep it to a social level. Meaning I can have 1 or 2 and call it a night. But I'll admit once that I got a little crazy one night and had, in the words of Arthur Bach (from the movie Arthur) "I want more than enough". But I still remembered how to get home. Safely, even while on the bus.

I was having a conversation about something similar to this story with a transit driver who does Route 852 (an express route going from Downtown Minneapolis to Anoka via 35W, East River Road, and Northtown Mall). We were discussing a story that happened a couple years ago where high school age children were drinking, taking pictures and posting them on Facebook. The principle found them and suspended them. But, here comes mommy and daddy to the rescue, telling the media that "our kid(s) would never do something like that. What the school administration did was invasion of privacy and should be allowed to go back to school." What? "Our kids would never do that?" There's evidence that they DO that. Plus Facebook is a public domain. Anyone can view it. Personally, I'm glad that they got suspended.

Whatever happened to "you do the crime, you do the time?" I still remember growing up, I did bad things. I deserved to get punished. I deserved to do the time. And I learned from it. It seems that parents are trying to be their child(s) friend instead of being a parent. They're not learning the consequences of their actions by bailing them out of trouble.

I wonder if mommy and daddy will come to the rescue of their children after last night's Dinkytown riot? While I understand that parents have every right to defend their children, but of they break the law, why bother?

Story 2: Minn. Man Arrested for Leaving Girl, 5, in Charge - http://kstp.com/news/stories/S899044.shtml?cat=1

Are people getting stupider and stupider by the day? Why would anyone in there right mind leave a 5 year old alone, with two toddlers? It's the exact equivalent to leaving your child in a vehicle for that quick errand (see a previous blog posting).

I'm not going to get into this story very much since the stupidity level is way too high.....

I'm starting to realize that I maybe becoming too opinionated at times.....

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