Shining Thru

I thought it was interesting today watching CNN…someone brought up the fact that the Media must have gone crazy…the only things that they have to say against President Obama is that there is an extra in a music video that looks like him and that he’s not showing enough emotion about the oil spill.  I mean, what do these people really want?  him to break down in sobs so that he can appear weak to the entire nation instead of strong and level headed.  They even insulted the fact that he was in business pants when he was down on the site…what did they expect for a Presidential Press Event?  I thought that the reporter who was commenting about this whole drama made a good point when he posed the question, do you want the President to play act the part for you, or go ahead and actually do something…

I have to wonder how often it is that the media gets people all hyped up about the wrong issues and how often people are pulled into the drama of the media craze….How often do people put their own priorities, thoughts and feelings aside because they have become caught up in the media frenzy and are now stuck on the point that has been driven into their head every time they have turned on the news or looked at the paper.

I wish our country would go back to thinking for themselves instead of being programmed into thinking whatever other people want them to think.

I’m not sure where the younger generation is headed, but it doesn’t look good.  Legislators keep trying to increase the curriculum and make everything look good on paper, but what it’s actually doing is forcing kids to give up.  No child left behind is plowing students over by trying to make them keep up with some made up standards by politicians that have never been inside a classroom, other than as a student.  I saw in the news that another student brought another gun to school….I think that it is so sad that we have to worry about such things.  As always the comments on the article were much more interesting that the article itself…people say all sorts of things from where are the parents, to that school is for the trash of the district anyway…Even if it is an alternative school how can we possible call children trash….Schools have a lot of issues these days and it scares me to think that these are the people of the generation that are suppose to be running things in the future.  If we don’t get it together and start worrying about the right issues I don’t understand how we expect improvements. What good are nice looking standardized test scores in the records office if children are running around on the streets or bringing the streets to the schools.  I don’t think that we realize all of the time what kind of issues are in the homes for the young people today, but I also don’t think that we should be making excuses for anyone, I think that the first step to having any real improvement is to hold people responsible for their own actions.

Reading the local news was pretty interesting today.  I read that near by the city counsel voted to impose a daytime curfew for children of school age.  Their new law states that children between the ages of 6 and 16 should not be found in the community between the times of 8:30 am and 2:30 pm.  Police will take care of running into children of school age during the day by offering to take them home or to school, if they refuse than their guardian will get the citation…..Reading the comments was even more interesting.  Some people were complaining that this is forcing the police officers to take care of the parental responsibilities of these young people…however, I feel that it is forcing parents to be held accountable for the actions of their child or children.  Now a days, parents don’t have too many excuses for not knowing where their children are; schools have auto dialers that inform them whenever a child is late or absent, teachers send letters home, and most teenagers I see have cell phones that parents could track them with if they so choose.  Some people may argue that tracking their child is an invasion of their privacy, but I feel that it is your responsibility to know about your child while they are living under your roof and your responsibility.  I think it’s wonderful that law enforcement will help parents out when they see the young people walking around town for no good reason other than to avoid getting an education….However, I do think that it is pretty sad that we, as a society, would have to resort to such matters.  It is interesting the variety of comments on this particular article, one person said that it is a shame that parents will end up paying for their children’s mistakes and that “parent’s are use to footing the bill for their children…I think that is a major problem in our society….why shouldn’t parents be held responsible for their children, they are the ones that raised them.  I know there are some people who feel that they are in a hopeless situation with their children…but I think they are running out of people to blame other than the parents and the way that the children were raised.  If you let a 2 year old run the household, what do you think will happen when that toddler grows into a teenager?

What are the lines and boundaries of privacy?  What if you provide the equipment, do you have rights to know everything that happens with that equipment?  Or is there a line?  Who in their right minds, thought that the school district spying on their students through the built in webcams on the school issued laptops?

Reading the article, “School Officials Likened to ‘Peeping Toms,’” I was amazed that a group of people thought that it was a good idea to try and get a student in trouble, using illegal web images as their evidence….

Didn’t anyone think that it was a bad idea to record teenagers in their home without informing anyone or getting anyone’s permission?  Didn’t anyone consider that weird?  Would any of those school officials like to be viewed in their homes?  And know what goes on behind their closed doors?  I have a feeling that they will argue that because they were school computers they had the right to view whatever goes on around them, but I doubt that will go very far….I have to wonder how many charges and what kind of charges will be brought against this school district.

Interesting things pop up in the news from time to time, the stupidity of people continues to surprise me.

Why is it that we reward the criminals and make them into idols, why do we respect the people who are the problem of the world.  We give them the publicity, the attention and make them popular, especially to the younger generation.  There is only ever a blurb for the people who do amazing things to help others, like saving someone from a fire, or stepping in to protect someone, etc…but then when someone does something horrendous, murder, child abuse, animal abuse, etc.  Why do we encourage reckless and dangerous behavior with TV shows that show all of the crazy things people are doing, no matter if they are dangerous or harmful to others…. our society still tries to press it upon every everyone that they are the ones we should pay attention to.  I often wonder why our society focuses on all of the negative things in our culture…why is it that the negative things are what sell stories…why can’t we rejoice in the good in the world instead of the bad…what is it that draws us to the blood, fear, and pain???  If it’s not sex that sells it’s the murder, abuse, pain, and all of the other hurtful and negative things.

Right now it’s the Craig’s List killer who is getting all of the attention.  Why is that different then all of the other murders, because it’s something new and it’s associated with something that a lot of people are familiar with.  Why not focus on something useful like all of the child kidnappings, or child abuse cases or something that the attention might help in some way.  Instead we see the same thing on every news channel and the only thing it does is make the bad guy popular.