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In between the seemingly never ending news coverage of Anna Nicole Smith and Brittney Spears, there has actually been time for some real news. Well, real if you accept the fact that the world we live in has gone absolutely insane and can also swallow what is being shoved down our throats as news. By the way, Smith is still dead and Spears is still nuts.
The focus lately has been all over the place, ranging from the stock market crash to playing Sudoku in the snow, going from the serious to the silly. It is what the news stations fill the time with in between the two that can be absolutely mind-boggling. Maybe because it is presented to us with such a straight face.
During the last week there has been two stories that are being repeated, ad nauseum, about our troubled youth in the world. Of course the root of their problems is being blamed on the deficiencies of their parents. Unfortunately, the ones that I am referring to do point in that direction.
First we have the 8-year-old boy, Conner McCreaddie, living in Wallsend, North Tyneside, England who weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 pounds. The health officials in the area have been debating whether or not to let his mother retain custody of him, sighting child endangerment as the reason.
London’s news agencies, who are even loopier than America’s, can’t even get their facts straight from day to day while reporting this story. The same news agency, Reuters, that has been reporting this bit of earth shattering news since it began, first had his weight at 218 pounds. Within 48 hours his weight had dropped to 196 pounds.
Wow that’s some diet! 22 pounds in less than two days. I think Reuters should get out of the news business and join Jenny Craig in the weight loss arena. Regardless of the difference in weight, that is one husky youngster.
His weight has been responsible for his chronically missing school. The reasons given have been health problems and the constant taunting of school bullies. We’ll get to his health in a second, but the bully thing, in my opinion, should be the problem of the school and the parents of the bullies. Those little toads should be kicked out of school until they learn how to act, and their parents ought to be publicly flogged. Flogging is still legal in England isn’t it?
As far as his heath is concerned, it has the potential to become dangerous, if not deadly. So what is causing this massive amount of weight gain? Is it a medical condition that can’t be treated? Is it magic elves that come to him at night and inject in with massive amount of fluids? Or did he chew the wrong type of gum at Wonka’s Chocolate, like Violet Beauregarde, and blow up into a giant blueberry?
Afraid not old chap. The reason is far less interesting, but far more infuriating. It is a problem that is shared by parents on both sides of the pond, as they say. It is a parent’s inability to use the word no.
You see Conner’s mom, just like Violet’s, just can’t bring herself to deny her precious little angel anything, especially when it comes to food. She has said that she was afraid not to give into his insatiable demands for junk food, for fear of him throwing tantrums and “…would go on at us all night for snacks and such” if he doesn’t get the type of food he wants. That sounds more like Veruca Salt, another Wonka character, instead of Violet.
Apparently Conner has the run of the flat and spends the better part of his time hovering around the kitchen looking for food, not unlike my dog. He also sneaks into the refrigerator as soon as his mom’s back is turned and eats himself silly. The authorities have suggested to the mom that she put a lock on the fridge, but the mother, read Conner, refused.
So if mom is incapable of saying no to Conner and will not take steps to prevent him from eating himself to death, then maybe he should be taken away and put in a weight loss program or lock him in a room that has nothing but fruits and vegetables for a month or so. I would think the little bugger would lose a pound or two that way.
Next we have the little 15 year old idiot that thought it would be a good idea to graffiti a bus that had numerous city dignitaries on it, including Los Angeles Mayor Villaraigosa. This moron, in broad daylight, walked up to the bus when it came to a stop one block from his school, Santee High School, and began scrawling his name on the window.
In a statement to the press, the equally stupid principal of that school, who was also on the bus, said the following, “. …that he believed that the student had no idea that the dignitaries were on board, but looked stunned, hid his face and stopped tagging as soon as he saw a photographer on the bus taking his picture.” What is that even supposed to mean? That kid is only stupid, not brain dead?
The Mayor was obviously really pissed off about the entire situation. I am assuming because the kid had ruined a perfectly good photo opportunity and stole his thunder by the kid getting the front page of the Times instead of him. The mayor was looking for swift and severe justice, calling for the student to be shipped of to England to be flogged, that’s where flogging is still legal.
Just kidding, but he did want the student to get 100 hours worth of community service cleaning graffiti off of buses. Unfortunately, due to an ancient law on the books, that could not be done. I think it has something to do with taggers having to stay 500 yards away from any graffiti, or something like that. Whatever it is, that law definitely needs to be changed.
Personally I think that we should start by cutting off a couple of fingers on his writing hand and see if that does the trick. If he is caught doing it again, lop off a couple of more and keep going until he either stops or can’t do it any more. Either way I’m sure it will cut down on the amount of the graffiti we see.
If you think that sounds extreme, take this into consideration. Last Wednesday in Orange County, a retired police officer saw a tagger at work, again in broad daylight, and decided to take action. The 16-year-old vandal stabbed him numerous times before fleeing. Again, as far as I’m concerned if they are going to act like animals, declaw them like animals. But back to the bus tagger for a minute. The principal in his ongoing attempts to defend his student, claimed that the student was “having achievement issues in school” and that his actions were a “cry for help”. Yeah right, more like a “cry to get his ass kicked by the system”.
If it is a “cry for help” well that’s just fine and dandy. Why don’t we get him the help he needs by placing him in a children’s detention facility and off of our streets. Let him and his writing implements cry for help behind their walls, because I am tired of seeing his and other taggers’ handy work.
So for all of you young parents out there, learn from the mistakes that the parents who came before you made. Stop codling your young ones and learn the word no before your kids all become 200 pound eight year old taggers and some government agency has to come in and correct your mistakes.
Those who ignore the past are doomed to repeat it.
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