Greetings and Salutations;

Once again, my fellow Americans have shown that they have the capacity to amaze me and push the limits of how one should conduct oneself.

In short, Christopher Lane was an Australian baseball player, in the United States on a baseball scholarship. Last week, while visiting his girlfriend and her family in a small town in Oklahoma, three boys (ranging in age from 15 to 17), pulled up behind him in a car, pulled out a gun and shot him in the back. This week, a court heard that their explanation for the act was that they were bored, and, thinking of themselves as wanna-be gangsters, randomly picked this young man as a target.

People around the world are asking”why”, and “How could this happen” and such. A problem with asking these questions is that it pre-supposes that there are some rational reasons for such an act. There really are not, as it has more to do with the weird way that the minds of kids work than any real reason. I believe there are some factors that contributed to this terrible event, that provided the roots for the act, and, I want to discuss them in this post.

Over the past several decades, there has been an almost obscene glorification of the outlaw and the gangster. The American entertainment industry has glommed onto this theme with both hands, as they see that it sells movies and television shows. As I have said before, children are, essentially, empty vessels  when it comes to morality, ethical behavior and the like.  If parents do not work to fill that void with positive values, then, those places will be filled by the next option – which in this case is the examples set by the entertainment media.

As I just mentioned, one of the other issues that is causing problems is the issue of parenting (or the lack thereof) in today’s world. This is a complicated issue, too. Some of the problem is that the economy is such that it is almost impossible to survive if both spouses do not have fairly well-paying jobs. This sucks up so much time and energy that even the best parents have limited time to do the sort of job that is necessary to rear good citizens. There is the fact that, still, too many parents do not want to BE parents, and accept the fact that this requires them to be the “bad guy” at times.  Rather, they seem to look upon their children as their new “best buddies”…and think that it is ok to treat them as equals. This attitude is pretty much guaranteed to ensure that the kids will not get a good moral basis to live by,  but, will tend to grow up with a sense of entitlement and self absorption that makes everyone else far less important.  . This attitude also ends up making it nearly impossible for the parents to discipline their kids, and, it allows the kids to believe that they are doing everyone a favor simply by existing, and they have no duty to put the dirty dishes in the sink after eating (as a single point in the list of helpful chores). The whole concept of assigned chores and working to help improve the environment for the entire family is falling by the wayside. There is the fact that too many parents, these days, have no interest in supporting the education of their children. Too many of them seem to believe that their “Little Snowflake” is perfect, and, if there are problems at school, they must be caused by unreasonable demands on the kid by teachers, or, tyrannical administrators, or some other factor.  So, instead of supporting the teachers, and working to make sure that their kids are doing the work necessary to pack the information and skills into their heads that are necessary to become good citizens these days,  they rant and rave at school administrators to try and force them to change things to fix THEIR problem.

Unlike too many people on the Net, I may rant about problems, but, I also try to offer some ways to improve the situation. Now, how would I approach this can of worms?

First off, I realize that I cannot fix the parents in the world, although it would be nice to be able to wave a magic wand and improve the quality of their work and to make it easier for them to be good parents.  However, I would encourage everyone to consider looking at their parenting habits, and, perhaps start taking a more active part in their kid’s life. My upbringing was hardly perfect, but, my parents DID take far too much interest in my life, and keeping track of what was going on in it. Also, I had chores, and, I had to do them…NOT doing them was not an option. I did not like it so much at the time, but, it left me with a strong sense of taking on a job and finishing it, even if it was hard. I also tend to see problems or messes and clean them up without waiting for someone to ask me to do it….I just do it,   I, for one, think my life and the lives of those around me are better for it.

An issue with this murder was that the three boys who did it were sitting around the house, killing time. The old saying is “Idle Hands are the Devil’s workshop”,  There is a lot of truth to this old saying.   Now, some of this could have been dealt with if the kids had enforced chores to do, or some other, positive activity to fill their time.  One of the things that kept me out of a lot of trouble when I was in my teens was the fact that I had a membership in the local “Boys Club” (Now, known as a “Boys and Girl’s Club”). That gave me a good place to go, it provided me with a fairly decent library, and, the staff there had organized games that they would drag us outside to participate in. While I am no great fan of Basketball, it was good to get dragged out on the court and practice the concepts of teamwork, as well as building my eye/hand coordination. Over the past decade or so, the Conservative wings of the government have consistently cut funding for places like this.  I think this is a foolish savings, as it only saves a small amount, and, ends up removing the places where kids like this can work off that excess energy, and get a bit more socialized.

Finally, this glorification of the“gangsta” world has to end.  It has never brought anything goodto the equation, and, it never will.

These three kids have done a terrible thing, for which they will pay for the rest of their lives. If we do not make some serious changes in the road we are on as a society, I fear we shall see more and more such events in our world.  Nothing good can come from this.

Pleasant Dreams

Bee Man Dave