There are a couple of news stories I have come across on the Current Events forum on Skyscraperpage that have really got me irked right now, let me give you snippets of both:

Mother sues Coors over son’s death

RENO, Nevada (AP) — The mother of a 19-year-old killed in a traffic accident is suing Coors Brewing Co., claiming that it promotes underage drinking.

Jodie Pisco, of Reno, contends Coors has failed in its duty to protect the country’s youth from drinking. Her son, Ryan, was killed in 2002 after he drank Coors at a party and drove his girlfriend’s car into a light pole at 90 mph, the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Washoe County District Court, seeks unspecified damages. It accused Coors of “glorifying a culture of youth, sex and glamour while hiding the dangers of alcohol abuse and addiction.”

Story number two….

Columbine Father told to “Get a Life” by NRA
PITTSBURGH (AP) – A man whose son was killed in the Columbine High School shootings literally walked in his child’s shoes to the National Rifle Association convention, where he hoped Vice President Dick Cheney would address the federal assault weapons ban set to expire in September.
Tom Mauser, whose son Daniel was killed with an assault weapon in the Littleton, Colo., killings five years ago Tuesday, said continuing the ban is common sense.

Assault weapons “are the weapons of gangs, drug lords and sick people,” Mauser said before his three-block march to the convention, which runs through Sunday. “It is a weapon of war and we don’t want this war on our streets.”

Mauser challenged Cheney to speak about extending the ban when the vice president delivered the convention’s keynote address Saturday night.

However, there was no indication Saturday afternoon that Cheney would address the matter. He was expected to reaffirm President Bush’s position that the Second Amendment protects individual gun ownership and tout statistics that federal prosecutions of gun-related crimes have risen significantly under Bush’s presidency.

NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam called the assault weapon ban “nothing but an incremental effort to ban more firearms.”

…

Mauser entered the convention hall where the NRA was meeting, but was turned away by a security guard as several conventioneers applauded. A couple of conventioneers yelled “Get a life” and “Vote for Bush.”

:mad

I see two articles and I see two Americas. One is a land where soemoen tries to prevent tragedies from hitting other families while another wants to avoid responsibilites One tries to lobby to keep excessively dangerous items out of the mainstream and another triest to immerse themselves in money in order to saturate grief with green.

It angers me to no end.

That mother dodges all parental responsibilities and does not take into account her own failings for her sons death. Didn’t she ever tell him not to drink and drive? To get a ride if you are too intoxicated to drive? or NOT to drink at all? “You’re not old enough yet”? Does this woman think that she is the only one that has lost a child to under-age drinking, much less drinking and driving?

I’m sorry, ma’am, but your lawsuit is full of shit. There is this organization called Mothers Against Drunk Driving that has worked tirelessly to fight drunk driving, promote awareness and — this might scare you off — parental responsibility in keeping minors away from drinking. Instead of wasting hours of time in the courts, why not try to stop the problem before it starts and help others teach their children to be responsible? That would go too far against yoru principles, wouldn’t it? :rolleyes:

Yes, it’s a tragedy what has happened but at the same time it’s a tragedy when someone thinks a lawsuit will help erase their own irresponsibilities will make things all right. Budweiser and other alcoholic companies promote good times when drinking beer and that tends to be the truth… They also have commercials that say KNOW WHEN TO SAY WHEN and DRINK RESPONSIBLY. What will you do when you have this court case thrown out? Sue God for not answering your prayers? :rolleyes

Meanwhile we have Tom Mauser who’s so was murdered in the Columbine rampage. He goes into the lions den and preaches responsibility when talking about an assault weapons ban and what happens? Mauser is ridiculed, belittled and his tragedy overlooked.

I’d like to know where the NRA stands on personal responsibility with weapons and why offensive weapons need to be open to the public just as defensive weapons are? Anyone who tells me an AK-47 is a hunting weapon is full of shit, or that an Uzi is to be used to hunt Elk or some other animal. These are not defensive weapons but are made for carnage and offensive purposes. Someone who is attacking is going to use these not to defend their property but to take yoru own… Stopping these guns from making it out into the open market is a plus… Of course, Dick Cheney and the NRA side with gun makers and will tell you that owners are supposed to be responsible and they shoudln’t be limited into what types of weapons they own…

The problem with that logic is assuming all gun owners are going to be responsible – which they aren’t. There are no licenses in place for gun users and owners, though they do background checks on gun owners to make sure they don’t sell them to criminals, it’s not like once a gun makes it out into public it can’t end up in a criminals hands… And which guns are going to lead to more damage out in public? Assault Weapons killed 13 and injured 25 in columbine… Including Tom Mausers son. For Mauser to be told to get a life over encouraging the continuation of the assault weapons ban is to see how closed minded people are when there minds are made up. “Limiting guns in any way is just working towars a ban and that violates the right to bear arms in teh bill of rights!” Yeah? And when your son or daughter get gunned down, you still will be singing that tune just becuase the NRA is more important than family, isn’t it? :rolleyes

Someone close to me once told me that a lot of the current music out there makes you want to get up and dance. They were obsessed with Lenny Kravitz at the time (and remembering a song from High School that Lenny was wailing at the time I broke in, I can understand why) and of course I get to deal with Michelle being a music junkie of a friend too but I just can’t grasp the music and these times.

Why?

I posted on here a couple of days ago the lyrics to God Only Knows by the Beach Boys. I also have been playing the MP3 repeatedly along with some other stuff by the Beach Boys… It’s a good compliment to the Beatles, I guess, seeing that the music is fine and the lyrics can be clearly heard. The melody carries and you get lost in the lyrics.

“An endless refrain of Na-Na-Na’s” is how I’ve described the Beatles (Hey, Jude) and to describe the Beach Boys, it would be something outside of that but the same emphasis on the melody to go along with the music (“Mmmbop-bop,” perchance? Sounds like I am talking about Hanson but I’m just trying to give you a clue that I am talking about some of the backing vocals on Good Vibrations). You hear the name and you start thinking of surf music and I hate that. But even THAT had an emphasis on the melody. The problem was that it was vanilla flavored music.

So I’m thinking a lot about what I like and then I am thinking about what I get to see from music today — I don’t see a lot of innovation, I don’t see a lot of melody. I see a lot of performing and I see a lot of jamming but to find a pop song that is by an original artist, has a good tune, a backing melody… It just seems like it’s not going to happen. That’s my ignorance being re-introduced to sound after years of silence. I won’t totally grasp everything I hear but I know I can enjoy some of it.

One thing I know I like is a clear and concise lyric to a song – and a lyric that isn’t covered with slang in order to add grit to the song. I was reading a thread on Skyscraperpage about favorite lyrics and some of the shit posted is…. well, shit! ” Nigga’ ” “Fuck” “Bitch” — they’re all key words in some of what’s popular with young people today and it’s like these kids never heard MUSIC before… I mean something that blows them away. Something where they can see a couple of layers of music in the music and enjoy the song for what it possesses…. The MELODY, not going-through-the-motions singing. Not a beat box driving a song.

I might be praising songs for being clear but it’s not like I respect the canned-singers that are all voice and nothing else. I’m not a fan of American Idol-like pop where you just sing and have someone else write lyrics for you and someone else perform the backing music for you. Part of the reason I have such an affinity for the Beatles is because they did everything on there own. Brian Wilson was and is one of the Beach Boys and did a hell of a lot on his own but also had help here and there… So they are in the same area. U2 does it on there own. Nirvana did it on there own… But then again, Nirvana played loud and hard. U2 has one clear vocalist…

Good music in general makes you want to get up and dance, get up and sing… SO most of my opinions are worth shit because I’ve had every single type of music want to make me sing and dance… But I know my oldies are easier to touch and appreciate because of there ingenuity and their inventiveness… You can’t find musical inventiveness like this any more and if you can, I haven’t been made aware of it.

How pathetic?

A little troll with the IP address 168.213.1.133 posts about 1000 times under an entry in this blog to tell me I’m “Gay” and that my “mama is gay”.

To whoever has this intelligence deficit — thanks for your comments and showing how pathetic both you and your high school are…. I mean, you posted 30 times in about 5 minutes? Boy you must be bored. You also must be pretty insecure or pathetic (how about both) if you have to post stupid shit to try to slander another high school…

Just wondering, did you even attempt to read the post you were replying to? Or were you just responding to the title because you couldn’t understand the big words I used? :rolleyes

I came across someone I had been searching for over the last seven years on Classmates.com just now… Someone i used to have a mad crush on and someone I was too scared to admit I was interested in.

But that was 10th grade and High School… A long long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Or seven miles and almost 10 years.

At any rate, it got me to thinking about what you would say to someone you haven’t seen in such a long time? What would you talk about with them? Would you just come clean about things that happened last time you talked? Or old problems that might have been left unsolved between you?

Or would you start fresh like the three examples below?

“Hi, how’s it going?”
“Nice shoes, wanna fuck?”
“Excuse me, you look so familiar and I was wondering if you could tell me if this dress makes my ass look big?”

I came across this girl’s aunt online in 1999 and I had the opportunity to get in touch with her but passed on it. Why? Fear in part, and also because I didn’t want to rear my head back into her life while she certainly has a life of her own that I am not even a thought in. Time passes and things fade away — but memories and feelings aren’t so easily pushed into oblivion. I’m not planning on paying Classmates in order to get in touch with the girl for the same reasons… My interest is piqued though, for the moment.

Edit to Entry: Better question than the WHATTAYA SAY — How would you react if someone from High School suddenly dropped in on your life? SOmeone you ahven’t spoken to since then…?

There was a movie I rented before I went in for surgery in August — and it’s also a movie I put off watching… And continued to put off watching after someone told me that they had seen it and it made a profound statement to them.

It’s not because the movie made a difference, it’s because other things and such. Pay no heed to my whining, lets go back to the movie that I am talking about, and that is Michael Moore’s Bowling For Columbine which just about everyone has seen or has heard of and has an opinion about.

Part of the reason I put off watching it was because I felt like shit at the time. Won’t go into the rest of it. Moore’s film brought up a statement or two that I totally agree with. One is a statement that a cartoon tried to underline and another is a statement that Marilyn Manson – Home I am no fan of – made to Moore. There were also plenty of other things (Matt Stone’s thoughts about high school – how I only came to realize that a year after I got out of High School… That’s just one example) but these two statements that were made were what sold the movie to me most.

The first statement I will re-convey is Manson’s statement that we are a nation driven by consumption and fear. Our fear drives our consumption and our consumption is what drives our fear. You see a nation that is over-weight and yet you see commercials telling you to drink beer to get laid. Cause – effect. You see commercials telling you how to act and how many teens and young adults are terrorized because they are not the actors with the polished skin in these commercials? How many are driven to buy products slung by these actors in commercials because they think it will help them fit in?

Goes for smoking too — Peer pressure? Sure… Image conscious is peer-pressure to another degree – the desire to fit in. To be cool. To be popular…

The second statement that made the largest effect on me was a statement Manson already made but a Cartoon illustrated best – we are a nation driven by fear. We’re afraid the big black man walking down the street is going to get us. We’re afraid that if we don’t stop the government from taking our money, they will just blow it on crack-whore welfare and pork barrels, we’re afraid that if we don’t bomb the living hell out of a country, they’ll bomb the living hell out of us. The fear drives us, the fear catapults us to acting without thinking, acting in retaliation before there is anything to retaliate about.

Are we a country with an inferiority complex or insecurity complex?

Bowling for Columbine doesn’t offer us solutions to our problems – it just look sat our problems… That itself might be part of the problem… If we have no framework of the alternative to what we know, there is no reason to look at an alternative. Of course, the alternative to owning a gun is to go with out – scratch one. Then there is the idea of having to have a license and knowledge of how to handle a fire arm to own one… The NRA would never go for that (even though the only thing it is doing is making sure gun owners are EDUCATED). Scratch two.

More of the same is the other alternative that comes to mind and hope society changes it’s ways. Ha! Like that will happen? Scratch three. :sad

Let’s see how much of an entry I can write through my pager, shall we?

Oh, I’m not posting this through my pager but I am writing it on my pager, and then sending it to my email account and THEN copying it, pasting it, and posting it on Der Stonegauge.

As if I’d have nothing better to do with my time? :tongue

So here we are on Wednesday, I have an eye appointment in a little bit, seems my eye is infected and that is screwing up the works. But first and foremost? LUNCH…. Well, seeing it’s 2PM maybe this should be called something else? You know, sorta like “Snack time” like you had in Elementary School.

I’m heading to my first Lightning game of the season on Friday with Michelle. I would have gone sooner but I’m a gimp and climbing the risers would be tough. Michelle’s been bored out of her mind lately and her boyfriend is working so — good company and great hockey is what will be going on Friday.

“Not a date, definately not a date.” Vincent Vega, Pulp Fiction

Well, there are times you catch an older movie on the cable box when you are flipping around and you find yourself watching the film – that you probably already saw – and seeing it in a different way…. Understanding it better than when you first saw it and perhaps seeing a message in the movie, or something you didn’t see originally when you watched the film.

I had two scenes hit home with me in particular. One scene had Anthony Quinn basically summing up the business world, and another scene showed just why Danny Devito’s character is like he is… let me see if I can break it down.

Talking about the DeVito scene first, he has Penelope Ann Miller in his home and is hosting her for business dinner. She happens across a photograph of a cheerleader and DeVito’s character, Lawrence “Larry the Liquidator” Garfield, starts to explain who the girl was and you get a glimpse at what his character – a brash, arrogant, son of a bitch – has deep down inside him. He talks about being smitten for this girl when he was in high school and how she dated the quarterback of the HS football team. He talked about sending her poetry in an attempt to woo her and how she stayed with the Quarterback. He tells how he would have given her anything and done anything for her, but “All she wanted was a touchdown.”

Lawrence Garfield, being short and overweight and not able to win the girl over with physical prowess, tried with his mind and heart…. His mind and heart are strengthened with his money – but it takes ruthlessness to make money. Larry’s no idiot, and he has done what he could to educate himself not only in the business sense, but about the finer things in life. What he couldn’t achieve with his physical prowess, as I said, he tried to with his mind and heart. Maybe that’s why I can identify with him so well? Maybe because I’ve walked a mile in those shoes before and been turned away or flat out turned down?

Meanwhile, back to the second thing that hit home with me – Anthony Quinn, speaking in front of a stock-holders meeting near the end of the film, spoke of the business world and things that seem common place now in business. Maybe that was the way it was then, but I can’t remember…

Nor can I remember what he was saying now, a few hours after I watched the film… Hopefully I can get some of these quotes sometime in the near future.

I graduated East Lake High School in 1997 — I’m a proud Eagle alumni and I stand by my school…. Even if it’s among-student motto is “Where Eagles spread there wings and girls spread there legs.”

That being said, E.L.H.S. has a rival that I have always had problems with — not just because they were our sports rival, but quality of schooling and what not.

The rival happens to be Tarpon Springs High School — the venerable Spongers. (side note — Always felt cheeky about the SNL skit with the cheerleaders that had the East Lake Spartans, even though it isn’t a true combination of the two schools in question).

So what has lead me to write about my revilement for Tarpon Springs High School? There was a story in the local paper today about a TSHS student being suspended for circulating an anti-Confederate Flag petition. If you listen to the news, this story is starting to break in the mainstream (as I found when I did a Google Search on the story)… That being said, I relaly am sickened by the stupidity that surrounds this.

Back in High School, and Middle School for that matter, there had to be a dozen petitions that were circulated that were unofficial and not going to change what the school does or allows. No one got suspended over these things. Heck, they protested the Rodney King verdict at my middle school and all they did was make martyr’s out of the kids for standing up for what’s right.

I don’t believe Krista Abram’s was doing anything wrong. Nor do I think those who back southern pride by wearing a symbol of racism should be let off the hook for wearing the confederate flag on campus. I realize that some southerners wear the rebel flag and wave it with pride as a symbol of heritage and not hatred, but there has been too much hatred shown to African Americans since the Civil War to get away without being accused that the Rebel Flag isn’t a symbol of hate or cannot be interperted as one.

What also bothers me is that those who are so immersed in southern pride and southern heritage haven’t searched for an alternative symbol that they could wear or wave or show off… Something that shows pride but doesn’t have a malignant past,.

Tarpon Springs High School went out of there way to blow up this situation with Krista Abrams – they’ve effectively screwed the pooch by making an incident of this. Krista’s petition – with no offense intended towards her or her cause (which I gladly support) – would have waned and faded if it was allowed to circulate among students but not actually get anywhere (even if it did reach the school’s principle, it could have been said to her that there was nothing he could or would do). Instead? Tarpon Springs High School is now going to be under a racial microscope. Not just that, Krista may have hate brought upon her, those trying to express Southern Pride may have hate brought upon them as well…

The entire situation has become a powderkeg, thanks to the ignorance of the vice principle at Tarpon Springs High School, Wayne McKnight.