Wondering on Wednesday (v128)

Wondering, wondering, wondering.

Guns don't kill people. Backpacks kill people. Now, no one has actually said that seriously, as far as I know, but this week students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School were handed clear plastic backpacks, to replace any they might have had previously that were not see-through.

I wonder, does anyone see the irony here? We inject transparency into book bags, put fences around schools, and require students to wear IDs, but we can't find a way to inject more clarity into the background check process, or even insure that everyone undergo one before purchasing a gun?  We make kids carry their belongings for all to see, but we look to enforce one state's concealed carry rules on every state in the nation, including those who are not interested?

Poor Ethan has been released from jail, after serving a couple of years for probation violation. Poor Ethan is Ethan Couch. You remember him, right? The teenager who killed four people while driving drunk, but was pronounced by a mental health professional to be suffering from a severe case of affluenza, and avoided jail time as a result? Affluenza only infects the wealthy, who because of their upbringing never learn right from wrong, and don't understand consequences and stuff like that.  I wonder, is he still suffering from his affliction, or did his time in jail (for violating his probation) provide a cure?

Here's a question for you: What do you call the White House? Seriously. what do you call the White House?  Do you call it, I don't know, the White House?  I wonder why the president couldn't pull that out of his hat when talking to kids and their parents at the White House Easter Egg Roll about, well, about the economy, and the military, and how they keep the building (or whatever) in tippy-top shape?

And finally, sticking with the Easter Bunny and Easter eggs, neither of these have much of anything to do with religion, or the 'reason for the season,' as they say, but we 'celebrate' them none-the-less, and have been celebrating them since the 1800s at the tippy-top shape place.

One thing that was not celebrated, I learned, was Easter in a Google doodle. And apparently, the doodlers haven't doodled for Easter since 2000, when they used two candy eggs for the OO in Google.

How did I learn this, you might wonder?  From Fox News. As you regular readers know, I try to learn about different sides of issues, no matter how painfully Red or painfully Blue the slant, because it's my job as a citizen to understand what the heck's going on and what is important other than what I think is important, or people like me think is important.

And for Fox News, and many similarly-thinking folks, this is a big darn deal.  Mind you, candy eggs in the doodle have nothing to do with the resurrection, and have nothing to do with religion - but they sure as heck count on the plus side of the ledger when you're fighting the war against Christianity, which is what Fox et al believe they're doing.

Google told Fox

We don't have Doodles for religious holidays, in line with our current Doodle guidelines. Doodles may appear for some non-religious celebrations that have grown out of religious holidays, such as Valentine's Day, Holi's Festival of Colors, Tu B'Av and the December holiday period, but we don't include religious imagery or symbolism as part of these. 

And Fox told me

Among the holidays the tech giant regularly celebrates with Google Doodles other than Easter Sunday are Earth Day, Martin Luther King Day, Lunar New Year, Halloween, St. Patrick's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas...

I wonder how I missed all of these 'holidays' before...particularly Earth Day, coming from the Trump News Network - irony dripping on the floor with that one, right)

And, I wonder, why it would have been better to celebrate by showing fake candy as fake eggs, given the importance of the holiday to believers? Is that really better than nothing?

And, I wonder, dare I tell Fox News that I once got a Google Doodle for my birthday?

The Update Desk: Poor Ethan, Revisited

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You remember Poor Ethan, right?

The 'affluenza defense' made him famous, when he drove drunk and killed four people, injured several others, and was sentenced to probation because he was raised so badly as to be completely disconnected from the reality of what he did.

You can read more here and here on his case, which dates back to 2013.

Ethan ran to Mexico with his mother, then was found and returned to Texas to await the next phase of his path to adulthood. There was some thinking that, since he was a minor when he crashed his truck, and was sentenced originally as a minor, that he would continue in juvenile court.

No such luck.

He met his first judge as an adult today, and was told he'd be staying in jail, at least for now, and was sentenced to about two years of time.

That's 180 days for each of the four who were killed in the accident that changed his life, and the lives of the victims who survived, and the families of those who did not, forever.

The Update Desk: Poor Ethan

Almost exactly two years ago, I did a post about Ethan Couch, the spoiled brat who killed four people while he was driving in a drunken stupor down in Texas.

Poor Ethan. He was 'victimized' by his horrible parents and their habit of throwing money around instead of dispensing love, and their apparent lack of humanity.

Poor Ethan. Four people dead, and he was sentenced to 10 years of probation, not jail time, because of his affluenza. That's what it's called, when your rich parents and don't teach you right from wrong.

Well, to the surprise of practically no one, Poor Ethan is now missing. He hasn't been in contact with his probation officer in 'several days' and he's now been named the top fugitive by the Tarrant County Sheriff.

Poor Ethan. There's some thought that he fled because someone had him on video potentially violating his probation; he (or someone who closely resembles him) was playing beer pong at a party, which would be a no-no. Or, maybe he fled because his mother didn't want to hang around for another 8 years with her son in such a horrible situation: free to walk around, free to do basically everything that his victims will never do again.

When they find him, which I hope happens soon, he'll end up in jail; and hopefully so will both of his parents. As I noted in the older post, if the parents were to blame for how Ethan turned out,  they deserve to be punished right along side their son.

Poor Ethan. Let's bring you home, so you might get the chance to live the life that normal people live: a life where actions have consequences, where expectations abound, and where affluenza is not an excuse for murder.

Blame the parents? Punish the parents

When you're 16, steal some beer, get absurdly drunk with your friends, then get behind the wheel and kill four people and seriously injure the aforementioned friends, do you blame your parents?  And if you manage to convince someone that it WAS your parents and your wealthy, no-consequences-apply upbringing that caused you to behave with reckless abandon, do you thank your parents, or do you just ignore them with abandon, as you do everything else?

News feeds are blowing up with this tale out of Texas, where everything is bigger, apparently including the balls of kids and parents and lawyers and judges.  Here's Ethan Couch, the innocent looking

Photo captured from Raw Story

beer-stealing, heavy drinking, Valium popping, drunken driving   killer who, according to his attorney, grew up with mean, manipulative, buy-your-way-out-of-trouble parents and so never learned how to say "I'm sorry" or how to behave in polite society.

Poor Ethan. Three hours after the accident, his blood alcohol level was still three times the legal limit. According to reports,

Couch was going 70 miles per hour in his father's Ford F-350 pickup in a 40-mph zone when he lost control and started a deadly chain of collisions that claimed the lives of 24 year old Breanna Mitchell, whose car had broken down on the side of the road; Hollie Boyles and her 21 year old daughter Shelby, who lived nearby and come outside to help Mitchell; and Brian Jennings, a youth pastor who was also playing the role of good Samaritan.

According to the psychologist who's known Poor Ethan since this past June (having begun treating him shortly after the accident), he didn't have any friends, he didn't know what high school he went to, or where he went to church.  He had essentially raised himself, his mother showering him with presents, his father a man who didn't "have relationships, he takes hostages" and there was a nasty divorce.  Intellectually, the psychologist said, Poor Ethan was 18; emotionally though, he was only twelve.

Poor Ethan. The kinder, gentler judge he had, the woman who decided not to send him to jail for 20 years as requested by the prosecution but instead to probation for ten years, believed what she was told by the defense and the psychologist, and thinks that intensive inpatient therapy is the answer. And 'Take Hostages' Daddy is willing to fork over $450K a year for the privilege of sending Poor Ethan across the country to California for treatment.

I guess it's only fair, since for a long time folks have been blaming bad behavior of poor people on their upbringing and lack of economic 'benefits' like the kind Poor Ethan had to deal with, and we've blamed the bad behavior of young men on them being raised by single moms, with no strong father figure in the picture, that we come full circle and now blame rich parents for the horrendous behavior of their kids.

But if we're going to blame Mommy and Daddy for Poor Ethan's behavior, why don't we punish them?  If they're responsible, make them pay for their ruined child's actions. Not the $450K to send Poor Ethan to camp in Cali. Let's make them pay in a way that is less pleasant for them. Clearly, throwing the kid away doesn't seem to be a big deal -- that's what they've already done if we believe the psychologist, defense attorney, and the judge.

First, let's find a place for Poor Ethan and his pathetic parents somewhere in Texas, preferably affiliated with the criminal justice system, where the survivors, the families of the victims, can keep an eye on them, and can visit them any time they want, day or night, and ask them what the hell they were thinking. Shout at them, or scream at them, or just sit and stare at them.  What the families do is up to them; that the parents and Poor Ethan are available for the activity is what's important.

Have all three of them attend this intensive, inpatient therapy that is supposedly going to be the answer to making the 'spoiled brat' a productive member of society.

Let's take away a boatload or ten of Daddy's money, and set up long term, ridiculously well funded accounts for the families of the four who were murdered; for the victim now left blinking incredulously at his sad fate; for all the other passengers in the truck; for the church left without its pastor; and for the school system that apparently so miserably failed Poor Ethan that he doesn't even know its name, so that they can figure out how never to let a child like this fall through the cracks again..

Let's make Mommy and Daddy perform 2000 hours of community service, together, during each of the ten years of Poor Ethan's probation. Yes, they must do the service together, so they can learn what they should have been doing as parents all those years when they were messing with Poor Ethan.

And, since if Poor Ethan fails to abide by the letter of the probation, he will end up in jail; to be fair, and just, so should Mommy and Daddy.

Oh, and Poor Ethan, who never learned how to say I'm Sorry, maybe this'll help:

I'm sorry, so sorry, that I was such a fool I didn't know love could be so cruel oh, oh, oh, oh, uh-oh, oh yes. You tell me mistakes are part of being young, but that don't right the wrong that's been done. 

 Poor Ethan.