Rant du jour

For those of you under rocks, Seattle has been shaken up by the shootings last weekend. It doesn't help that the shooter was a good ol MT boy. Thanks, buddy- we need some more whack jobs from MT to make the place even more palatable.

Anyhew- what gets me is this. The girls who died. They were 14 and 15. What the fuck were they doing at that party in the first place? Hmmm? Why did the 14 year old have a 3AM curfew??? Damn. What were her parents thinking? The ages of the other victims indicate to me that they were significantly older than these girls. Why are young teenage girls partying with guys in their mid to late 20's? That's a rhetorical question- I have a pretty good idea of why. And it doesn't make me very happy. It's pretty fucked up.

When I was 14, I would've loved- LOVED to have partied with older guys at 3 AM. But my PARENTS wouldn't let me. At the time, it rankled. I knew girls who had more freedom- and I envied them. They seemed like such glamorous rebels. They were the Bad girls.

It took time, perspective, and growing up for me to see what was really going on. That the older guys who were with these little girls were preying on them. These guys were too big of losers to attract females their own age, so had to go out with the younguns. It pretty much grossed me out when I saw it for what it was. Then I was sad. I wonder where the girls I knew wound up. I knew that a couple of them were doing drugs- it scared me when I was young. Now I have a suspicion that it wasn't all fun and games for them- they probably have had a really rough ride of it since then. Most of them dropped out before graduation.

So when I see in the Seattle Times that these little girls were shot down, it makes me angry. Not just at the psychotic fuck who pulled the trigger- but also at their stupid, stupid parents for not making sure that these girls were home in bed at 7 AM after a night of who the fuck knows what kind of activities. Dammit. A friend of mine in the Fire Dept has been to plenty of those raves- basically dealing with sick kids. He scoffed when he saw that they are allegedly "drug free." Bullshit says he. So, that's part of the whole thing. Send your daughters off into the night with older guys and some nasty drugs. Sure, it'll end well. Right. Idiots. I'll admit at this late date that my parents, with all of their Rules, man- were pretty damned smart.