Girls gone wild

Stories like this just make me sick to my stomach. Is this the kind of high school world that my oldest is just six years away from joining? Six girls and two boys in the Lakeland area of Florida have been arrested and charged with viciously beating another girl to the point of unconsciousness: http://www.tampabays10.com/news/local/article.aspx?storyid=77707. It gets worse. They filmed it, and you can view the film--if your stomach can handle it--at the link.

And it gets even worse than that. The attackers, who were all girls (the boys were apparently lookouts) are not only not remorseful, they seemed, according to police reports, to be more concerned about missing cheerleading practice and not going to the beach the next weekend. The Sherriff's Department's press release is chilling: http://www.tampabays10.com/images/pdfs/Teenager-Beaten-By-Other-Teens.pdf.

What kind of world do we live in? Is this the natural progression of a world where getting famous, getting yourself seen, however you do it, is the be-all and end-all? Is it an inevitable outcome from a generation where sites such MySpace, Facebook annd YouTube show just about everything?

What the *(#&#!! are our kids doing?

If this doesn't make you think that teens these days are a bunch of drunken idiots with way too much free time on their hands, then nothing will: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/monica_yant_kinney/20070527_Monica_Yant_Kinney___Haddonfield_teens_going_to_extremes.html. Read this article and see if it doesn't make you cringe? Filling supersoakers with urine and spraying it around a house? Spraying semen on stuffed animals? What kinds of minds do things like that?

Actually, the answer to these questions is right there in the reactions of the parents of the offending teens. They denied everything and hired lawyers. No sense of responsibility at all.............