About Me

My photo
I was a preschool teacher for almost 20 years. I had lots of wonderful experiences. I have now been a 911 dispatcher for 6 yrs now.I love animals,small towns, good food ,karaoke, baseball and walking around our local zoo. Makes me feel at home,lol. I live and breathe scrapbooking and my two adult sons. They really are what is most important in my life.

Monday, November 14, 2005

nothing new

going on around here,lol. Same ol same ol.
I have been glued to my TV here, watching some of the most awful news stories.
First there's the double murder at a Subway resturant. This resturant is a mile and a half from where I used to live, before moving here. This is now the most violent precinct in my state. It has more than double the murders than any other precinct and tons more burglaries etc.
Anyway, two 17 yr old boys, athletes, good students and hard workers were killed while they closed up this resturant. It started as an armed robbery, and ended with both of them dead. To make it even worse, the killers were three students from the same high school as the victims. They were 16, 15 and 15. How does this happen? Sixty dollars. Wow, just wow.
The news of two pedophiles broke today. One a psychiatrist, one a 17 yr old boy, whose mom ran an in home daycare. One of his victims was 8 months old.
Last night, two girls who were swimming in a canal drowned. They were 3 and 8 yrs old.
Carjackings, and even the newest thing, car surfing. Getting on top of the car while it is moving. That has killed two people here in the last 6 months.
It all gets to me, but the subway deal just really tugs at my heart. All teenagers. All of their lives ended. For nothing. How did we get here? What can we do? How can it end?
I don't share a popular opinon on this, but I do not believe in young people being charged or treated as adults. They aren't. Their is more than enough evidence that their brains are not fully developed. Our society does not treat them as adults in any other way, why? Because they are not adults.
Arizona is a perfect example of how this is not working, and how we punish adults is not working. I do not have all the answers, and it is something I do struggle with. Our state spends tons of money on jails, prisons, prosecutors. Less on education, less on social services. Where does that leave us? Dead last on every list. Lowest drop out rates? not AZ, we are 50th. Infant mortality rates? we are in the low 40's. We were recently ranked the "stupidest " state in the union. Great, just great.
I just think we need to really look at this, but I don't see that happening in my lifetime. We will continue to spend money after the fact on bandaids.

No comments: