Pt 3....More of What's Wrong with America

I'm on a roll!

I hadn't heard about the story from a Marianna, Florida reform school where at least 55 bodies have been found with the possibility that the number could exceed 100 by the time the exhumation is complete. I heard about this from my daughter and then decided to Google it.

If you're like me and haven't heard of this, go here to read about it. Like I said in the first part of this subject a few days ago, the media doesn't report real news these days.

Anyway, I have so many questions about this. Did the families just dump their sons off at this reform school and never checked on their well being? How can your child just go unaccounted for? Why did this go on for so long? The school was open from 1900 to 2011 so even after there were so many allegations of abuse and even a class action lawsuit against one of the instructors for abuse, this reform school was open for a total of 111 years. I have no doubt that the number of bodies that the anthropologists will find will exceed 100.

I have no doubt that the boys that were sent to this reform school had discipline issues. But did they deserve such cruel punishments and conditions? These days, pedophiles and murderers are treated better in prison.

So what's going to be done? It appears that the state of Florida isn't very concerned with punishing any of the living faculty. Imagine that! It's not like Florida has ever really cared about punishing the guilty, anyway. Seriously though, these former employees of the reform school should be held accountable for the torture and killings of these boys. There's many living witnesses to the abuse that happened there but Florida's government doesn't seem to want to dirty their hands with this.

But not only are the people who ran this school guilty. I think that the parents or guardians of these children are somewhat accountable, too. How can you just let your kid go to a place like this and not care enough to check on them and not know that they've disappeared off the face of the earth?

What's wrong with America? America wants to look the other way when such things happen. America would rather pretend that something didn't happen and that such injustices don't exist.

Pt 2 Of What's Wrong With America

Earlier today I started seeing posts on Facebook about Utah school's taking lunch away from children because their parents owed for lunches. This isn't something new, we see it all the time. At my son's school they do the same thing, hand the kid a piece of fruit and call it a replacement. Then they THREW THE FOOD AWAY.

Do our school systems understand that this might very well be the ONLY food that a child gets all day? Do they understand that the parents probably owe the debt to the lunch lady because things are tight at home?

We see the starving children on TV commercials daily, wanting us to donate money to feed them. My heart breaks for them, it really does, but did you know that we have starving children right here in the good old US of A? And it's not just in the Appalachian mountains or New York City or in homeless shelters. It's children in your town, maybe even on your street, in YOUR neighborhood. We have children coming home from school to an empty house because mom and dad are having to work to try and make ends meet, yet the cabinets in the kitchen are empty.

You can call it bad money management or whatever but face it, times are hard and they're not getting any better. Yes, there is public assistance but that doesn't pay for everything and honestly, I'm sick of seeing the memes on Facebook about drug testing welfare recipients. Yes, drugs are a problem and I do agree that a lot of welfare recipients are addicts but we can't punish the kids that are receiving these benefits because their mom and/or dad have messed up. And if you think they should go to foster homes, that's not going to help them much.

The so called system in America just sucks. Kids are slipping through the cracks because of budget cut backs. These cut backs mean less DSS/CPS workers and bad situations aren't getting looked into.

Back to my original thought....schools are throwing away food that could go to these children whose parents can't pay for their lunch. What is the point of throwing it away? Isn't that just wasting it? Wouldn't it be better to let a hungry kid eat that food instead of sending it to a landfill?

If that ever happened to one of my kids, you'd have a mad mama on your hands, Mrs. Hairnet. Just sayin'.

What I Think Is Wrong with America...(or some of what is wrong with America)

Unless you were living under a rock this past week, you had to see all over social media, the TV news and other media outlets that Justin Bieber was arrested for drag racing, DUI, resisting arrest without violence, and driving with an expired driver's license. There's also other reports of stuff going on with him. A few months ago, your Facebook feed was filled with cracks (no pun intended) at Miley Cyrus, memes depicting her "twerking" on Beetlejuice, etc. When she performed on the Rockin' New Year's Eve show I was afraid to let my children watch but she was a "good girl" and kept it clean. Over the past few years celebrities like Justin, Miley, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, (and I could go on and on) and their law breaking antics have filled newsfeeds, gotten millions of Tweets and memes, only to be forgotten within a months time. In two years we won't even remember who they were much less what they did.

So what's wrong with America, you ask? Media is over sensationalizing these celebrities. Have you noticed that these people drop down a bit in popularity and then the next thing you know they show back up in handcuffs. Why? Because they know that's going to get their names out there again and whether it's good or bad publicity, their names are on the lips of every person in America, if not the world.

What I think we need to do about this is just stop giving them that attention. Stop clicking on the news stories about these negative icons that are influencing the next generation. Let them just do what they do and not give two $hits about it.

AND what we should do is start drawing more attention to stuff like the California teen, Audrie Pott, who was raped by 3 teens, had pictures of the assault passed around to classmates through text, and then committed suicide because she said "My life is over, I have a reputation for a night I don't even remember, and the whole school knows."  

How sad is it that this beautiful young lady, who had so much going for her before this horrific night, felt that she had to end her life because of what those monsters did to her.

I also feel that the world is a lot different than when you and I were growing up that you literally have to tell kids that this (insert heinous crime here) is wrong. You can't just expect them to know. I'm not sure what it is that has changed so much with the human mind over the years but it has. I know that things like what happened to Audrie are wrong. You know it too. Most people of our and earlier generations know this. The only people who (and I'm not saying it's right) don't clearly know this have a mental illness (and I'll get to that in a moment too) People (not all of them) of younger generations for some reason do not have that app installed in their brains that tells them "hey, I shouldn't do it that. It's wrong!" Could it be that is caused by parents being afraid to discipline their kids? I'm not sure but something has changed.

Mental Illness. It's out there. According to the NAMI-GC, globally, 1 in 4 people have some form of mental disorder. Mental illness is not prejudiced. It affects men, women, children, and all races. There's not enough funding, government or private, to take care of these people. It's like one of those things where the powers that be think that if they ignore it long enough, it will go away. It's not going away and these people need help. So many times you hear on the news when something bad happens, "they had a history of mental illness". Oh yeah? Then why hasn't someone bothered to help this person? Why don't the family care enough to make sure this person gets help or at least isn't on the streets doing bad things? Because people don't care about other people. People are too self absorbed. Seriously.

I could go on and on about what's wrong with America...or actually the world but does anyone really care? Probably not but I hope you do.

Happy Sunday!