Department

The Mean Little Column—“Littleton”

By The Mean Little Man

Here I am with time to write, and no thoughts spring to mind. The TV is incomparably annoying...I am sick of the whole Columbine mess! What a disgusting display the media has made of a tragedy...but I'll tell you what, that town sickens me completely.

Before I go on let me say that what Klebold and Harris did is unspeakable...they planned the systematic murder of as many people as could be brought in their gun sights. And if their plans had gone completely as they wished they would've blown the thing sky-high with a bomb timed to go off about the same time there would have been scores of police and emergency workers in the building.

But that town is not absolved of the guilt of creating the murderers.

What? the good people of Littleton? But they're saintly and good people because... because... because they were shot at!

No one deserves to be shot at. No one deserves to be shot. No one deserved what the two monsters did.

But something in that town ain't right.

Other things have happened in that town.

It's hard to believe that other children have been murdered in that town.

Just this past Feb 15th two young people, 15 and 16, were murdered in a local video store. Add to that the body of an 11-year-old was found barely a mile from the school in a dumpster.

More tragedy.

There is something wrong with this town. Lets see if we can't backtrack. Reagan and Bush scale back funding for school programs across the boards, leaving many schools only enough money for sports programs, which is a religion in the peak-at-18 culture of the Midwest. Add to that the fact that, even in dual-parent households, both parents work.

So what does this leave us with in America today? We have the funds to cater to the athletic students, but not equal funds to foster the creative and intelligent students. Without the after school programs you wind up with a whole generation of intelligent and creative disenfranchised youths that get to spend their afternoons bored and unsupervised.

Now take the more misfit of these students and sure as shit they're going to be catching hell. Who's going to stand up for the misfit student against the jock or the cheerleader? Why stand up for the outsider? Its kinda their fault to begin with because they don't try hard enough to fit in.

When you run against the herd the herd runs against you…

So now you have bored unsupervised kids with unchanneled high creativity and intelligence with a real grudge.

Klebold and Harris, murderers both, attacked types of students. They went after those that bore the bloom of popularity either through their religion, looks, or athletic ability. They were attacking what the school and community held as the ideal in an attempt to attack the community and school themselves.

Littleton created these two native sons. Littleton raised them.

I am surprised it does not happen more often. But it has been happening all over the country.

My heart goes out to all the families, to the town and to the loss of innocence of your children.

I am truly and completely sorry for your loss.

But I ask you America...what are we going to do?

First off why don't you yahoo's with guns teach some more respect for them! Don't sell to criminals, don't sell to kids, and when you are indoctrinating your children into the gun culture you teach them the cardinal rule that you NEVER point it at a human being and you burn that into their psyche with all the power you can muster under heaven!

Then, teach your kids a little more than how to hike a ball. Teach them not to be bullies, but defenders of the bullied. If we all took personal responsibility to use our voice not just to speak for ourselves but for all around us whose voice is not as loud as ours. We should be protectors of our fellow Americans, not oppressors.

Lets celebrate any extraordinary aspect of a person or a teenager, not just their ability to excel in sports. Because they will peak at 18.

Oversimplification? Possibly? But the simplest solution is always the best. We just want it to be complicated so we can pass the buck to someone else to get it done.

Littleton exposed a seething wound in this country. Our youths are screwed up. Teens have always been screwed up, but now it is almost completely unacceptable to be depressed or odd since we live in a culture of pharmaceutical personality.

To everyone in America: STOP BEING A BUNCH OF DICKS!

(To those of you who are not dicks, carry on.)

Hugs and Smooches!,
The Mean Little Man on 4-20-2000.

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