The media from here is flooded with news about how this or that influenced a teen to do a certain thing. Not that talk about such influences isn’t relatively common anyway, but lately there have been several events that they could use as examples, like the 13 year old guy who killed one of his friends and then tried to erase the traces “like in the movies” or the 12 year old emo girl who committed suicide by throwing herself out the window.
The murder is only one out of a series of such events that took place lately. I don’t remember exactly, but I think it started with two children killing an old woman. The media fed on that issue for a while, but then they got flooded with similar events. There was an 11 year old guy who killed a three year old girl in a horrible manner, then the 13 year old and also two other cases that shouldn’t be filed along with the rest, but they do it anyway. I’m talking about two 18 year old guys who raped and killed two little girls just days apart. One of the girls was five, the other was seven.
The only mention of such potential influences over the course of the investigations was related to the 13 year old, but the media focused on that even though it wasn’t mentioned as inspiration for the murder, but only for what happened afterwards, plus that he was known to be mentally unstable. The boy said that after the murder he cleaned the knife and put it in the victim’s hand and then he wiped his fingerprints off the door handle “like in the movies”. But, if his statement is to be believed, all he’s guilty of is perhaps using disproportionate force in self defense. He said he brought his 16 year old friend cigarettes since he’d always send him to get him some, but then his “friend” started beating him because he hadn’t brought a part for his bike as well, so he picked up a knife and stabbed. Then he said his friend pulled the knife out and tried to choke him, but collapsed after a few seconds. He also said he told his dead friend he was sorry for what he did before trying to erase the traces.
The other cases had other potential “influences” and motives, or even none at all. But a more detailed post about possible violent influences (and how they’re not to blame for any such things) has been in my drafts for a very long time now. Who knows, maybe this will finally make me write it. So I’ll end this topic by just saying that if the media wants to point fingers towards the violence in movies, games or music lyrics, they should also point towards themselves, considering how much they feed off such stories.
The other story, however, can be considered to be linked to my previous post, seeing as it also deals with suicide. You have a 12 year old girl who broke up with her boyfriend. Her mother was hardly ever home, working a lot and spending most of her free time with her boyfriend (and, apparently, future husband) at his place. The girl didn’t like him and things apparently got rather ugly when she was announced that he’ll become her stepfather. Her real father was a drunkard and hardly ever visited. Her grandparents, uncle and aunt lived in the same apartment with her and (sometimes) her mother, which must have made things quite stressful. Oh, and she was also very obviously emo and had recently developed an obsession for Tokio Hotel‘s Don’t Jump.
Out of all those reasons, which one do you think the media focused on? Who cares that she had several good reasons to be very unhappy when you can say she was influenced by other emo kids and did what she saw in her favorite video, right? (At the moment I started writing this, the last comment posted for that video was written by somebody from Romania and it said “this is a stupid video, a 12 year old girl commited suicide because of it”.) There was even a psychologist saying that no 12 year old actually wants to die. Did she test all of them with a lie detector to know that?
Still, there were a few balanced opinions. At the end of the comment another psychologist mentioned that she wasn’t depressed because she was emo, but she was emo because she was depressed. The rest of the comment was along the same annoying lines as most others, but I guess that was the requirement in order to get it printed and manage to throw in those last few words. Then there was an editorial in another newspaper in which the author said he has a daughter and is quite frankly frightened by this, because he knows that neither that video nor identifying herself as emo made her kill herself and eliminating the convenient causes leaves him at a complete loss when it comes to solutions for the actual problems that cause so much sadness in today’s world. And another psychologist said in a TV show that she sees the suicide and being emo as two completely separate things and would like it if people would stop saying that’s the cause. But those balanced opinions are very few compared to the rest…
I’m also seeing that she was obviously more and more depressed lately, she had started smoking and she was seen drunk at least once… And she told everybody that she was going to kill herself because of her boyfriend breaking up with her and the situation in her family, but everybody thought she was just doing it to get attention and ignored her! So now the people who ignored her then dare blame it on a lifestyle and a video?
Let’s look at the video and lyrics for a moment. The media is describing the video as showing a guy getting ready to jump off a building as the bad moments of his life pass before his eyes before he “throws himself backwards in a final gesture of defiance” at the end. Take a look for yourselves, is that what you see? I looked it up and what I’m seeing is a guy who’s persuaded not to jump, which is exactly what the song title and lyrics say as well. (Yes, I know he does jump in the German version, but she was watching Don’t Jump, not Spring Nicht.) After all, the chorus is:
“I scream into the night for you
Don’t make it true
Don’t jump
The lights will not guide you through
They’re deceiving you
Don’t jump
Don’t let memories go
Of me and you
The world is down there out of view
Please don’t jump
Don’t jump”
With the message as obvious as that, how can they say she did what she was being told in her favorite video? Seems to be quite the opposite to me!
Besides, I see things as being quite simple when it comes to this. You are the only one responsible for your actions. If you do something like that because someone told you to, whether directly or indirectly, then you’re too stupid to live in the first place and the world is better off. Otherwise, people should stop fishing for convenient causes and start looking for real solutions to the actual problems. And, just as I said in my last post, that means real solutions that fix the problems, not ways to make people cope. There are so many things nobody should have to cope with…
I guess that’s a general problem in today’s world. People run away from responsibility so much that they even stop being aware of the fact that others can be held accountable for their own actions. They find such convenient explanations for others because they’d want the same to be done for them if and when they’d do something wrong. (Not that killing yourself is wrong, I think my opinion on that is very clear.) Besides, people who aren’t responsible for their own actions need somebody to guide them, even control them. And many want to be that somebody, having power over another!
And please don’t bring age into this. At 12 or 13 you should be aware of what taking a life means, whether your own or another’s. If you aren’t, then a lot of people have failed terribly when you were little, and those are likely to be the ones most inclined to look for such convenient explanations.
There was an article yesterday in a newspaper from here praising a special team of doctors that has been created in Iasi to deal with the very large number of suicide attempts. The title was “They Are the Guardian Angels of Suicidal People” and there was a lot of talking about how they “save” their patients at the last moment.
Excuse me? Guardian angels? Saving? Those people want to die! They even admit that most of their patients will simply try again sooner or later, and usually sooner, so what exactly is the purpose of this? Those people think, for whatever reason, that they can no longer live and have the strength to do something about it. Then you come along and show them that they can’t die either, you add one more thing that went wrong in their life! That is forcing a person to suffer and therefore causing harm, how can they be praised for it?
They say that they’re also trying to offer counseling to their patients, because “suicide is never the answer”, though they admit that terrible stories lie behind each and every attempt. Who exactly gives them the right to decide for others what is right and what is wrong? And if that’s not the answer then what is? Can they solve the problems that drove those people to attempting suicide? And I do mean solve, not look for ways for the person to cope with the situation, that’s not solving the problem. Solving the problem means changing the situation so the person will no longer have cause for unhappiness. Can they do that? No? Then they should stop telling people that they made the wrong choice (yet again), they should stop assuming that they know what’s right and what’s wrong for everyone!
Besides, all that time and effort, not to mention the money used to fund such operations, could be far better used to eliminate the problems that make people unhappy in the first place. No, that’s not easy. Yes, it will require some very unpopular measures. But things can be done and they need to be done! After all, if having so many suicide attempts as to require creating a special team of doctors to handle them isn’t a very clear indicator that something’s deeply wrong, I don’t know what is!
Work has started on my room, in hopes of removing the mold for good. Or at least that’s what dad and the workman hope, I don’t. I don’t because the entire original plan was to strip the walls bare, down to the concrete, then apply an anti-mold substance and then repaint. It didn’t address what generated the mold in the first place and therefore would have been rather useless overall, especially since mold doesn’t appear on walls alone.
Then, after surveying the “damage”, the workman said the walls and ceiling should be covered with polystyrene slabs for insulation. He’s thinking the moisture is seeping in through the walls, ignoring the obvious cause. I was firmly against the idea from the beginning, partly because I have issues with being around polystyrene, sort of a mental allergy, for lack of a better term, not to mention that I don’t want my room to get smaller and I’m not sure how well the work that’d be done on top of the slabs could handle weight in case I’ll ever want to have some shelves hung on the walls or any other such things, since I don’t see how I’ll ever manage to get out of here again. But, as usual, I was ignored by everyone and yesterday when the work was about to start I noticed the slabs being carried in.
My reaction was to say there’s no way that’s going into my room and stand there glaring and not letting anybody past me for about ten minutes, then storming away and slamming the door behind me. Somehow that appears to have worked, because a few hours later dad said they don’t have to go into my room if I don’t want it, he can use them in other places if I’m so determined, but we should see what the workman says too. So we finally discussed the issue, the workman also chipped away at the walls for a while and said the mold only got all the way down to the concrete on the outer wall, so that’s the only one that will be covered in the end. But they didn’t get to checking the ceiling yet, they might want to cover that too, depending how how affected it is. I still say such insulation should be done on the outside, but I guess if it’ll be done just for the outer wall I can live with it. If it’ll be done well that is, which I doubt…
On the other hand, everybody’s been ignoring me so far on the other issues as well. I’ve only been living in that room and breathing in the spores for a year and a half since the mold appeared, what do I know about how bad it is, right? I was saying the carpet, desk and bed are likely ruined, not to mention the mattress and pillows, plus that somebody should really check out the floor as well. I kept getting told that’s not an issue until things got moved around and they took a look at them. One side of the desk looks pretty moldy, the bed, bookcase and pillows are questionable and the carpet and mattress are ruined. Now I’m also wondering about my blanket. They’re still not looking at the floor. Of course this messed up all the budget since dad insisted on ignoring me when I’ve been saying those couldn’t be kept, no idea how it’s going to get worked out. The desk shouldn’t be a problem, but I wonder if I’ll get back in my room and end up sleeping on the floor for quite a while…
Still, this seems to have finally made him to listen to me a little and he agreed to another little plan of mine, a small change that would actually have a small impact on the real cause of the mold instead of just treating the effects, since that’s all his plan was doing. But since he has been ignoring it so far, it’ll take time to get around to it now and that will leave me hanging for at least a few more days after the work on the walls will be done.
Anyway, I’ve been exiled to the creature’s room while the work is being done in mine. She was supposed to go to her parents during this time but I guess something changed at the last moment because she’s still here, sleeping in the living room with dad. Yeah, they’ve been sleeping in separate rooms for several years.
I hate being in this room, not only because it’s not mine but also because it’s hers and because, with all my furniture except the bed temporarily crammed in here as well, I barely have about one square meter to move around in. I have to squeeze along in front of the wardrobe in order to get to my chair at the desk. Actually, I can also hop on the bed first, then push the part of the desk the keyboard and mouse are on back in, get to the chair from that side and then pull the keyboard and mouse back out. I certainly need to go over the bed to get to the window or nightstand and I’m lucky to be as thin as I am because even so I can barely manage to squeeze in between the corner of the desk and the wardrobe to get to what I turned into a little storage space in here. I think I’ll end up with some scratches from that either way. I have just enough space in between the chair, wardrobe, bed and shelves to sit down and (attempt to) meditate, as I’ve been doing daily for the past three and a half years, but if I try to move my hands I hit something.
Speaking of meditation, that’s challenging enough on a regular basis due to my mood, but now it seems next to impossible. Even more stressed than usual, different place, not enough room and all the banging coming from my room from morning to late evening. And banging all day long means I hardly get any sleep, knowing that I’m a night owl and only go to bed in the morning. But I was expecting that even without the noise since it’s a different room. I’m actually very surprised I got nearly five hours of sleep last night (or this morning, if you want to be specific). Probably thanks to hugging the bear tightly all through that time…
But the worst part is the loss… There were memories in that room, in those pieces of furniture, in those walls… Now it will all be gone. Even if everything would be replaced with things that look exactly the same, not that such a thing is going to happen, they still wouldn’t be the same things. Of course the memories are in my mind and soul, but I desperately need to connect them to something I can see and touch… Now that’s all gone forever…
As always, never think you’re at rock bottom, because things always get worse. Never better, only worse, with no way out and not even the hope of release left. And it’s all my fault…
As expected, the big push for ethanol production is being challenged at the highest levels. It was only a matter of time before this happened. They didn’t lash out against it initially when it was “just” forests being cut down and habitat devastated to make room for more fields, but now it started directly affecting humans and they noticed.
I never agreed with producing ethanol from corn or any other plant that requires cultivating or is also used for food. For some reason I’ll never understand the world’s human population is allowed to keep increasing, the standard of living is understandably also increasing, for another strange reason a better efficiency is not exactly a top priority when increasing said standard of living, so obviously those resources that are being redirected towards ethanol production are badly missed by those who just want food. What concerns me more is that some of the land used for those cultures should be habitat for other animals and part of it certainly used to be forested, but at least now even those who only care about humans have a good reason to worry.
Let’s look at the issue for a moment. You grow crops to replace oil, therefore further increasing humanity’s ecological footprint while at the same time reducing the quantity of those crops available as food. You do that in order to produce something that is still a fuel to be burned and therefore still generates greenhouse and toxic gases, not to mention that the production process generates plenty of those as well, plus other harmful substances.
According to an article from National Geographic Magazine, in a best case scenario, corn ethanol requires 23% less energy to produce and emits 22% less greenhouse gases when burning compared to regular fuel but, depending on the manufacturing process, it’s actually possible for it to require slightly more energy to produce than regular fuel. When you also consider the fact that it contains 33% less energy than regular fuel, the deal is starting to look dubious at best. However, according to the same article, cellulose from weeds, plant waste or used paper can be used to produce ethanol. The result, while still containing 33% less energy than regular fuel, would require between 50% and 97% less energy to produce, depending on the technology used, and emit 91% less greenhouse gases! Not to mention the possibility of producing biodiesel from algae, which is considered to be even better but is even further away from being fully developed.
Comparing the two options, the winner is quite obvious. You use waste and considerable less other resources to produce a fuel that burns much cleaner than the one which requires cultivated crops to be produced. If you support biofuels at all, there should be no question over which one should be funded and promoted. But, of course, people want results yesterday and corn ethanol is already here while cellulosic ethanol is still under development… Will we ever learn?
But I don’t think an increased output of biofuels is the solution at all, since either way they will still produce greenhouse gases and other harmful substances. I’m all for electric vehicles and clean means of producing electricity, finally ending the cycle of constantly spitting out toxins into the environment. Still, what matters even more than that is how many vehicles are there, how often are they used and, in the end, how many people are on this planet. The first thing each of us should do, and especially those of us who aren’t exactly poor, is use less of everything. And then work on reducing the population, preferably before we’d have to resort to mass murders for it and certainly before the planet will take care of the problem for us.
In today’s world, terrorism works. Terrorists might not accomplish their final objectives for now, but time is on their side as long as their intermediate ones are accomplished, and they are. I say that because the intermediate objective of any terrorist organization is gaining more adepts, and a great way to do that is to let your enemies herd them towards you. That is achieved by making the general public fear you so much that they become quick to discriminate against anyone who in any way resembles the image you put forth, slowly making those individuals more likely to approve of and even join you when they see others are less and less likely to believe they’re innocent anyway. And that’s exactly what’s going on.
But why does it work? It works because people let it work. Why is that? For how long could they keep it up if they’d no longer be feared? Keep in mind that a successful attack requires time and resources and is likely to cause the death of some of the terrorists as well, so there is only so much they can do if they stop gaining more adepts.
Yes, some people might be killed, possibly even more will be injured and there might be significant damage caused, but we could still clean ourselves up and be seen standing tall when the dust clears. Mourn the dead, heal the wounded, repair the damage, then act as if it didn’t happen. No misplaced vengeance against the innocents who might seem to be terrorists if you look from a certain angle and are too quick to judge, no demands for security measures that are more effective in inconveniencing those who simply want to carry on with their lives than in deterring those they’re aimed against. No actions caused by fear, no actions caused by fury.
We should realize that they don’t care how many they kill or injure or how much damage they cause. What they care about is how it affects everyone else, what it does to the public opinion. Destroying and killing are the means, causing fear is the end, and a preliminary one at that. And those who want to harm will usually give up eventually if they’re ignored, if they fail to obtain the desired effects.
Either way you put it, there are many more of us than there are of them, even if you put all of “them” together. We also have more resources available, more space to move around in and generally more means to keep going than they have to hold us back. That’s the message we should also send to our leaders, so we’ll make them see they no longer have anything to gain by focusing on terrorism.
And that leads me to another issue: Leaders are using the terrorists for their own ends, making the threat seem far worse than it actually is and using it as an excuse to gain more power and control our lives more and more. That in itself is a form of terrorism and it also works only because we let it work. I’m not even sure which is worse. At least the terrorists are upfront about their motives and are willing to get their own hands dirty…
We should stop letting our fears decide our votes and start analyzing things more carefully. We should support leaders who are willing to lead us forward through the gunfire if needed, not those who would keep building walls in front of us to stop it. Walls keep us in as much as they keep the unwanted elements out, which is exactly what the power-hungry ones want and what we should be fighting against in the first place.
