Speaking of news…

There have been a few quirky things in the news over the last couple days.  We’ve read about the *alleged*  (don’t you love that word?) dastardly events surrounding John McAfee.   You know,  the anti-virus software Dude?

Then there’s been some “Agua Alta”  in Venice.   Seems like that one is a fairly normal yearly occurrence though.   Just a little higher this year than in other years. 

To wit:

 

Hey!  That’s St. Mark's Square.  We’ve been there.  It was considerably dryer at the time however.

Oh and,  I don’t have any empirical evidence to support this claim,  but I don’t think that that water is the cleanest.  I know I sure as hell wouldn’t be sitting in it.   I just hope they don’t have any open sores.  Gah!

 

Anyhoodle,  the one little item that I think I’d like to comment on,  is a rather sad story coming out of the UK in the last day or so.  

You can read the entire link here,  but of course,  these links do go by the wayside after a time,  so I’ll try and sum up.

It seems a young lady was out for the evening,  was quite inebriated,  fell between two train cars and was killed.   That’s the completely abridged version.  I could have had a job writing for Coles Notes.

So here’s the thing.  Said vehicles have these folks called “conductors”  or what have you,  and their responsibility is,  to the best of their ability, to make sure that everyone is well clear of the train before it pulls away.  

There have been a couple times that I’ve observed here in Wienerland,  when the subway car simply does not go anywhere until whatever half wit it is, gets him or herself away from the edge of the platform.  They’re watching.  That’s their job.

This particular fellow (conductor, whatever)  didn’t do his job.  He’s going to jail for five years.   That doesn’t bother me in the least.

Due to his negligence,  somebody died.  I think there might have been some arrogance in there too,  but we don’t know if that was a deciding factor.

 

Here however, is the part part that really does bother me.   The young lady, and you can see her beaming face here,

 

…was just a bit beyond drunk. 

Let me quote directly from the article here: “A blood analysis following her death showed she had 236mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood in her system - the legal driving limit is 80mg.”

Oh,  and there was also traces of something called mephedrone in her system.   It’s an “upper”,  in case you don’t want to read the link..

 

Two words from me:  Holy Cr*p!

 

Now I’ll admit,  I’ve been reasonably inebriated once or twice in my life,  although I must confess that in University I was given the somewhat dubious moniker of “One Beer Bob”,  so it’s not like I ever got to the point where I was ready to wretch up my dinner or anything.   There was always that moment when I just knew that I was done for the evening.  Some people don’t have that built in cut off mechanism.     Apparently young Georgia pictured above, did not. 

When I say “young”, what I mean is,  she was a child of 16.    Let me just write that out in long form…  SIXTEEN.   And to me yes,  that’s a “child”.   Are you kidding me?

 

Call me old fashioned.  Narrow minded.  I don’t care.  At sixteen,  you should not be out taking drugs and getting fall down drunk.   Sorry.  

Somebody needed to say, “No sweetie,  you can’t do that.”

Are her parents (again, alleged) going to be brought to task for any sort of neglect?   The laws in the UK are tricky on the subject,  since a 16 year old can go off to war,  have sex  and legally smoke,   but can’t vote for anyone to change any of those rules.  It’s messy.

All I know is,  I certainly was hardly let out of the house at the age of sixteen,  and neither of our daughters would have even dared to ask if they could even touch a drink at a party at that age.

Oh,  and if there was some question as to getting home safely from a “gathering”, (since kids do that,  you know)  Muggins here was out there in the middle of the night,  or whenever,  to fetch said young person.  And that’s because Muggins here knew exactly where said young person was going to be.  For the whole night!   You know,  address,  phone number.  All that.  “Who are these people?”  was a not unfamiliar question.

 

As a matter of fact,  Daughter Number One took a certain amount of ribbing from her friends in her younger years,  since she would have to call home to “The Leash” (a term coined by her friends in reference to her Mother)  at a certain point in the evening to either say if she was 1) Staying over night.  2) Getting a ride home with whomever,  (who was also known to The Leash and I)  or whether, 3) She needed someone to come and fetch her.   Those were the conditions.     Meet those conditions,  or stay home.   She had to call “The Leash”  well into her twenties.

And yes,  both of our lovely daughters would readily admit that there were some less than stellar moments of possible inebriation.   I’m not that naive, but it’s a question of small steps.    One would be hard pressed to try a triple axel,  if you’ve only just learned to stand up on your skates. 

I had a ‘horsey out of the coral’  metaphor,  but it wasn’t working.

 

 

Feel free to talk amongst yourselves.

 

Thanks for stopping in.

 

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