Curt and Lori Drew, Curt and Lori Drew, Curt and Lori Drew

Most everybody who surfs the web knows the story of the disturbed young girl, Megan Meier, and the two chicken-headed monsters who lived down the street – parents, yes parents, of an estranged friend – who manipulated the young woman via a counterfeit MySpace hottie named “Josh Evans” and Megan’s suicide when this faux-beaux turned mean in cyber space.

If this does not sound familiar then Google the names “Curt and Lori Drew.” Read the story first.

These are the psychotics who tormented Megan and, perhaps, just perhaps, tipped her over the edge.

We must say “perhaps” because common sense tells us that the Drew’s actions alone are not enough to cause suicide. But no one is denying that.

So, I’m simply going to put one more blog out there talking about what evil, horrible, unbelievable, inhuman trolls Curt and Lori Drew are and what, frankly, I hope happens to them.

Because Megan is not such an unusual child. She was obviously depressed and desperate for attention from a member of the opposite gender who was desirable, thus validating her badly damaged sense of self. This desire became unhealthy and then, with the intervention of Curt and Lori Drew, dangerous. And then, when the Drews pushed as hard as they could, Megan’s pathological drive for acceptance became fatal.

Then nothing happened to Curt and Lori Drew, at least until the mighty power of the blog caught up with them. Since the government (that entity meant to keep people like the Meier’s safe from people like Curt and Lori Drew) is apparently impotent in this matter, now is the time to assure that, if no where else, the anti-citizen, fang-monster Drew family remains in the annals of those-guaranteed-a-suite-in-hell forever on the web.

Curt and Lori seem pathologically unable to publicly apologize – even if it would be the smartest thing they’ve ever done in their vengeful and otherwise mediocre little lives - and this, more than anything, will out them. It was not very long before their basic info was outted, and it will probably not be very long before the TV camera or the vigilante bullet catches them off-guard.

The most frightening thing, however, is how seemingly ordinary, if ugly, this couple was. Curt’s Coldwell Banker picture shows a pudgy and slimey-looking doofus – the kind of guy who would pick up the $20.00 from your kitchen table but then squeal and squirm and hand it back the moment you caught him. Lori looks like an overweight squirrel, too friendly, posing for the camera as if there is some part of her she is trying very hard to hide...

The whole thing brings to mind the famous line from (the old) Cape Fear: “Either there are too many laws or not enough.”

Remember Curt and Lori Drew and assure them a place in cyber hell.

The Dumb Old Professors and the Wise & Brilliant Bored Scholar

Katie Farnam is a senior journalism major at the University of North Texas (UNT) in Denton, TX. In the midst of the Iraq war, Katie decided to write an editorial in the North Texas Daily about how bored she is in class. She writes:

“I have been bored out of my mind during classes, forced to contemplate my next meal or watch dust bunnies form around the floorboards of various NT classrooms.”

The most obvious response might be that Katie is, perhaps, one of the army of re-animated corpses that populate too many classrooms in America. However, if we believe Katie’s own evaluation of herself, she is a nearly brilliant student stifled by the ineptitude of her dumb old professors who fail to engage her vigorous intellect. Again, she writes:

“I have come to the realization that I'm a student who loves to learn. I enjoy school and strive to excel at it. But even my vigor for learning cannot outweigh the tediousness of some of the classes at NT and the professors who teach them.”

Katie then goes on to tell her dumb old professors what they are doing wrong:

“This is an impassioned plea for you to approach your classes with excitement and fervor. Respect your students' attention by preparing material that will intrigue them and give the subject matter value and meaning. This does not equal a PowerPoint presentation recited verbatim from slides or a lecture straight from the textbook. Please, make your students' time in class worthwhile. We pay a lot to get our degrees from NT and it would be nice to get our money's worth.Not only is it your job to care about your students by coming to class with enthusiasm, it should be your natural response as an educator. Forget about tenure or politics for a second and think about your mission as an instructor. You are responsible for molding your students' minds and using your hours of research and service to enrich your teaching material.”

Again, there are some obvious responses:
Katie is at UNT to be educated, not entertained.
Education is often hard work.
Seldom do truly engaged students find dust bunnies more entertaining than even the dullest PowerPoint. After all, knowledge is knowledge no matter how it comes to one. So maybe, just maybe, Katie ain’t as jonsing to learn as she thinks she is.
Perhaps Katie’s parents gave her opinions too much attention growing up.
Or, Katie is one of the legion who would be better off watching TV, because this is where her sensibility truly lies.

It’s silly to suggest that, among the seventeen million plus college students in the United States, all of us are simply (v)idiots programmed to 30 second sound bites and incapable of concentrating on anything not presented to us with a soundtrack and new camera angle every two seconds. Nevertheless, here’s Katie – ostensibly about to enter one of the most intellectually challenging professions – venting about the way knowledge is fed to her ravenous nervous system.

Perhaps it is time that professors learn to write documentary screenplays and then hand the entire semester over to the Discovery Channel, or, better yet, to Spike TV, YouTube, or Matt Groening. Perhaps it is time to end the era of modernity and usher in the era of cyber-life. After all, we must concede that not all professors are dynamic performers, rather, they are experts in their fields. And for many, this is simply not enough – case in point: Katie Farnam.

It is also interesting to note that, since education has become more and more expensive (thanks George!), students are treating college as a consumer product and seem to feel that the learning experience can be applied to the supply side of Americana. Students are now customers and they want their money’s worth, if not the brains that go with it.

Good luck to Katie in the exciting world of journalism, where every story is a killer.

What do Rush Limbaugh and Beauty Contests Have in Common?

What do Rush Limbaugh and Beauty Contests have in common?

Nobody pays attention to either of them until they do something really stoooopid.

Okay, that’s not exactly true.

To be specific, Limbaugh has 13.5 million listeners on any given week, and the 2007 Ms. America contest drew in a (“nosedive”) 2.39 million viewers last January. So, in all fairness, someone is actually watching and / or listening.

But let’s also be real. Limbaugh is king of A.M. talk-radio. And who the hell ever heard of anyone listening to talk-radio? Anyone, that is, who is not a “dittohead.” Rush is like a king of a desert empty except for his weirdly pissed-off cult followers. And Ms. America took up residence on the Country Music Channel, which – while there will always be die-hard country music fans – is not exactly center-stage of the entertainment industry.

More to the point, however, is that (unlike, say, Stephen Colbert or Michael Moore) these two cultural constructs from a by-gone era are not in front of the mainstream American populace very much at all. Moore wins Oscars and pisses people off. Colbert roasts Dubya and pisses people off. Rush…well, he is ranting into his own hermetically sealed little kingdom, boarders closed. Ms. America? Ms. Universe? Who gives a shinola?

No, in order for either of these two icons of chauvinism to survive in the lime-light of public interest they have to make a comment about “phony soldiers” or fall on their booties in Mexico or become a drug-addicted hypocrite or release black-mail photos or just generally make asses of themselves before anyone in the general populace gives them any notice.

What do Ms. Teen USA South Carolina and Rush Limbaugh have in common?

They both answer questions with rambling, incoherent, boorishly anglophile gibberish.

Impeach Dick Cheney.