weepej wrote:
Barkstar wrote:
The Darwin Awards are aimed at those who remove themselves from the gene pool through stupidity or folly. Would you accept a lift from complete strangers at 3am? Would it be unwise to do so?
Suggesting the girls that accepted the lift deserved what they got? That's abonimable.
Weepy // my comments do not disrespect you. The girls did not deserve death or injury. Those men are 100% to blame here. They chose to do as they did. Fear because of thei rpast?
Sheer disregard of the law or their lives or the lives of those innocent girls? Girls with a misguided sense of fun or misguided idea of decent minded male appreciation of their femininity? I give away my taste.. but I appreciate a woman who lets me imagine.. a woman like my own lovely wife. I feel a sense of mixed pride.. protectiveness and possessive jealousy when I note the appreciative eyes of others on her

I give you something personal about me here

I fear I embarrass my wife .. but I love her .. to coin a phrase.. truly..madly .. deeply
I am saying I do feel for those girls.. but accept they were still silly girls

Weepy .. when I was about 4 or 5 years old in the 60s - and in the last days of proper steam trains and the early diesels
(nostalgia moment - most of which I had as part of a Christmas present railway set .. complete with Pullman coaches :cloud9 .. and I still have this set .. in the attic - lovingly and imaginatively played with by my own young sons
)Anyway .. back in the days when police and teachers and parents were allowed to give you a sharp smack on the backside or legs without fear of prosecution for "assault on the person"

- there were a few adverts on the telly - aimed at curious little boys like me and probably IG too.
One was the warning about playing near railway lines. I recall it showed a boy aged about 11 or 12 years. He climbed over the fencing .. ignoring the "KEEP OUT DANGER!!!!" sign. We saw the boy on climbing up onto a bridge .. then heard a scream and the hoot of the train.. and saw lots of steam. We were left in no doubt as to what had happened.. especially when the voice at the end said in avery stern and sarcastic voice "Dead .. and all because he ignored the warning signs".

(the tone was such that you were convinced that only a stupid fool would die that way .... and it was enough to impress upon me at a very young age that some die as a result of stupidity. I think it made a lasting impression on me. I did not want "he died as stupid" as my epitaph.
A similar one was about accepting sweets and lifts from strangers. The same sarcasm that only "daft people do such things" prevailed. It was the same genre as the "wooden top" information adverts aimed at the drivers of the day.

Sarcastic ..imply only the terminally stupid would do such stupid acts. I think they worked for most of the educated/progressive types.. but the chavs of that era are as the chavs of today's era as in "thick beyond most comprehension .. yet cunning enough to play both the legal and benefit systems
So let's be realistic about the mindset here. In the past .. they were blunt. I think nothing wrong in that approach. It had lasting memorable effect .. and a stark message.
Now that does not at all mean that these girls deserved death because they accepted a lift from a pair of perhaps affable and - I would speculate to be likeable - young rogues with a dashing SA and corresponding line in "pulling patter". They were of a criminal inclination .. violently so if the report in the MEN is correct. Why they panicked and ran in reality - especially if one was due incourt and this pull perhaps would add to his sentence. So I am prepared to accept an element of fear of outcome as partly explaining their actions.
But whilst these girls //. single mums ...were enjoying a night out into the early hours of Sunday morning.. they had each babies at home. Children demand and parental duties require us to give up the "singleton lifestyle/dinky lifestyle". Kids mean we cannot be "all night stop-outs" or "leave them in hotel bedrooms asleep" as the McCann family discovered to their eternal nightmare.
Pray to God still .. for Madeleine's return or her soul's peaceSingle mums. WE foster their children on short term. We return happy children to them. We then get these same children returned to us for further respite.. "in some distress". We think we go around in ever decreasing circles here
I cannot take these kids on long term. We take on some really difficult cases as long term fosters .. current one being an "asperger sufferer" whose single mother simply cannot cope. He's a lovely child. Likeable. Engaging. Charming.
But I am aware of the difficulty which these young single mums face. They are teenagers. They want the same life as other teenagers...but I am not naive as to why they might have accepted a lift from these rogues all the same. It does not mean they "deserved death or serious injury" - but that prudence and regard for their babies and parents looking after these children also deserved their respect.
Of course I feel for these girls and their grieving families .. but I still question their common sense all the same..
I have hopefully instilled into my own sons and daughters (including all fostered children to date) some semblance of common sense/morality/ethics.
Both me and my wife try bloody hard to make that difference. We think we succeed .. but these children have long lifetimes ahead of them - in which they can make silly decisions . We hope we have steered them to safety led and legally minded decency .. but still fostered an enquiring mind within them
