Three Downbeat News Items

This blog has a largely upbeat editorial policy. But today, I'm in a different mode, thanks to three headlines in the local paper.

First, the story of yet another teenager killed in a horrible car wreck in the sub/ex-urbs. Jordan Bessey went to Moeller, and by all accounts had a very bright future in tier-one college football. But he wrecked his Camaro yesterday, traveling at 100 miles an hour without a seatbelt. He was thrown from the car, in a collision so violent that the car was almost broken in half, and the flames from the explosion reached 30 feet in the air. He was killed, really, by testosterone, and the belief - one which teenagers have by design - that he would live forever, that his physical world is without consequence, and everything you've ever told about driving was the product of "worry". And when your friend is in the car you show off, of course. Now his parents will live with inconsolable, shattering grief.

(We pin stories like this on the fridge, at my house. One day there will be boys at the door, shy and proud, bursting with adolescence, and anxious to impress.)

The second story - well I wish I knew more, but the details are slim. A 15-year-old shot a 13-year-old in the face, in one of our inner city neighborhoods, Walnut Hills. Based on the flood of violence that has afflicted a certain demographic here in Cincinnati, poor kids in an urban setting, usually (not always) African-Americans, usually (not always) kids without strong family structures. Testosterone plays another role here, albeit a much angrier one. These stories don't get the same headlines, and we seem resigned to the fact that they are commonplace. You can't look for the causes, you can't ask hard questions - if you are a white person, and you are outraged, you may be called a racist - even if what you want is for kids to live without violence, with school as a priority, making decisions that don't include creating yet another generation of children without Daddies, and Moms who work to support the family, but are gone all day - and who never believe that their sons could have done what they are accused of doing when they are interviewed later.

The third story is par for the course, and so ordinary it is barely worth mentioning. Yet another fantastically enormous big-box retailer is building in the "greater" Cincinnati area. Soon the residents of Fairfield Township may have a shiny new, 200,000-foot Meijers in which to buy shopping baskets full of product. Several acres of parking lot will be constructed - and since development is only a one way trip, it will probably exist for another 100 years, and possibly be abandoned when living patterns change. Again, I'm an avowed capitalist - I would never stop these things by regulation, but I'd be pleased if more people saw how this type of spreadsheet-driven development makes our culture empty, ugly, and brain-dead - when it should be vital, strong and in the service of our communities.

For now, though, you can still see the green space on Google Maps.

Each of these stories is so ordinary, so easily accepted, almost the cost of doing business here in America. I'm not prone to prattle about "change" - but I'm alarmed by what we allow, what fails to trouble us.