The Teen Scene

Today, it's all about the teenagers. Well, and one story about some former teen sensations. (Heh. I said "teen sensations.")

First up, we've got a teen cancer kid who was targeted for theft because he's a cancer kid.

--Thieves in Vermont targeted the home of a young cancer patient while he was undergoing treatment in Boston.--

Mom? Dad? Don't turn Cancer Kid into a media spectacle. Bragging to the world about all the cool swag he's gotten, then publicizing when he's going to be out of town for his next grueling treatment, is just asking for trouble.

We live in a world where nubile gold-diggers troll funerals looking for widowers that they can fuck over... er, I mean, comfort. Use some fucking common sense.

Next, we have a naked shotgun-weilding teenager stealing a truck.

A Strongsville teen who ran around his neighborhood naked, carrying a double-barreled shotgun faces aggravated robbery charges.

Police said the 19-year-old approached telephone workers and then stole their truck.

No one was hurt.

Police are also considering other charges.--

What other charges? Criminal stupidity?

And they say children are the future. Pretty bleak looking future there in Armpit, Ohio, if you ask me.

On to the sad story of the financial woes of the music promoter who brought us 'N Sync, one of the most successful boy bands ever. (That is, if you define success as making teen girls moist, and parting them from their money, a perfectly reasonable definition in my opinion.)

I guess I never "get" stories like this. You've got a stable of singing young men, who sell a gazillion CDs. They have the teen girls crying for them, and the teen boys moussing their hair and shopping at the GAP in order to look like them.

And yet somehow the dude promoting them ends up broke? How exactly does that happen, especially to a dude named Pearlman, who almost HAS to be of hebrew extraction?

Moose no understand.

And then there's the teens who were mistakenly informed that they'd been accepted by the University of North Carolina.

--An admissions department e-mail sent from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill congratulated 2,700 prospective freshmen this week on their acceptance to the school.

The problem is that none of the applicants have been admitted. They won't start finding out until March whether they've made the cut.--

Ouch. Just OUCH! Poor kids.

The milk of kindness is normally absent from my veins, but the thought of some high school senior, under stress, pimple cream smeared abundantly on his face, running around screaming, "I got in! I GOT IN!!!" when in fact he hadn't makes me almost weepy.

Fire the secretary responsible for THAT cluster-fuck right now.

And lastly, we have the "No SHIT?!?!" story of the day.Teen drivers suck.

--More teenagers are heeding warnings about drinking and driving, but they routinely face behind-the-wheel distractions from cell phones to passengers that contribute to thousands of fatal crashes every year, according to a study released Thursday.

Teens often take the wheel amid commotion, angst or fatigue that would be challenging even for older drivers, said Dr. Flaura Winston, chief investigator for the study.--

Huh. Well, I guess we gotta let the irresponsible little fuckers drive, and maim innocent third parties as a result. But this goes back to my "Where are the parents?" mantra. All Mom & Dad should need to do is say, "If I ever find out you were driving while talking on a cell phone, I will put your eyes out with an ice pick, and you will never drive again."

Good sense and tough love, people. That's all it takes to get those intransigent know-it-all teen-aged fuckers to adulthood without any calamity.

.