Looking Beyond the Flash

The big story from this past weekend is Beaumont’s double homicide.

Two boys, Artura Borreto, 13, and Victor Garcia, 15 are dead and the shooter facing two murder charges.

Everyone jumped on this, and then the story dropped faster than Bill Clinton’s pants in a room full of loose women.

The problem is, in my opinion, that most everyone went for the easy headline, two dead kids.

The cops say these kids were gang-banger wannabees.

This is the story.

Why, here in Podunk Texas, do kids…. they were punks but they were still kids… why do they strive to be thugs?

These kids didn’t have a gun the night they were killed… but they messed with a man who did.. And now they are gone even before they were old enough to drive a car.

This isn’t Houston.

This certainly is NOT Los Angeles.

What are we doing to teach our kids that you play with fire you get your fingers burned?

The prevention programs I’ve seen are so Pollyanna… well, they make Fr. Flannigan and Boystown seem like the hood by comparison.

Think this is only a problem of poor black kids who have bought into the “white man gonna keep you down” mentality?

Think back a few months.

Jaime Kumm from Bridge City was sentenced to life for shooting and killing a drug dealer.

Did you notice I said “Bridge City”…. you know, home of white, middle upper class “good” kids.

When will some of the local media-types learn to connect the dots… and show how a problem isn’t “somebody else’s problem”… it’s my problem.

I almost hate to suggest this to some, because, if you think about it… so many would accept my words as the pathway to sensationalism.

On the up-side of the news today..

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Today became the first African American man to have a monument in the National Mall.

All I can say is.. Finally!

I wish the so-called civil rights leaders of today would study the words of Dr. King.

Judge men.. Punish men… reward men… hate or love men….according to their character, not their exterior or their position in society.

Such a simple lesson that so many still need to learn!