Last week, in this area, a young lady unfortunately met her death at the hands of her boyfriend. Now, I could probably write a few paragraphs about what kind of parents let their 15 year old daughters date a 19 year old man, but I'm going to stay away from that. For now. The thing about this particular murder that gets to me is the local media categorizing it as a "cheerleader murder". Every TV report and newspaper article make a point of mentioning that this girl was a cheerleader. Even the headlines and on-screen graphics all work the word cheerleader in. As far as I know, this girl was murdered at home. Not at school. Not while cheering at a game. At home. So why are they calling it the "cheerleader murder"? Because she chose cheerleading as an extracurricular activity? What if she had been in the math club? Would it be called the math club murder? Chess club murder? Debate team murder? I doubt it. It's not just cheerleading, either. They do the same sort of thing when a football player dies. Headlines like "football tragedy", even when the death has nothing to do with football. Do they think people will care more about a young person's death more if that young person is some sort of athlete? "A girl got murdered? Who cares! Oh she was a cheerleader? What a tragedy." Sometimes the media in this country just makes me shake my head in disbelief. They tell us what they think we want to hear. And apparently there are enough of us who actually want to hear it because they continue to air it.

I'm sorry this young lady was taken away. I'm sorry her parents were apparently ignorant enough to let it happen. I'm sorry the media is capitalizing on the loss of this young life. and, finally, I'm sorry if I offended anybody. But, nobody forced you to read this.

Thank you for your time.

Thirty years ago today the world lost Elvis Presley. I remember what it was like as the news of his death spread. My mother was screaming hysterically, pulling at her hair as my sisters tried to calm her down. My father sat is his chair, staring at the "Blue Hawaii" album cover, sobbing gently. I stepped outside into an eerily quiet neighborhood - no cars on the street, no children at play, no birds chirping in the trees. Even the local steel mill had shut down so that the workers might go home and stay with their families. Suddenly, the silence was broken as Air Force jets flew overhead in the "missing man" formation just as every church bell in town rang out the tune of "Teddy Bear" in unison. I couldn't help but think what would become of poor little Lisa Marie. I hoped she wouldn't grow up to marry some strangely deformed, sexually ambiguous child-molesting freak.

Elvis Presley was a hack. Yes, he was a slightly better-than-average singer. Nothing more. Despite the fact that he got a writing credit on many of the songs he sang, he never wrote a lyric or a note. Legitimate writers like Otis Blackwell were forced to give Elvis a co-writer credit or else the "king" wouldn't sing their songs. He made dozens of (extremely crappy) movies, even though he couldn't act his way out of a wet paper bag. He forced groupies to strip down to their panties and wrestle while he watched. The "winner" got to go with him, while the loser was passed around by the Memphis mafia. He consumed drugs like popcorn while condemning anybody else who did. And during all this immorality he would sing Christian songs and praise God. Big...fat...hypocrite.

By the way. I have seen hundreds, if not thousands, of films, videos and pictures of Elvis performing in concert. He is NOT wearing sunglasses in ANY of these. So why does just about every Elvis impersonator I've ever seen wear sunglasses while performing? Just wondering.

Thank you for your time.

Every day, several times a day, I have to delete several unwanted e-mails from my in box. Most of them promise to give me something free or make something on my body change in size. I'm no expert but I don't think the people who send these out would continue to do so unless there were enough people out here in cyber space naive enough to actually open them up and/or respond to them. Otherwise, I would think, there wouldn't be any profit in sending them. The internet has been around long enough for most people to understand that most, if not all, e-mails promising something to good to be true are rip-offs. And yet people still open them up. Who are these people? Are there still that many people new to the internet that they are still gullible to these kinds of things? Or maybe long term exposure to computer screens gives people some sort of selective memory loss. I don't know. I don't care, really. I just haven't posted in a while and this is the best I could come up with. I have to go now. I'm on my way collect my free meal at Applebee's while losing pounds and gaining inches before my free trip to Vegas.

Thank you for your time.