Now that I've been completely innundated with all the news I could possibly care to listen to about the "incident" in Columbine, I've come to a couple of conclusions: 

• MOST jocks are rude, terrorizing little bastards 
• MOST cheerleaders are rude, snobby little socialite bitches 

Actually, I came to these conclusions back when I was a kid, and on the other side of the soylent green fence. I don't know how high school is for the conformists in society, but I damn sure know what it's like for those in my peer group. I was one of the weak ones that tried to "fit in" early in school because I felt this horrendous need for friends. This garnered me insults, hateful glances and a failed rape attempt by a jock that was twice my size at a party that I was stupid enough to attend. After this, I started becoming pretty introspective and I started spending lots of time alone in the library and dressing and acting differently. For most of my friends, high school was a nightmare of degredation and being singled out by pretty much EVERYBODY else at the school. I'd say that it can easily be one of the most stressful and traumatic things that a person can go through. 

The punk/freak/goth-ish contingent at school was always pretty much reviled and shunned. We kept to ourselves, because we couldn't really understand the people around us, and they damn sure didn't bother making the connection. Between getting beaten up, kicked while walking down halls to class and having incredibly rude and derogatory comments made to us, we managed to scrape together an education of our own, sitting in libraries reading sci-fi, horror, psychology books and fantasy novels. Because we couldn't be bothered to make an effort to follow the rest of the sheep, we were either bullied and/or terrorized, used by other classmates to finish homework assignments, made fun of, or completely ignored by most of the student body. Every once in a while, we'd find another soul like us in the murky sea of social drama that we were able to actually understand and get along with. Now no longer a single social entity, we were called "fags" or "freaks" because the jock/cheerleader populace couldn't come up with anything more colorful or intelligent to say as a retort. 

Most of us bore the brunt of this constant social attack rather well, clinging to one another for support and reassurance...Some of us went completely nuts (or so their parents said) and were put away in nuthouses or "social centers" for "confused kids" to return later with hazy stares and lolling tongues, professing that they were cured. Worst case scenarios would usually be that they "found Jesus" (Couldn't they have just left him where he was? I mean, he wasn't bothering anybody...) and they'd attempt to convert the entire school into robotic bible thumping idiots. Then there were the truly sad cases (Ever seen "Welcome to the Dollhouse"? I've met a couple of people that went through this...) where they received constant taunting at school and constant beatings at home, and it caused them to crack open, their precious sanity pouring out from their heads like sand from an hourglass. These kids usually robbed liquor stores, raped women and generally brought harm to everybody around them in a desperate attempt to get somebody to pay attention to them, whether it was negative or positive. 

I don't profess to know what was going through the heads of the kids that brought a hailstorm of bullets to the student body at that school in Colorado, but I must admit, that because of my childhood, I can identify with the feelings they had about trying to "get back at" the jocks. When you think about it honestly, it's really pretty easy to hate somebody that always seems to get "all the breaks" in the public eye, even if they don't in private. However, I never understood the white power thing, and I never will. It's stupid, and it's weak... 

Now, everybody wants to demonize every single aspect of these kids lives: The fact that they played DOOM, they played roleplaying games like Dungeons and Dragons, they listened to KMFDM and other industrial bands and the fact that they were on the internet a great deal. The problem with this hysteria is that good kids that happen to be different from the rest of the school populace are being victimized. 

A couple of good articles relevant to this rant are:

• Voices From The Hellmouth at Slashdot.org, and 
• Columbine: Use it or lose it on, of all places, espn.com 

FICTION:

Jhada and Argent || The Model and the Mad Scientist || Gabriel || An Unlikely Pairing || The Worst Porno Story Ever

POETRY:

No Longer Angry || Depression || Run with the Moon || Love is a Virus || BloodDance || Diamanda || Murderer || The Watcher || Confusion || Dream || Romeo is Bleeding || Cribdeath || HoPeLeSs || Soulmate || Darling || Illuminate || Madness || Insecurity || Fear || Angel || The Job || Pathetic || Shard of Hate || Thin || Departure of Friends || Empty Life || Kindred Spirit || Why Bother? || Loss of Control || Lonely Girl || Loss of a Dream || Damaged || Done|| Excision  || Missing You || Jhada|| Hope ||  Reflection ||  History Repeating

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