Gone were TV shows and movies written around messages of duty, loyalty, courage and character.
Instead, the last two generations of kids have received a steady diet of Adam Sandler, MTV Jackass and numerous other films and TV shows with one singular message: Being out of control is fun and cool.
They didn’t even get the basics of the prank right... the whole point is for the motorist to see the tape before they get to it... so you can’t use clear tape. That just changes it from a prank to a tripwire. Morons!
Back in the 80’s in New Jersey, some kid was harrassing a neighborhood by riding his dirtbike down a set of train tracks after dark.
Someone got the bright idea to string piano wire across the tracks.
Don’t know if their intent was to snag the bike or not, either way the result was thus:
Nobody came forward to admit to being the piano wire idiot after the head stopped rolling on the ground.
A World War II veteran told me that they used to string piano wire across the road at neck height to snag German motorcycle riders.
This is really a major problem; one which is touched upon but rarely explored.
Causing traffic accidents? [shrug] I was bored.
Beating WWII vets to death? [shrug] I was bored.
Dropping out of High School? [shrug] I was bored.
We have created a society in which many people have absolutely no stake, no control, no interest. They wallow in the trivial (Kardashians) and it never occurs to them to get up, get out, get involved. Help the needy. Plant a garden. Read Plato. Nope. That stuff is boring. Why not just sit on the couch and watch ESPN -- and if that gets dull, you can always go outside and beat someone to death.
We are in trouble.
I wonder how long it will be before the clear tape becomes wire...
What ever happened to posting one guy on one side of the road and another on the other side, then acting like two mime’s stretching a rope across the road as a car approaches?
More simple times, when I was a kid. Much more simple.
The punishment should be the pranksters being used in place of crash dummies in the routine automobile safety tests.
Duck tape kills?
Ban Duck Tape!
Problem solved.
Another really funny prank is to remove the warning signs of a “Bridge is out!”, when the bridge actually is washed away due to a flood. That was a favorite hoot of mine. /s
Our problem isn’t a steady diet of this human or that human, except as the medium.
Our problem is a steady diet of devil while we’re starving for God.
Yup, starving.
And it’s a spiritual starvation. Not even the bible itself or the ministrations of any official church leadership (as good as it might manage to get) is the ultimate feeding at the table of God. The ultimate is found in direct PERSONAL worship and praise and exaltation of God by whatever means God has put within our reach.
It shouldn’t be any surprise that the charismatic denominations and the prosperity televangelists have gotten so popular. They are closer approaches to heaven than the musty, polite church services we know, in spite of their excesses and theological miscues. Folks, the spirituality that is most beneficial on earth is a direct sample of what will prevail in the heaven of eternity. All share in God’s joy, sharing that joy with one another in a community with no barriers.
What we’re seeing is a cheap imitation that the devil has ginned up. Lots of evil glee. But no glorification of God.
Our choice whether to back Satan or God. But I think I know which one is bigger and more powerful and it isn’t the devil. Lets all go for the winner again. Don’t let the loser take us over any more.
It’s okay. The kids were just ‘bored’ and these days that’s a valid excuse for murder.
This isn’t a “prank”, it is vandalism and sabotage.