When I noticed the dark brown wound on the back of my 13-year-old son’s hand, he explained that he had burnt himself with salt and ice. “I just wanted to see if it would work,” he said. “It didn’t even hurt.” When my shock turned to anger, he implicated his 11-year-old sister as an accomplice. I had apparently raised not one, but two, “gifted” children.
Why would honor students with no history of drug use or brain disorders maim themselves in the name of curiosity? They saw it on YouTube, naturally.
Hollye Grayson, M.A., MFT, works extensively with Los Angeles teens and she points out that our hyper-social society allows teens to emulate kids they would not associate with in person. These virtual peers can provide real validation.
“It’s a cool factor,” she says. “‘Look how cool that is. Look how many hits, how many people are looking at that cool thing he did.’” Even high achieving kids may crave this kind of attention. It’s different from the approval they receive from parents and teachers. “Before YouTube we didn’t have to worry about something like this. This is clearly a big problem now, with these kids copying these crazy things.”
After the salt and ice incident, I talked with my daughter and a friend who had tried similar feats, like the cinnamon challenge, she saw on YouTube. The friend told me that kids copy the videos because they are funny, and because they want to prove for themselves that the results in the video really happen. This was the reason my own children had given for the idiotic stunt. I asked if she applied the same logic to trying drugs. “Oh, no way,” she assured me. “They teach us about drugs at school. They don’t teach about this stuff.”
As if teachers don’t have enough to do.
Ah yes, because as well all know, teachers are woefully overpaid and under-worked.
But, then again, a little pro-active education might have prevented this fiasco. Ravshan “Ronnie” Usmanov became one of the few people convicted of posting revenge porn.
When he posted his ex-girlfriend’s nude pictures on Facebook three months after their split, Ravshan ”Ronnie” Usmanov, 20, probably wasn’t thinking “Hey, this is my ticket to six months house arrest as the first social network-related conviction in Australian history!”
A similar thought probably wasn’t going through the unidentified ex either when, during a happier time in their relationship, she posed for the pics: “Hey, this is my ticket to Facebook humiliation!”
Yet for both, that’s exactly what happened. The Sydney Morning Herald reports:
The six pictures, according to court documents, showed his ex-girlfriend ”nude in certain positions and clearly showing her breasts and genitalia.
Shortly after posting the pictures on his Facebook page in October last year, Usmanov emailed his girlfriend with the message: ”Some of your photos are now on Facebook.” She had ended their relationship and moved out of their shared home less than three months earlier.
The woman, who the Sun-Herald has chosen not to identify, ran to Usmanov’s flat at Pyrmont, demanding he take down the pictures. When he refused, she called the police.
Usmanov’s lawyer said her client’s crime was not a “serious offense,” according to court documents — a claim on which sentencing Deputy-Chief Magistrate Jane Mottley quickly called shenanigans.
”What could be more serious than publishing nude photographs of a woman on the Internet, what could be more serious?” Mottley said in court records.
Describing a type of reputation decimation both unique and common to the Internet age, Mottley explained, ”It’s one thing to publish an article in print form with limited circulation. That may affect the objective seriousness of the offense but once it goes on the World Wide Web via Facebook, it effectively means it’s open to anyone who has some link in any way, however remotely.”Mottley’s words are probably echoed by more than a few victims of recently shuttered U.S. “revenge porn” website Is Anyone Up, which the Village Voice recently described as “a virtual grudge slingshot of a website that gleefully publishes ‘revenge porn’ photos — cellphone nudes submitted by scorned exes, embittered friends, malicious hackers and other ne’er-do-well degenerates — posted alongside each unsuspecting subject’s full name, social-media profile and city of residence.”
My first thought is “Really? You’re that freaking petty? No wonder she dumped you.”
That is also my second thought.
My third would run along the lines that there should be jail time attached to actions such as these.
After all, Clown Red, could get five years for stealing a soda.
Well, it was in a Florida McDonald’s, a place where they REALLY REALLY prize their soda.
It was the ultimate heist: ask for a free cup for water, but fill it with soda.
That’s the alleged plot that 52-year-old Mark Abaire hatched on Thursday before he was caught by Florida McDonald’s employees and charged with felony theft, the Naples Daily News reported.
Abaire — whose aliases include Red, Clown Red and Clown — entered the Naples franchise at about 10 p.m. and asked for a cup of water. Then he allegedly snuck some pop into the cup, despite a conversation with an employee that he couldn’t do so, the Sun Sentinel reported.
The soda was valued at $1.
“Clown Red” allegedly refused to leave the burger joint, so a manager called cops.
Abaire was charged with felony petty theft because he had previous theft convictions, among other crimes. He was also charged with misdemeanor counts of trespassing and disorderly conduct. He faces five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.
Well, Red can thank his lucky stars he didn’t try that crap in Georgia. Police there report that Granny Lulu got into a shootout with some thugs and messed them up good.
Authorities in Georgia say a grandmother foiled a robbery attempt by two armed men by getting into a shootout with them, injuring one man.
Police told The Telegraph that Lulu Campbell just dropped off her grandson at her daughter’s house early Saturday morning when someone demanded money outside her car, threatening to shoot her.
Campbell says the man fired at her, missing. The 57-year-old fired back, striking him in the chest. Her truck sustained eight bullet holes in the hood, one in the grill. Both front side windows were destroyed. The second man fled after she shot at him.
Campbell, who owns convenience stores and gas stations, always is armed.
Police say 32-year-old Brenton Lance Spencer has been hospitalized and was charged with aggravated assault and attempted armed robbery.
Well, good for her.
I have no problems with guns, I just think that a little firearm education can go a long way and prevent tragedies like this one. Steven Egan, a Floridian in case you needed to be told that, shot his girlfriend.
Why? Good question.
Becasue he thought she was a wild hog.
A Florida hunter accidentally shot his girlfriend thinking that she was his target — a wild hog.
Cops said that Brandon man Steven Egan, 52, was hunting from a tent in Flagler County on Saturday when Egan heard a noise that he thought was similar to that of his prey. He took a shot at it, not realizing his significant other wasn’t in the tent with him, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
The shot sent a .30-caliber rifle bullet through both of 52-year-old Lisa Simmons’ legs. Simmons was airlifted to the hospital where she was recovering from surgery on Sunday, the News-Journal reported.
Egan maintained that he fired in the first place because he had seen a real hog just minutes before the accidental shooting, WFTV reported. No charges were filed.
“No honey, I didn’t say you looked like a pig, just that you rutted like one.”
You know what, I bet they get married and use that as one of those “How we fell in love” stories at church.
But, no matter what you do, allow me to be the first to tell you that you should never order Hand Shredded Ass Meat. And, yes, this is an issue that may come up in your life.
Overseas tourists often find the menus here befuddling, for good reason.
After all, what Westerner has experience with foods like these? “Cowboy leg,” “Hand-shredded ass meat,” “Red-burned lion head,” “Strange flavor noodles,” “Blow-up flatfish with no result,” or “Tofu made by woman with freckles.”
As proud as the Chinese people are of their thousands of years of gastronomic culture, even a Chinese native can feel disoriented when going to another province, given all the different styles of cooking. Many of the food names, often unique to different provinces, get lost in translation, especially in booming cities starting to embrace overseas tourists.
With few English speakers, restaurants usually translate their menus word by word directly from an English-Chinese dictionary. Or they just Google the Chinese characters. A photo that made the rounds online a few years ago got a chuckle from a lot of people: a restaurant with a large “page not found” sign above its door as its English name.
But the Beijing Municipal government hopes to end such unintended jokes with its new guidebook intended for the public and restaurants alike, “Enjoy Culinary Delights: The English Translation of Chinese Menus.”
The effort began in 2006 with a “Beijing speaks English” campaign. By the 2008 Summer Olympics, officials had created a draft guide with translations for major restaurants to meet the demand for arriving athletes and tourists.
“After 2008, we felt like the book was in a good demand, so we kept working on it and collected more menus. Finally we translated over 2,000 Chinese dish names,” said Xiang Ping, deputy chief of the “Beijing speaks English” committee, in an interview with NBC News.
Some of the dishes kept their original names, which people familiar with Chinese food may understand: jiaozi, baozi, mantou, tofu or wonton.
Some more complicated dishes come with both Chinese pronunciations and explanations: “fotiaoqiang” (steamed abalone with shark’s fin and fish maw in broth); “youtiao” (deep-fried dough sticks); “lvdagunr” (glutinous rice rolls stuffed with red bean paste), and “aiwowo” (steamed rice cakes with sweet stuffing).
Chen Lin, a 90-year-old retired English professor from Beijing Foreign Language University, was the chief consultant for the book.
He told NBC News that about 20 other experts – like English teachers and professors, translators, expats who have lived in China for a long time, culinary experts and people from the media – helped develop the final version.
So next time you’re in Beijing and you are confronted with a menu item like “hand shredded ass meat,” hopefully you can crack open the book to get some guidance. It means “hand shredded donkey meat.”
Oh, it’s donkey meat? Well, that’s okay then.
NOT!!!!!!!!
So, in review, avoid teenagers, revenge porn, Floridians and guns. Oh, and Hand Shredded Ass Meat. Can’t forget that.
And if you’re not sure, go shopping with the Hippoteers.
Aisle 2 from Alejandra Guerrero on Vimeo.
Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.