We’ve been taking a post or two as we approach the Fourth of July holiday to see what’s out there that makes us uniquely Americans – including the bad things, while trying to find the good things about us.

In our last post we took our first look at how the country is doing and remarked on the bullying of the now famous bus monitor and the remarkable response people had to her plight.  Much of that remarkable response might have been American, but since that time we found out that the instigator of the good is a Canadian.  Thank you Mr. Norther American for showing us below the 49^th parallel how it is to be good.

Unfortunately there are still many bad examples.  Sometimes, not only do we have a hard time admitting that the bad are the bad, we go the extra step to assume the bad is actually an example of good behavior, just gone wrong.  One morning this week the local television news had a piece about three teenagers that were killed two years ago right after attending “an alcohol fueled graduation party.”  The parents wanted to remember them so they created a memorial with plaques, benches, and pictures overlooking the site of the accident.  Had we not done a little research it would have been just three kids who died.  Other than that one phrase quoted above, the morning news story said nothing about the car’s occupants being drunk.  And being drunk isn’t something one should be memorializing.  It’s a shame.

But research it we did and that research uncovered a longer piece that was run during the evening newscast the day before.  In that version one of the mothers told those who attended the memorial to do whatever it takes to not drive after drinking.  It also mentioned that the alcohol was provided by a parent.  As we continued to dig we uncovered another article and video of the sentencing of the woman who bought a half-keg of beer for the graduation party from two years ago (one year of house arrest, 3 years on probation).  But we didn’t uncover scores of articles addressing the core problem.  There are people out there, sometimes children, who drink to impairment and then try to pilot a speeding vehicle.  We found no organized outrage at public drunkenness or at children drinking, no support of underage drinking laws, and no response from MADD, SADD, or the District Attorney.  Perhaps nobody wanted to hurt the survivors more than they were, and still are.  It’s a shame.

A day later the same television station ran a story about the arraignment of a man who during a drunken driving rampage injured 10 people in what police described as a “bumper bowl game.”  This young man hit at least six cars, one head on, before running into a guard rail that stopped his onslaught.  His blood alcohol was three times the legal limit. 

He probably missed the story from the day before and didn’t get a chance to do whatever it took to not drive after drinking.  What a shame.

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?