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Show TeenExamiuer , ' jf -- j v ? i JC The news page written by and for http www standard net - - txstandard.net Phone: 625-421- Lakeside Review On The Net WeberDavis teens , mmmvmmmmmm 4 776-495- Thursday, March 1 2, 1 998 1 .i , I 5 Look beyond ideals; Whisler: He feels you" hes got good reasons to fear By MARCUS WHISLER TX. Straight correspondent traight Edgers. Whats the first thing that comes to your mind? Maybe kid. something like a clean-cWell, for me, it would have to be a group of Bambi-lovinvegetable-eatinIll cut a letter of the alphabet in your back if I see you smoking a joint, people. Sure, this group is keeping skin on the backs of animals and standing up against drugs and other illegal substance abuse - which is cool and all, dont get me wrong - but to this particular group, I dont think the saying violence doesnt solve anything, means a thing. From what I have been able to gather on Straight Edgers from zines and newspaper articles, these people are no better than some street gang protecting their turf. They may not kill you for flashing the wrong gang sign, but they will thrash you up pretty good if they see you lighting up a joint. Rich Webb got to experience the traditional carving of the X personally. His story about his violent encounter with Straight Edgers was told in the Standard-ExamineDec. 7, 1997, Edgers ut g, Book breaks down risEts T eens of living you By SUNSHINE TX. NAKAE correspondent Lets g, say you are from a dream by your blaring alarm clock. You dreamed you were hit by a meteorite. Not to worry, theres only a 1 in 5,000,000,000 (billion) chance that youll ever be struck by debris falling from space. Other silly fears like this can be eased by reading The Book of Risks by Larry Laudan. The book talks about risks that youd face in an ordinary day, like watching a little television. Bad idea? Not really. Theres a 1 in 7,000 chance youll be injured by a faulty TV this year. Take the risk, tune in the tube anyway. Say its time to get ready for school, so you head to the bathroom for a hot shower. Safe? Well, your risk of dying this year from an accident in your bathtub (or shower) is 1 in a million. I think youre OK. Good thing, eh? You decide to blow-dr- y your hair since you have only a 3 in a million chance of dying from electrocution annually. And you tidy up the bathroom a little too, because there's only a 1 in 0,000 chance youll be injured by your toilet cleanser this year. Phew! Are you crazy for thinking about this? If you're a woman, maybe so. Women are twice as likely to be diagnosed with a mental disorder as their male counterparts. Finally you feel ready to go to school. You walk to the bus stop, contemplating the odds of 1 in 40,000 that a randomly selected pedestrian will be killed by a car this year. You sec a fierce dog on your way to the bus stop. Yikes! Good thing it isnt a pit bull. You have a 1 in 700,000 chance that it rs issue. All right, so why do they carve 1 IBustraton by ANN What will kill you. While you board the bus, you feel secure knowing you are 600 percent more likely to be killed by a school bus hitting you than you are to be killed while traveling on the school bus. Good thing its Tuesday; thats the safest day for driving. You sec some kids smoking when you get to school. Its no wonder, the risk a first-tim- e user of cigarettes will become addicted is 9 in 10. Risky business. Thirty percent of cancer deaths are linked to smoking. Even worse, if they smoke a pack of cigarettes a day, they run about a 70 percent greater chance of dying this year than you. 1 1mm . . . not so smart. You finally reach the classroom, and while you are taking your scat you remember you have a 1 in 400 chance of being injured on a chair or a bed. Are you better oil' on the floor? No. The chance of something falling on you and killing you is greater than you actually falling and killing yourself. Take a scat. A kid in your class is being punished for See COVER6 TX. ON THE NET Meet the mystery moderator in TX.s online chat session, 8 p.m. each Wednesday on StandardNCT at wwwstandard.net. Next weeks topic: My parents dont love me because ... Also On The 'Net. share your Prom or Prom night stones. Check out our Prom survey at www.standard.nettx. - The Bottom Babies are without knee i They don't ap until file child reaches 26y of ago. j does it mean to TAYLOR'Standard-Examme- r be a Straight Edger? They often follow a vegan diet Straight Edgers generally abstain from alcohol and drug use Members of the movement also abstain from sexual intercourse As a group, they have a reputation for violence If youd like to add to this list or comment TX. at txstandard.not. Xs"? Why not carve both Xs and Os and have a game of They use the X because they took the idea from clubs using a stamp or marking an X with permanent marker on the hands of concert supporters under the age of , 21. The clubs obviously did this to keep the youngns out of grandpas cough syrup. So I guess this inspired Straight Edgers to adopt this symbol as their own. And just like gangs who use gr.iiliti to put their names on walls or billboards. Straight Edgers do the same, except in human flesh. 1 low did they get their name? In Washington, D.C., Ian McKaye of a band called Minor Threat wrote the song, Straight Edge. I'm a person just like you, hut Ive got better things to do than sit around and smoke dope . . Ive got a straight edge, say the songs lyrics. and body sculpting, their dieting is Along with being drug-fre- e rather unique. They are vegans. Iking a vegan means not eating anything that has anything to do with animals. W hat exactly dont they eat or drink, you might ask? They don't drink milk because its from cows. Some sugar is refined with animal bones so they dont have that and other such foods that are produced by animals. Why do they do this? Simply to save the animals. To them its no longer only Free Willy. A key factor about this part of being a Straight Edger is that only some arc vegans, not all of them, and conversely, not all vegans are Straight Edgers. You wont get beat up for this choice -at least, I dont think you will. By not eating meat or any other food product dealing with animals, they are denying themselves the nourishment their body needs. Sure, lets save the little critters by starving ourselves or deforming the next generation. Hello! Are they seriously stupid? Its one thing to be a vegetarian and got milk, but its another to touch practically See FEAR6 Are teenagers much worse than their parents? By JAKE PARKINSON TX axTBsponderX Parents are saying teenagers arc. Besides the fact that they should be supportive of the next generation, I would like to say it isnt our fault. Teenagers in general arc wild, rude and scary. That is the beautiful thing about growing up. Its hard being expected to act like adults when we are half-aduand Neither group wants to claim us and we like it that way. Parents immaturely blame teens for all of society's problems. I can quote my grandpa saying those dam kids just dont have any respect for anyone, about a million times. The funny thing is their parents and grandparents said the same thing to them. Basically, parents blame teens for the downfall of society, including but not limited to the drug problem, communism and WWI. As if it was our fault - wc werent even bom. Another huge problem with adults is that their kids are always the exception. Parents make fun of the kid across the street for smoking pot, the girl down the way for getting around lt half-childre-n. . . . and their own child is an alcoholic. They may know it and just try to ignore it, but most of the time they dont even pay enough attention to their own teens to notice their problems. If they arc smart enough to figure out that their own child dnnks profusely, they sit down and say the magic line that would make anyone mad, I know what youre going through. Yeah, right, nobody knows what other people feel. Even the teens father who was an alcoholic at the same age cant truly understand everything his teen is going through. Tunes change. Everyone is saying that things arc getting worse. How can they be, if the crimes arc the same? Its not like teens arc sitting down inventing new crimes. It is hard to go through life not being able to point your finger at the specific problem. It is human nature to want to blame someone specifically. The media has not only presented the world as a horrible place but has also presented teens as creatures without hearts to feel and brains to reason with. The figures that they come up with showing this huge percentage of students that can t even pick out their own state on a blank U S. map arc lies. Its done just to make teens look stupid. Somebody needs to inform tbc What one family thinks Stephanie Johnson. 1 7, senior at Bountiful High School: As a family I think we have evotved, but as a whole society things are getting worse. It depends on the parents. If the parents are good, the kids will be good." Mannda Johnson, 14, student at ninth-grad- e Centerville Junior High: "Yes. society is getting worse. blame the media and parents." Becky Johnson, mother to Stephanie and Mannda, 39, resident of Davis County: "I believe it (society) is rapidly getting worse I blame the breakdown of the traditional I media that teens dont fall for reverse psychology, so they can quit publishing all of that stuff that puts us down. It is not true, and it is not going to change our views. It will only make us look worse to adult eves. Teenagers might be getting worse, but I don't think the finger should be pointed at them. The finger should be pointed at all of society. Society as a whole is getting worse, not just teens. Teens shouldn't have to take the rcsponsibilny for this. Teens are generally wild, rude and scary, but this is part of the way wc grow up to handle the corrupt world adults have left for us. Jake Putkutson, a senior at Honntiful Iheh .St ion, pin t an muut al instruments ami likes to go out on his hour, I. family." Sherry Hulse, 64. grandmother to Stephanie and Mannda. resident of Washington DC. "Yes. society is getting worse. People are getting more selfish -that is the problem. That isn't the case with my family. "Those that are good are really good, those that are worse are getting worse Society is to blame . . . media and TV . . . movies." - Compiled by Jake Parkinson I )R COPY |