What I want my sons to learn

" Arrogance? Arrogance is looking at a girl in desperate need of help, looking at a friend who was committing an obvious felony and deciding what the moment called for was an impromptu porn shoot."  -Dan Wetzel

This is Ohio.  We are a people who love football.  No matter which school you matriculated from, odds are you spend your Saturdays in the fall watching Ohio State play.  Local high school teams sell season tickets to people whose children have long since graduated and moved away.  At what point does our fandom become hero worship?  And at what point does that undeserved reverence for teenage boys cross the line to criminal negligence?

"Drunk on their own small-town greatness, they operated unaware of common decency until they went too far, wrote too much, bragged too many times and, finally, on a cold Sunday morning, were hauled out of a small third-floor courtroom as a couple of common criminals."  -Dan Wetzel

As a mother of boys, as a woman, rape offends me.  Reading the sordid details of the Steubenville rape trial makes me want to puke, and then start slapping people.  The boys who saw a drunk girl as an opportunity.  The teenagers who made crass jokes and watched crimes being committed and did nothing.  The adults who supplied alcohol and looked the other way as children pretended to know how to handle the adult freedoms they'd been given.

"Later, Richmond's biological father, Nathaniel, also addressed the court and the victim's family, placing some of the blame for his son's actions on his own life troubles and being an absentee father.
'Everyone knows I wasn't there for my son,' Nathaniel Richmond said. 'I feel responsible for his actions. I feel highly responsible for his actions.'"  -Dan Wetzel

1. Sports and alcohol are mutually exclusive.  I hope my sons take in their father cracking open his Mountain Dew while watching the Browns.  I hope they see alcohol as a taboo until they are adults.  I hope they learn restraint and moderation.

2. Men of integrity.  Moreover, I hope they notice other things their father does.  I hope they see him driving the speed limit and correcting a waitress for leaving an item off our bill and returning library books on time.  These things may seem small, but they add up to a man who is full of integrity.  My husband is a blatant rule-follower, and I expect our sons to realize what a wonderful quality that is.  Then, when the big things, like teen drinking and what to do with a passed out 16 year old girl, come their way, they will know the right course of action.  They won't stand by, look away, or worse yet, join in on criminal behavior.

3. Family ties.  The only way I know to make sure my boys learn these lessons is to teach them.  To teach them each day by the way I live, by the woman I am, but also to say it OUT LOUD.  What must the parents of these boys be thinking tonight as their sons are preparing to spend at least the next year of their lives in juvie?  Are they wondering how it all went wrong?  Are they asking themselves why they never just said, "Don't slap your dick on a drunk girl?"  I plan to talk about sex with my boys many times.  About how it can be beautiful and sacred and uplifting when you join your life to another, and in that process your bodies become one.  About how teenagers often want to experience the momentary thrill of contact, but they aren't ready to commit to everything that comes after.  About how ultimately, the right woman for them will be one who is waiting for them, and they honor her and their maker and their parents when they wait until she comes along.  We will spend time together throughout their high school years.  We will have family game night and movie night and we will go on hikes and attend sporting events.  Maybe some of those nights will prevent them from attending out-of-control parties.  Maybe just hearing their parents talk about sex will make the whole idea repugnant to them until they are mature enough to make good choices.  Maybe that intentional time together will teach them to value every person they meet.  Maybe they will change the world by choosing differently than their peers.  I have to try.  I have to hope. Because today they're boys, but someday they'll be men.  And I don't want my sons to hurt your daughters.

 *Dan Wetzel quoted from his spot-on summary article:
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/highschool--steubenville-high-school-football-players-found-guilty-of-raping-16-year-old-girl-164129528.html

Earth to Mars fans...

I love TV.  I love it!  I love sitting on the couch and watching my favorite characters return, week after week, to once again solve mysteries, learn lessons, and crack jokes.  I love that TV has gotten better and better, with the influx of higher budgets, talented actors, and showrunners who care about each episode.  I love the high drama of Downton Abbey and Mad Men, the clever asides of The Mindy Project and The Office, the showstopping musical numbers on Smash.  What I intensely dislike is having a favorite show get cancelled.  I'm sure we've all felt that disappointment when a season ends in a cliffhanger and in the fall we look for it and find that its not been renewed.  Or worse, as just happened with Don't Trust the B---- in Apt 23, a network cancels a show mid-season and doesn't air the remaining episodes.  Ugh!  It makes me feel so many emotions...sadness, anger, frustration.  It makes me feel insignificant, that my love of a show seems to have no effect on keeping it on.  This past week, displaced fans such as myself were given a way to take those negative feelings and seize control.  More than 30,000 people put up the funds to film a Veronica Mars movie.

If you know nothing about the show, then I feel terribly sorry for you.  I stumbled upon this teen-noir detective show one night after watching Gilmore Girls, and I instantly fell in love with the smart, sassy lead character (the titular Veronica, played to perfection by Kristen Bell), the moody, class warfare content, and the awesome music.  I tuned in eagerly each week, hoping that Veronica would get closer to finding her best friend's killer, and loved seeing her solve each weekly mystery (who stole Troy's car?  What really happened to Logan's mother?  Who was harassing the class valedictorian during finals week?).  Veronica was a tough, shrewd chica who boldly sought the truth above all else.  At the end of the first season, we finally knew who really killed Lily Kane.  We thought all would be well in Neptune.  We came back for season two, excited to see what would happen next.  We were disappointed.  The main mystery disappeared down several rabbit holes, the weekly drama became confusing and muddled, and we couldn't understand why Veronica seemed so interested in Duncan Kane when Logan Eccols was sleeping down the hall.  I'm a loyal person.  I read the articles in which showrunner Rob Thomas promised to fix all these problems for season three.  I returned, once again, and this time I wasn't let down.  Seeing Veronica, Wallace, Logan, and Dick face college life, with its vast range of troubles and pitfalls, was great.  When Veronica caught the campus rapist in the 8th episode, I almost thought that was it...until the dean was murdered in his office at the end of the show!  Wow!  It was wonderful.  Then I saw a proposed time jump for season four, and I couldn't wait to see Veronica chasing bad guys as an FBI agent.  But it never happened!  The show was cancelled with everyone wondering....would Keith get elected sheriff of Neptune?  Would Veronica stop denying her feelings for Logan?  And if she did, would those two be able to have an upfront, honest relationship?  Would Weevil stay on the straight and narrow, or would his life of crime catch up to him?  And would Jake Kane become a problem for the Mars family?

Ok.  Now we have a chance to find out what happened.  I can't wait to see the Veronica Mars movie.  And since they let fans fund the project, I'm going to pretend like they want advice on the script, too.  So here's what I want to see in 2014:

1. Let's make sure to include some favorite past characters, like Dick Casablancas, Mac, Wallace, Keith Mars, Clarence Weidman, maybe even Corny, but lets not feel the need to revisit EVERYONE.  Troy's storyline has been really well wrapped, as well as Terence Cook and his duplicitous daughter Jackie.  I could never figure out the point of the Irish crime family (what was their name again?) and Vinnie VanLowe's relationship to them, so leave that one out if you can't find a really good way to integrate it.  Thank goodness Cassidy and Kendall Casablancas were killed on screen, and let's not have them return in the form of ghosts like Lily Kane did (but if Amanda Seyfried is available, she should absolutely float in and help Veronica solve her latest troubles).  One of season one's attributes was its tight casting, that everyone Veronica helped throughout the year came back to help her in the final few episodes.

2. No Duncan Kane!  His story went off the deep end in season two, with kidnapping Meg's baby and putting a contract hit on Aaron Eccols.  Let him stay in Mexico or Australia or wherever, and focus on the love story everyone wants to see: Veronica and Logan.  I'm sure they've continued the on-again, off-again nature of their relationship through these intervening years, and I want to see where they are now.  Are they together?  Apart?  Have the years been good to Logan as the son of a killer and Hollywood legend, or has he squandered the last of his inheritance?  Is he living in Neptune or has he tried to escape his past by traveling the world?  He and Veronica have so much great chemistry, and I would love to see him pull up in that yellow Hummer and complicate her life again.

3. The show was best when Veronica was uncovering the dirty underbelly of her seemingly pristine, affluent hometown.  The past few years have shown us that swindling investors and escaping with golden parachutes is pretty much the norm in corporate America.  How has that affected the citizens of Neptune?  In two hours, I'm sure Veronica can solve more than one mystery, so give it your absolute best.  Can Keith and Veronica team up again?  How does that relationship look now that she's an adult?  Show us that a life of wealth and privilege is not all it seems in Neptune.

Answer my questions and make me the happiest fan in the world!  Best wishes to everyone working on this project!

*If you feel like people shouldn't have given money to see a movie get made, don't complain...go give your money to a more worthwhile cause!  Homeless shelters, libraries, public radio, children's homes...they ALWAYS need your help!