What will it take to stop the madness? We’re talking about yet another teen suicide, this one involving a 13-year-old male in Zionsville last weekend. While we won’t release his name or the circumstances, we can tell you based on multiple conversations in social media and our own investigation it’s clear to us the youth was traumatized by bullying, so much so that he decided taking his own life was the better solution. It is so horribly sad. And, frankly, it’s maddening as hell. It takes way more energy to ruin someone’s day, week, month, year or life than it does to enrich it. We’ve heard this before: “Kids will be kids. This has been part of life forever.” Bullsnot! That’s the weakest response we can imagine. Bullying has no place in our world, and it shouldn’t have been present in the late youth’s world. The behavior perpetrated upon him was, in the end, a death sentence of sorts. Kids have two choices in interpersonal relationships: friend or foe. If it’s the latter one chooses, he or she needs to simply move on, not hang back and agitate, belittle or physically harm. We’re absolutely crushed for the youth’s survivors and cannot even begin to imagine the horrors cast upon them. All you bullies or wannabes, get wise and keep it to yourselves. The harm you can do is irreversible. And patently pathetic.
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You received your Current today because May 6 is the date of the primary election. We don’t want election information in the paper on election days, as delivery of Current can happen into the late-afternoon hours; that does you no good on Election Day. Today, though, you’ll find what you need to know about candidates and voting. And we do hope you’ll vote, because it is your right and responsibility. Polls will be open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. This is about accountability on every plane.
