Monday, January 22, 2007

Strange Occurrences

Yes, I'm talking about the one thing that it seems EVERYONE is talking about, how Jennifer Strange died after taking part in a radio contest.

This whole saga (and it is indeed a sage) is just further proof of how screwed up the world is becoming.

First, we have the ill-conceived contest. Who came up with the idea? Maybe it was the DJ's, maybe it was marketing/promotions, maybe it was the station manager himself. We don't know. But hey, who hasn't had a totally fucked up idea? A few years back the Zone radio station had a contest where participants carved pumpkins...with chain saws. In comparison, drinking water seems pretty low-risk.

Someone had to approve this contest, unless you're willing to believe that the DJ's just went out on their own, got a wii and had people show up to drink large quantities of water in order to give the winner said wii. Surely the station has people who research these contests for possible risks before approving them...then again, we had pumpkin carving with chain saws, so perhaps that's not an assumption we should make.

The contest happened, Jennifer finally accepted the tickets to end the contest and yet in audio recordings, even after taking the tickets she still told the DJ's that she could drink more water if they wanted her to. They told her no, that she needed to not be drinking any more water.

Tragically, Jennifer was found dead by her mother. Thank goodness there were plenty of attorneys around to take up the case and prepare to file lawsuits against the DJ's, the radio station, and Nintendo (apparently this who tragedy could have been avoided if only they had kept the original name of 'Revolution', thus eliminating the possibility of a 'wee for a wii' contest). Next I suppose we'll hear that they are suing the water company for providing the bottled water.

An interesting sidenote to all of this is that the attorneys have filed a letter with the FCC asking that KDND (107.9 The End) lose their license. In the letter, the attorney points out that "...a cursory inquiry of any medical office by the station's management would have revealed the life threatening risks of the contest..." This is interesting because Jennifer Strange worked in a medical office. That means that by her own attorney's words she was the one person there that should have known the life threatening risks, yet she participated in the contest and in the very end was still saying that she could drink more water.

Keep in mind that we don't know everything that has happened. The coroner has said that Mrs. Strange's death is 'consistant with water intoxication'. However, the coroner's office has said that the cause of death will not be known for two or three months. Doesn't that strike anyone else as rather odd? Maybe they found something other than a whole lot of water when they did the autopsy. In any case, we don't know everything and until ALL of the facts are out in the open, we need to stop berating the station and the DJ's. And maybe pray for the three children that lost their mother. In all of this there has been no mention of the kids, just the father and the attorney looking for people to sue to get rich quick. The kids are the only innocent victims in all of this.

Monday, January 01, 2007

Welcome 2007...

I love January 1st. There's just something about the start of a New Year that gives me hope that things can change, that I'll do better and be better this year and something everything will just be...well, better.

I should know by now that things don't work out that way. I just spent the last month lamenting all of the things that are wrong in my life, and yet here I sit, willing to believe once again that I have another chance at getting it right. Will I succeed in 2007? I'll let you know when January 1, 2008 rolls around.

It was surprising to see absolutely NO POLICE out tonight. I was out and about until 11:45 PM (yes, made it home just in time to ring in the new year) and not one cop. Usually there are plenty of police and at least one DUI checkpoint, but I guess funds are low this year so not even a checkpoint the entire holiday season.

The cats totally freaked out because some idiots decided that New Year's Eve was a good time to shoot off fireworks. Not just little fireworks, like fire crackers or bottle rockets (both illegal, but I can get over it). I'm talking about fireworks shells like you see at a professional show being launched, and you know that it's not being done right when half of them fly over as a big glowing ball but never 'explode'. I just hope that if something goes horribly wrong, the only person hurt is the idiot shooting off the fireworks. Sure, I would prefer that even this idiot not get hurt, but if someone is going to get hurt, it should be the idiot and not an innocent bystander.

Darn, that sounded kind of mean and one of my New Year's resolutions was to be nice in 2007. Oh well...