a civilized society?

it's hard to write about something positive today. i'm in a great mood, but work sucked the life out of me....i don't do well in all day meetings. and then i came home, sat down with my computer to finally answer some emails, only to be pulled into a 3 week old story on cnn.

how do we live in a world where 5 teenagers would douce another teen with alcohol and set him on fire? in the world where i live, nothing anyone could do would warrant such cruel behavior. a 15 year old boy lies in a hospital with 65% of his body covered in 2nd and 3rd degree burns. how will he recover? or more to the point - will he recover? apparently, he was set on fire because of an unpaid debt. he's now paid for it with so much of his life.

i read the article and thought how the parents of these boys have failed as parents and failed as members of a civilized society. it's incomprehensible to me to lose your child to such an extent that they would commit a crime of such hatred. what does is take for parents to be more involved?

wwcd: parents being held responsible for the actions of their minor children. would that finally make parents pay attention, get involved, and parent?