High Schoolers Bully DUI Speaker Offstage

[pokerfan]

Sarah Panzau has traveled the country telling teenagers about her near-fatal decision 10 years ago to drink and drive.

The professional speaker hired by brewer Anheuser-Busch said she was so thrown off by chatter and disruptive conduct by some members of the school's junior class that she gave up talking and walked off during her 45-minute appearance Thursday.

The last of the disruptions came when someone mocked her appearance.

More: http://summerville.patch.com/articles/your-view-arhs-students-unruly-for-dui-lesson

[Faygo Kid]

1. Future FReepers

It's getting ugly out there.

[jberryhill]

3. As a student, I would have proudly disrupted her

As I did to other corporate sponsored speakers when I was in high school.

If you don't believe her sponsor spends a lot on developing brand awareness in the pre-legal market, then you are blind to what this woman is really all about, and why she is bought and paid for.

[McCamy Taylor]

4. Proudly mocked her appearance? Really?

[jberryhill]

6. She looks a lot better than dead...

...but I would have been the one walking out - which I did in response to some Coca-Cola sponsored multimedia "youth values" thingie.

As long as someone else is picking up the tab for my corporate prostitute, then I would demand a good looking one.

[AtheistCrusader]

7. I would probably have said something rude as a kid too. Like Bristol Palin coming and extolling the

virtues of abstinence. Or some wall street asshole coming to speak about good investment schemes.

As far as drunk driver's go, I'd be more impressed by a victim, rather than a perpetrator.

[jberryhill]

8. BP made the Gulf Coast better! And Chevron cares!

I like it when prostitutes say "I love you!" when they are fucking me.

Some won't do it, and some charge extra.

"Hey kids, do something stupid and make a career out of it!" That's the message here.

[TheMadMonk]

12. Exactly. I DO NOT CARE how badly traumatised a drunk or hoon...

...driver feels (or is) after the fact.

Light sentences, because the perp has suffered enough just knowing what they have done is BULL(fucking)SHIT.

Because the NEXT self important twit DOES NOT KNOW the feeling of killing another human being until AFTER they have done it, too late for the poor bastard smeered over the hood and a couple of hundred feet of tarmac.

[marble falls]

28. And here is perpetrator as well as sole victim. Any conflicted thoughts?

[BrainMann1]

26. I was always mature for my age in high school

and looked at the big picture. That's probably why my friends called me the shrink. Don't get me wrong I had fun but not at the expense of others.The message you lost here was the results of drinking and driving.

[jberryhill]

32. I had that figured out in elementary school

And didn't really need a representative from RJ Reynolds to tell me not to smoke.

Unfortunately her real message is "Drink, drive, get injured, and you are set for life."

Bristol Palin on "don't have sex" must have been a real piece of news for some kids, I guess.

[marble falls]

27. Shame on you. That's the same sort of thing Mitt did, too. Take your grief out on Spudwiezer ....

not the individual. She's not a spokesman for Spud. How are you about boycotting those corporations? Your answer rationalizing bullying is disappointing and typical of how Teabillies think when they pull their uncivil stunts.

[AtheistCrusader]

37. Do you think Budweiser would continue to fund her if she said 'don't drink at all'?

I'm guessing 'no'.

So that kind of changes things in this specific set of circumstances.

[marble falls]

38. If she's talking to kids, she's telling them don't drink at all until they're 21. Do you drink....

responsibly or irresponsibly? I wouldn't drink any Spudwiezer product but I understand what they're doing, they are giving themselves a cloak of public service and a layer of deniability like bar owners do here in Texas by requiring servers to be TABC certified. The server is pressured to sell and then held responsible. The beer companies are doing this to keep themselves from some sort of control regulation. That said, getting kids to stop drinking is a good goal even though we all know it will never be 100% effective. Why kick the messenger with a good message regardless of the agenda of the messaging authority?

[AtheistCrusader]

39. Because in this case, the 'messenger' is part of their strategy.

Just as you highlighted with their 'voluntary' efforts to control excess consumption at the server level.

There are other sponsors happy to fund such efforts, that do not have a conflict of interest. Also, the beer company could fund her anonymously, and not do the 'we're so responsible' PR campaign.


BTW, I don't drink at all.

[marble falls]

40. I do drink and the message is good and wise.

[jberryhill]

2. "hired by brewer Anheuser-Busch"

So if asked by a student whether she believes saturation sponsorship of sporting events promotes drinking to youth, what sort of answer does she give?

Explain to me in 25 words or less, why are they paying her to do this.

Do they disclose to the students who is paying for this?

[DollarBillHines]

5. Precisely.

"They care about me. No, really, they do."

It's all about branding.

[alp227]

14. Still doesn't make the students' bullying right.

[jberryhill]

15. Next up - Michael Vick on animal abuse

Although in all fairness, unlike drunk drivers like this scumbag corporate prostitute, animal abusers don't kill people.

No sympathy for this woman here. I have to work for a living.

[alp227]

16. I still draw the line at bigoted remarks,

like the students allegedly directed at the woman over her appearance. While I'd think it'd be "OOAW-SOME" as Cenk would say if Vick ever got heckled during a theoretical motivational speech, I would condemn someone who heckled the N-word (Vick is a black American).

[jberryhill]

19. "Her appearance" - you mean having one arm?

I haven't watched the video because I don't condone the students' behavior. I do, however, detest these "corporate goodwill" charades. Like BP telling us all about how the Gulf is probably even better off now than before, how coal is "clean", and everyone agrees that Chevron should frack the shit out of everyplace - hell, use my backyard.

But Budweiser can get every kid from age five up going "Wa-sssuuuupppp!!!" with their buddies on the school playground and say, "Oh no, we are not advertising to youth! We are paying good money to tell them not to buy our product!" Bull-fucking-shit

[marble falls]

29. She's not a shill, she's a speaker regarding DUI. Do you turn off all those great PBS shows ...

sponsored by David Koch????????

[ailsagirl]

9. Damn them

Disgusting. Absolutely appalling. I hope they get in big trouble for this.

[jberryhill]

10. Them who?

The kids, or the beer company saying, "Get drunk, drive, and we'll make a career out of it for you?"

[Bolo Boffin]

17. That's not quite what they are saying.

It's more like, "Get drunk, but not drunk enough you kill yourself and stop buying beer." No less despicable a message.

[jberryhill]

18. Yeah, I'd love to be a kid in her audience and ask

"So, why not just never drink? Shouldn't we just ban alcohol, like we do with marijuana?"

[JohnnyRingo]

11. High school students are bombarded by so many motivational speakers...

I recall it was hard to take any of them seriously after a while.
The drunk driver thing is an annual event now in every school, and I'm sure kids feel like rebelling after going through three or four as these juniors no doubt have.

Kids aren't stupid, they can smell a scared straight routine before it gets past the principal's office.

[TheMadMonk]

13. Several years back I wrote a LTTE, saying pretty much this.

A "reformed" anything carries almost zero weight outside of church. You seriously want to scare kids straight, go down to the local equivalent of Skid Row, find a street addict, find one with their pants full of shit and vomit in their beards. Make sure they have the jitters before bringing them onto the stage.

Now pay them in front of the kids, pay them in goods like a good set of clean clothes, and ask what they're going to do with their payment.

[AtheistCrusader]

20. The school admins threatened us with suspension if we didn't show up.

Maybe one out of the entire pack of them my senior year was any use to me at all. One out of probably 30.

[FlaGranny]

24. When I was in high school

back in the 1950's, we had a couple of kids do a presentation on drinking and driving. It made a deep impression on me at the time. They had the smashed up car on a trailer out in front of the auditorium for everyone to see. Inside one of the survivors spoke on stage. The car had been full of kids. If I remember 3 or 4 of them died. One or 2 survived. Due to the condition of the car, pre-seatbelt days, it was amazing that anyone survived.

The event was sponsored by a volunteer group and not any beer company. I still keep an eye out for drunk drivers; it's always in the back of my mind when I drive.

[AtheistCrusader]

21. So is all heckling automatically 'bullying' now?

Or is it only bullying if the recipient is offended?

Because anyone worth heckling is worth offending.

[pokerfan]

22. Guess not

Sorry I posted this OP

[AtheistCrusader]

23. It happens.

I think the twin issues of being on Aunheiser-Busch's payroll, and the self-inflicted nature of the injury didn't serve her in this case.

I expect someone on the payroll of maybe MADD, or just there on her own, and someone that was a victim, rather than the perpetrator, would be better received.

[marble falls]

30. This particular incident is bullying.

[AtheistCrusader]

34. Based on?

Seems like we don't even know the full extent of what was said.

[marble falls]

35. Based on the fact they drove her off the stage, that the behavior was agregeous, making comment ....

on her appearance for one thing, at least according to the report. Walking out would be understandable and mature. But what these kids were engaging in was hate speech and the equivalent of what Teabillies were doing when they shouted down "liberal" legislators at the town hall in 2008 and 2009. If a few hundred of my friends showed up a venue you were speaking at and pointed out how ugly and fat you are - wouldn't you feel bullied?

[AtheistCrusader]

36. Did Condoleezza Rice feel bullied when Code Pink showed up to her press conference

and used fake blood on their hands to demonstrate the logical conclusion of her foreign policy?

She walked off stage. Poor, poor bullied Condoleezza.

[SemperEadem]

25. ok, so, certain types of bullying is OK with people here

If a corporation is picking up the tab for you having been invited by the school to speak on why drunk driving is a stupid thing to do, it's ok if a room full of snotty nosed brats bullies you... glad to know I got that straightened out here.

[marble falls]

31. Good way of putting it. Situational ethics is as wrong when we use them as when Teabillies use them.

[Quantess]

33. Heckling is not the same as bullying.

However, those kids are jerks. Laughing at someone else's expense. Teenagers can be such a-holes.

[Tien1985]

41. Something very similar happened

when I was in the first quarter of my 10th grade year. I was making up a test, so I wasn't there, much less a part of the heckling. In our case, it wasn't about drunk driving, but drug abuse. I would have NEVER been disrespectful to someone who was on our stage. HOWEVER, our year was forever banned from all future assemblies throughout high school and I can honestly say that was the best thing ever. We all HATED assemblies. If anything, most of the rest of the school was jealous.

By high school, if you are going to do drugs, drink, bully or otherwise do stupid stuff, no amount of someone getting onstage to talk at you is going to make you stop. Can we just stop with the assemblies?