Saw another one that raised my hackles today.

The local paper runs little personal ads on the third page. Birthdays, wedding anniversaries and anniversaries of deaths. Mostly stuff like "Lordy, lordy, look who's forty" and maudlin notes about how so and so was taken away from us.

Today brought another maudlin note about the loss of Ryan at the tender age of 20. I feel for his parents. The loss of a child has got to be the most wrenching experience possible. But they lost my sympathy early in their post. It read as follows:

"Ryan's life was cut short as a result of a restaurant serving Ryan (a minor) alcohol, afterwards he drove and died instantly in a car crash".

Bad punctuation aside, Ryan didn't die as a result of the restaurant serving him alcohol. He died because he chose to consume alcohol, presumably to the point of intoxication, and then drove. I wasn't there, but I'm pretty damned sure that nobody in the restaurant shoved a funnel into his mouth and nobody shoved him into his car and made him drive.

Those were all Ryan's decisions. Yes, the restaurant broke the law by serving him, but he killed himself. Plain and simple.

Have we hit the point where nobody is responsible for his own actions?

I don't know who wrote the ad/accusation for Ryan, but I'd suggest that he or she might find sympathy with Cindy Sheehan. You sure as hell won't find it here. You'd have found it right up to the point where you blamed the restaurant for his death. After that, you lost me.