Well, they did sack Rome...
Ah the smell of pork barrel spending...(old news I admit, but kind of funny)
"Almost half of a $273,000 grant awarded in 2002 to fight the Goth culture in Blue Springs has been returned because of a lack of interest -- and the absence of a real problem.
"Blue Springs received the grant two years ago from the Youth Outreach Unit, money the city and U.S. Rep. Sam Graves trumpeted proudly as a way to fight a perceived Goth problem.
So, the basic idea was to spend about half of the money on education and outreach, and the spend the rest on therapy, assessment, and case management for recovering Goths. Also there were supposed to be town meetings held on the issue.
Apparently the money was returned due to a lack of interest, but it does point to a couple of interesting things.
While the whole idea is a fool's errand, my first thought was that the money was granted because of the perception that Goths are responsible for all the school shootings that were happening a few years ago. Under the premise that if they can be identified early, and their eye liner can be taken away from them, then they won't get a gun and start killing people. (The irony being that if you make them feel oppressed in this way, it would actually exacerbate any feelings of anger they already had).
Truthfully, the language was put there for a simple reason. The local congressman wanted to give one of his constituent groups a few hundred thousand dollars, so he found language that would pass muster because...well, Goths don't tend to vote, and there are too few of them to matter to any local politician.
"Almost half of a $273,000 grant awarded in 2002 to fight the Goth culture in Blue Springs has been returned because of a lack of interest -- and the absence of a real problem.
"Blue Springs received the grant two years ago from the Youth Outreach Unit, money the city and U.S. Rep. Sam Graves trumpeted proudly as a way to fight a perceived Goth problem.
So, the basic idea was to spend about half of the money on education and outreach, and the spend the rest on therapy, assessment, and case management for recovering Goths. Also there were supposed to be town meetings held on the issue.
Apparently the money was returned due to a lack of interest, but it does point to a couple of interesting things.
While the whole idea is a fool's errand, my first thought was that the money was granted because of the perception that Goths are responsible for all the school shootings that were happening a few years ago. Under the premise that if they can be identified early, and their eye liner can be taken away from them, then they won't get a gun and start killing people. (The irony being that if you make them feel oppressed in this way, it would actually exacerbate any feelings of anger they already had).
Truthfully, the language was put there for a simple reason. The local congressman wanted to give one of his constituent groups a few hundred thousand dollars, so he found language that would pass muster because...well, Goths don't tend to vote, and there are too few of them to matter to any local politician.