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Editor�s NoteOne of the best things about my job is getting to read letters from readers. As anybody who reads the Chatroom section of SW knows, I get all kinds of correspondence from all kinds of people � young and old. Sometimes you guys ask for advice. Sometimes you want to share a story. Sometimes you write about your pets. I really like the mail and can hardly wait to share it with everybody who reads this magazine. Amid all of the letters on nearly every subject imaginable, many tell me about how important your friends are to you. In all of the many stories of this type, I�m struck by the diversity of your friendships. When I was a teenager, it was extremely rare for people from different groups to mix. The jocks were never friends with the nerds. Nerds wouldn�t mix with the thugs. Thugs were never seen with the drama geeks. And if the other kids suspected you were gay � well, just forget about it � nobody, not even the geekiest geek, would come near you. But the letters I get from Thai students don�t seem to reflect this at all. I�ve received mail from kids who tell me that their group of close friends includes nerds, jocks, geeks and just about every other kind of person imaginable � including gay kids. I think it�s great. While I�d like to imagine that things back home have changed since I was young, I doubt that�s the case. Shocking evidence of how bad things can sometimes be for teens in the US comes from the news of a recent tragedy in Oxnard, California. Fifteen-year-old Lawrence King was fatally shot in the head while he sat in his first-period computer lab. The alleged shooter was 14-year-old Brandon McInerney, a classmate of Lawrence�s. While the specific motive for the killing still isn�t completely clear, it appears that the fact that Lawrence identified himself as gay and sometimes came to school wearing make-up, high-heeled boots and girl�s jewellery had a lot to do with it. According to The New York Times, prosecutors have charged Brandon with premeditated murder and gun possession. The murder is being handled as a hate crime, which means that prosecutors are convinced that Lawrence was murdered because he was gay. A couple of other things seem clear, too. First, if guns were not so easily available in the US, Lawrence would probably still be alive. Second, if Brandon hadn�t been taught to fear and hate people who are different, Lawrence�s parents wouldn�t have had to make the agonising decision to remove their brain-dead son from life support and donate his organs. While not impossible, it�s hard to imagine a case like this happening here in Thailand. The teen years aren�t easy no matter who you are or where you live, but the many letters I�ve read during my time here at SW have told me over and over how much our readers care about, love and cherish their friends � be they jocks, geeks or gays. Keep up the good work, guys. You�re doing great. Sean Vale |
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