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If you’re not familiar with “sexting,” then you probably need to be–especially if you have a teenager. Sexting refers to the sending of graphic/sexual photos through a cell phone. In the past few years, it has become increasingly popular with teenagers. If you’re still confused, let me break it down anymore: Teenagers (although not just teenagers) are taking nude or semi-nude pictures of themselves and sending them to other teenagers. In other words, underage teens are sending other underage teens nude pictures. It’s scary to think about, but about 20% of teens have admitted to taking part in this.

As you can probably guess the problem goes much deeper than a picture. Teens are able to forward the pics around friends, enemies, acquaintances, and even random strangers.

The government has started taking a stand on this issue. In some states, teens who send or even receive nude pictures of underage teens can be charged with child pornography and labeled as a “sexual predator.” 

However, some lawmakers in Vermont are out to change this. Lawmakers are considering a bill that would legalizing sexting between teens who are 13 to 18, as long as the sexting is consensual. In other words, this bill would make it legal for a 13 year old girl to send a naked picture of herself to an 18 year old guy as long as they both were okay with it. Does something seem a little wrong here?

State Sen. Richard Sears, D-Bennington said, “This isn’t an issue of whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing — I think it’s wrong — but the question is, do we want kids to be prosecuted, called sex offenders, etc., etc., for consensual conduct? No.”

Chittenden County State’s Attorney T.J. Donovan said, “They’re doing it. We don’t want to condone it. We need to educate. But there’s no public interest in labeling them as sex offenders for engaging in a perverted, albeit new, form of courtship.”

If I can find them, I will have the email addresses and phone numbers for Sears and Donovan on here tomorrow.

Tell me if this sounds familiar:

You’re driving along in your car and your phone beeps. It happens to be a simple text message from one of your friends asking you a simple question. Now you have a decision. You can quickly text your friend back while you drive, or you can wait 20 minutes to reply to the message. What do you do?

According to statistics, most of us would probably text our friend back while driving. I’m just as guilty of it as anyone else. Unfortunately, I’m not in the minority. Statistics show that over 50% of people (specifically teens) admit to texting while driving.

While that may sound alarming, the news gets worse. Studies are now showing that texting while driving (or driving while texting in many cases) may be as distracting and dangerous as driving drunk. Just as a drunk driver is disoriented on the road, “texters” are extremely distracted, often looking down instead of keeping their eyes on the road. For those of us who have been in an accident, we all know it only takes a split second for something devastating to happen.

In many ways, it’s a selfish problem. We’ve all been behind someone swerving on the road who constantly changes speeds from 10 mph under the speed limit to 20 mpg over. When we finally catch up to them, we look over and see the person is typing away on a Blackberry, ignorant to his or her driving habits. When that happens, we get mad. We honk our horn. Maybe we yell something at him or her. And we definitely make sure to get out from that car. 

However, when our phone beeps, our concern for everyone else on the road (and in our car) goes out the window. For some reason, our plans with Stacey take precedent over safety.

Several states have taken action against this by developing “Hands Free” Laws. These laws prevent drivers from using cell phones in any capacity while driving, unless the driver uses a “hands free” receiver, such as Blue Tooth. This prohibits texting and holding a phone to the ear. 

The majority of states have yet to adopt this type of law. Without laws in place, texting while driving is completely legal, even for teenagers. 

I think it’s about time we start putting down our cell phones and demanding tighter driving laws.

Okay. I’m off my soapbox for today.

Did the title make you curious? Hopefully not from personal experience.

On Tuesday, Charles Robinson of Yahoo! Sports reported a story that really made me turn my head and question, “Can they do that?” Here’s the opening of Robinson’s article”

The woman in the Facebook picture is attractive, with auburn hair and icy blue eyes. She is flanked by several other women, each armed with an inviting smile and curvy features. Along with the photo is a hopeful note from the female “fan” asking to be added to a player’s personal networking profile.

The twist? These women don’t actually exist, at least not in the way that some unsuspecting NFL prospects are led to believe. Indeed, they are a figment of one NFL team’s imagination – a phony Facebook profile, used as a tool by one franchise in the pre-draft vetting process. A Trojan horse that, when used effectively, unlocks a door to a world of Internet pictures and information which most NFL teams are now consistently compiling to help polish their dossiers on draft picks.

“It works like magic,” said a personnel source that was familiar with his team’s tactic of using counterfeit profiles to link to Facebook and Myspace pages of potential draft picks. The source directed Yahoo! Sports to one of the team’s “ghost profiles” – a term he coined because “once the draft is over, they disappear. It’s like they were never there.”

For those of you who are confused, let me break it down a little bit. The NFL Draft is coming up and NFL teams are about to invest millions of dollars in collegiate athletes. Before players get drafted, athletes are evaluated in every single way. They get asked questions that can range from their favorite type of dance to how dealt with their parents’ divorce when they were 7. Every answer, action, and movement is analyzed, reanalyzed, and overanalyzed.

Now, an NFL team has decided to take things a step further. They are created fake Facebook profiles of women and trying to entice these former college players to accept the bait and accept the friend request. Once they do, the people behind the fake profile go in and analyze every bit of information and picture on the player’s profile. 

It’s not a secret that many colleges do something similar. While I am not aware of universities creating “fake” profiles, I do know colleges go in and look at the profiles of potential college students. For some, all it takes is 1 glimpse of underage drinking or illegal activity for them to dismiss a student’s application.

I am even aware that before I was hired at my current job, there is a great possibility that my Facebook and MySpace profiles were analyzed. However, if they were, I’m confident they weren’t done through deceitful measures. 

It seems like this unnamed NFL team has taken things a step further. They’re pretending to be someone they are not, and are purposely trying to lure a prospective NFL player into a trap.

I understand teams want to know everything they can about a person before they invest millions of dollars in them, but is this taking things too far?

What are you thoughts about this? Is the NFL taking things too far? Does college and universities take things too far?

Read Charles Robinson’s entire article by clicking here.

A report on Yahoo! caught my eye today:

Friendly ‘Death Star’ Laser to Recreate Sun’s Power

Lasers have usually represented weapons of mass destruction in movies such as “Star Wars,” but a newly completed facility has begun harnessing lasers to create a fusion reaction rivaling the power of a miniature sun.

The National Ignition Facility has already test-fired all 192 giant lasers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California as part of this effort. The lasers will eventually focus their power on compressing and heating a single, pea-sized fuel capsule to more than 180 million degrees Fahrenheit in order to trigger thermonuclear fusion.

Now I’ll be the first to admit I don’t understand anything about science, I don’t like science, and I really don’t care too much about science. But this story made me laugh a little bit. Here’s why:

For hundreds of years, scientists have been trying to discover how the earth was created, where we came from, how things happened at the beginning, how many evolved, etc. Now, ~4000 years after the earth was created, scientists think they finally have found a way to create a miniature sun using 192 giant lasers. 

Isn’t it ironic that it’s taken scientists many years and millions of dollars of research to create a miniature replica of something they believed happened by chance? Isn’t it odd that we don’t have the capabilities to create another sun, but scientists believe ours was created by a Big Bang and just so happened to be placed at an exact direction away from us so we won’t freeze or burn to death?

All this does is reaffirm my belief in a wonderful Creator who put the sun in its exact place, and yet also loved me enough to place me on this earth.

Last night was a WONDERFUL night. The North Carolina Tar Heels defeated the Michigan St. Spartans 89-72 to win the NCAA Championship! For those of you that don’t know me too well, I am a lifelong Tar Heels fan. In fact, my parents brought me home from the hospital wrapped in a Tar Heels blanket. I’ve followed the team from as early as I can remember, and I have no plans of stopping anytime soon. In fact, one of my greatest Tar Heel memories was sitting in my grandmother’s living room in Smithfield, NC in 1993 and watching Chris Webber call a timeout…when the Michigan Wolverines didn’t have any. 

Congratulations to the Tar Heels and Coach Roy Williams on the incredible victory and championship. It was a great year! And congratulations to Tyler Hansbrough and Danny Green for staying in college for 4 years to win the championship. No matter what happens to them after this year, they set a great standard for future college players. 

At the end of each college basketball season, CBS shows a video montage of the NCAA Tournament accompanied by the song “One Shining Moment.” Some say it’s cheesy, but it always brings a tear to my eye. As Greg Gumbel would say, “Now we leave you with ‘One Shining Moment.’”

Today is Opening Day for most MLB teams. What better way to kick it off than to listen to some of the most memorable renditions of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” (These versions even made Cub fans blush!)

Sports fans have probably heard the story. On March 14, Donte Stallworth, WR for the Cleveland Browns, hit a man with his car and killed him. In the past few days, more details about the story have come forward. Stallworth’s alcohol level was .126 after the crash, well above the legal limit of .08 in Florida where the accident occurred. Police did explain the man was not crossing the street at a crosswalk, but regardless, the accident happened about 7:15 AM, Stallworth was speeding, and he was drunk. 

This post really has nothing to do with sports or athletes. The main focus concerns drunk driving and “manslaughter.”

Stallworth is being charged with DUI manslaughter. If he’s convicted, he could face up to 15 years in prison.

I have a real problem with that charge and my gripe has nothing to do with Stallworth being an athlete. 

Would someone please explain to me how someone can face a MAXIMUM of 15 years in prison for killing someone while driving drunk? I know the charge is considered “manslaughter,” but we’re you’re driving under the influence, is it really manslaughter or is it a reckless murder?

I understand accidents happen and sometimes people die. It’s very unfortunate, but it’s reality. However, DUIs are no “accidents.” When you get behind the wheel and you’re drunk, you’re essentially firing a gun into a crowd and hoping not to hit anyone. 

I firmly believe our DUI laws in this country are way too light. When you take someone else’s life because of your own crime, you deserve much more than 15 years in prison. In fact, if Stallworth gets 15 years in prison, the sentence will be unheard of. Cases like this happen every day, and many times the driver spends no more than 90 days in prison while the victim loses his or her life.

I cannot make any sense of this. How do we equate 3 months in prison with taking someone’s life?

My family has been the victim of drunk driving accidents and multiple hit and runs (occurring because of alcohol and drugs). I’m amazed at how little the courts do to protect the victims. 

Doesn’t seem more fair that if you take someone’s life through a DUI manslaughter that you should have to go to jail for life, or at least a lengthy sentence? If you drive drunk and kill one of my family members, is it really fair for me or the rest of my family to have to worry about you being back on the streets in 3 months?

Like I said, I’m not talking about accidents. Things happen everyday by “accident.” People are killed on the job site, doctors make mistakes, etc. But driving drunk is a crime in itself. When you drive drunk, you should be held just as responsible as if you planned to commit manslaughter in the first place.

Today has been a rough day. My uncle’s funeral is being held today in Oklahoma. I wish I could be there, but I had to stay in Nashville for several reasons. If you get a chance, say a prayer for my family. This has been very difficult on all of us.