Dishonor

A growing number of high-profile tragedies are leading to prosecutions of parents not for their actions, but for their failures to act. One such case involves Elizabeth Puleo-Tague, whose teenager’s fondness for fast, erratic driving led to a crash that killed a passenger in his car. The mother of the boy who was killed wants her prosecuted for parental neglect.

Kiernan Tague, 17, was charged with second-degree murder in the death of his friend Flynn MacKrell after his vehicle, a BMW X3, lost control at 105 miles per hour and collided with a tree. Flynn's mother, Anne Vanker, believes that Puleo-Tague should be held responsible for her son's actions due to her negligence.

“To say this is a living hell is an understatement," said Flynn's mom, Anne Vanker, in an interview. “My life has been ruined. No one should ever, ever have to lose a child like this ... I still can’t believe my son — my big calm son — is gone.”

Vanker says that Kiernan’s mother, Elizabeth Puleo-Tague, should be held legally liable for Flynn’s death. An investigation by the local prosecuting attorney revealed a history of Puleo-Tague pleading with Kiernan to slow down. Despite her repeated warnings and the use of a safety app, Kiernan continued to engage in dangerous driving.

Months before the crash, Puleo-Tague had been receiving notifications from a safety app called Life360, informing her of Kiernan’s aggressive driving. Kiernan had even taken a photo of his Audi’s speedometer exceeding 140 miles per hour.

Texts show that Puleo-Tague repeatedly begged her son to change his ways, but he refused. But not only did she fail to stop her son from continuing in his reckless ways, she bought an even faster car—the BMW—and left the keys at home during a trip to Canada.

In her request for charges, Vanker compared Puleo-Tague to James and Jennifer Crumbley, who are serving 10-year sentences in prison because they failed to take a rifle away from their son Ethan Crumbley, who eventually took the lives of several people at his school.

"She was sitting on a ticking time bomb. She knows he's out of control, yet she basically gets him a weapon," Vanker said. "It's like she handed him an AR-15."

Possible Preaching Angle:

Regardless of the outcome of the case, the tragedy serves as a stark reminder of the importance of addressing reckless behavior in young people, and of the potential consequences of parental neglect.

In his book Of Boys and Men, researcher Richard Reeves notes that until around 2015, the phrase “toxic masculinity” was just mentioned a few times in academic articles. But by 2017, there were thousands of mentions, mostly in the mainstream media.

The term is almost never defined, and is instead used to simply signal disapproval. Lacking a consistent definition, the phrase now refers to any male behavior that the user disapproves of, from the tragic to the trivial. It has been blamed, among other things, for mass shootings, gang violence, online trolling, climate change, the financial crisis, and an unwillingness to wear a mask during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lumping together terrorists and delinquents, the phrase ultimately poisons the very idea of masculinity itself. The book contains interviews from dozens of adolescent boys about what they like about being a boy. Most boys couldn’t even answer the question. One college sophomore told the author, “That’s interesting. I never thought about that. You hear a lot more about what is wrong with guys.”

As the Russian invasion into Ukraine drags onward, international approval ratings of Russian president Vladimir Putin have been, pardon the term, tanking. But for a certain subset of Canadians, the anti-Putin sentiment adds unacceptable insult to Ukrainian injury. And like other more serious international incidents, people are somehow blaming the French.

That’s because the French spelling of the Russian president’s name is “Poutine,” which is also the name of a French-Canadian diner staple: fried potatoes topped with gravy and cheese curds. This is why French restaurant Maison de la Poutine was subject to rude, harassing, and insulting phone calls throughout February and March. This is because people read the name of its signature dish – often called the national dish of Canada – and misinterpreted it as support for the Russian leader.

On its Twitter account, the restaurant was forced to issue a clarification, which included the following affirmation:

Poutine was created by passionate cooks who wanted to bring joy and comfort to their customers. La Maison de la Poutine has worked since its first day to carry on these values. Today it brings its most sincere support to the Ukrainian people who are courageously fighting for their freedom against the tyrannical Russian regime.

Another popular French-Canadian restaurant Le Roy Jucep, went even further, renaming the popular dish as “la frite fromage” (literally “the cheese potato”), so as to dissuade any presumed affiliation with Putin.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Names are important because they bestow honor. When someone behaves dishonorably, we besmirch the names we are given and others see those names as disgraceful.

Two defendants who appeared in Judge Greg Pinksi’s Montana Cascade County District court received unique punishments as part of the sentencing phase of their trial. Their punishments involved wearing signs.

Ryan Patrick Morris and Troy Allen Nelson were in violation of their respective probations related to previous criminal offenses. They both lied to the court about having served in the military as a way of receiving lenient sentences for their previous criminal behavior.

Judge Pinksi sentenced Morris to ten years for felony burglary, and Nelson five years for felony criminal possession of dangerous drugs, both with years suspended. Morris and Nelson will be required to write letters of apology to various veterans’ groups as well as complete 441 hours of community service. This is one hour for each citizen of Montana killed in combat since the Korean war. Then, during the years of their suspended sentence, they’ll be required to spend each Memorial Day and Veterans day visiting the Montana Veterans Memorial. They are required to wear a placard that reads, “I am a liar, I am not a veteran. I stole valor. I have dishonored all veterans.”

Judge Pinski said, “I want to make sure that my message is received loud and clear by these two defendants. You've been nothing but disrespectful in your conduct. You certainly have not respected the Army. You've not respected the veterans. You've not respected the court. And you haven't respected yourselves."

Potential preaching angles: Lying places you into a trap. When you try to lie your way out of that trap, it only makes it bigger and stronger. The only way to be free is to tell the truth.

In 2012, a 19-year-old man from Washington state named Dakoda Garren was charged with stealing a rare coin collection worth at least $100,000. After Garren had completed some part-time work for a woman living north of Portland, the woman reported that her family coin collection was missing. Her collection included a variety of rare and valuable coins, including Liberty Head quarters, Morgan dollars, and other coins dating back to the early 1800s.

Initially, Garren denied any involvement, claiming that the police didn't have any evidence against him. But then he started spending the coins at face value, apparently unaware of the coins' worth. He and his girlfriend paid for movie tickets using quarters worth between $5 and $68. Later on the same day, they bought some local pizza with rare coins, including a Liberty quarter that may be worth up to $18,500.

The news article reported, "Garren has been charged with first-degree theft and is being held in jail on $40,000 bond. Which, technically, is an amount he could easily afford if the valuable coin collection were actually his."

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Our Relationship with God—We honor God (or the things of God) when we treat him with the value he deserves. We dishonor the Lord—in our attitudes or in our actions, such as worship—when we treat God like an ordinary or even a cheap object. (2) Our Relationships with Others—In the same way, we dishonor other people (such as our spouse, our friends, our children, even our enemies) when we treat them as cheap objects. They should be treated according to the value God has placed on them. (3) The Importance of Rightly Setting Value on Everything in Life—We need to place ultimate value where it belongs, in the things of God that endure forever. The ability to discern true value is crucial, as seen in the story of Esau selling his birthright for a bowl of stew.