More Depressing News in The Culture Front

As if the continuing battle in the culture war is not enough, a high school in Colorado http://FoxNews.com has published a yearbook that show high school students drinking and taking drugs and the student yearbook staff defending it as a reflection of what is going on in the life of many high school students.
Now, full disclosure. I went to high school in 1978-1982, the tail end of the drug-cultured 60s and 70s. My high school actually had an area, I kid you not, where students could smoke cigarettes. Now, other herbal substances were clearly done in this area, but I could not tell you if the smoking area even still exists. I was not immune to the culture of the time.
That out of the way, our four years of yearbooks never had such references to current events in that way. It dealt strictly with school life which includes athletics, clubs, photos of students, teachers and some candid shots. No, none of the candid shots showed kids toking up a marijuana joint or guzzling a bottle of Jack Daniels.
What is more disturbing is that the teacher in charge of the yearbook staff had a lame excuse that she did not know what the student staff was doing. Please!
Of course many parents were outraged. After shelling out $58 dollars for a yearbook, they have to see pages with images of high schoolers toking a joint and guzzling adult beverages. I am sure many of these parents were the type that are active in their children's education and some just took a glance and realized. . .the horror!
It is not that I am a puritan and don't think this goes on in high schools and, regrettably, junior high schools all across the nation. But the message sent is that as far as this school is concerned and the students, this is something that should be in the yearbook and exposed, for whatever reason.
What this shows also is that the teacher "advisor" to the yearbook staff has such little control, then one gets what they deserve. It is this permissive attitude that leads to yearbooks having tokers and guzzlers featured so prominently.
Of course it is really too late to do anything about this yearbook issue that would remove the offending pages. The yearbook has been published and is being distributed now. So, a lot of students who do not participate in such beyond extracurricular activities have to have this in a yearbook that should be a celebration of high school life, not showing the dark side. It does nothing to make the debate any more edifying and also sends a signal that the schools do not have any control.
We as a society wonder why there are problems with our young people. This is a start. We who are supposed to be the adults can not be a "friend" to our children first. After all, we are the ones they LOOK to for guidance, not always for affirmation when they especially are knowingly doing something wrong. We must be the guides first and "friend" second. Thus, a teacher is also supposed to be a guide, not a "friend" and when the lines are blurred, this is what we get.