Hey KMTR news,...let's do a story on the removal of a cross, placed at a location, where a young man, probably intoxicated, runs from the police, and kills himself, failing to negotiate a corner. You initially make the stupid statement, that he "was  wearing a helmet,"and then a couple of days later, you don't even bother to mention that he was breaking the law. You seemed to be more concerned with the sorrow that his friend(s?)displayed. There is a photo of the young man, giving the obligatory "Hang Loose bro"  hand sign, holding  what is probably a cocktail, and giving the Gene Simmons tongue job....while his friends talk about how they'll celebrate his life/death, with BBQ's, parties, etc.....I wonder which one of these geniuses will be next....Shame on KMTR for promoting the illegal root of this whole story, (you  certainly didn't discourage it), and I couldn't help noticing that Marc Mullens was a little uncomfortable.

Dear Sir or Mam...

I will start by saying that I am one of these geniuses that you have referred to in your post.  Let me also say that neither myself, nor the other geniuses are denying that our friend was indeed breaking the law.   Undoubtedly, the speed limit on that road is not  92 mph.  We are patiently awaiting, as you clearly are as well, the results of the the rest of the accident report.  While you seem to know the results prior to the release of this report, we do not.  Might I assume that you carelessly stereotype persons, or in this case situations, based soley on your own ignorant opinions?  No?  Well then I respectively ask that you do not make assumptions, correct or incorrect, about our friend without knowing the facts first.

I would like to respond to your hurtful words, and yes they hurt, about your obvious dissappointment in the KMTR report on the removal of a memorial.  Noticeably, you feel that we are inappropriate to look forward to the day when we can have a BBQ, party, ect., and celebrate the short life of our loved one.  You should be satisfied in knowing that as of yet, we are in too much grief to be doing such things.  This week, we are concentrating on getting through each and every minute without crying.  We, unlike yourself, are not thinking about how our friend died and the role that he himself played in his death.  I would hope that others do learn from his errors, but today we just wanted a place for his mother to take a moments comfort in.  This would be the memorial that we set up.  I understand that you seemed to miss the point of the story on the news.  It was as simple as this, Lane County has made it a rule of thumb to leave these all too common memorials up for 30 days, this one barely made it two.  I'm sorry if you felt they were more concerned with our feelings than the broken laws of our friend.  If you would like to read about his failures you can google his name, there are plenty of those stories recently.  Maybe you should be less concerned with how Mark Mullens was feeling on tonights newscast, and focus more on your own callousness.  Shame on you! I would like to give you some credit however.  Blindpig is a fitting name for you!

My apologies for the length of this post, but I do have one more thing.  The "Hang Loose bro" sign that you disapprove of, its also called the "Aloha Spirit " and is a sign of friendship and understanding.  It also can mean "hello", "goodbye", " 'till next time",  and "take care".  I found comfort in that picture.

 

 

Hi I am also one of Mark's friends(or "geniuses"if you prefer.) I read this this post and was disapointed that someone could be so judgemental and rude. This person clearly did not know Mark Jones. Mark was a good person, always happy and positive and never talked bad about others. Mark may have been breaking the law that night but to friends and family who are grieving right now those details are not important;it doesn't bring him back. Since I know that people who do not know Mark are going to be reading this I feel the need to defend him since he is no longer here to do so. Mark was a loving loyal friend who would do anything for you, he was a wonderful only son to his lovely parents, he was a good relative, team mate,  co-worker and friend to all that knew him. He loved to go camping, hunting, fishing, boating, snowboarding, play poker, watch and play sports among many other things. His life touched so many people and it will be really hard to have him gone. Lets not focus on the negative things as Mark would not have done, and let me say this. Please read this and know that someone we loved died that day as a result of speeding or breaking the law as some will say. Let this please be a reminder to all of you who not only drive a motorcycle but a car, truck or anything to slow down and be careful. Don't put your family and friends through this and realize that life is fragile. Also please always have respect for other people; Mark did, the person who wrote the previous post did not. The message of that story should have been about respect, that is all we want so please try to have some.

How could you be such a cold hearted, coward, devoid of an type of human compassion.  I know, it is very easy to send extremely hurtful, critical, condescending messages, when you don't have to look anybody in the eyes when doing so.  You missed the whole point,"blindpig buddy", of the pain and sorrow we are all feeling at the death of a friend.  Your whole being, came across loud and clear on this message--you are filled with anger, hatred, and destruction, but as hard as it was to read such a cruel message post about someone and a group of people whom you have never met, I take pity on you for lashing out---This goes deeper than the accident and breaking the law, but on a life which has been destroyed because of it. Nobody is saying that he was not in the wrong, however the choices made in an instant, that cost Mark his life, was a mistake, the damage is done, so why make his family and friends hurt more than we already are.  You need to reevaluate what basic human descency is all about---the black and white world you live in must be a cold, lonely place---I don't wish you ill will, I hope for you to find the love and understanding that comes with Grace.  Have you never screwed up in your entire life, with a name like blindpig, I think you already answered that question yourself. 

~Bonnie A.

At first when I read this I was very angry, I thought of many very negative thoughts about you (the author).  But upon further review I realized that first of all no dirty little thing that you can write can change  the way that mark positively impacted the lives of all those that he knew.  So now I feel sad for you because you are taking this life that you have been blessed with and ruining with your hatred, and you never know, (which has unfortunetly been a slap in all our faces this past week), when this gift of life will be taken away from you.  Mark enjoyed life he had great times with great friends and wonderful family and we all miss him dearly.  Please in the future if you are unable to make a change in your life for the better, keep your highly opinionated views to yourself.  No one really cares or wants to hear them!!!!!!!!!!

On the contrary, 'friendforever', 'blindpigs' opinion is quite valuable - and you should all be thankful he started this thread. Because if he hadn't put forth his admittedly ill-considered comments, none of  the rest of you would have had the opportunity to say your piece.

IM SURE THE ODOT WORKER FEELS BAD ENOUGH. BUT I THINK THESE MEMORIALS WHILE SAD THAT THEY ARE THERE HOPEFULLY MAKE AT LEAST ONE PERSON STOP AND THINK AND POSSIBLY PREVENT THE LOSS OF ANOTHER LIFE. I HOPE THAT THE PERSON WHO MADE THOSE COMMENTS NEVER GETS A KNOCK ON THE DOOR OR THE PHONE CALL OF SOMEONE CLOSE GONE.. 

It is easy to hide behind the anonymity of a blog and say mean and hateful things, the truth that people have the right to say what they think.  That being said I have every right to argue with them as well.  As to the point made that the news report was glorifying Mark Jones behavior I would argue that on two points the first the report was clearly about ODOT’s unclear policy on roadside memorials, the fact that it is so unclear that one of their own employee’s did not follow it correctly, there is no anger or blame pointed towards ODOT as we all understand why the policy is in place, we can hardly have un maintained memorials cluttering the highways and causing problems.  The fact that his image was shown on the TV, and that of his friends grieving his loss hardly glorifies the situation if anything it shows the horrible consequences of making bad decisions.  As to you’re comments that the rest of us geniuses are sure to follow suit, it is clear that he was speeding as I am sure that we are guilty of at some point, and that he was guilty of making a bad decision.  However at worst case if he was guilty of evading police I hardly think that it warrants a death sentence, which you imply that he deserved to get.  So I ask that next time you decide to post a comment ask yourself if you would attach your name and address, if your are unwilling to do so then maybe you should re-word it to get your point across without inflammatory comments.

 

Devin Powell

I am Mark's cousin... I do not understand how you can be so callous about this.
I suspect that no one you loved dearly has passed away unexpectedly, or in the
blink of an eye. Mark did.. Mark was the best cousin/friend any one could have had.
He has two parents who loved him more than anything, cousins, aunts and uncles,
grandparents, and friends who miss him terribly. Whether or not he was breaking
the law when he died, and it being "glorified"  is not what this was about. Us putting
a cross where he died does not, and should not be based on whether or not he was
breaking the law. We are grieving, we are at a loss for words, so we show
how we feel by putting up that display. I am glad there are the pictures of him,
especially the hang loose one, since that is how I will remember Mark. He was the
happy go lucky kind of guy who always had a smile on his face, and a kind word to pick
you up when you needed it. ODOT dropped the ball when they took the memorial down
we needed and wanted to know what the policies (if any), there were. Family and friends
did not want this to happen to any one else who is distraut over the death of a
loved one. KMTR did the story about that, not "glorifying illegal activities". I pray that one day
a police officer doesn't come knocking at your door, or go the place of your
employment to let you know your loved one had died. It is like someone has taken
all the air from your lungs, you can't function, and you cry at a  moments notice. I would
not want anyone to have to go through this like we are now. Let us grieve the way we
need to and want to. Thank you.

Hey Blind Pig,

You are a small minded piece of *** and I hope you realize that you will probably die alone and no one will bother to do any sort of memorial for you.  Your cruel words not only about Mark but also about all who knew and loved him will never be forgotten. I wish that you were not such a coward, hiding behind a screen name because there are a lot of things I would like to say to you that would be best said in person.  I dare you to act like a decent human being if only for five minutes.  I would love to let you in on the pain and anger your words have caused.

Mark was a wonderful person, who like most people at some point in their life made a stupid mistake. I can't even imagine how you can judge  not only a person but everyone he knew based on four minutes of a news story.  Do you really walk through life pointing out the faults of everyone you encounter? I'm sorry, that must be a miserable existance.

Like I said, please contact me. I own everything I say and say what I mean.

My real name is Jennifer Clark you can e-mail me at jennicmail@yahoo.com

I am another of Mark's cousins.  Yesterday we laid our cousin, our friend, our brother in the ground.  It didn't matter how he died, all that mattered is that he was gone.  My brother and his friends placed the memorial at the crash sight as a tribute to a life cut short.  Yes, it was cut short because of a mistake that he made. But does that really make a difference?  Everyone deserves to be remembered and those who are left behind have the right to grieve and remember in their own way.  This is the way we choose.  These road side markers are all too common but I hope that these markers give people what they need, whether it be a wake up call to slow down and drive safe, or whether it be a place to remember a loved one lost.  Either way, I don't see that KMTR or my brother and friends did anthying to glorify what happened.  We just wanted a place to remember our friend.

Tina Stratis