"You're asking the wrong person." I like that one. From another site, about something different: "if they continue to ask, lie. Try not to be believable."
Ginger-in-wheelchair: you do have a spiky bit. Two, in fact, sitting on two even more spiky bits, just about at ankle level. Now, I've never done this on purpose, but I certainly have by accident, and been profoundly sorry at the clear sign of pain in the ankles. My friend (in a motorized wheelchair, so more weight behind it) has used it on purpose, and it got the point across.
I frequently tell the story of putting my friend's wheelchair away (she would go to our table, transfer into the table chair, and we would find a place for the 400 pound obstacle until she needed it again 3 hours later). Of course, it's easier to move a motorized wheelchair from in the seat than anything else, so I would do that. And *everybody* would get out of the way of the poor young man in the wheelchair - until I parked it, got out, and started walking back. Oh, the looks I used to get! Most of them figured it out, though, when I did the reverse at the end of the session...
This. Drives. Me. Nuts. Like Xopher, it's threads like this that point out my privilege, and it frustrates me no end, now that I've been made aware of it. I have my own problems; I find people coming up to me asking if they can help is very distracting and irritating. If it's the third person in 5 minutes, it's irritating enough to leave the store. I realize that's a minority opinion in North America, so I live with it. Alternatively, however, I want to be able to find an employee when I do have a problem, and they seem to hide them (they don't; they just don't have one person to spare at an "information area". What I would prefer is a "now serving" queue - two or three people in an information area, who are centrally located, and answer questions as asked, returning when that answer is done. Would never work - looks like "paying for goofing off" to management). But "inappropriate sales behaviour for Mycroft" < "invisibility".
I don't remember ever being "the man" in any discussion where I wasn't either "the expert" or "the decision maker", but it's probably happened. But even if I am clearly brought in as the expert, if salesperson doesn't pay attention to the Wielder of the Cash, WoC could and should make the final decision - "no". I have had that happen - but because it was the person, not the store, we came back 15 minutes later and bought what we had decided on - from somebody else. Pointedly, in first employee's plain sight.
My problem with Home Despot is that I Am Not Competent; when it comes to construction, I have two left hands. And I know it. And yet, I still manage to ask questions I can't get answers to (last example: "where's the precut cat5 cable?") I can just imagine how frustrating that would be for someone who does know what she's talking about, even past the "I'm the WoC" issue.
My commercial bugbear, however, is "Am I speaking to Mrs. W___?" No. "Can I speak to Mrs. W___?" No. "Oh, is this Mr. W___?"
I think the Dobson (ugh. Thanks for the FotF reference - I thought I knew the name from somewhere. I haven't been able to read any of those things without either it breaking my cute meter, my real-world meter (as in "you don't live there, do you?") or having all the "I-centric Christianity" alarm bells go off in my head. So I'm not supporting him in any way, even though I don't and won't have kids, and haven't and won't read the stories) discussion is at least partly semantic and connotative. Let me analogize...
- Americans, by and large, agree with America's founding documents.
- The U.S. Declaration of Independence posits, among other things, a right to life.
- Therefore, Americans, by and large, are Right To Lifers.
Now, I can hear the screams from here in Canada.
- Dobson recommends that parents require immediate obedience; that children must submit to the parent's will.
- Dobson recommends physical coersion with an object as a tool to enforce that requirement.
- We define "beating" to be, among other things, "hitting someone with an object" (as opposed to the bare hand "spanking"). Note: this is a reasonable definition, but not unarguable.
- Therefore, Dobson recommends "beating children into submission".
That phrase, like "Right to Life", has connotations that simply can not be ignored in an argument, and attempts to argue "but I mean it perfectly literally" are unworkable
Unfortunately, "beating children into submission" connotatively means "beating children well past the point of submission" or "beating children within an inch of their lives". I am certain that that does happen from people with those tendencies who read Dobson; I can't say if Dobson believes that this far is okay or not (and really, really don't want to know). But denying the connotation while insisting on the expression is "pay no attention to the Man behind the curtain" territory.
I disagree with Dobson's premises (of course, I might disagree with Dobson if he said that the sun rises in the East). I also believe (with no evidence) that fully non-contact discipline is not optimal. I don't know where to draw the line; I do know that "Proof by Authority" has never worked for me, whether authority was my father, teacher, or the best player of my game in the world; and anyone who read that other thread should realize that to get "yes, sir" compliance would have required abuse levels of correction.
On other notes: @512 re quick and easy: didn't somebody say something about that a few years ago?
Beer for Poutine: I prefer Maudite over Fin de Monde for this; FdM is a Nice (overproof) Lager; Maudite tastes like it's titled, and suits the aggressive flavours of the Poutine.
Oh, missing footnote:
Apologies to Terry and other Russian speakers for that horrible translation.
Nancy @96: That's good in a universally-literate society - I like the idea, in fact. But it does tend to bias against immigrants and the traditionally-disadvantaged. Go ahead, vote for Григорий Григорьевич КуÑтов. Properly handwritten and legible, please. And you don't get to bring in a piece of paper.
Also, if you think that the fights over spoiled ballots and "what did the voter want to do" is bad now...
In general, I think the politicians are very happy with any situation that gets closer to "private game for us", eliminating that messy thing called a vote. I do think that prisoner disenfranchisement, especially in a world where "Nearly a quarter of black State inmates (24%) and Hispanic inmates (23%) were drug offenders, compared to a seventh of white inmates (14%)", nearly 90% of the growth in Federal inmate population (1995-2003) by "most serious offence" were "Drug" or "public-order" offences (public order includes weapons offences, but not violent crime), and per capita, in each age category, black incarceration rates are 6 times as high as whites (overall almost 10 times as high), is a tricky little thing. (all statistics from U.S. Dept. of Justice "Prisoners in 2005" bulletin).
I also, however, think that my previous point of there being a fundamental disconnect between those who think "justify why prisoners should get X" and "justify why prisoners shouldn't get X" applies, and answering "justify why" with "taking it away serves no purpose" doesn't answer that question (similarly answering "justify why not" with "they broke the law; they clearly don't care about making it").
At my first job, I was in the lunch room reading the comics page, and the VP Marketing came in and asked what I was laughing at. I said, "Dilbert is particularly funny today" He replied, "You techs really seem to enjoy that. I don't see what's so funny."
And he really couldn't. And, of course, that's what was so funny. There's a reason that project was only not Deathmarch because a) it finished (350% late) and b) with people still at the company (about 1/3 of the size it was when I started, but).
If I'm right, I'm seeing in this a dichotomy of view. I'll try to argue this without biasing it to my view as well as I can.
Terry et al. are looking at this discussion as "show me a reason why taking away this benefit* of American Society will aid the prisoner" (as a tool of in this conversation rehabilitation, punishment, societal reintegration), and/or American Society as a whole.
Larry et al. are looking at this discussion as "show me a reason why we should allow this benefit of American Society to the prisoner" (again, using things such as punishment, rehabilitation...) and/or if allowing this benefit aids American Society as a whole.
Everyone agrees that some of the benefits of American Society need to be curtailed for these purposes as part of incarceration. But I think some think this is a positive benefit to the penal system, while others think it is a necessary restriction.
I do not believe that any consensus is available between the two types without an agreement on this principle, which I despair of happening (to wit, I'm not changing *my* mind on which side I'm on).
* Using a neutral-ish term here as opposed to right, responsibility, privilege, or otherwise to try to remove those biases from discussion.
Serious derail, but Terry: I assume that you would also need the ability to restrict the subject's freedom, which in civilian terms is called "abduction", "forcible confinement", and a bunch of other terms that tend to result in, well, a term of forcible confinement. If you don't, I'm even more impressed.
I realize the restriction can be voluntary, but not likely in this case...
Generic "you" here - not applying to anyone in particular (except for the last paragraph).
If you're strong enough to be able to break the patterning and see through to it, "I don't remember it" or any of the other "not/no longer an issue" responses from the abusers can *be* closure, if you're the sort of person who works that way. Of course, I don't think I am (so I could be talking out of my hat).
Closure in the sense of "clearly, there is no benefit that can be had from continuing this relationship." It may alleviate the guilty feelings that come after you terminate all further ties. I didn't say it was a *good* kind of closure, mind you.
Of course, EPID, *especially in this thread*, and if this advice doesn't apply to you, shitcan(*) it with extreme force.
(*) I tried to think of a better word here, but nothing else seemed to suit the vehemence intended.
Temporary - and if it isn't temporary, pull it - derail to the first paragraph.
I know that feeling of inversion. I took my motorcycle up the Alaska Highway one year, and stopped in Whitehorse, YT for the night. I unpacked and decided to walk downtown for dinner. It was about five minutes of feeling really weird - not uncomfortable, just weird - until I realized that everyone else out there was Native. I was the only white guy on the streets. And it was still weird. Embarrassingly, now a bit uncomfortable for five minutes or so, until I came to terms with it. So yeah, "that privilege".
(and the next day I was talking to people outside church when I heard the boom that is caused by a Volkswagen Bug full of fuel explodes after having been dropped 1000' from a helicopter. Yep, it's the start of the Airshow).
Somewhat on-topic, "what do you mean not everybody's family is like this?".. That. Hard to talk about it (over and above all the other reasons) when one doesn't know that what's going on is noteworthy. Hard to understand when your friends/fiancee describes, when your family isn't. Easier when you have a school "family", though (see other thread).
I wish all involved at least as good fortune living with this as I have had with my demons, and appreciate the courage required to talk about it, even anonymously.
I'm glad to know I'm not the only one with an issue with embarrassment comedy. I think it really is a bully trigger - either the other characters are setting this person up to humiliation, which we are expected to find funny (traditional), or the character is prone to doing stupid things all on his own, which we are supposed to find funny. Which means that the writers are being the bully, no?
Thanks, Mary Frances, and yes, it does require courage - but not as much as it may look. After all, in order to (if you're not an admin here) find out who I really am, you're going to have to do some work (not a lot, but some) - and my nym got associated to me after all of that happened, so it's unlikely that the people involved at the time will find me here.
Two things that came to mind on Xopher's comment. First, for many reasons I pattern gay (I'm not, but that's neither a value statement or particularly relevant to the behaviour) - so yeah, I'm not particularly surprised that my stories trigger his memory. I certainly have experience with gaybashing, in the non-adult (read: survivable) form.
Second, despite saying that, in many ways I had it easy. White, male, smart, reasonably prosperous (this was a private school, after all) and while some of the physical and verbal abuse was sexually-themed, there was no sexual abuse, at home or at school. At All. Also, there were no worries about knives or guns (not that a good set of stairs can't mess you up). And while some of the teachers' attitudes to me made it clear that they didn't care what happened, there were those who made it clear that this was wrong - and not by me going to them and complaining, either.
Second-and-a-half, "getting off easy" doesn't mean it's okay. If getting off easy can and did lead to twenty years of not having a reason to live (having a reason to not die, yeah, I had that. I'm still here, after all. But the last thing I thought before going to sleep every night, for years, was a hope not to wake up) then it's still too much.
Thomas@56: and the United Church of Canada (formed from the Methodist, Congregationalist, and half the Presbyterian denominations) more than 20 years ago (go up one level for current discussion). Got them into a lot of trouble, too; the financial cost of the apology was immense (and probably not enough). But more importantly than that, it's still an issue: part 5 of that part of the FAQ reminds us:
The gifts of those who went before us are now ours by inheritance. But just as we receive the gifts so also do we carry the burdens of the mistakes made in our past. First Nations have a profound sense of their continuity with those who have gone before. The traditions of Israel and of the Christian church are built on the notion of a communion of saints and sinners, past and present. If we are to claim “our†history at all, we must claim it all.
and
The church of the past entered willingly and often with good intentions into a relationship with government that seriously harmed our relationship with First Nations communities. We live with that legacy and are called to repair the damage. The church of the present is invited to repent of this past and to build new relationships with First Nations on a foundation of justice and respect.
In other words:
Well Done, Mr. Brown. That's a good start.
Rikibeth, 243: maybe that would have worked for me, too. I wasn't able to be that violent, I guess. And screaming might also be gender-dependent; had I done that (and I'd had 8 years of singing lessons by that point; I CAN PROJECT when I want to), they would have backed off, sure - so that they could enjoy the reaction they were trying to get out of me that much more. It might have got me out of the situation, I guess, but it would have set me up for weekly repeats (I guess that's the difference between that and Model Mugging, too - a) loud noises is not the response the mugger wants, and b) I don't expect to run into the mugger ever again, never mind being locked into the same bus with him every day for a New York to Boston run (with a 6 hour layover in Hartford CT).
If 241 is unuseful to the discussion at hand - delete it. The catharsis was necessary, and I think could be educational, but may also be a little derailing of the topic, so may not be necessary here.
One other thing - there's something that will, easily and quickly, rile me. No, I won't mention what it is, except to say that I've arranged it so that it's not really possible here (See? Even 25 years later), and that it requires active disinterest in my wishes. It's purely verbal, and explainable as "sorry, I forgot", too (but I can tell the difference). One day, someone who knew better (and who had been trading this kind of needling with me for months) did it to me, *again*, in a competition (where rattling the opponents will improve your score, true, but where this kind of rattling is illegal). He sat rocked back in his chair, balancing on the two back legs only, so in response, I grabbed a front leg and, keeping control of it, gave it a bit of a push up. In response to that, he punched my glasses off my face, requiring 4 stitches. In response to that...well I don't know what happened in response to that. The next thing I know my teammates have run 5 metres from their table and are trying to pull me away from the wall where I've trapped him shouting who knows what. I'm sure some physical contact was involved getting there.
So, what was "in response to violence immediately prior" (self-defence) and what was active? One would think the punch, but that was in response to what felt like (and what was intended to feel like, but not be) an attempt to knock him over. That? Well, I never touched him, I kept everything under control, and he was playing mind games, attacking me where he knew I would react. He wanted me to react, just not in that way. But that could have been in response to what happened the day before, or the day before that, or...
And more than that (as anybody who watches hockey or soccer can attest), when all the referees see is the final retaliation, the retaliation can be the only punished (possibly, the only punishable; it was just fate that the punch caused my glasses to cut my eyebrow on their way off. Without that, there would have been no mark on me) offense. Certainly, when the witnesses (not these, mind you, but in other cases) all say that "yeah, A hit B, once, lightly, but then B just kept on pounding A, even after he'd apologized and was helpless" (whether or not that was true), the words "inappropriate response" come to mind...
The reason for some of those stupid zero-tolerance policies (and zero-tolerance policies are stupid; they're written with no room for judgment to avoid people saying that what happened to me and others in this thread are "just part of growing up, he'll learn from the toughening", but they take away the room for judgment of "this guy has been picked on all year in ways that fall just short of the policy, and he finally snapped" or "she got him with a nail file, but that's because he was sticking his hand up her skirt - again.") is because you can't get those situations right all the time, and punishing any physical response equally Solves The Problem for the school (at what cost to the people involved, well, that's another story). People, schoolchildren in particular, are Very Good at Rules Lawyering, and if there's zero tolerance for X, they can be very good at doing everything up to X-1, and then when they get X as a response, "it's all his fault - I didn't do anything". I don't know what the answer is - in Real Life, the answer involves lawyers, a judge, and 12 of your peers, and still frequently gets it wrong.
Okay, this presses a lot of buttons...and this post may be triggering as well. I also note that it's somewhat incoherent and very rambling.
My school was 1-12, classes of 17-21 (my entire grad (three classes) was 51 people, a near-record for the time), total school population 500. Oh, and 45 minutes out of town, so *everyone* was bussed in, and there was nowhere reachable "off-grounds". For me, that meant 0750-0910 and 1530-1710, 180 days a year, locked into a room with the same 44 people and one bus driver (who, frankly, sided with the 44 people, and if you think she could see everything, check for vandalism the next time you ride a bus); and the time between locked onto a campus with the same 500 students.
THERE WAS NO WAY TO LEAVE and stay at the school at all (a choice that wasn't really up to me). THERE WAS NO WAY TO LEAVE the bus for three hours (well, except for the one I tried to take one day. Three metre, head-first drops at 80km/h are not generally recommended).
The problem with the "fight back as self-defence" response, over and above what I read here (note: _Carrie_ was reality television and wish-fulfillment fantasy for me. Not horror at all. Still might be), is that "hit him hard enough that he no longer views you as an easy target" (Caroline, 218) simply projects the problem to the next easy target. Sure, it's no longer a problem for *you* - you might even learn to enjoy it, even commit it, if you're not the one it's aimed at. I've seen it happen to others (and, in some ways, to me), and that's what heresiarch is worried about.
Let's face it - humiliation of others is *funny*. At least it is to a large part of the population. I can't watch most situation so-called comedies, because they rely on it - and it's not funny to me. It hurts - 25 years later - even to watch it happen, knowing it's not real.
The bullying finally ended for me after I graduated and I took a year at another high school to age and to take non-academic courses. Not that people didn't try - but they weren't as good at it (whether due to lack of practise, lack of intelligence, or just a smaller gun v. armor race), and I could not just ignore them, I could project that what they were doing wasn't important enough to even disrupt what I was doing. And yeah, I'm sure they went off to an easier target - and I'm not all that happy about that. When I hit university, I found I wasn't alone in my weirdities and things ostensibly changed. But:
The results of the bullying haven't ended to this day - it was 6 years ago, almost to the day, that I stopped being a suicide risk; the less dramatic problems are taking more time to work through. The confidence issues may never completely go away, to the point where I can say something without double-checking to ensure that there's no way to send it back hurtfully, or not say it at all if it can't be safed. It's still impossible to trip me without using martial-arts training, 25 years after people stopped trying (including at the top of the stairs, with a full bookbag, yes - and there were several witnesses afterward to the fact that I pushed over the guy with the crutches; rather fewer that I didn't exactly have control of what I was doing on the way down. Fancy that).
The other issue with "hit him harder" is that it works if the bully's alone - if you're "that one" in the class, that might be true. If you're "that one" in the school, then the bully's going to be able to get help. Learning how to "hit him harder" != "becoming a dreaded Shaolin Master" (at least in a few weeks); and 6-1 odds are a bit harder to deal with. I read the Ender/Stilson lesson as well - "the only reason I was able to win this is because I'm smarter and prepared, *and* because he needed to do it himself in front of his friends. If I don't make this the final win, next time he won't make that mistake". Learning that lesson isn't the best thing for a person, either; even Ender didn't think much of the person those lessons created most of his life.
On felonious assault - yep, that's what it is. And if you make excuses for it, it'll continue to happen. That's why we have rules for young offenders - the crime isn't less bad for being committed by a juvenile, but the punishment is, because we believe they can learn their way out of it. The rare cases we believe that they can't, there are procedures to treat them as adults. But how the offender is treated doesn't change the nature of the crime; it is felonious, and needs to be considered such in everyone's eyes for anything to be done.
Nobody's brought up Physical Education, except for the one teacher that might need to be wary should cheap time travel become possible. I've got one of those, too (although he was brought to frustration by my passive-aggressive resistance, I can see, what he did was still unacceptable). However, in my school:
- Volleyball with spikes aimed at the head;
- Rugby (we didn't do Football), where there's all kinds of opportunities to put that little extra into the tackle, and
- Wrestling, where the *object* is, as the teacher put it, "to cause your opponent to do what you want by making it too painful to not do it" (wow. What a license for people who already enjoy inflicting pain on someone two years younger and fifty pounds lighter than themselves).
Of course, there's all the fun tricks possible in a locker room. Yes, I know the garbage bin, the showers, how to get cut out of (two kinds of) lockers, and why middle-of-bank, lower-bank lockers are the worst for escape routes.
I'm sure I've missed a lot (I haven't mentioned the habitual verbal assaults, to begin with).
The good news about going through this in school was that I felt right at home in the two companies involved in Death Marches when I was a programmer. I felt right at home.
Re: the Prodigal son: the thing to remember about the dutiful son was that while the one that left was treated as family, and long-lost family at that, his reward was run. What he got was solely what the owner of the farm chose - before, *and after*, the father's death. (I realize that doesn't necessarily apply to the Father of the allegory, but it does here). The dutiful son, by law, gets everything. That won't make him feel better *tonight*; it might in future.
I also, among other things, want to differentiate online bullying that is strictly virtual dominance games from online bullying that is just a continuation of an RL situation to online media. The latter is simply a new wrinkle on the kind of crap I and others are talking about here; the former is no better, but a different beast.
Um, abi, you've laevorotated it, and it needs to be dextro-. And it's missing the two dots.
So, now you know my hobbies.
Seriously, that's wonderful. I can't say I wish I could do that, because I don't. Crafting has never been of interest to me, unfortunately. But I can be impressed. And I am.
Unions: The corporations do have a point (although as you can tell from previous posts, I am not at all suggesting we should break unions). And consolidation in the union industry has all the lures and dangers of corporate consolidation, and causes the same behaviour in the executives.
And executives they are. They may not command 8-figure salaries like the corporation CEOs, but people at the head of a 100 000-strong union have and continue to exhibit all the things the union complains about the corporation heads.
Finally, there's something inherently antagonistic about unionized shops. Whether it starts with the corporation working so hard and playing so many games to keep the union out that by the time it gets in everyone already has an us vs them mentality, or whether the union just assumes that's what it's going to get and acts that way in new shops whether or not it could be otherwise, no idea.
But yeah, there's some astroturf out there.
Nancy: I'm going to have to call you on that one, I think. For at least the simple reason that in certain circumstances, and some fear we're going there globally, the company *is* the government, and therefore as bad as the government by definition. I've heard too many stories of company towns (want one cute trick? Pay your employees inside the company-owned bar at the end of the work week) to believe that given ultimate power over people, companies can't be as bad or worse than governments.
The "war on Drugs"? No, it would not profitable to conduct that in the private sector (although it sure is to be a supplier to it - ask the private prison companies, among others) so the corporations don't. They know that every dollar they spend lobbying to have it conducted by the governments (for whatever interests they have - and to add to #36, we have Hearst's (claimed) fight to have the government keep his paper monopoly - sorry, fight to make marijuana (and most hemp) illegal) will cost them an extra $0.50 to enact it (but everyone else will pay an extra $0.50 as well) but if it will pay back more than $1.50,...
I wouldn't mind corporate personhood as much if it were combined with "person"al responsibility. A corporation doing something that would get a person locked up for 6 months? Oh well, you can't buy or sell anything for 6 months. Yes, I realize that would put everyone working for it out of work, but I would think that even CEOs with a "killed my company because on my watch our policy was to steal" rap on their sheet might find it hard enough to find another position that they might decide that's not the best policy. IANAL, which means I come up with simple solutions to complex problems. Mencken's Law applies, no doubt.
On Free Prescription Samples: That's not necessarily an argument in favour - I may still be alive as a result of them. Canada's medical coverage doesn't cover prescriptions (without other coverage or indigence). There was a year or so when I just couldn't afford the C$75/month (that would be, it looks like, about USD250/month if I lived in the States, so while prescriptions aren't covered, they aren't as expensive here), so the option was not taking them.
We eventually found out that my problem doesn't respond well to pills, dealt with the real issue that the pills weren't fixing, just making livable, and here I am. But still.
314: I was going to say that [Sen. Isakson] has no principles, but obviously his principles are money and power.
Nah, he just got taken aside yesterday and told "Recant, or we fire you. Then you'll have to go on COBRA." And he couldn't afford it.
(yes, I know that's not how it would have worked)
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