Elliot Rodger…All That’s Left is “Why”?

This is another one of my short rants. We’ve got a director blaming the NRA for the deaths of innocent people. Evidently he doesn’t know squat. Elliot Rodger was mentally ill. He needed help. His parents tried to get him that help. Had the Santa Monica Police Department seen the warning signs of trouble in his videos, MAYBE they could have gotten him committed to a psychiatric facility for at least 45 days. Had they done that, 8 people might be alive today. THAT is the bottom line of it. In my opinion, mental illness doesn’t excuse an action or make it right, but it does help explain the “why” of it to a degree.

Now I want to know what also figures into this “why”? Was this guy bullied all his life or something? THAT is the vibe I got off of watching some of the videos. He doesn’t really come out and say it, though. The reason I say this is that a lot of shooters seemed to have experienced school bullying. THIS is one thing I personally would like for the public to know. Hopefully one day all the families, including Rodger’s, will have the answer to that “Why?”

However the political “blame game” is not going to cut it this time. People need to quit using others’ tragedy to earn brownie points or to get people to take a look at their work and that is what the director that made the NRA comment is doing. That’s right. I’m calling him out.  He’s using a colleague’s tragedy to make a name for himself. They don’t need to use it to further politics either. People are sick of that tactic already, and before anyone starts complaining and moaning, I don’t own a gun myself. I never have. I probably never will because I don’t need one. However, I do support the right of law-abiding citizens to own one.

 

A Day of Empowerment–Post High School

When I was grown, I married and ended up divorced.  I was raising my son Eric and one of the guys who bullied me in school asked me out saying, “I hear you’re divorced now and I was wondering if we–”

I responded by saying, “Stop right there!  I had nothing but crap from you in school. I wouldn’t date you if you were the last man alive either.”

He said, “Well we were just kids–you should be over that!”

I said, “Two years isn’t long enough. You’re in my past and you are staying there. Bye.”

I then shut the door in his face. Dad asked me what that was about.

My response was, “Getting the garbage out.”

He said, “Oh…Okay.”

Note:  If you were a bully as a kid, it really is not a good idea to go around trying to ask the victim out–especially when you were one of the ones that tormented him/her for the whole 12 years of school don’t ya think? Well at least he didn’t play the “selective memory card” as in saying “I don’t remember that. I’m sorry.”  I felt very empowered after that day in 1983.

 

A Passionate Hater of Bullying…That Would Be Me…

I want to make something clear to my friends and to my family. I loathe bullying whether it be school bullying or workplace bullying. I believe that stronger discipline must be used in public schools to stop school bullying because allowing it and/or enabling it and many school administrators and fake experts tend to do this, I fully believe that it leads to more devious and often violent criminal behaviors in adults.

I do not believe bullies fully change with time if they end up in positions of power. I believe this overloads their ego and makes them even worse. That being said, I am going to do all in my power to put a stop to this trend. Bullying is not the same as it was when I was in school. It’s not just the occasional fight or being shoved. In many cases it is assaults by multiple people, sexual assault, emotional abuse and some other things adults can go to jail for, like sharing inappropriate photos of a teenager on the net, cyber-bullying, etc…However, in some locales it is left up to the school district as to whether or not to press charges. Many won’t because if the criminal-in-the-making goes to juvenile hall, they’ll lose money for the school.  A school usually gets X amount of dollars for each student enrolled there from the government and state funding coffers.

Guess who pays for all this crap and such? We do…Carry on…In fact, RAGE on!

If you want crime rates reduced in adults, start taking care of the problems with America‘s schoolchildren who often learn these behaviors from their older relatives and stop letting these fake counselors give the bullying victim “resilience training” which only reinforces the idea that they must have done something to bring this on and need to change something about themselves. We should NEVER be penalizing a bullying victim–EVER and that is what resilience training is. It’s not the victim that needs to be worked on via therapy and/or disciplined, it’s the bully and/or the family thereof…PERIOD!

 

School is About to Begin, and Bullying Season NEVER Ends…

 

 

I am about to share a link here that many people will feel uncomfortable about when they watch it. The mother of this autistic child is disabled herself. She can’t protect her boy, not even in their own home if it comes down to it. I feel that the person responsible for this deed is every bit as dangerous as your local neighborhood psychopath. I hope this person gets caught and I think it fitting that this person should be totally OSTRACIZED by society.  There is so much hate in this person’s heart that he or she (and it is signed she, but one never knows) that this make him/her truly outright dangerous to others they don’t consider to be “fit” to live among us…

 

 

 

http://www.buzzfeed.com/hnigatu/the-incredibly-offensive-letter-sent-to-a-mother-with-an-aut?bffb

 

 

 

We live in an age where cyber bullying and such is on the rise. It is as if with each passing school year, the next generation is getting worse and worse. It is difficult enough when a child is bullied in school and then parents have to deal with all this crap therapy about “making your kid bully proof” is not going to solve it because it isn’t the VICTIM that is the problem. It is the perpetrator who is the problem and we need to get back to setting SEVERE consequences for cases of bullying that are as severe as letters like this, as well as physical and sexual bullying.

 

 

 

I am really tired of these so-called experts (and they are not experts because their therapies often fail)  preaching that all kids can be made to be “resilient” when nothing that kid did causes them to be singled out other than their appearance, gender, income level, color of their skin, sexual orientation or religion.  The bullying victims are targeted in much the same way a crime victim is–school is only the “rehearsal”. The real world is the “production” on stage.

 

 

 

Even Shakespeare said, “All the world is a stage.” and it is. However in a good production, the villain doesn’t usually win.  In this case the bullies are winning–or it at least seems that way. When these experts were allowed to come in and create diagnoses for bullying behaviors and phony treatments, the suicide rate among teens increased. These experts are quacks. Some of them do not have a license to counsel but are journalists riding on the coat tails of one  who never gets named, while using the case of a dead girl who committed suicide over the bullying to further his/her own career. I do not respect such writers. They disgust me.

 

 

 

Only one journalist bothered to name her source of information–and she wrote her book on the back of a dead victim. No names here but many know to whom I am referring. I am simply really fed up with the victims being further victimized or made to feel that they are collateral damage when it is the one attacking them that needs to be strongly disciplined.

 

 

 

These need to be strongly addressed in school or these bullies will be in the workforce terrorizing those under them.  When they are caught the price should be complete dismissal–especially if that person is an educator or a police officer.  If in sensitive fields like this, they should also have their licenses/credentials revoked.  These are the last people we want molding the minds of our children, OR having the power to mess up our lives.

 

 

 

I find it even more reprehensible that a so-called “adult” bullies would engage in such behavior to begin with and be allowed to continue it while hiding behind union reps and such…Keeping THEM away from all children is essential in my book.  In my opinion they are as dangerous to a child as a pedophile is.

 

 

 

Some states of the United States have implemented laws to address school bullying. Law prohibits bullying of students based on sexual orientation and gender identity Law prohibits bullying of students based on sexual orientation School regulation or ethical code for teachers that address bullying of students based on sexual orientation Law prohibits bullying in school but lists no categories of protection No statewide law that specifically prohibits bullying in schools (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

 

English: the picture consist of articles on bullying, I obtained it from public domain. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

 

It Is Time to Criminalize Bullying at School…

Yes…I have been quiet as of late.  I have contemplated this school bullying issue again and again.  I will say this and you can find out for yourself.  Take the time to look through a high school rule book in Texas and compare it to the rules for offenders in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (which is in the offender rule book).  The similarities might shock you.

Why is it in schools they worry about the peach-fuzz Johnny is growing on his chin or the piercings Jenny has in her eyebrow but they say the bullying, which is actually either physical assaults or emotional abuse–not to mention cyber-bullying is a “phase”?  That, for lack of a better word, is bullshit.

The teachers are the “officers”–powerless to defend themselves and other students from bullies for fear of litigation or losing their job.  The Texas Youth Commission officers are not much different.  The administrators are like the prison wardens, only the prison warden has tools at his/her disposal to stop offenders from being bullied to the point of suicide and such.

Since the days of John Dewey, the school climate has drastically changed.  America has a growing population of gang kids and/or kids of hardened criminals rising up in the ranks of the students and they are creating problems on the campuses.  Family members often ignore or encourage the behavior, blaming everything on the teachers and admins or blaming the other kid (the victim).  When the hell did we start conditioning or students to be “good inmates”?  School should be a sanctuary for learning, not institutions for control and indoctrination.

The prisons have the Prison Rape Elimination Act in place to help protect offenders.  If society is so willing to protect them, why is it that we are failing in this nation to protect our children?  I think every parent who has a son or daughter being bullied should actually study the PREA.  The language in it is strong, but a new act can be drafted based on that to protect students from bullies.  Here are a few things I propose…

1.  Any time a student is found to have been bullied, the school must notify parents within 2 hours of becoming aware of it.

2. If a student has been physically assaulted, the bully is to be treated the same way as if he/she committed the crime of assault off-campus–meaning that being at school does NOT exempt students from obeying the law and does not give schools the option to NOT report crimes to the police department.  If they have to report child abuse when suspected in the home, then this should also be a requirement.

3. The school must report and prosecute all physical assaults and take measures to fully protect the victims of physical assaults of any nature, which includes sexual assaults.

4. Sexual assaults ON CAMPUS are to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and if it occurs on school property, administration should have to fill out incident packets to turn over to police officers for use in the prosecution of  the perpetrator within 2 hours of becoming aware of the assault(s).

5. Victims of bullying should never have to be moved to another school for protection. It is the bullies that should be split up and sent to other schools at their parents’ expense. Hit the parents in the pocket-book, they will learn to control their children.

6. Any school official not reporting bullying incidents to parents and/or taking proper action against what amounts to be criminal acts should face automatic disciplinary hearings and possible loss of licenses from the Texas Education Agency.  This will stop a lot of these administrators from enabling and becoming complacent.  They should also be able to face penal charges in severe cases and civil charges in the lower degree offenses if not reporting them.

7.  The way I see it, their rights end where the next victim commits suicide over the issue.  In cases where it is found that parents enabled their son/daughter to torment another student, they should be fined in successive amounts for their negligence in each offense. Money collected from fines can be used to pay for supplies for needy students and uniforms (if schools require those).

8. It should be expressly stated in the act that no teacher or school official will face penalties under the law for taking appropriate actions to protect themselves and other students from those who seek to harm them during an incident.  This way they can step in to break up altercations and such.  The staff should not be expected to take beatings any more than the bullied child.  This would give districts some teeth in dealing with bad situations.

9. All teachers and administration officials will be required to take PMAB classes to learn proper ways of restraining violent, out of control students.  Parents will sign an agreement that they know teachers are trained in this and that if their student gets out of control, they can be restrained, releasing the district from liability.

10. Students with severe behavior disorders that require psych meds will either take those meds or not attend school until they do so. Parents will make sure this happens or face child neglect charges.

11. Students prone to violent outbursts will not be educated in the regular classroom after 2 outbursts, but will be taught in a separate classroom provided and monitored closely.  After 2 outbursts this will be permanent.  This is only reserved for students with severe behavioral issues.

12. The profession of teaching in the State of Texas will become an “at will” position in order to effectively enforce bullying policies.  This means when educators aren’t doing their job with these bullies, they can be fired without all the union bullshit. If failing to report assaults and such to the police and to the victims’ parents, they should face the same penalties for that as for failing to report child abuse.

Anyway, these are just ideas I’m tossing around in my head. What do you think?

When Educators are the Bullies–Part II

As previously stated in this blog, there is a trend among some teachers to either allow student bullying under the guise of “teacher-induced peer pressure“, which is what I’m going to label that, or direct cursing and name-calling.  I saw and addressed this issue in the prisons. Either offense should result in severe consequences when it is just another form of child abuse. However the problem lies in that the district often protects the teacher rather than addresses the parents‘ concerns–at least that is the case where I live.

It got so bad that a parent had her son take HER cell phone into the classroom to film the abusive behavior. When she then brought it to the attention of the principal, instead of focusing on what was done to her child, they were more concerned that the rule in the school handbook about the cell phone was violated and threatened severe consequences for her son, banned her from coming onto campus over it, etc.  Listen up, people…Schools are not prisons and nor should the districts be allowed to run them as such.  As long as a parent is not creating a disturbance, there is no reason why the person cannot visit the classroom.  This district is trying to cover up the real problem here and that is more teachers manipulating students into bullying one another–OR they are directly bullying themselves under the sanction of the district.

This cannot be tolerated. Parents MUST speak up and start making their voices heard in the district. These people do not OWN your children!  These children are not inmates and it is time to return our classrooms in this country into sanctuaries of learning. Children must be taught BY parents to report this.  Parents need to sit down with their children and explain to them that teachers are NOT ALLOWED to act in a certain way.

It is time to put a stop to this and rid our districts of people who are behind it.  Parents, this is the usual “chain of command” when faced with any issue requiring state involvement in TX.  1. Principal   2. Superintendent   3. School board meeting (get scheduled to speak if necessary prior to the meeting)  4. Texas Education Agency.

I promise you if TEA gets it, they won’t take the case lightly. They will investigate it thoroughly so keep recordings, journals, etc…but it is imperative that you go through the chain of command PRIOR to going to TEA.  The reason many teachers still get away with this is because parents are often too afraid of being harassed by local authorities and/or administrators in their district.  IT is time to fight back for the sake our the children, people. Do no tolerate it! It is the taxpayers (meaning us) that sign their paychecks with the taxes taken out every year so these issues MUST be effectively handled.

Also, someone put forth a proposal in this district to allow teachers to conceal/carry on campus this week. This is ludicrous.  Until the last teacher who is bullying is gone, they are the last persons I want to see with a gun.

I am not sure what the chain of command is in other states, but it is best to follow this to avoid state boards from asking, “Why didn’t you go to (the principal, board, etc…)?” As long as you have taken proper steps prior, there should be no problem with getting this issue addressed.

Nana Says, Pink Hit the Nail on the Head with this Song…WARNING: ***Vernacular in the 1st video***

This is the UNEDITED version of “F– Perfect” by Pink…For anyone who is totally misunderstood, this says it all. Thank God I didn’t have to go to the lengths this character did to find her way. I learned a long time ago that compromising one’s self is never the answer. Never did that and never will. It only leads to misery and that is why I cut a lot of people from my life this year and I certainly don’t regret that because new doors opened once I did! 2012 was a great year for me! A lot got put into perspective for me, that’s for sure. And for anyone feeling down on themselves this time of year, don’t.  Things ARE going to get better and you don’t have to let that which is temporary defeat you. However sometimes you have to pull yourself up by the bra straps or bootstraps…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocDlOD1Hw9k

HERE is the clean version for those who don’t like vernacular:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sRM39rHoB8

One of the most inspiring things about Pink is that she stands her ground and her voice rocks!

School Bullying has gone WAY too far!

I am really sick of high school kids committing crimes and then having it downplayed by the school district‘s labeling it “bullying“. When kids are going around assaulting other kids, sexually harassing them, etc…These are CRIMES adults go to jail for! Stop downplaying this problem by calling it “bullying” and address these crimes against our children for what they truly are–and for you school administrators that downplay this issue–shame on you! You’re not fit to be in charge of any child in a public school environment! Either man up and take care of the thugs or the litigation will after your districts pay some heavy fines! If it’s not stopped there, these kids may end up in prison anyway and you are the ones that wanted a “village” to raise the child…Well man up and do your bloody part! It’s happening under YOUR watch!

Here is a link to a story that should anger every parent whose child has ever been a bullying victim:

http://www.fox10tv.com/dpp/news/mississippi/family-special-needs-student-attacked
This boy is a special needs student. He is paralyzed on one side of his body and has cerebral palsy.  Granted the kid threw a soda can at his attacker after the senior called him a name but we do not know what the victim’s mental age is and such–or even if he had good aim with the can.  If the can was empty, there was no reason to react in such a fashion.  The bottom line is, as a senior, this young man should have been mature enough to set the example for the other students and  to not go off as he did on a person with a disability.  PERIOD. Sorry but while I do think the Stokes boy needs to learn to ignore such crud that is said to him and probably have some anger management therapy, there is absolutely NO EXCUSE for the senior using the force he did to levy such an injurious and brutal attack.

I can assure you that if I were the principal of that school, that senior would at least be in ISS for a while…

I am not a big fan of Fox, CNN or any of the major news networks but when I see this stuff in more than 1 report, and the info matches up on the networks, I am most likely going to express my opinion on the matter.

 

Sweet Serenity

 

This is self-explanatory…It’s nice to see two kids getting along! IF only it could be this way in schools…Let’s make it the year to fight the bullying! Who is with me?

 

Dealing with the Past *about being bullied*

I often get asked how I deal with my past issues. I don’t often discuss these things with others, but people in my hometown know me well. They could not understand for the life of them how I managed to keep my marbles in tact…Seriously! I had a crazy childhood! I know many that had a hell of a lot worse, but mine was unique in that I lived in Bedlam, TX! Anyway, that’s what I called my house.

I won’t go into details. Those are unimportant since that is the past. The only thing the past can do is throw up pictures into your memory. Those things cannot hurt you. I had to let go of mine. I can tell you all personally that the hardest thing to do is the very first step I had to take, and that was to forgive people one by one.

You see, there was a big difference in being bullied then, as opposed to being bullied nowdays…When I was a kid, I got even. If they bullied me to do their term papers–I did them alright! I made sure they got nothing but “F’s” too. I took a few beatings for it, but it was worth it. They didn’t have me to another one because I told them I would do exactly the same thing. I was dismissed as being “crazy” by that bunch. I fought with brains more than anything else.

There was a boy in particular who was on the track team who used to make crude sexual remarks to several of us–one at a time of course. Sometimes he would push us down. Other times if we were wearing a skirt, he tried to lift it or pull it down in the hallway. We started talking one day. NONE of us knew the others were bullied by this idiot until one day in PE class one girl brought it up and we all began discussing the problem. Our solution: We decided to make sure he got a dose of what he dished out–together!

The coach wasn’t watching one day and we dragged him down into the theatrical prop room. In our school, costumes, make-up and every thing was kept in that place. Four of us held him down while the other three stripped him down to his boxers, put a dress and petticoat on him and colored his lips with red lip stick–the kind that is hard to wash off. I don’t know HOW the hell we got away with this, but we took his clothes and scattered them all over the front lawn of the school! He had to go out there all dressed up in his frock to get them too!

He never revealed who did it, and he never bothered any of us again either. We know his fellow team mates on the track team laughed at him for DAYS! NOW a bully is liable to get killed or injured severely. I don’t think anyone would dispute that even in our day we would wonder what life would be like if those bullies “died or disappeared”. The difference is, we knew it was wrong to actually kill someone and feared the consequences back then.

Now I fear that young people have no such fear and some have no conscience either judging by what is filling up our juvenile justice centers. I am not joking when I say I feel that most of our generation merely fantasized about killing the bullies or making them disappear…When did it become okay in our culture to allow these kids to cross that line between right and wrong? Even if one is a bully, kids should be taught at an early age that MURDER is wrong. Period! I get really tired of some type of “disorder” getting credit for everything wrong imaginable in society anymore.

Now were the actions the group I was with took “wrong”? Yes, they were. Were they abusive? Yes because of the humiliation he felt. Granted, at the time, we felt vindicated for how he made us feel, but we still felt an emptiness there…I think that emptiness came from the fact that getting “even” changes nothing about what has already happened. On top of that, we proved we were no better than he was–but my cousins would have literally beat him to a pulp if we’d told them about it and we would have felt even worse. Does that make it okay? No it does not. And people will say, “Awww you guys were just kids being kids.” Really? OH REALLY? Hmmm…Nowdays “Kids being kids” can lead to abuse, murders and suicides. If you don’t believe me watch the news and the talk shows that deal with the subject of bullying! It is out of control, people!

Having the ideals of right and wrong on THIS subject instilled in me in the seventh grade made it easier to forgive others. If one cannot forgive others, they cannot move forward because anything from the past for which we harbor a grudge will poison our present every time–we just don’t realize it until later. As I said earlier, forgiveness is that hardest first step that we have to take, but it can be done. Sometimes it takes a lot of time to let things go–especially if we are the ones who were abused, taken advantage of or whatever the case might be.

It can be done though–one day at a time–one issue at a time.