Yes, People Kill People But….

Look, I do not talk about this a lot. Yes, I DO support the right of EVERY law-abiding citizen to own a gun, but mental health in this country has to be addressed.  I’m not into all this gun grabbing crap a lot of people are trying to push for,  but I see nothing wrong with flagging people who have severe behavioral disorders from getting a gun. If people are arrested for domestic violence, robbery, assault, etc…they should automatically have their guns confiscated also until found not guilty–and if found guilty, they should not be returned to anyone in the household, but sold to cover costs incurred by the county and/or state.

I do not agree with the extreme left on this issue because they give off a perception that they do have a goal to take ALL guns away, or at least many of them do. However, these violent groups of people have to be dealt with.

I do not think it is that much to ask for. I’m not advocating limitations on all guns or gun sales, just to individuals who have such records.

Had such a system been in place in the 1970’s my stepmother might not have blown her brains out when I was almost 15. Was she mentally ill? Yes. We found out AFTER her death that she had been institutionalized. Her favorite thing to do when my dad was at work was to point that .22 that she killed herself with and put it to my temple as her method of “discipline” which was nothing more than terrorism in my home.

To this day, people, I can still feel the cold end of that gun at my temple. Sometimes I wake up dreaming about it. It was only after she died that I realized that this wasn’t just a surrealistic nightmare I lived in, but that she could have, at any moment, blown my brains out and anyone else’s in the house too.

Unless you lived through it, I know you can’t relate to it and more went on than that, which I will not discuss. Funny thing is I didn’t really realize what “normal” was until I got around “normal families” that sat at the table together and such after her death. I grew to pity her. Hopefully, she is at peace. I forgave her long ago, and despite the nightmares I have once in a while, I can still feel pity for her and understand that she could not help herself–but that the state failed to help her a long, long time ago.

I will say this much for those who have gone through something like this at the hands of a mentally ill relative or person close to your family. What helped me was to forgive her. Once I did that, the nightmares gradually happened less often, and became less intense. I actually stood over her grave about seven years ago and told her that I forgive her. Anyway, I hope that does help someone out there. I know forgiving her did help me.

Why On Earth is This Tolerated?

I have written much about bullying, but feel compelled to address what is turning into a severe problem nation wide.  A growing number of elderly and disabled people are being attacked. Why? Because criminals view them as easy targets. I don’t want to hear about teenagers making mistakes when I’m reading about elderly people having to have plastic surgery because their facial injuries so severe.

I don’t want to hear about how people make mistakes. To deliberately target those who are least able to help themselves, to me, is a hate crime. I don’t care what race the perpetrator is. I don’t care what race the victim is. Our elderly and disabled deserve better treatment than what is being given by our justice system, so HERE is what I propose:

I propose that anyone found guilty of assaulting an elderly and/or person with a disability which results in serious bodily harm should have to serve a 25 year sentence, flat-time and no parole, in a federal correctional facility.

There. You have my Monday rant. I am so sick of reading these stories, and many of these victims get critically injured.  This is some serious stuff people.  I personally think that 25 years flat time in GP is plenty of time to rethink one’s actions in a case like this.

I have an aunt who was murdered–after being severely beaten. So if you think I’m over-reacting, just pray this doesn’t happen in your family. Why is this even tolerated in this country? That is all I’m saying about this crap.

School Bullying Must Stop–A Proposal…

I have to phrase this in a way everyone will get it. School bullying and cyber-stalking are out of control. These web applications that generate fake phone numbers to enable a stalker to pull this MUST be shut down or tightly regulated. If ordered by a judge, they should have to surrender any information the requester for such numbers gave to the site in order to be able to access such programs. Any students caught using this for the purpose of bullying other students should be expelled and put on house arrest for the rest of the school year and forced to do their classwork at home. They should also be ordered to go into psychiatric counseling at the parents’ expense–not the states.

Schools should be required to report to the parents of the victim(s) any incidents (even if perceived) of bullying within two hours of becoming aware of the concurrence. ANY teacher or administrator taking it upon himself/herself who decides not to report the incident to the parents OR the police if severe, should face disciplinary action up to and including termination as well as fines up to $5000 and forfeiture of their certification(s). If the bullying is severe enough to call law enforcement, the police should immediately have to place the bully in restraints and arrest him/her/them. It should also be up to the parents of the VICTIM whether or not to file charges–not the police or the school district.

It is time to protect our children and to separate them from a culture that permits silence and the continued torment of other students. Many of the crimes (yes crimes!) they throw under the label of “bullying” include physical assault, psychological torment, and/or sexual assault or molestation. Often it also includes some sort of verbal sexual harassment and/or repeated incidents.  These are all things adults can either go to jail for and/or lose their jobs for.  When children commit these acts on other children they should be strictly dealt with. There should truly be “zero tolerance” for this behavior in the schools.

This is only part of what I’m proposing to stem the tide of this garbage. How many more students are going to kill themselves before the end of the school year? I am wondering because right now there is NOTHING firm and rigid in a legal approach that has been put  in place to protect them in most states at all.  What are your thoughts? Can you think of any ways to help stop this? I do realize that my proposal is modeled somewhat after the Prison Rape Elimination Act, but since most of what I have seen occur when working for the corrections industry tends to remind me of what I saw in public school yards, that is why I came up with this.

The PREA gave parents and family members of bullied and extorted offenders an avenue to seek remedy within the laws of the land should officers neglect to report possible rapes and take measures to prevent offender suicide. Since so many bullying victims either attempt suicide or actually do it, this must be addressed specifically also.  It is for that reason I strongly support sending bullying victims to a counselor to ensure their mental well-being.  This is especially true if the student is known to be homosexual. Many do get picked on for their sexual orientation and this must also be stopped. No child deserves this treatment.  As for measures like “lunch detention”, believe me, they are a joke. Those things do not work on a bully because a lot of the time to them, being in lunch detention or ISS is a “badge of honor” just like going to medium custody is an honor for an offender in prison when they bully others. In fact, a lot of the reason these measures do not work on many bullies is that some of them come from families that have family members which are incarcerated.

It is bad enough that many cannot even bring themselves to discuss this with their own parents out of fear, but school is the last place they should fear going to. We must make these institutions safer for ALL children and this is the only proposal I can think of to actually get the job done–or at least start the process of making a change for the better.

These suicides can be prevented if teachers and administrators are specifically trained in what to watch for, so I propose that training them to notice certain signs (unkempt appearance, giving away possessions, statements that could lead one to think they might harm themselves or others in retaliation, etc…).

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)

 

 

 

Remembering the Monster (Part II)

It is  funny how when a child goes through abuse in the home, they feel that they did something wrong, or they said something to piss the abusive parent off.  However sometimes the abuser reveals the real reason for singling out the child. It is a lesson I know very well because it was taught to my abuser as well.

I am referring to my late stepmother.  As cruel as she was and as evil as she could be, I learned some lessons about her that did enable me to forgive what she did.  Does that mean that from time to time the shadows don’t try to creep up and remind me through nightmares and such? Absolutely not.

I remember well how I slept with the lights on after she killed herself with that same pistol she waived at my head–and sometimes she went further–she would actually put the barrel to my head, and I can remember how cold it felt to this day.  Often she revealed my existence as her reasoning behind her resentment of my presence in the family. The bottom line is, I stood up to her once I got older.

I find it also funny that when growing up, one thinks this is actually normal crap to deal with day after day.  Once she took her own life, and the shock of her death subsided, along with my self-loathing thinking it was my fault she did it, I began to get around ‘normal families“…You know–the ones where both parents didn’t fight and they actually had meals together at the table like we did before my parents split?

However, back to my point…She would tell me things her mother said to her such as, “…I don’t want you and I never did!”   Then she told me a story about how her two step sisters died in a fire that she believed her stepfather started. I wasn’t sure what to make of this story until I read it myself, but she was adamant that her stepfather set the fire.

I had a horrible tendency to turn my anger inward during and after those years. I remember hearing those negative voices when my stepmother committed suicide–and they were very “loud”, if you know what I mean. I kept hearing, “You should have done this!” or “IF you had done X then Y wouldn’t have happened.”  The bottom line is that there was nothing I did to cause it being that I was only around 14 and nothing could change it.  I had to work my way through that process of grief and self-loathing.

My dad was a total basket case, so I had to help arrange the funeral and pick the casket, as well as the dress to bury her in. THAT was the hardest part of that whole thing–having to help arrange it at 14. I am glad my sister and sister-in-law were around to help keep my head on track, and they did help me to handle this.  To this day I have an aversion to going into funeral homes even though I make myself do it. All it takes is the smell of the flowers or the sight of a black suit to send me straight back to 1978. I don’t know why but that triggers those memories in a huge way. I find it ironic that I knew more about her childhood–her parents names and such than my father did. I also knew that she had three sons taken from her in Red Bluff, CA in the 1970’s so if anyone is looking to find her, then contact me via email.

I struggled with trying to find reasons for what happened, and trying to make “sense” of it, but there is no “sense” when it comes to something like that or any unexpected loss, I think. There was also that voice that kept saying, “What if I had done ____ differently? Would it change a thing?”  I didn’t have a sounding board to take my frustrations out on so I turned to pen and paper, which was all I had at the time–aside from an imagination that when my pen flowed freely, the counselors became concerned.  I also struggled with the fact that there came a day when I fully realized that what went on in our household was NOT normal by any stretch of the imagination.

Then came the day I had to forgive her and then myself.  I realized that I both loved her and hated what she did, but realizing that she was not in control of her actions enabled me to forgive her and begin to rebuild from another starting point. I also had to forgive a few others in this process. When I say I had to “rebuild from another starting point” I am referring to the fact that after any traumatic event we can never fully be the person we once were.  We have to debrief ourselves a bit and then start reprogramming from that point, I think.

Living with her mental illnesses was one thing, but her behaviors also taught me how “NOT” to be a stepmother.  It also turned me off of the idea of internet dating and such because she WAS a mail order bride.  Anyone can put on any image they want to present themselves to be, but you never know what they are until you are with them.

I choose to play it “safe” and avoid that trap, hence the reason I don’t connect with anyone to go out with from the internet.  I have my friends I hang out with.  If I go out with anyone it will be with NO ONE that I meet on the web.

Does this mean I am lonely? No. I am alone but I don’t get lonely.  I have things to do and places to go and since I spent half of my life married, I’m in no rush. I am certainly NOT desperate either. Being single does not mean that my life is broken.

Now I want to say something else here.  I read Cinderella as a  child…I watched the version of it with Lesley Ann Warren and loved it.  As I got older, as in my late teens, I began to realize how much truth in  “Fairy Tales” really existed.  Her friends were mice–AT LEAST in the Disney version. My friend was a mouse named Brutus. There is also truth in the fiction between us all.  My fiction was that I was a princess or an angel in waiting…When I grew up, I realized that I am a statistic…A number…One of the many who fell through the cracks, but made my own way back out of them.

In fact, I think the song “Luka” fits more accurately–even though I’m not a boy.  After all, Suzanne Vega was right…She only hit until I cried. I sure as hell didn’t ask why when she went on these rampages either.

Many of these fairy tales were written with happy endings, but in life, would they have been happy? We may never know.   Look at “Sleeping Beauty“…The queen was pissed because she wasn’t invited to the Christening.  The only thing that woke Aurora’s ass up was her true love’s kiss.  What rubbish.  All of these fairy tales have the sabotage of the memes we were taught running rampantly through them.  The main theme being “Good prevails over evil”….Does it?   Or, do we simply hope for the best, block out the worst and drive on hoping the next day will be better than the one before?

Either way I drew more inspiration for my writing from “Dark Shadows” than I ever would any of these “fairy tales”.  I also drew from a movie called “Paperhouse” and ‘another one called “Spirit of the Beehive“. Perhaps it is because in the eyes of the child I once was, Barnabas (from “Dark Shadows”) could not help what he was and that enabled me to empathize with his fictional pain.  In my opinion, he was bullied too.

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.

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?