NFL Network just said Roethlisberger wants traded to Arizona next season. Mike Tomlin is a terrible coach who was gifted the team Bill Cower spent 12 years building.
I think it's definitely gotten harder to get away from, though no worse. Kids are the same self-absorbed assholes they've always been, but back when I grew up at least, once you got home and closed the door you were free of it until the next time you had to go to school. Now with the social media there's really no way to escape a kid that wants to needle you, he can flood your Facebook or Twitter or whatever the hell people under 35 use now.
In a completely selfish way, I like that kids growing up now seem to not be able to hack any kind of adversity, it means there is no one coming up behind us to compete.
I also find it fascinating that the anti-bullying tryhards always seem to be the first to mob up to attack someone they've accused of bullying. It's fucking hilarious, the alleged internet intelligentsia that is Reddit is always the first to scream the bullying is wrong but when someone does something that offends their delicately fashioned sensibilities they will mass into a mob of thousands and blow the person's twitter up, or give out his personal info, or like last year, completely hound an innocent man's family because he happened to go missing in the same time frame as the Boston bombing.
Bullying is power for the powerless, there's a reason the cliche of the bully is that he comes from a bad home. Even the people that proclaim their moral disgust with it will always, when they taste the power, continue to feed on it.
Fuck DirecTV, I can't even watch any of these games because my local channels haven't been working for over a week. Which means I can't watch ROH either. Time to switch to Verizon, or maybe cut cable altogether.
Children aren't taught to defend themselves like they should be. I don't just mean physically either. They need to be taught not to take abuse from anyone no mater the form... and they need to be taught to handle it themselves and not go running for help. Hit back, insult back, you may get in trouble or you may get your ass kicked but you won't be giving away your power. This is of course the opposite of what children are taught, and why they are so incredibly bad at handling adversity. For instance here if one child starts a fight and the other child fights back... they both get in trouble... so the lesson they take away is that they should just learn to take it, or run to someone else to solve their problem. I always told my step son that if someone picks a fight with him that he should respond by hitting them back as hard as he could in the spot that would hurt the worst... I told him he will probably get in trouble in school, but he will not get in trouble at home... this is important because you are teaching them not to think like a victim.
It is only marginally related but still relevant I also found that in younger grades that children get rewarded at the end of the day for having behaved... candy or toys or some shit... so basically "You did what is expected of you, you didn't go above or beyond but that's ok you deserve a prize for meeting the minimums" which of course leads them to think that doing the bare minimum is acceptable, and expect to get rewarded for doing what they are supposed to do... I think this is why I have had so many coworkers who think they deserve recognition for basic things... one that stands out in my mind is someone who was terrible at her job but showed up on time every day thinking she deserved a raise just for that.
I kind of ended up rambling a bit there so let me just summarize. Defend yourself, don't let others do it for you, and don't just not do it. Excel at what you do and then you might get rewarded, no one is going to be impressed that you can hit the bare minimum effort.
I think that was worth a 5000th post... I deserve to be rewarded, if you are mean about it i am going to go tell Scott on you!
The middle portion there just boils down to entitlement, I don't think any of us realized that along with a liberal society comes the fact that everyone thinks they're owed something. In my field I ate shit for YEARS doing the worst jobs around with the understanding that a) knowing how to do every job in your industry is fucking cool anyway but mostly, b) paying dues is part of being young. I hate sounding old man-ish but seriously it seems like the younger people starting now don't want to do anything ever and, like you said, are not only content doing nothing but want greater compensation for it. It's amazing really. Just last week I was listening in the staff room at one of the papers I do work for and the young, fresh out of college, reporter kid was bitching about starting brand new in the field at a measily 36k a year. I just wanted to brain him with a cinder block and scream "Dude...you're in journalism, thank the stars you even have a job let alone are making more a year than I saw before 30."
"The middle portion there just boils down to entitlement, I don't think any of us realized that along with a liberal society"
It has nothing to do with liberal/conservative politics. It is just an unfortunate side effect of a lot of people's experience. They did have to work hard and overcome a lot of adversity and they so desperately don't want their children to have to go through what they went through that they are overlooking the fact that what they went through is WHY they are able to provide an environment that makes it so that their children don't have to. Its an understandable effect but not a beneficial one.
Is that the game the refs desperately tried to give to the Colts (Polamalu's INT getting overturned)?
I think it's also the game where Bettis fumbled inside the Colts' 5 with less than two minutes left, only to be saved by a Rapeburger shoestring tackle, followed by Vanderjagt yanking the game-tying FG about two zip codes off.
Oh no, I didn't mean liberal/conservative in terms of our party politics, I just mean a more general liberal civilization like the one we have in basically the entire First World.
I think it's both. I think most people grew up thinking they were special, and would be something great, and as a result thought of jobs like working at McDonalds and Burger King and Walmart and Staples and such, below them.
I don't like my job, but I don't think I'm "better" than it. If I got fired today I'd happily go work anywhere that would pay me.
"Now with the social media there's really no way to escape a kid that wants to needle you, he can flood your Facebook or Twitter or whatever the hell people under 35 use now."
Yet another reason that this social media shit blows. People realize that there's no law saying you have to have a Facebook or Twatter account, right?
I had motor skill issues as a kid too. I still do, although I never had to take special classes or anything. I wasn't allowed to write with a pen when I was a kid, they made me use a pencil. I ended up developing my current atrocious handwriting, where I fudge over mistakes by scratching hard into the letter until it fills in a really thick line and then rebuild off of that. My ex said I have serial killer handwriting.
As for bullying, I can see the value of teaching kids to toughen up, but at the same time its kind of a weak solution. We all like to buy into the idea of fighting back to shut the bully up, but that doesn't even always work. I used to fight with kids all the time and they'd keep coming back and starting shit. (I was a big kid, so while I never got the typical getting beat up type bullying, i'd get picked on and then have to chase after some little cunt who was faster than me. Really frustrating to be willing to fight back but not being fast enough.) And going to the teachers really just means being a target for even more shit. God only knows what these kids do with all the cyber shit. So really, there is no good answer, and that's how we end up with a Columbine. So basically, I think that if the bullying is already happening, its a good idea to teach the kid to attempt to handle it themselves and stand up for themselves. But, I also think its a good idea to try to teach the kids not to bully each other and make everyone hostile and fucking tense in the first place.
Also, probably important to teach girls not to fuck boys who push people around so they don't grow up into angry drunks who can't leave people alone in a bar that are trying to get laid.
Funny enough, it's become so pervasive that if you don't have one (like um...I believe the Colorado theater shooter? It was one of them from last year...) they use it like that's evidence that you're a crazy person. "He didn't have any social media? He must have been a psycho! Why didn't this raise red flags?"
I keep a Twitter only to follow comedians and stuff, I never post. And a Facebook...I don't even understand it...I didn't give a shit about any of you when we were IN high school, why would I care what you're doing now?!
I do think there's value to a having a facebook and a twitter. It's how I keep in contact with friends instead of using my big fat fingers to text, I can post pictures, link to stuff I've written (that no one cares about) and catch up with folks from college that has since moved on.
I've never had either, and feel I'm better off for it. Just seems like a complete waste of time. And I too couldn't give a fuck about anyone I went to high school with.
The key is to put it in its proper place in your life. Sharing things, keeping up with people... but realizing it is just a toy and not "real life" important, and knowing when to turn it off.
I'm not saying the key is to let bullying go on unassumed, and if I think about it I think I've only gotten into one fight in school, and following two days of detention I never did it again. I was passive and just carried on I guess, Ghandi style.
I agree kids should be taught to handle themselves, and address the issues directly with said bully. You'd be surprised what happens when you ask someone giving you shit "What the fuck, bro?"
Regarding women and men, you get into an alpha male / biology of attraction kind of deal, where the strongest, toughest, most confident people are the most desirable, and you're in essence teaching against what your proverbial body wants, and that's a tricky can of worms.
I don't know what I identify as when it comes to politics, I guess socially liberal but also kind of have like, common sense conservative leanings.
I think my issue with liberals when it comes to social stuff is that their ideas are great in theory, but would never work in reality. Throwing out terms like privilege and mansplaining and a bunch of other terms that somehow manage to marginalize people that disagree with them, AND make themselves come off as a warrior for a given cause.
Like, when I look at something like Julianne Hough bronzing her face and say it's not really racist, just insensitive, I get my throat jumped down because I need to check my privilege and just blindly agree with any perceived injustice.
I don't think anyone condones bullying at this point, but the awareness that the antibullying stuff has raised, has completely shifted the public sentiment way to far in the other direction.
I think that learning to stand up for yourself, and especially learning how to settle differences in a proper manner are skills that you learn at a young age. I understand that there is a difference between conflict and bullying, im just worried that the public narrative has switched so far in the antibullying direction that even normal, healthy conflict amoung kids has been eliminated.
I played varsity football and baseball as a sophomore in highschool. I underwent light "hazing" in both those situtaions. Never anything I'd consider bullying but definitely stuff that you don't volunteer to do. It was a normal type of thing that actually benefited you if the older guys saw that you did it without bitching. Same thing with frat initiating. I saw both these things as a normal ritual that was perfectly acceptable and almost necessary when you're in your teens. I feel that the whole antibullying thing paints simple acts like this as "demonic."
The Columbine kids weren't bullied at all. That's a common misconception spread by the media in the early days of reporting and then when the facts came out they never cared enough to correct it because it didn't fit their narrative
Haha, yeah same here. Though I must admit the older I get the more chinks I start seeing in the ideological armor. There's just nothing for me anymore really, I want guns at gay weddings, I'll never have a party.
Jacksonville might get their 1st win putting Tampa in the driver's seat. Jacksonville up 10 with Jake Locker hurt and Ryan Fitzpatrick in for Tennessee. I think they might get this one!
On the whole I guess I'm liberal but I think a lot of the current social issues we're having are directly tied to them. It used to be conservatives that were the language police and now it's completely flipped over where liberals are out with pitchforks over people calling someone retarded.
You'll notice though, as always, they only ever go after people that have something to lose. Now that 30Rock is off the air no one gives a shit who Tracy Morgan calls a faggot.
I also think the ideology has led us into this weird area where no one is allowed to be wrong or feel like a failure. Kids in school not being able to get anything less than a 55% on a test because otherwise they'd feel bad is definitely not a conservative thing.
Fucking cable... I guess I need to break down and get DirecTV for the Sunday Ticket. Being a Panthers fan in Oklahoma makes it kind of hard to watch them otherwise.
That's so true. Its such a dangerous thing. to teach kids that they can do anything they want if they work hard enough, because they have no frame of reference beyond being an athlete or a rock star or a movie star so they think they can just work their way up and be that successful. No kid's gonna be like "I really want to grow up and be a systems analyst!" besides Martin Prince, so they end up wasting their lives because they believe that they are owed some kind of glamorous success and that regular work is below them.
I found that one out kind of the hard way. I do think it's good to encourage creative endeavors, and I'm not trying to be like, snooty, but you would not BELIEVE the number of people at college who couldn't write a line of dialog or pun or a joke to save their lives. And they were dropping DOUGH on this shit.
I'm not saying I'm a great writer or nothing, but I'm also not sitting at home working on the great American young adult novel instead of working.
Not for anyone here, but there are some serious trolls on other sites, and way too many people that have such poor grammar that it might as well not even be English.
I've heard that on Cracked and I just don't really buy it. You don't go aeround wearing trenchcoats and throwing up sieg heils and be the cool kid. Obviously some harrassment came their way. Yeah they talked about picking on faggots but being a bully and being bullied are not mutually exclusive. At least they were just outcasts who got ignored by everybody. The media did run with lots of false shit though. I love that Marilyn Manson is still synonymous with those guys even though they didn't listen to him at all, they were into harder stuff than that and thought Manson was too mainstream. Didn't stop ol' Marilyn from promoting himself by going on the interview circuit talking about them.
I think it's a sign that our society is seriously flawed that people just expect abuse and think it's part of growing up. Yeah, life's tough but shrugging your shoulders at it is a pretty fucked up attitude. Just because it's how things are doesn't mean it's how things should be.
Look, I'm not saying I"m a saint, I bullied people and was bullied in return. I'm decently quick with my tongue (all the homo) so I can trade barbs with people pretty well, and sometimes trading barbs meant verbally brutalizing people who had no interest in the tete a tete I enjoy. Look, there's a difference between sparring and a beatdown, and there's a difference in repartee and verbal/emotional abuse. I've crossed the line with the later (I've gotten into physical fights too, but those were me defending myself or fights with siblings) and I honestly still struggle with it. I will freely admit I'm an asshole who's pretty insensitive about a lot of things.
Being "tough" is of course an easier way to live life, but some kids aren't "tough" and why should we force them to change (to get tougher) or be miserable their entire life? Because we can't be decent human beings? Because the only way to be cool is not have emotions? Because mental and physical toughness is the most important things to a kid?
P.S. I'd like to hear a female perspective on this, as I'm expecting a bit of a testosterone overload on this blog.
There seems to be a double standard with this thing. When so-called weaker kids are bullied in gyms, sports teams, or something similar they are told to toughen up and all that good stuff. Now what if the non-athletic, nerdy kids ridiculed and made fun of the athletic kids in science, math or reading? Would we look at it the same way? If your kid was in my math class and I called him a no counting dips---t would you take my side cause your kid is too soft in math? It just seems like all this man-up talk only applies in athletics, but I'm just wondering what happens when applied to academics.
Regarding the male/female thing, girls bully much worse than boys (I see this occasionally at the school I teach at.. For boys, it is more of a physical thing and you see it happen. I just listened to the adam and dr drew podcast and Adam talked about how the times as a kid him and his friends were goofing with each other (peeing on each other, putting shit in one's ear); however, they would call that bullying today. For girls, it is almost always a verbal thing. They would call each other names; spread false rumors about them. Thus, there is no proof of what happened and thus, it is harder to punish it. If you tell someone, you get it even worse. The movie Mean Girls is very true to life.
I want to give a profound 4 paragraph response with big words but . . . I think Zero Tolerance fighting policies have destroyed many kids ability to defend themselves. A good fight is great way to put an end to to bullying and earn some respect. Instead a kid can get tortured verbally and the second he gets physical many schools will straight up call the cops. I call bullshit on that. I also think many people confuse "bullying" with manipulation. Life is a power game that starts from a very early age.
The "athletic, non-nerdy" kids would laugh their asses off, stick the nerds heads in toilets, then fuck the cute girls after school under the bleachers.
As someone who won more state titles in Quiz Bowl (two in three years) than any athlete at my school did in their sport... yeah, that'll not be an issue any time soon. Not without a MASSIVE change in the average person's "priorities".
Being on a sports team/an athlete > being smart, in >95% (guesstimate) of schools today.
I'm with you on that last point. That's like with this whole Dolphins thing. I get this weird sense that maybe Martin just thought Incognito was actually inferior to him and took offense at the idea that some dweeb like Incognito (and reading those texts, he sounds like a fucking inbred pitiable tool) would try to alpha him but, knowing that he was a rookie and the locker room would frown upon him pulling Incognito's card, found a way to cut his nuts off and get the spotlight on him. Dolphins can't really trade Martin for fear of negative backlash at this point, so Martin made a good career move by going through the back channels instead of just calling Incognito out.
I think you misunderstand what I'm saying. Hypothetical situation: Richie is struggling in math class and Johnathan is an A+ student. I as the teacher pull Johnathan to the side and say, "hey we need to get this Richie kid with the program and toughen him up in math". So I call on him everyday in class and watch him fumble fuck for answers while the whole class just laughs at him. I'm asking would this kind of thing be condoned.
I see this all the time in schools. If a teacher gives out a lot of Fails (usually the math teachers because for most of the kids, math is the hardest subject for them), the kids hate that teacher because they wish the class was a lot easier. However, if you ask that kid if they did the homework or study for the test, they would tell you no. Thus, many teachers give super easy tests, give lots of extra credit, and/or give out very little homework so they have very few fails.
Once the kid gets to classes where the work is much harder, they can't pass it, take it numerous times, give up on school and drop out. OR the kid can't function in the workplace because they expect everything to be handed to them.
I can spend the next few hours telling you story after story of kids and parents who want it easier in school and make excuses for everything.
I agree with you to a small extent. I don't know if you read my post below, but I played varsity football and baseball as a sophomore in HS. I definitely got it from the older kids. I had to drive some of the older guys home if they lived around me, carry pads, etc. It was done as a bonding type of thing, although I did this shit, if I ever got into a fight or conflict they'd always have my back. I think the point of "hazing/bullying" in sports is to establish a chain of command (something that's really important in sports) and to establish a "brotherhood" (another thing that's user important.)
I related it to having an older sibling for the most part. They're gonna fuck with you but you know they got your back. It's a different culture/ideology then academics.
I actually had the EXACT SAME THING happen to me in Kindergarten, with some 5th graders throwing wet paper towels over the top of the stall during my first school shit. IT gave me a complex about shitting in public bathrooms that I didn't shake until I graduated.
As for bullying, I'm a firm believer that you HAVE to stand up for yourself and not let someone else do it for you. If you tattle, get help from a parent, teacher, bigger friend, etc. they MAY leave you alone but they'll never respect you and it will cause your peers to share the bully's disdain for you. 99% of the time the bully is a pussy and just needs to be shown you will not allow yourself to be a victim.
When I was in 9th grade my mom sent me to school the first week with the MOST HIDEOUS backpack ever invented. It was basically a vertical rectangle and more or less looked like a locker with a strap. I'm walking down the hall and these dicks behind me are cracking on it and I turned around and told the dude to fuck off. It was your cliche' jock senior, letter jacket wearing asshole. He was with his buddies and had just been slighted by a nobody freshman, so he mushes me in the back of the head and I slam into the kids in front of me. Time froze for me at that moment and all I could think about was how my grandfather had drilled it into my head to NEVER let anyone think they can pick on me, mixed with my overprotective mother's reactions to everything, and I made a split second decision. I turned around and hit dude with the Kerry Von Erich tornado punch and shattered his whole shit. He dropped like bricks, his boys were in stunned silence, and I just walked straight to class (where I was removed and suspended about 10 minutes later). I got in NO trouble whatsoever because my grandfather told my mom that I would have been this kid's bitch all year otherwise, and I was king shit the rest of my time at that school. Had I just kept walking my life would have been fucking miserable.
I recently watched the documentary Bully and it filled me with so much rage. There are just so many things fucked up with today's society that I don't have the time to rant on it all, but this movie made me ashamed of some of those families involved, the administrators at the schools, the production crew, etc. If my kid was being tormented to the extent that the one (obviously special needs yet never addressed as suck) kid was I would have sent him to school with a hammer in his bookbag and he would have put a stop to that shit. Plus I would have beaten the fuck out of the other kid's dad in front of his son.
The cyber access kids have today make things a lot worse though. As noted below, you can't escape it near as easily as before. I remember a girl named Bonnie got her first period in class and her nickname was Big Red for her entire school tenure. I think about things like that happening now in the digital age and pics of her bloody pants would have been all over twitter and facebook in seconds and she would never have escaped such ridicule. It's important to keep things like that in perspective.
But in essence, ALL KIDS need to man the fuck up, be taught responsibility and independence, and take off the fucking pampers.
I played football also. We were very successful and didn't do hazing. When my kids were born we did not burn them with milk bottles to incorporate them into the family. Know why? We'd be put in jail. There are multiple ways to bond, so I'm dumbfounded why people are so ride or die for this kind of behavior.
Maybe try using something other than Cracked as your source for information then. There have been numerous books about the subject and docs including "Columbine" by Dave Cullen which is a fascinating read and shatters a lot of the myths about the story. The kids weren't picked on at all. Harris was a narcissist of the highest order and Klebold was a manic-depressive.
Is Martin a good player? Unless he can start for any team, he'll be out of the NFL soon enough. Stuff like that has a way of being "self-policed", even if the reaction is delayed.
The bullying we've been discussing is peer-peer... whether student/student or adult/adult. Crossing that "line" (adult/minor) is RARELY tolerated, and when said adult is in a position of power over the minor, NEVER tolerated.
But stuff like carrying shoulder pads and basic light hazing isn't criminal. IIf hazing ever crosses the line to bullying, it should be stopped immediately.
I hate bullying, I just think the public sentiment has shifted SO far over to the other side that simple acts like I talked about are viewed as bullying.
So let's say that it's student on student. Richie can't read and Johnathan relentlessly gets on him about being illiterate. Is that going to toughen up Richie's reading ability? Is it going to force Richie to man-up on his subject-verb agreement? "Toughen up" just sounds like a bunch of nonsense to me.
But even the light stuff doesn't seem to serve a purpose. Is any of that going to help us win games? That's the part that gets me, it just seems like an excuse to be an asshole.
No, but unless John's also a tough guy, Richie will likely beat the hell out of him after class. And be complimented by his family afterward. ("Don't put up with his crap, good boy.")
As I said earlier, your situation is just not a possible one at the vast majority of schools.
I always took it at a discipline thing. Do this grunt work, if you care about this team, and performing, you'll do it, and you'll earn our respect. It's like when the guy in the karate kid has to wax on / wax off before he learned real karate.
I disagree with you. I was an education major initially. I did a few clinicals in high school math classes. Most teenagers are completely fragile. If the school bully was ridiculed in math class for his ability, he'd break just like the nerd would in gym class. It doesn't happen because the teacher stops it before it begins, or at least I did.
Well the difference is that in athletics toughness is a part of the game. You don't play football if you don't like getting hit. I have to imagine the other players on OTHER teams said very bad things to him, too.
Football is a physical game. To quote Flair "you have to be willing to pay God's price." What I'm asking is what does this other stuff have to do with the task at hand. What does you stealing my clothes have to do with picking up a blitz?
The best Math teacher I ever had was Mz. Karney (I think was her name), in 8th grade. She had outside of school study sessions, taught us a BUNCH of interesting ways to solve problems, and I got my first *ever* A in math with that class.
Flash forward to the next year, and I have Mz. Jones, who is the most boring, awful, "You should know this" kind of teacher ever, who, worse, said she expects students to get a "50" or so her quizes. I didn't understand it.
The next year I had a teacher named Mr. Bazeck and he was AWESOME. He graded the tests on a weird curve, where the average of the entire grade's class on a quiz was a C, and people who did above it got a B, A, etc.
Math is tricky because it's a lot of process and remembering formulas, which are important and I'm glad I know, but are a pain in the butt.
Yes and no. Look at someone like Bobby Lashley or Brock Lesnar. These were people who were talented, but not devoted, and hightailed it. NFL wants people who drink the kool-aid. Ride or die with this team. "That's my QUARTERBACK! man"
I think hazing (light hazing) goes a long way toward endearing you to new teammates and a kind of awkward situation. Here's a bunch of guys smarter than me, stronger then me, and more intelligent then me. I shall sit under their learning tree.
I remember on the SCSA podcast they used to make Stone Cold do all the driving and such, and the trade off was he could just ask them questions for hours. Turned out okay for him.
The brilliant part is that, with a few exceptions, school sports is the only place in the world where being stronger is an advantage over being smarter.
The idea is that this is supposed to get them ready for the real world and then completely twist their training ground into this place where football or baseball have some greater social value than just being pass times is hilarious to me. We're doomed.
Okay here's an example from my life. I work tech support, I'm not great my job, but I show up everyday, don't complain, come in when I need too on off days, and generally try to be the most low maintenance employee on the payroll.
One day I take it easy and kind of slack off on putting away some hardware stuff. I come in a day or two later to find it all piled up on my desk. This pissed me off to no end. NO END. Then I thought about it and was like, alright, this is a signal that I need to step up my game.
I confronted my coworker about it and we kind of had an understanding that what he did wasn't cool, but what I did wasn't good, either.
Sometimes you need a little kick in the proverbial ass to make you drink the kool-aid. Additionally I would imagine the IDEA of hazing is to give rookies a ton of extra stuff to worry about, so when their sophmore season comes around and they have all this extra time on their hands, perhaps they'll spend it being productive.
See that's what I mean. The WWE found out Lashley or Brock didn't "want it" by asking them to do the job, ie travel from city to city. You found out if someone can accomplish a task by asking them to do it.
As far as your second paragraph that happens in all walks of life. School, corporate America, fast food restaurants. You are dependent on the elders to help you, but only in athletics do we tolerate the use of asshole behavior as a way of earning assistance.
I'm not saying that people don't turn out fine, I'm saying it has nothing to do with the task being asked of you.
I think it's just sporting culture, at the end of the day most guys that want to spend their whole lives playing football are assholes. Thus, when it's time to establish rules of conduct they are decided by assholes for the benefit of other assholes.
I think the asshole behavior is also used as an ego check. Here I am, rookie quarterback, laser, rocket-arm, so much money in the bank I can buy and sell anything I want, I'm the fucking greatest.
wait...you want me to do what? Well, okay.
If someone had Ryan Leaf's ear and was telling him to stop being such a little jerk, he may have had a career.
And here's where we disagree. Being an ass has nothing to do with quarterbacking. Leaf flamed out cause he sucks at quarterbacking, nothing more, nothing less. He just happened to be an ass that sucked at football. Richie Incognito is a jerk also, but he's also good at football; therefore, he will get another job.
This whole idea of humbling someone just sounds like some slavery stuff.
Ehhh I agree and I don't agree. Take a look at Shawn Michaels. He had to 'find god' or whatnot to get his shit together and stop being such an asshole.
Sometimes you need a fire under your ass or an emotional counterweight to keep your head on straight.
To my knowledge he never physically hurt anyone in the ring or outside of it. He went out and consistently had the best match on the card and no one had to take a dump in his bag in order for him to do so.
Times have changed. People have gotten soft. I was teased as a kid through elementary school, and high school. I was teased for being a ginger before being teased for being a ginger was cool. I ignored it. I didn't let it get to me, and I just kept going. Even when I was 10 years old, I was like "no motherfucker is going to ruin my day". Yeah, I said motherfucker when I was 10.
Also, I wasn't the most athletically inclined kid in school. I remember one 9th grade gym class, we were playing basketball, shirts vs. skins. Thank goodness I wasn't skins. I HATED being skins. There's just something barbaric about being shirtless. Anyway, the ball went out of bounds, and I was on the sidelines, trying to find a teammate to toss it to. I froze. I had the basketball, dammit! What was I supposed to do with this thing? So, some kid just yells out, "Throw it here, man, I'm open!", so I toss it to the kid, he laughs and says "Thanks" and proceeds to score two for his team....the motherfucking SKINS. Just him being shirtless wasn't enough of a red flag for me.
Anyway, bullying has always been here, in one form or another. It seems that there is less tolerance for it today, but I think that's the "everyone is special" attitude we find ourselves in. I mean, if you're in elementary school, and you finish fourth out of fourth in a race, you literally get a ribbon that says "I'm Special". Society has softened it's children, and has deluded them into thinking that everyone is equal. Everyone is NOT equal, but that's OK. That's what makes things interesting. It's the people who have been shortchanged and STILL persevered and made something of themselves that are the best stories.
I think bullying is a terrible subject for a documentary. Again this is just based on what I've seen from reactions and the trailer, but the thing about film is that, even in documentary, you're gonna present your most compelling stuff. You're going to be incendiary and you're going to stick to whatever point it is you're trying to make.
I'll watch it when I get home tonight, but if I had to guess I imagine we'll get a lot of kids doing really awful things to other kids, and the kids getting awful stuff done to them will likely be shown in a good light and have absolutely no idea why their being picked on. I could be wrong.
Condensing say, a year's worth of bullying into an hour and a half documentary is going to exasperate things, not inform or enlighten people. It seems like it would be validation cinema.
You should see the movie then. There's the main kid, who was picked on for looking weird and there's a girl in Oklahoma, who basically became ostracized from her community for being gay.
The movie also focuses on parents whose kids committed suicide and school's inability to handle it.
Being productive...like, helping the vets haze the new guys. Rock on.
I don't really mind the example you used to talk about initiation. Initiation should be used to build a sense of togetherness, mindfulness (focusing on the present in a sense), and to help assimilate newbies.
However, I think the line is drawn when it comes to hazing or bullying fellas who cannot control certain things. They way they physically look, race, sexual orientation, socioeconomic standing--these are things that should be off limits. And if someone bullies you based on the core of your being, it makes it a lot more difficult and awkward to stand up for yourself--you're never used to defending yourself based on existing.
My take is essentially this--having assholes in this world is a given, but we should never accept them acting like asses. We are too good and too smart for that these days. Some people aren't given the tools to stick up for themselves, so having bullying deterred at an institutional level is a very good thing.
Let's not mistake those who are bullied with those who have no work ethic or aren't willing to overcome tough situations.
Like I was saying in a post just a moment ago, we want to lump in the bullying issue with the participation-trophy-you're-super-special way of life, and it is wrong to do that.
Assholes who prey upon people for merely existing (because they look different, speak different, dress different) shouldn't be tolerated by the bullied, the bystanders, or the institution in which it takes place.
This does not make those who are bullied soft. Obviously, many of those who are bullied are tough as nails for putting up with the bullying despite not having the tools to combat the situation. Many of those who are bullied have a strong work ethic and a willingness to overcome. The bullying in schools and workplaces is separate from the "pussification"/"wussification"/whatever you want to call it of America.
Honestly my favorite Documentary of all time is a little flick called "Cool It" by this Bjorn Lumburg guy. It's nuts. He's advocating for like...creativity when it comes to climate change. He takes Al Gore AND republicans AND enviornmentalists to task and then goes on about an hour and a half long journey throughout the entire world to figure out how we're REALLY doing, climate wise. It's on Netflix, it's short, and it's worth a watch.
Especially if you think of Bjorn as like, European Aaron Eckhart.
I don't think you should lump them together, but I do think the way older people handle it, parents especially, has some correlation. We don't want to hurt feelings, so when feelings ARE hurt, it's Defcon 5 time more often then not.
Not even a little bit, I've been watching that cesspool of confirmation bias for years and years now. It's a fun place to watch people that know almost nothing about real life make grand proclamations about what is right for the world.
Fair point. Fighting injustice should be the way of the world, but crusading against every little perceived injustice and not knowing when to pick their battles is something parents/adults still have to learn about.
From my standpoint, bullying vs. "pussification" both have one mutual underlying issue: fair treatment. The victim and their family want to be treated fairly by others. Teams participating in sports, and their families, want fair treatment as well. So the other team outscores the losers 91-0, and the losing family cries that the winning team's coach was a bully.
Ultimately, life is not fair, and we are sending the wrong message to today's youth that life SHOULD be fair. What happens when that kid grows up and enters the job market, then loses out on a position to someone else. And this happens repeatedly to them. Instead of continuing to push through and TRY HARDER to improve their skill set, they start to blame everything and everyone around them, eventually not taking responsibility for themselves.
Being picked dead last for the kick ball team in third grade was a good wake up call for me to get off my ass and start exercising more.
A few weeks later, I made a diving catch of a screaming line drive kick. Didn't make me instantly popular, but at least I grudgingly forced them to make me a middle pick from that day onwards.
I don't know if I'll get over this comment. 2010 alone had Inside Job, Tillman Story, Exit Through the Gift Shop, A Film Unfinished, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, And Everything is Going Fine, Budrus, Casino Jack and The United States of Money and Client #9.
I can buy this line of reasoning. What I can't buy is that it builds toughness, character, grit, heart and any other nonsense. Just say the people before me treated me like this so I'm going to do it to the next person.
This reminds me of the time I was in highschool and we always played pickup football. Being large and unathletic, I was always o-line. Well, we had the "3 count" rule where you had to count to three before rushing the passer. You got one "Blitz" per drive.
Anyway, QB who's a decently athletic kid snaps the ball, I yell blitz, and run after him with furious anger. The coverage is good. I keep chasing him and we eventually start running around in circles because he was obviously much faster than me, but wasn't allowed to QB run either.
Anyway, this goes on for what seems like minutes, and eventually he passes (I can't remember if it was incomplete or not) and I look and see the gym teachers muffling laughter at the spectacle of me running my ass off (poorly) to get after the quarterback. I assumed it was a "At least he didn't quit" kind of bemusement, and I sort of appreciated it.
My 9th grade English teacher, who was old as fucking dirt, taught us how to write the standard 5-paragraph essay. The very first one, I got a 55. She marked off 1 point for every spelling mistake, for every time you went over the margin, for not filling out the header correctly, etc. Easily the toughest class I took in high school because of her standards.
And I thank God I had that lady because it made every other paper I wrote from 10th grade through 6 years of college that much easier. I can't count the number of papers I had to write over that 9-year stretch that really all went back to that class. English 101 in college? Every single paper wrote in an hour the night before. Every single one was a 95+ grade.
OK, here's my bullying storie(s). In middle school I was picked on a good amount, pretty relentlessly. I would fight back and win some but it was a lot of ganging up so at times I would start fighting one kid and his friend or friends would jump in. After trying to deal with it for a while, I broke and told a teacher or two. The response was, if they didn't see it they couldn't do anything.
So it continued, with the administration and teachers being no help and my own friends being too weak willed to help. About half way through the 8th grade the fight in me was kinda done. I just let them hit me a few times instead of getting into a big fight. Then one day I was walking between classes outside and three of them started pushing me and punching me in the head from behind me. Something just kinda snapped. I had been working on something in woodshop so I had what was basically a mini 2x4. I took it out of my back pack and one of them laughed and came at me. I swung hard and hit him in the head. He didn't get knocked out but stayed down. The next kid I hit in the arm with it, went to hit him again but he backed off. The next kid who was looking stunned got it in the rib cage.
I was ready to keep swinging but a teacher ran up, yelled and I dropped the piece of wood. I almost got expelled for it but a really great teacher stood up for me and explained what the other boys were doing to me. I got 2 weeks suspension and as long as I did all the school work I wouldn't be left back. When I came back the three that had been picking on me didn't even look at me. And because stories get bigger and grander by each telling, the rest of the school was kinda scared of me from then on. Next post I'll go into the flip side of all this"
Agreed. Especially since in every other aspect of educational life peer-relationships are fostered - ideally of course - on the basis of mutual respect and assistance. Kids are honored and celebrated for helping others improve their skills.
I think this is a very well written post. To add a little bit, I think the whole "life is tough, so toughen up!" routine is silly because no one requires "assistance" to know life is tough. Everyone is going to lose jobs, lose loved ones, have relationships fall apart or, if they are really unlucky, experience even more intense forms of poverty. Getting hazed or humiliated in front of a group of peers will not prepare anyone for the real struggles of life; it will only accelerate the natural fatigue that comes with living and losing. The point of human interaction should be to provide support for each other, to provide positive social stimuli to counterbalance the negative. This is all highly idealistic and not immediately realistic, but aiming is high is the only way to improve our situation.
I guess I appreciated a kind of common-sense approach to things. He got people that agreed with him, people that disagreed with him, and did a point by point deconstruction of a lot of myths surrounding global warming.
Like any documentary with a point of view the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle, but it's a great jumping off point to look into that issue.
So after middle school, that summer I ended out hanging out with a couple of kids in the neighborhood. Everyday, we would take a nice sized canoe and carry it close to a mile to a river. This made me shed a bunch of weight and built up my muscle. Also the kids were in the higher end of the social ladder. So high school starts and I ended up on the football team after a coach took me under his wing. I'm not the coolest kid but I'm hanging out with them.
So this ends up with me pressured to impress them, so I follow suit and start bullying other kids (some my former friends) to impress them. Then some months later one of my friends throws me a teddy bear. It belonged to a slow girl, I think she was autistic. We then proceed to play keep away. I throw the bear and it lands in a puddle of water. Watching this girl pick up the bear with such sadness snapped me out of it and I realized what the fuck I was doing. I felt horrible, like sick to my stomach horrible. This happened on a Friday, that weekend I went out and bought her two teddy bears a little bigger than the one I ruined. I gave them to her that Monday and told her how sorry I was. She accepted the apology and gave me a big hug. Meanwhile my idiot friends were making stupid comments about how I wanted to bang her and stupid shit like that.
I ended of splitting away from most of that group soon after and found a group of friends that was more of a hodge podge group. I also stopping bullying other kids. It was terrible what I did and I still feel bad but I'm glad I made up for it and it just isn't lying in my consionse.
Heh, yeah, when I saw that movie years later I liked the similarities in weapons. And yeah, assertion is needed in a situation like that. I normally abhor using weapons in a fight but it just became too much and all I could think to do against three guys. It's funny how the story snowballed outta control though. I heard I beat them all bloody and broke bones. I heard I had pulled a knife, brass knuckles, a bat. I just thought it was funny the absurd lengths the story went to.
I think so long as the rules are followed in any sport or game, that's as much fair treatment as there needs to be. But I agree, people are taking fair treatment too far and inserting it where it doesn't belong. Because it was already present.
Well I wouldn't say THIS led me to the dark side. This was just me standing up for myself. And these events in no way made me popular, it made me more of an outcast labeled as crazy. It was me getting into the popular group and wanting to hang on to it so badly I did really bad things.
Don't get me wrong, I still feel bad about what I did. Just writing that made my stomach turn a bit. But I tried to make amends the best way I saw how to the person I hurt. Can't make amends to a dead hamster. But if I'm still doomed to hell to be tortured by handicapped people, I'll take the punishment.
Exactly! I helped people get through math just like a few guys helped me get through suicide runs. Don't know what's so hard to grasp about this concept.
By the way Zanatude, can't my punishment just be God gave me cancer? I think that's a solid wash, huh? I'm sure you did something bad to deserve your cancer. Btw, tone is hard to convey on the interweb, this is a joke.
Yeah I saw that too although it's gone now. At first I thought it was just a regular Downvote which I expected then I noticed the negative symbol next to it, dont know what that's about.
Nice way of putting it although I wish it was an immediate heel/face turn fake out. Like DDP on the nWo, catch the bear, look to throw it then just give it back to the girl. Add in hitting my friend with a diamond cutter to make it perfect.
Just a glitch when clicking too fast from one to the other, I think. I once gave someone a -1 upvote before.
Anyway, both stories you told were amazing (both in content and in captivating writing style). As someone who bounced around a few different schools across the country, I was on both sides of the fence, depending on the school. As an outcast, I just tried to hold my own...and I always shocked those in PE because how could a "weirdo" enjoy and be good at sports, right? As the popular kid, I outright shunned and ignored this incredibly sweet and nerdy girl who I once talked to. I could see how she felt like crap every time I blew her off in front of a crowd. At the time, I was unaware of the circumstances behind my idiotic behavior. A few years later, I wrote a three page letter of apology to her. Never received a response, but I had to apologize and let her know that I was completely in the wrong and now knew it.
In that example, though, you did something wrong-ish and your co-worker addressed your behavior in a fairly civilized manner (though it does sound grossly passive aggressive, the adult thing to do would have been to just talk to you about it point blank). With bullying we're often talking about a kid who hasn't really done anything wrong except for being different enough to become a target and he's "corrected" through cruel and unusual punishments (wedgies, physical abuse, etc...). Children are not naturally civilized human beings; it's very easy for them to give into peer pressure and fall into pack mentalities. I think that barrier between good-natured ribbing and outright cruelty needs to be made clear to them. And I don't think it's healthy for any kid to have his formative identity shaped through fear and intimidation.
That wasn't a football game; that was a life experience. My brother and I couldn't even celebrate until AFTER the kneel down. There's nothing better than being relevant, and this win is relevance personified. To go into the defending NFC Champs' house, the 6-2 49ers and sock them in the mouth like that defensively?
Thanks for the compliments man, I appreciate it. That sucks you had to switch schools that much, must have sucked. I did it once in fifth grade from NY to FL and hated it. I understand what happened to you. In high school social class means everything. When you've been on the bottom you'll do anything to go higher up the ladder. Good on you for making amends to that girl. A lot of kids don't realize or go to the trouble of making up for the things they do.
Dude, at first you totally had me wanting to go back in time and kick your ass. Then you redeemed yourself, making me want to go back in time and buy you a beer while you are still a minor.
I just can't get over the part where you shattered the entirety of the dude's shit with a Texas Tornado punch that was not preceded by an Iron Claw. Has everything Kerry Von Erich taught me about offense been a lie?
believe it or not i've been bullied for my height more as an adult than i was as a child. i top out at 5 feet: no genetic condition, no stunted growth b/c of an illness, just f'ing short
i was very fortunate that i attended private school my entire life, and i say that only b/c i think it allowed me not to be exposed to those kids who were only at school b/c of truancy laws. Sure i was picked on and teased, and it hurt, but i never felt threatened or like i had to leave school. again, very fortunate.
it was actually my one year at catholic school where it was worst as a kid (my grade school ended at 6th and the high school i was heading to actually had an 8th grade, so i needed a stopover), and these were the worst kids i was ever around, and has forever convinced me that a large chunk of catholic school kids are there not for faith but b/c their folks can’t discipline them worth shit. i once i had a big wad of duct tape stuck in my head from behind and i had to miss class and get it cut out. the abuse was emotional more than anything (though one of them did pull a knife on me at a b’day party my folks forced me to go to, just so that he could try to intimidate me), making me feel unwelcome and deficient and like an outcast (which in their insular world, i was). i do remember once i got so mad that i picked up a big stick and headed right for some of them while some others implored me to stop. i didnt do anything but i do remember the "FUCK THIS" feeling i had.
but like i said, its been my adulthood that has been filled with the most bullying. more times than i care remember, ive had random people on the street make comments. was once in a local dive type place and as i walked past some guy said so i could hear, "hey look, its a hobbit!’ i walked up and just stared right at him while his female friends were all like 'oh man, you have to excuse him, he doesnt know what he's saying.' i just stared the guy down while he was all like 'man, you dont even wanna do this.’ i held my ground, and eventually just walked away. (this is a place where plenty if people have been shot or killed and tons of brawls have broken out, fwiw – meaning i didnt care that there was a very real possibility that this guy was packing and only needed a reason, or wouldnt hesitate to get physical)
was crossing a busy intersection and a dumbass teen on a bicycle said to his friend, 'its a leprechaun!" laughing hysterically. i turned around and again stared him down. he got nervous and was like "uh, how ya doin'?" i just stared at him. i waited a moment and then quickly took a step towards him and he took off into the road without even seeing if it was safe.
there are plenty of other stories, but suffice it to say, i am extremely self-conscious about my height b/c i cant even go out in public without the fear of having someone make a comment, discretely or not. i'll walk by people and theyll get quiet as i pass, then i'll hear something said in whispers the each other followed by laughter. ive gotten to the point where i cant even forgive kids for being kids for not knowing any better b/c somewhere, the parent has to be responsible. kids stare as i walk by and follow me, and all i can think is “goddammit, teach your damn child some manners’
its one of the major reasons ive given up on dating; i have no reason to believe the random female i might meet is thinking anything differently than the random peeps on the street who make sure i know that theyre judging me
Yeah, I figured that. Good comic though, I laughed. Fucking cells, always mutating and not in the cool way that gives you super powers, my cancer was from a messed up thyroid btw and maybe radiation which surprisingly was part of the cure.. By the way, last time we touched on the cancer subject I flipped out on you a bit and threw a bit of a pity party. Sorry about that, days before the convo I had been told I had some new cancer cells growing and was a bit down.
NFL Network just said Roethlisberger wants traded to Arizona next season. Mike Tomlin is a terrible coach who was gifted the team Bill Cower spent 12 years building.
ReplyDeletelets go Pats!
ReplyDeleteoh wait.
Lets go...uh...*Checks fantasy team*
...Lions?
Lamar Miller or Alsgon in the flex? Convince me!
ReplyDeleteAlshon
ReplyDeleteChris Walker = 1st draft pick for any team!
ReplyDeleteI think they're both overrated and got on based off Lebeau's defense. Cowher's 4 home AFC Title losses don't get as much scorn as they deserve
ReplyDeleteChris Walker > Braden Walker
ReplyDelete"I can't stop shaking," Michael J. Fox
ReplyDeleteI think it's definitely gotten harder to get away from, though no worse. Kids are the same self-absorbed assholes they've always been, but back when I grew up at least, once you got home and closed the door you were free of it until the next time you had to go to school. Now with the social media there's really no way to escape a kid that wants to needle you, he can flood your Facebook or Twitter or whatever the hell people under 35 use now.
ReplyDeleteIn a completely selfish way, I like that kids growing up now seem to not be able to hack any kind of adversity, it means there is no one coming up behind us to compete.
I also find it fascinating that the anti-bullying tryhards always seem to be the first to mob up to attack someone they've accused of bullying. It's fucking hilarious, the alleged internet intelligentsia that is Reddit is always the first to scream the bullying is wrong but when someone does something that offends their delicately fashioned sensibilities they will mass into a mob of thousands and blow the person's twitter up, or give out his personal info, or like last year, completely hound an innocent man's family because he happened to go missing in the same time frame as the Boston bombing.
Bullying is power for the powerless, there's a reason the cliche of the bully is that he comes from a bad home. Even the people that proclaim their moral disgust with it will always, when they taste the power, continue to feed on it.
Fuck DirecTV, I can't even watch any of these games because my local channels haven't been working for over a week. Which means I can't watch ROH either. Time to switch to Verizon, or maybe cut cable altogether.
ReplyDeleteChildren aren't taught to defend themselves like they should be. I don't just mean physically either. They need to be taught not to take abuse from anyone no mater the form... and they need to be taught to handle it themselves and not go running for help. Hit back, insult back, you may get in trouble or you may get your ass kicked but you won't be giving away your power. This is of course the opposite of what children are taught, and why they are so incredibly bad at handling adversity. For instance here if one child starts a fight and the other child fights back... they both get in trouble... so the lesson they take away is that they should just learn to take it, or run to someone else to solve their problem. I always told my step son that if someone picks a fight with him that he should respond by hitting them back as hard as he could in the spot that would hurt the worst... I told him he will probably get in trouble in school, but he will not get in trouble at home... this is important because you are teaching them not to think like a victim.
ReplyDeleteIt is only marginally related but still relevant I also found that in younger grades that children get rewarded at the end of the day for having behaved... candy or toys or some shit... so basically "You did what is expected of you, you didn't go above or beyond but that's ok you deserve a prize for meeting the minimums" which of course leads them to think that doing the bare minimum is acceptable, and expect to get rewarded for doing what they are supposed to do... I think this is why I have had so many coworkers who think they deserve recognition for basic things... one that stands out in my mind is someone who was terrible at her job but showed up on time every day thinking she deserved a raise just for that.
I kind of ended up rambling a bit there so let me just summarize. Defend yourself, don't let others do it for you, and don't just not do it. Excel at what you do and then you might get rewarded, no one is going to be impressed that you can hit the bare minimum effort.
I think that was worth a 5000th post... I deserve to be rewarded, if you are mean about it i am going to go tell Scott on you!
The only game I'm getting here is Raiders/Giants so it's like I'm not watching football at all this morning.
ReplyDeleteBut for those who are watching is there any reason the Colts are getting stomped out by the Rams? 28-0???
Oh and you just gave NPP material for days by saying you were retarded.
ReplyDeleteHe also beat Peyton Manning on the road in Manning's absolute prime.
ReplyDeleteFUCK YEAH! GO SPORTS! LOCAL TEAM IS GOING TO DOMINATE OPPOSING TEAM IN TODAY'S CONTEST!
ReplyDeleteI've been practicing... how was that?
Who trolls the trollers is a life motto of mine.
ReplyDeleteChris Walker doesn't play professional sports, but if I... he... did I... he... would dominate!
ReplyDeleteThe middle portion there just boils down to entitlement, I don't think any of us realized that along with a liberal society comes the fact that everyone thinks they're owed something. In my field I ate shit for YEARS doing the worst jobs around with the understanding that a) knowing how to do every job in your industry is fucking cool anyway but mostly, b) paying dues is part of being young. I hate sounding old man-ish but seriously it seems like the younger people starting now don't want to do anything ever and, like you said, are not only content doing nothing but want greater compensation for it. It's amazing really. Just last week I was listening in the staff room at one of the papers I do work for and the young, fresh out of college, reporter kid was bitching about starting brand new in the field at a measily 36k a year. I just wanted to brain him with a cinder block and scream "Dude...you're in journalism, thank the stars you even have a job let alone are making more a year than I saw before 30."
ReplyDeletetl;dr Lawns, get off 'em.
C-
ReplyDeleteJust one of those days where everything goes wrong.
ReplyDelete98 yd Punt Return TD, 45 yd Fumble Return TD, and something called a "Kellen Clemens" has a 57 yd. TD pass.
Friar Ferguson!
ReplyDeleteSorry, I was bored so I made up my own question of the day.
"The middle portion there just boils down to entitlement, I don't think any of us
ReplyDeleterealized that along with a liberal society"
It has nothing to do with liberal/conservative politics. It is just an unfortunate side effect of a lot of people's experience. They did have to work hard and overcome a lot of adversity and they so desperately don't want their children to have to go through what they went through that they are overlooking the fact that what they went through is WHY they are able to provide an environment that makes it so that their children don't have to. Its an understandable effect but not a beneficial one.
Is that the game the refs desperately tried to give to the Colts (Polamalu's INT getting overturned)?
ReplyDeleteI think it's also the game where Bettis fumbled inside the Colts' 5 with less than two minutes left, only to be saved by a Rapeburger shoestring tackle, followed by Vanderjagt yanking the game-tying FG about two zip codes off.
Shit!
ReplyDeleteOh no, I didn't mean liberal/conservative in terms of our party politics, I just mean a more general liberal civilization like the one we have in basically the entire First World.
ReplyDeleteI think it's both. I think most people grew up thinking they were special, and would be something great, and as a result thought of jobs like working at McDonalds and Burger King and Walmart and Staples and such, below them.
ReplyDeleteI don't like my job, but I don't think I'm "better" than it. If I got fired today I'd happily go work anywhere that would pay me.
"Now with the social media there's really no way to escape a kid that wants to needle you, he can flood your Facebook or Twitter or whatever the hell people under 35 use now."
ReplyDeleteYet another reason that this social media shit blows. People realize that there's no law saying you have to have a Facebook or Twatter account, right?
I had motor skill issues as a kid too. I still do, although I never had to take special classes or anything. I wasn't allowed to write with a pen when I was a kid, they made me use a pencil. I ended up developing my current atrocious handwriting, where I fudge over mistakes by scratching hard into the letter until it fills in a really thick line and then rebuild off of that. My ex said I have serial killer handwriting.
ReplyDeleteAs for bullying, I can see the value of teaching kids to toughen up, but at the same time its kind of a weak solution. We all like to buy into the idea of fighting back to shut the bully up, but that doesn't even always work. I used to fight with kids all the time and they'd keep coming back and starting shit. (I was a big kid, so while I never got the typical getting beat up type bullying, i'd get picked on and then have to chase after some little cunt who was faster than me. Really frustrating to be willing to fight back but not being fast enough.) And going to the teachers really just means being a target for even more shit. God only knows what these kids do with all the cyber shit. So really, there is no good answer, and that's how we end up with a Columbine. So basically, I think that if the bullying is already happening, its a good idea to teach the kid to attempt to handle it themselves and stand up for themselves. But, I also think its a good idea to try to teach the kids not to bully each other and make everyone hostile and fucking tense in the first place.
Also, probably important to teach girls not to fuck boys who push people around so they don't grow up into angry drunks who can't leave people alone in a bar that are trying to get laid.
Funny enough, it's become so pervasive that if you don't have one (like um...I believe the Colorado theater shooter? It was one of them from last year...) they use it like that's evidence that you're a crazy person. "He didn't have any social media? He must have been a psycho! Why didn't this raise red flags?"
ReplyDeleteI keep a Twitter only to follow comedians and stuff, I never post. And a Facebook...I don't even understand it...I didn't give a shit about any of you when we were IN high school, why would I care what you're doing now?!
I do believe social media has a block button!
ReplyDeleteI've never had either.
ReplyDeleteI do think there's value to a having a facebook and a twitter. It's how I keep in contact with friends instead of using my big fat fingers to text, I can post pictures, link to stuff I've written (that no one cares about) and catch up with folks from college that has since moved on.
ReplyDeleteIt's like AIM on crack.
I've never had either, and feel I'm better off for it. Just seems like a complete waste of time. And I too couldn't give a fuck about anyone I went to high school with.
ReplyDeleteI see. Apologies. I am very defensive about the "lazy liberal" stereotype some people have of democrats/liberals/progressives.
ReplyDeleteI feel bad I could be keeping in touch with cousins/family I don't talk to, but it's still not worth it.
ReplyDeleteThe key is to put it in its proper place in your life. Sharing things, keeping up with people... but realizing it is just a toy and not "real life" important, and knowing when to turn it off.
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying the key is to let bullying go on unassumed, and if I think about it I think I've only gotten into one fight in school, and following two days of detention I never did it again. I was passive and just carried on I guess, Ghandi style.
ReplyDeleteI agree kids should be taught to handle themselves, and address the issues directly with said bully. You'd be surprised what happens when you ask someone giving you shit "What the fuck, bro?"
Regarding women and men, you get into an alpha male / biology of attraction kind of deal, where the strongest, toughest, most confident people are the most desirable, and you're in essence teaching against what your proverbial body wants, and that's a tricky can of worms.
Okay, who had Kellen Clemens on their fantasy team? Put those hands down, liars.
ReplyDeleteClemens: 5-9, 210 yds, 2 TD
I don't know what I identify as when it comes to politics, I guess socially liberal but also kind of have like, common sense conservative leanings.
ReplyDeleteI think my issue with liberals when it comes to social stuff is that their ideas are great in theory, but would never work in reality. Throwing out terms like privilege and mansplaining and a bunch of other terms that somehow manage to marginalize people that disagree with them, AND make themselves come off as a warrior for a given cause.
Like, when I look at something like Julianne Hough bronzing her face and say it's not really racist, just insensitive, I get my throat jumped down because I need to check my privilege and just blindly agree with any perceived injustice.
"You'd be surprised what happens when you ask someone giving you shit "What the fuck, bro?""
ReplyDeleteThis reminds of an into to an old rap song, think it was NWA.
"Yo nigga, why you gotta fuck with me?"
"Fuck you nigga, because I can!"
Actually that was Natural Born Killers, New Jack's ECW theme. Dre and Cube .
ReplyDeleteI don't think anyone condones bullying at this point, but the awareness that the antibullying stuff has raised, has completely shifted the public sentiment way to far in the other direction.
ReplyDeleteI think that learning to stand up for yourself, and especially learning how to settle differences in a proper manner are skills that you learn at a young age. I understand that there is a difference between conflict and bullying, im just worried that the public narrative has switched so far in the antibullying direction that even normal, healthy conflict amoung kids has been eliminated.
I played varsity football and baseball as a sophomore in highschool. I underwent light "hazing" in both those situtaions. Never anything I'd consider bullying but definitely stuff that you don't volunteer to do. It was a normal type of thing that actually benefited you if the older guys saw that you did it without bitching. Same thing with frat initiating. I saw both these things as a normal ritual that was perfectly acceptable and almost necessary when you're in your teens. I feel that the whole antibullying thing paints simple acts like this as "demonic."
The Columbine kids weren't bullied at all. That's a common misconception spread by the media in the early days of reporting and then when the facts came out they never cared enough to correct it because it didn't fit their narrative
ReplyDeleteHaha, yeah same here. Though I must admit the older I get the more chinks I start seeing in the ideological armor. There's just nothing for me anymore really, I want guns at gay weddings, I'll never have a party.
ReplyDelete2 NWA members, close enough.
ReplyDeleteI have crazy political leanings that are both extremely far left and far right.
ReplyDeleteFor the record I would vote for anyone in the "Guns and Gay Weddings" party.
ReplyDeleteIt was made during the heights of Death Row.
ReplyDeleteDitto. My biggest gripe is that people are more concerned with changing minds than getting what they want.
ReplyDelete1st draft pick alert!
ReplyDeleteJacksonville might get their 1st win putting Tampa in the driver's seat. Jacksonville up 10 with Jake Locker hurt and Ryan Fitzpatrick in for Tennessee. I think they might get this one!
I wish Disqus had one.
ReplyDeleteOn the whole I guess I'm liberal but I think a lot of the current social issues we're having are directly tied to them. It used to be conservatives that were the language police and now it's completely flipped over where liberals are out with pitchforks over people calling someone retarded.
ReplyDeleteYou'll notice though, as always, they only ever go after people that have something to lose. Now that 30Rock is off the air no one gives a shit who Tracy Morgan calls a faggot.
I also think the ideology has led us into this weird area where no one is allowed to be wrong or feel like a failure. Kids in school not being able to get anything less than a 55% on a test because otherwise they'd feel bad is definitely not a conservative thing.
All I can think of is those dudes in Wall-E in the chairs, and the song "The Trees" by rush, as I get older.
ReplyDeleteAw shucks you hurt my feel goods.
ReplyDeleteThere's a joke here about motor skills and drunk posting but I'm too lazy to write it.
ReplyDeleteCould not agree more.
ReplyDeleteFucking cable... I guess I need to break down and get DirecTV for the Sunday Ticket. Being a Panthers fan in Oklahoma makes it kind of hard to watch them otherwise.
ReplyDeleteNot to jack my own thread, but I saw a good pun: Cat Puns Freak Meowt, Seriously I'm not Kitten
ReplyDeleteYes great game.
ReplyDeleteEven though i agree, THIS is your 5000th??? I expected something more Parallax if you know what I mean.
ReplyDeleteThat's so true. Its such a dangerous thing. to teach kids that they can do anything they want if they work hard enough, because they have no frame of reference beyond being an athlete or a rock star or a movie star so they think they can just work their way up and be that successful. No kid's gonna be like "I really want to grow up and be a systems analyst!" besides Martin Prince, so they end up wasting their lives because they believe that they are owed some kind of glamorous success and that regular work is below them.
ReplyDeleteI found that one out kind of the hard way. I do think it's good to encourage creative endeavors, and I'm not trying to be like, snooty, but you would not BELIEVE the number of people at college who couldn't write a line of dialog or pun or a joke to save their lives. And they were dropping DOUGH on this shit.
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying I'm a great writer or nothing, but I'm also not sitting at home working on the great American young adult novel instead of working.
Not for anyone here, but there are some serious trolls on other sites, and way too many people that have such poor grammar that it might as well not even be English.
ReplyDeleteI've heard that on Cracked and I just don't really buy it. You don't go aeround wearing trenchcoats and throwing up sieg heils and be the cool kid. Obviously some harrassment came their way. Yeah they talked about picking on faggots but being a bully and being bullied are not mutually exclusive. At least they were just outcasts who got ignored by everybody. The media did run with lots of false shit though. I love that Marilyn Manson is still synonymous with those guys even though they didn't listen to him at all, they were into harder stuff than that and thought Manson was too mainstream. Didn't stop ol' Marilyn from promoting himself by going on the interview circuit talking about them.
ReplyDeleteVulture journalism is the best kind of journalism though!
ReplyDeleteI think it's a sign that our society is seriously flawed that people just expect abuse and think it's part of growing up. Yeah, life's tough but shrugging your shoulders at it is a pretty fucked up attitude. Just because it's how things are doesn't mean it's how things should be.
ReplyDeleteLook, I'm not saying I"m a saint, I bullied people and was bullied in return. I'm decently quick with my tongue (all the homo) so I can trade barbs with people pretty well, and sometimes trading barbs meant verbally brutalizing people who had no interest in the tete a tete I enjoy. Look, there's a difference between sparring and a beatdown, and there's a difference in repartee and verbal/emotional abuse. I've crossed the line with the later (I've gotten into physical fights too, but those were me defending myself or fights with siblings) and I honestly still struggle with it. I will freely admit I'm an asshole who's pretty insensitive about a lot of things.
Being "tough" is of course an easier way to live life, but some kids aren't "tough" and why should we force them to change (to get tougher) or be miserable their entire life? Because we can't be decent human beings? Because the only way to be cool is not have emotions? Because mental and physical toughness is the most important things to a kid?
P.S. I'd like to hear a female perspective on this, as I'm expecting a bit of a testosterone overload on this blog.
The Colts are really overrated and their D stinks.
ReplyDeleteThere seems to be a double standard with this thing. When so-called weaker kids are bullied in gyms, sports teams, or something similar they are told to toughen up and all that good stuff. Now what if the non-athletic, nerdy kids ridiculed and made fun of the athletic kids in science, math or reading? Would we look at it the same way? If your kid was in my math class and I called him a no counting dips---t would you take my side cause your kid is too soft in math? It just seems like all this man-up talk only applies in athletics, but I'm just wondering what happens when applied to academics.
ReplyDeleteThat's a really good point. I'm going to go have a cigar and come back and reply to that.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the male/female thing, girls bully much worse than boys (I see this occasionally at the school I teach at.. For boys, it is more of a physical thing and you see it happen. I just listened to the adam and dr drew podcast and Adam talked about how the times as a kid him and his friends were goofing with each other (peeing on each other, putting shit in one's ear); however, they would call that bullying today.
ReplyDeleteFor girls, it is almost always a verbal thing. They would call each other names; spread false rumors about them. Thus, there is no proof of what happened and thus, it is harder to punish it. If you tell someone, you get it even worse. The movie Mean Girls is very true to life.
I want to give a profound 4 paragraph response with big words but . . . I think Zero Tolerance fighting policies have destroyed many kids ability to defend themselves. A good fight is great way to put an end to to bullying and earn some respect. Instead a kid can get tortured verbally and the second he gets physical many schools will straight up call the cops. I call bullshit on that. I also think many people confuse "bullying" with manipulation. Life is a power game that starts from a very early age.
ReplyDeleteIt should apply to ALL walks of life, not just athletics
ReplyDeleteThe "athletic, non-nerdy" kids would laugh their asses off, stick the nerds heads in toilets, then fuck the cute girls after school under the bleachers.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who won more state titles in Quiz Bowl (two in three years) than any athlete at my school did in their sport... yeah, that'll not be an issue any time soon. Not without a MASSIVE change in the average person's "priorities".
Being on a sports team/an athlete > being smart, in >95% (guesstimate) of schools today.
You're saying that the behavior should be allowed in all walks of life, if so, for what purpose?
ReplyDeleteI'm with you on that last point. That's like with this whole Dolphins thing. I get this weird sense that maybe Martin just thought Incognito was actually inferior to him and took offense at the idea that some dweeb like Incognito (and reading those texts, he sounds like a fucking inbred pitiable tool) would try to alpha him but, knowing that he was a rookie and the locker room would frown upon him pulling Incognito's card, found a way to cut his nuts off and get the spotlight on him. Dolphins can't really trade Martin for fear of negative backlash at this point, so Martin made a good career move by going through the back channels instead of just calling Incognito out.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't call that a thread jack so much as a thoughtful paws.
ReplyDeleteI think you misunderstand what I'm saying. Hypothetical situation: Richie is struggling in math class and Johnathan is an A+ student. I as the teacher pull Johnathan to the side and say, "hey we need to get this Richie kid with the program and toughen him up in math". So I call on him everyday in class and watch him fumble fuck for answers while the whole class just laughs at him. I'm asking would this kind of thing be condoned.
ReplyDeleteI see this all the time in schools. If a teacher gives out a lot of Fails (usually the math teachers because for most of the kids, math is the hardest subject for them), the kids hate that teacher because they wish the class was a lot easier. However, if you ask that kid if they did the homework or study for the test, they would tell you no. Thus, many teachers give super easy tests, give lots of extra credit, and/or give out very little homework so they have very few fails.
ReplyDeleteOnce the kid gets to classes where the work is much harder, they can't pass it, take it numerous times, give up on school and drop out. OR the kid can't function in the workplace because they expect everything to be handed to them.
I can spend the next few hours telling you story after story of kids and parents who want it easier in school and make excuses for everything.
More Air Supply and less Insane Clown Posse would straighten these cold-hearted little bastards out.
ReplyDeleteTwo shots for the Bears... zero points. Lions hanging on to a 21-19 lead.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you to a small extent. I don't know if you read my post below, but I played varsity football and baseball as a sophomore in HS. I definitely got it from the older kids. I had to drive some of the older guys home if they lived around me, carry pads, etc. It was done as a bonding type of thing, although I did this shit, if I ever got into a fight or conflict they'd always have my back. I think the point of "hazing/bullying" in sports is to establish a chain of command (something that's really important in sports) and to establish a "brotherhood" (another thing that's user important.)
ReplyDeleteI related it to having an older sibling for the most part. They're gonna fuck with you but you know they got your back. It's a different culture/ideology then academics.
I actually had the EXACT SAME THING happen to me in Kindergarten, with some 5th graders throwing wet paper towels over the top of the stall during my first school shit. IT gave me a complex about shitting in public bathrooms that I didn't shake until I graduated.
ReplyDeleteAs for bullying, I'm a firm believer that you HAVE to stand up for yourself and not let someone else do it for you. If you tattle, get help from a parent, teacher, bigger friend, etc. they MAY leave you alone but they'll never respect you and it will cause your peers to share the bully's disdain for you. 99% of the time the bully is a pussy and just needs to be shown you will not allow yourself to be a victim.
When I was in 9th grade my mom sent me to school the first week with the MOST HIDEOUS backpack ever invented. It was basically a vertical rectangle and more or less looked like a locker with a strap. I'm walking down the hall and these dicks behind me are cracking on it and I turned around and told the dude to fuck off. It was your cliche' jock senior, letter jacket wearing asshole. He was with his buddies and had just been slighted by a nobody freshman, so he mushes me in the back of the head and I slam into the kids in front of me. Time froze for me at that moment and all I could think about was how my grandfather had drilled it into my head to NEVER let anyone think they can pick on me, mixed with my overprotective mother's reactions to everything, and I made a split second decision. I turned around and hit dude with the Kerry Von Erich tornado punch and shattered his whole shit. He dropped like bricks, his boys were in stunned silence, and I just walked straight to class (where I was removed and suspended about 10 minutes later). I got in NO trouble whatsoever because my grandfather told my mom that I would have been this kid's bitch all year otherwise, and I was king shit the rest of my time at that school. Had I just kept walking my life would have been fucking miserable.
I recently watched the documentary Bully and it filled me with so much rage. There are just so many things fucked up with today's society that I don't have the time to rant on it all, but this movie made me ashamed of some of those families involved, the administrators at the schools, the production crew, etc. If my kid was being tormented to the extent that the one (obviously special needs yet never addressed as suck) kid was I would have sent him to school with a hammer in his bookbag and he would have put a stop to that shit. Plus I would have beaten the fuck out of the other kid's dad in front of his son.
The cyber access kids have today make things a lot worse though. As noted below, you can't escape it near as easily as before. I remember a girl named Bonnie got her first period in class and her nickname was Big Red for her entire school tenure. I think about things like that happening now in the digital age and pics of her bloody pants would have been all over twitter and facebook in seconds and she would never have escaped such ridicule. It's important to keep things like that in perspective.
But in essence, ALL KIDS need to man the fuck up, be taught responsibility and independence, and take off the fucking pampers.
No, I'm saying that all kids should be taught to man up and defend themselves, not just athletes.
ReplyDeleteThat's a tough one... it would depend on the Richie's parents/the rest of the class.
ReplyDeleteIF any "proof" comes out that you're intentionally calling on him to humiliate him, you're shitcanned. If not... who knows?
Is it right? No. Not as a teacher.
Also, you're going into a different level of bullying there... teacher on student is NEVER tolerated, if reported, in my experience.
I played football also. We were very successful and didn't do hazing. When my kids were born we did not burn them with milk bottles to incorporate them into the family. Know why? We'd be put in jail. There are multiple ways to bond, so I'm dumbfounded why people are so ride or die for this kind of behavior.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's what I'm saying. What's the difference?
ReplyDeleteMaybe try using something other than Cracked as your source for information then. There have been numerous books about the subject and docs including "Columbine" by Dave Cullen which is a fascinating read and shatters a lot of the myths about the story. The kids weren't picked on at all. Harris was a narcissist of the highest order and Klebold was a manic-depressive.
ReplyDeleteIs Martin a good player? Unless he can start for any team, he'll be out of the NFL soon enough. Stuff like that has a way of being "self-policed", even if the reaction is delayed.
ReplyDeleteGood career move? He's done in the NFL. NO ONE in any locker room is ever going to want to play with him. He's as toxic as it gets.
ReplyDeleteThe bullying we've been discussing is peer-peer... whether student/student or adult/adult. Crossing that "line" (adult/minor) is RARELY tolerated, and when said adult is in a position of power over the minor, NEVER tolerated.
ReplyDeleteBut stuff like carrying shoulder pads and basic light hazing isn't criminal. IIf hazing ever crosses the line to bullying, it should be stopped immediately.
ReplyDeleteI hate bullying, I just think the public sentiment has shifted SO far over to the other side that simple acts like I talked about are viewed as bullying.
So let's say that it's student on student. Richie can't read and Johnathan relentlessly gets on him about being illiterate. Is that going to toughen up Richie's reading ability? Is it going to force Richie to man-up on his subject-verb agreement? "Toughen up" just sounds like a bunch of nonsense to me.
ReplyDeleteBut even the light stuff doesn't seem to serve a purpose. Is any of that going to help us win games? That's the part that gets me, it just seems like an excuse to be an asshole.
ReplyDeleteNo, but unless John's also a tough guy, Richie will likely beat the hell out of him after class. And be complimented by his family afterward. ("Don't put up with his crap, good boy.")
ReplyDeleteAs I said earlier, your situation is just not a possible one at the vast majority of schools.
I always took it at a discipline thing. Do this grunt work, if you care about this team, and performing, you'll do it, and you'll earn our respect. It's like when the guy in the karate kid has to wax on / wax off before he learned real karate.
ReplyDeleteAnd it's the kind of thing that gets passed on. I did it for my seniors years ago, now it's my turn to be the senior.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with you. I was an education major initially. I did a few clinicals in high school math classes. Most teenagers are completely fragile. If the school bully was ridiculed in math class for his ability, he'd break just like the nerd would in gym class. It doesn't happen because the teacher stops it before it begins, or at least I did.
ReplyDeleteYou're on fire.
ReplyDeleteI don't buy it. You know how someone could tell we "wanted it"? Cause we showed up to practice and the weight room and gave it all we had.
ReplyDeleteFair enough. You might be right. I just view it a little differently
ReplyDeleteWell the difference is that in athletics toughness is a part of the game. You don't play football if you don't like getting hit. I have to imagine the other players on OTHER teams said very bad things to him, too.
ReplyDeleteLess HillBilly Jim matches too.
ReplyDeleteBWAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahahahahaaaaaaa...@ the Ravens.
ReplyDeleteGood thing their Division sucks.
ReplyDeleteFootball is a physical game. To quote Flair "you have to be willing to pay God's price." What I'm asking is what does this other stuff have to do with the task at hand. What does you stealing my clothes have to do with picking up a blitz?
ReplyDeleteQuit bullying me. Why don't you go watch some more Nick Busick matches?
ReplyDeleteThe best Math teacher I ever had was Mz. Karney (I think was her name), in 8th grade. She had outside of school study sessions, taught us a BUNCH of interesting ways to solve problems, and I got my first *ever* A in math with that class.
ReplyDeleteFlash forward to the next year, and I have Mz. Jones, who is the most boring, awful, "You should know this" kind of teacher ever, who, worse, said she expects students to get a "50" or so her quizes. I didn't understand it.
The next year I had a teacher named Mr. Bazeck and he was AWESOME. He graded the tests on a weird curve, where the average of the entire grade's class on a quiz was a C, and people who did above it got a B, A, etc.
Math is tricky because it's a lot of process and remembering formulas, which are important and I'm glad I know, but are a pain in the butt.
I get so tired of hearing how bullying and hazing builds character. If it an initiation then so be it, but how the fuck does it build a person up?
ReplyDeleteYes and no. Look at someone like Bobby Lashley or Brock Lesnar. These were people who were talented, but not devoted, and hightailed it. NFL wants people who drink the kool-aid. Ride or die with this team. "That's my QUARTERBACK! man"
ReplyDeleteI think hazing (light hazing) goes a long way toward endearing you to new teammates and a kind of awkward situation. Here's a bunch of guys smarter than me, stronger then me, and more intelligent then me. I shall sit under their learning tree.
I remember on the SCSA podcast they used to make Stone Cold do all the driving and such, and the trade off was he could just ask them questions for hours. Turned out okay for him.
The brilliant part is that, with a few exceptions, school sports is the only place in the world where being stronger is an advantage over being smarter.
ReplyDeleteThe idea is that this is supposed to get them ready for the real world and then completely twist their training ground into this place where football or baseball have some greater social value than just being pass times is hilarious to me. We're doomed.
Okay here's an example from my life. I work tech support, I'm not great my job, but I show up everyday, don't complain, come in when I need too on off days, and generally try to be the most low maintenance employee on the payroll.
ReplyDeleteOne day I take it easy and kind of slack off on putting away some hardware stuff. I come in a day or two later to find it all piled up on my desk. This pissed me off to no end. NO END. Then I thought about it and was like, alright, this is a signal that I need to step up my game.
I confronted my coworker about it and we kind of had an understanding that what he did wasn't cool, but what I did wasn't good, either.
Sometimes you need a little kick in the proverbial ass to make you drink the kool-aid. Additionally I would imagine the IDEA of hazing is to give rookies a ton of extra stuff to worry about, so when their sophmore season comes around and they have all this extra time on their hands, perhaps they'll spend it being productive.
Eww.
ReplyDeleteSee that's what I mean. The WWE found out Lashley or Brock didn't "want it" by asking them to do the job, ie travel from city to city. You found out if someone can accomplish a task by asking them to do it.
ReplyDeleteAs far as your second paragraph that happens in all walks of life. School, corporate America, fast food restaurants. You are dependent on the elders to help you, but only in athletics do we tolerate the use of asshole behavior as a way of earning assistance.
I'm not saying that people don't turn out fine, I'm saying it has nothing to do with the task being asked of you.
I think it's just sporting culture, at the end of the day most guys that want to spend their whole lives playing football are assholes. Thus, when it's time to establish rules of conduct they are decided by assholes for the benefit of other assholes.
ReplyDeleteI think the asshole behavior is also used as an ego check. Here I am, rookie quarterback, laser, rocket-arm, so much money in the bank I can buy and sell anything I want, I'm the fucking greatest.
ReplyDeletewait...you want me to do what? Well, okay.
If someone had Ryan Leaf's ear and was telling him to stop being such a little jerk, he may have had a career.
I think if I watched that Bully Documentary and gave my honest thoughts on it I wouldn't have any friends left afterwards.
ReplyDeleteAnd here's where we disagree. Being an ass has nothing to do with quarterbacking. Leaf flamed out cause he sucks at quarterbacking, nothing more, nothing less. He just happened to be an ass that sucked at football. Richie Incognito is a jerk also, but he's also good at football; therefore, he will get another job.
ReplyDeleteThis whole idea of humbling someone just sounds like some slavery stuff.
How's it going down here? Having a good time?
ReplyDeleteEhhh I agree and I don't agree. Take a look at Shawn Michaels. He had to 'find god' or whatnot to get his shit together and stop being such an asshole.
ReplyDeleteSometimes you need a fire under your ass or an emotional counterweight to keep your head on straight.
Like a kabillion times. I think it's the same way Jim Crow built character in my parents.
ReplyDeleteUm, aren't they about to win?
ReplyDeleteTo my knowledge he never physically hurt anyone in the ring or outside of it. He went out and consistently had the best match on the card and no one had to take a dump in his bag in order for him to do so.
ReplyDeleteI'm being ignored, just like The Michael J. Fox Show.
ReplyDeleteThat you and the Ravens for ruining my high, jerks.
ReplyDeleteWeren't they listening to Rhamstein while they were getting their murder on?
ReplyDeleteHey, I wanted the Bengals to win. Not my fault they couldn't end it in OT.
ReplyDeleteAdded something for you. Is that better motherfucker?
ReplyDeleteTimes have changed. People have gotten soft. I was teased as a kid through elementary school, and high school. I was teased for being a ginger before being teased for being a ginger was cool. I ignored it. I didn't let it get to me, and I just kept going. Even when I was 10 years old, I was like "no motherfucker is going to ruin my day". Yeah, I said motherfucker when I was 10.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I wasn't the most athletically inclined kid in school. I remember one 9th grade gym class, we were playing basketball, shirts vs. skins. Thank goodness I wasn't skins. I HATED being skins. There's just something barbaric about being shirtless. Anyway, the ball went out of bounds, and I was on the sidelines, trying to find a teammate to toss it to. I froze. I had the basketball, dammit! What was I supposed to do with this thing? So, some kid just yells out, "Throw it here, man, I'm open!", so I toss it to the kid, he laughs and says "Thanks" and proceeds to score two for his team....the motherfucking SKINS. Just him being shirtless wasn't enough of a red flag for me.
Anyway, bullying has always been here, in one form or another. It seems that there is less tolerance for it today, but I think that's the "everyone is special" attitude we find ourselves in. I mean, if you're in elementary school, and you finish fourth out of fourth in a race, you literally get a ribbon that says "I'm Special". Society has softened it's children, and has deluded them into thinking that everyone is equal. Everyone is NOT equal, but that's OK. That's what makes things interesting. It's the people who have been shortchanged and STILL persevered and made something of themselves that are the best stories.
Then the dad and kid get sent off to jail and the kid is expelled from school and probably even more disturbed. Everyone wins!
ReplyDeleteI found Bully to be horrifying. The main kid did have Aspergers and was born prematurely.
Sounds like he's doing better because they moved out of state, though it crippled the family's finances.
Explain
ReplyDeleteHave you been teaching long enough to know if No Child Left Bwhind had a big impact on this "pass them at all cost" mentality?
ReplyDeleteHim and 11 other coaches hv done that. Manning is under 500 in his career playoff record fwiw
ReplyDeleteI think bullying is a terrible subject for a documentary. Again this is just based on what I've seen from reactions and the trailer, but the thing about film is that, even in documentary, you're gonna present your most compelling stuff. You're going to be incendiary and you're going to stick to whatever point it is you're trying to make.
ReplyDeleteI'll watch it when I get home tonight, but if I had to guess I imagine we'll get a lot of kids doing really awful things to other kids, and the kids getting awful stuff done to them will likely be shown in a good light and have absolutely no idea why their being picked on. I could be wrong.
Condensing say, a year's worth of bullying into an hour and a half documentary is going to exasperate things, not inform or enlighten people. It seems like it would be validation cinema.
I started when nclb right after it was passed so I can't compare
ReplyDeleteIt's all Marilyn Mansons and GTAs fault.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand that at all...
ReplyDeleteYou should see the movie then. There's the main kid, who was picked on for looking weird and there's a girl in Oklahoma, who basically became ostracized from her community for being gay.
ReplyDeleteThe movie also focuses on parents whose kids committed suicide and school's inability to handle it.
Being productive...like, helping the vets haze the new guys. Rock on.
ReplyDeleteI don't really mind the example you used to talk about initiation. Initiation should be used to build a sense of togetherness, mindfulness (focusing on the present in a sense), and to help assimilate newbies.
However, I think the line is drawn when it comes to hazing or bullying fellas who cannot control certain things. They way they physically look, race, sexual orientation, socioeconomic standing--these are things that should be off limits. And if someone bullies you based on the core of your being, it makes it a lot more difficult and awkward to stand up for yourself--you're never used to defending yourself based on existing.
My take is essentially this--having assholes in this world is a given, but we should never accept them acting like asses. We are too good and too smart for that these days. Some people aren't given the tools to stick up for themselves, so having bullying deterred at an institutional level is a very good thing.
Let's not mistake those who are bullied with those who have no work ethic or aren't willing to overcome tough situations.
Lol. There he is!
ReplyDeleteI ranked it 32nd for 2012
ReplyDeleteShame. I've always heard that it had a really negative impact on how teachers graded and taught.
ReplyDeleteYeah I somehow doubt people are going to say the movie about little kids getting their wrecked isn't very good. I'll watch it tonight / tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteIt's not just about little kids
ReplyDeleteI think you wildly misinterpret what Reddit is.
ReplyDeleteLike I was saying in a post just a moment ago, we want to lump in the bullying issue with the participation-trophy-you're-super-special way of life, and it is wrong to do that.
ReplyDeleteAssholes who prey upon people for merely existing (because they look different, speak different, dress different) shouldn't be tolerated by the bullied, the bystanders, or the institution in which it takes place.
This does not make those who are bullied soft. Obviously, many of those who are bullied are tough as nails for putting up with the bullying despite not having the tools to combat the situation. Many of those who are bullied have a strong work ethic and a willingness to overcome. The bullying in schools and workplaces is separate from the "pussification"/"wussification"/whatever you want to call it of America.
You also just described every documentary ever
ReplyDeleteHonestly my favorite Documentary of all time is a little flick called "Cool It" by this Bjorn Lumburg guy. It's nuts. He's advocating for like...creativity when it comes to climate change. He takes Al Gore AND republicans AND enviornmentalists to task and then goes on about an hour and a half long journey throughout the entire world to figure out how we're REALLY doing, climate wise. It's on Netflix, it's short, and it's worth a watch.
ReplyDeleteEspecially if you think of Bjorn as like, European Aaron Eckhart.
I don't think you should lump them together, but I do think the way older people handle it, parents especially, has some correlation. We don't want to hurt feelings, so when feelings ARE hurt, it's Defcon 5 time more often then not.
ReplyDeleteNot even a little bit, I've been watching that cesspool of confirmation bias for years and years now. It's a fun place to watch people that know almost nothing about real life make grand proclamations about what is right for the world.
ReplyDeleteFair point. Fighting injustice should be the way of the world, but crusading against every little perceived injustice and not knowing when to pick their battles is something parents/adults still have to learn about.
ReplyDeleteExactly. Everything is an outage, so the real outages lose their luster.
ReplyDeleteFrom my standpoint, bullying vs. "pussification" both have one mutual underlying issue: fair treatment. The victim and their family want to be treated fairly by others. Teams participating in sports, and their families, want fair treatment as well. So the other team outscores the losers 91-0, and the losing family cries that the winning team's coach was a bully.
ReplyDeleteUltimately, life is not fair, and we are sending the wrong message to today's youth that life SHOULD be fair. What happens when that kid grows up and enters the job market, then loses out on a position to someone else. And this happens repeatedly to them. Instead of continuing to push through and TRY HARDER to improve their skill set, they start to blame everything and everyone around them, eventually not taking responsibility for themselves.
That's how I see it, anyway.
Seen it. Sucked. Ranked it 254th for 2010.
ReplyDeleteThat's not what Defcon 5 means
ReplyDeleteBeing picked dead last for the kick ball team in third grade was a good wake up call for me to get off my ass and start exercising more.
ReplyDeleteA few weeks later, I made a diving catch of a screaming line drive kick. Didn't make me instantly popular, but at least I grudgingly forced them to make me a middle pick from that day onwards.
I don't know if I'll get over this comment. 2010 alone had Inside Job, Tillman Story, Exit Through the Gift Shop, A Film Unfinished, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, And Everything is Going Fine, Budrus, Casino Jack and The United States of Money and Client #9.
ReplyDeleteI can buy this line of reasoning. What I can't buy is that it builds toughness, character, grit, heart and any other nonsense. Just say the people before me treated me like this so I'm going to do it to the next person.
ReplyDeleteHaha. Nice
ReplyDeleteThere are more college aged hotties in Arizona for him to fondle. Priorities
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of the time I was in highschool and we always played pickup football. Being large and unathletic, I was always o-line. Well, we had the "3 count" rule where you had to count to three before rushing the passer. You got one "Blitz" per drive.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, QB who's a decently athletic kid snaps the ball, I yell blitz, and run after him with furious anger. The coverage is good. I keep chasing him and we eventually start running around in circles because he was obviously much faster than me, but wasn't allowed to QB run either.
Anyway, this goes on for what seems like minutes, and eventually he passes (I can't remember if it was incomplete or not) and I look and see the gym teachers muffling laughter at the spectacle of me running my ass off (poorly) to get after the quarterback. I assumed it was a "At least he didn't quit" kind of bemusement, and I sort of appreciated it.
My 9th grade English teacher, who was old as fucking dirt, taught us how to write the standard 5-paragraph essay. The very first one, I got a 55. She marked off 1 point for every spelling mistake, for every time you went over the margin, for not filling out the header correctly, etc. Easily the toughest class I took in high school because of her standards.
ReplyDeleteAnd I thank God I had that lady because it made every other paper I wrote from 10th grade through 6 years of college that much easier. I can't count the number of papers I had to write over that 9-year stretch that really all went back to that class. English 101 in college? Every single paper wrote in an hour the night before. Every single one was a 95+ grade.
Devin Harris. You win. Owned him on every front. Well done.
ReplyDeleteOK, here's my bullying storie(s). In middle school I was picked on a good amount, pretty relentlessly. I would fight back and win some but it was a lot of ganging up so at times I would start fighting one kid and his friend or friends would jump in. After trying to deal with it for a while, I broke and told a teacher or two. The response was, if they didn't see it they couldn't do anything.
ReplyDeleteSo it continued, with the administration and teachers being no help and my own friends being too weak willed to help. About half way through the 8th grade the fight in me was kinda done. I just let them hit me a few times instead of getting into a big fight. Then one day I was walking between classes outside and three of them started pushing me and punching me in the head from behind me. Something just kinda snapped. I had been working on something in woodshop so I had what was basically a mini 2x4. I took it out of my back pack and one of them laughed and came at me. I swung hard and hit him in the head. He didn't get knocked out but stayed down. The next kid I hit in the arm with it, went to hit him again but he backed off. The next kid who was looking stunned got it in the rib cage.
I was ready to keep swinging but a teacher ran up, yelled and I dropped the piece of wood. I almost got expelled for it but a really great teacher stood up for me and explained what the other boys were doing to me. I got 2 weeks suspension and as long as I did all the school work I wouldn't be left back. When I came back the three that had been picking on me didn't even look at me. And because stories get bigger and grander by each telling, the rest of the school was kinda scared of me from then on. Next post I'll go into the flip side of all this"
Can I option your story for a "Walking Tall" sequel?
ReplyDeleteSeriously though that's pretty bad ass. Sometimes you need to assert yourself, and sometimes that assertion comes with consequence.
Agreed. Especially since in every other aspect of educational life peer-relationships are fostered - ideally of course - on the basis of mutual respect and assistance. Kids are honored and celebrated for helping others improve their skills.
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying it's the best documentary of all time, just that it's my favorite.
ReplyDeleteYea, but come on.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a very well written post. To add a little bit, I think the whole "life is tough, so toughen up!" routine is silly because no one requires "assistance" to know life is tough. Everyone is going to lose jobs, lose loved ones, have relationships fall apart or, if they are really unlucky, experience even more intense forms of poverty. Getting hazed or humiliated in front of a group of peers will not prepare anyone for the real struggles of life; it will only accelerate the natural fatigue that comes with living and losing. The point of human interaction should be to provide support for each other, to provide positive social stimuli to counterbalance the negative. This is all highly idealistic and not immediately realistic, but aiming is high is the only way to improve our situation.
ReplyDeleteI guess I appreciated a kind of common-sense approach to things. He got people that agreed with him, people that disagreed with him, and did a point by point deconstruction of a lot of myths surrounding global warming.
ReplyDeleteLike any documentary with a point of view the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle, but it's a great jumping off point to look into that issue.
So after middle school, that summer I ended out hanging out with a couple of kids in the neighborhood. Everyday, we would take a nice sized canoe and carry it close to a mile to a river. This made me shed a bunch of weight and built up my muscle. Also the kids were in the higher end of the social ladder. So high school starts and I ended up on the football team after a coach took me under his wing. I'm not the coolest kid but I'm hanging out with them.
ReplyDeleteSo this ends up with me pressured to impress them, so I follow suit and start bullying other kids (some my former friends) to impress them. Then some months later one of my friends throws me a teddy bear. It belonged to a slow girl, I think she was autistic. We then proceed to play keep away. I throw the bear and it lands in a puddle of water. Watching this girl pick up the bear with such sadness snapped me out of it and I realized what the fuck I was doing. I felt horrible, like sick to my stomach horrible. This happened on a Friday, that weekend I went out and bought her two teddy bears a little bigger than the one I ruined. I gave them to her that Monday and told her how sorry I was. She accepted the apology and gave me a big hug. Meanwhile my idiot friends were making stupid comments about how I wanted to bang her and stupid shit like that.
I ended of splitting away from most of that group soon after and found a group of friends that was more of a hodge podge group. I also stopping bullying other kids. It was terrible what I did and I still feel bad but I'm glad I made up for it and it just isn't lying in my consionse.
Good for you man. The kids sound like complete douches, it sucks they picked on you like that... glad you whooped up on them Jim Duggan style.
ReplyDeletehttp://theoatmeal.com/blog/hamster_atonement
ReplyDeleteBut, if you read the sequel post, this led him to The Dark Side.
ReplyDeleteHeh, yeah, when I saw that movie years later I liked the similarities in weapons. And yeah, assertion is needed in a situation like that. I normally abhor using weapons in a fight but it just became too much and all I could think to do against three guys. It's funny how the story snowballed outta control though. I heard I beat them all bloody and broke bones. I heard I had pulled a knife, brass knuckles, a bat. I just thought it was funny the absurd lengths the story went to.
ReplyDeleteI think so long as the rules are followed in any sport or game, that's as much fair treatment as there needs to be. But I agree, people are taking fair treatment too far and inserting it where it doesn't belong. Because it was already present.
ReplyDeleteWell I wouldn't say THIS led me to the dark side. This was just me standing up for myself. And these events in no way made me popular, it made me more of an outcast labeled as crazy. It was me getting into the popular group and wanting to hang on to it so badly I did really bad things.
ReplyDeleteHeel turn, followed by a face turn.
ReplyDeleteDon't get me wrong, I still feel bad about what I did. Just writing that made my stomach turn a bit. But I tried to make amends the best way I saw how to the person I hurt. Can't make amends to a dead hamster. But if I'm still doomed to hell to be tortured by handicapped people, I'll take the punishment.
ReplyDeleteExactly! I helped people get through math just like a few guys helped me get through suicide runs. Don't know what's so hard to grasp about this concept.
ReplyDeleteBy the way Zanatude, can't my punishment just be God gave me cancer? I think that's a solid wash, huh? I'm sure you did something bad to deserve your cancer. Btw, tone is hard to convey on the interweb, this is a joke.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how, but you have a negative 1 downvote. I don't know what that means.
ReplyDeleteYeah I saw that too although it's gone now. At first I thought it was just a regular Downvote which I expected then I noticed the negative symbol next to it, dont know what that's about.
ReplyDeleteWhat about them Panthers? I put their front four up against anyone. If they can get a second option at receiver then it's look out NFL world
ReplyDeleteNice way of putting it although I wish it was an immediate heel/face turn fake out. Like DDP on the nWo, catch the bear, look to throw it then just give it back to the girl. Add in hitting my friend with a diamond cutter to make it perfect.
ReplyDeleteJust a glitch when clicking too fast from one to the other, I think. I once gave someone a -1 upvote before.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, both stories you told were amazing (both in content and in captivating writing style). As someone who bounced around a few different schools across the country, I was on both sides of the fence, depending on the school. As an outcast, I just tried to hold my own...and I always shocked those in PE because how could a "weirdo" enjoy and be good at sports, right? As the popular kid, I outright shunned and ignored this incredibly sweet and nerdy girl who I once talked to. I could see how she felt like crap every time I blew her off in front of a crowd. At the time, I was unaware of the circumstances behind my idiotic behavior. A few years later, I wrote a three page letter of apology to her. Never received a response, but I had to apologize and let her know that I was completely in the wrong and now knew it.
In that example, though, you did something wrong-ish and your co-worker addressed your behavior in a fairly civilized manner (though it does sound grossly passive aggressive, the adult thing to do would have been to just talk to you about it point blank).
ReplyDeleteWith bullying we're often talking about a kid who hasn't really done anything wrong except for being different enough to become a target and he's "corrected" through cruel and unusual punishments (wedgies, physical abuse, etc...).
Children are not naturally civilized human beings; it's very easy for them to give into peer pressure and fall into pack mentalities. I think that barrier between good-natured ribbing and outright cruelty needs to be made clear to them. And I don't think it's healthy for any kid to have his formative identity shaped through fear and intimidation.
Pardon me while I bully this beef stroganoff into my stomach. That'll teach it for being so fucking good.
ReplyDeleteThat wasn't a football game; that was a life experience. My brother and I couldn't even celebrate until AFTER the kneel down. There's nothing better than being relevant, and this win is relevance personified. To go into the defending NFC Champs' house, the 6-2 49ers and sock them in the mouth like that defensively?
ReplyDeleteI need a shower.
Thanks for the compliments man, I appreciate it. That sucks you had to switch schools that much, must have sucked. I did it once in fifth grade from NY to FL and hated it. I understand what happened to you. In high school social class means everything. When you've been on the bottom you'll do anything to go higher up the ladder. Good on you for making amends to that girl. A lot of kids don't realize or go to the trouble of making up for the things they do.
ReplyDeleteHeck yeah, I'm excited. Ron Rivera has converted me. Bring on New Orleans!
ReplyDeleteDude, at first you totally had me wanting to go back in time and kick your ass. Then you redeemed yourself, making me want to go back in time and buy you a beer while you are still a minor.
ReplyDeleteI just can't get over the part where you shattered the entirety of the dude's shit with a Texas Tornado punch that was not preceded by an Iron Claw. Has everything Kerry Von Erich taught me about offense been a lie?
ReplyDeleteYou could kick his ass, then buy him a beer, and you'd be an NFL offensive lineman!
ReplyDeleteFear leads to anger.
ReplyDeleteAnger leads to hate.
HATE, leads to SUFFERING.
As was my response.
ReplyDeleteI rarely pass up an opportunity to reference The Oatmeal.
My cancer was the result of bad cell mutations. But I Rose Above It.
believe it or not i've been bullied for my height more as an adult than i was as a child. i top out at 5 feet: no genetic condition, no stunted growth b/c of an illness, just f'ing short
ReplyDeletei was very fortunate that i attended private school my entire life, and i say that only b/c i think it allowed me not to be exposed to those kids who were only
at school b/c of truancy laws. Sure i was picked on and teased, and it hurt, but i never felt threatened or like i had to leave school. again, very fortunate.
it was actually my one year at catholic school where it was worst as a kid (my
grade school ended at 6th and the high school i was heading to actually had an
8th grade, so i needed a stopover), and these were the worst kids i was ever around, and has forever convinced me that a large chunk of catholic school kids are there not for faith but b/c their folks can’t discipline them worth shit. i once i
had a big wad of duct tape stuck in my head from behind and i had to miss class
and get it cut out. the abuse was emotional more than anything (though one of them did pull a knife on me at a b’day party my folks forced me to go to, just so that he could try to intimidate me), making me feel unwelcome and deficient and like an outcast (which in their insular world, i was). i do remember once i got so mad that i picked up a big stick and headed right for some of them while some others implored me to stop. i didnt do anything but i do remember the "FUCK THIS" feeling i had.
but like i said, its been my adulthood that has been filled with the most bullying.
more times than i care remember, ive had random people on the street make comments. was once in a local dive type place and as i walked past some guy said so i could hear, "hey look, its a hobbit!’ i walked up and just stared right at him while his female friends were all like 'oh man, you have to excuse him, he doesnt know what he's saying.' i just stared the guy down while he was all like 'man, you dont even wanna do this.’ i held my ground, and eventually just walked
away. (this is a place where plenty if people have been shot or killed and tons
of brawls have broken out, fwiw – meaning i didnt care that there was a very
real possibility that this guy was packing and only needed a reason, or wouldnt
hesitate to get physical)
was crossing a busy intersection and a dumbass teen on a bicycle said to his
friend, 'its a leprechaun!" laughing hysterically. i turned around and again stared him down. he got nervous and was like "uh, how ya doin'?" i just stared at him. i waited a moment and then quickly took a step towards him and he took off into the road without even seeing if it was safe.
there are plenty of other stories, but suffice it to say, i am extremely self-conscious about my height b/c i cant even go out in public without the fear of having someone make a comment, discretely or not. i'll walk by people and theyll get quiet as i pass, then i'll hear something said in whispers the each other followed by laughter. ive gotten to the point where i cant even forgive kids for being kids for not knowing any better b/c somewhere, the parent has to be responsible. kids stare as i walk by and follow me, and all i can think is “goddammit, teach your damn child some manners’
its one of the major reasons ive given up on dating; i have no reason to believe the random female i might meet is thinking anything differently than the random peeps on the street who make sure i know that theyre judging me
Yeah, I figured that. Good comic though, I laughed. Fucking cells, always mutating and not in the cool way that gives you super powers, my cancer was from a messed up thyroid btw and maybe radiation which surprisingly was part of the cure.. By the way, last time we touched on the cancer subject I flipped out on you a bit and threw a bit of a pity party. Sorry about that, days before the convo I had been told I had some new cancer cells growing and was a bit down.
ReplyDeleteBow your heads, Titans fans. Bow you heads in SHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME! #XR4TisWIN
ReplyDeleteCheap heat gets you nowhere.
ReplyDeleteMick Foley says hi.
ReplyDelete