Disneyland Closes At 35

And What About the Bullies?

I have not thought about bullies in a quite awhile, at least not in depth; still, I listened to a news story this evening about a young gay teenager who committed suicide after years of being bullied because of his sexual orientation. Then I remembered all the bullies I have ever known and I really felt  badly for this young man. Bullies can ruin a life if they are allowed to do so.

I remembered a young man who I will refer to as CJ. He was in my grade school and junior high classes from 1953 until 1959 in a small Texas town. He lived a miserable life. He was small, frail, scared and anxiety ridden every day that I knew him.

He harmed no one. He was disrespectful to no one. He was a better than average student, and yet he was picked out by the school bullies from the 4th grade forward to be one of the primary targets of their torture. His life must have been hell on earth and I have no idea what eventually happened to him.

I was never unkind to him, but I never really helped him either, although I tried on at least one occasion. I told him to pick out just one of the bullies. I told him to walk up unobtrusively and hit the bully in the nose as hard as he could and to keep swinging until his arms wore out.

Bullies pick on people that don't fight back. If they have to pay the price of enduring any pain whatsoever they will find someone else to torture. I told him to strike first, to yell and scream and give the impression that he was a bit of a crazy boy as he was throwing punch after punch. Bullies don't like to deal with people they believe to be demented.  They avoid people who fight back. They don't like to endure any pain.

CJ just couldn't find the courage. 

I'm sure the advice that I gave him as a 13 year old living in 1959 Texas would be thought of as Politically Incorrect today. I would be told that fighting in school just isn't permissible, even in self defense. I would be told that the educational system should take care of the problem. That notion is disingenuous.

School systems don't stop bullying. A kid who goes to the authorities is a marked boy or girl. The truth is that the school can do very little prior to witnessing an actual act of bullying, Bullies are good at clandestine torture and abuse.

I don't say that the school system should not be alerted. They should. I don't say that parents should not utilize this avenue first. Perhaps they should; stil, I doubt that it would work.

I wholeheartedly believe that the right to self defense is not a right exclusively retained by adults. Why should a young person not have the right to defend themselves whether they are in church, in school, or in a shopping mall?

Assault does not have to begin as a physical event. All that needs to happen is that a person be able to demonstrate that they were in fear of being assaulted and that the fear was justified. It is not always wrong to throw the first punch.

The whole notion that nothing should be done until one is attacked is, I think, incorrect. It is incorrect when dealing with the playground bully and it is incorrect when dealing with nations like North Korea or Iran. There are times when our country needs to walk up unobtrusively and punch our enemies in the nose. It is sometimes okay to hit them first and hit them hard.

 

Searching Through the Rubble

I re-read my post from yesterday and depressed myself. Today I sifted through the rubble to find some good things which have come from the misery of the past five years. There is some good news, but it is all anecdotal. I can't prove that any of these good things have come to pass, but it seems so to me.

Young people, and in fact many older people, have relearned the value of the dollar. I imagine that Starbuck's is selling fewer $5.00 coffees and more $3.00 coffees. Many people are foregoing any coffee at all other than what they make at home.

Far less money has been spent on consumer goods that none of us really need in order to live a good life. We may desire large SUV's, designer jeans at $200 each, massive flat screen television sets, access to 200 channels of HD programming, and five bedroom homes with spas and swimming pools located in an upscale neighborhoods.

I might have included smart phones and computers. I didn't because cell phones and computers have become necessities over the course of the last decade.

Families have been forced to reduce the amount of money and time that they spend eating out, picking up carryout or eating fast food. We have been compelled to eat at home, preferably with our wife and children setting around a dinner table discussing things of substance.

The nation has finally given appropriate homage to the men and women who serve our country at home and in foreign wars. Most of us treat these soldiers, airmen, marines, sailors and coast guard personnel with the high degree of respect that they deserve.

Most of us are more charitable than we were at the beginning of the decade because more of us know what it feels like to be out of work, on unemployment, watching the balance sheet of our savings or retirement accounts sink lower and lower.

It seems to me that family discussion, interaction and cooperation in trying to forge a living for the family has improved dramatically. We are not as much a ME First society as we were a decade ago.

These are all good things.

In the Age of Ennui

Ennui ( ahn wee ) is a French word meaning extreme weariness, boredom, disquiet and the like. Some also use the word to mean a generalized feeling that "the other shoe is about to fall." This definition implies a degree of anxiety and poorly defined fears for the future.

I realized today that millions of Americans are suffering from ennui. They are certainly weary. The economy shows no real signs of improving. The unemployment situation shows no signs of improving; rather, more and more large companies are issuing pink slips.

I heard on the evening news that the Merck Corporation will be laying off 30,000 workers over the next two years. The sagging infrastructure of the country is not being addressed. Highways, bridges, city streets, overpasses and sidewalks continue to deteriorate while State and local taxes continue to rise in many parts of the nation.

It seems that our elected representatives cannot agree on anything. Gridlock in government is more profound than perhaps at any time in the past quarter century. This situation is wearisome.

Either the President, the Speaker of the House, the House Minority Leader or the Senate Leader seem to find a way to get their faces on television and speak every single day without really saying anything new.

The Pundits on Fox, CNN, MSNBC, and Public Radio speak ad nauseum everyday without really saying anything new. All this is wearisome and boring.

In addition to weariness and boredom many people are anxious, disquieted and wondering when the next shoe is going to fall. Will it come as the result of slipping back into an even deeper recession? Will it be brought about by heavy losses in the Stock Market and in personal retirement plans. Is the Middle East becoming more and more of a powderkeg just waiting for the next maniac to appear and wreak futher havoc? Will we really desert Israel? Will we really allow Iran to have nuclear weaponry? Will Social Security payments be reduced? Will more and more physicians choose to either not accept Medicare or give up medical practice entirely? Will young people continue to borrow heavily to fund a college education and then be unable to secure a job upon graduation?

There are plenty of shoes that could fall at any time.

I think I will turn on the television and bore myself even further. When one is extremely bored it helps to fight off worry.

Perhaps I also need to take the time to see if there are any positives that can come out of all this.

More to come.

 

The President's Deficit Reduction Plan

I do not classify myself as a Republican, Libertarian or Democrat. I suppose I am an Independent. I sometimes vote Republican and I sometimes vote Democrat and I sometimes write someone in, like my cat Faisal.

I also do not claim to be an expert on all the troublesome issues that pundits discuss with so much passion each and every day. I do not know how Wolf Blitzer, Sean Hannity, Chris Matthews, Rush Limbaugh and the others can maintain the impressive level of indignation that they demonstrate day after day. I could not do so.

It seems to me that usually there is no absolutely correct solution to anything, at least not one that human beings can fathom. Hannity cannot be right about everything and neither can Matthews or Blitzer. The truth is somewhere in the middle, and no one wants to go to the middle

Again, I am no expert, no more informed than you who are reading my posting; still, a few things seem clear.

The first Stimulus Plan did not work very well. How do I know? I know because few of the projections relevant to what the stimulus plan would fix came true. 

If I had made the same mistakes with respect to my family budget I would be bankrupt. The best predictor of X is X. If the sun has come up in the East for all of recorded history it is not unreasonable to think that it will do the same thing tomorrow. If the first Stimulus Plan did not work, why would the second? It's not that I do not agree with some aspects of the plan. I do. Why can't Congress simply implement the aspects of the plan upon which they agree and do it right away. Why throw out the baby with the bath water?

I'm not rich; still, I cannot understand why a rich person should pay more taxes, percentage wise, than me. I simply do not understand that point of view.

On the other hand, I don't think that oil companies and huge corporations should get SPECIAL tax breaks. They should not.

I do know that this nation is going nowhere fast. I hope someone smarter than me can come up with a fix.

Take Down All the Mirrors

I have recently been invited to two class reunions. As it turned out my schedule would not allow me to attend either of the events; still, I received a number of emails, photos, and information from those who did attend. I remembered almost everyone. I recognized hardly anyone. It was difficult to believe that the people in the photos were the same people with whom I had gone to school.

Many of the emails contained short summaries of an entire life. Left high school. Joined the Marine Corps. Came home and went to work in the steel mill. Married and had two kids. Retired from the mill. Like to hunt and fish.

I duly provided a short summary of my life for those who asked. Graduated from high school. Joined the Army. Came home and went to college on the G.I. Bill. Got a job. Married and had three kids with two different women. My second wife died. Raised my 6th grader who is now in college. Semi-Retired. Teach philosophy at a college.

It seems both sad and ironic that an entire life can be summed up in a short paragraph.

I wish I had gone to the reunions. There were many people in attendance that I have not seen in more than 47 years, but my memory of them is as fresh as yesterday. I just see them, and myself, as I once was, not as I am now.

I still feel the same way that I did in 1964. I no longer believe many of the things that I believed then. I have no doubt changed considerably over the years. Most of us reinvent ourselves over time. It is in fact difficult to say what a Self really is. Is a Self really no more than memories of our experiences? Is what we think of Ourselves dictated mostly by what other people tell us we are? How could we know that we a popular, or smart, or beautiful if other people did not confirm that notion for us?

I do know this. So long as I keep passing the mirrors in my house without looking at them I feel young, and vibrant. l feel like Myself.

Perhaps it is time to remove all the mirrors.

Why Should I Blog?

I have not been very active in blogging for quite some time. I think I know why.

I see that I have made more than seventy posts and have received about three, well perhaps a few more than that, comments. I must conclude that I am writing about topics that are of little to no interest to anyone. So, why should I blog?

Well, because I have something to say, whether anyone is interested or not. I have lived now for sixty five years. I have been all over the world. I have been employed in interesting positions that brought me into contact with a wide range of people. I have a good education. Something I say should be interesting to someone. Something I say should resonate with someone. Something I say should be helpful to someone.

I continue to blog because I believe the above. You can prove me wrong. Simply don't read the blog or don't respond.

Today I want to blog about politics.

Politics is generally held in low regard. I heard today that our Congress has an approval rating of less than twenty percent. Our President has an approval rating of less than fifty percent. Ever since Watergate there have been a seemingly endless parade of political scandals related to sex, money, power, perversion etc.

In my view to be a human being is to be political. Most all of us strive to improve our position, to increase our power, to gain more status, to become more important. We are political almost from birth. We vie for attention with our siblings, our classmates, our teammates, and our spouses. So, why are we so disappointed with our politicians? I think it is because they have not done a good enough job to earn a favorable rating.

If unemployment was low, earnings high, the stock market healthy, the price of houses going up, and the rewards of getting an education considerable, we would be applauding politicians. None of the aformentioned is the case; thus, all the grumbling about politicians.

We dont really dislike politicians.We just do not like those that are ineffective