Murder Never Helps

Great, another celebrity murdered someone and now we all have to deal with days of weepy posts about how star-struck we are, insuring one thing and one thing only, other desperate people who need *HELP* will be convinced by the un-ending wave of praise for the recent pseudo-victim murderer that their self-murder is a wonderful idea sure to fix problems, leave everyone bemoaning their demise, win them lasting wonderment in every life they ‘touched’, and in general upgrade them from misery to sainthood.

THAT ISN’T HELP.

Copycat self-murder is so common it even has an official name, the Werther effect. People, especially vulnerable teens are 4 to 6 times more likely to commit suicide after someone else does according to various publications on the subject. Also known as the suicide contagion, seeing, knowing about, or reading/viewing media about a suicide spreads suicidal tendencies because desperate people decide that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

For literally more than two centuries (the effect was first scientifically noticed in 1774) the media has been warned that publicizing suicides causes others to view the act in a positive light and follow the trend. Suicide clusters are repeatedly seen in schools, social groups, cities, and in deed whole national populations as those who struggle with their life see the praise and attention heaped upon the ‘victims’ of suicide.

Those who die in suicides are not the victims. They are the perpetrators of an ugly, unacceptable, vicious murder which destroys families, friends, schools, workplaces, and social groups. Unlike a typical murderer, these murderers will never be brought up on charges, their victim’s family and friends will never be able to pursue a criminal conviction, they will never have their day in court, will never see justice done, and, under most circumstances, will be wrongfully judged by outsiders for ‘allowing’ the murder to take place to begin with. They destroy just as many lives as your average thug, but instead of feeling righteous anger at their actions, society gives them laurels and tears. Instead of a prison cell and societal damnation, they get well-attended memorials with flowers, weeping, and gentle tidings into the next life.

THIS ISN’T RIGHT.

Some people are sick enough, are desperate enough, are depressed enough, are any number of things enough to think murder will solve their problem. IT WON’T. Murdering yourself is a permanent solution to a temporary roblem, a permanent solution that is the most selfish act a person can do; that will destroy your loved ones; that will devastate your friends; that will leave a torn wake of mutilated emotions which will scar the survivors for the rest of their lives. It’s an ugly, narcissistic, brutal, and above all completely inexcusable action.

And every time the media says ANYTHING but that over another useless, worthless, destructive self-murder they sow the seeds for another one. What people who are contemplating suicide need to hear is it is wholly unacceptable, it’s never an acceptable answer to any problem, and it won’t help anything. They need real help, not a push towards the cliff. They need to know that LIFE is worth it, not death. They deserve every help we can offer, every consideration, every outstretched hand, warm shoulder, open ear, and gentle arm we can offer. Again, and again, and again.

But the second they step over that line, when they change from a desperate person seeking help to a murderous narcissist who rejects all the help offered and instead destroys the people who are willing and able to do anything to comfort them, they should be rejected. Society needs to say THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE.

An actor died, he also committed murder. We may or may not have liked his movies, his comedy. We may or may not have been touched or repelled by his performances, but pretty much all of us were aware of him. He was a cultural icon that most people above the age of 8 or 9 today would recognize. His death will leave a hole in our cultural awareness. But there is only one person to blame for that: him.

He murdered a cultural icon, a father, a husband, a friend. Regardless of what he was in life, in death he was a vicious murderer who thought only of himself. THAT is what anyone contemplating following his example needs to hear. Not that he’ll be missed, not how tragic it all was, not how he touched generations of people, not that he’ll be remembered. All of that is irrelevant now. HE made it irrelevant when he chose to walk away from all that to commit a murder.

If you are depressed and don’t think you can get up in the morning, do you want to be remembered as someone like that? Do you want your legacy to be that of a narcissistic murderer who destroyed the lives of his family and friends and left havoc behind him? Of course not, and sometimes that’s all that someone has to cling to, the absolute knowledge of what their death will bring about. If you take that away, not only just take it away but replace it with temptation, you help facilitate their death.

So don’t fuel the hype, don’t help the unethical media make more destruction, don’t spread ruination. Don’t even say his name. For over two hundred years we’ve known that spreading the word and speaking of the perpetrator of suicide pleasantly and positively only brings about more of the same. Do you want to cause more suicides, or do you want to help those in need?

I choose to help. I’ll never tell anyone that suicide is anything other than the horrible, ugly, vicious, cantankerous, destructive, ruinous, inexcusable and unacceptable thing that it is. I’ll say it loudly. I’ll repeat it again, and again, and again. So that anyone listening will NEVER have the excuse to think their death will make life better. It won’t, and I won’t perpetuate that lie. Don’t murder yourself. It’s unacceptable. And don’t help facilitate it by pretending it is.

If you need help, accept it, everyone, regardless of who you are, have dozens of people willing to help you. If you think you lack this, you are wrong. It is your sickness talking, not reality. Very few people will judge you for seeking help, they want to help, but they will judge you for refusing help when it’s offered. If you don’t know who to seek help from, just go to the closest adult you can see right now and say ‘please help me, I’m depressed and thinking about suicide’. They’ll help. 9,999 times out of 10,000, they’ll help. So will the next person you see, and the one after that. And the complete stranger on the street. Or me. Life is worth it.

There is only two constants in this world, one is “this too shall pass”. If you’re riding high and loving it, this too shall pass. If you’re so depressed you can’t get out of bed, this too shall pass. If you can’t walk through the halls without getting teased, harassed, or abused, this too shall pass. If you’re top dog and everyone cowers before you, this too shall pass. Whatever seems insurmountable, unending, or life-shattering, this too shall pass. Joys, trials, pains, ecstasy, pleasure, hope, depression, loneliness, companionship, nothing comes to one that isn't common to many, so pretty much anyone can help you through it, can help you get to the next step. But one thing you have to be for whatever ‘this’ is to pass, is alive. You win when your heart beats one more time, you lose when it stops. Don’t lose on purpose. Win, win one minute at a time if you need to. Win one second at a time, one heartbeat at a time. Because the alternative is simply, wholly, unacceptable.

Let's Pretend We Don't Like Bullies

Here’s the problem. Unless you were the one being bullied, you probably do have to pretend. Yes, I said that. Now put down the pitch forks and follow me for a minute. In society the ‘bullies’ are unanimously the popular people while the bullied are the unpopular people. Do you know why that is? Because people like the popular people, thus making them popular, and people don’t like the unpopular people, thus making them unpopular. To ask society to dislike bullies is, in fact, asking it to do something no society in the history of the world has ever accomplished: dislike popular people. It’s like asking someone to invent a square circle, a purple shade of yellow, or dehydrated water. Popular people get to bully because they are well liked and their victims are not. It has not one lick to do with what the unpopular person wears, behaves like, looks like, etc (although any/all of those may very well have to do with *why* they are unpopular instead of simply not popular, it has absolutely NOTHING to do with why they are bullied). It has to do 100% with the fact that popular people have an underdeveloped sense of self paired with an insanely high sense of self-esteem. In other words, they have no idea who they are so they see anyone disagreeing with them as an attack but they also think they utterly deserve to be liked by everyone just because they are alive. This combination creates people who attack others to stabilize their own position in the ‘herd’. Since their peers 1) mostly suffer from the same problem and 2) are afraid the alpha personality will be turned towards them if they don’t toe the line, they spend their time catering to the popular people. This is not an age thing; it is not a school thing; it is not a culture thing. It’s a human thing. The majority of people, not kids, not girls, not men, not adults, but people, might think the concept of bullying is wrong, because *they* don’t want to be bullied, but when it comes to applying that belief, they are far more interested in what others might think of them to actually enforce anti-bullying. Of course people will change which side they are on, the self-assured 6 year old who could care less what the popular kid in class said about him may become the insecure 21 year old who is mortified that someone he barely knows might think him a ‘sissy’. The playground bully might become the secure college kid who is horrified by his past behavior. The thirty year old manager who can’t bare being proven wrong about anything and steals everyone else’s hard work, might become the 60 year old executive who now understands his self-worth isn’t predicated upon whether he’s perfect (although power being power that tends to happen the other way around). There might be slightly more 60 year olds than 16 years olds, slightly more 16 year olds than 6 year olds, and slightly more 106 year olds (comparatively speaking) than 60 year olds who has figured out how to be comfortable in themselves and only care about what those with importance in their life think. Because don’t get me wrong, carrying *only* about what *you* think is equally narcissistic as caring what *everyone* thinks. But eventually, hopefully, you learn it doesn’t matter if everyone finds you attractive, as long as your spouse does, don’t matter if everyone finds you smart, as long as your boss thinks you can do your job, doesn’t matter if everyone finds you friendly, as long as you’ve a friend, etc. Of course age does help maturity, but it does not grant maturity, and different people need wildly different lengths of time to reach comparable levels of maturity. But in the totality of humanity those that have figured this out are in the minority. You want to end school bullying in a month? Have every teacher and administrator tell every bully they see that bullying is not tolerated the first time they see it/it’s brought to their attention, the second time they see it haul the bully into the office, make them stay after school, write ‘I will not bully’ 1,000 times, and kick them out of all extracurricular activities for the rest of the year (this part is critical because it lowers their social standing and therefore their effectiveness as a bully). The third time they see it suspend the child and inform the parents that any further bullying will result in immediate, permanent expulsion and all records about the bullying turned over to the victim’s family in case the family wishes to pursue a restraining order, civil, or legal proceedings (because most bullying is de-facto criminal). A few things would happen, the schools would be populated by only well behaved students who don’t care what other’s thought and were just interested in learning (or at least those who are smart enough to shut up and act like it), every school would lose the bulk of their varsity sports teams, most of their rich kids whose parents donate all those pretty green things, all their clique leaders, most of the student government, and a great many of the most popular teachers’ favorite kids (the unpopular teachers tending to like those who are actually in school to learn not to win a popularity contest). Since no school would even consider shooting itself in the foot like that, no one is going to actually do anything about the bullying we see in schools. ‘We’ like the bullies too much, and the victims too little. Another way to effectively stop *physical* bullying is to offer a free self-defense course to everyone who is a victim of bullying (such is already offered by some pretty famous gyms and professional fighters and has done wonders for bully problems for the kids who complete the courses). It won’t stop the verbal attacks, it won’t depopulate the schools of all the popular kids, but it will keep those popular kids from laying a hand on the unpopular kids. Because people do not attack those whom they know will put them on their face in the middle of the cafeteria. But then, you’d also have to make self-defense legal in the schools, which right now it is not. In the vast majority of schools it doesn’t matter if four big football players are beating the snot out of one not-yet-hairy sophomore, if the sophomore throws even one punch back at his attackers he’ll be treated as equally ‘guilty’ of fighting and be expelled. Actually, real world scenarios show that the unpopular kid who defended himself from the bully is likely to receive a far harsher punishment than the popular bully. BECAUSE THE AUTHORITIES LIKE THE BULLY. Almost no one cares if a kid that no one likes get a bloody nose or a broken arm, or his property stolen or destroyed, as long as the popular kid can throw a football, look cute in a prom dress, makes a great picture with a pompom, has a parent who sits on the school board, or a father who plays golf with the principal. But they very much care if a broken arm keeps someone from throwing that football or if that black eye mars that pretty face. We, as a society, don’t care. Societies as a whole don’t care. Only popular people are worthy of the victim’s spotlight, so we’ll highlight a couple of ‘newsworthy’ bullying that falls into the greater PC political ideology of the day which hasn’t trickled fully into the mindset of all 10 year olds yet (or make one up if we can’t find any), utterly ignoring all the rest of the bullying that happens every day, and make some pretty noise about how we don’t like ‘bullying’ while doing our level best to keep the bullies in positions of power because they’re just so darn likeable! And the victims, well, nobody likes them anyway, they probably did something to deserve it, like get an A in a hard course, tell someone they shouldn’t be getting drunk underage, or *gasp* wear a slightly atypical accessory to school. Meanwhile, if you actually *do* hate bullies, not the vague concept of bullying, do something about it. First, REMOVE vulnerable children from environments where bullying is encouraged, first and foremost the public school system, until and unless they are sufficiently strong in mind and body to not care about being bullied. Second, teach your children self-defense and promise you will stand behind them if they beat the crap out of someone who hit them first (or, depending upon your temperament, put them in a submissive and thus humiliating but non-injurious hold maintaining until the bully backs down or authorities arrive), regardless of what the bully-loving authorities threaten, and teach them to be secure enough in their sense of self that they don’t care what something says about them. Thirdly, protect your children, if they are being bullied before number two is finished, take care of it. Go to the principal, remove your children from the situation, go to the other parents, go to the police, go to the police again, and again, and again, go to an ADA, call them 40 times every day, get a lawyer, move to another city, etc, etc, etc. DO NOT simply assume you’ve ‘done everything’ and there ‘isn’t anything’ you can do to make it stop and your kid just has to ‘put up with it’. And don’t tell your kid they should be the ones to change. They can’t do anything to stop the bullying by ‘changing’ something immaterial to the cause of the bully, which has absolutely nothing to do with what they are wearing, achieving, talking like, or looking like, and everything to do with the fact that they are unpopular. Which is a good thing, being unpopular means you’ve raised a kid who isn’t so insecure they feel necessary to bully *other* kids just to secure their social standing. If your kid is being bullied, congratulations, you haven’t raised a bully, now make sure it stops until they are ready and able to deal with it both physically and emotionally, or they may revert to said behavior to make the pain stop. Hint, if they come home crying they aren’t ready yet. If they come home rolling their eyes about what some idiot said today, they’ve got it handled. We can’t stop bullying, because the majority of the population, *ANY* population, will always support the bullies. It’s a fact of life. What we can do is give our children the tools to be survivors, not victims, and to protect them until that time. So instead of pretending society doesn’t like bullies, which is absurd as a square circle, let’s just focus on whether we as individuals are ready to grow past the immature reliance upon other’s for our sense of self-worth that makes bullies successful, and decide that we as individuals won’t put up with bullying or leave our kids to be victims. It won’t stop bullying, people who decide to actually make that decision will always be in the minority of the overall population, but it will help protect you and your children from bullies, which is as much as we can ever logically hope when confronted with the evils of society. Or, you can go on liking bullies, your kids might be one someday. I don’t care, because I could care less what a bully says, and I’ll make sure to protect my kids until they don’t either. And any bully stupid enough to physically attack me or mine, well, let’s just leave it at there will be professionals of one form or another involved.

The Word is "Of"

Every year about this time we have whole hoards of people who are so incredibly terrified and offended by other people’s religion they think the only proper response to seeing any reminder of that religion is to take away other’s First Amendment Rights. Now I’m not talking about the yearly atheist billboards in Time’s Square. While a little snarky perhaps, that’s them expressing their religious beliefs. That’s what the First Amendment is about. No I’m talking about incidents like what happened at Gitmo base this year. A small group of anonymous servicemen were so horrified to see a small nativity scene and a couple of banners that said ‘Merry Christmas’ and so terrified to speak out against this blatant ‘religious discrimination’ they had to go to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (which isn’t a fan ‘of’ religious freedom but a proponent ‘from’ religious freedom) instead of whoever is ostensibly in charge of decorating the base around the holidays. The military, far more concerned with PC blatherings than servicemen’s rights or common sense, promptly removed all evidence that it was December from the base. That’s the problem with PCism. In PC land the automatic response to insanity is to treat it legitimately and to force reality to conform with insanity, as opposed to demanding that the insane conform to reality. See, if a sane person perceives they are facing discrimination then the logical course of action is to assert your own rights. But for those whose egotism reaches levels of insanity, the response to perceived discrimination is to take rights away from others until they have been brought down to your perceived level. This is what happens in PC land. Despite that the federally recognized holiday is ‘Christmas’, those who are egotistically insane prefer to take away the right of expression and religion from others as opposed to assert their own rights to expression and religion. For instance, the logical response to seeing decorations celebrating a holiday that you don’t celebrate isn’t anything other than ‘oh, look, decorations’. Now, if you feel *your* preferred holiday is being left out, the logical response is to correct that, not make sure everyone else is left out as well. It’s Christmas, so it makes perfect sense they have Christmas decorations up, it isn't establishing a religion no one is being forced at sword point into the chapel for Christmas Eve services, it's celebrating a national holiday put into place because the majority of the country celebrates it, but if someone felt left out over that, then the normal, sane response is to say ‘hey, would anyone mind if I put up some X decorations?’ Then, if by some wild stretch of the imagination, you are denied, then you are actually being excluded and could logically seek a way to be included that doesn’t exclude other’s rights. I’ve yet to find a celebrator of Christmas who objected to someone else also celebrating another holiday in the winter. After all there are several other holidays around the same time here in December. As I sit writing this tomorrow is Winter Solstice, a holy day for a couple of different religions. Chanukah is over already, but it was celebrated (in part) in early December. There’s Kwanzaa, it’s only been around about fifty years, but then so have Bat Mitzvahs, and it starts on December 26th this year (does it vary like Chanukah? I’m not sure). I’ve known people who celebrated ‘Christmakah’ or perhaps it was ‘Chanukamas’ I don’t remember. Even if you celebrate Christmas but do so only secularly, there is Santa and reindeer and snowmen. Regardless, there are at least a half dozen different options, and no one sane really cares what you choose to celebrate or decorate for. But a lot of people care very much if you try to keep them from celebrating or decorating. I don’t care if you celebrate secular Xmas, a traditional Christmas, a religious-only Christ’s Mass, or a Wiccan’s Winter Solstice. That’s the point of Freedom of Religion. See, it’s an ‘of’, not a ‘from’. You don’t have the right to never encounter another’s religion. If you feel so unconfident about your own religious convictions that you can’t stand seeing someone else’s then that’s *your* issue to deal with, not other people’s. Religion simply means ‘belief’, it can be a very formalized belief with detailed rituals dating back hundreds or thousands of years, like the Russian Orthodox Church, or it can be a very loosely defined collective like Pagans or Giaists It can be poly-deistic like Hinduism or mono-deistic like Islam. It can be hold to no supernatural forces like Humanism or to a world filled with the supernatural like Shamanism. It can follow demigods like Vodun or an omnipotent God like Judaism. It can reject all gods like Atheism or follow an all-consuming God like Christianity. It’s all still ‘religion’, and in America we have a right to practice it. We don’t have a right to force others to not practice or to never see other’s practice. It is impossible for Freedom OF Religion to coexist at the same time as Freedom FROM Religion, they are fully exclusionary. And, 9,999 times out of 10,000 when people say ‘freedom from religion’ what they mean is ‘only the Atheistic religion is worthy of freedom’. There are a lot more religions than Atheism, and *all* of them are granted freedom under our Constitution, not just Atheism. Don’t like it? Amend the Constitution to exclude Religious Freedom and enshrine Freedom from Religion (or be honest for once and admit what you actually want is a state-enforced and sponsored religion of Atheism). We have a whole Constitutional Amendment process just for such issues. Of course, that would be sane, and those seeking to suppress other’s rights have already fled sanity for insanity.

This is my response to a friend's blogpost, it's not here as a separatge blog post, but just because it was too long to post as a direct apply. If you want the background here check out: http://www.evolutionaryparenting.com/big-boys-dont-cry-what-not-to-say-to-a-crying-child/ (Please excuse the format and typos, this blog is very mobile-unfriendly) I think you're fundamentally overlooking some situations here, perhaps because you've never incountered them, perhaps because you're so shy of duplicating mistakes of the past that you're too shy. First off, I think it's rarely the tears, or even the inconsolible sobbing, that parents are objecting to. It's the screaming, wailing, and bemoaning. There is a difference between crying because you are upset/hurt/emotional/joyful and throwing a fit. I'm willing to bet that when you 'freely express' your emotions you don't do so while shrieking at the top of your lungs and kicking, stomping, or throwing things. I'm sure some jerk out there has said 'if you don't stop crying I'll give you something to cry about' in reference to the tears coming from his child's eyes, but everytime I have heard it said what they mean is 'if you don't stop this fit I'll give you something to cry about'. You might not agree with the implied 'how' of that sentence, but teaching our children to constrain emotional outbursts to appropriate levels *is* our job as parents as we help tham mature. If you get fired from work it's one thing to quietly cry while packing up, but you start screaming obscenities at your boss and throwing office furniture around and you'll be lucky if all that happens is being escorted from the building. There is a huge difference between a 2-6 year old throwing a temper tantrum and sitting in a parent's lap sobbing quietly. The same thing applies to 'big boys/girls don't cry'. The vast majority of the time what is meant is 'big boys/girls do not throw fits'. Tell 'em off for poor/confusing word choice, I'm with you there, they *shouldn't* be using 'cry' when what they mean is 'fit' or 'temper tantrum' or 'screaming' etc. And just because *you* found these statements unhelpful as a child doesn't mean everyone did. My Dad always aid 'i've had bigger cuts on my eye!', which is synonmous with your 'that's nothing to cry about' line. Sure, I found it annoying, but it also qued me, even as a small child to stop and consider 'is my response proportional?' Which is absolutely another thing it's important to teach children. Irrational fear of what *might* happen (pain at the dentist in your example) or an unproportional response to minor emotional/physical trauma is not something we want to encourage in our children. Do you find it appropriate for an adult to break into inconsolable sobbing when they don't get their way? Or shrieking for ten minutes because they stubbed their toe? Children have to be taught what is a proportional response, it's not inborn. Why do some children shriek for ten minutes after a shot and others let out one painful wail and then rub the offending leg with a frown? Because some parents (usually by doing so themself) let their children carry on like it's the end of the world and others teach that such a little hurt only merits a little reaction. When I started nannying this 3 year old I got to watch her mom and she interact for most of a day first. The little girl fell, just a trip, and started wailing and crying like someone was beating her. The mom rushes over and makes a big fuss about it for five minutes, all the while the child's throwing a fit over a little scuff and eventually is carried inside to sit and snuggle on mom's lap for ten minutes before the tears finally stopped. The next day I'm taking the kid for a walk, she trips and falls and I see her face screw up in the precursor of anothing shrieking crying jag. I quickly righted her, brushed her knees off said 'you okay? Yep, no blood, you're fine' and started walking again. The girl stopped midwail, got a shocked look on her face, sniffed, and trotted after me. It took only twice more before her standard response to a fall was to pop up, proclaim 'I okay' and go back to playing. Her mother was flabbergasted when she saw it the first time. Now that is a very extreme example because in that instance the kid didn't really *want* to have that kind of reaction, she was just mimicking what she thought mom wanted and was quick to give it up once she realized it wasn't necessary, but even if a kid does want to carry on so it's our job as parents to teach them what is an appropriate response to the minor bumps and bruises (both physical and emotional) that come with life. Furthermore I think you overlook that kids *will* you crying to manipulate a situation. Not all kids, and I'm not refering to a 8 month old here or anything, but kids want what they want, and it doesn't take them long to learn some grown ups are a sucker for tears. There was a 3 child family I babysat for frequently for a couple of years. The baby of the family was several years behind her two older sisters and was, very definately, the baby of the family. She was only about 2 when I started babysitting and was as cute as could be, and had her parents wrapped around her little finger. Everytime they starlted getting her in trouble there went that little lip, her eyes would well up and then came as pitiful of a whining sob you ever did hear. Full blown pitiful crying in one second flat. The parents would sweep her up, totally forget about whatever she had just done, and assure her 'it's okay' while the older sisters looked on in frustrated offense. Second time I babysat them I see Baby steal a toy from the middle sister and then, angry at being told to give it back, throw it at her sister. I stormed over, face stern after a firm 'no!' to chastise the baby when she burst into wailing, helpless tears, arms upheld in mute appeal to be picked up. The older sister rolls her eyes, expecting, I'm sure, that the baby will escape a scolding again. I picked her up, gave her a stern face and said 'you're still in trouble' she paused, looked at me in consideration, and redoubled her efforts to appear like a helplessly pitiful toddler martyr. 'Oh stop, you're not allowed to throw toys'. She stopped, looked at me with a startled face and then said very serious 'but you don't understand tone: "it's okay Merca, it's okay." (Merca being what she called me). She was explaining to me that once she cried 'it's okay' and she wasn't in trouble anymore. It's by far one of the cutest things one of my babysitter-kids has ever done. But it was also one of the most devious. She tried it a couple more times on me before she figured I really wasn't going to let her get away with anything and everything just because she cried and she stopped and was remarkably better behaved once she believed I'd actually get her in trouble. ('Trouble' in this case having to sit with me while her sisters played) she wasn't crying because she was upset or bhecause she needed to release emotions, she was crying because she knew it would get her out of trouble. Being told to 'stopt it' was exactly what she needed to hear to nip inappropriate behavior in the bud. In conclusion, I think you need to rethink your adament denouncement of telling a child to not cry. Sometimes crying is accompanied by other behavior that should be stopped, such as screaming, stomping, throwing, yelling, etc, in other words: a temper tantrum. And children should be encouraged by their parents and caregivers to control such outbursts. Sometimes crying *is* the inappropriate behavior of a budding manipulator who has figured out a quick way to get what they want (Hollywood doesn't have a monopoly on crying on demand), which is definately not something we want to encourage. Saying, in general, that we should let our kids cry and not 'bottle up' their emotions is, in the real world, a lot different than saying you should always let them express those emotions in whatever form they choose or use form of emotional expression for whatever they choose.

Ask Them What They Mean By Choice

Today marks the anniversary of Roe v Wade, a time when 9 men fabricated a constitutional 'right' where none existed, and still doesn't through a straight forward reading of the Constitution, to kill another human being because of where he currently presided. This was not an issue that We The People had a say on, in fact there has never been a majority of Americans who agree with the unfettered abortion access that Roe v Wade and later v Dalton forced upon our society. Pro-abortionists know this. They know the majority of Americans don't like the idea of killing other human beings. So they have built their 'right' around an elaborately concocted game of creative symantics. They don't finish sentences; instead of pro-choice to kill your offspring they are just 'pro-choice'. You can be pro-choice about a lot of things. Pro-choice for school options, pro-choice for gun ownership, pro-choice for states to control welfare or not. But in other causes people aren't afraid to stand up and say what 'choice' they think should be availible. They reinvent words; in the 70's the term 'pregnancy' was redefined by the medical community to begin at implantation instead of conception so that products that cause early term abortions could be marketed as 'contraceptives'. They lie about the order of things, calling it a 'reproductive freedom' or a 'reproductive choice', when reproduction has already taken place and choice happens before action. But mostly they just do everything they can to avoid the clinical term 'abortion' much less what abortion really means.
I'm about 8 weeks pregnant. I have reproduced 3 times. I have 3 offsprings. All of my offspring are human, they have human DNA, they are members of the human species, and they are distinct and unique individuals who did not exist before their conceptions, currently exist, and will never exist again upon their deaths (in their full physical beings). As a placental mamal I have a biological duty to care for my offspring until they can be born, as a human being, made in the likeness of my Creator I have an ethical obligation to not kill another human being who is not offering me mortal harm. As a member of a civilized society I have a societal obligation to care for my children until they are of legal age, or until another can be found to care for them. And as a Christian I have the moral obligation to protect and raise my offspring in a proper manner. The only thing I don't have is the legal obligation to care for my youngest child. In fact that 'pro-choice' crowd thinks I should have the legal option to kill my youngest offspring because he is currently in my womb, exactly the place he is biologically supposed to be.
And not only that but they are advocating for my 'right' to kill very young offspring in the most horrific wa imaginable. We haven't agreed with drawing and quarting as a valid means of execution for even the worst criminals for hundreds of years, yet pro-legal-abortionists think I should be able to tear my baby limb from limb just because he is in my womb. We would be beyond horrified, riot in the street if the state executed a serial killer by immersion in a burning acid, yet pro-abortionists think I should have that right too. And if a murder was due to be executed by stabbing his head with scissors and sucking out his brain, or crushing his head between a jagged vise, everyone in the country would be clammoring for a stay of execution, yet the pro-abortionists think that's fine and dandy if the victim is an innocent child.
They are not 'pro-choice', they fight at every turn informed consent laws that wish to make sure women have real choice; they fight to close down pregnancy centers who offer support and help, because they lead women away from abortion. They are pro-abortion. They are pro-murder-your-unborn-child-in-as-henious-a-way-as-can-be-found-if-thats-what-you-want.
My 8 week old baby has human dna, a beating heat, human blood, human tissue, eyes, hands, fingers. It also, at 8 weeks, has just completed growing the only things needed to feel pain: nerve pathways, nerve endings, and a working hypothalamus. It has not yet higher order brain operations, neither did you at that age, but it does have everything it needs to feel pain. So when a pro-abortionists talks about how most abortions are early term, they are still refering to most abortions happening to innocent human beings who will feel excutiating pain, pain beyond their ability to understand, just pain, and then death.

You can't be 'pro-choice' without being 'pro-abortion'. That's like saying you could be pro-choice to rape and not be pro-rape. We aren't talking about ice cream flavors, sports teams, or even politicians. This isn't a debate any thinking human can be neutral in. You either think it's ok to kill innocent human beings, or you don't.

I don't. No human has the moral or ethical or biological right to kill an innocent member of the human race, much less a member of their own family. And I don't think they should have the legal right to do it either.
I am pro-choice for reproduction, no women should be forced to reproduce, nor should any man. Do whatever you wish to avoid reproduction and I'll be happy to fight for that right. I'm pro-choice for adoption, no parent should be forced to care for a child they can not, they should have a right to turn that child over to another who can care for it. But I'm not pro-choice for abandoning your child, no parent should have the right to simply abandon their unwanted or can't-be-cared-for child where someone else can't care for it, like in a dumpster. And I'm not pro-choice to kill your child. No parent should have that choice, no matter how old their child is. I can't kill my 3 year old kid, I can't kill my 21 month old toddler (and let me tell you, she's far more a 'drain' on my bodily autonomy than my 8 week old!) And I damn well shouldn't be able to kill my 8 week old fetus either.

If you think it should be legally acceptable to kill your own offspring, say that, at least then you're being honest. Because clinging to a 'pro-choice' or bogus 'reproductive freedom' lable just makes you for murder AND dishonest.

Disney Princesses

(So I wrote this way back in Jan and forgot it was on my computer waiting to be uploaded to my blog. Enjoy.)

I’m getting caught up on some blog ideas I wanted to post during Christmas when I was just too busy to do so. Over the season I read three different blogs on how horrible Disney princesses were as role models for our daughters to watch/enjoy/look up to. (I’m guessing someone was getting too many princess gifts from relatives) First I want to note that I’m not a ‘pink’ girl. I don’t do princess. My mother used to complain that, even as a young child, I refused to let her dress me in “cute girl clothes”. I never had a roomful of Barbies, never dressed up like Cinderella, Belle, or Sleeping Beauty. And I preferred to watch National Geographic’s and the Discovery Channel to cartoons, Disney or otherwise, when I was a child. So this isn’t from someone who is just overlooking faults because I like them.
It’s no surprise feminists dislike Disney princesses, and their reasons seem fairly consistent: the females need a man to complete them, they fall in love too quickly, they are ‘loved’ for their looks, they are weak, submissive, painfully willing to overlook negatives in their men folk, etc. They all get it, Sleeping Beauty falls in love after a single short interlude and needs a man to kiss her to save her (Snow White ditto), Ariel gives up everything to chase a man she’s only seen before and he falls in love with her because she’s beautiful, Cinderella likewise falls in love in a few hours, needing a man to save her from her abusive situation, and Belle stays with a man despite the fact that he’s abusive….
Which is, I suppose, all well and good if your knowledge on human behavior doesn’t extend past the 1970’s.
But, no offense to both friends and family who share such views (okay, maybe some teasing, but no offense meant) I’d rather my children recognize social interactions didn’t spring into existence fully formed as they are in our current generation. I think it’s good and proper to teach children history, even in the passive sense of books and movies. I think all works need to be looked at in the sense of the time they are placed or written. I don’t think Huckleberry Finn should be edited to say ‘slave’ or ‘African American’ instead of the ‘N’ word for the modern audience, or that The Whipping Boy should be banned because it depicts child abuse. And I don’t think children are too stupid to understand complex concepts such as societal changes if they are explained to them. In fact I think they can and will find great enrichment in considering not only other cultures but other times.
Let’s take Beauty and the Beast, it seems to be the Disney heroine that gets picked on the most because the modern feminist sees Belle as staying with an abusive partner.
Given the guns and clothing Beauty and the Beast is probably set in the mid 1700’s in France. A time and place where peasants still had few legal rights, and even fewer consistently enforced, especially when they were up against a noble. There was no standardized legal system and nobles taxed their towns and farmers into poverty while they indulged in excess at Versailles. Women were under the lordship of their fathers or husbands, and arranged marriages were still common, although the lower classes did sometimes marry for love (considered trite by the upper class, which arranged marriages for money and social power). Books were becoming more popular but literacy among the lower class was still rare. War was common and the kings of France were generally considered to be more interested in their mistresses and parties than ruling.
So here we have Belle, daughter of a struggling inventor. They appear to own their own farm, but they are clearly peasants, not aristocrats. Belle is a wonderfully brave, progressive, and strong woman given this. She reads for one, a rarity for the time and place. She shuns the advances of the catch of the town, a brutish man who is only interested in her for her looks.
Meanwhile her father trespasses onto a royal’s property and gets tossed in his dungeon. Neither a harsh nor unexpected punishment, the Beast would have been within his rights to mount her father’s head on the spike of his gate. Then Belle, instead of staying home worrying while a group of the local men go looking for her father, goes out to seek for him herself. She then trespasses onto the property as well, finding her father in the dungeon.
Now at this point in time the Prince would be just as within his rights to toss her in there with her father. Instead he graciously, if somewhat moodily, allows her to take her father’s place. Allows her to serve her father’s sentence, also, not a horribly unusual concept for the time. Children could be sold to pay off debts, servants sent to prison in their master’s steed, peasants conscripted by their lords to fill their needs as servants or vassals. It’s an odd concept now, because our legal system is based on personal responsibility, the person who does the crime does the time, but even now the concept of a loved one confessing to try to save another isn’t unheard of.
So now, instead of making Belle stay in the dungeon the Beast gives to her a private chamber, says the servants will see to her, and tells her to come to dinner, in essence marking her more of a guest held in ransom than a jailed prisoner. A very noble and gentle gesture when, at the time, no one would have said boo if he’d taken her forcibly to his bed.
She then turns down his dinner invite and, instead of breaking down her door and having her beat for insubordination he asks, repeatedly, for her to reconsider. Later that same night he finds her trespassing in his private chambers and, again instead of striking her or having her beat for disobeying his one direct order to her, he shouts at her to get out.
Belle, “promise or no promise” then steals a horse (a death penalty offense at the time) and runs away. Legally it’s no different than a prisoner escaping jail or a legal indentured servant/slave running away. Yet, even after this grievous sin the Prince protects her from the wolves, not only putting his royal person in danger for her safety but actually acquiring injury. She get’s scolded, rightfully so, for his injury and her transgression and she bravely, if somewhat disrespectfully, sticks up for herself and calls him on his temper (something that historically would have gotten her in a lot of trouble, you didn’t speak to royalty like that!)
Just a few days later the Beast, after seeing that Belle’s father is sick and lost in the woods, releases her from her own bond and let’s her go, despite his growing attachment for her. Then we see the local stud trying to coheres her into marriage by threatening her father with commitment to a sanitarium, which, given his current sickly condition would certainly be a death sentence. She refuses again his marriage proposal, showing that while she may be willing to serve an indefinite jail term for her father, she’s distinctly not willing to enter into a likely abusive marriage even to save her father’s life (see that as good or ill it certainly counters feminist’s primary objection to Belle).
When the villagers attack his castle the Prince finds himself in a fight with Gaston, Belle’s would be suitor. Of course the Beast overpowers him easily, after being roused from his depression by Belle’s arrival, but, when the killing blow is ready to fall, the Prince hears Gaston’s cries for mercy and leaves him alive (until the craven gets unintentionally knocked off the tower after stabbing the Beast in the back). Put that largess against the rule of Louis XV, who rarely pardoned criminals destined to die, and whose courts put even petty criminals to death in gruesome, torturous, public means.
Finally we see the happy couple in a celebratory dance, with the understanding that they married (Belle is wearing a crown in the last picture). So let’s talk about that for a moment. We consider marriage to be the end, the culmination of a relationship. You met, get to know each other, flirt, fall in love, get married. But then marriage was very much the beginning of the relationship (with the exception of some lower class that did marry for love). We say ‘we’re just as in love as the day we wed’, but in a society that arranges marriages one may be meeting one’s spouse for the first time day of (or only know them a short time previously) the marriage. You are expected to fall into love after the marriage as you get to know each other. Belle and the Prince share an immediate ‘spark’, completely in line with the time the Prince likes the way Belle looks and acts on first blush, enough to build a lifelong marriage on. While we have this abysmal divorce rate, history and other cultures teach us that almost any two reasonable people can make a marriage work. Love is a choice and an action, we choose to love after we’ve seen abundant evidence that there is physical attraction, mutual interest, and common ground, which leads, unfortunately, to the notion that, if those prerequisites fade or change, then love (and therefore marriage which in this culture is the culmination of love) can be lost. But in most of history something else was considered a prerequisite for marriage, good breeding, a dowry, social standing, or just the relative ages of the two to be married, then the choice to love and its subsequent actions, were based on the prerequisite of marriage and the social requirement to remain in that marriage. People made it work.
So, let’s recap: Belle is hardly a simpering example of feminine weakness. Instead she displays courage and strength, intelligence beyond normal, deep respect and empathy for her father, she’s disrespectful of royalty, but then the peasants of France were, despite the consequences, prone to riot and disrespect. And finally she’s willing to happily base a marriage on more than most women of the time would have obtained, a previously known mutual attraction to a wealthy, kind, and merciful Prince.
So, let’s recap: the Beast/Prince is anything but abusive, showing remarkable restraint, grace, and mercy. For royalty he’s remarkable sympathetic and lacks the violent, self-indulgent, ego-centric character of most upper class at the time (characteristics, ironically, that the at-best-middle-class Gaston that Belle rejects portrays), and is prone to listening and taking the advice of his servants.
I don’t like Disney in general for several reasons, and strongly prefer their older work to most of their newer stuff, but (with the exception of Ariel who is a bad role model regardless of how you look at it, runs away from home, makes deals with evil sorcerers, seeks a romantic interest outside of her own species, etc) how is this a bad role model for young girls?
For goodness sakes people, ultimately it’s fantasy but they’re set in what? Snow White’s about the 1100’s, Sleeping Beauty is a bit later, maybe 12-1300’s given the armor of the knights we see, Cinderella is maybe 1500’s, Beauty and the Beast is in the 1700’s, Hercules (Meg counts as the ‘princess’ in that movie) is in maybe 800-500 B.C., Aladdin is probably set in the 1100-1300 era, Robin Hood is in the late 12th century, you get the point. Use it as a good teaching moment on history and multiculturalism and let the kids enjoy their princesses and princes, Disney or otherwise.
But then maybe I’m just old fashioned.

Sometimes, kids hurt themselves

So it started over at Free Range Kids the other day with a dad frustrated that his kid's school had roped off a 3 foot dirt incline because someone had fallen, then it's over at The Stir, a mom with an accident prone 4 year old afraid of a DCFS visit over a black eye. And, I'll admit, I've been a little nervous that some moron would call DCFS upon seeing summer bruises on my son, because, as I'm sure we can all attest to, such moronic busy-bodies exist. How is it that we as a society have come so far from normal that bumps and bruises are 'troubling' and not a normal part of growing up? Bruises, scrapes, cuts, strawberries, splinters, knots, and the occassional black eye, broken bone, or stitches is just proof of a full and outgoing childhood. When I occassionally meet grown ups who have never had a broken bone or stitches I am baffled. How did they reach adulthood without passing through those necessities of play? My brother broke his arm in a pillow fight. I broke my wrist falling from a bike (as well as a toe playing a massive water fight at camp, a couple of fingers in random events, my nose during a baseball game, and my foot in track, I've had more than the average number of broken bones I admit, but still, not abnormally so). My brother got his first stitches after a bike crash when he was about 6. My first batch waited until a bad spill involving a barbed wire fence in 4th grade. But those are major injuries, that I hope my too little ones wait a few years for, but the standard 'ok who's bleeding on my floor' cuts from thorns or rocks and the standard bruises from running into stuff start about the same time they start walking. How could they not?
Kids are not china dolls, they aren't butterflies, and they have these wonderful things called bones that do an awesome job of protecting the delicate bits. Now I'm all for helmets on bikes, anything you can go faster than you can run on common sense should dictate some form of protection. But let's start remembering that those bruises, scrapes, and so forth are badges of growth and not to be ashamed of or hidden. Mentally tell those idiots who think kids should be raised in giant bubbles to go jump off a cliff in one, and stop worrying what might happen if one of them sees evidence of kids being kids.
Go collect some bruises with your kids, I bet you'll have fun doing it. :)

Intentionally Misunderstanding

I was over at www.myobsaidwhat.com the other day, a place for women to submit some of the more 'winning' quotes from OBs, L&D nurses, nurses, midwives, and the occassional anestisiologist or pediatricians concerning infertility, pregnancy, miscarriage, birth, post-partum, breastfeeding, or early parenting. Despite what the occassional troll has to say MOBSW doesn't demonize the medical community, nor even OBs (who the majority of quotes come from), but it does allow a place for women to vent on those members of the profession(s) who *should* be demonized. But it's also a place to see one of, what I believe to be, the hallmarks of the politically correct era, intentional misunderstanding. Now I'm not talking about the submitters, it's a little hard to misconstrue an OB saying 'oh stop yelling, you obviously know how to open your legs' while he forces a woman's legs apart while she's yelling 'stop! That hurts, stop!' (Somehow it's not molestation/abuse if your attacker is in a white coat).
No, I'm refering to the occassional doctors, nurses, and laymen who intentionally misunderstand a comment made so they can be righteously offended by something a commenter has said. Usually it crops up on an especially horrific quote where the ob/rn/midwife/other is being even more inhuman than usual so there are lots of comments along the lines of 'what a complete &*!@! Doctors like this should lose their license and get tossed in a jailcell with a 400lb man named bubba!' (I'm not specifically quoting anyone here) And after a few dozen women have expressed their extreme displeasure at OBs LIKE THIS ONE, some OB (thankfully the sight almost never draws she-who-should-not-be-named...if you don't know who I'm talking about consider yourself lucky) comes on and chews us out because 'not all OBs are like this and I am always very respectful to my patients, they all love me, etc'.
We all know there are wonderful, respectful, and caring OBs/etc out there, that's why we said 'like this' rancid goat when we were commenting.
Now surely professionally aren't the only ones who do this. Sometimes it's a layman who has taken offense. These usually come in references to forced c-sections, inductions, or breastfeeding quotes. Some jerk OB is overheard saying 'there's nothing wrong with this baby, I just need to leave by 5 tonight.' As they are wheeling away mom for an 'emergency' c-section, usually after poor mom has been told she *must* have a c-section *now* or she's putting her baby's life in peril. So, of course, there are a bunch of comments along the line of 'this is why our c-section rate is so high, doctors should have to document a real, medical need for the c-section along with collaborative proof and insurance/people should refuse to pay for unneeded c-sections.' And then someone will come back with 'i'm so tired of everyone being so judgemental against women who have had c-sections! My c-section saved my son's life!'
the problem is hardly limited to such situations. Regardless of what you read, listen to, or who you converse with today it seems almost impossible to get through a full day without someon taking something out of context just so they can be offended. I know, I know, to the cuurent PC mentality nothing is more sacred than being victimized. Victimhood is to be claimed whenever and wherever possible, and if it isn't possible victims are free to re-interpret anything said to them to support their inherient victimhood status (unless you are a white married Christian male, then you can only be an offender, and anything said towards you that is offensive is either your fault for misinterpreting what your victim actually said, or you deserved because whoever said it was just defending themselves.). I get that, as much as I hate PC bs, I do understand the mindset (however insane, yes, go ahead and feel offended if you think PC-ism isn't insane) that mindset is.
What I don't understand is why the people who are misquoted/understood *on purpose* seem to fall all over themselves apologizing. Why do people bow down and take such nonsense? I mean, I assume most of the time people know what they said, and most people I've met (there are exceptions) rarely go around being offensive. So I've got to assume that 99% of the time they meant what they said and were only intending to offend...the specific group they described. So why in the world do they go tripping over their words to apologize to someone *not* within the specific group they were talking about.
If I say 'i think all people named Alyssa are jerks!' Then someone named Alyssa is free to feel offened, and if they could show to me they aren't a jerk I would be proven wrong and should (and would) stand up and apologize. But if someone named Alyma came back with 'well *my* name starts with an 'A' and I'm not a jerk, you are being a judgemental bigot by assuming all people with 'A' names are jerks'. They don't have any standing to object, I wasn't talking about them, in fact I especially excluded them by defining those named 'Alyssa'. Not only do I not feel obliged to apologize to Alyma, I'm far more likely to amend my original statement to include 'and apparently one person named 'Alyma' can't tell the difference between a 6 letter name and a 5 letter name.' And I'm not overly sarcastic or anything, but someone trying to make me into an offender just so they can be a victim isn't getting any sympathy from me. So why the heck are they getting it from so many others?

wow, it's september

So I couldn't remember when I had posted last so I checked my blog and...oh, wow, april writer's challenge? Boy and it's already. Um...okay, sorry guys. Apparently I've been ignoring my blog a little more than I realized.
Mostly I've been busy crafting. Lots of sewing recently. But I'm starting to come back around to a writing mood, so I should find some time to post something soon. If nothing else maybe I can get my laptop to an internet hotspot and post one of the 3 posts that have been sitting in there for months (and months). That and I need to finish a guest post I've been asked to do. For now though, why don't you wander on over and surf some of my favorites? In no parituclar order: http://myobsaidwhat.com http://www.jillstanek.com http://freerangekids.wordpress.com http://www.evolutionaryparenting.com http://realchoice.blogspot.com http://firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/ and http://www.crappypictures.typepad.com there you go, a random assortment of blogs I read on a semi-regular basis, have fun!

April Writer's Challenge- Dialog

So I had a comment on my last piece, the writing challenge prologue for my friend Eric's blog, from another writer/blogger ( http://doingthewritething.wordpress.com/ ) I was surfing over at her blog and noticed she had an April writer's challenge to do a dialog piece. She had a very touching and image-provoking piece up as her entry, a list of email entries, and I immediately know exactly who/what to do for a dialog piece. The submission guidelines are simple, a dialog back and forth of any kind with JUST dialog, no tags, no asides, no descriptions. The goal is to create two or more distinct characters just through dialog. It's actually a goal I've played with for some time, and argued over with creative writing teachers as I tend to keep up with dialog better than they perceive the average reader does. Which is to say I rarely feel tag lines such as (s)he said, so-and-so replied etc are necessary. I tend to make the introduction at the beginning and assume my reader can keep up with the back and forth of conversation. I do, however, tend to like motion or action asides and tonal descriptions like 'he leaned against the wall' or 'she said with pity in her voice', so trying to find a scene where just the dialog would be sufficient to portray the depth of emotion of the scene was somewhat difficult. But a situation from book three of Tiger came to mind as uniquely appropriate. I'm resisting the urge to explain the situation as, well, that would kind of circumvent the point of the exercise, so, hopefully, the dialog is more or less up to the challenge ;) .... here you go!

"Tiger, you shouldn't be standing there. That window exposes you to a hundred rooftops."
"I've lost a husband and a child in the last week Richard, an assassin's arrow is not my primary concern."
"You don't have the luxury of being just a mother or wife, you know that. The nation lost it's Prince Consort and one of it's princes, it needs it's Empress. Come away."
"I can see the city square from here. It's where they hung him."
"He's not there. The servants have his body Tiger; they are readying him for burial."
"I know. I've already been to see him, and I saw the marks on his neck. He was still alive when they hung him this morning."
"I inspected the body. The noose broke his neck. It was a clean death."
"Clean death? Richard, he wasn't a man grown to care of such things, nor a warrior to expect such. He was a child of five, there is no such things as a 'clean death' for one so young."
"Come away from the window Tiger."
"Why? The Grey Wolf doesn't need an assassin's arrow; they've destroyed me. With one fell swoop they widowed me and placed me in an impossible position. They judge me as a mother for letting him die, or they judge me as a ruler for saving his life. 'One must never trade two lives for one'. I had no choice, but my people will fault me all the same, and who can blame them? What kind of mother won't move the world to save the life of her child?"
"They won't fault you. They too have lost children and loved ones to this fight. You share their pain, and so they will follow wherever you would lead."
"Tell that to my nobles, already they plot."
"They're nobles, that's what they do. You knew this war was unpopular when you started it. Too many have made their fortunes in the grey market to appreciate your attack against it."
"Thank you Richard, 'I told you so' was exactly what I needed to hear right now."
"That's not what I meant and you know it. I lost a son and a grandson as well."
"I know. I'm sorry. It's not your fault."
"Thank you, it's the first time you've said it."
"You were watching over Lily, and my husband should have been more than capable. It's too much Richard. The economy struggles, the nobles grumble, the people bleed, and that tiny body. I didn't need to see him hung to see it in my mind. I can see him swinging there, right there on the announcement post of the square."
"Another reason to come away from the window. He's gone Tiger. And you withdrawing your blockade would not have stopped it. It may have delayed it, but you know he was dead as soon as they took him, one way or another."
"No, I don't. I could have withdrawn. The Grey Wolf has returned prisoners of war in the past, has honored ransoms and seen captives home. All I had to do,"
"Was break one of the most sacred rules of your throne and throw away your honor as a ruler. Your people need you. They need their Empress, not a broken mother. There will be time to weep, Tiger; there will be time to grieve; you will have a chance to mourn, but right now you must put on your mantle as ruler and go to your people. Right now their grief will have to be enough for you."
"It's not as easy as you make it sound."
"Easy? I've lost a wife and a daughter in service to you, and now I've lost a son and a grandson as well. Life is never easy, but it's still your choice to follow through or to give up. And you've been through too much to give up on your obligations. Come, your people await your words. Stir them to righteous anger instead of depressed grief. Your family's blood has wet the ground, but you can still win this war."
"I have no righteous anger right now Richard."
"Find it. You have other children Tiger, would you forsake your duty and force the mantle of leadership upon Lily while she is yet so young? And in the midst of a war? Stop this maudlin and pull yourself together."
"Ever the poet,"
"Tiger,"
"No, you're right, I know that, brutal as always, but correct. Bring me my formal attire, I will need the trappings of my rank about me to manage. But I shall."
"Your servants await with it in the outer room, my Empress."
"I hate it when you do that Richard. Go, be with my children, give them what comfort you can. I shall have to be enough for my people this day."
"You will be Tiger."

March Writer's Challenge

For those of you who normally read my blog this is an unusual entry, it's a prologue to a (hypothetical) second book in my Ten Nations world. It's an entry (short fiction) into my friends March Writer's Challenge that can be found here:ericswett.wordpress.com look at the March 1st entry. So, without further procrastination, here is the prologue to Balhook Chaos:

Prologue

“You bungling, maligned, interfering, drunken bastard of a mageling!” Shacree banged into the room already at full volume and flung the handbill at the table. “I thought we had an agreement about this!” The servants wisely scattered but Matthew, Head Mage of the Mage Council, narrowed his eyes and glared back at the furious intruder. His guest simply leaned back and smiled at her.
“Shacree, long time no see.” The elaborately dressed gentleman smirked at her. She stopped her advance on Matthew to turn a murderous glare at his guest.
“You, I told you I’d kill you if I saw you again.”
“Yes, but I assumed it was just one of those threats you’re so well known for.” He returned her glare with an unperturbed smirk. Shacree snarled and changed directions.
“Shacree, stop.” Matthew commanded. Per usual she ignored his command, but it did distract her attention and she once again turned her steps to Matthew.
“This?” She pulled out a second handbill and crumpled it before throwing it ineffectively at Matthew. “We agreed you would stop putting out wanted posters for me.” She growled.
“That was back when you were still being reasonable.” Matthew told her.
“You’ve made me unemployable.” The words came out between gritted teeth and the temperature in the room went up several degrees.
“I told you I needed you at the Palace.” Matthew picked up the second handbill from some eggs and dropped it onto the floor.
“About that.” She pointed one gloved finger at Matthew’s guest. “You force me back to the Mage Palace while Talgis Bloodeyes is here? I’m not your bloody assassin Matthew.”
“That was a long time ago Shacree, and you’ve yet to carry out your threat, besides a little bird told me you were showing more restraint these days.”
“More like a meddlesome winged man.” Despite the tone of the words Shacree’s temper seemed to go down a few notches at the reference to her old traveling companion. “Is he here?” Her voice softened marginally.
“No, I see him every few years, but mostly he’s busy. Af’Raiell comes by more often, but he left a few months back. Are you ready to talk now?” Matthew motioned to a seat. Shacree glared sullenly, took a few steps, and leaned against the wall.
“I’m not sitting at the same table as that.”
“I’m wounded.” Talgis murmured.
“Not nearly as much as you’re going to be if one of you doesn’t start explaining what was so bloody damn important it required setting every bounty hunter in the area on me.”
“Don’t be so dramatic.” Matthew rolled his eyes. “What bounty hunter is going to come after you?”
“What do you want Matthew?” Shacree’s voice dropped into the longsuffering tone Matthew knew meant she was ready to listen.
“Talgis came across something disturbing in his travels.”
“He’s a pirate Matthew, everything he comes across is disturbing, if not before than shortly thereafter.”
“Haven’t you heard? I’m retired now.” Talgis input with a smile.
“Then why are you still wearing that ridiculous hat?” Shacree glowered at him. Talgis swept the broad brimmed red hat with its gaudy plumage off his head in a mocking solute to the temperamental woman. Then, ignoring the usual proprieties of the breakfast table, he set it back on his head at a rakish angle. Shacree’s glower deepened.
“I’m Prince Bloodeyes now, with my own island and everything, and Admiral of a fine fleet. I leave the pirating to my captains. The hat is an affectation.”
“Good to see your manners haven’t improved.”
“Nor yours.”
“Matthew, if you have a point, make it.” Shacree resolutely turned her eyes from the aging pirate.
“The government of Balhook Island has radically changed in the last few years; they went from something of an awkward republic to a dictatorship.”
“Mageling, I am not an ambassador, I don’t care what one small island chain is doing with their government.” She said without much patience and as much scorn as she could muster. Matthew ignored the jibe.
“No, but you are a mercenary, and you have experience with chaotic magics. Talgis’s report makes me suspect there is something in your area of expertise manipulating things.” He told her. Shacree snarled and started pacing, fast, quick steps like a caged animal.
“I’ve had quite enough of that to last the rest of my life. We killed most of the Centiums along with their Master not ten years past, how much of a chaotic problem could you possibly be having?”
“You didn’t kill all of them, and the Mage Council has had nothing but trouble the last ten years. As much as we tried to keep it quiet what happened has become common knowledge to the Mage community. Not all of it.” He added quickly as Shacree’s eyes narrowed on him dangerously. “The knowledge that a living, if questionably successful, mix between a person and Centium was discovered had fueled a whole new round of chaotic mages with aspirations of greatness.”
“yes, I’m sure your battle mages are very busy; still lacking anything that had to do with me.” Shacree took a deep breath, stilled her anxious pacing, and leaned once more against the wall. “Matthew, none of this merited dragging me away from a successful job with wanted posters. Az’ might be right about my patience, but it’s still short, and being in the same room as him isn’t helping.”
“I’ve noticed it’s getting a bit warm in here.”
“Deal with it.” Shacree said shortly. In truth the temperature had risen to uncomfortable levels but Talgis made no move to doff his elaborately brocaded silk jacket, nor Matthew his mage robes. Talgis did dab at his brown with a handerchief, which he then tucked back into his sleeve.
“I need you to go with Talgis to Balhook and see what’s going on. You can take care of it if there is something untoward there.”
“Matthew, I’m not sticking my head back in a hornet’s nest. I have absolutely no reason to go gallivanting off to see if some dictator is employing chaos, chaotic beings, or mixes to oppress his citizens. I’m no more a philanthropist than I am an ambassador.”
“No, but again, mercenary.”
“I don’t work for mages.” Shacree growled out. “Get Bladesworn to do it, that sword of his gives him just as much ability as I do to find chaotic magics.”
“Hardly, it only detects chaotic creatures, and they have to be fairly close, which you know.”
“Regardless, his mission is to kill them, mine is to avoid them. Or get Az’Raiell, he can’t be so busy begetting that he wouldn’t welcome a good fight with chaos.”
“Crass Shacree. He’s only taken the one wife, despite attempts to persuade him otherwise, but he is too busy re-founding the government to be dragged away, as is his brother, and Wynter is helping them. And none of them owe any allegiance to me. Even Bladesworn is unlikely to go just because I tell him there might be chaos there.”
“How ironic, since I’m not going to go just because you tell me to either.” Shacree pushed herself off the wall with a thrust of her shoulders.
“But I’m not a mage.” Talgis rejoined the conversation. “I can hire you.”
“I don’t work for those I’m planning on killing either.”
“Stop with the posturing.” He smirked again. “You’re not going to kill me. I’m a pirate. I did what pirates do; you lost. You were young. I was young, and you’ve had well over three hundred years to track me down and kill me if you actually wanted to.”
“About that, you were saying you’re not a mage?”
“Okay, so I’m mageborn, but I’m not now nor have I ever been a practicing mage, not even a Hedge Mage. I’ve never apprenticed, and I’m not vested with the Council. I’m a magic user, but I’m no more Mage than you are.”
“Technicalities.”
“Important technicalities I think.” Matthew told her.
“Besides, how you would like to be able to enter a port again?” Talgis smiled and popped a bit of sausage into his mouth.
“Given that it’s your fault I’m blacklisted you mean?”
“I didn’t burn down that ship, you did that. But yes, I have a certain amount of persuasion in the area. I’ll let it be known that my ships will accept you. I think you’ll find the other captains will stop being so unreasonable shortly thereafter.”
“I don’t have much use for ships.”
“Everyone has use for ships on occasion, if not for themselves than for merchandise. Matthew tells me you still own that stud farm. There are places you could sell a good horse for ten times what you’ll get in the Ten Nations if you’ve got a ship to transport it.” He pointed out.
“Not mentioning anything I care about yet, at least, not more than I care about avoiding Centiums.”
“It’s unlikely there are actually Centiums on the island, unless they’ve been summoned there by a chaos mage. More likely it’s a chaos mage manipulating the local Night Faeries.”
“I. Don’t. Care.” Shacree stressed each word separately.
“I’ve got something you want.” Talgis stood and strapped on his buckler and sword with exaggerated care. “I’ll give you satisfaction, provided of course that Matthew has a healer standing by.”
“Talgis, she’ll kill you.” Matthew exclaimed.
“No, I don’t think she will.” The retired pirate gave Shacree a knowing look, watching her size him up.
“No, I suppose I won’t.” She breathed.
The temperature in the room suddenly dropped to near freezing, and Shacree’s flame red hair took on a corona of real fire. At the same moment as Matthew shouted ‘not here!’ Shacree swept out her hand and table, dishes, and most of the other furniture in the room exploded as she superheated then tore them apart with her fire.
Matthew warded himself against the flying debris and scrambled backwards to the far corner of the room. Talgis raised his arms across his chest and his natural magic flared in a flash, deflecting the debris as well as Matthew’s wards.
Talgis drew his wide cutlass to meet Shacree’s bastard sword. Her one handed swing drove him back several paces, but he held her sword with his. They clashed swords for a few quick blows. Tlagis was good, but he had no chance of beating Shacree, nor even standing against her for more than a few moments. He gave ground willingly, and she pursued him with a psychotic grin on her face.
The sharp ring of steel on steel faded as they fought, replaced by a blunted clang. Shacree’s blade radiated heat in waves and left tacky gouges in his blade. The heat coming off her made Talgis’s face hot and tight, an odd counterpoint to the still-freezing room.
She slipped around his guard to draw first blood; her burning sword searing the wound shut even as it cut a neat slice from inner elbow to outer shoulder. Talgis let out a startled shout, more in surprise at the burn than in pain.
The flinch was all the opening she needed. In three quick strikes she laid him open from left shoulder to the bottom of his right ribcage, across to his left hip, and then sliced deeply into his thigh almost to his knee. The room filled with the scent of burned flesh as he stumbled away with a cry and ended up on the floor as his leg gave out. None of the wounds were life threatening, especially given the lack of blood from the burns, but the spill was a deadly mistake. For a moment, with Shacree’s fire-filled eyes glaring down on him and her sword decending, Talgis was afraid he’d misjudged her and she was going to deliver the killing blow. Shacree’s face twisted as she felt the sudden rush of fear through him and the gibbering in her mind, more muted than it once was but forever there, leapt to the forefront.
Kill! Kill! Spill the blood; crack the marrow! Lap the blood; suck the marrow! Kill!
Shacree snarled and jerked her sword around before she killed him through unintentional rage. Instead she swung the sword in an ark and drove the point through his hand as he tried to scramble away. Talgis aborted a guttural scream and grabbed at his wrist above his skewered hand. He panted, nostrils flaring, and grimaced in pain as she put a booted foot to his chest and pushed him flat.
They stared there, for a long few seconds as they eyed each other. Shacree drug herself back into control, pushing the insanity to the back of her mind. She let a bit of it trickle through into a twisted upturning of her mouth that approached a smile only in the most technical of senses. The pirate paled at the grin and stilled, waiting for her next move.
Shacree winked at him, and his overly gaudy hat burst into brilliant flame. A startled, strangled cry slipped out as Talgis desperately batted the flaming hat off his head with his free hand. It landed in a pitiful pile of ashes nearby and he looked up at her in shock.
“My hat? You have me at your will and you burn my hat?” His voice sounded wounded.
“You have a mage healer waiting outside the door by now, or will in the next minute, in the long run the loss of that ridiculous hat will be more painful.”
“You’re psychotic, you know that, right?”
Shacree grinned again, jerking her sword out of his hand with enough twist to snap bones and aligned it with his neck.
“Tell me why. Why is this so important that you’ll risk life and limb to get me to go?” She said quietly. Talgis drew his hand to his chest and glared at her for a moment, before forcing out a deep breath.
“My son is my ambassador to the island nation; he negotiates trade arrangements for my ships. Eight months ago, after a very disturbing letter, I lost all contact with him. I want my son back.” He told her. Brief emotions flickered over her face, and then the temperature in the room rose as the heat waves from her sword faded. She sheathed it.
“Fine, but you’ll be paying me more than shipping rights.” Shacree stormed out of the room nearly as violently as she entered, nearly running into the healing mage Matthew had called to attend to Talgis. “Be ready in the morning!” She shouted over her shoulder, ignoring Matthew’s call to return.

Spilt Milk and Other Bumps

We were at the Children's Museum today. It's midweek, nothing really going on, and it was later in the day so there were not many people there. But there were two things that really struck me today. My kids are 2 1/2 and 11 months respectively boy, girl. There was a smallish boy there, by his walk and vocabulary I'm guessing a small 2year old rather than a larger 18month old. Anyway he fell backwards, not hard, and on a cushioned floor. Bonked his head a bit but, realistically, it couldn't have been more than a brief 'ugh'. But he started crying like he'd been dropped on brick and his mother rushes over and scoops him up, holding him tight, rocking him, soothing him, and he kept right on with this pitiful cry until his mom actually left the play area to calm him down.
Contrast:
My daughter took a face first header on a slope a bit too steep for her to navigate without holding onto something (she let go of the side when an older kid approached), unfortunately she missed the softly padded floor and bonked her head into the unpadded wooden side wall. She picked her head up and started to whimper. I said 'oh! Big bonk!' In an uptoned voice. She thought about it for a moment but decided it really did hurt (big red mark with a little scrape) and started crying about the same time I swung her up. I gave her a kiss on her owie (a-boo in our toddler's lingo) while briefly snuggling her close then tossed her up saying 'bonk, bonk, bonk!' I jiggled her, held her up high, and bounced her while I grinned at her. Took about fifteen seconds then she was giggling and squirming. I gave her another kiss, told her she was okay, and set her back down to play.

Why, oh why do parents teach their kids that every little bump and bruise is a world-ending injury? I've been in the doctor's office and heard 5 year olds shrieking in agony after getting their shots for 10 minutes. My kids give a cry or two until I pick them up and give the nurse a 'why did you do THAT' look as they bury their head in my chest..then they sniff and usually reach out to be held by the nurse. Who always comments on how well my kids do.
It's likely kids are more sensitive to pain than the average adult, through lack of exposure if nothing else, but it's not like that poke, bump, or fall is ACTUALLY as painful as the bone-shattering screaming some kids carry on with. They carry on so because they have been taught by neurotic adults that it's worth that kind of attention.
"Ahh! My baby!" Cries the distraught mother as she rushes desperately towards the 3 year old who just tripped and bloodied a knee. Come on, we've all bloodied a knee! It's worth a grunt and a disgusted look, maybe a grimace or a wince with the next few steps. So why do so many parents think it's proper for their child to weep inconsolably for minutes at a time?
And don't tell me it's the kids! I had a nanny job once with a sweet little 2 year old. First day she fell, not even a mark, and she was wailing while her mother scooped her up and 'oh my poor baby'ed her for several long minutes. She tried the same thing with me later that day. I asked 'you okay?', dusted her off, said 'yep, it's okay' and kept walking. She looked at me like 'wow, really?' Stopped crying and caught back up. It took a couple of days, then she happened to fall again in front of her mother. Her mother started over, anguished look on her face. Her daughter bounced up, proclaimed 'it's okay' and was off, leaving the mom with a confused look on her face.
Children mimic, they are developing, not just physically but mentally, emotionally, and socially. They have no idea how they are supposed to act; they look to their caregivers and read the social cues we provide to determine what is the proper emotional response to something. Sure, as they develop mentally they may vary from your example because their fledgling personality is different than yours, but that's just a wonderful sign that they are on the proper road to independence, and as long as you both guide properly and foster their independence they rarely seem to go off the deep end. But you know what I see? Those same kids who learned 'oh the world is ending!' Anytime something minor happens almost never stray from that, they become 5 and 6 year olds, and even 8 and 9 year olds who still can't deal with the slightest thing that happens. I could still tell in high school which kids had parents who thought a skinned knee was a disaster verses the kids whose parents taught them to pick themselves up and dust themselves off. Because it's not just physical wounds they learn to apply that mentality, it's their ability to deal with the skins and scrapes of the emotions that really get hurt by the mentality.
So please people, next time you see your, or my, kids take a tumble, give em a grin and say 'big bonk! You're okay!' And then expect them to be. Because no one is doing the next generation any good by teaching them to cry over spilt milk.

Yes, Yes I am a Country Kid

I was standing over the kitchen sink doing dishes (no, we don't have a dishwasher) trying to convince myself I wasn't being a bad mom for having Looney Tunes playing on the t.v. while I wasn't sitting out there watching it with him. And by him I mean our 2 1/2 year old. After all, it's the first he's watched today, he didn't watch much yesterday either (and none by himself), and I really needed to get some dishes done.
How I wish I had a decent house with a proper kitchen sink in front of the obligatory window overlooking a proper yard. But I don't; we live in a third story tiny appartment without so much as a patio. Between that and my physical difficulties my children currently spend way more time inside then I ever imagined would be the case. But then I never imagined moving back to the city. I hate the city. And that spawned a post idea; let's begin.
The average kid today spends most of their time indoors. No biggy right? I mean, there must have been lots of times throughout history that kids rarely saw the sun...wait, that would be during times of extreme cold like the Ice Age, or when hiding was necessary like during wars. Ok, bad example.
The average kids today eats whatever is available, regardless of nutritinal value like fast food, premade frozen foods, and anything else the parents can work into their busy lives. No biggy, they can take vitamins and there have been plenty of times in history where kids have had less than ideal...wait, that would have been during times of extreme famine, poverty, and war. Ok, bad example.
A large portion of kids today are missing one parent due to out of wedlock births and divorce. No biggy right? There have been plenty of times when a large portion of kids were missing parents...wait, that would have been during times of pestilance, war, and natural disasters. Ok, bad example.
A large portion of kids today are missing sibblings due to an abortion rate that has reached 60% in some demographics. No biggy, there have been plenty of demographics in the past (and currently) who have had a 1 in 5 or even 1 in 3 death rate among the under 5 group...wait, that was due to unhygenic conditions, war, famine, pestilance, disease, and natural disasters. Ok, bad example.
The average kid today spends a large portion of the day away from their mother/father and in the care of non-biologically connected caregivers in mass groups. Well that's no big deal, there have been plenty of kids who...wait, those were in foundling homes, orphanages, and in times when the working population of adults had been decimated by war, pestilance, or natural disaster. Ok...there has to be a good example around here somewhere...
Here's one: the average kid today has more toys and clothes than ever before. Yes, it's true. Adults and children, society as a whole, has managed to accumulate more possessions than all but the richest men throughout history. But you know what they say, "he who dies with the most toys, still dies".
THIS is the "good life"?
We've got the average family working two jobs, so busy that the family unit and especially the kids, are surviving in situations previously found only during calamity why? So we can all have 2 cars, a big screen HDTV with 500 channels, a wardrobe that needs its own room, a collection of toys that needs its own zipcode, a mother who doesn't feel dependant upon a/her husband, and a father who have a 'fulfilling' career? And this is supposed to be a GOOD thing?
All I'm left with is a rarely heard Bible verse: "Woe to those join house to house;
They add field to field,
Till there is no place
Where they may dwell alone in the midst of the land!" Isaiah 5:8

Anyone want to trade this 'good life' for a nice little ranch somewhere? Cuz frankly, I'd rather the farmhouse than the townhouse.

A Giant Step in the Wrong Direction

This ladies is exactly why we have so much trouble getting people, especially medical people to treat pregnant/birthing/post-partum women like thinking adults: http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/mum-sues-after-newborn-smothered-20110215-1auwo.html. It's a news story out of The Land Down Under about a mom who tragically smothered her newborn. She laid down to nurse in a side-lay position and fell asleep. When she woke her babe was cold and blue, and had probably been dead for 20 minutes. Now, I'm unsure of the machanics of that, having nursed 2 babies in a side-lay I'm not sure HOW you could smother a baby at the breast from a proper side position. But, I'm a light sleeper. I wake up (even when excessively tired) when my child's breathing changes. My husband sleeps through smoke alarms, and I've seen him fall asleep standing up. Maybe this mom was more on my husband's side of the sleep scale than mine. However it happened, baby's dead. And as tragic as that is it's not the point. Mom chose to room-in, a right we in the US at least have had to fight for. She chose to LAY DOWN and get comfortable for sleep while she was in sole charge of the baby. So what does she do?

SHE SUES THE HOSPITAL FOR "LETTING" HER FALL ASLEEP!!!

EXCUSE ME?
Look people, if you want to be treated like an adult then you have to take responsiblity for your actions. If you want the right to informed consent/refusal, then you have to own the consequences of your choice. In no way, shape, or form is this the hospital's fault. And by trying to win a lawsuit this woman is also trying to set women's labor/delivery rights back whole decades, maybe even generations.
What? Should the hospital go back to forcibly removing all babies to the nursery whenever mom looks tired? Maybe moms should have to prove they have round the clock childcare help lined up for homecare before they are allowed to leave the hospital with their new bundle of joy? After all, don't you know, the baby belongs to the hospital until you can prove you are a fit parent.
I'm sorry for this woman's lost. I can't imagine how horrible it must be to think you caused your child's death, and maybe by blaming someone else she's just hoping to hold onto her sanity. But there are other people involved here too. Her husband, her lawyer, and certainly she's had at least some moments of clarity despite the guilt racked grief. What GOOD does she/they think is going to come of getting up in a sworn court of law and yelling "treat me like I'm an incompetent child because i'd just given birth!" I hope, if this woman chooses to get pregnant again, she agrees with absolutely everything the doctor, nurses, and staff want to do to her and her baby, because you can bet after this they aren't going to listen to her cries of 'i do not consent', and, frankly, can you blame them? Let's just hope the judge dismisses this monstrousity before it becomes how all hospitals view all laboring/post partum women. And let's hope some moron lawyer in the US doesn't read it!

For Teachers and Students, Against Greater Funding

I haven't really been ignoring my blog, I wrote a long entry....on my laptop...that doesn't have an Internet connection....and my usb card is lost...and my husband's is broken. Yeah, that makes 3 blog posts that are going to be woefully outdated by the time I get them transferred and posted. Oh well.
In the meantime I wanted to do a short post on this: http://action.afa.net/m/rc/story.aspx?id=2147504012 it's a blog post about how teachers are getting their salaries and positions slashed all 'er the land. Which, ultimately is sad. Teachers, police, and military personnel are all abysmally underpaid. Yet Education, Law Enforcement, and Defense are all horrifically over funded. Why the paradox? One word: government. Now yes, the federal government is in fact supposed to be in the defense boat, and to a much lesser degree law enforcement (like Federal Marshalls), and the state government is supposed to be in the law enforcement business.
But neither one of them belong in our schools. It makes some sense for local government to be monitoring schools, and I suppose one could make a reasonable argument for some state monitoring (although I've never heard anything convincing in that matter), but, on the whole, education does not work when you make it a bureaucracy. Thus, public school teacher's salaries.
In the hugely bloated funding for education very little trickles down the the most important part of education...the actual teachers. Instead it gets eaten up by superintendents, principals, counselors, mandatory regulations, testing, sex education, pointless classes like 'dream interpretation', and the general bureaucratic nightmare that is public education. Our public school students sit in a classroom in 20 year old desks using 10 year old texts while they have a full contigency of physcological counseling availible, a sex ed program that will not only hand out free condoms and birth control but also arrange for clandestined (from the parents anway) trips to the local Planned Parenthood for abortions, a hundred thousand dollar projection/computer interface, a princi'pal' who earns 6 figures, and a teacher who only makes that if you count after the decimal point. To make matters worse they are bombarded by questionable and experimental teaching methods like 'whole language', 'new math', group learning, group therapy, and 'interpretive ethics'. The result? The last thing the students are doing is learning, at least not any of the '3 R's'. So the public school graduates a bunch of functional illiterates who have no knowledge of history, can't multiply without a calculator, but can darn well put a condom on a banana, and, as an added bonus knows condoms come in different flavors, textures, and glow-in-the-dark models!
The first 'public' school act in American history was the "Old Deluter Satan Act". But we would recognize it as a 'private' school today because the children's parents paid directly for the teacher and supplies. After all, you need very little to learn, a New England Primer, a math book, a decent history book, a desk, a notebook, a pencil or pen, (for those in algebra or higher a calculator), a room, and a teacher. It worked excellently for a couple hundred years. America was on the forfront of science and industry because our schools graduated students who ranked amongst the best educated in the world. Then the federal government got involved in the later half of the 20th century and we have seen a huge increase in the money we spend per student even while we have cascaded from top of the class to back of the pack in both math and language amongst 1st world nations.
Government would like us to think the way to make it better is more of what got us here to begin with. I have a radical alternate proposal: go back to what worked.
Kick the government out of the education system, and the Department of Education off the tax rolls and out of our pockets. Let parents pay directly to the schools that successfully teach what they want their kids to learn. Today both private and homeschool students outscore public school students on grade-level testing and college entrance exams, and have for years, every year. Yet private schools spend a fraction per student that public schools use, and homeschool spends a fraction of that! More money is NOT and has never been the answer.
I feel for teachers, many, although not all, try their best to teach their students despite the restrictions placed upon them by the government. While I was in school my teachers were really my only friends. I spent my spare time, before, during, and after the school day helping them grade papers, ready their lessons, and help tutor their high needs students. At the start or every school year from sophomore year (I was homeschooled freshman year and in a private school grades 6-8) I gave all my teachers gifts of school supplies, at Christmas it was more school supplies and a homemade card (candy for Valentine's Day), and a personal gift on the last day of school. Several of them told me the pens, pencils, etc I gave them kept them supplied with 'extras' for the students that had forgotten theirs so they didn't have to buy them out of pocket. I continued this tradition for many years past graduation until I moved. I scored in the 99th percentile in yearly exams, 'post high school' in placement exams starting in 4th grade (with reading) and in all subjects (please note, for those of you who don't know, yearly placement exams don't test all subjects you learn in school) starting in 5th grade. I graduated with honors, having earned all but 1 A since 2nd semester of 6th grade. I don't say this to brag, I say this so you may believe I am not anti-education nor anti-teacher. I've been in (multiple) public schools, a private school, and homeschooled (officially for one year but really more for two) I have personally experianced all the options, I have personally excelled in my education within (and sometimes despite) those options. I've had to get up in front of class and recite multiplication table, memorize classical poetry, finished a days classwork in a hospital while a parent was in surgery, graded my own tests (without cheating), confered with teachers on which books should be allowed in the class bookshelf, and which should be required verses optional reading in their classrooms (my fellow students were less than happy with that one as it added an additional book to their required reading list), and been the only one who worked on a 'group' project. I care about the education; I care about teachers and our students getting a full and rounded education. Which is why I strongly advise any parents reading this to NOT enroll a child in public education until the government gets its noses out of it.

in desperate need of some humor

I'm in desperate need of some funny, and I'm betting you are too, so, here you go!
Food Groups:

Government: fruits/vegetables, 5 servings daily; grains, 3-5 servings daily; dairy, 3-5 servings daily; meat/protient, 2-3 servings daily; fats/sweets, use sparingly

Baby (over 6 months): boob juice, whenever I'm not too busy; stuff I can fit in my mouth, eat before mom takes it away; stuff mom gives me to put in my mouth, alternate randomly 3-24 servings daily with throwing it on the floor

Average Toddler: simple carbohydrates and other bland colored food, as much as possible; junk food, as much as I can beg, borrow, or steal; green stuff, as little as possible and less when I can hide it behind the couch.

Picky Toddler: mac & cheese, 3-5 servings a day; hot dogs, 3-5 servings a day; pizza, when I'm feeling adventurious and can pick off anything that looks questionable; banannas, only when bribed

Average Married Male: whatever the wife cooks, 2-3 times a day, store bought stuff, whenever she cooks crazy stuff like vegetables; meat, as much as possible, potatoes, see 'meat'; junk food, whenever the kids haven't eaten it all.

Mother (of young children): whatever I can cobble together from what's left from the last grocery run, mostly what's left over on the kid's plate; leftovers, whatever husband didn't eat; food I didn't cook, daily servings? more like monthly; chocolate, as needed.