The NRA sits around all day contemplating the mass production of ever more destructive weaponry.
When their executives come up with something which will sell these weapons, they chuckle. They giggle. Then they
smirk and nod.
When unbelievable gun violence occurs in our society with a sickening regularity not seen in other
societies around rhe world, these same execs gather to blame something like video games.
What video game has unarmed people and creatures getting mowed down in melees?
The NRA would have us arm school professionals.
How could we know all the people armed in schools would be good guys for as long as they
are armed? A school janitor or principal won't ever be tempted to use an ever present gun inappropriately?
A guns and ammunition carrying 'bad' guy won't approach a school now that he or she is also armed with the knowledge a lot more persons in the building are carrying as well?
Armed perpetrators don't kill policemen and other armed persons?
The citizen with a gun during the shootings at Congresswoman Giffords' attack in Arizona arrived on the bloody scene to shoot the man who was wielding the gun. That man was the one who had disarmed the shooter. Luckily, the citizen realized in time he had no way of knowing who to shoot.
We don't need more guns. Of course that threatens the NRA.
This Association needs to get into a new business.
They need to broaden the range of their caring.
As it is today, they care for only one thing...the money they can get from our 'cold dead hands'.
Friday, December 21, 2012
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Easy E
In 1979, Easy E said in his rap song- 'don't get high off your own supply'.
Later, Biggy quoted that from Easy in his own rap, The Ten Crack Commandments.
News analysts sometimes know a lot about late rap, but they don't seem to know a lot about who Biggy, and
Tupac and Snoop listened to when they were developing their styles.
As it turns out, not only Easy, but all the other NWA artists became stars again on their own.
Those guys were singing about life. And this multi billion dollar industry has an evolutionary and derivative history.
Later, Biggy quoted that from Easy in his own rap, The Ten Crack Commandments.
News analysts sometimes know a lot about late rap, but they don't seem to know a lot about who Biggy, and
Tupac and Snoop listened to when they were developing their styles.
As it turns out, not only Easy, but all the other NWA artists became stars again on their own.
Those guys were singing about life. And this multi billion dollar industry has an evolutionary and derivative history.
Black Culture
Black people in great numbers, inspire each other one small group at a time.
In the early eighties, I heard so many very young guys rapping. Sometimes they'd do it most of the day.
I was puzzled by it, and I was supposed to discourage it; but at times I'd sit and listen a while.
Later, in the mid eighties, when Luther Campbell became nearly a cult figure with black teenagers, he crossed over quite forcefully.
I don't know what happened to all those young men I listened to in the early part of the decade.
I was often glad when I had a chance to hear them.
Our city, and our country, however, called them 'Special Ed'.
I hear from a lot of people, now in their forties, that many rap artists allege in their work they were in
'Special Ed' in public schools.
I have no idea why people think conventional testing measures the intellect and creativity of black children.
When we get multibillion dollar industries of American culture from them, it's because the unmeasured
gifts they had to nurture in one another finally came to fruition.
The NBA was tiny compared to what it is now, since Michael came to town in Chicago from a small Southern college. (Well, chapel Hill isn't all that small, I suppose.)
Oprah has spun off many multimillion dollar enterprises in her career, including Dr. Phil, Rachel Ray, and
Carol's Daughter. She is one who came to us from a small Southern college from which she was too busily employed to graduate. She was nurtured consistently by her earliest audiences, even when advertisers limited themselves mainly to diet products and liquor. Earlier, she was nurtured by her African-American radio
boss.
Michael Jackson pioneered contractual language in the music industry to benefit all artists. I can't say Michael was only accepted by black audiences, even when he was beginning in The Jackson Five; but he was brought into the limelight from Gary, Indiana to Detroit and Barry Gordy.
I hope we will continue to love our own children in great enough numbers to give them the power to create
popular new profitable industries.
I can't see who else will do it.
President Obama was unusual and somewhat lucky because he was both embraced by black culture, and quite conversant with American whiteness. It took him a bit of time to find us in the cities where we cling to each other, even though it is too often with awkward violence- once he did,
he became a leader for all of America. He gave all of us the chance to be encouraged to embrace
our culture as much as we can. No minority felt challenged in great numbers on November 6th, to strive for
whiteness. At last all minorities felt fine being who they were.
I heard Chris Matthews on MSNBC wax nostalgic about the Knights of Columbus in the fifties and sixties.
In our house, they were a racist joke. But they were in their own little tribe. So we let them be. What else
would we have done? Still, we strove to make Catholicism more than that in our neighborhoods. We did a
pretty good job, I think. We don't have as many congregations as we once did; but we are still proud of those we do have.
In the early eighties, I heard so many very young guys rapping. Sometimes they'd do it most of the day.
I was puzzled by it, and I was supposed to discourage it; but at times I'd sit and listen a while.
Later, in the mid eighties, when Luther Campbell became nearly a cult figure with black teenagers, he crossed over quite forcefully.
I don't know what happened to all those young men I listened to in the early part of the decade.
I was often glad when I had a chance to hear them.
Our city, and our country, however, called them 'Special Ed'.
I hear from a lot of people, now in their forties, that many rap artists allege in their work they were in
'Special Ed' in public schools.
I have no idea why people think conventional testing measures the intellect and creativity of black children.
When we get multibillion dollar industries of American culture from them, it's because the unmeasured
gifts they had to nurture in one another finally came to fruition.
The NBA was tiny compared to what it is now, since Michael came to town in Chicago from a small Southern college. (Well, chapel Hill isn't all that small, I suppose.)
Oprah has spun off many multimillion dollar enterprises in her career, including Dr. Phil, Rachel Ray, and
Carol's Daughter. She is one who came to us from a small Southern college from which she was too busily employed to graduate. She was nurtured consistently by her earliest audiences, even when advertisers limited themselves mainly to diet products and liquor. Earlier, she was nurtured by her African-American radio
boss.
Michael Jackson pioneered contractual language in the music industry to benefit all artists. I can't say Michael was only accepted by black audiences, even when he was beginning in The Jackson Five; but he was brought into the limelight from Gary, Indiana to Detroit and Barry Gordy.
I hope we will continue to love our own children in great enough numbers to give them the power to create
popular new profitable industries.
I can't see who else will do it.
President Obama was unusual and somewhat lucky because he was both embraced by black culture, and quite conversant with American whiteness. It took him a bit of time to find us in the cities where we cling to each other, even though it is too often with awkward violence- once he did,
he became a leader for all of America. He gave all of us the chance to be encouraged to embrace
our culture as much as we can. No minority felt challenged in great numbers on November 6th, to strive for
whiteness. At last all minorities felt fine being who they were.
I heard Chris Matthews on MSNBC wax nostalgic about the Knights of Columbus in the fifties and sixties.
In our house, they were a racist joke. But they were in their own little tribe. So we let them be. What else
would we have done? Still, we strove to make Catholicism more than that in our neighborhoods. We did a
pretty good job, I think. We don't have as many congregations as we once did; but we are still proud of those we do have.
Wal Mart Business Plan: Enslave White People
Employees are hired at minimal rates of hourly compensation, given a few hours of work a week, insured by Medicaid, mainly disqualified for food stamps, can all afford about the same sort of low income housing near
the plantation, cannot afford much transportation, cannot afford to purchase things from many other stores. So all their paycheck goes for cheap rents, cheap transport, then back to the employer.
No wonder Wal Mart owners are so rich. We still have plenty of White and Latino citizens in this country who want work, but wind up with 'the company store'.
How clever the Wal Mart family has been. They are nearly as clever as the college football plantations...but those are not mostly white people working the lowest ranks of the university plantations without getting an education.
Come on, can we possibly operate in this country without a bunch of plantations? I guess the great percentage of prisons and prisoners developed during the Reagan years let exploiters down as useful institutionalizations of slavery. Wal Mart took up that slack- and then some!
the plantation, cannot afford much transportation, cannot afford to purchase things from many other stores. So all their paycheck goes for cheap rents, cheap transport, then back to the employer.
No wonder Wal Mart owners are so rich. We still have plenty of White and Latino citizens in this country who want work, but wind up with 'the company store'.
How clever the Wal Mart family has been. They are nearly as clever as the college football plantations...but those are not mostly white people working the lowest ranks of the university plantations without getting an education.
Come on, can we possibly operate in this country without a bunch of plantations? I guess the great percentage of prisons and prisoners developed during the Reagan years let exploiters down as useful institutionalizations of slavery. Wal Mart took up that slack- and then some!
The Violent American
We continue to see charts of American violence.
Americans watch video games, but in no case do we have a video game where there is glory in mass murder
in movie theaters, army stores, colleges, meet and greets for representatives, high schools, churches, or
elementary schools.
People so often look outside themselves to understand the violence they felt they needed to commit. Apparently, societies do the same.
If we are more violent than other developed nations it's because we are neglecting growth and development in crucial areas of our group interactions.
But we can't compare the violent incidents of a nation of over 300 million persons to those of a nation of
of 20 million. If we are statistically worse, OK; but numbers of incidents per capita are misleading when
depicted as groups of tiny nations.
One important thing is that we can mathematically extrapolate how many of these incidents we can
expect to have added to our grieving before we can diffuse enough of them to be more free of them.
We are burning through first responders- but laying off police officers and fire fighters. So we aren't making
any sense?
We have the technology to sense weapons. In the meantime, we have to begin to limit guns. They are too quick a fix.
Americans watch video games, but in no case do we have a video game where there is glory in mass murder
in movie theaters, army stores, colleges, meet and greets for representatives, high schools, churches, or
elementary schools.
People so often look outside themselves to understand the violence they felt they needed to commit. Apparently, societies do the same.
If we are more violent than other developed nations it's because we are neglecting growth and development in crucial areas of our group interactions.
But we can't compare the violent incidents of a nation of over 300 million persons to those of a nation of
of 20 million. If we are statistically worse, OK; but numbers of incidents per capita are misleading when
depicted as groups of tiny nations.
One important thing is that we can mathematically extrapolate how many of these incidents we can
expect to have added to our grieving before we can diffuse enough of them to be more free of them.
We are burning through first responders- but laying off police officers and fire fighters. So we aren't making
any sense?
We have the technology to sense weapons. In the meantime, we have to begin to limit guns. They are too quick a fix.
Mayor Mayor
Why is Mayor Bloomberg publicly instructing President Obama? Powerful New York public officials can run
for president. Is Bloomberg one of them? He keeps sounding like some outraged housewife. If he doesn't find a way to close his mouth, he is going to begin to sound like the Brutus Eric Cantor turned out to be when
Speaker Boehner took the floor. Has he ever heard of the Republican filibuster? He should complain bitterly
about it in public when gun control legislation begins to be debated anew.
for president. Is Bloomberg one of them? He keeps sounding like some outraged housewife. If he doesn't find a way to close his mouth, he is going to begin to sound like the Brutus Eric Cantor turned out to be when
Speaker Boehner took the floor. Has he ever heard of the Republican filibuster? He should complain bitterly
about it in public when gun control legislation begins to be debated anew.
Chris Rock Knows Gun Control
I think he was right. No matter how many guns someone has, if he or she has to pay thousands of dollars per bullet, a majority of gun purchasers will think a bit before buying available bullets.
The government needs to put heavy taxes on all of it. Also our government needs to put a computer chip in every part of every gun, and in every bullet sold. Alarms should go off when any one of those parts gets within yards of a school entrance unless is belongs law enforcement parts or tools.
We cannot stop murder, but we have to spend what it costs to begin to destroy gun murders.
While we try to shrink our government, instead we should be trying to shrink our murder rate, because it's
getting much more deadly than our government.
We used government to curb highway death.
We used government to curb tobacco-related illness and death.
We can use it to curb gun-related death.
We don't need enough guns to assault the government in the way 2nd Amendment enthusiasts believe we do.
Our government has drones, smart guns, detector robots, (Could schools use specialized robots? The kids might like them.) and many groups of armed forces. Our government has atomic power. No one in the world
has or will have enough guns to out-gun the U.S. armed forces.
Besides, if your gun is not out and cocked, how can it protect you? Mrs. Lanza had an arsenal of guns. Her son had no guns. Who got shot first?
The government needs to put heavy taxes on all of it. Also our government needs to put a computer chip in every part of every gun, and in every bullet sold. Alarms should go off when any one of those parts gets within yards of a school entrance unless is belongs law enforcement parts or tools.
We cannot stop murder, but we have to spend what it costs to begin to destroy gun murders.
While we try to shrink our government, instead we should be trying to shrink our murder rate, because it's
getting much more deadly than our government.
We used government to curb highway death.
We used government to curb tobacco-related illness and death.
We can use it to curb gun-related death.
We don't need enough guns to assault the government in the way 2nd Amendment enthusiasts believe we do.
Our government has drones, smart guns, detector robots, (Could schools use specialized robots? The kids might like them.) and many groups of armed forces. Our government has atomic power. No one in the world
has or will have enough guns to out-gun the U.S. armed forces.
Besides, if your gun is not out and cocked, how can it protect you? Mrs. Lanza had an arsenal of guns. Her son had no guns. Who got shot first?
Thank You Mort Zuckerman
I see Mr. Zuckerman has pledged a great deal of money to Columbia University's mind-body institute studies.
Now that a step in a right direction. Can we get prepared to hire these professionals as they acquire newer and newer bodies of findings, please.
We may also need university majors in developmental anthropological linguistics.
For instance, I used to know the approximate time the word 'manslaughter' enter into the English language.
English is a derivative language, though- very involved. But why does the word when separated into parts say 'man's laughter'?
Why does the word 'life' look so much like the word 'evil' when the letters are re-arranged? Is evil a restructuring of life? If so, how did early societies identify life in the sense of how humans should be alive?
Have we kept to early evolutionary basics for forming words from concepts? Are we gutting the basics?
How do societies losing their languages keep their relationship strengths at the start of life when adopting more modern language?
We have to study. We have to have teachers. We are not going to learn bonding dynamics from computers
alone. And that fact is beginning to show up more and more frequently, while shouting at us!
We are not supposed to be raising babies for predators. I have barely recovered from the Penn State
co-dependencies even though the children did not die, physically.
Now that a step in a right direction. Can we get prepared to hire these professionals as they acquire newer and newer bodies of findings, please.
We may also need university majors in developmental anthropological linguistics.
For instance, I used to know the approximate time the word 'manslaughter' enter into the English language.
English is a derivative language, though- very involved. But why does the word when separated into parts say 'man's laughter'?
Why does the word 'life' look so much like the word 'evil' when the letters are re-arranged? Is evil a restructuring of life? If so, how did early societies identify life in the sense of how humans should be alive?
Have we kept to early evolutionary basics for forming words from concepts? Are we gutting the basics?
How do societies losing their languages keep their relationship strengths at the start of life when adopting more modern language?
We have to study. We have to have teachers. We are not going to learn bonding dynamics from computers
alone. And that fact is beginning to show up more and more frequently, while shouting at us!
We are not supposed to be raising babies for predators. I have barely recovered from the Penn State
co-dependencies even though the children did not die, physically.
Family Leave
Every day I wake up wondering if 20 children were murdered all at once in Connecticut. Could that actually be true?
America is such a complicated society, we are all insane to assume we won't get even younger victims if our
business class don't get on board with child care and psychotherapy leave.
What happens to a person who does have post childbirth depression when she doesn't live near family, but her husband has to keep leaving the house every morning?
Initially, only the husband can accurately report the manifestations of his wife's problems if the couple is not
emotionally estranged. A person in the throes of postpartum doesn't actually know what is happening to her;
but psychiatrists are learning so much now about neglect and abuse that occurs pre-verbally. Those experiences are obviously processed in such a way that the violence later expressed from them is often very
meticulously planned, unique in objective ideal preferences, and easily manifested as objectifying other people.
Emotional isolation is obviously too easily absorbed in some families.
Gun control alone will do nothing. Mrs. Lanza may have had so many guns BECAUSE she felt her son was
alone and vulnerable without her. She knew him to be so odd that she may have thought he was the one at risk.
A woman who has nothing in her record to prevent her from buying guns will buy them if she feels she isn't
getting any younger, her son is odd enough to be a tormented loner with or without her, and has no support
systems to help him grow older in his world.
It could very well be that the odder the young man seemed to her the more she relied on a fantasy of outward protection.
We can't know why he wanted to kill such young children, but if he did do Kindergarten, he may have blamed first graders and first grade teachers for rejecting him enough to insure he must be home schooled.
Or he may have stopped at the first room near the entrance to ensure he could get started as soon as he could.
One thing clear to me is that he seemed to be unable to wait one minute longer than he absolutely had to in
order to get started in his slaying orgy.
How would he have needed to put so many bullets in a body small enough to be six or seven years old.
He had been to gun rages enough to know he needed live human targets in order feel really good. he knew
as well he wasn't willing to go to jail.
If he hadn't had a gun he would have used a hammer. He needed to have some fun, even if it were only
going to be once in his life.
He had probably been dying inside to do something of the nature of what he did since puberty, or even
earlier.
The point is that we do have scientists who postulate on these sorts of patterns. We need them is schools. We need them in maternity wards, and at six week check-ups.
People take days-old babies back to hospitals if the baby's hospital discharge suggests jaundice.
Babies have an unyielding need for steadfast relationship commitment.
We are going to have to begin to honor families who must adjust to those needs.
I don't think it will as heavy a lift as mass funerals every week.
America is such a complicated society, we are all insane to assume we won't get even younger victims if our
business class don't get on board with child care and psychotherapy leave.
What happens to a person who does have post childbirth depression when she doesn't live near family, but her husband has to keep leaving the house every morning?
Initially, only the husband can accurately report the manifestations of his wife's problems if the couple is not
emotionally estranged. A person in the throes of postpartum doesn't actually know what is happening to her;
but psychiatrists are learning so much now about neglect and abuse that occurs pre-verbally. Those experiences are obviously processed in such a way that the violence later expressed from them is often very
meticulously planned, unique in objective ideal preferences, and easily manifested as objectifying other people.
Emotional isolation is obviously too easily absorbed in some families.
Gun control alone will do nothing. Mrs. Lanza may have had so many guns BECAUSE she felt her son was
alone and vulnerable without her. She knew him to be so odd that she may have thought he was the one at risk.
A woman who has nothing in her record to prevent her from buying guns will buy them if she feels she isn't
getting any younger, her son is odd enough to be a tormented loner with or without her, and has no support
systems to help him grow older in his world.
It could very well be that the odder the young man seemed to her the more she relied on a fantasy of outward protection.
We can't know why he wanted to kill such young children, but if he did do Kindergarten, he may have blamed first graders and first grade teachers for rejecting him enough to insure he must be home schooled.
Or he may have stopped at the first room near the entrance to ensure he could get started as soon as he could.
One thing clear to me is that he seemed to be unable to wait one minute longer than he absolutely had to in
order to get started in his slaying orgy.
How would he have needed to put so many bullets in a body small enough to be six or seven years old.
He had been to gun rages enough to know he needed live human targets in order feel really good. he knew
as well he wasn't willing to go to jail.
If he hadn't had a gun he would have used a hammer. He needed to have some fun, even if it were only
going to be once in his life.
He had probably been dying inside to do something of the nature of what he did since puberty, or even
earlier.
The point is that we do have scientists who postulate on these sorts of patterns. We need them is schools. We need them in maternity wards, and at six week check-ups.
People take days-old babies back to hospitals if the baby's hospital discharge suggests jaundice.
Babies have an unyielding need for steadfast relationship commitment.
We are going to have to begin to honor families who must adjust to those needs.
I don't think it will as heavy a lift as mass funerals every week.
Sunday, December 16, 2012
First Grade
I had forgotten for a time just how dear first graders are. I haven't had a first grade class now for years.
Seeing the faces of the little ones killed last week jogged my memory.
They are fresh out of Kindergarten, and anxious to show they can be quite grown-up now that they are in
'real school.' They are so anxious to please, and to be pleasing.
They have lost that tendency to believe teacher already knows how their mom likes things done for them.
'You have to button my top button on my coat! My mom says I can't go outside just zipped up.'
In September they are very quiet, wondering privately if they are up to the tasks.
They are slowly getting used to the routines, and noting what boards are up.
They are so proud as they notice one day, some of them have actual work posted on some of the boards.
By October they have already begun to solidify friendships for what they think the year will bring.
They often know each other already; but anything new in someone, or anyone new to class starts to become
part of daily play lay acceptance. In Kindergarten they didn't seem to notice so much. They were guided more by finding the buddy who would definitely play dolls, or trucks. the girls got more and more girly for
the most part, and the boys had gotten a bit rougher than they were in pre-school. In first grade, though, they
have begun to take more delight in one another than in who will play what. They form the dearest, shyest little
bonds.
Then Halloween becomes an excitement which shakes them a bit out of their newly sophisticated school
personas, and they start to be a bit more giggly.
If Halloween was exciting, Thanksgiving really gets them going between the introspection of family traditions,
the history of the original Pilgrims, and the excitement of drawing turkeys, feasts, and getting ready for travel
or out-of-town relatives. They are way more interested in their art than they were a year before, as in they
want to make depictions more storied and complicated than any adult could tell with a naked eye.
For instance, that turkey may look pretty to you, but Johnny will tell you he is actually also looking for one of his feathers!
In Kindergarten, teachers are often more a part of the art on the page, the gluing, pasting, writing names, explaining to little ones what is being depicted.
First graders don't always seem to even remember having been in that stage. They take such delight in giving
the 'art gallery' tour of their pages, that I'd often get caught up enough to realize Art was going overtime, and
parents were wondering why we weren't at the door before the bell rang. Naturally, we have to get out there
before the big kids try to race out!
First grade is the only grade I became amazed at so many new coats before Christmas. I knew exactly what
had happened, because most first graders grow shockingly quickly between August and December. I'd
always remark: 'Oh you got a new coat. I love it.!'
Almost every time, I'd get a proud reply: 'My other coat was too small.'...or something to that effect.
By June, my heart would almost be heavy that I barely recognized the bitty girl or boy I'd met in late August
or early September, because the child had begun to take his or her own growth for granted. Only teacher
was dazed and amazed. Teacher was thought to be a little corny.
My greatest exposure to first grade was in a year when I had a nice friend who asked me to cover her classes as she dealt all year with chemotherapy, and weakness.
As I was a sub, I wasn't always able to get the classes I would loved to have taught. However, after taking
so many of my friend Phyllis's classes that year, whenever I got a chance to take a first grade class, I did.
For first graders, all information, all new experience is a wonder, as the little ones' imaginations and persons
are themselves.
Seeing the faces of the little ones killed last week jogged my memory.
They are fresh out of Kindergarten, and anxious to show they can be quite grown-up now that they are in
'real school.' They are so anxious to please, and to be pleasing.
They have lost that tendency to believe teacher already knows how their mom likes things done for them.
'You have to button my top button on my coat! My mom says I can't go outside just zipped up.'
In September they are very quiet, wondering privately if they are up to the tasks.
They are slowly getting used to the routines, and noting what boards are up.
They are so proud as they notice one day, some of them have actual work posted on some of the boards.
By October they have already begun to solidify friendships for what they think the year will bring.
They often know each other already; but anything new in someone, or anyone new to class starts to become
part of daily play lay acceptance. In Kindergarten they didn't seem to notice so much. They were guided more by finding the buddy who would definitely play dolls, or trucks. the girls got more and more girly for
the most part, and the boys had gotten a bit rougher than they were in pre-school. In first grade, though, they
have begun to take more delight in one another than in who will play what. They form the dearest, shyest little
bonds.
Then Halloween becomes an excitement which shakes them a bit out of their newly sophisticated school
personas, and they start to be a bit more giggly.
If Halloween was exciting, Thanksgiving really gets them going between the introspection of family traditions,
the history of the original Pilgrims, and the excitement of drawing turkeys, feasts, and getting ready for travel
or out-of-town relatives. They are way more interested in their art than they were a year before, as in they
want to make depictions more storied and complicated than any adult could tell with a naked eye.
For instance, that turkey may look pretty to you, but Johnny will tell you he is actually also looking for one of his feathers!
In Kindergarten, teachers are often more a part of the art on the page, the gluing, pasting, writing names, explaining to little ones what is being depicted.
First graders don't always seem to even remember having been in that stage. They take such delight in giving
the 'art gallery' tour of their pages, that I'd often get caught up enough to realize Art was going overtime, and
parents were wondering why we weren't at the door before the bell rang. Naturally, we have to get out there
before the big kids try to race out!
First grade is the only grade I became amazed at so many new coats before Christmas. I knew exactly what
had happened, because most first graders grow shockingly quickly between August and December. I'd
always remark: 'Oh you got a new coat. I love it.!'
Almost every time, I'd get a proud reply: 'My other coat was too small.'...or something to that effect.
By June, my heart would almost be heavy that I barely recognized the bitty girl or boy I'd met in late August
or early September, because the child had begun to take his or her own growth for granted. Only teacher
was dazed and amazed. Teacher was thought to be a little corny.
My greatest exposure to first grade was in a year when I had a nice friend who asked me to cover her classes as she dealt all year with chemotherapy, and weakness.
As I was a sub, I wasn't always able to get the classes I would loved to have taught. However, after taking
so many of my friend Phyllis's classes that year, whenever I got a chance to take a first grade class, I did.
For first graders, all information, all new experience is a wonder, as the little ones' imaginations and persons
are themselves.
Safety
Less than a mile from my house, my bank has a branch on a busy street. I believe those employees and the money housed therein enjoy a safe environment.
If you were to go to my bank, cameras would watch as you approached.
Once you get to the door at that bank, you enter a tiny thick Plexiglas room. Immediately, you get locked into that room while key persons inside the bank visually assess you and your possible motives. Then
you will be asked by a disembodied voice why you have come. If you try to get two people into that tiny
room, the doors will automatically stop opening to admit you.
Several banker eyes are on you as you approach a teller or manager. I get the sense every one of those
employees is well-trained. Every one of them must have a plan in case someone in their line of sight makes a wrong move. At some point before you complete a transaction at this bank, bank officials there become more relaxed.
I don't imagine my bankers are packing...but security is. Were you to get off a shot, you'd be down within
seconds. All of this was very irritating at first. But as time went on, I'd always think: 'Well, whoever you are
I doubt you're betting in here to do dirty work.'
I don't believe schools could use the tiny Plexiglas trap at the entry bell or for dismissal. However, in an
elementary school, officials could have eyes on open doors, and let adults know not to pass a certain
point.
At the middle school where my daughter sends her child, try to get a parent-teacher meeting. You have to
know what you are doing. That school is on serious lock down. One entrance, and one entrance only opens
at the starting bell; and you'd better obviously be a kid before you approach that metal detector.
Guards are behind the heavy, heavy, door. One entrance, and only one entrance opens at dismissal.
Kids in this city didn't do mass killings, but they were not above bringing weapons to school in order to protect themselves. Having gangs here meant younger students felt they had to be armed in order to feel safe.
Parents have to call in order to get into our school, because many times teen aged parents, cousins, older
brothers and sisters were coming to school to settle conflicts originating with family members but without school officials' interventions.
We welcome the boundaries between the well-intentioned, and the reactionaries. Those guarding our school
borders, and reinforcing those boundaries are friendly enough as community members. But as school protectors, they will ask you very quickly- 'What are you here to do?'
In the mornings, and at dismissal, there are two or three guards at the door to have one anothers' backs.
Many times, in order to enter at our school one has to call the office. The office double-checks the incoming phone number against their records. If they say they will call back, they always call back right away.
Our schools are painfully slow on some things we'd like to see. However, they normally call parents once a
week or so to inform them about school/community happenings.
So the office never seems completely remote or inaccessible. And the safety we take for granted is provided
by persons we come to know, to trust, to appreciate - maybe by October of each year.
If you were to go to my bank, cameras would watch as you approached.
Once you get to the door at that bank, you enter a tiny thick Plexiglas room. Immediately, you get locked into that room while key persons inside the bank visually assess you and your possible motives. Then
you will be asked by a disembodied voice why you have come. If you try to get two people into that tiny
room, the doors will automatically stop opening to admit you.
Several banker eyes are on you as you approach a teller or manager. I get the sense every one of those
employees is well-trained. Every one of them must have a plan in case someone in their line of sight makes a wrong move. At some point before you complete a transaction at this bank, bank officials there become more relaxed.
I don't imagine my bankers are packing...but security is. Were you to get off a shot, you'd be down within
seconds. All of this was very irritating at first. But as time went on, I'd always think: 'Well, whoever you are
I doubt you're betting in here to do dirty work.'
I don't believe schools could use the tiny Plexiglas trap at the entry bell or for dismissal. However, in an
elementary school, officials could have eyes on open doors, and let adults know not to pass a certain
point.
At the middle school where my daughter sends her child, try to get a parent-teacher meeting. You have to
know what you are doing. That school is on serious lock down. One entrance, and one entrance only opens
at the starting bell; and you'd better obviously be a kid before you approach that metal detector.
Guards are behind the heavy, heavy, door. One entrance, and only one entrance opens at dismissal.
Kids in this city didn't do mass killings, but they were not above bringing weapons to school in order to protect themselves. Having gangs here meant younger students felt they had to be armed in order to feel safe.
Parents have to call in order to get into our school, because many times teen aged parents, cousins, older
brothers and sisters were coming to school to settle conflicts originating with family members but without school officials' interventions.
We welcome the boundaries between the well-intentioned, and the reactionaries. Those guarding our school
borders, and reinforcing those boundaries are friendly enough as community members. But as school protectors, they will ask you very quickly- 'What are you here to do?'
In the mornings, and at dismissal, there are two or three guards at the door to have one anothers' backs.
Many times, in order to enter at our school one has to call the office. The office double-checks the incoming phone number against their records. If they say they will call back, they always call back right away.
Our schools are painfully slow on some things we'd like to see. However, they normally call parents once a
week or so to inform them about school/community happenings.
So the office never seems completely remote or inaccessible. And the safety we take for granted is provided
by persons we come to know, to trust, to appreciate - maybe by October of each year.
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Chicago And Newtown
Of course it's awful that children get killed in Chicago on a more regular basis than they do in Newtown. However, children killing each other from a sort of despair emanating from certain systemic societal failures
can't be exactly the same horror as grown men killing babies all within several minutes during his planned massacre.
The aggregate of dead children per year in Chicago is truly horrible, for one thing, because young men of the intelligence some mass murderers possess intuit from it that human life is not especially precious in all children. Then when these young men become troubled, they decide to be the ones who take the young ones our society loudly hints would be missed the most. So that our youngsters lost in big cities help mark those
who will be someday lost in small, privileged communities.
Of course these killers probably begin to form processes of derangement early in life. It likely takes time for
them to build a solid sense, though, of how they want to integrate their ways of thinking and behaving into
society as a whole. Unnoticed, untreated early developmental derangement signals another societal failure Americans endure.
Apparently at greater and greater cost, we fail to use imprisonment wisely. Community will, power, space, energy, and wealth of material resource come together to make imprisonment possible; but not inexhaustibly in any society. The power to restrict and seclude should be used judiciously, when it is desperately needed. I always felt we should have pledged to set up great structures of new institutional protections and cautions the moment we knew Polly Klaas had been taken from her family so brazenly by an already convicted sex offender. We didn't make any such pledge. We didn't take any such action. Only now have some of us decided to stop setting aside so much jail space for non-violent offenders.
A serious societal failure in America points to the acceptance of a lack of health care- including mental
health care. We dearly need early intervention mental health care. We obviously quietly nurture grave psychic
pain until some few years after adult onset in the sufferer, we all pay for the neglect- even those who owe it least.
As for city kids, they are rarely killed en masse by someone who has chosen a rampage in order to express himself, his possible grudges, and his chosen legacy.
People have expressed shock that anyone could even be capable of the sort of carnage against tiny humans we have seen this weekend. The fact this assault seems to have been planned and the tiny ones seem to have been singled out, is truly mind-boggling.
Psychiatrists have seen to it we all know or have heard of manic depressives.
What I would hope to see is a specific diagnosis or set of diagnoses relating to people who seem to be 'rage depressives'. Some people seem to have manic states regularly suffused with masses of undifferentiated and
otherwise energetically suppressed rage. We have read about these people. We have met these people. But we can't diagnose them. And why are we possibly more enraged than other countries?
This man in Connecticut may have shot his mom simply because she defied him and would give him away. He was hell bent on hell. My fear is that even if he is there now, he may not notice he is.
He went on a killing spree to enjoy himself. For whatever reasons, killing first graders was the thing he had been dying to do, did die to do. He kept shooting because the first shot gave him a high he had to try to repeat. There is no reason to shoot a dead child. But he enjoyed it more than he even thought he would. He
of course knew he wouldn't get this chance again. The way pleasure works, according to the nuns at my high
school in the nineteen sixties, it has to be actively and purposefully pursued with vigor- because unlike happiness, it has a tendency not to last.
Happiness is achieved by exchanging warm feelings with others. Humans have no particular reason to seek what is achieved so naturally.
Once an aggressive person realizes he will not be capable of happiness, who knows how he manages to come to what will give him pleasure instead. Can science manage or predict these bloody desires?
Otherwise at the risk of trivializing any American murders, some of this may come down to
Joan Walsh becoming able to answer her own question.
What hurts me most about Newtown, is knowing we may never ever know who was the last baby to be
killed, and who could ever measure or imagine the loneliness of that child's last moment?
can't be exactly the same horror as grown men killing babies all within several minutes during his planned massacre.
The aggregate of dead children per year in Chicago is truly horrible, for one thing, because young men of the intelligence some mass murderers possess intuit from it that human life is not especially precious in all children. Then when these young men become troubled, they decide to be the ones who take the young ones our society loudly hints would be missed the most. So that our youngsters lost in big cities help mark those
who will be someday lost in small, privileged communities.
Of course these killers probably begin to form processes of derangement early in life. It likely takes time for
them to build a solid sense, though, of how they want to integrate their ways of thinking and behaving into
society as a whole. Unnoticed, untreated early developmental derangement signals another societal failure Americans endure.
Apparently at greater and greater cost, we fail to use imprisonment wisely. Community will, power, space, energy, and wealth of material resource come together to make imprisonment possible; but not inexhaustibly in any society. The power to restrict and seclude should be used judiciously, when it is desperately needed. I always felt we should have pledged to set up great structures of new institutional protections and cautions the moment we knew Polly Klaas had been taken from her family so brazenly by an already convicted sex offender. We didn't make any such pledge. We didn't take any such action. Only now have some of us decided to stop setting aside so much jail space for non-violent offenders.
A serious societal failure in America points to the acceptance of a lack of health care- including mental
health care. We dearly need early intervention mental health care. We obviously quietly nurture grave psychic
pain until some few years after adult onset in the sufferer, we all pay for the neglect- even those who owe it least.
As for city kids, they are rarely killed en masse by someone who has chosen a rampage in order to express himself, his possible grudges, and his chosen legacy.
People have expressed shock that anyone could even be capable of the sort of carnage against tiny humans we have seen this weekend. The fact this assault seems to have been planned and the tiny ones seem to have been singled out, is truly mind-boggling.
Psychiatrists have seen to it we all know or have heard of manic depressives.
What I would hope to see is a specific diagnosis or set of diagnoses relating to people who seem to be 'rage depressives'. Some people seem to have manic states regularly suffused with masses of undifferentiated and
otherwise energetically suppressed rage. We have read about these people. We have met these people. But we can't diagnose them. And why are we possibly more enraged than other countries?
This man in Connecticut may have shot his mom simply because she defied him and would give him away. He was hell bent on hell. My fear is that even if he is there now, he may not notice he is.
He went on a killing spree to enjoy himself. For whatever reasons, killing first graders was the thing he had been dying to do, did die to do. He kept shooting because the first shot gave him a high he had to try to repeat. There is no reason to shoot a dead child. But he enjoyed it more than he even thought he would. He
of course knew he wouldn't get this chance again. The way pleasure works, according to the nuns at my high
school in the nineteen sixties, it has to be actively and purposefully pursued with vigor- because unlike happiness, it has a tendency not to last.
Happiness is achieved by exchanging warm feelings with others. Humans have no particular reason to seek what is achieved so naturally.
Once an aggressive person realizes he will not be capable of happiness, who knows how he manages to come to what will give him pleasure instead. Can science manage or predict these bloody desires?
Otherwise at the risk of trivializing any American murders, some of this may come down to
Joan Walsh becoming able to answer her own question.
What hurts me most about Newtown, is knowing we may never ever know who was the last baby to be
killed, and who could ever measure or imagine the loneliness of that child's last moment?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)