Author:
Many of the stories on BCTS follow the same theme of school bullies and brutality. Those stories are more non fiction than fiction. I don't think I'm reveling any confidential secrets when I repeat what one of the ladies at the VA TG meeting told the rest of us when she was going to school. Every school day, every school year was literally hell for her. She was constantly getting beat up.
One must question how much a child learns in such an environment, besides how to survive? Surely they learn to hate school and the association of learning anything. The following came in on a news feed a few days ago and I was remiss to post it on BCTS wondering if it was relevant. Finally deciding, yes it did fit with so many of the stories of schools which are more of a war zone than learning centers.
https://www.ksat.com/news/texas/2021/12/09/3-texas-teens-cha...
Hugs People
Barbie Jean Lee
As one may imagine I have asked to be added to these lawsuits challenging Governor Stitt's exec order.
https://kfor.com/news/local/gov-stitt-issues-executive-order...
Life is a challenge and hopefully we grow emotionally and intelligently as we overcome those speed bumps in life. We only get one go at this particular time. Make the best of it you can.
Comments
Gahh
First: Governor stitt is just pandering to the anti-Christian right which makes up a lot of his electorate. Perhaps the court could further a crisis by holding him in contempt?
Second: Children are uncivilized savages. One of the biggest jobs of parenting is civilizing them. Football makes this more difficult - especially in Texas. Perhaps the parents of the children at that party need a failure penalty too?
BAK 0.25tspgirl
Is he pandering to
the anti-Christain right, I thought it was the Christian right which were the problem in Texas, as it's they who dislike abortion and women's rights and also people who are different? They also seem to act as if the Alamo was only fought last week and they're all carrying guns in case the Mexicans return.
Angharad
Hardly
It's not the Mexicans why I carry. So far I have a Constitutional Right to defend myself and my livestock. Many years back my neighbor was killed when they broke into his house. I guarantee it won't be me my cousin draws the chalk outline around. I don't care whether anyone does or doesn't so why are those who don't trying to make me fit into their concept of life?
As to original intent, the Framers were explicit. George Mason said, "I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. . . . To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them. . . . " Sam Adams wrote, "The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." And Thomas Jefferson wrote, "No free man shall ever be debarred from the use of arms."
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Adjectives
Those who claim to be Christian but whose belief systems are the opposite to Christ as outlined in the New Testament are the anti-Christian right, left, or middle.
BAK 0.25tspgirl
I call them
Pseudo-christians. They (like all christians) make the noise but don't walk the walk. Why I don't believe in imaginary sky faries. If he did exist why does he let 95+% of his followers act as they do. Makes me cringe when somebody says 'I'll pray for you'. Drop a penny in a beggar's cup, it does more good.
They know they can survive
Free Will
Since you asked, it's called "free will." We are slaves to righteousness but have self-determination. Christ was very willing to understand human frailty. He surrounded himself with imperfect humans and demonstrated that we are all "with sin."
I'm fairly certain Christ would cringe -- like you and I do -- at the superfluous "I'll pray for you." There are many Bible passages that support that point of view.
If the person means that they will keep you in their positive thoughts, I'm all for it. However, many of them use their "I'll pray for you." as a weapon to tell you of their superiority as Christians. With others, it is code for them casting a spotlight on your shortcomings.
I believe in "love." I believe in "compression." If those are imaginary sky fairies, I'm guilty.
I don't believe in power-grabbing clergy. I grew up Catholic and watched with dismay at a time when our parish pastor was raping my friends and relatives. Two boys, one a first cousin, committed suicide when no one would believe them.
The Church has consistently run from its complicity.
Yet -- I can't stop believing in sky fairies just because some very bad people have misused His existence.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Free Will?
I've always considered "free will" a copout argument to paper over the fact that that this supposedly all-knowing, all powerful mythical being isn't doing a thing to alleviate any of the problems in the world.
It's right up there with "faith" which is another copout to explain why there is nothing that can be pointed to as conclusive evidence of god's existence. Trump's followers exhibit more faith then almost all of the godbotherers in the world, on no more evidence, i.e. none.
They know they can survive
Blindly Following
Many so called Christians follow a false prophet. I'm thinking of one super church a friend sent me a link to so I could follow the sermons. I listened to a couple of sermons, no thanks, the person wouldn't know God or Jesus if they were shaking hands. Many so called preachers, ministers, priests, monks, etc. have the mistaken idea their job is to share their word, their ideas of religion. Use your brain for something besides marking the center between your shoulders. Religion is a tool designed by Constantine to control the masses and enrich his treasury. It's used to justify wars, control and kill masses, and give false hope. Only by joining, name almost any church, is one going to get to heaven. I know I'm not going to change the way the majority think. I'm probably not going to change anyone's mind. NOT MY JOB!
God and Jesus taught faith which has only a slim chance of having anything to do with religion. Religion may lead to faith, faith may lead one to understand religion. What one believes or doesn't believe is up to them. Very very few has God chosen for something special. For the rest of us He isn't going to make anyone believe or have faith. He's not going to smite a billion false religious fanatics because they are following false prophets. (yet).
Send me your four oh one and your IRA savings and I'll get you an assured ticket to Heaven, all your sins will be forgiven. Believe it or not centuries earlier Priests were doing that exact thing. I've met a couple ministers who were as bad. Sadly not much has changed over the centuries. I have had the pleasure of attending a few spirit filled churches, but they are rare.
https://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/the-reformation/roman-...
God is real and He-She is I AM, but if you think my choo choo is sitting on the siding still waiting to get loaded...? You're probably right. I know exactly where I'm going after I return this mortal life God made for me. Hope I didn't make too many mistakes this time around. Have faith.
I love religion. It is a very deep entertaining subject. Fascinating how individuals and the masses think about it, embrace it, and believe in it. It's a very dark mistress.
Hugs People
Barb
Life is a gift, don't waste it.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
School was a living hell for me
and I got out of the asylum as soon as I could... That was the week of the Apollo 11 landing.
That September, I started an apprenticeship and we were sent to technical college 1.5 days a week. That was like a breath of fresh air. We were treated as adults... Yay! and there were no gangs demanding money or get beaten up..
Three years later, I returned to full time education to get my BSC in Engineering. Again, we were treated like adults. There were none of the US Frat or Sorority cliques and you played sport on a Wednesday afternoon just for fun. No multi-million pound sports teams. I even captained the 1st XV at Rugby in my second year. It was just for fun.
School can be like a prison and one that is run by the inmates. Many of us who escaped thrived and went on to better things. Most remained behind and paid the price. Two of those who were at school with me have served life sentences for murder. Most are or were in dead-end jobs with little prospects. I hated going back to that town. Thankfully, with the passing of my mother last July, I never have to return to that blot on the landscape again.
Life is what we make of it and the less that the 'doo gooders' interfere with it the better.
Ray Bradbury, like so many SF authors, wrote a lot of their stories as warnings. Fahrenheit 451 could soon become a reality in some US states.
Samantha
Inmates running the asylum
I went to an all boys boarding school for the years around 1970 - well, all boys except for me, but I kept very very quiet about that as it could have been the end of me. The school was mostly run by the upper sixth and the brutality of some is unbelievable, some should have ended up in prison. There was no respite, it was 24/7. One boy was staked out on the front lawn with croquet hoops and hit with a croquet mallet in his testicles. There were many more, some of which I was on the receiving end of.
Some of the staff were as bad - one teacher had a very unhealthy interest in the younger boys in the showers, but no-one dared speak out. It was just how things were.
To the outside world it was a very good school and had excellent results, which just goes to show appearances can be deceptive. My year and the year above did not behave anything like as badly towards the younger boys, but the attitude was just part of the culture where 17/18 year olds ruled the lives of the youngest.
Can't say I agree that schooldays are the best of your life, they are just something to be survived and left behind. If I had ever trusted anyone with my secret I can't begin to imagine how much worse it would have been.
Alison
I was also bullied in school
Until my father had enough and had me trained to fight.
By the time I entered high school, bullies wouldn't even think about messing with anyone when I was around.
We the willing, led by the unsure. Have been doing so much with so little for so long,
We are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
Learning to fight is one thing
But if the bullies have a fighter that later went on to fight for a world title what can you do? Especially when the others are holding you down.
You took your beating and got on with life. If you complained then that would make it worse as the son of a Police Sergeant was a ringleader. Many of the families had been engaged in criminality in East London before, during and after WW2. Their move to a new town was just another business opportunity for their gangs. Their children were groomed to replace them when they were sent down. These people had links to the Krays (Ronnie and Regie). The last of the true East End Gangsters.
Samanth
The problem in schools
I remember a cartoon i once saw in a magazine. It describes the problem with children in school better than anything I have seen before or since.
It was two panels, in both there was a man sitting behind a desk. On the desk was a name plaque that read 'Principal'. In front of the desk facing the principal sat a young boy in a chair with a man and woman standing behind the boy leaning forward looking at the principal with angry looks on their faces.
In the first frame there was a calendar that displayed the year as 1960 and a caption reading 'What did our son do this time!'
In the second frame the calendar displayed the year as 2010 and the caption read, 'What are you accusing our little angel of doing this time?'
Children are undisciplined, self-centered, uncivilized savages. It's our job as parents to teach them discipline, caring of others and how to be civil. The parents of our current generation of teens are failing miserably.
We the willing, led by the unsure. Have been doing so much with so little for so long,
We are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
I believe it
I drive school bus and while the students are on my bus it's up to me to enforce discipline. Students who break the rules and won't respond to my correction get written up, That is I write a report detailing the nature of the infraction. The report is turned into my supervisor and she either approves it and sends on to the school or tells me that it won't stand the objections of the parents. I've only had that happen once. She told me that while the kids deserved the write the circumstances made it look like I was retaliating against the student for something I couldn't write them up for.
The reaction of the parents is varied. Some come down on the kid. These kids are rarely repeat offenders. Others maintain that I just have it out for the kids and that I'm some sort of draconian tyrant. These miscreants constantly challenge the rules.
Fortunately the school never questions whether the write up was justified or not and will back up the bus driver. Three write ups in a term and the student is banned from the bus for a week, five and they are banned for the rest of the term. In the four years I've been doing this I've had three banned for the week and one banned for the term.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin ein femininer Mann
Reap What has been Sown
We now are harvesting what was sown in the formative years. Smash and grab, riots, burning and pillaging businesses which is legal as long as they are called protests. Seems as if the same mental attitude which lead our schools are now leading the nation.
I loved school, it was vacation time. For those hours I no longer was kissing cows, sitting on a tractor, harvesting silage, loading hay bales. I didn't have any enemies and some of my best friends were the animals, football jocks, and black kids.
There is a web site of the graduation kids of my class, beautiful girls, handsome boys each and everyone of them. I don't think any of them went to prison. Drinking, drag racing, rolling a car or wrapping one around a tree, they all survived. Two farm kids didn't survive getting close to running farm equipment but that was life in a farm ranching community. More than half are gone now. Some too soon, others nursing homes or supported by their kids.
I'm so blessed, I'm still up and going. Cataract surgery coming up but so far I'm great. Life turns over to the next generation. From my ancient vintage perspective not good. This nation I love with all my heart and soul is being lead by greed and corruption from the top down. And ladies and gentlemen it's true, shit flows downhill. Greed and Me Too are reaping what they have sown. Freebies for all, only it's laced with shackles and chains and poison.
Welcome to a nation that is the school nightmare you thought you left behind. Keep drinking the koolaid, utopia is in the mind until reality asks for payment. I wish I could have stopped time sixty years ago and lived the rest of my life in that time frame. Better times are ahead. For me! I pray this life ends with me right here on the farm I was born and raised on surrounded by the animals I love and give back so much in return.
Hugs People
Barb
Life is meant to be lived, not worn until it's worn out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E88RUqyjts
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
If I could have stopped time
For me age 18 was perfect. I graduated high school and I was old enough to do what I wanted and young and healthy enough to get away with it.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin ein femininer Mann
and this
I used to think the worst of the persecution by organized religion in the stories here was based on extremes if not exagerated. Now this is in the news:
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2021/1...