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Apr. 10th, 2010 07:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dmxratedFor whatever reason, it seems that the law doesn't apply to minors unless a certain line is crossed. Sure, if someone mugs you on the street or steals your car, you can sue them, but in school, a lot of adults don't take acts of bullying seriously. Jake told me several years ago about his experiences, and I also once knew someone in school named Vincent Criscione (not the Vincent I saw just months ago; a student at the time) who had to deal with these kinds of people.
Actually, I myself have rarely been bullied, but I've heard of it happening elsewhere, including in my own school. And, my concern on the subject was rekindled not on something I saw on TV or witnessed in real life, but on something I read in TV Tropes & Idioms.
I've already written about this in a notebook that I'm going to show Dr. Perret, after having brought it up last night with Mom for the third or fourth time. But let me explain that allowing even "petty" things to happen to people results in the victims being paranoid to go wherever it takes place, defeats the purpose of having a government, and means that fewer people contribute to society. Why should I hold a job and make money, if anything I buy or otherwise own is just gonna get taken away from me, or if I can just take stuff from the weak? Even if the possession in question is a toy, lunch money, a CD, a video game, a container of ladybugs, a food item, or anything else trivial, it's every adult's job to teach kids right from wrong, and no one should have to be afraid to take anything to a friend's house or wherever, or to even leave home. Even if schools have a policy against bringing these things to school, so as to prevent fights from breaking out and to justify inaction if things get stolen there, that still doesn't cover anything that goes on outside of school grounds. You buy something at a store, you could lose it the minute you walk out of the store, because adults don't think it's that big of a deal.
To be fair, though, there are times when this actually is taken seriously. For example, late in 12th grade, I witnessed a dozen students in a circle, pushing another student around to one another, and reported it to Principal Bozza the next day. He then told me that while many adults perceive it as a game, he acknowledges it as harassment, and one of the security guards did in fact report it to him as well.
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Quite by coincidence last night, Dad was watching The Simpsons, and the episode airing was the one where Lisa has to deal with a school bully... and does a science project on her kind. If anything else is a coincidence, it didn't occur to me just how boneheaded an idea this was for an episode of the show, until I read TV Tropes & Idioms' page for Dethroning Moment of Suck: The Simpsons. Whoever wrote that example said that not only is it obnoxious and insulting, but by the logic of that episode, Bart should have had it much better than he's had, because he's not an intellectual by anyone's standards.
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Unrelated, here's something that Chelle has also complained about: For whatever reason, even though I did notice that the site had updated on the 2nd of this month, I've been unable to access Them Anime Reviews 4.0 for at least a month. Whenever I click on any links to it, I get a message saying that Google Chrome could not find the webpage. Even trying to open it in Internet Explorer or through my laptop doesn't work.
Just now, though, the same thing happened when I tried to access Cinemassacre.com, which is where James Rolfe hosts most of his videos for AVGN, Board James, You Know What's Bullshit?, etc. If this starts to happen with LiveJournal, I don't think I'll be able to update this blog for however long it persists.
(Brian, if you're reading this, you got any idea as to what's going on or what to do about it? I did read something about changing the DNS server, but no specifics were given.)
Actually, I myself have rarely been bullied, but I've heard of it happening elsewhere, including in my own school. And, my concern on the subject was rekindled not on something I saw on TV or witnessed in real life, but on something I read in TV Tropes & Idioms.
I've already written about this in a notebook that I'm going to show Dr. Perret, after having brought it up last night with Mom for the third or fourth time. But let me explain that allowing even "petty" things to happen to people results in the victims being paranoid to go wherever it takes place, defeats the purpose of having a government, and means that fewer people contribute to society. Why should I hold a job and make money, if anything I buy or otherwise own is just gonna get taken away from me, or if I can just take stuff from the weak? Even if the possession in question is a toy, lunch money, a CD, a video game, a container of ladybugs, a food item, or anything else trivial, it's every adult's job to teach kids right from wrong, and no one should have to be afraid to take anything to a friend's house or wherever, or to even leave home. Even if schools have a policy against bringing these things to school, so as to prevent fights from breaking out and to justify inaction if things get stolen there, that still doesn't cover anything that goes on outside of school grounds. You buy something at a store, you could lose it the minute you walk out of the store, because adults don't think it's that big of a deal.
To be fair, though, there are times when this actually is taken seriously. For example, late in 12th grade, I witnessed a dozen students in a circle, pushing another student around to one another, and reported it to Principal Bozza the next day. He then told me that while many adults perceive it as a game, he acknowledges it as harassment, and one of the security guards did in fact report it to him as well.
-----
Quite by coincidence last night, Dad was watching The Simpsons, and the episode airing was the one where Lisa has to deal with a school bully... and does a science project on her kind. If anything else is a coincidence, it didn't occur to me just how boneheaded an idea this was for an episode of the show, until I read TV Tropes & Idioms' page for Dethroning Moment of Suck: The Simpsons. Whoever wrote that example said that not only is it obnoxious and insulting, but by the logic of that episode, Bart should have had it much better than he's had, because he's not an intellectual by anyone's standards.
-----
Unrelated, here's something that Chelle has also complained about: For whatever reason, even though I did notice that the site had updated on the 2nd of this month, I've been unable to access Them Anime Reviews 4.0 for at least a month. Whenever I click on any links to it, I get a message saying that Google Chrome could not find the webpage. Even trying to open it in Internet Explorer or through my laptop doesn't work.
Just now, though, the same thing happened when I tried to access Cinemassacre.com, which is where James Rolfe hosts most of his videos for AVGN, Board James, You Know What's Bullshit?, etc. If this starts to happen with LiveJournal, I don't think I'll be able to update this blog for however long it persists.
(Brian, if you're reading this, you got any idea as to what's going on or what to do about it? I did read something about changing the DNS server, but no specifics were given.)