Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Spankings work through embarrassment and humiliation.
Waitaminnit, waitaminnit, I think a lot of us who should know better, still don’t get that. So I’ll say it again. Spankings work through embarrassment and humiliation.
Oh wait, I think there are still some folks who don’t get that, so I’ll…oh…well, after awhile, there’s really nothing more you can do. Is there? I mean some folks really, really, don’t get it.
A Los Fresnos family is going to court to try to prevent a Cameron County justice of the peace from ordering spankings in his courtroom.
The lawsuit filed Wednesday alleges that Justice of the Peace Gustavo “Gus” Garza told a 14-year-old girl’s stepfather that she would be found guilty of a criminal offense and fined $500 for truancy unless the stepfather spanked her in the courtroom.
The lawsuit filed by Mary Vasquez and her husband, Daniel Zurita, described the paddle provided by Garza as large and heavy and fashioned from a thick piece of lumber.
“The word ‘club’ could be fairly used as a substitute for the word ‘paddle’ here as it appears to be something which may have been cut from a (two-by-four) piece of lumber,” attorney Mark Sossi wrote in the family’s petition. “The paddles provided by the judge are of such heft and weight that an individual striking an animal with one might be reasonably reported for cruelty to an animal.”
In a story for Thursday’s editions of The Brownsville Herald, Garza declined to comment on whether he has people spanked in his courtroom. He also said he had not seen the lawsuit.
The lawsuit asks a state district court to stop the spankings and remove Garza from office.
The family alleges in the lawsuit that Garza told Zurita to strike his stepdaughter repeatedly on the buttocks in open court.
Zurita said he didn’t feel as if he had a choice but to follow the order. When he was through, the judge told him he had not struck the girl hard enough, Zurita said in an affidavit.
Vasquez said she had seen the judge order other public spankings.
“It is unconscionable that a Texas judge would order a parent, much less a step parent, be required to strike a child with such a thing in a Texas courtroom,” the family’s attorney wrote in a footnote on the petition. “It is equally unconscionable that an argument could be made that such an order would fall within the lawful authority of any Texas judge.”
Hey here’s an idea: Don’t skip school. Then you won’t be spanked.
Aw, you see the cultural split here? I’m thinking in terms of cause and effect: IF you skip school, THEN you might get spanked. IF we spank kids who skip school, THEN maybe they’ll stop.
Other people think purely in terms of European style “I think this is deplorable and can I get an amen here?” No cause and effect at all. Oh, except with regard to the Justice of the Peace who’s trying to uphold law and order — IF we sue him THEN we can get him thrown outta office. So I guess they believe in cause and effect too.
But not with regard to bringing reform to the people who need it.
Some would say I should withhold my opinion until I have a chance to get to know the JP a little bit better. Maybe he really is off his rocker. I acknowledge that is a possibility. But going by that logic — why am I supposed to agree that this is “unconscionable” when I haven’t had a chance to meet this girl? Maybe she’s a brat. I know two things about her: 1) She’s a truant; and 2) a Justice of the Peace thought it fitting that she be given a smack-down in his courtroom, for being a truant.
Sounds like a brat to me.
Like I said recently: Where is the shame? We have something very similar to it nowadays, and we’re drowning in what’s similar to it: A fear of being sued over having offended someone else’s sense of decency. That is a similar, close-cousin synthetic blend. But it’s not identical, and it turns out to be a poor substitute — especially when we’re up to our armpits in that fear-of-getting-sued stuff, and completely bone-dry fresh-outta good old fashioned shame.
Shame, as in: Oh my dear f*cking God, I’m in court because this bratty stepchild of mine keeps cutting school, everyone thinks I don’t have what it takes to discipline her and it looks like they’re right.
If I were given dictator-for-a-day powers, and only had a limited amount of time to fix a very few things, that would rank very high on my list. We don’t put too much energy anymore into standing up for what we know is right. We’re too concerned with what we think the other fellow thinks is right. We’re over-Kerryized. We see shades of gray where right & wrong are concerned — that is a good thing when there really are shades of gray involved. But real life very rarely plies us with the gray stuff — most of these dilemmas are simple, are indeed black-and-white.
And our post-modern sense of moral relativism seems, to me, to be serving us very poorly in those far-more-common situations. This isn’t that complicated. Kid’s a brat. Needs a whack. Dish it out, hope for the best, and move on.
(Insert sound of my imaginary tobacco wad hitting the spittoon here.)
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I have been saying this for years; we used to get paddled in school and we actively tried to avoid it. Punishment was swift and mostly public. It wasn’t the pain, it was the humiliation, just as you say.
They took away corporal punishment and our schools now have discipline problems. They redefine sin and now our nation lacks self-restraint. They excuse violence and therefore encourage it.
- chunt31854 | 06/07/2008 @ 21:18