Friday, November 12, 2004

KIDS THESE DAYS

MIAMI -- A 6-year-old boy was subdued with a Taser while wielding a piece of glass and threatening to hurt himself in the principal's office, officials said Thursday.

The boy, who was not identified, was shocked by police with 50,000 volts of electric current on Oct. 20 at Kelsey Pharr Elementary School.


Some of you out there in the blogosphere - I shall call you pussies - may read the article referred to above and claim that the actions of the injured child did not warrant a discharge of streams of high voltage.

Well.

Let me tell you something.

During my illustrious six-year tenure at Lincoln Elementary (K-5), I got in serious trouble twice: once after pulling a kid into a pool of mud afer a particularly rainy day, and once after being involved in a large fight against the school "Poopstains" - a term forever reserved by 10 year olds to describe Mexicans - after a boy named Miguel pulled a switchblade on my friend Ryan. After both of these incidents, I was called into the principal's office and, bleary-eyed and remorseful, sat as he reassured me that he would pursue no disciplinary action. Unfortunately, he then informed me that my father had been notified of the various crimes committed. To this day, I remember distinctly the words, "I spoke with your father, and he requested that I allow him to discipline you himself."

Oh, how I had wished that Mr. Whaley was more corporally-minded, how I wished he had the smallest sliver of sadism in his soul. How I wished he had the gumption to do the just thing and take swift action, and how I prayed that he would slap my ass with his timber - so great was my fear of "Big Leroy" and his cricket bat of pain.

Needless to say, those days were unpleasant, and those nights all the more painful as The L-Train tanned my hide with switches, tire chains, and bungee chords. But the results don't lie, people - nay, the proof truly is in the pudding - and the next time the Poopstains tried provoking us with their illegal shivs, I did the brave and appropriate thing. I ran away. This not only insured the safety of my vital organs, it guaranteed protection of my small, supple rump. I had learned my lesson.

To wit - Physical Discipline: 1, Stern Talking To: 0.

To this day, I can't wait to have children so that I may "reprimand" them for childish and churlish behavior. To see the processees of learned behavior, to feel the satisfaction of living in a world - however falsely realized or imagined - governed by certain rules and following certain paths. For I know in my heart that when it comes to raising kids (a subject that I thankfully do not yet know a lot about), the establishment of clear and open communication are immeasurably important in the development of trust and confidence between parents and kids. Personally, I don't know of a better way to get your point across than swinging a 4-foot flattened wooden plank against the bare skin of a young child's backside.

In other words, I have a feeling that the kid in Florida with the attitude problem and a desire to injure himself will think twice before waving around a broken shard of glass and slicing open his own leg. He'll remember that coversation with those 50,000 volts, he'll remember the burnt nerves and bruised patches of skin, and he'll cut that monkey business out.

5 comments:

BK/CK said...

That kid sounds like he had it coming. Maybe he'll respect authority next time; especially if authority has a taser gun pointed at him. Maybe it'll start a new field of amateur shock therapy treatment.

Besides not having diddly squat to do today, it seems like as good of a time as any to tell my only story of 'Paddled By a Principal':

A burgeoning creative talent, in a small, rural Indiana elementary school (one classroom per grade) I had just entered my fixation-with-boobies stage. Since I've yet to finish this stage in my life, I can remember the beginnings clearly. Starting to stretch my creative muscles, I was moving from finger paint to sketchings at the time. After visiting a friend's double-wide mobile home after school for an afternoon of Excitebike, I discovered the muse who would inspire the next progression in my work: My friend's mom. She may have been missing some teeth and she definitely smelled like cigarettes and spaghetti-o's; but she had big boobs, big inspirational boobs. Incidently, my interpretation of them made her look more like an African tribeswoman in need of some support, but I've never been one for realism. To make a long story short, I'm not sure if it was the picture itself that got me in trouble or the arrow pointing to the boobs and entitling them "[My friend]'s Mom's Boobies". My friend must not have appreciated my artistic treatment because he got me hauled down to Mr. Polston's office before the day was out. After a short conversation, an admission of guilt, and a wimpered statement of remorse, I felt the business end of a wooden paddle impact my backside.

'And that's the end of that story...'

T.S. said...

What a crock. A bunch of lies masquerading as the truth. The fine folks of Indiana neither need nor desire to punish their progeny like savages. The only shock and awe you'll get in these parts is a stern talking-to and maybe a mouthful of soap if you're a blasphemer. Boo-hoo cries the A.M. and his ilk--while the world goes to hell. Calumnies, vituperation, slander: don't he just make it look easy? Well not in my backyard, chief. Best you stay put in your blue state while I defend the good name of this here red one--creme and crimson, that is, Hoosier through and through.

Anonymous said...

Actually, I think this Dean Cain vehicle "Dragon Fighter" might be more pussy. See comments below:

I really wanted to like this movie, and i was entertained to a point. But, there are tons of things very wrong with this movie.

There is a very annoying split-screen style that occurs every so often during the movie, showing different camera angles of the scenes. Inventive yes, but i found it quite distracting and just plain annoying to watch it in that fashion.

Another thing is the cloning of the "Dragon" so rapidly. How could something go from a single DNA strand into a multi-ton beast within a few hours? Let's forget that it is basically scientifically impossible, but where was it going to get so much raw organic material to produce that level of exponential growth? This isn't the first time in a movie that they've leaped over the seemingly obvious scientific facts, hoping that the dummies out there wouldn't care or notice.

The ending was equally as troublesome, military airplanes shooting down the Dragon? That reminds me of what happened in the horrible movie "Retillian". At the very end we see soldiers (or scientists) exploring the underground facility which was blown up by a Nuclear core meltdown that was 53% of Hiroshima, right after our heroes escaped. When the soldiers go in, the facility only appears to be mildly damaged...how they could even go into it at all is beyond me.

Anything positive about the film? Well, the beginning of the movie that takes place during medieval times is decent, and the Dragon CGI effects are fairly believable except for a few scenes. The acting is admirable, but that in and of itself fails to help the weak plot.

This is far from the worst film i've ever seen, but i wouldn't recommend it or give a seal of approval. It's worth a single viewing for fans of sci-fi movies, but for everyone else...just forget Dragon Fighter.

Andrew said...

So wait...

You're in favor of the tasering of someone threatening to injure themself?

And you actually think that this overreaction on the part of the police is going to suddenly scare straight a child that is obviously disturbed?

Where did you get your PhD again?

BK/CK said...

Geez, and people say liberals have no sense of humor!

"Dr. Dobson sucks!"...there's something to make them feel good again and have a few giggles...'Haha, yeah, he's right, Dr. Dobson does suck'...