35 Replies to “Reader Tips”

  5. Casey Heynes, seems like a kid that’s got it together in his mind really, that he was simply pushed too hard one day by other kids that should’ve left him alone. Having been the brunt of many a larger kid in school when I was a kid, I applaud him, and ask as many others have, where were the teachers prior to this eventful day?
    Congratulations Casey. It’s good to see your sister and father so much on your side as well…

  7. This “http://desertofforbiddenart.com/” is nothing short of amazing. Growing up on a diet of the Soviet “socialist realism”, the art about harvest, hammering of steel and other such heroic deeds, we never had any respect for the Ruskies.
    There was an exhibition of the socials realism produced by the Ruski painters in Calgary, many years ago. It was at the time when Jim Peplinsky still played for the Flames. I remember it for the simple reason that Peplinsky came to see it.
    Now seeing this, puts a whole new dimension to the endless destruction of human spirit.
    It seems that it can’t be done even by the worst tyrants, despots, dictators…. of the species.
    Have a look.

  9. Casey Haynes: Brings to mind my public school daze.
    Picture some half-century, ago the naive farm kid brutally plucked from the relative comfort of the country schoolhouse environment and slammed down into the hallowed town education institute! Culture shock? Nope, wasn’t fazed.
    However, he (ok…me) as luck would have it, had the misfortune to be assigned the desk in Room 7A directly in front of one Barry L., a kid thirty pounds my better. It wasn’t long before the tormenting began in the way of pencil or compass points jabbing my back.
    Repeated warnings did no good. Finally, having had enough, I whirled around and nailed him squarely in the left eye. That felt pretty good.
    Things were pretty quiet most of the day. Later that pm I felt a gentle tap on my shoulder. Turning around, I met a right hook straight to my right eye.
    The rest of the week had two students sporting eye bandages.
    Oddly enough, that started a decent friendship, ending when the railroad family was transferred away. And none of it was witnessed by the teacher. Cut the meddling and let the kids handle it! :~))

  10. Lev, thanks for that.
    Snagglepuss, this story also brought back memories for me. In my case, after I had had enough and decided to fight back and managed to clean his clock, we became friends, but lost track when going to different high schools. I heard later that he volunteered for the US Army and was killed in Vietnam.

  12. Toronto Star, Tuesday, March 22. Linda McQuaig mouthing off again.
    http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/957665–mcquaig-luxury-for-the-rich-but-realism-for-the-rest-of-us
    LM (noting a Kevin O’Leary comment “greed is good and I love money” on the CBC): “Presumably, the purpose of a public broadcaster is to offer something not provided by profit-driven private broadcasters — perhaps an expression of national purpose or a defence of the public interest.”
    The purpose of broadcasting is to provide entertainment in the form of news, sports, variety, etc. that viewers want to watch. There is no such thing as a “national purpose” except in totalitarian states like Nazi Germany, and it is imposed without the consent of the masses. And there is no such thing as the “public interest” either, which always means certain activists’ interests imposed on everybody else. Broadcasting should be left in private hands. It is not a proper function of government.
    LM: “CBC also gives lots of airtime to environmental activist David Suzuki. But Suzuki deserves it; he uses it to defend the public good. O’Leary, on the other hand, speaks unabashedly for greed and the elevation of his own interests over everyone else’s.”
    Greed does not constitute the elevation of anyone’s interests over everyone else’s. An economy consists of acts of production and trade by individuals. A greedy person — one who wants to obtain more in trade than what he is willing to give up in exchange is worth — will not find any takers. Greed is not a problem in a free market; it is only a problem in an economy with government intervention and regulations that override the free choices of individuals. The solution is to repeal those measures.
    LM: “As deficits pile up, we are soon to be inundated with the message that we are living beyond our means and must learn to do with less.”
    “We” are not living beyond our means — the politicians are living beyond the means that our taxes provide, or even can provide.
    Her solution, as always, is to raise taxes on “the rich”. But “the rich” is usually redefined downward over time (although a threshold figure quoted in her column is admittedly very high).
    Taxes that are used for the proper functions of government like police, military and courts are required to be spent. Taxes that provide infrastructure like roads and sewers are not wasted, although services might be more efficient if provided privately in a competitive market.
    But it’s the taxes that are wasted, such as supporting people who have to turn to welfare because the minimum wage destroyed many of their job prospects, or squandered helping addicts shoot up with drugs, or given to artists to put on performances no one wants to see, and thousands of similar fiascos — not to mention the vast quantities of worthless government jobs predicting economic conditions or enforcing phony “human rights codes” — multiply these by several million and you understand why the middle class is floundering, while malevolent columnists pretend it’s all done in the “public interest”.
    It’s the taxes, stupid!

  15. “Her solution, as always, is to raise taxes on “the rich”.”
    How about we raise taxes on socialist pinheaded journailsts?

  17. the mayor of Windsor says it right, they are in recovery in Windsor, an area hit the hardest & this election could damage this recovery.
    he also points out that there are Only NDP MPs in this area, Is he elading to punish them for pushing an Un-wanted Election? As they and all cities will lose that Permament Gas Tax Money.
    CTV News Special Report: Mayors on the budget
    Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi is critical of the budget, saying Canada needs more stimulus funding. But, Windsor Mayor Eddie Francis says he is pleased the gas tax has been made permanent.
    http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20110322/flaherty-announces-federal-budget-110322/
    Have a look at the Vid & i hope this resonates right across this country with the cities elected officials & i hope they Open their Eyes & speak up.
    In fact i have coffee with a counciler here in Owen Sound & he was not aware of that & got quite a surprise, BTW: His politics are not the same as mine. This is an important issue The Gas Tax Monies that are much needed for municipalities in order to keep their budgets & possible tax increases to a minium.

  18. poll ahttp://www.ctv.ca/canadaam/
    If an election was held today who would you vote for?
    conservatives 58%
    liberals 20%
    ndp 18%
    bloc 0%
    green party 4%
    this is as of 9:27am est

  19. Elizabeth Taylor, dead at 79.
    http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/hollywood-icon-elizabeth-taylor-dies-79/story?id=12894882&page=2
    You kind of wonder if her brain was already dead when she said this: “”I don’t think President Bush is doing anything at all about AIDS. In fact, I’m not sure he even knows how to spell AIDS,” Taylor said once, frustrated with President Bush’s slow-moving efforts to address the crisis.”
    Given that the Bush presidency gave far more financial aid to combating AIDS in Africa than any previous or subsequent Administration, Taylor’s disingenuous and partisan attack on President Bush reveals her leftard shallowness and grandstanding.
    Beautiful? Yes, at least in her younger years.
    Air head? Definitely, especially in her dotage.

  20. bryanr, my vote seems to have upped the Conservatives’ advantage by one percentage point!
    Now, 59% of Canadians say they’d vote for the CPC. And this is a CTV poll!!

  21. bloc’s doing good on CanadaAM poll, they now have 1 vote, Gilles must have nothing to do today.

  22. I’m still smiling over “a leg for an arm an an arm for a leg” (thanks Black Mamba). I feel like that a lot when I venture behind the looking glass into CBC and The Star land.

  23. Over at American Thinker, in “Yes, Violence Can Be the Answer”, Selwyn Duke addresses the other half of the Casey Heynes situation: the abdication of the adults, who, because of political correctness and moral cowardice—they go together, hand in glove—allow the Caseys of this world to be bullied.
    The schools have never talked so much about no bullying, while bullying in our schools continues to escalate at a dizzying rate. When the rules are arbitrary—certain groups are hands off—and everyone’s supposed to be “nice”, especially to not nice people, the problem goes from bad to worse. E.g., School policy is much closer to “Hug a Thug” than “Help the Victim”. Teachers’ hands are tied re dealing harshly with offenders (yes, I said “harshly”: that’s often just what they need): any complaint from the aggressive kid or his/her parents—“The teacher said/did such and such and I didn’t like it. . .”—and the TEACHER’S hauled in to justify his/her actions. Kids’ tattle taling on teachers is not only accepted by administration, but encouraged, as the kids find it’s a strategy that works in their favour. WHAT a crock.
    If the adults are willing to turn a blind eye to the Caseys out there, we’ll be seeing more of individual pushback—I hope: think Ian Thomson, David Chen, and others who have had to take matters into their own hands because the “authorities”, actually charged with their safety and well being, are too lily livered to do what needs to be done. (In their defence, I’m afraid, it’s too true that the Charter often ties their hands: litigation is always a concern, and judges have been very willing to ascribe very dubious “rights” to the worst offenders.)
    Re our schools: there are no facilities, e.g., reform (or “boot”) schools, to send the more egregious students to: facilities where these kids will really be held to account for their thuggish behaviour—and maybe even be trained to smarten up. It’s unlikely that the Charter would allow these miscreants to be held to account or have their behaviour changed—of course, this would need to be done under coercion, and we can’t have that, can we?—because their rights to not be treated “badly” are routinely given more weight than the rights of their victims not to be treated badly. What a cruel joke our PC societies have become. Selwyn Duke thinks so too:
    http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/03/yes_violence_can_be_the_answer.html

  24. batb, Liz Taylor may have been the prime example of why actors should stick to acting and leave politics alone but for me she will always be Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile.
    I fondly remember seeing her on the silver screen at a downtown theatre in Winnipeg when I was a mere bundle of teenage hormones. Classic Hollywood epic with racy (in those days) scenes.

  26. Heck, Texas Canuck, far be it from me to rob nostalgic males of their “fond” memories of Liz Taylor!
    She was a femme-omenon (I bet you thought I was going to say femme fatale, which is true!)

  27. Lookout, thanks for the article link 10:21.
    At the bullying workshop I attended before I retired, I said to the expert that none of his suggestions were either useful, realistic or possible. It boiled down to the fact that since the school wasn’t prepared to deal with the bullies, we should provide emotional support so that the victims could better cope with being victimized–to participate in their own victimization so to speak.
    I’m sorry to say that even if a teacher had been aware or present in Casey’s situation, he/she likely could not have done much about it. You can make yourself visible to discourage such acts, but the tormentors will simply pick a different place and time. And if a kid comes to you to complain there isn’t much you can do. Talk to the bully? Phone the bully’s parents? Sometimes it just makes things worse.
    Friends of mine (they happen to be teachers) did everything “right” according to the experts when their son was being bullied. They consulted the authorities. They got their son in counselling because he was suicidal because of the relentless torment. Basically they were told that the best solution was to move their son to another school. Also, their son was blamed for being too sensitive and for allowing it to “get to him”. When the dad said, “Let me get this straight. You’re saying that even though this kid is a known bully and he is the one causing the problem, your solution is that my son be the one to leave this school?” And in fact that was the case.
    There have been some successes when parents laid charges of assault on a bully. It made the school look bad and they were more responsive to complaints for a while.
    The big lie is to persuade kids that teachers CAN do something. In some cases, they can. But much of the time it would be more honest to tell the kid: You’re on your own. Deal with it or put up with it. (And if he deals with it, don’t punish him.)

  31. I also had a really good link regarding the Casey Haynes case but it seems eb has chosen to delete EVERYTHING I post on ‘[only certain] reader tips’
    busy little eb, afraid of his own shadow.
    censor censor censor. my my my, the power trip that provides eh eb?

  32. bullies in school???? naahhhhh.
    a quick review of the bullies in my schooling:
    1 teachers. beat up for losing my place in reading circle.
    2. other kids. beat up because I wouldn’t fight back.
    3. which brings us to today; bullying by proxy !!! teachers not permitted to lay a finger on the kiddies, soooooo when a little beagle shows up in the class they can’t touch, well, let the full time bullies do their bidding !!!
    4. if I knew where my daddy kept the shotgun shells I just might have done a little ‘columbine’ of my own. I even inherited the double barrel and knew exactly how the action worked having tinkered with it many times in my bullied years.
    5. the good news is I did track down george b aberhart’s, the uber bully’s headstone. (see previous posting, unless of course it’s been censored too)

  34. rita’s got it. The school boards pretend to be doing all kinds of things to combat bullying. In reality, most boards/schools collude in it.
    BRAVA, rita, for telling “the [bullying] expert that none of his suggestions were either useful, realistic or possible”. Most teachers just go along with the garbage from above, while agreeing with your assessment altogether. I know of one jurisdiction that has an anti-bullying neighbourhood walk, where everyone has to wear something pink. (One of the focuses is anti-homophobia, even in kindergarten to grade 6 schools, for heaven’s sake. Personally, there’s far more anti-Christian discrimination in our schools. Homosexuality is actively promoted and protected, while Christianity is derided—check out some of the textbooks—and its tenets not welcome. What a double standard. The hypocrisy is despicable.)
    rita’s correct: there’s very little a teacher can do to stop a bully. Decades ago, after a class bully tried to trip another student in my class at the top of a VERY steep stair case—the student could have been very seriously injured—I grabbed the bully by the scruff of his neck and marched him to the office. “That hurts,” he complained. “It’s meant to,” I replied. (Was he really hurt? Of course not.) The student behaved after that. Today? I’d likely be charged with assault and removed from the school, if not the board. The student? As he wasn’t successful in making the other student fall down the stairs, there’d be no serious consequences. In fact, sending kids to the office usually means they get a pat on the back and a smarmy, appeasing pep talk. They also know that telling lies about their behaviour works: I’ve seen it time and time again.
    Waiting for our schools to deal effectively with bullying is like waiting for Godot: it’s not going to happen. People are mad as hell and are tired of taking it: I think the groundswell of support for Casey is a good sign.

  35. Lookout, I think it’s part of a bigger issue. Like the article you linked to suggests, we have yielded our rights and responsibilities to authorities and experts who are supposed to look after us. But then we allow all sorts of laws, arguments, court cases, charter rights to trump simple justice. Also, authorities and experts would much rather spend their efforts persuading the victims to adapt and keep quiet. If you can get the victims to shut-up, then no-one has to deal with the thugs and bullies. (Caledonia ring a bell?)
    When I first started teaching I was introduced to the concept “in loco parentis”. I would be expected and allowed to do what a reasonable parent would. If that involved using force, as long as it was reasonable and appropriate, I was supposedly protected by our law system. If a kid was putting himself or others at risk, I not only had a right but also a duty to deal with it. Now, I wouldn’t have a clue what to do. I guess I would just do what seemed right but fully expect to get in trouble for it.
    It isn’t a simple problem. It would be nice if all it took was more adult supervision and intervention in bully situations, but much of it is covert. It sometimes involves organized gangs. Now we have cyber-bullying, where campaigns against individuals on social media get wide and rapid distribution.
    Barbara Coloroso is one of the better writers on the subject: The Bully, the Bullied, and the Bystander.
    It’s still a wonderful moment to see a nice kid successfully fight back.

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