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Half Mast
Alex, the protagonist of the story, is a geeky kid. He gets picked on. And he kills somebody because of it. But that's pretty much where the similarities between Alex and Dylan Klebold end.
What's refreshing about Half Mast is how the author accurately captures the world of a high-school outsider. Writers can be pretty introverted types themselves, but few of them end up killing anybody. So when they try to imagine the type of character who would, a lot of them tend to fall into the trap of inventing someone even more unfathomably nerdy than themselves. Thankfully, Null avoids this.
Alex isn't a complete, pathetic loner. He has friends. And together, Alex, Travis and James aren't the typical cookie-cutter stereotypes of kids too terminally dorky to get with the program. They're not so trollish that they can't get within booger-flicking distance of a girl, or so chess-club square that they wouldn't touch a drop of alcohol at a party (in fact, they spend much of their summers doing just the opposite). Null gets it: that most geeks aren't necessarily "deprived," and being an outsider isn't always about being excluded. It's about being different -- and that, in and of itself, can have its consequences.
In Alex's case, his nemesis is Steve Williams: hometown hero, star athlete, the pride and joy of Fall Valley High -- if you care about that sort of thing, that is. Alex doesn't, particularly. He fails to kowtow to Steve the way the way Fall Valley's golden boy thinks he deserves -- and here's where his proverbial troubles begin. Steve subjects Alex to a series of humiliating tortures that should have even the most picked-on geek cringing.
When Alex does finally strike back, it isn't with a hail of gunfire, either. He's calculating about it. I must admit, I'm not really convinced that Alex's modus operandi would actually pan out the way it does in Half Mast. But it certainly makes for more interesting reading than your standard shoot-out, and in its way, it's much more sinister. Also, because Alex doesn't have the option of the Columbine killers' quick way out, he's forced to live with his actions and their impact on his own life.
That's the book's focus, and what saves it from being just another wannabe crime thriller. Christopher Null cares about his characters, and he's taken care to depict them in a way that geeks will find sympathetic and (mostly) believable.
While a lot of Null's characters and situations were amusingly familiar, others rang less true. The Steve Williams character was a little too prone to making speeches about the relationship between bullies and their victims, for example, instead of just knocking Alex into the dirt the way the kids at my school would have done. There were also a few too many end-of-chapter "zinger" one-liners for my taste, and the novel uses the awkward device of a present-day journal talking about events that took place several years in the past.
Still, it's an impressive debut novel about an uncommon subject matter, and one I think a lot of Slashdotters would get a kick out of. Half Mast is a fast read, and an enjoyable one. It's also notable because the author chose to self-publish rather than go the traditional route. (Or maybe the topic was too "troublesome" for mainstream publishers in a post-Columbine world?)
You can purchase Half Mast from bn.com as well as from Null's own Web site at sutropress.com, which also has some excerpts from the book. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
It's back, and with a vengence. Oh boy. Anyone else think this is Jon Katz in disguise?
he could have gotten even years later, like I do. When I see those jocks that used to oppress and torture me years ago in high school, I undertip them, and call the pizza shop to tell them it was cold.
That's not really NORMAL. You have to have a predisposition to psychosis AND be a nerd in order to flip out with a gun. We need less people blaming parents and more people advocating psycho tests instead of standardized academic testing.
I think of erectile disfunction.
Yay for Viagra!
.... I thought this was about a book called "Half Mast" describing the sadness of living with impotence. .... No offence intended.
ZERO
I think it's really sad that a young person is classified as an "outcast" or a "loser" if he doesn't choose to define his life through sports.
It's certainly not just 'computer geeks' that must live as outsider's in mainstream society. Just about any group of behavior, tech related or not, that does not participate in norm behaviors are easy to ostracize. In lieu of a classic 'geek', there will always be someone different enough to take the fall.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
The Geek Syndrome where computer programmers get their charm from.
aspergers syndrome information
Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
For a short while, I was actually left alone and not harrassed. Due to the previous frequency of harrassment, people kept whispering that I was the most likely to go on a rampage in the school (gee, doesn't that make me feel warm and tingly). Thankfully, I'm not crazy enough to persue that type of behavior (though I did chase somebody with a bat after they crap-kicked me once), and I didn't have access to firearms.
At least for a while though, the events that occurred shocked everybody into realizing that
a) Even geeky people do have a breaking point
b) Bad things happen when you push them past it
I don't sponsor what happened what happened in Columbine: some killings were also based on race and religion, etc, but for awhile its affects gave me a breather. However, now that harrassment in schools is picking up again I wouldn't be surprised to see more students "losing it"
It's also worthy of note that when an event like this happens - all of N. America and possible the world cry "how could it happen," while suicides based on harrassment - which are more frequent often end up as a statistic except for local grief.
Oh, and to this day I find that people tend to bother me less if I wear a nice, dark, long trenchcoat.
Why do we have things like Columbine nowadays when these things were unheard of 30 years ago? Because we didn't have people psychoanalyzing (read: witch doctoring) everyone's feelings and demanding parents use "quiet time" when the kid needed "hit with stick time". We had discipline and ethics that came from our parents and not from the government.
Overrated Moderation: This posts sucks... because.
1. you do not have to have a redisposition to psychosis AND be a nerd to filp out with a gun. actually some of those who filipped out are neither psychotic nor nerds. in fact they're pretty nice people.
2. psycho tests will get you nowhere, they can all be cheated. (ALL, by ANYONE, forever)
sorry, but as a psychologist who did an internship at a forensic mental hospital, i just had to correct that.
--------
"But i don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here.
I'm mad, You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
--------
I use my superior wit and lack of qualms about homosexuality to cause disorder within their ranks by seducing their frat brothers.
As a computer geek, there are many other ways to settle the score without resorting to violence. It's always a shame when somebody who bothered me has all his work on the network drives corrupted, a spontaneous reboot just before saving... or floppy disks subject to magnetic disruption.
Oh... and the year I was the lab admin was the best, many of these jokers were in my class and the prof left me deal with them according - or just assumed that various events were just regular/random PC happenings.
Ah, the pleasant memories:
"These computer SUCK, this is the third time it's crashed before I could finish this assignment"
The antagonist in this story is probably the one
that has it right. I point to this post:
Advice you would give your 12 year old Self
and I suggest that the sooner you cast off the idea
that you should be nice to everyone, have respect
for other people, and just try to get along, the
faster you'll wake up to the true nature of the
world. Then you'll be able to succeed, and go even
further because of your intelligence and general
geekishness. It's sad, but it appear to be true.
The most important thing any republican needs to know.
I was as geeky a nerd as any on /.
I just learned to injury anyone who bothered me.
Hurt them a little the first time and you get
some respect. With a little respect, you do not
have to KILL THEM!
The high school quarterback is more likely to be
the dim witted VP you take budget request to.
If it werent for bad Karma
I'd have no Karma at all.
I think I would be afraid to read this book... For how much my girlfriend has yelled at me for being "Half Mast" myself... =P
I'm lucky. I get annoyed because people kowtow to me because I'm smart. They make fun of me in the same breath, because I'm not athletic, but that's cool. I've got more than enough respect. It's interesting how mere chance can influence your school experience - high SAT scores at my school are worth as much as (or even more than) athletic honors.
If you like this book, you might check out The Body of Christopher Creed by Carol Plum-Ucci. It also paints a pretty realistic portrait of high school life within the context of a murder/suspense story (a pretty good device for for forcing characters into the sort of stress and introspection that really sets young good young adult fiction apart, if you ask me).
As a librarian, I especially recommend it to those of you who are (or have little brothers/sisters/nieces/nephews/children) in high school.
-phatty 2x4
P.S. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson and Hard Love by Ellen Wittlinger are also superb YA novels, just in case you find yourself liking that sort of thing.
Nice things are nicer than nasty ones.
I mean, who were these evil people that gave you such a hard time that you still care about them tens of years later? To tell the truth, I can barely remember the names of most of the people I went to school with, and the only people I keep in touch from high school are all close personal friends. I'm not saying elementary and high school were easy times for me, but I don't dwell on them. Things are good now! I have the respect and admiration of my peers, I do pretty much anything I want, etc.
I mean, who cares about what some foolish child did years ago? Who cares about what those people are doing today? Personally, I couldn't care less.
I'm proud of my Northern Tibetian Heritage
Wow, somebody actually read katz stories. I blocked them in the options setup years ago!
nohup rm -rf ~/. >& zen &
If you are the lab admin, and the systems keep "crashing" or losing other people's data - no matter if you like them or not - it will reflect poorly on you.
The more problems that people have on systems that you are supposedly administering, the less they will like you.
Try talking, or being friendly, or helping to try to recover their data. Let the "bully" see that perhaps you can be better allies than enemies.
Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but copyright will always protect me.
Please join us
Geez, not another viagra user's story... Haven't we heard enough??
If you're looking here for something insightful or thought provoking, you're probably looking in the wrong place.
People who don't like them should not be required to play them, in high school or otherwise. It is not the sports themselves, but the way the masses obsess over sports that has the geeks all miffed.
For one, the kids you need to worry about are smart enough to know they are a bit 'off' as compared to everyone else and know how to pass these tests. (It's not hard to fool a psychologist if you're tenacious.)
For two, tests tests are dumb.
For three, maybe if even some teachers would pay attention to the students who try to avoid attention - in a good way, not a scrutinizing way - and actually care about something, and if schools were to actually provide a good example to kids about how to act maturely, maybe the problem would solve itself. Of course, middle-and-high-school teachers don't have much incentive to care when their spirit, which is already hard to maintain when you work with teachers all day, is systematically crushed by fuckhead administrators. It's hard for administrators to not be fuckheads when U.S. and state legislation forces them to be fuckheads. And it's hard to get a legislation that doesn't force anyone who comes into contact with the government to be a fuckhead when the American voting public seems to only like voting for intractable fuckheads who care more for self-aggrandizement, being in control, and having sex with women half their age than working towards getting people to be well taken care of and nice to each other. Not that the American voting public has much of a choice, given that the people the Republican and Democratic parties like to run for office invariably fit the above description.
A gargantuan, ill-concieved, and overdesigned system that doesn't work won't improve by becoming even more gargantuan and overdesigned. American public schools are gargantuan, ill-concieved, and and overdesigned. So is the state of the art in psychological screening. It is also poorly aimed - the root of the problem lies somewhere else.
With a nickname like God, I expected as much. ALl the little cliche things you just mentioned really points out who you are in real life. lol. I am a geek, always have been, I enjoy computers and cars, but I have never suffered for a cute girlfriend, and quite honestly I'd rather go skinny dipping with sharks before watching the Knicks lose a few more games.
Anonymous Cowards - Oh God, How I hate you
Erratum 1: "tests tests are dumb" -> "standardized tests are dumb"
Erratum 2: "which is already hard to maintain when you work with teachers all day" -> "which is already hard to maintain when you work with teenagers all day"
Erratum 3: "fuckhead" -> "FUCKHEAD"
errrrr... what? nevermind.
Having someone think that you're a threat isn't all bad. It gets you some respect when you might otherwise get none. Being a non-threat in some circles - on the street, in high-school - is far worse than being a threat.
Everyday of our lives we are taught the same lesson:
Don't fight the system,
Don't speak out,
Don't dress differently.
Be part of the crowd,
But don't make a scene.
Don't be a blip on the radar of humanity.
Blend in.
This message has been etched in stone
And continues to repress and distress.
The hatred multiplies
As those "freaks", those cancer on the popular skin,
Must comply.
But it is this silence
That feeds the violence.
All of the Doom
Brought forth by a volatile human Quake
May seem Unreal
But this is no game,
And it was no game that caused this.
It was the repression, the deception,
The correction, the depression.
If the undesirables make a stand,
Raise their collective hand,
If they even dare to breathe,
Push them down; make them desirable.
That's the American way.
If something is wrong, just point blame
On television or a video game.
There's no shame in that.
It's not the parents' fault:
They are symbols of perfection,
Models for the youth.
To tell you the truth,
Why am I even writing this poem?
It's not about talent or scholarship,
But conformity and censorship.
1984 is not too far-fetched.
Let's just hope that all the dreamers,
All the geeks, all the freaks,
Stay true to themselves
Because they can emancipate the slaves
Hopefully without filling up the graves.
They are the key
To making this nation what it claims to be:
The land of the free.
-- T.V.
Background: 28/M/Bi-Sexual; Owner of a Linux company; MBA Harvard 2003; B.S. Comp Sci MIT 2000
Another good read would be Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It certainly doesn't have anything to do with geek/nerd topics, but does delve deeply into the effects of committing a murder on the psyche.
School Shootings are hardly a new phenomena. The oddity was the spat of shootings we had in just a few years in rural or suburban middle-class schools. Most shootings before happened in urban schools.
Difference is, we never reported schools shootings over and over.
Could be we're finally seeing the pressures that drive kids to kill; but chances are, we report it so boldly and incessantly on TV that it gives other kids ideas.
But then again, I always look for the simple explainations.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Oh, yeah. 95% of /.ers fit (either now or at some point in the past) this description.
Oh my goodness, I'm clumsy at spelling! My reasoning isn't though.
And your second "point" shows you how much you know about what you are talking about. Dyslexics CAN be helped by proper training.
Unless you have a balance/motor control disability, or are BLIND, you CAN and will benefit from sports and some training. Side effects like not getting picked first, and having the ball thrown at your head just mean you are playing with the wrong people.
Heck, even blind people can play sports like golf, and they do benefit from it in the form of exercise and having something else they can be proud of. And even people with motor disabilities need training/therapy so they can learn to move even with their defective body parts.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
You don't have to be born with the psychosis. Enough constant abuse will give it to you. Everyone has a breaking point.. most kids find ways to cope or stop the abuse before they reach it. Some can't.
Furthermore, it takes more than just peer abuse to cause a kid to snap. In all the situations of school shooting, there has been abuse or neglect from a majority of the adults in the kids' life, too.
Peoples complete lack of the ability to make a point. Which you seem to suffer from.
Anonymous Cowards - Oh God, How I hate you
He said, two plus two equals four for the mainstream, and that's what we're going to call sanity. We need rules to keep society ordered and we need a common ground to talk from. But everybody has their places where they don't line up to the norm. For some peeople, that's everywhere. For some people, 2 + 2 = 22, or twelve, or bright green. And Some day, they're going to betalking you down from the top of a building (he was addressing the whole class) and they're going to ask you, gee, what the H* were you thinking? And you're going to say, well... i don't know. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time...
And that's not the scary part. The scary part is, that it will be true: it really will have made sense at the time. You will have found the place where, for you, two plus two no longer matches the four that everyone else comes up with.
I don't offer this to excuse anything that anyone has done. Murder is murder. But I offer this as thought-fodder against the prediliction that we have, as a society, for nice little categories and nice little diagnoses. There's a wide range of stuff out there in the human mind-spectrum, some of it dangerous and some of it good, and not all of it definable by our current terms.
Yeah, and I hated high school, too. But I think a lot of social fringe elements are actually better prepared for the outside world, and tend to do better in it, than their high school tormentors, because they have been forced to face the world as an individual without backup. It isn't right and it isn't necessarily worth it, but let's not forget that if superman hadn't had those powers, he never would have made it through high school without being stuffed into a locker either- or else he would have been one more football captain.
"I'd say 'Have a good time,' but arson is still illegal.
most notably Jon Katz's Hellmouth series.
Speaking of Jon Katz, where has he been lately? Either he doesn't post much any more, or I have become so imune to his articles that I can recall seeing one for quite a long time.
Columbine didn't do this, it's always been the case. Be it geeks & nerds with their computers or not.
For the most part society has always viewed different as being bad.
Look at racism and other ethinc discrimination: they're not my race/colour, so they must be bad!
Sexual orientation: he's gay, so he doesn't get the same rights. He's also open season for a beating.
Same with geeks and nerds: they don't play sports, they like computers, they must be screwed up.
Frankly people I think that as geeks we've had to put up with a hell of a lot less than either one of the two groups I've mentioned! Ya it sucks sometimes, but we still get off easy. I haven't heard of geek-bashing (as in beating to the point of death, or near death), nor have I heard of a geek not being allowed to vote or made to use a back door. It's not right, but it isn't new either.
The problem is societies general intolerance for anything different... not some very disturbed individuals who also happen to be nerdy going postal in a school.
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
You cannot see the difference between revenge and wanton acts of cruelty?
Me!
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Erratum 1: standardized tests? you believe in what instead? Rorschach? Cattel's "objective tests"? skin conductance, EEG?
or were you speaking out for proper diagnostics, which effectively amounts to someone really trying to understand what is going on with the kid (an initiation event to some (analysts and kids))
We did have things like columbine 30 years ago, they just weren't as well covered by local news. And their may not have been as many big shootings, but the number of school aged homicides have declined drastically in the past 30 years.
Anonymous Cowards - Oh God, How I hate you
It's funny how the current headlines always block out the older stuff.
r ange/slg9.h tml
Brenda Spencer (16 years old) fired a volley of bullets from her house toward the Cleveland Elementary School playground Jan. 29, 1979. She told a reporter who called her during the 6 1/2 -hour siege that she opened fire because, "I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day."
It inspired the song, "I don't like mondays":
http://www.hereinmyhead.com/collect/st
If you think that 24 years ago is the first time it happened, dream on. Violence has always been a part of our society. The key difference between now and then is that:
* powerful quick firing guns are easier to get now
* people congregate in larger groups so it's easier to kill more people just by shooting in random directions in a crowd.
Huh. Is this the same Christopher Null who does movie reviews for FilmCritic.com. If so, I'll definitely have to check it out; I've quite enjoyed reading some of his movie reviews and would probably enjoy seeing what he does with a longer form.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
I considered myself a guru, want the pictures of the girls I dated in highschool. Football players had nothing on me. And quite honestly once I graduated and had the much better future, I had no trouble finding a beautiful wife, who was also extremely intelligent.
Anonymous Cowards - Oh God, How I hate you
He isn't social, he doesn't play sports, doesn't dress right. He is paranoid and whines on /. whenever he feels loosers like him are attacked ...
...too bad it doesn't work.
Sounds just like the inefectual pablum spwewed by teachers and low rent psych workers.
Been there. Done that. Have the scars to show the effectiveness.
As effective as Kleenex is against bullets.
In High School, I was one of those that was pick on and bullied. Mostly it was because I almost fit in, but just not enough. One guy in particular seemed to have it in for me, all the usual mean crap from ridicule to an occasional beating. Years later (recently actually), I ran in to my former tormentor and to my surprise he went out of his way to come over and say hello and wanted to get together for dinner and talk about "back in the day". I was shocked to find out I was someone he had for some perverse reason, had always considered a friend! Maybe it was because I put up with all his shit, or maybe we all remember things differently as years pass, I know I'll never figure that one out.
This will probably never be seen, but. . .
.just let it go. All this talk about "all the jocks now work at the gas station" and shit is just petty. It was only 4 years (hopefully) of your life. . .let. . .it. . .go.
I have to say that I'm sick of self-proclaimed "geeks" whining about the "jocks" who harassed them in HS or how they were "outcasts". There is no law that says everyone will be respected, popular and get laid in HS. Have you considered that if you have no friends whatsoever, that you might have a shitty personality? Or if you hang around with other "outcasts", then you are not really an "outcast"? Christ people, suck it up and deal! I didn't hang around with the "popular" people in HS, but who cares? They were assholes. And I was probably an asshole, too (maybe I still am), since the typical teenager has massive narcissistic tendencies.
Some people have *real* problems growing up, like alcoholic/abusive parents, or drug addictions, or poverty, or a host of other things that make your martyr complex driven "oh I'm a poor downtrodden geek" shit look like the pathetic whining it is. Most of you are out of HS now. .
I look back at high school after only being out 3 years and realize how damn immature i was and people are. I was also one of the "Popular" kids. Football, Soccer, Basketball, Class President and sure i got the "hot girls"(im not trying to brag either). Though i had these "important high school characteristics" I tried as hard as i could to never make fun of someone no matter how cool or geeky they were. Im not saying i NEVER made fun of anyone because i did. I just tried hard not too and when my "friends" did sometimes i went along and sometimes i stood up for them and i invited them to go out drinking and what not with us. Now believe me, this did not go over well with certain individuals in our "group" and even i would sometimes make excuses up as to why they were here. The thing that many of my friends did not realize was that i was a geek at heart. I just had the qualities to not be viewed as one nor the BALLS to act like one. That is my biggest regret ever!! If i could redo anything it would have been to be TRUE to MYSELF rather than being FALSE to the people i was hanging around with. Now i have grown up a little bit and openly admit that i am a geek. I dont talk to the majority of the people i did stuff with in high school but rather tend to converse with geeks. Oh times have changed...Hang in there those who are being picked on. While im not going to try and understand what its like, just wait your time and it will get better, i promise..
I can see at least one person has failed to see the wisdom in my comments this morning... drink some coffee dude.
I used to be a MS fan but then I was brainwashed. Now I see the Light. Mac OS X pwns u.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
He's leet! He has null for a name!
Does this take place on a boat? If so I can see why "Half Mast" would be appropriate, other wise a more suitable titile would be "Half Staff" for those of us currently on stable ground.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I remember his rants a long time ago, they were annoying and persistent. Did he just give up on slashdot, get a real job?
- sigs are for wimps.
It's a shame that Jon Katz, who is a respectable journalist with a significant carreer, had to suffer the indignity foisted upon him for his attempts at contributing to Slashdot. The draw of Slashdot was independent of any serious journalism -- except references to resources off the site through the "stories," which aren't stories, per se, but annotated hyperlinks -- and adding a journalist to Slashdot broke the pattern. "One of these things is not like the other" -- a good lesson from Sesame Street that applies here.
Roblimo said somewhere that the poor grammar and abysmal misspelling of CmdrTaco, et al, add to the character that is Slashdot. I agree. Slashot is an informal medium. The content is mainly references to ecletic outside content and comments from readers. Bringing onboard a serious journalist to create indigenous content was a fundamental error. In many ways Slashdot is to Nerds what the Drudgereport is to political and pop culture newshounds, with the addition of comments. If the Drudgereport hired Sam Dondaldson, that would be akin to the mistake Slashdot made in hiring Jon Katz.
This mention of Hellmouth brings back the bad taste that has been dormant since July 10, 2002. I feel pity for Katz--he never had a chance here. It would have been a different story, I believe, had Katz's articles been published elsewhere and linked to by Slashdot. That would have removed much of the vitrolic noise that accompanied Katz's stories.
I should add that I think it's very important for children to learn to be comfortable in their bodies. Self-confidence and happiness get a nice boost when you are healthy. It seems strange, but mental balance can be improved by developing good physical balance. We can also lead better lives if we are tuned into the needs of our bodies (like realizing that I'm about to insult someone simply because I'm starving hungry).
Too many kids never learn to jump, climb, walk safely on ice, balance on one foot, etc. etc. and they become adverse to risks in other areas of their lives as well, and/or constantly distracted by shame about their awkwardness and maladroitness.
There are only 10 types of people: those who understand decimal, those who don't, and, uh, 8 other types I forget.
Phillip Greenspun of arstechnica and photo.net fame. Sure, he's a computer nerd, but he's also a photography nerd -- that's about as far away from the keyboard as you can get. We're talking real photography here -- no computer-enhancement, USB-linked digital cameras. Medium format film, tubs of chemicals, racks of drying negatives.
I'm not a guru, but I'm also in the same category. Sure, I work as a Unix sysadmin and I program in my free time, but I'm also a photography nerd, cooking nerd, and physical activity nerd. I got picked on in high school, got over it, and I'm now having a lot more fun with my life than most of the "popular" crowd -- not because I make more money (I do), or because I'm better looking (I don't have a potbelly; most of them do), or because I've got more friends (Lost count and don't care). I'm happier because I've got tangible things that I enjoy devoting my life to -- my photography, my algorithms, and my tiramisu, whereas the "popular crowd" is still chasing "popularity" and "coolness" like they were in high school.
--
I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy
On the other hand, say you are severely abused at work AND you can't/don't know how to get another job AND you complain to managers or police many times and they just ignore what you say. Now if you bring a machine gun to work and go Rembo... well you have a good chance with an insanity plea. Only it's not really insanity. It's still self-defence, by someone who doesn't know of any other way to defend himself.
Now, I am not suggesting a tempting option of letting nerds carry guns to protect themselves against bullies (not that most nerds would be able to shoot someone). But if a child/teenager is threatened by physical abuse in the hands of gang of overgrown potheads, surely he has a right to defend himself by any means available.
And if a student goes to parents or teachers and complains about bullies, they better listen. You can not expect a child to talk directly to police or file court documents. If he is refused help by an adult, he may well think that the only way to stop bullies is shown in action movies.
If a few bullies are killed and the nerds go free on self-defense or insanity (== desperation) plea, who knows, maybe bullies' parents will stop making excuses for their children being "normal boys" and bullies' teachers will start expelling students.
FYI, my school (in Soviet Russia!) had some pretty liberal "playground rules". Like throwing darts made from a needle, rubber and paper until they are dozens stuck under your skin (you really get swollen after that!). Or taking your coat and hat and making you walk home wearing indoor cloth at -40C. Every day, I was trying to sneak out of the window and use some small back streets to avoid bullies on the way home. Every school break, I had to run out of class at the first bell ring and hide under shelves in the library or be beaten.
Into amatuer chemistry at that time, I was thinking daily about somehow making cyanide from K Fe (CN)4 (rusty now, is that the formula? would sublimation with diluted sulphiric acid do it?) and adding some to bullies' meals in school cafeteria. Just a comforting dream, never likely to act on it. But I can relate to someone with less hope and under more pressure.
When I read bait like this, all I can think is,
"You're sick of the whining? But you do it so well!"
Damn straight! I'm in the same boat! Every time I think about not running that extra mile, or about not getting that bit of extra credit in a class, or not hitting on the hot chick reading T.S. Eliot at the cafe, I think about all the people that told me I would amount to nothing, could achieve nothing, and was worth nothing, and I prove them wrong.
I also ran into one of my former torturers awhile ago; he's got a kid and a stomach now (at 22), and works as a salesman, making less than half my salary -- and he was very unhappy. I didn't need to demean or insult him -- he did that himself.
--
I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy
-
Albuquerque, NM -- teen attacked parent with baseball bat on school grounds, parent shot back.
-
Kingston, Jamaica -- gang fight forces school closure
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San Gabriel Valley, CA -- sniper on top of elementary school.
And that's the way it is, Friday, February 28, 2003.What makes you think things like it didn't happen 30 years ago? Have you conducted an analysis of violence in schools? I guess not. The difference between then and now may simply be that you are much more aware of what is happening now, because of the are fresh in your mind and you were more than a baby at the time. There is a general law-and-order nostalgia effect: people say '30 years ago we didn't have violent problem X', but people have been say that for as far back as we have good records of popular opinion. See Pearson, C. (1983). Hooligan. A History of Respectable Fears. London, Macmillan.
Ne mæg werig mod wyrde wiðstondan, ne se hreo hyge helpe gefremman.
I started wearing a trenchcoat just after the Colombine shootings.. my way of letting the bastard moronic american public know that they were just that. (i was still in high school then..). Of course, shortly thereafter i got thrown out of a basketball game for telling some kids i had a shotgun under my coat. It was kinda funny actually.. a group of "jocks" at the game actually told the kids i had a gun.. after i warned them to back off when they made fun of the girls i was with.
I'm sure it would have been a lot funnier if i did have a gun. I would of liked to see the look on their faces when they were staring down a shotgun barrel.
That was years ago though.. now i wear a nice leather trencoat everywhere i go..
For all the kids that are in school right now, there are probably 50% that don't want to be there,
Where I went to school, about 80% didn't want to be there, and that was in the 80s.
What I don't get is why these bullies are all glorified by the press and by the alumni of these schools, when the schools' purpose is to teach, not churn out steroid-infested jocks.
Columbine's root cause was bullying gone out of control. People ALMOST "got it" right after it happened, but then their brains went back to sleep.
-- I am. Therefore, I think!
Here's a recent article about a 1995 shooting at Garfield High in Seattle. The author actually tracks down the shooter (now out of jail) and interviews him on the phone. Here's a snippet that summarizes why this incident is forgotten when other school shootings are talked about in the media:
...the Secret Service, like most of the rest of the country, saw the shooting at Garfield as being primarily about drugs and gangs and random black-on-black crime, and therefore not worth including in a study aimed at keeping America's schools (read: suburban America's schools) safe. Interestingly, the study found that while there was no single profile that fit all school shooters, two common threads among all shooters were that they felt "bullied, persecuted or injured by others prior to the attack" and had access to weapons--both qualities that describe the Garfield shooter.
and by that I really mean psychologically and physically tortured. If you had been as some of us really were, you would recall their face a life long.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
what's a mullet?
what it and all subsiquet and prior attacks did was open the publics' eyes to just how damaging ostricizing and bullying a child can be if it is done to the wrong person. look at all the zero tolerence policies tehre are to bullying now. when I was a kid, I got beat up and I would tell a teacher...the teacher's responce was "stop whining".
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
I got picked on in high school, got over it, and I'm now having a lot more fun with my life than most of the "popular" crowd
... something that has helped a lot though was actually getting OUT of high school. The older I get, the more it's obvious that what was my world growing up, really isn't the world at all.
I agree, and I've done the same
It's easy to get away from those who give you flak and enjoy the things you really do enjoy in life, once youre out of an atmosphere where those things aren't so stereotyped.
rock on ye bastian!
For some reason I find it hilarious that a person who claims that those who "smoke and refuse to participate" are "the ones who get the really cool chicks" runs a site that collects porn from other sites.
Now, with porn there are two options that imply that you can get chicks:
Lots of porn, but none original? Not looking good.
Perhaps you were referring to a class of person that you remember got a bunch of chicks, many of which you classified as cool.
Or perhaps you learned, as I have observed, that the "smoke and refuse to participate" bunch pretty much sheds itself of interesting people about the sophomore year of high school, and were merely referring to what was then current.
Of course, this could be my own personal biases at play, and I'm not exactly stocked up on my chick supplies, but as we both seem to be comparing observations here, I figured I'd weigh in.
Oh, and yes: the chicks that go after the jocks are insipid beyond human understanding.
Geeks aren't allowed to vote because they're likely to write a script to do it for them, and skew the results!
And gays are the ones that are forced to use the back door...
"the pride and joy of Fall Valley High"
That should instead read "Sweet Valley High"
*grin*
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
The mullet horror
geeks we've had to put up with a hell of a lot less than either one of the two groups I've mentioned
Indeed. And trying being both a geek and a racial minority in a small town.
what's a mullet?
http://ratemymullet.com/
Right on the money. I think people in that position won't or can't admit that part of the reason they can't let go is they feel snubbed from some group they idolized at some level, which is of course the ultimate cognitive dissonance. Once you do let go of the cool kids as the ideal, the heartache sort of falls out of the picture and you can start feeling sorry for them instead of yourself.
what's a mullet?
Business up front, party in the back.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
To quote the great comedian, George Carlin, "If you want to know what a moronic word lifestyle is, just keep in mind that, in a technical sense, Atilla the Hun had an active outdoor lifestlye."
All that really matters is that you can look at yourself and say "I had fun and I didn't hurt anybody."
I think that it is more important to be able to say "I had fun and I didn't get any STD's" though, not hurting anybody is a close second.
The flying hamster of DOOM rains coconuts on your pitiful city.
To your point about adverse discrimination being bad in many of its colors and shapes, I would like to add that, currently, black geeks have it pretty damn hard. Some sub-cultures (I say sub because this refers to the American urban black culture that we run into. What particular flavor it is, I don't care) have it in even worse for certain forms of discrimination.
Much has been made about why these kids beat the snot out of each other, and why they target the way they do (and each form of violence seems to have its own targets, now doesn't it?), but I remember crossing the fence when I was very young. I started out as a bully (much bigger than the rest of the kids, hated by the teacher for wanting to learn faster than she would teach, angry over many things, and not really close to anyone in the class), and I became a different kind of outcast: the bookish type.
Two interesting things about that: first, the bullies really have no damn clue what they're doing. Most of it has to do with groupthink more than anything else.
Second, the point of view from the bully and the bullied is much the same when the bully knows you'll fight back.
This is one of the reasons why I got so damn pissed off at my high school policy of "if you defend yourself you will be suspended."
In my opinion, it's a microcosm of what is going wrong with our administrative, justice, social, and ethical systems all wrapped up into one:
the creation of a fund designed to get high school misfits laid.
that'll keep them placated.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
I immediately thought of Slashdot when I read Christopher Null's novel
;-)
We all know that i was just the name Null that made you think of Slashdot. I could be like everyone else, and say that Null is the average number of newsworthy stories.... but I won't
This space for rent, inquire within.
These school rampages have been happening since there schools such as in Bath Michigan, 1927 . But they really picked up in the late 1990s.
"The Columbine tragedy planted the idea of a certain kind of 'bad kid' into the American consciousness."
It did not. There has always been in-society and out-society, conformity versus everybody else.
People who associate in a stylistic sense with the individuals responsible for Columbine want desperately to be a "differnt" out-class, but it just isn't so.
I am not familiar with the economic/ social conditions in Abitibi, but looking on a map it seems to be quite high in latitude. My experience from growing up in Alaska is that climate has a serious impact on suicide rates as well as alcohol consumption.
Something about long winters with little sunlight seems to make people go off the deep end.
AUGAUUUGCGCACAUAUCUCAGCGAAUGAAAGGGAUUAA
While, given, some people just suck and live to abuse other people for no reason at all, there are also people who bully because they are themselves bullied, usually by someone at home. To be honest, the problem's not as simple as fascist bullies harrassing the smart kid. Some bullying, at least in part, can be attributed to retaliation by "victims" in an effort to rebuild self-image, which is kind of what I'm reading on some of the "pizza-tipping" posts. My $0.02.
This is like... Disturbingly Evil.... Karl P
What early signs of trouble are you refering to when you say "these kids exhibited early signs of trouble that were ignored" ? Do you consider being a loner an early sign of trouble? I was a loner. Do you consider wearing black a long black coat an early sign of trouble? I consider paying 40$ for pants that look used from a designer name trouble. Do you consider their lack of school involvement an early sign of trouble? Sorry, I didn't like sports much either.
Listen, everyone points a finger at the parents, or the school, why don't we point it where it belongs. At the kids who tortured these kids, mentally enough, to want to kill some people and commit suicide. You bitch because they shot kids, I bitch because of all the dicks they probably missed.
If every bully,and jerk in the world thought he was going to get shot or killed for being a dick to people, I think we would be living in a better society.
I didn't hear about their drug use. Please point me to the news article that made this statement. Or are you just going with your gut instinct.
P.S.
Did you ever consider that some people start doing drugs like that for a reason, like, I am going to die today might as well. Sane people don't wake up in the morning at the age of 16 and say, lets go get some cocaine, because my life is perfect.
This review came from Amazon.com:
I know I've read a great book when it makes me change (or atleast try to change) some element(s) of my behavior. Afterreading Half Mast, I have made a solemn vow that I will never again let my child out of my sight, and, more importantly, that I will home-school him, so that he never, ever sets foot inside the halls of "learning".
This book does for education what Psycho did for showers. The writing is as real and powerful as anything I have everread, and I will not soon forget it. I look forward to Mr. Null's next effort, and it is my hope the he'll begin working on it immediately.
Is it just me, or is this frightening?
-Dae
"Alle reden vom wetter. Wir nicht." - SDS Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund.
j00 4r3 3n73r1ng l337 w0r1d.
If you enjoy this book, you will most likely enjoy Stephen King's first novel, "Rage". He wrote it while in high school and deals with an outsider student who gets fed up with school and holds his class hostage.
A very good novel that would make an awesome movie.
--If only there was a license required to use a computer.
Repay kindness with kindness.
Repay respect with respect.
Repay affection with affection.
Repay pain with pain.
Repay injustice with vengeance.
Show no mercy.
I do take Kenpo, but I was strong before martial arts and I am strong afterwards, I just did Kenpo for technique. The fact that you boys are referring to it as "Martial Arts" goes to show that you weren't really into it, or good at it. People who are into "Martial Arts" never would call it that, they would refer to their specific school of training; Kenpo, Karate, Judo, Kung Fu: schaolin or dragon style. They would not say, I trained in "martial arts" by definition even wrestling is a martial art. Please don't fantasize on my watch next time.
and if you had ruptured his kidney with karate, jujitsu, or another form of training, then you weren't trained well. I could easilly put you on your back without causing permanent physical damage to you. A Kenpo student, is controlled not one to hurt a person of less strength simply because I did the stupid thing of allowing them to hit me.
Anonymous Cowards - Oh God, How I hate you
Observations from teaching high school.
There's about four people during junior high and high school that bullied me. I remember in Phys Ed constantly being terrified of getting pushed around, or coming to find urine in my locker, usually just by some looser. I think only one of the three was considered a popular jock.
The bullying stopped when I decided to enroll in weight liftining.
I later became a high school computer science teacher. One of my goals was to create a safe classroom and do my part to prevent bullying. I guess I wanted to be a hero in some ways.
After six years of teaching, I noticed a few of things related to bullying.
1. Lack of Maturity. A majority of the students I've seen bullied got involved because they carelessly mouthed off or insulted the bully in some way.
2. Lack of confidence. Some students always act like victims. This relates to why women when walking alone should act strong and confident, rapists dont' like to go after those as much. Bully's like other criminals, prefer the easy route, they don't want to deal with someone who will fight back with confidence.
3. Many school does not clarify anti-bullying plan. Some high schools don't have a clear plan for what students should do if they dont' feel safe. Bullying/Teasing isn't usually specified in the code of conduct -- my small part in my career was to get the teachers, principals, parents, and counselors to research and get a plan involved. This was ALOT easier to do after the columbine shootings.
4. Teachers not in control of the classroom. Most of the time, I tried to keep my relationship professional but not military with the students, however I was vicious in going after any mean comments, verbal, or physical aggression towards other students. I talked about this quite a few times a year with my classes about code on conduct. The students knew my position on bullying.
5. I ABSOLUTELY love Karate, Judo, and any self defense courses for high school students. The interesting thing is that students get into LESS fights after they go through a "self defense" oriented class, because they are taught maturity in those courses. I encourged parents to enroll students into self defense classes.
PDP-11's only run Windows 3.1 or above. To run OSX (the new Acorn word-processing OS) you need a 286.
10 megabytes = 155 Mhz, and a "K" is fifty clock cycles.
Compiling object files into source code is a waste of time. You can actually execute makefiles directly with no performance hit, unlike assembly which is slower than the so-called "miracle language" Linux.
-- Just thought I'd give you guys a taste of how *absolutely clueless* the Slashdot collective is about psychology and neurochemistry. Yes, it really is that bad. In fact it's worse. I used old hardware names deliberately to give you an idea how out of date your lack of a clue is.
If you're still living in the same small-ish town?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I think it would be a kick-ass job, and you get a ton of money in tips as well (from the non-assholes)
I would probably try it as a in-collage job if my driving record wasn't so terrible.
Your comment is especially ironic, given your username....
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
and BOY did HE know how to fight dirty (something about being in the OSS and learning hand to hand there (grin)).
Open Source Software. Protects far more than just data, folks.
Yeah, I think your username is funny. That is all.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
The reason people have this stereo-type of 'weird' kids is the same reason they have stereo-types for a lot of people (like blacks, Mexicans, etc)
.1', even if the actual number of black people who are criminals are way less.
When someone does something bad, and they belong do a group you don't have a lot of experience with, you'll remember it. And so it will represent a large portion of the data about that group. If you only hear about and remember well, say, 10 black people in your life and 1 of them was involved in a robbery, you think 'P(black==criminal) =
It's the same with 'nerds/weirdoes'. If you avoid nerds you wont think about them much unless something happens involving them that really sticks out to you.
An important mark of intelligence is the ability to weed out these extemporaneous associations and base your thoughts on the real data.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
actually some of those who flipped out are neither psychotic nor nerds. in fact they're pretty nice people.
So, are you saying that it's impossible for nice people to be crazy?
I would think that one could be both insane and polite.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
This has just been a stream of concious kinda thing. Maybe I'll take some time and make it into a real, intelligable op-ed thing. Probably just post it on my K5 diary.
--
If I actually could spell I'd have spelled it right in the first place.
and in Ireland too, at least among the rugby team (if you're asking what's a mullet, click the link).
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I'm wondering if its an 'accepted' part of American school culture that there are nerds and jocks, and the latter beat the crap out of the former.
And thats about it. It doesn't seem to happen here in the UK.
I class myself as a nerd; all the people I know class me as a nerd, but we all gelled. There were one or two people who would call me names, but for the most part, these sporty types have a certain respect for us geeks. They would often say 'how are you so clever' and stuff like that. Same goes for a lot of other very geeky people I know.
Yeah, so kids get bullied in British schools, but its not always the Jock/Nerd thing. I remeber many times we'd be doing sports lessons, and some of the really sporty types were quite supportive of my somewhat lacking athletic skills. They'd egg me on, just kind of help me along. Same goes for when I'd point stuff out on the computer for them.
Maybe the 'us and them' attitude just doesn't exist over here.
look here for info about negative reinforcement. http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/proj/nru/nr.html
what the parent post is suggesting is not negative reinfocement. it is punishment. Punishment, if you haven't taken a psych course, is not very effective. What you get is escape behavior, that is, the kid acts very quickly to stop punishment. However, the effects do not last long, they are short term solutions only. Using reinforcement can extent the behavior changes in the child much longer than punishment. Basically, if you hit your kid, they'll wait a week, and start doing whatever it was they were doing again. thus, beating your kid is not an effective parenting technique.
I can't help but think that if I didn't get a coincidental frosty-piss't, I wouldn't have gotten slapped with 'offtopic'. Maybe there's an automatic '-1, Offtopic' for any fr1sty ps0ts...
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Every other nick I tried was taken. I was surprised that this one wasn't. Course, I was too "clever" for my own good - much like trying to explain the slashdot url to someone (verbally), it's a pain to say out loud.
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
IOW, basic tribalism, which is hardwired human behaviour (and occurs in other animals too). Being part of the tribe (ie. conforming) is safe and accepted; being an outsider (ie. being different) is evidence that you should be cast out, ostracised, or even be done away with before you can pollute the gene pool. What "the tribe" IS isn't relevant, since it can be anything.
:)
It's not nice for the outsider, but neither are most wild-animal survival behaviours (if you don't run with the herd, the wolves get you). That's why we attempt to overcome this behaviour, and call the result "civilization"
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
NineNine,
Good to hear, I'm definitely a supporter of people getting married to hot, cool women. Me, for instance. Big supporter of that.
Just thought the juxtaposition was hilarious.
I bought the stupid thing because someone (whose opinion about fiction I'll take with a much larger grain of salt from now on) recommended it.
I kept trying to root for Alex (the main character) since I felt a bit of affinity with him. I ended up just hating him, and the book. Overall, it was a chore to read. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
If you want my copy for the price of shipping, let me know! (Even better if your name is Robert, since that is who Christopher Null signed it to).
Sport: Volleyball
Reason for Rules: to be fun and competitive
Reason for Game: an alternative to basketball to allow businessmen to compete indoors (they didn't have spiking at the time.)
Reason for team sizes: Six players works out to 12 per game, with 3 up front and 3 in the back. China also uses 3 x 3 x 3 vs 3 x 3 x 3.
Method of scoring: To stay fun
Another reason for method of scoring: switched to rally point scoring to keep the game more predictable (rally means every play somebody gets a point, instead of two horrible teams serving into the net for 2 hours to remain at zero zero... thus easier to calculate times for Television.
There's no inherent reason for most of the "rules", the sizes of the teams, the shape of the ball, the methods of scoring, and so on. With weightlifting, it's just you versus the the fundamental laws of physics. Doesn't get much more interesting than that!
Weight lifting is great, but see if you can find a sport and have to learn it not be ashamed to suck at it at first (the reason why people don't try sports.) To be athletic and to be an animal like the monkeys we were, you need athleticism and to play a sport.
Sport = meet other dedicated people. Sport = learn and help each other. Sport = teamwork. Sport = learning to win and learning to lose. Sport = working your butt off for success (best game ever played etc although loss of tournament, etc.) Sport = improvements motivating you. Sport = fun. Sport = you know every step of the way you're getting better
Since we evolved from gorillas, sports/being active must have been good to humans.
Cover your eyes and click this link!
Bullies see *any* sign of weakness -- which usually includes trying to talk your way out of an altercation -- and they go for the throat. You can't convince a bully to be your friend (and who'd want them as a friend, anyway?). That's nonsense. They can see right through that. They can smell the blood in the water when you try to back them down.
No, the only way I got rid of the bullies was to beat the living shit out of a few of them. Bullies use the threat of violence to their advantage and you have to call them on it in order to counter them. It helped that I was six foot two in eighth grade, so that may have had something to do with it. But word got around that if you picked on me, you were liable to have an insane person attacking you until one of you was not moving -- and it was likely you that would be left laying on the ground. Even when faced with people bigger than me, going completely berserk always worked. (I learned early on that most people can't take being kicked in the knee, and almost nobody sees it coming. You can take a much larger person down with one fast sideways kick. And once down, you can continue to beat on them or just walk away depending on the example which needs to be set. They wouldn't be walking for a couple months at least, and the fight was over before it started.) Bullies can't stand up to a fight, and always back down. At least in my experience.
I always thought that name calling and pettiness and immaturity would go away once I left school and got to college. I could hardly wait to get out of school. I thought once people became adults, they'd start acting like adults, and I really wanted to be around adults and not children. Not the case. Most people are assholes, and will never grown up.
Oddly enough, I'm one of the most non-violent people I know. I hate getting into fights (I haven't in a long time, thankfully, and if my last stays my last then I'll die a happy man). And I've never ever started a fight. Problem is, there's only one way to stop one: get the other guy to not hit you. If you've been able to accomplish that with words, then more power to you. I was never able to, and always had to resort to violence.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.