Slashdot Mirror
Hellmouth Website
Lavos writes "Seems that Cliff Bleszinski
has started a website to share even more school horror stories. It's 'partially' inspired by Jon Katz's essay " (Lavos is one of many who wrote in with this lead.)
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
Andover.net bought Slashdot sometime in the Jurassic, right? So that's why the story is already locked away with comments posting disabled due to the new ARCHIVE MODE?
For some reason, these comments reminds me of the ones for the recent Amiga article. In any event, I sincerely hope that Columbine won't be the last of the high-school massacres. Hopefully the next time they'll learn from those two idiot's mistakes and do some real damage. Those kids should have been able to kill hundreds of their peers, not just a few. When this happens, and the news/public makes a big issue out of it, I'll just smile and say "Bah, give it up already. Shit happens. Move on and shut up."
This feature is VERY OLD!!! I've seen it for AGES!!! And without it Rob would be out of space on his SQL database sooner than anyone can expect.
The Slashdot front page is broken for recent old issues by having lost the links to many of the stories, e.g. http://slashdot.org/ index.pl?section=&issue=730293&mode=thread. This is the same URL format as in the 'Yesterday' link on the Slashdot front page.
Look at the FAQ. "?Hellmouth??", "?Voices from the Hellmouth.?", "?Buffy the Vampire Slayer,?", and so on.
Jeez, at least he could consider using Demoroniser! Questions marks in place of quotation marks is AWFUL!
"Phycological help" HEE HEE! What do they need? Some plankton spread all over them? Sorry, biologist humor! (BTW Phycology == Study of algae) Respectfully, Kevin Christie kwchri@maila.wm.edu
I'm really sick of hearing how someone was abused becasue they dressed in Goth at High School. Come on, grow up and most importantly get a life. I think John Katz needs a woman to crue his ill will towards other people.
"Partially Inspired"? No wonder the games that guy works on are so un-original...
Well, have you ever been tormented at school? The problem today is that people don't take these problems serious. I guess it is easier to put your head in the ground and pretend not to see it, to continue live in a world that is perfect where the good guys always win.
Not popular. Not 'easy' (because of the popular thing). But right. At least partly. There are non-jock problems, but while a 90% solution isn't as good as a 100% solution, it is far better than the current -100% "solution" Teamwork? Yeah, how great does everyone at a school feel when "their" team wins? What about those not on it? Those not buying into it? Even those who do buy in and are on the team... ... what does it tells someone 'on the bench'? 'We did great, because you didn't mess us up' ? Sportsmanship? Remind me, what is that? The 'we will grind you into the ground you worthless...' thing? No? Then what? And the 'pep' nonsense.. gee, isn't school at least supposed to be a little about this thing called education? Or is this education by ordeal? Then let us be honest about that and let folks make informed decisions about if they really want that for their kids. Is this is an 'old' issue? Yes. But ignoring it doesn't make it go away. At least not in a good way. Wanna see how well ignoring problems works? Try ignoring that oil pressure warning next time you see it.
It's got nothing to do with running out of space on the server. For Slashdot, the frequency of new comment posting on a given article declines roughly exponentially as F=k*exp(-t/3) where t is hours since date of article posting and k, averaged across 150 recent articles, is 25. What this means is new articles rapidly accumulate comments and consume disk space, but after a day or two the disk space used is roughly constant forever more.
"Hopefully we can forget about this and again get on with our lives. Shit happens. A couple hundred coolies died in a train wreck last week. That was just as senseless and without meaning. Most of what happens on this planet is meaningless, random events. That's the way the world turns." The school problem is a problem. The train wreck was a result of a problem. Problems have solutions. Ignoring them isn't productive, but destructive. How different would it have been had the tracks and signalling system been maintained/in place/etc on that rail line? How different it could be if the problems are addressed rather than ignored. "Good stuff happens too. How about McGwire hitting home run 500? Or how about Wade Boggs going for 3000 hits? Not all news is bad. Hey, and it was real inspiring when America's honeys beat the Chinese girls in soccer. Not everyone needs a black trenchcoat to have fun." Yes, some news is neutral. Two teams play. One wins. Big deal. Lets see where the ones who aren't professional athletes (heck, lets see them too) are in five or ten years. And better, lets see where their unsung classmates are. As for the black trenchcoat - you oversimplify. That showed up once, a fluke, while the problem shows up consistently.
I see Andover mentioned in the copyright notice at the bottom of Slashdot's front page.
If you think the site is hard to read, try it on a laptop screen, it's impossible to read the links. The idea is good, and perhaps with enough feedback he will change the color choices.
If even a few teachers had a pistol locked in a desk drawer, or some seniors (over 18 and all) had consealed weapons permits and training, you would have to be a LOT more stupid to even think about commiting a school/office/whatever shooting. The only reason these people are *brave* enough to go in shooting is because thanks to todays laws, they can feel safe that all the law abiding citizens will not have any weapons to defend themselves with.
What's the reason for blocking new comments on archived articles?
This is pretty lame. I hope this is not trying to prove a point because the stories sound semi-fake.
You might be right if the killers didn't want to die in the first place.
echo 'set xrange [0:]; plot 25*exp(-x/3); pause 50' | gnuplot
Judging from a few topics that I have saved on disk, in flat html format, the disk space for each topic tends to be about 25k to 30k bytes when gziped. That is about 50 monitor-sized pages in lynx.
Uh, I think you got hit in the head with a football too many times. D&D Is NOT funded by the school, schools do not have activities that involve D&D. Perhaps a club, but nothing that draws from the school budget. Sports on the other hand, are different. They are payed for by my tax dollars. The D&Ders aren't.
The original poster was joking, as indicated by the smiley. Anyway ...
.... since it presupposes that the assailants are RATIONAL -- id est, they will act upon processing gain/loss information. "Lessee, if I don't comply, I'll get shot down ... so let's comply"
... the internal dialogue was more like "Lesse, if I don't comply, I'll get shot ... fine, I won't have to do it myself! Let's BURN!"
That "if they all had guns" argument is totally fucked up
Now, in Columbine, they went amok
Gun advocates are freaks.
An European Coward.
There is a link to it from the hellmouth page. I couldnt stop laffing. This guy is a guiness.
I went to high school 40 years ago. Kids' had guns and knifes. We'd go hunting and maybe drink some beer. The real beatnik kids even smoked some marijuana. But everyone was friendly. We'd kid the science guys but only in fun. There was no divide. I am so thankful that I don't have to go to high school now. I think it would be hell.
I was one of those weenies in high school, the kids beat me mercilessly, and the admins never gave it a second thought. Parents weren't much good. Last spring, one of the kids at said high school was beaten to a pulp and had his shoulder broken. Mom, ever the social worker, didn't want to rock the boat. Dad, the engineer, blasted it all over the papers and created one big stink. Did no good, the admins said this is the first time this ever happened, just a fluke, nothing you could do. Course, a few years earlier, a kid, pretty studious, was forced to huff hair spray by the welfare crud, and died (during lunchtime). Guess whut dey sed? - First time this ever happed, just a fluke ... This is a nice, upscale, rural location, with "Drug Free School Zone" signs posted all over. Nobody smoking weed here. No wonder home schooling is so popular. PS I grew up got a real job, and drive the Beemer. The other crud, well, they're driving rustbuckets, the ones still alive, anyway. Sometimes the meek guys do finish first. To hell with the government schools, the NEA, and all the stupid schoolteachers, which happen to be all of them.
(I'm the original poster)
a) Yes this is about OS advocacy. This is slashdot. Looks like everybody loses their sense of humor when someone says 'hellmouth', why?
b) I don't care about the tools. I care about the result. That's why my suggestion was "use demoroniser" instead of "stop using stupid bloated text editors from an evil company and use VI (or Emacs) instead. A website that displays wrong loses a bit of its appeal.
.
Oh yes please. If all those lovely 18 year olds at highschool had had guns I would have felt really safe,because as we all know 18 year olds are all mature and responcible and never bully.
twat.
you would have to be a LOT more stupid to even think about commiting a school/office/whatever shooting
Yea, because those two kids WHO SHOT THEMSELVES where really concerned about their personal safty. Let's face it. They went in there to die, how and why probably didn't concern them. Also if 10-20 teachers/students had decided to rush them they could easly have brought them down and disarmed them. But they didn't, because they where cowards who didn't want to risk their life to save anothers. What makes you think that they would have been willing to die if they had guns.
I'm not against guns. I'm against stupid agruements for guns. The bottom line is that a gun is like that safty blanket you carried with you everywher when you where little. It makes you feel safe, when it comes to the crunch chances are that they will be fairly useles, but untill that day you will feel safe.
I have done some unarmed sparring against a gun in self defense training, and my conclusion is that if I can get within about 6-8 feet of the guy with the gun I will be able to close and disarm the guy almost every time. Also if some guy is that close to me and I have a gun I'll be better off reversing it and using at as a trunchon.
I used to play basket ball when I was highschool age and at the time I was quite good. After starting university I haven't played for ages, but still love the sport.
Anyway. My point. I fully agree that competetive sports can be good, but they shouldn't be connetcted to the schools. Do like they do here in Norway. There are no serious school teams at any level, if you want to compete seriously in a sport you join a comunity/town/city/state team. This way you get all the `advantages' with competetive sports, while keeping it seperate from eductation.
Note that I'm not saying that you should drop PE at schools, but that you should keep the overly competetive nature out of it.
See Sameer Parekh's h s underground page. http://hsunderground.com/ Sameer is cool. He founded c2net which was a thorn in the U.S. government's side for years because it sold SSL-enabled apache to U.S. and international companies. --Zooko, not at home so can't login. http://wildgoose.tandu.com/~zooko mailto:zooko@wildgoose.tandu.com
That killing someone who really pisses you off would feel good.
Yeh, my dad told me the same thing.
It's Old Man Murray. http://www.oldmanmurray.com/realnews.wc
The human race is a fundamentally cruel, biased set of beings. On a mass-population scale, everything we do is pre-determined by our genetic codes and our basic desire to propogate OUR gene's instead of Joe Blow's down the street. Sure we are intelligent enough to almost understand how evolution and genetics accomplishes this, but ultimately our behaviour and our children's "group play" is going to mimic the fight for survival that has ensued in nature since people began walking upright. This behaviour which is so tasteless to our rational minds, is fundamental for setting life guidelines and rules for reproduction. Perhaps telling the stories of people who are abused in high school is theraputic in some way for them personally, but expecting this to change is extremely unrealistic. Yes guys, the world IS an unfair and cruel place. The people who live the happiest and the longest however, are the ones who learn to get over stuff like that quickly. Don't dwell on the details. Move on. If you are "different" and you want to be accepted... search out and find others who are like you. Only then can you fulfill your ultimate responsibility in life... to shape the future of humaity. If you are right, then your differences will become the norm of the next generation. If not... you go "extinct". Let's just hope we don't destroy our own habitat first though.
I'm debating which is bloodier -- The Columbine massacre, or the utter of this cow.
The Columbine Cow.
The cow that Jon Katz insists on milking, and milking, and milking until it drops to its knees from exhaustion.
Enough, already!
Whats next? " The Aftermath Of The HELLMOUTH Of The Columbine Massacre Stories From The HELLMOUTH Story : STORIES FROM THE HELLMOUTH " ?
I remember seeing kids get ganged up on/picked on in Jr. and High school, even a little in college.
Some of it was very cruel and lasted for years. It wouldn't suprise me if the people posting about how the abused should "get over it" were the very ones doing the harrassment.
If you haven't been through it, you should shut up or apologize if you were part of it. Several guys were beat up for being "fags" where I went to school. They probably were more geek than gay.
I'm sorry I didn't do something more than just be somewhere else when the jocks had their fun.
Take sports out of schools! Seems most of the harassment is by jock types, that oughta slow it down some. "They teach teamwork" my ass, they teach gang mentality, and "overcoming" your "opponents". The whole concept should be considered inappropriate behavior, and dealt with accordingly.
Who actually finds this amusing to the point of being really sad? Bunch of whiny kids complaining that somebody is giving them a hard time because they're being immature and childish. I'd rather waste the bandwidth of pr0n on MP3z.
Well, I tried to read the content, but the site design was so bad I had to leave... I just couldn't take one more set of frames with black backgrounds. At least it didn't have a Javascript fade to start it off.
Issues, issues issues blah blah blah Another prozac monger...do you have stock in them or something? 'everyone is nuts, get them all "help" or meds'
Its vice versa, the high schools you speak of (had fun) are only on TV. Where the hell did you go to school? More likely, WHEN?
There's only one right way to deal with this stuff... To quote the latest Crusade episode:
"I thought you didn't hold grudges."
"I don't--I have no surviving enemies." --Galen
All the people saying "Oh man this isn't a big deal im tired of hearing it BLAH BLAH" are a bunch of assholes. My older brother was tormented by his classmates to the point of suicide. It was terrible. They did so many terrible things to him I've pushed most of them out of my mind so I don't go insane. It happend in highschool, his sophmore year (I was in 8th grade). He even talked to a consolur about the whole deal. They did NOTHING. Its total bullshit. Now he's dead. They put a thing on his locker and all these kids signed it. Most of which tourmented him. I got so mad when I saw that list. So for all of you who think this isn't a serious issue, you can go to hell.
You're not French by any chance are you? Perhaps you should throw down your pastry and fresh bread now before the Germans march through your streets again. *sigh* You pathetic European coward. You sicken me. If you idiots had half a clue and had weapons Hitler wouldn't have gotten out of Germany.
That's funny.. I would have shot you dead before you got within 20 feet of me. Don't assume you're going to get close enough to do your pussy kicks. A machine gun is a lovely tool of destruction.
you dont like bloated text editors, but you suggest they use Emacs? Oh thats right, Emacs isnt bloated, its featurly plump. Why don't you go compile a kernel or something.
You can't take sports out of the schools, they're too much fun (for those of us geeks who are good at them). If you take away my sports I'll take away your Dungeons and Dragons (and beat you over the head with your DM's guide, thanks to my now pent-up agressiveness).
Well geez.. I thought I was a nerd but the school administration certainly didn't act like I was a criminal. Perhaps you guys should clean up your act a little. Stop wearing stupid Goth clothes, take out that idiotic nose ring (christ.. that's so early 90's it's pathetic). Patch up the holes in your jeans! Wear some clean clothes once in awhile! It sounds more like they're cracking down on freaks not nerds and geeks. Freaks are people who ARE generally doing shit that is wrong.. drugs, smoking in the bathroom, grafitti, stealing, etc. I have no sympathy if those fuckers get cracked down upon.
I don't know if articles would use more space while they are active in Slashdot's MySQL database than when they are archived in HTML format (by the way, what you call "SHTML" format is actually HTML as can be verified by reading the raw text of any .shtml file from the Slashdot archive e.g. Slashdot Archive, 3rd December 1998).
At present, nobody is able to post new comments on Slashdot stories once they have entered Archive Mode. However, since the transformation between the two data formats doesn't lose any information -- .shtml files retain details about the comment poster, comment posting date, moderator score, etc -- it should be possible to regenerate the original entry in the MySQL database format dynamically from any archived .shtml file. This would enable people who want to post new comments on archived articles to do so.
Once the comment was posted, the article could remain cached in the database for a while before being automatically archived back to .shtml format if nobody posted any further comments. It's not difficult to do with a perl script, regeneration events would be rare and anyway the regeneration cost per .shtml file would be tiny.
Everyone wins! How about it, Rob?
Maybe you haven't yet.. but its only a matter of time. I'm 16. I've been to a few crappy private schools.. one a high school, and the other a grade school. As I look back now on the grade school.. I realize what could have happened. A few more years and something might have happened.. but luckily graduation pretty much put a stop to things.
Just because the name says "Catholic" or "Private School" doesn't mean that the kids are any different.
Have all the back issues of Slashdot prior to June 21st been deleted? The earliest issue still available by following the standard URL pattern is June 21st 1999 http://slashdot.org/ index.pl?section=&issue=730291&mode=thread. This is off-topic but nowhere else exists on Slashdot to ask Slashdot-specific questions in public.
This web site is absurd. It's not an "outlet for abused kids", it's a lame place for people who didn't like high school to complain about it. I was a nerd in high school but people didn't pick on me for it. If I saw half of these kids that write their sob stories, I would have surely picked on them, though. Pathetic, nerd picks on even nerdier nerd.
At first some of these tales had some meaning, but now they are more about the disgrutled mouthing off than anything else. Drop it, please...
Good stuff happens too. How about McGwire hitting home run 500? Or how about Wade Boggs going for 3000 hits? Not all news is bad. Hey, and it was real inspiring when America's honeys beat the Chinese girls in soccer. Not everyone needs a black trenchcoat to have fun.
Is the reason something to do with Andover.net buying Slashdot?
Compare Slashdot's old copyright notice at the bottom of every page up to 14th July 1999
with the new notice from 15th July 1999:Err, it's a pretty good looking website actually. Works fine in lynx, just who ever constructed it needs to be enlightened about alt atributed for img tags. Other wise it's great in all browser. The stories are a bit dramatic. Some stories don't belong there. Common, who would write about spreading lesbian rumors.
I think the main argument was that, firstly, Slashdot's archived html files contain all the necessary information for rebuilding the original MySQL database entries, and that, secondly, the rebuilding could therefore be dynamic so the additional overheads, if any, of using the MySQL data format would last only as long as new comments were being posted to an archived article.
Rob and Hemos, is the following a bug or a deliberate change to Slashdot? Recently Slashdot has a real problem serving up old issues of the Slashdot front page. Just try getting back one month or more by clicking many times on the 'Yesterday' link, or to be quicker, edit the URL or just try this ready made link to an old top page http://slashdot.org/ index.pl?section=&issue=730298&mode=thread. The old stories seem to be disappearing from the front page. Prior to June 21st, no stories are listed!
Very old discussions are archived. Besides, your URL seems strange. What's the date of the article? The dates normally appear on the sid field of the URL. I found, for example, 99/06/20/1310243 (archived copy) at http://slashdot.org/articles/99/06/20/1310243.shtm l .
Slashdot is using a new undocumented feature to block comment posting on old articles. After some time, old stories are now being put into ARCHIVE MODE. Once a story gets into Archive mode, it is not possible to post any additional comments. I'm not sure this is a good idea. There have been great articles and discussions which would benefit from new contributions but by blocking new comments nobody can add anything anymore.
I'd be curious to know how much space an article takes when in the database and how much space it takes on disk in SHTML format. If SHTML tends to be smaller by anything more than a trivial ammount (and I expect that it does), then it has everything to do with saving disk space.
:)
However, I do think it's cool that you've worked out the frequency of comment posting for slashdot
SHTML means server-parsed HTML. You can put in magic tags in SHTML and the server will interpret them (e.g. run scripts, include files, etc) and feed you the resulting HTML. It's not possible to get the 'raw' text of a server-parsed document per se, because the server gives you an interpreted version.
The only reason I bring this up is because me and my best friend, Dead Republican, were just talking about this the other day. He wrote a song called "Come and Get Yours" on his first album and he's working on a followup to that song in light of the recent incidents. Check it out on his website. I'm not allowed to link the song directly here but it's in mp3 on the Dead Republican page on my site.
"The lie, Mr. Mulder, is most convincingly hidden between two truths."
--
And Justice for None
Well, I'm surprised to hear that high school (around here :secondary education), appears to be _such_ a torture for so many people in the US. I enjoyed high school, and it's the same for the vast majority of people I know. The targeted and persistent physical abuse that many students seem to be victim of is pretty much absent in this country. I was wondering why it's like this in America. My guess is it's due to movies, TV, and -generally everything fiction- making violence and what is normally considered bad behaviour appear acceptable and even desirable. Yes?
After reading through the post, the motley responses, and the two mentioned sites, I have concluded that while Cliffy B.'s approach may not be the "appropriate" one, it certainly is a "great leap forward." Why? Well, I can't claim that I was abused, persay, in school, but I certainly empathize with those of you who cowered in the corner due to "undue attention" (a euphemism for not wanting to get your behind kicked into outer space). I received my fair share (and one-third more, I believe) of butt-kicking (my behind still aches), but I have rebounded (somewhat). I'm still bitter over the thirteen years I wasted in public education, but heck, North Carolina *is* ranked 49th in the nation for public education, right?! ;-)
/. have blasted Cliffy B.'s attempt at harnessing chaos. Nothing irks me more than blundering geeks who cannot express themselves succinctly (distinct irony here, eh?). Most of the responses here bitch about the lack of pretty colors and round shapes in HellMouth.org, but who really cares? The site accomplishes its mission: "to get the word out." One doesn't need a Macromedia site to spread the word!
Perhaps what gets to me is the fact that the myriad of responses here on
The short and sweet of my response: I applaud Cliffy B.'s valiant attempt to persuade us to jettison some of our baggage. Perhaps an administrator or one of those who tormented us will happen across the site and feel a twinge of guilt (yeah, right).
To those of you who don't believe: f* you. Have a nice day.
Anyway, there's a "Dylan/Eric fan club" on Yahoo! that is very much like this site...
teleny, friend of cats.
That doesn't work when entire classrooms of students are either participating or watching the "festivities." I would have loved to pound my attackers senseless in high school, but you know it's only going to cause more trouble than it's worth when your instructor is watching and isn't lifting a finger to help.
Read my stuff.
Its not just ugly, it looks like someone's "I like Quake" site. If there is going to be real progress made as a result of telling these stories, then it has to be done in a more somber way - it has to grab and keep the attention of those who *need* to know this stuff: administrators, legislators, parents, etc.
People throughout this discussion are saying 'shit happens, they need to stop whining.'
Unless you aren't paying taxes, and never plan to send your kids into the public school system, you should be very, very concerned. After four years in the army, I found the school I was working at to be much more addicted to authoritarian nonsense than all but my drill sergeants from basic training and one really rotten commander I drove for briefly until he fired me for 'smiling too much.' No one in the army, for instance, ever told me 'because I said so' was a reason. It's even considered bad form.
The high school, on the other hand, was a different story.
I'd sit kids down, get their referral forms, and go to enter them in the database, and I'd see 'defiance of authority' as the offense they committed. The question that always came to mind was 'Well, was the authority being legitimately invoked?' I knew of one teacher who'd call kids 'trifling idiots' then boot them out of class for telling him it was wrong to say that. That was 'defiance of authority.'
It seems that if we're going to hope to produce children that eventually amount to a thing, and who can participate in a democratic society with any ability or usefulness, we're going to need to get it through the heads of insecure adults that those kids are going to have to be allowed to protest them from time to time, and be gently taught the limits of that protest, and how to discern and deal with occasions when an authority figure is wrong. If we can't do this, it won't matter if the crypto's free and the guns are plentiful, because no one will care to use them in defense of liberties that will have ceased to matter. There's no need for a Big Brother when the population is self-pacified from an inability to think critically and occasionally argue, impolite as it may be, with someone who's claim to 'right' is never questioned.
It's fashionable among some to imply that speaking out against injustice is whining, or a sign of weakness. If anyone's weak, though, it's the ones who never develop the moral courage to say a thing while people in authority abuse their positions and others without recrimination.
I'll take these 'whiners' over the characterless sheep any day.
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mphall@cstone.nospam.net
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mphall@cstone.nospam.net
"A horse laugh is worth a thousand syllogisms"
Its not the size of the dog in the fight, its the size of the fight in the dog. Especially if the person wanting to kick your ass is used to those jock-fights; you know, where they push each other a few times then everyone breaks it up. One good hit, to a vital spot, and they fold like origami. The same thing happened to me a dozen times in high school. I kept messing them up - usually by 1, actually fighting back (like, throwing a real punch) and 2, fighting dirty (oh look, a chair...) and it worked like a charm. They kept wanting to kick my ass, though. They never stopped.
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
I remember being taunted by one jock in school...
... a nice hefty knee to the groin will take out ANYBODY!
I finally snapped after 1 month, smashed his head through my locker in front of his friends.. when the principal said anything to us in his office I said... "keep him away from me or I'll do it again, I'm sick of his crap" (yelling this at the principal as he wouldnt stop ranting)
he left me alone (and his friends) for the next year... then he smeared himself all over the pavement on his new motorcycle (No tears from me)
the trick is to beat the hell outta your tourmenter... Adreneline is a wonderful tool... and remember
Note: this has been the only person I have ever hit.. from then on... noone would even think of bugging me...
If you walk like a victim you are the victim...
respond like a vigilante once and they will not try to victimize you.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Prozac? ta hell with prozac...
I was thinking Lithium and other heavy drugs...
Put them in a comatose state and all will be fine...
All kidding aside...
There is alot more to this than drug them up....
How about anger management for the jocks,trenchcoats,buzzheads,worms,nerds,dweebs?
how about some serious help for them?
Nahhh... they're "normal" let them be....
(Normal kids dont torment, like the idea of killing, or kill people... Phycopaths do these things.... it's simple..)
Now, if they are pushed to feeling like they have to kill to protect themselves? that is dilliousionment and acute paranoia brought on by many things... and it NEEDS to be treated.
and if the cause is external you have to REMOVE the cause (Put the jocks in a room and remove all the air... JOKING.. I hate jocks to begin with... mindless morons they are)
the whole key is to eliminate the school officials that Yell and scream, and put someone in there that will actually care about and help these kids...
You NEVER see a shooting at a private school.... I wonder why....
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
wait a minute... everyone hated you?
this is a typical paranoia behaivoir. I'm sorry but the concept of this dead on line with a mential disorder.. my son,12, is just now normal.. I have him on Lithium and several other heavy drugs to keep his paranoia down... without his drugs he is highly phycotic, under the bed screaming that everyone is tryingto kill him/ hates him.. it starts mild... everyone at school hated him... first the kids... then the teachers...
NOTE: there might be a few that hate you... but the majority couldn't care that you existed or are even breathing let alone take the time to hate you.
please... seek some professional help, you will feel much better if you do.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Well except for the authors story, every other one screams that these people needed some serious phycological help and didn't get any.. I saw tales of obsessive behaivoir (My friends beat me up story) extremely low self esteem in every story (the direct fault of their parents or lack of parents) and many other serious problems.. The fun part is that these students that need the help (the outcasts as well as the brain-dead jock) will never ever get the mental health care they need, why? because mental health isn't real.. if you arent mentally handicapped then nothing's wrong with you? how about the emotionally handicapped or messed up? any kid that would attack another has some really serious mental problems that need to be attended to immideately... the Jock that humilates or beats up the geeks has a self esteem problem that is very deeply rooted, and he also probably has an agressive personality that is augmented by the sport they participate in. the Geek that is inclusive, has no friends or in-appropriately attaches themselves to others (a 16 year old dating a 21 year old... this is a common mential problem with girls that dont have parental figures in their life.. that 21 year old is ther for 2 reasons... manipulation and easy poon-tang... this is why there are laws against it) and then we have school officials that hate their jobs and obviously hate kids.. what the hell are you doing in a job teaching kids if you dont love to be around them all the time??
Every one of the "troublemakers" at your school..
I'll bet dollars to donuts they have a mential problem that needs to be repaired...
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Yeah, thats the ticket. Lets blame guns.
I say we blame high schools too. If they didnt exist, Columbine would have never happened. Yeah, thats the ticket. Duhhhhh.
Somehow, somewhere, about 10 years ago, the American public stopped looking at morons and idiots as exactly what they were -- morons, and idiots. Suddenly, they're became "misguided youth", "victims of the media" or "troubled children".
We are totally incapable of living with the idea that some individuals are just plain fucking stupid. Thats the most disturbing realization thats come out of all of this.
Bowie
Bowie J. Poag
Bowie J. Poag
Moooo! I'm the Columbine Cow! From the HELLMOUTH! Stop milking me, Katz! Mooooooo!
Hehehe,
Bowie
Bowie J. Poag
Bowie J. Poag
Since I'm still in high school, I see this as a very helpful attempt to get the voices of many out to the masses. Surely you geeks/programmers/nerds remember what it was like. Perhaps I only commend this because it's all still fresh in my mind...yeah, it's not done up with endless Macromedia and it's not the prettiest site I've ever seen. But it works and gives the outcast a chance to blow off steam and be identified with.
;]
Here's an idea: If you're disillusioned with attempts to let the oppressed have a voice, why not set up your own site like this? Then we can all complain and be miserably happy.
Just my $0.02.
Can't sleep, the clowns will eat me...
We are totally incapable of living with the idea that some individuals are just plain fucking stupid. Thats the most disturbing realization thats come out of all of this.
Maybe i'm misunerstanding your use of 'stupid' here, but there's a big problem with your logic -- not all killers are dumb. That's not to say genius=isanity because everyone knows that's not true.
What America (and maybe the rest of the world, i can only speak for the sick portion i live in) refuses to admit is that everyone has potential to become a killer. Not everyone will snap, obviously, but those kids didn't do what they did because they were stupid. (they couldn't have)
While this might be a good way of dealing with a lone person who decides he doesn't like you, it will do nothing when the entire school is against you and has been for years.
At the onset of adolescence, my entire peer group decided they hated me. They resented my intelligence, my honour and honesty, and my freedom (I did what suited me, openly obeying my own sense of honour rather than the rules). To be sure, I was arrogant and unapologetic for the ease with which I surpassed all my peers in all fields but sports (at which I was merely above average), but I never went out of my way to put my classmates down (until I was already fully unpopular and facing attacks on a daily basis; then I became I full-fledged jerk toward them).
In my case, I always fought back. I wasn't sneaky about it either: if someone hit me while the teacher wasn't looking, I'd hit him back whether the teacher was looking or not.
It didn't help, they just ganged up (once I reached an age where there were no lone bullies who were more than double my weight). Not just in 2s and 3s, but in big groups of 10 or 20, bringing in cousins and friends from out of town. One person would get my attention, three would tackle me from behind. I'd end up bloody and bruised and limping, but there'd still be split lips and black eyes on my attackers. If I could do nothing else I would spit my own blood in my attacker's eye.
It's a miracle I didn't kill any of them. I certainly thought about it, even made plans about how to get away with it. I had fantasies about torturing people to death with power tools, about crippling them and dumping what was left at the hospital so they could live out a miserable life in pain.
Part of the reason I made it through high school without killing anyone is that I started training in martial arts. I always had both a humanitarian philosophy and strong sense of honour, so I wouldn't really torture someone or even hit them from behind, but martial arts gave me a sense of my own strength and convinced me that it was not cowardly to avoid a pointless fight you can't win.
In my last year of high school, I didn't get in any fights at all. Part of it was that I was avoiding fights even in the face of blatant provocation, but part of it was the way I dealt with my last few attackers; avoiding their assaults without injuring them with such ease that they were humiliated.
It is not simple violence that is the solution, but sometimes the skillful and appropriate application of violence can be useful. Usually, though, there are better ways of dealing with the situation.
I was reading the other day that Eric (I think) had been on behavior modification drugs. The kid that wet nuts in Georgia had been on Ritalin for years. Perchance being on "good" drug just might have warped that sense of reality enough to make these action jusifyable?
Personally I think this way of dealing with interesting children is sick and disgusting. It's so much like Brave New World as to be extremely frightening.
+&x
Brilliant diagnosis of human behavior, my good man! When are you sending your paper into the American Journal of Psychology?
More often than not, these stories are about kids being beaten up for how they dress or where they are on the social (or sports) ladder. So how is that immature and childish?
I'm not sure I agree with the Hellmouth thing on the whole, but where are you getting "Immature and childish?"
Seems pretty apropos here and it reminds me of something its frequent quoter, Noam Chomsky, had to say about schoolyard abuse. I can't find the exact quote now, but he roughly said that a weaker kid on the playground got beat up one day by a bunch of stronger kids because he didn't stand up for him. Decades later, he still regrets and feels ashamed by that failure.
So I ask those who "have heard enough" (obviously meaning that you really don't care about others who are weaker than yourself)... Where is your sense of duty? Of compassion? Of shame? Have you any?
I meant best third party candidate*s*. The local elections coming up this Fall are far more important in determining social policy than presidential elections. This year, with luck, we may just elect the first ever progressive majority to the Seattle city council, thanks in a large part to the Green Party of Seattle. If this happens, it will be a *massive* victory for social justice in Seattle, and by extension in the US. We're going to show that it *can* be done. Social policy *can* be changed.
Points well taken - but here is something to think about, that has everything you say (with the exception of excercise/physical training), plus would appeal to the geeks as well:
Robo-Sports!
All of your points would apply (except for the ones I mentioned); winning fairly, losing well, social/team involvment, and hand-eye coordination. Add to that the chance to learn robotics and AI, maybe learn RTLinux, and applying logic/thought to solving a problem.
It wouldn't have to cost a lot of money, either. the individual robots could be built either out of Legos or scrap wood/metal - Legos would be a better choice, for the educational reuse and discount possibilities - but I wouldn't rull out homebrew stuff, either...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
This new site "Hellmouth" seems to have missed the whole point somehow (and I speak as one who was highly impressed by the Slashdot "Hellmouth" series, and as one who's been there, done that, got the scars). It has a revenge-oriented feel to it that is disturbing in its own way. The site owner's own attitude contributes to this -- frex, statements such as the one to the effect of "if you don't like my HTML, fsck off". I get the feeling the only people welcome are those who support the site owner's OWN viewpoint and personal gripes (ie. sense of martyrdom).
Unlike the direct followups on Jon's columns, which had a sense of personal healing about them, I can't see this new site as a positive place for kids to gather and unload about what troubles them.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I've seen people refer to new copyright notices, but I'm still seeing the "Rob Malda" copyright.
-- $SIGNATURE
... but then again I use Lynx as my primary browser. You'd be amazed at how many hideous pages become decent with Lynx. But on the other hand, a lot of pages that look OK in bloatware browsers end up ugly in Lynx, so there's a trade-off. Not to mention all the fuckheads who use JavaScript for things like basic navigation (please shoot them). Overall, though, I'd have to say that using Lynx is better than not using Lynx.
-- $SIGNATURE
"They want attention, just like all these psychopaths"
Ah, right genious...and the natural solution is not to FOUND OUT WHY, but to unilaterally scorn and ignore. Good job. No wonder public schools and people in general are more fucked up than ever.
Maybe we should drill holes in their heads to let the "evil spirits" out, eh?
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Goddamn...I'm the "genious"...I can't even spell...
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Assertiveness is great. But if the guy(s) is twice as big/tall/heavy you are plain out of luck. And you probably won't have enough friends to gang up. Unfortunately violence is sometimes not a practical solution (no matter how much one my dream of it).
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Yes, it does no good to just call people whiners. I used to be one of those whiners who was beat up continually. The admin's were no help either. I had no one to turn to... except a really good kung fu teacher. The school wanted nothing to do with it, until I started winning that is. Once I was attacked by three jock assholes, and the administrators tried got pissed at me for beating the shit out of them. They actually started to argue that I had been the aggressor! It took about five minutes for the dumbasses to figure out how ludicrous it would have been for me to run down 3 big, strong, burly jocks into a locker room and attack them!
Would high school have been hell if I'd been both a geek and unable to defend myself? You bet. I have absolutely no respect for those of you who just say, "it's not my problem". It is your problem if you let this sort of thing continue. Somebody might mow down your kids if he gets pissed on enough. Then how would you feel if administrators and police told you that, "it's not their problem?"
I'm a gnu world man.
Maybe if the media (and the human race) didn't make such a big deal out of all of this, it wouldn't happen in the first place. We all see those idiots standing behind the news reporters jumping around, looking stupid, just to get on TV. They want attention, just like all these psychopaths (sp?) that go around shooting their class mates. I know that people jumping around behind a reporter and people killing other people aren't exactly on the same level, but they have the same motivation: getting attention.
I agree. The site looks awful. Only works with a large screen res. The blue links look really bad against the black background.
Still, it does finally bring some attention to the underlying problem.
BWUK
Who cares what he's using? This isn't about OS advocacy. It's about trying to say something. Who cares what tools you use as long as your message gets across?
"Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst."
The constant abuse of authority by those in positions of trust over young people is disgusting.
My High School principal at an assembly at the school claimed "I have more power then the police"
and elaborated by saying he could search students, their bags, bodies and lockers, without warrants, or even evidence. This attitude is just wrong.
Most children/young people do not have the confidence to stand up and do what is right, I did quite often and I got a LOT of trouble for it.
Things as small as pointing out the teacher is wrong. Teachers who think that they are somehow child experts, and can just disregard whatever the parents, child, or real doctors.
Maybe if enough people make statements, either through articles, protests, complaints, or even violent statements, maybe enough people will acknowledge that there is a problem and do something about it.
I don't necessarily condone violence, but really what other choices are we giving this kids, when they know they will be killed if they continue to do nothing?
Hmmm. At least that makes more sense than, oh, bright, cheery, bold color schemes given the subject matter...
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
I'd agree *if* the hypothetical firearms owners were well-trained in their maintenance and usage. Even, say, for an armed guard walking the beat in a school (in constrast to arming untrained civvies), such as there actually was at Columbine, to be able to take down one or two shooters in an area full of panicking people you _don't_ want to shoot might be beyond many.
It'd also have to be carried and readily accessible, most likely; a weapon in a locked desk is useless if the owner is prevented from approaching it.
Hmmmm. Anybody know how whether and how much training is required before (guess this would mostly be a per-state thing...) permits are granted?
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
People take this too far, I mean, shit happens, lets face it. Besides, Columbine would never have happened if they all had guns, now would it have?? ;)
man, this site is ugly.. :) but i guess it might actually help and attract some more attention and provide some outlet for kids. let's see if it actually will fly. it is ugly though, damnit :)
...sie sind nicht grün
The global "suppress animations" click-box is nice too; banner ads stop being a nuisance, and the entire page still loads (unlike the last version of Netscape I used, which would stop loading the page if you did alt-V A to shut them off).
Now if it would only stop leaking memory and munging all its windows after you have about 15 open... (Bugs? In M$ products? Perish the thought! ;-)
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Once again slashdotters have seen the trees, and missed the forest.
High school was, and still is, hell for alot of people. The fact that our politicians immediately seized on the opportunity to "profile" geeks and outcasts rather than identify the root of the problem is evidence of why sites like this are necessary. There are several support groups that have already sprung up to address these issues. Hopefully, in time, they will form a grass-roots efforts to help sanitize our schools' policies. I, for one, welcome it. My high school experiences were less than memorable, and I'm very, very happy that I graduated before the columbine hysteria.
Now, some quick Q&A, because I already know how this is going to be taken:
"It's only 4 years, what's the big deal?"
The ages of 13-19 are the years that the vast majority of kids develop their outlook on life. If they're spending that time being beat up and oppressed... well, you do the math.
"I never had any trouble in high school, what's the big deal?"
Thousands of people didn't get in a car accident today because you didn't either, right?
"You suck! Die you commie bastard!"
Another victim of public education, I see...
Why do politicians pass legislation like this?
Good question! It's because it makes for "good public policy". It sounds good, like a title for a book. And alot of people only judge a book by it's cover. And besides - minors can't defend themselves politically(can't vote!), so what incentive to politicians have to protect their rights?
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