There are many ways we can come to define what compromises a Cult. There are a couple of podcasts on the concept of Cults and they fairly do a broad sweep of the subject which can include Bravo’s Housewives franchises to certain types of diets. My personal favorite: The Cult of Dolly Parton. I have to admit that while I respect fandom there is this point where you cross lines, but I am not sure I have heard of anyone altering their body physically and dressing like Dolly daily, relocating to Tennessee and taking up residence near Dollywood to be closer to their icon where her songs are on permanent playlist. The Cult of Kardashians however…..
But the point is that when you become obsessive to the point where all rational thought and all spare time and energy is devoted to a singular subject that you are willing to change your lifestyle, your appearance, donate your money or turn over your finances and independence in which to pursue and remain in the society in which you are a member, you are in a cult. There is the Sarah Lawrence Cult that was in the news of late and a subject of a Documentary and now a play. That is a cult.
There are cults around business, NXVIM is one that stands out as perhaps the most bizarre of those, but I would include Scientology as that is a publishing industry as well as a Real Estate Firm despite having the designation of a “Religion” enabling them tax breaks and exemptions. Nice work if you can get it.
And that is the biggest cult of all – Organized Religion. The idea that you can have a “house” as it is called for worship, draw people in to listen to someone read a version of a book, take that an interpret its meaning, then demand fealty, in turn submission of one’s soul to that and demand money in which to enable you to do it all again and then not pay taxes on earnings, that is to say a hell of a cult.
And like all Cults sex is the big tool, pencil in which to draw and of course the weapon to further the submission of now both body and soul. The Catholic Church really mastered that craft and with that there are more Revelations than in the Bible (pun intended) about other organized Churches that have similar problem, the Southern Baptists are one such example. With that the promises of investigations and repentance, the big tool of Churches that one there, in which to ostracize those who harmed others. In other words, like Police who get busted for shooting/killing/harming someone they are just moved to a new place on the Chess Board. They then spend their days hoping to not get caught again for doing the same or just at least not outed for something they did in the past and promise, pinky swear, to never do again.
When one thinks of Cults almost always you think of Religion. There are many and the cross the globe. The fill a Wiki page and include largely those centered on the concept of faith. But they are more than that. You really have to examine what a cult is, and despite the idea that they are some sort of thrown together crazies who are nuts is actually kind of right and wrong. Charlie Manson was an example of that but when you look at the Cult of Nike Shoes, aka Heaven’s Gate, they were not. They were highly organized, had a dogma, a Hierarchy and in turn financial records, established income and were to all their members it was a “religion.” If they had the appropriate tax documentation and legal registration filed that I cannot answer but I suspect they did. And yes there is a podcast about them too.
And with that the idea of Mass Suicide aka Homicide features in many cults. There was Jim Jones, the above mentioned Heaven’s Gate and this cult in Kenya that had members starve themselves while the founder managed to survive. This is not unlike the one in Tennessee, subject of another documentary The Way Down, about the Remnant Fellowship and their founding Minister, Gwen Shamblin, who died in a plane crash. Guess weight was not a problem in why that plane crashed.
And there is a debate that groups like Heaven’s Gate and many other established groups, almost all of them subjects of movies, documentaries, podcasts and books, such Wild Wild Country. And are they in fact organized religions that simply like Scientology have a different angle on historical canons or are they are a cult? Again, I think ALL and any of it are cults but again I will say that you are free to go in and out of a Church at any time and not feel compelled to shave your head, wear a costume, donate all your money and go live in social isolation dedicated to the faith. Oh wait? Never mind. Still love Audrey Hepburn in a Nun’s Story though.
I have found some similarities to cults, they are all started by Men and then they get Women involved to be the recruiters, the beards, the front faces to show the legitimacy of the organization. Even Jeffrey Epstein had Jizzehlda/Ghislaine or Beard, to pose as his companion in which to enable him to move among the movers and shakers of leadership and finance in which to gain trust, gain money and fuck young girls. The revelations of that family/cult/business is still coming to light. I love the denial by all those whose interests coalesced with Epstein in pursuit of more money (sure but really isn’t sex part of that?) I love that they never saw a “young” girl in his company or on his properties and planes. Really you didn’t? They seem to remember you.
Yes folks Money is a type of cult, where the Billionaires and Millionaires meet, greet, fuck and do it all again in pursuit of money and fame. And all of that comes or do I mean cum, in the forms of buying, planes, boats, art or homes in which to prove how your bank account and dick are the biggest. Look at Newport or Beverly Hills, the Hamptons, Manhattan where they have erect ones lining the sky. Islands or Ranches are another way to hide one’s crimes right in the open and with that they are telling us to fuck off as this is an exclusive cult where membership is closed.
There would be no NXIVM or many cults without the Multi Level Marketing one sees in other business oriented “cults” such as Amway and Herbalife. That is how that nut, Raniere, in NXIVM made a living prior to his founding of that cult. MLMs have been called many names, including network marketing, social marketing, pyramid schemes, Ponzi schemes, product-based sales, referral marketing, and direct sales. MLMs are pyramid schemes that focus on recruiting people to recruit others, presumably giving a cut of the income up the chain. Bernie Madoff anyone?
When you dedicate yourself to preserving a belief, a lifestyle, a type of faith falls in line. Without that you have well just life and free will, and cults do not want free will, they want submission and obsession. The idea that you will have a better life, maybe not on this planet or even when alive but later so keep on believing, starving, earning, worshiping or fucking. That last one is always the biggest element in most cults. Remember they are almost all started by Men. Gwen broke that glass ceiling literally and is now with her God so I assume she can eat now, you don’t need food in heaven. And that Men are well men and they are ruled by the Dick. Why do you think all are Warriors of God and carry a big Sword there?
There are many cults and many types of them. The John Birch Society, the KKK, the White Supremacy movements that have many extensions the same way the Southern Baptists have Churches. Where to you think White Christian Nationalism comes from? I often recall the Westboro Baptist Church. But think of all the Pro Life Movements, where they literally killed Doctors, so much for pro life. And Politics make for strange bedfellows and none are more strange than the obsessive histrionic belief in Donald Trump. I have long said he hit the boxes of having money and fame. We all know that both are due to bluster and production values that the show The Apprentice provided. Like all Churches, Businesses have the Front of the House and the Back of the House. The back runs it all, they collect the money, hide the money and disperse the money, to themselves. It is all a type of grifting, or the long con. And without a certain type of believers that continue to come through the doors there is no way a business can last and you need that door open 24/7. Thank GOD for the Internet as now you never are closed.
The rise of Social Media parallels the rise of White Supremacy as it enabled, permitted, tolerated and allowed it. There were always factions and groups who in their isolation found support but then you have a massive communication too to facilitate it. Fox News and Tucker Carlson became the de facto propaganda machine and in turn those incidents of violence prompted by racial and religious animosity were easily dismissed and the faux rise of “antifa” became the new warrior cry and ones to blame. In my day it was Hippies, before that Communists and so on. The same way the lay elections at Soccer Moms, Tea Partiers and other “groups” that will be the determining factor are just concocted by the Media in which to bring eyes to screens, now those screens are more than Televisions, they are Phones, Computers, IPads and any form of technology one uses to find like. And as in all Math equations, like likes like.
As I watched the recent film on Showtime on Waco and I began to realize the complex web of how Guns and how those with guns meet, interact and the individuals, almost all exclusively white men who are lost and misdirected and use often Religion as their expression of frustration it allowed me to learn more about the way we use whatever tool we have in our kit to become a weapon. McVeigh was prompted by Waco and led him to find an enabler or more than one (which we still do not know and never will) I do find it ironic that it was the current DOJ Head, Merrick Garland who Prosecuted him but I am not sure I agree that it was flawless as he failed to realize that others were involved to help him plan and act upon it. And when we look at many of the mass shootings they are prompted by far more than a lone wolf who did not get laid, were bullied, were Racist, were Homophobic, Misogynist, Anti Semitic or whatever “ist” you need to validate your rage.
Jeffrey Toobin has written a new book, Homegrown, documenting some of this history behind Waco and the fanaticism that grew out of the 90s. The culmination of that was in fact Columbine. I had read the great book by Dave Cullen on the subject and knew the boys were not in fact bullied or sad losers. They had been in fact arrested and with that they conned their Parents, the Authorities that they were not a problem. But the myths remain. The same way a Teacher called that trigger by the drawings by one of them, the same was true in Michigan and yet the Parents there did know and in turn took off running. Denial is the same as complicity in many of these young men who are enabled to get guns, to hide the second life in the same way a Man hides a Mistress. Talk about Cults again and its relationship to reality TV take a look at Scandoval. What a farce that took up hours of rage and mob mentality to denigrate an idiot on a “reality” show and his affair. Do you actually know these people? Why do you care? Apply that rationale to the angry white men/boys who for some reason seen others as enemy’s and wish to do them harm. And when I got into an online argument with someone who was convinced that Columbine was a standard school shooting (again are any?) I pointed to the facts behind their reasoning, how they were perceived in legal filings as “good young promising men” by Therapists and Law Enforcement. Their parents relieved and meanwhile they planned on. Their killing of most of the victims was in the School Library and they took pleasure while shooting them. It is not a pretty story but again we have a gun problem, we have a massive mental health problem and we have no way of stopping or circumventing any of it. Time and time again we have failed to see signs, ignore flags and in turn we are so afraid we in fact contribute to it by buying more guns. And I will write a post about the history of how guns became the most significant issue in America today, a type of de facto defense mechanism that has little to do with the 2nd Amendment but more about money and strategy by the NRA and Gun Manufacturers. As all things in life there is always history and a back story.
But without a leader, a type of person, either dead or alive, in which to draw members there is no cult. Think Jesus and that is the starring member of that cult. When one looks at many “cult” fanatics there are usually patterns of behavior and failed businesses that often push one to form a type of community and in turn prove the naysayers wrong. The intent may be benign, but usually it evolves and becomes grander in both scope and scale. They almost always do. But as Americans we are illiterate, we like to emote, we like to believe what we believe and refuse to spend anytime doing the homework, taking the time to ask questions, and expect that our “instincts” are right. Really? Your instincts? We have two: Fight or flight. And with that we have some with higher order thinking skills motivated largely by the biggest motivator – Money. Money is the only thing that matters regardless of Class, Race, Gender etc, etc etc. And anyone who tells you different is either a Charlatan aka a Cult Leader or a Pathological liar aka a Cult Leader. Some are better than others at manipulating people to BELIEVE and not all of it is about a belief but it is about money. See Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos on that one.
It all falls to those who are Believers, Followers and those who are Leaders. And they are distinctly different. It is the Cult of Personality.
If you watched John Oliver on Sunday October 16th his main story was about Transgendered Children and their rights which are increasingly being removed and even the very word or subject is being banned in many schools across the country as this issue has become the new social media ## of late in the endless sparring between the right and left. It is of course nuts as social media is a cesspool of misinformation and histrionics that are fueled by the culture wars as established by the two political parties serving in Congress. The New York Times did an excellent breakdown of how they use social media to encourage and enrage their followers to incite discord and as we know now, violence. Words apparently can lead to hurt.
I found this article in the Washington Post and with that I am sorry that this little girl is involved at all. She is a survivor and will go through immense struggles coping with this and in turn adding pressure to somehow be the spokesperson to bring change does little to help her process and try to live her life as a CHILD should in the best of circumstances and these certainly are not the best in any stretch of the imagination.
Uvalde was a failure by the Adults not in the room. The Adults in the room died trying to save lives, only one survived and he will have many years of rehab from the injuries both physical and mental as he works toward recovery. Children have no need to be involved but they are now largely thanks to David Hogg who along with other Survivors of Parkland decided to take on the role of Activists and push forward with Gun Safety and Legislation to regulate guns. They are still pushing forward but now many have taken a back seat. David still is on social media but I can see cracks in the rage and anger and with that he is at Harvard and should be focused on the now and the end game and at that point move into a larger role, but to spend his entire College Years on this issue is to me a point that has been made.
The Court Case in Florida is over and the Parents are still processing their grief and anger and as we also know as more and more shootings have occurred in schools, at parks, at grocery stores, at parades and in homes little has changed with regards to Gun regulations and safety, in fact gun restrictions have loosened. And we are now putting all of this on children. I watched the families in the Court over Alex Jones and his bullshit regarding Sandy Hook, a shooting that was well over a decade ago. I watched the families during the Florida trial and now we have another coming in Michigan and more to follow. This will never end well. Yes the shooter will be found guilty and regardless of the penalty it doesn’t change a thing; Children and adults died by a GUN, held by a hand who managed to have legal access to one. That is the real problem and the only solution, getting guns off our streets. Start by not playing with them as children. That might help. Stop filming movies and video games that don’t actually depict the real violence found at the end of a bullet and start showing the actual crime scene photos. Some of the children were so badly mangled their parents were sent DNA kits in which to assist in identifying remains and now Texas wants that for all children in all schools in the State. The message there? You decide.
And with that I close with a Biblical verse, yes irony but that is the point that many of these shootings happen in quote/unquote Bible belt, Free Rights and Love God and Guns country. So they should be more than familiar with this citation:
2 He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them.
3 And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
4 Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
5 And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.
6 “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.
The expression to walk in someone else’s shoes is perhaps the one thing we do the least. It is called having empathy and compassion for those whom you are not like. Try to imagine being deaf and not being able to articulate your feelings through words nor hear others express theirs. And it does not have to be as complex as those issues that we often hear so much about – Race, Gender Identity, Sexual Identity, Culture/Religion as those are often better expressed by those within if one is willing to actually listen and actively hear all what they have to say. And sometimes is a jumbled mess of thought, rambling, incoherent and often contradictory if not confusing. I felt that way about the Musical Strange Loop and while I applaud its audacity and the desire to tell it, it was a hot mess of words, with few if no songs of meaning and passionately but poorly acted. I am not the only one who came out of that Theater and thought this was a workshop piece better for experimental Off Broadway, but this is what now we what we need to see on Broadway to open one’s eyes to the “others.” I spoke to someone who is Queer and went opening night and was subjected to the Author rambling on for over an hour and half about the role of theater and how they have to include the voices of color and queer and so forth. He said it was like the play only worse. I can imagine. And with that I saw a lot of awkwardness this theater season and when they give best Revival of a Play to Take Me Out, a play that is over 20 years old and has been in the news of the leaked dick pic I am sure that was why it was given an award. I did not see it as I recall the original and it was poignant and meaningful at the time and now seems dated. Funny I don’t remember the dick, it was that meaningless. For the record, the Queer Gentleman who hated Strange Loop also loved Girl from the North Country as did I, and felt it was the best thing he has seen in a long time, so much he wrote the Producers who invited him to see it again. It was that great, the canon of Bob Dylan is put to good use in this amazing work. And despite it all Broadway is struggling, as is the Metropolitan Opera. I went again on Saturday to the final performance of the season to see the Rake’s Progress and it was AMAZING. I had a Box to myself there were boxes empty next to me, and seats unfilled throughout. This was not the first time as the Orchestra is largely full mostly due to access issues but the tiers are empty. I assume the Ballet in two weeks will be equally scattered with audience as it is the Pacific Northwest Ballet company visiting the City and is not a FOMO thing that New Yorker’s seem to gravitate. Folks it is tourists that I am sure. I look forward to it regardless as I still find seat mates as I did at the Met who was a true theater goer and it was fun to dish on the varying productions in the city.
But this is not about the Tony Awards (which for the record I did not watch but I struggle with award shows of any kind) but about being invisible and not being seen and there is no greater metaphor than that of the Theater as so few actually do see theater and with that the sheer amount of people it takes to put on any kind of production is what enables this art to continue and in reality that is who must be acknowledged for their work. In fact the host made a point of acknowledging the most invisible of theater’s members – Swing and Understudy’s. And with that many shows had Producers covering roles (Hamlet is one which I hear is also a hot mess but emphasis on hot as at least Daniel Craig is in it.) And while I loved that Company won for scenic design as it was the one thing trashed in the reviews I read and there were many times it often was stuck or stalled, thankfully again I did not see that the night I attended; however it shows that awards are just that, a strange loop. So winning an award might put butts in seats and might not. Strange Loop is for a specific audience while SIX is for anyone. And it is actually quite fun. Reviews and acclaims give you notice and attention, sometimes that is not a good thing. But once in awhile I would love someone to at least notice me in a meaningful way, not to get into my pants or to find their hands to my checkbook. But the theater is my safe space, my place I go to dream, to imagine and to think. And with that I have random encounters with others who for that moment sustain and fulfill the emptiness that overwhelms me of late.
Being invisible does take a toll, it can affect how you see yourself and how you see others. Perhaps that too explains why Mass Shooters pick grand targets, such as Schools or Churches, as they are so visible of targets with great victims in which we can all emphasize. So the flip remark to arm school Teachers and turn schools into fortresses is not the first time we have heard this absurd rhetoric nor the last as it is all they have to offer versus examining the real problem – access to guns.
Schools are not just buildings with Teachers and Students, they are composed of Secretary’s, Attendance Secretary’s, School Nurse (not always every day but there at least part of the time), School Counselors, at least two Admins, Custodians, Lunch Room Staff, Student Aides, be they for special needs or language translation and/or Teachers Assistants. There can be also grant positions that are placed within schools and do tutoring or other gigs that have them working directly with Students and of course volunteers at times and lastly Substitute Teachers. At any time a school is like a grand mall, with upwards over 1,000 students in some larger High Schools with many Middle Schools coming close to that number. That was quite true in Nashville and they were a disaster to navigate in the best of times, I cannot imagine what it would be like in the worst. When you are not a full time staff member you do not have a Computer, a school email, you have no way of communicating with others in the building as often there is no phone nor listing of numbers if there was on whom you are to call. You have an attendance roster and once that is gone to the Attendance Office you have no list of Students names or contact info. You have nothing and often they don’t even know your name as it is only on a sign in sheet when you arrive. But if you are wearing your ID badge at least they can identify the body. In Jersey City where I work now there is no phone just an intercom in which to contact the room and with that it goes over a public address system, what a fine way of informing any intruder about one’s locale.
I have no keys to a room, no protocol to follow. Not a lesson plan or even a note as to what the students are expected to do. I have not participated in any drills and if I have it may have been at a school I was at the week before not the one I am in now. I am not interested in the Student’s safety only my own as I have no health care, nor family in this case in which to notify if I am harmed. I am ostensibly a gig worker paid daily for being a seat filler. I am ignored by Staff unless they choose to acknowledge me and often by Admins utterly derided or verbally abused by in front of students, sending the message it is permissible for then to do the same. Think that builds community and a desire to save them in a crisis? No it is every man/woman/child for themselves at that point. I have said repeatedly I would walk to the door, open it and shut it from the other side as I look to exit the building.
I am in massive buildings that have literally attics as classroom spaces with one stairwell up in which to access it and the same to exit it. Basements and Gyms with multiple rooms and doors in which to hide and terrorize. No keys, no one and no way to know which way is truly the safest way out. And with that Students who neither pay attention nor respect me in the “best” of times, I seriously doubt in a crisis one they would. In fact I suspect some would use the opportunity to bring me harm.
The Mayor of Jersey City, Steve Fulop, is the most disengaged of Mayor’s that I have ever experienced with regards to the state of the schools here. Odd as the schools are still under State control and with that has only an interim Superintendent and the man is planning to run for Governor, so the only feathers to his cap is that he built a lot of expensive housing that all have massive tax incentives that mean they contribute little to nothing to the City and the schools which is what property taxes do, fund education. With that the City residents are expecting to pay either an income or additional property taxes to cover the BILLION dollar budget the very newly elected Board approved this year, from the INTERIM Superintendent. All very odd and frankly not a great idea. I do believe the schools are dilapidated and outdated. They have expensive air filtration in rooms for Covid and high end projection screens but toilets that don’t work, no air conditioning, windows that do open or not but should regardless of air conditioning. Empty classrooms not used and endless outdated texts and sad Libraries not up to date or even frankly functional or useful. Yes this is money well needed but likely not well spent.
I have one last Sub job booked and with that I have outlasted even my most basic coping skills and at least I am no longer debating self-harm. I tie that to my time at the one High School that would assign me to random staff, without my consent and the Administrator who was literally verbally abusive and dismissive leading me to at least make one conscious decision to not return. That enabled me to remind myself of what it means to have control in ones life.
That is really about what all we are seeing of late, the failure of having control, the ability to exert it and in turn the rising tide of violence as a way to be seen and heard. The homeless on the street are not all “unhoused” but there is a massive housing crisis of affordable ones, and Jersey City is truly not the exception. The pursuit of money and of glory leads down one road and this is one paved with gold for the traveler, but the road is also a toll road and you have to pay to access it. And we all pay regardless of use.
As the summer will be another one of record heat and storms I wonder what state the road will be in come fall. Worn and not by those seeking relief but from the failures of those who had years in which to repair and replace it and chose not. Ah choice, that word again rears its ugly head. I am exhausted from that word, we choose many things in life and we keep on choosing to make decisions that seem to not serve us well. I am not sure why today 30 years later I chose Teaching other than it was the alternative to working in the food industry. I did not have mentors or Teachers that could have helped me find success and professional work that would have best suited me and enabled me to have what I need at this stage in life – friends, a professional career and work that sustained me in a meaningful way, both economically and intellectually. And yet I am supposedly in an honorable profession. I can assure I am not.
I live for public transit. I am constantly learning my way among trains and subways to make traveling across the City and State and across State lines in which to expedite and in turn travel safely and cheaply. I don’t mind renting a car but with the price of fuel it is not worth the hassle to worry about it, parking and the rest. I grew up taking the 5 Phinney in Seattle and when you grow up using public transit you realize the convenience and affordability it offers. And then you read about the Subway stabbings, shootings and other problems that are a secondary plague affecting mass transit across the country. For the record, this is not new it is just expanded as the homeless, the deeply mentally ill have found themselves literally stranded in cities across the country in search of, well I have no clue what brought them to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Nashville, Seattle, New York and the city of Denver which this story is about. I do not believe they got there and in turn found themselves unable to be employed, find housing and/or went on a binge of drugs and alcohol to the point they have lost all functioning. This is a slide that starts out slow, out of a crisis and then over time (a time frame that can be weeks to days to months to years) they finally collapsed into the heap you see on your local corners, under freeway underpasses and anywhere they can lay their head.
Yesterday I read of another recall effort in San Francisco regarding their current City Attorney, the job VP Kamala Harris had during her time there which she frankly did not better than the current job she has. I am not a fan of Ms Harris, style over substance and with that I will move on. But the City has always been a haven for many. There is a strong Asian population, the Latin community of the Mission district, of course the Gay Community and many other Bohemian types drawn by the liberal politics and the stunning beauty this city of 49 square miles brings. And with it there are many good memories I have of the area, having lived in Berkeley and Oakland as well over the course of a decade. But like my home of Seattle, I am done with the West Coast and am fine with that decision. There is a passive aggressive nature to the persona of the Coastal Elites that make the passive aggressive behavior of Southerners seem almost quaint if not just a quirk of the region. And trust me the South invented it but Seattle perfected it. And yes it exists here but it is more in a sense of entitlement and arrogance that makes sense if you lived here. Like corruption it is just an accepted part of the way of life. I find it highly entertaining on most days. Think Chris Christie and Bill DiBlasio if they were Gay and Anna Delvey was their daughter and they came to your Pride Party and were the last to leave. You would reconsider having another party next year or at least the guest list.
San Francisco the last time I visited was four years ago and it was already descending into madness. The amount of Tech companies that have moved in and up were making The City (and btw that is how the pretentious in San Francisco refer to the city as “The City) unaffordable if not undesirable. The Pot Shops were aplenty and of course the cool food spots and hipster hangouts were everywhere now as opposed to just a few locales. The great funky hotels almost gone, other than my favorite The Phoneix in the Tenderloin which is where I always stay as it has a pool, great food and is the last of the era in a city that struggles to balance the past with the present. I would not stay there now it is simply not safe enough to walk alone if at all. With that now what was confined to spots and some blocks has permeated the City and made it all unsafe and utterly filthy. The City already recalled some of the School Board Members this last year and now the City Attorney is finding himself the target of ire of those sick of what is across every city today – crime. It is why NYC elected the moron Eric Adams as Mayor as he was a former Cop and promised he would not defund the Police and with that crime is still a major problem. Go figure. He is a moron. Utterly hilarious but still a walking moron. Okay a swaggering moron. They will not recall him as people don’t here, we either wait for a scandal that forces them to quit or wait to vote them out. Our Mayor here in Jersey City wisely keeps crime data under lock and key so the allusion of safety is here despite I am sure is not safe. Our Mayor is invisible if not inaccessible as frankly he is busy planning running for the Governor’s office and opening up a pot shop in Hoboken. Well, a good back up plan is always essential. He ran unopposed and the pandemic enabled that to do so with ease as most of our residents are largely Immigrants and likely unable to vote, have no real vested interest in local politics and with that it makes keeping the status quo just that. People fear, well everything, but change is on the list as well.
But as you read the story below about the Denver Bus Driver her story is not a new or unique story. It is, again, a major problem everywhere. But the sheer level of her coping strategies, her own determination to succeed is impressive. I feel the same way when I work in the schools. I am invisible, alone and spend hours just sitting there and if I don’t get abused I consider it a good day. Imagine going to work, no one knowing your name, addressing you with common courtesy and the endless parade of troubled individuals coming in and out of your workplace, be that a classroom or a bus, which you have to account for and handle. I will never forget that Bitch Admin at Ferris and the way she spoke to me those times that led me to call the suicide hotline, that was when I realized I had the power to never set foot in that school again. And as the year ends I have not. We will see in the fall. But the coping strategies of the Driver I get, I walk, I cry, I find healing through alternative means and I get up and do it again with the belief that this is another day. Not a bad one nor a good one, just another one. And we are the invisible work force and the same goes for the homeless, the unhoused, the troubled, the mentally ill and the many who are simply on the fringes. We all share that sense of not being seen and in turn acknowledged nor respected for any of that which we do, but what we are seen for is for what we FAIL to do.
And while we can recall our Politicians and demand them to do something, we really have no clue what is to be done. We are fine with the clutching of pearls and hands and we can navigate around it until it encroaches now to our doorstep, then suddenly it does become our problem. And then we again demand those we elected to fix “it” be “it” guns, homeless, drugs etc. What we don’t realize that the Pol has already made the call to move onto a new house, a bigger job and the can will get kicked down the road. When I lived in San Francisco, the Governor Gavin Newsom was the Mayor. Kamala the City Attorney. Then it was his campaign of “Care not Cash” to stop the tide of vagrancy and tragedy that existed on the streets. It was the same as it is now just different. They now live in bigger houses with bigger jobs. The reality is that we are the ones who must do something and that is perhaps accept that what was then is not now. The same things that drew you there are not the reasons others are there. Sex, drugs and rock and roll have a place but maybe in memories not in the streets. The Folsom Street fair a bizarre weekend festival of kink and debauchery should not happen anymore or move it indoors with better control and less visability. The San Francisco annual run with carts and nudity needs to end. And with that accept that those drawn there now may not have the same values or beliefs but may be exploiting or in turn harming others with their presence. It was the same during the Floyd Marches how quickly professional criminals used the cover of them to do damage and with that the BLM idea became associated with that not its actual cause. See how the memory plays games and selectively picks the issues that triggers the most base of emotions, FEAR.
So what is the solution? Well we can start to rethink what it means to massively house and treat those who refuse to be treated. We called them Institutions for the Mentally Ill. They were horrible but that was then and this is now. Can we not find ways today in which to improve them? Use the failures of the past as a teaching lesson in which to learn and grow? Uh no, that is hard and shit. We also need to start mental health assessments much early on. By Grade 5/6 all children should be assessed for not only intellectual capability’s and/or learning disabilities but for mental health disorders. And with that we need fully funded mental health clinics in schools with again referrals to behavioral issues that perhaps are a signal of a larger crisis. Wonder why 18 year old boys are taking to the streets with guns, that may answer some of those questions. Oh we cannot do that, its too hard. Or are we afraid we will find out the truth? This story about a young woman’s quest to get a mental health clinic at her school brought all the angry afraid parents to the yard to protest. Me thinks one doth protest too much.
I believe John Oliver sums up the ways schools are funded and of course the move to Police up and Militarize the schools will go well. And this is America – AFRAID and in turn utterly immobile. So nothing will change.
With that I reprint the story of the Number 15. Ride safe.
Anger and heartbreak on Bus No. 15
As American cities struggle to recover from the pandemic, Denver’s problems spill over onto its buses
By Eli Saslow June 6, 2022 The Washington Post
19 minDENVER — Suna Karabay touched up her eye makeup in the rearview mirror and leaned against the steering wheel of the bus to say her morning prayers. “Please, let me be patient,” she said. “Let me be generous and kind.” She walked through the bus to make her final inspection: floor swept, seats cleaned, handrails disinfected, gas tank full for another 10-hour shift on the city’s busiest commercial road. She drove to her first stop, waited until exactly 5:32 a.m., and opened the doors.
“Good morning!” she said, as she greeted the first passenger of the day, a barefoot man carrying a blanket and a pillow. He dropped 29 cents into the fare machine for the $3 ride. “That’s all I got,” he said, and Suna nodded and waved him onboard.
“Happy Friday,” she said to the next people in line, including a couple with three plastic garbage bags of belongings and a large, unleashed dog. “Service pet,” one of the owners said. He fished into his pocket and pulled out a bus pass as the dog jumped onto the dashboard, grabbed a box of Kleenex, and began shredding tissues on the floor.
“Service animal?” Suna asked. “Are you sure?”
“What’d I tell you already?” the passenger said. “Just drive the damn bus.”
She turned back to face the windshield and pulled onto Colfax Avenue, a four-lane road that ran for more than 30 miles past the state capitol, through downtown, and toward the Rocky Mountains. Forty-five years old, she’d been driving the same route for nearly a decade, becoming such a fixture of Denver’s No. 15 bus line that her photograph was displayed on the side of several buses — a gigantic, smiling face of a city Suna no longer recognized in the aftermath of the pandemic. The Denver she encountered each day on the bus had been transformed by a new wave of epidemics overwhelming major cities across the country. Homelessness in Denver was up by as much as 50 percent since the beginning of the pandemic. Violent crime had increased by 17 percent, murders had gone up 47 percent, some types of property crime had nearly doubled, and seizures of fentanyl and methamphetamine had quadrupled in the past year.
She stopped the bus every few blocks to pick up more passengers in front of extended-stay motels and budget restaurants, shifting her eyes between the road ahead and the rearview mirror that showed all 70 seats behind her. In the past two years, Denver-area bus drivers had reported being assaulted by their passengers more than 145 times. Suna had been spit on, hit with a toolbox, threatened with a knife, pushed in the back while driving and chased into a restroom during her break. Her windshield had been shattered with rocks or glass bottles three times. After the most recent incident, she’d written to a supervisor that “this job now is like being a human stress ball.” Each day, she absorbed her passengers’ suffering and frustration during six trips up and down Colfax, until, by the end of the shift, she could see deep indentations of her fingers on the wheel.
Now she stopped to pick up four construction workers in front of “Sunrise Chinese Restaurant — $1.89 a Scoop.” She pulled over near a high school for a teenager, who walked onto the bus as she continued to smoke.
“Sorry. You can’t do that,” Suna said.
“It’s just weed.”
“Not on here,” Suna said. The girl tossed the joint onto the sidewalk and banged her fist into the first row of seats, but Suna ignored her. She kept driving as the bus filled behind her and then began to empty out after she passed through downtown. “Last stop,” she announced, a few minutes before 7 a.m. She was scheduled for a six-minute break before turning around to begin her next trip up Colfax, but when she looked in the rearview mirror, there were still seven people sleeping on the bus. Lately, about a quarter of her riders were homeless. The bus was their destination, so they rode until someone forced them to get off. “Sorry. Everyone out,” Suna said again, speaking louder, until the only passenger left was a man slumped across two seats in the second row. Suna got up to check on him.
“Sir?” she said, tapping his shoulder. He had an open wound on his ankle, and his leg was shaking. “Sir, are you okay?”
He opened his eyes. He coughed, spit on the floor, and looked around the empty bus. “We make it to Tulsa?” he asked.
“No. This is Denver. This is the 15 line.”
The passenger stumbled onto his feet. “Do you want me to call you an ambulance?” Suna asked, but he shook his head and started limping toward the doors.
“Okay. Have a good day,” Suna said. He held up his middle finger and walked off the bus.
Five days a week she drove back and forth on the same stretch of Colfax Avenue, stopping 38 times each way, completing every trip in a scheduled time of 72 minutes as she navigated potholes by memory and tried to make sense of what was happening to her passengers and to the city that she loved. She’d started reading books about mental illness and drug abuse, hoping to remind herself of what she believed: Addiction was a disease. Homelessness was a moral crisis. The American working class had been disproportionately crushed by covid-19, rising inflation and skyrocketing housing costs, and her passengers were among the victims. She thought about what her father had told her, when she was 19 years old and preparing to leave her family in Turkey to become an immigrant in the United States. He’d said that humanity was like a single body of water, in which people were made up from the same substance and then collected into different cups. This was her ocean. It was important not to judge.
And for her first several years in Denver, that kind of compassion had come easily to her. She felt liberated driving the city bus, which Muslim women weren’t allowed to do back home in Ankara. She loved the diversity of her passengers and built little relationships with her regulars: Ethiopian women who cleaned offices downtown, elementary-school children who wrote her thank you notes, Honduran day laborers who taught her phrases in Spanish, and medical students who sometimes asked about her heart ailment. But then the pandemic closed much of Denver, and even though Suna had never missed a day of work, many of her regulars had begun to disappear from the bus. Two years later, ridership across the city was still down by almost half, and a new wave of problems had arrived in the emptiness of urban centers and public transit systems, not just in Denver but all across the country.
Philadelphia was reporting an 80 percent increase in assaults aboard buses. St. Louis was spending $53 million on a new transit security plan. The transportation union president in Tucson said the city’s buses had become “a mobile refuse frequented by drug users, the mentally ill, and violent offenders.” The sheriff of Los Angeles County had created a new transit unit to keep passengers from having to “step over dead bodies or people injecting themselves.” And, meanwhile, Suna was compulsively scanning her rearview mirror, watching for the next crisis to emerge as she began another shift.
Two teenagers were burning something that looked like tinfoil in the back of the bus. A woman in a wheelchair was hiding an open 32-ounce can of beer in her purse and drinking from it with a straw. A construction worker holding a large road sign that read “SLOW” sat down in the first row next to a teenage girl, who scooted away toward the window.
“This sign isn’t meant for me and you,” the construction worker told the teenager, as Suna idled at a red light and listened in. “We can take it fast.”
“I’m 15,” the girl said. “I’m in high school.”
“That’s okay.”
Suna leaned out from her seat and yelled: “Leave her alone!”
“All right. All right,” the construction worker said, holding up his hands in mock surrender. He waited a moment and turned back to the teenager. “But do you got an older sister?”
Suna tried to ignore him and looked out the windshield at the snow-capped peaks of the Rocky Mountains and the high-rises of the city. She hadn’t been downtown on her own time since the beginning of the pandemic, and lately, she preferred to spend entire weekends reading alone in her apartment, isolating herself from the world except for occasional phone calls with her family in Turkey. “I used to be an extrovert, but now I’m exhausted by people,” Suna had told her sister. Increasingly, her relationship with Denver was filtered through the windshield of the bus, as she pulled over at stops she associated mostly with traumas and police reports during the pandemic.
There was Havana Street, where, a few months earlier, a woman in mental distress had shattered the windshields of two No. 15 buses, including Suna’s, within five minutes; and Billings Street, where, in the summer of 2021, a mentally unstable passenger tried to punch a crying toddler, only to be tackled and then shot in the chest by the toddler’s father; and Dayton Street, where Suna had once asked a man in a red bikini to stop smoking fentanyl, and he’d shouted “Here’s your covid, bitch!” before spitting in her face; and Downing, where another No. 15 driver had been stabbed nearby with a three-inch blade; and Broadway, where, on Thanksgiving, Suna had picked up a homeless man who swallowed a handful of pills, urinated on the bus, and asked her to call an ambulance, explaining that he’d poisoned himself so he could spend the holiday in a hospital with warm meals and a bed.
“Hey, driver! Hit the gas,” a passenger yelled from a few rows behind her. “We’re late. You’re killing me.”
She stared ahead at a line of cars and checked the clock. She was two minutes behind schedule. She inched up toward the brake lights in front of her and tried to focus on a mural painted on the side of a nearby building of a woman playing the violin.
“Hey! Do you speak English?” the passenger yelled. “Get your ass moving or get back to Mexico.”
She kneaded her hands into the steering wheel. She counted her breaths as they approached the next stop, North Yosemite Street, which had been the site of another episode of violence captured on security camera several months earlier. An intoxicated and emaciated 57-year-old woman had jumped out in front of a moving No. 15 bus, shouted at the driver to stop, and then pushed her way onboard. She’d started cursing at other passengers, pacing up and down the aisle until a man twice her size stood up in the back of the bus and punched her in the face with a closed fist, slamming her to the floor. “Who ain’t never been knocked out before?” he asked, as the woman lay unconscious in the aisle, and then he stood over her as the other passengers sat in their seats and watched. “Here’s one more,” he said, stomping hard on her chest. He grabbed the woman by the ankle and flung her off the bus, leaving her to die of blunt-force trauma on the sidewalk. “We can keep riding though,” one of the other passengers had told the driver, moments later. “We got to go to work, man.”
Now, Suna pulled over at the next stop and glanced into the rearview mirror. The belligerent passenger was out of his seat and moving toward her. She turned her eyes away from him and braced herself. He banged his fist into the windshield. He cursed and then exited the bus.
Suna closed her eyes for a moment and waited as three more passengers climbed onboard. “Thanks for riding,” she told them, and she shifted the bus back into drive.
Each night after she finished making all 228 stops on Colfax, Suna went home to the silence of her apartment, burned sage incense, drank a calming herbal tea and tried to recover for her next shift. Meanwhile, many of her passengers ended up spending their nights at the last stop on the No. 15 route, Union Station, the newly renovated, $500 million gem of the city’s transportation system and now also the place the president of the bus drivers’ union called a “lawless hellhole.”
The station’s long indoor corridor had become the center of Denver’s opioid epidemic and also of its homelessness crisis, with as many as a few hundred people sleeping on benches on cold nights. The city had tried removing benches to reduce loitering, but people with nowhere to go still slept on the floor. Authorities tried closing all of the station’s public bathrooms because of what the police called “a revolving door of drug use in the stalls,” but that led to more people going to the bathroom and using drugs in the open. The police started to arrest people at record rates, making more than 1,000 arrests at Union Station so far this year, including hundreds for drug offenses. But Colorado lawmakers had decriminalized small amounts of drug possession in 2019, meaning that offenders were sometimes cited with a misdemeanor for possessing up to four grams of fentanyl — enough for nearly 2,000 lethal doses — and then were able to return to Union Station within a few hours.
The city’s latest attempt at a solution was a mental health crisis team of four clinicians who worked for the Regional Transportation District, and one night a counselor named Mary Kent walked into Union Station holding a small handbag with the overdose antidote Narcan, a tourniquet and referral cards to nearby homeless shelters.
“Can I help you in any way?” she said to a woman who was pushing a shopping cart while holding a small knife. The woman gestured at the air and yelled something about former president Barack Obama’s dog.
“Do you need anything? Can we help support you?” Kent asked again, but the woman muttered to herself and turned away.
Kent walked from the train corridor to the bus platform and then back again during her shift, helping to de-escalate one mental health crisis after the next. A woman was shouting that she was 47-weeks pregnant and needed to go to the hospital. A teenager was running naked through the central corridor, until Kent helped calm her down and a transit police officer coaxed her into a shirt. During a typical 12-hour shift, Kent tried to help people suffering from psychosis, schizophrenia, withdrawal, bipolar disorder, and substance-induced paranoia. She connected many of them with counseling and emergency shelter, but they just as often refused her help. Unless they posed an immediate threat to themselves or others, there wasn’t much she could do.
An elderly man with a cane tapped her on the shoulder. “Somebody stole my luggage,” he said, and for a few minutes Kent spoke with him and tried to discern if he had imagined the suitcases or if they had in fact been stolen, both of which seemed plausible. “Let’s see if we can find a security officer,” Kent said, but by then the man no longer seemed focused on the missing suitcases, and instead, he asked the question she got most of all.
“Where’s the closest public bathroom?” he said.
“Oh boy,” she said, before explaining that the one in Union Station was closed, the one in the nearby public park had been fenced off to prevent loitering, the one in the hotel next door had a full-time security guard positioned at the entrance, and the one in the nearby Whole Foods required a receipt as proof of a purchase in the store. The only guaranteed way to protect a space from the homelessness crisis was to limit access, so Union Station had also recently approved a plan to create a ticketed-only area inside the station to restrict public use starting in 2023.
Kent walked outside onto the bus platform, smelled the chemical burn of fentanyl, and followed it through a crowd of about 25 homeless people to a woman who was smoking, pacing and gesticulating at an imaginary audience. A few security officers walked toward the woman, and she moved away and shouted something about the devil. Kent pulled a referral card from her bag, went over to the woman and introduced herself as a clinician.
“What can we do to support you right now?” she asked.
“Nothing,” the woman said. She walked to the other end of the platform, threw a few punches at the air and boarded the next bus.
The job, as Suna understood it, was to drive and keep driving, no matter what else was happening to the city, so the next morning, she pulled up to her first stop at 5:32 a.m. and then made her way along Colfax, stopping every few blocks on her way downtown. Billings Street. Havana Street. Dayton. Downing. Broadway. She finished her first trip and turned around to start again. A woman with an expired bus pass yelled at her in Vietnamese. Two passengers got into an argument over an unsmoked cigarette lying on the floor. Broadway, Downing, Dayton, Havana, Billings. She shifted her eyes back and forth from the rearview mirror to the road as she made her second trip, her third, her fourth, her fifth, until finally she reached the end of the line at 4:15 p.m. and turned around to begin her final trip of the day. She stopped at Decatur station to pick up three women, closed the doors, and began to pull away from the stop.
“Hey!” a man shouted, standing outside at the bus stop. He wore a basketball jersey and a backward cap. He banged on the bus and Suna stopped and opened the door. “Hey!” the man repeated, as he climbed onboard, cursing at her. “What the hell are you doing pulling away? I was standing right there.”
“Watch your language,” she said. “Where’s your bus fare?”
He paid half the fare and then cursed at her again. He walked to the first row of seats, sat down and glared at her.
“What are you staring at?” he yelled. “Go. Drive the damn bus.”
“I’m not your pet,” she said. “You don’t tell me what to do.”
She pulled out from the bus stop and looked away from the rearview mirror toward the mountains. She counted her breaths and tried to think of what her father had said about humanity being a single body of water. She’d dealt with more difficult passengers during the pandemic, including some earlier that same morning, but that was 11 hours and 203 stops ago, and as the passenger continued to rant, she could feel her patience beginning to give way.
“You’re so stupid,” the passenger said, and she ignored him.
“You idiot. You’re just a driver,” he shouted, and she pulled up to an intersection, hit the brakes, and turned back to him. “Why are you calling me names?” she asked. “F-you. F-that. You don’t know a single good word.” She told him to get off the bus or she would call the police. “Go right ahead,” he said, and he leaned back in his seat as she picked up her phone and gave her location to the officer. She hung up, squeezed the steering wheel, and continued driving toward her next stop.
“You dumb ass,” he said. “You bitch.”
“Just shut up!” she shouted. “You can’t talk to me that way.” Her hands were shaking against the wheel and she could feel the months of exhaustion and belittlement and anger and sadness welling up into her eyes, until she knew the one thing she couldn’t do for even a moment longer was to drive. She pulled over to a safe place on the side of the road. She turned off the ignition and put on her hazard lights. She called a supervisor and said that she was done driving for the day, and that she would be back for her next shift in the morning.
She opened the exit door and turned back to the passenger. “Get off,” she said, blinking back tears, pleading this time. He stared back at her and shook his head.
“Fine,” she said, and she stood up from her seat and walked off the bus
“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer
In response to this Washington Post article: Good people do bad things when they do nothing. For some nutty reason it was featured and nearly 900 people liked it. That was a first as mostly I receive hate and with that there were some negative comments, but one was that the truth does hurt. And men have a hard time being hurt. Oh those feelers and all. Well that explains the idiot who responded here about a post that I should get back on my meds. When I tracked him his blog is a of course a Covid conspiratorial one and he is blocked so I move on. This is the new American male, oh wait the same American Male that always existed – armed and dangerous.
Anyone who is walking around now utterly disengaged and uninformed should go back into Covid quarantine. I can assure you had this happened in the nascent days like George Floyd’s murder we would still be on the streets. But nope we got shits to do.
Guns kill. We have the most deaths per guns than any equitable country in the world so what does that it tell you? We got a lot of guns, and many are used in Suicides by White Males so they are definitely armed and dangerous, to themselves. And with that we also have a mean culture and particularly abusive one to males. Which explains the rising suicide rate and almost all are utterly preventable as this article in the Guardian demonstrates. Let me examine this example in the article:
Evan Seyfried, 40, a Kroger employee for nearly 20 years in Milford, Ohio, died by suicide on 9 March 2021, after experiencing months of harassment, bullying and abuse in the workplace, according to a lawsuit against Kroger filed by his family in 2021 that is still pending in court.
“No one was helping him. They didn’t want to be the target,” said Murphy. “There are these people now who have called me, crying their eyes out, feeling like they could have saved his life because they didn’t do anything.”
According to the lawsuit, Seyfried began experiencing bullying and harassment from his store manager for wearing a face mask at work and turning down her sexual advances. Then the bullying turned into sabotaging his department, intimidation, threats and surveillance. The harassment continued despite reports and complaints made with Kroger and the local union.
So he was sexually harassed at work by a woman superior, by colleagues and likely customers given the time frame and with that despite efforts to properly channel his complaints, he chose to end it by KILLING HIMSELF.
Moving on. Or not. I have written about my suicidal thoughts when that Administrator abused me at Ferris High School, by my second encounter with her I was in a better place and laughed and have never returned. That discussion with the Suicide Hotline actually helped me a great deal as she mentioned the issue of control. And yes I can control where I go to school and have since and for the better.
But with this the predominant amount of shooters are young males under 25. This is explained in an excellent theory by Rudolf Steiner, The Seven Stages of Life. I have found this a very useful in understanding childhood development. And this is the key to understanding how these young men became sociopaths: The third seven years (14-21 years old) is associated with Venus, during which time the higher mind of the adolescent takes root, and the psychic development can be disturbed by the strong impulses of puberty. The next three seven-year segments are associated with the Sun (21-42 years old), and the elements of sentient soul, intellectual soul, and consciousness soul.
Now again this is a social psychological tool and yet I have found little otherwise to contradict much of what is said about these salient seven year periods.
AGES 21 TO 28. Play That Turns Toward Responsibility
In the early and middle 20s, we gain a modicum of control over our emotions and start to integrate our rational faculties, which give us greater control over our actions. During these years, most people are healthy, full of energy, and lusting for life. Meanwhile, our physical powers are peaking. It’s common for young people to feel a certain invincibility and even arrogance. People at this age are often possessed by wild enthusiasm, independence, and recklessness. They take risks, play hard, and often make mistakes.
These are the years that young men are sent off to war. Despite the horrors of war, many young men enlist for the fighting, always believing that they will not be among the ones who are killed.
Over time, the abandon of the early and mid-20s gives way to the growing maturity that slowly takes hold as we enter the later 20s and start looking at the approaching milestone of 30 years of age. As we approach 30, we begin to feel the need to become a responsible adult.
Indeed, the events coincide with those feelings and needs. People marry and have children during this time. Young men have to grow up, get steady jobs, early a living, and provide for their wives and babies. For many, the wild years pass away. Responsibility starts to tie us down.
The compensation, Steiner said, is that we begin to experience the first signs of our talents and special abilities. We awaken to vocations that we feel a special attraction to and, for some, even love. Our mythological flights of fantasy and arrogance are passing. We are landing in life, and just beginning to become more practical.
We are also learning to think about people other than ourselves. We are being stretched to see life in broader and more selfless terms.
The centaur, or the mythological beast that was half human and half horse, best characterizes this period, Steiner said. The human is emerging from the base, animal instincts. We are still driven by our animal impulses, but we are learning to cope with them, as the higher human faculties become more available to our us.
Times have changed and with that the reality we are delaying much of these expectations are again pushing against the clock of our own development. We have accelerated sexual activity via the use of technology and with the ability to communicate our most secret desires, fears and ambitions anonymously has enabled many of the shooters of late to in fact share, detail, plan and actually stream them to the viewers that either share his beliefs or are simply curious folk who really don’t believe it will happen until it does. And that is where I go to most people: Until it happens to you.
The whack job in Texas was 18 he was still in the puberty development phase and it comes to light when reviewing his social media presence, a sick assortment of violence and threats. And along that line another Psychotherapist view, Eric Erickson and his theory of psychosocial development. This stage occurs during adolescence between the ages of approximately 12 and 18. During this stage, adolescents explore their independence and develop a sense of self – Ego Identity.
As they transition from childhood to adulthood, teens may begin to feel confused or insecure about themselves and how they fit into society. As they seek to establish a sense of self, teens may experiment with different roles, activities, and behaviors. According to Erikson, this is important to the process of forming a strong identity and developing a sense of direction in life. It is the conscious sense of self that we develop through social interaction, which is constantly changing due to new experiences and information we acquire in our daily interactions with others.
And this is where social media comes into play here that can really fuck a head up. We have seen adults fall down the spiral of false stories and other bizarre tales, Q’Anon is one and there are many other conspiracy theories that fill the internet hole which many subscribe. So a young man already confused can easily find an audience or a narrator that can give him the misinformation he needs that can be the catalyst to destruction. And this kid was no different, the history of being bullied, a Mother who is batshit from what I can tell reading her current statements, and then his exchanges on social media demonstrate a boy deeply troubled and in need of help. And he found it on a site called, Yubo. The article from The Post goes onto explain his bizarre rants and statements which sadly were also ignored and thought of as bullshit as many on the site seem immune or unclear of how they too are victims of abuse. We have turned a generation utterly incapable of empathy and emotion. One girl told The Post she first saw Ramos in a Yubo panel telling someone, “Shut up before I shoot you,” but figured it was harmless because “kids joke around like that.” This will not end so we need to do something to at least prevent more carnage.
When you do nothing or say nothing you become a part of the problem.
That question was never asked to me by any of my parents ever, well that I can recall. The reality is that I am sure they cared but they worked, I was a latchkey kid and I have always been a self-manager. I hated school, transferred a lot as I was not a problem in class, I just never went. I either played sick or got there and got sick or literally went home. So my parents tried to send me to schools that were far away and had to be transported to which actually inconvenienced them. They had to get up earlier and get me on a bus and the school required someone to meet me at the bus when they dropped me, which required a sitter of some sort as my Dad worked evenings and could only do so occasionally. But after one year that ended and I went to the Catholic School up the street. I stayed in that school, went to the high school affiliated with it and walked to both. Either I aged out of hating school or I just accepted it. Who can recall. And that is my point it was a integer in what has become a complex polynomial in life. I don’t spend much time regaling about the “good ole days” and that may be some of the problems we are facing in today’s schools. Parents who are either reliving or projecting some of their own failures/issues/successes onto their children. I am not a parent so I have no fucking clue and I rarely comment on parenting skills and never actually thought about them during my time as a full time Teacher. Why? I had nothing to compare or contrast to. My family was just that, mine, and the kids I knew had theirs and we were nothing alike. And to that I am grateful.
Today we speak of diversity and I truly believe that few families are good at demonstrating, engaging and understanding what that means. Diversity is more than skin color, gender or religious belief. Yes it crosses sexuality as well but let’s talk about financial backgrounds, the biggest denominator in public education is SES, socioeconomic status. That ability for kids to see and meet families that come from a world of wealth and a world of poverty doesn’t exist. It did in my day and while I met some kids whose Grandparents were in politics and others who were on welfare enabled me to realize how family history, genetics and fuck all luck played into it. Luck being that I was the last of a generation who benefited from funding education, parents who had middle class union jobs, owned a home and were open minded about people coming into said home. I question that if it was today any of that would be possible.
One of the fights of late I have gotten into is with, of course men, over education and public schools. Being a “Teacher” I have been lambasted with so much bullshit I can’t shower it off. No folks I am not a retired Teacher, I take no federal funds and have worked largely as a Substitute for the 20 plus years I have possessed said license to teach. One truth I have now as fact, I was right as a girl, I hate school. Just now for different reasons.
Schools cannot solve the issues of massive school shootings, they are not qualified or able to. I say this as a matter of fact and my truth. Meaning that underfunding for decades, lack of support system, overall size and demands of Counselors, Teachers and Nurses (where few schools even have full time ones on staff) and my “truth” or belief that even if they did, Parent’s ain’t having none of it. I am sure that my Parents tried to figure out why I kept leaving schools and I can say it is because my Parents were not there as engaged parents, and I figured I was always on my own I needed to be on my own. And at age 62 I feel the same way. I hate politics and game playing and that is what schools are the foundations of life where you learn your place and you must stay in your lane. I am a shitty driver and could not stay in a place if I wanted to. It also is why I am a Sub as I can move anywhere and immediately get a job working in a school. That was my Mother’s idea and she was right.
So kids are going to school and they hate it, for whatever reasons, they hate it. Those who don’t are usually on a better path be that scholastic/academic or sports. There are some other outliers like Drama or Music but the larger swath of kids are just there. I am really seeing it now thanks to Covid. I needed to really watch as opposed to engage. It is my strong suit. I really hate most people but I am not anti-social, I just prefer my own company. It takes a lot of energy to talk to people all the time and pretend to give a shit. I liked Twitter as I could chat freewheeling and I see why Trump liked it. There is something about a 140 character rant that is quite freeing. But it became a cesspool, the dogpiling was enough and I was out. Now I comment on the Washington Post site and am amazed that on average the comments are actually quite lively and bright but when it comes to the subject of education it turns into a crazy town. I have had a few posters seize on my rants (which is how I write, a stream of consciousness thought) comment about grammar. Yes folks, that I don’t revise, edit or care about them other than attempt to make a point. Agree/not but just point out what you don’t agree and move on. What it usually turns into is finding a grammar error, a strange way I often write the same statement – Tragic.Grim.Pathetic. – or a phrase that is my personal way of expression and then its game on. It is almost always males but it is never about the thought or the point it is about the way I write.
And this brings me to College, I recall this from the Male Professors in College and men have a real need to put women down when they write in a manner that is outside the lines. That is a type of the male gaze I don’t miss. All my conflicts in College were with Male Professors. Today I am not sure if they were trying to help me, saw that I was smart and wanted to guide me or if it was Sexism? I have no clue as I loved College as it enabled me to drop in and out, something I am quite good at. As for writing, if I was actually submitting a piece for a real publication I would hire a copy editor or spend a great deal of time working through it. I sure as fuck don’t on this blog or an post on social media or message boards. Fuck that shit. And hence the word fuck, which I use as a noun, verb or adjective. Handy that little fuck is. But I am aware of that in speech I have to use said word judiciously and in only certain circumstances. I get it. I really do. It is one thing to know when you are using expressions, words and style elements that are not for mass consumption.
I am taking a fiction class run by a man and immediately I looked at the syllabus and thought, fuck this sucks. And right after the first assignment I received a critique from a classmate that made me angry. A woman ironically at it was all personal and odd. I assumed given the direction we were just to write and not spend a lot of time on the 300 word essay as there is not a lot you can do with that word count. It is like taking a paragraph out of context so not much you can comment on other than grammar. And that was not the issue, she instead chose to attack me personally. I asked the “teacher who said it was harsh but it really never made me feel great. I had a bad feeling and like always I wanted to dine and dash and drop out. Old habits die hard. But now I spend about 15 minutes on the material and I put up a piece of shit that I have not even proofed, I am so tuned out and of course the critiques reflected that. I felt bad for a moment and then I realized I don’t know/care or am getting anything out of this class so I will finish it up next week with what I want to get out of that experience and that is never doing it again and spending money on something I could do myself. I realize that to write fiction means spending time and I am a lazy writer. Go figure. But when it comes to Teaching, I love it and love kids and the process of learning.
So in true form about how I write, let’s get back to the full circle of what prompted this post – Schools and their responsibility to the community to prevent school shootings. They cannot. It is that simple. Let’s look at just two: Sandy Hook and this recent one in Michigan. In the first, Adam Lanza’s mother bought him the gun. She knew he was having troubles, bought him a gun and the kid had a massive history of mental issues and obsession with violence. At this point it appears that the course of history was set into motion over a lifetime and that you cannot predict when someone is going to cross over the edge. But it was a red flag that flew loud and proud over the home and his Mother clearly died failing to protect the community.
Now the Michigan kid. Well he was busted by two Teachers and yet the Counselor returned him to class, after telling the Parents that they had 48 hours to find counseling or they would be turned over to CPS. Really? And yet he was allowed to remain. If that kid had been Black I can assure that in my facts as truth (aka belief) he would have been searched immediately even before the Parents arrived, his locker searched and been sitting with a Cop waiting for them to come to remove him. And with that the Parents had to have had a heads up as to why the meeting, and with that did not think to check the drawer for the gun. Really?
And with that I am tired of dealing with people ranting about the schools being closed. Teachers did not make that call. It was a state mandated decision made through the belief, yes just a hypothesis, that schools are school super spreaders. There is some truth and yes fact to that. How we know that? Current measles outbreaks among many schools of late due to lacking vaccinations. Gosh this is not a Covid thing? No! The same people who have endless hours to protest masks, CRT and vaccines seem to think that Teachers came up with this, are lazy and have summers off. So when I said on the Post message board that if you are so sure what to do and how to fix all this, get your asses into the schools. Sign up as a Substitute Teacher, Aide or Bus Driver. Go to work in the schools for a year or even just a few months then we will talk. This is referred to as “walking in another persons shoes.” It has the idea of empathy and understanding once you have experienced their “truths.” Okay, once again the AWM verbally abused me and went on and on after I told him that he can rant all he wants but that he has no clue what goes on in schools on a daily basis. As for an example I was working yesterday, covering for three Teachers, a fire alarm went off (my third one at this school in as many weeks) and we were outside for over an hour. We missed second period and that is just an example of how this plays us sitting there in the freezing cold with learning set aside for this. Was it real? Hell if I fucking know. And with that learning is a word that I question in best of times from again, what I observe.
I am working a half day today which is about all I can handle and I am grateful as this is bullshit on a stick. I would have loved a retail job but the reality is that in a school I have better control of my environment than I would at a store. Both are shitty gigs frankly and this will bring me to a close on this blog today. And leave open the next which is about the myth of the “great resignation” of jobs. That is another bullshit wrapper that is being thrown out by the media. But more on that later. CYA.
I used to be a prodigious blogger and wrote several times a day about a myriad of subjects that I felt were essential learning. Since the move to WordPress the readership has fallen off and with that I truly am not seeing the point to write to a void. Social media has never held me enthralled, other than the early days of Twitter and I found it a free for all of opinion. Then you see the predators, the stalkers, the endless trolls and the move to dogpile anyone who is not of the hive mind or has been designated as an outlier. Then came Trump and the place is a swamp of endless chatter that is lathered, rinsed and repeated ad nauseam.
So today I wanted to write once again about school shootings and gun violence, which also has been a subject that has become repetitive and in fact boring. Yes writing about kids and staff getting killed or injured is just that – or no – it is about the guns, the failures to provide mental health, counseling, and of course placing guns in the hands of children unable to manage their trauma and issues without the support in place to help them find a better resolution. Many guns and weapons of all kinds are brought into schools by children because they don’t feel safe getting too and from the school. The Daily News did an extensive article on this issue facing New York students and this is not the first time I have heard this. I heard and witnessed it in Nashville and here in Jersey City. I suspect it happened in Seattle as well, I simply don’t spend a lot of time trying to recall my life there but their schools are bereft with problems. This last week it was about Ballard High and their Administrator who failed to fully address the issue and others around lessons that were perceived Racist. Yes that was the same school I was in a three hour lockdown one day as a Student was at a nearby deli, overheard by the staff that he had a gun and was planning to shoot someone. They called the school and the lockdown began as they had to search room by room, open lockers and check if he or a weapon was in the building. It was long, arduous and terrifying. But that school had been loaded with issues in the past, from other assaults, gun possession, a Teacher leaving kids after a field trip, so this current one just made me laugh out loud. This is the moral superiority that many conservatives point to when they lambast liberals. It is also why Seattle showed its true colors and elected a conservative Mayor and City Attorney. Who knew they were just like the rest of us!
What happened in Michigan was in fact another Sandy Hook only the kid did not kill his Mother who bought him the gun, took him target practicing, failed to secure it and covered up his mental issues through a process of denial. She is not the first parent in which to do so, just having the gun part and having it easily accessible is a new part of that complex equation that composes parenthood. And of late we are seeing the strange times we are in with parents storming the gates of School Board meetings, standing outside schools, defying mask and vaccine mandates for reasons that seem less about general health and well being, but more about an individual political belief or position. The same goes with guns and gun ownership which has swelled during the pandemic.
And now the time comes to shame, blame and point fingers. None of this will do anything to change the culture or climate around guns nor actually get the needed funding to change how schools handle students who are troubled. And some of them do not act out violently but do so in more haphazard random ways that disrupt learning or lead to larger outbreaks of violence in the school, also on the rise of late.
As for Michigan there were many mistakes made and the most critical was the failure to search the student, his locker and his personal possessions for a weapon the minute his gun fascination was expressed. There is no need for a warrant and there was probable cause and if he had been Black or Brown I can assure you that would have been done immediately and he would have been suspended or placed into custody of School security. We have seen numerous stories of children as young as 8 being put into custody, tasered, handcuffed and wrestled to the ground for less, so here is an example of how Racism plays into education. And also Black families are way more active in supporting schools and their kids and no Black family would have refused to seek counseling or take the child home. They in fact are the ones who often demand help and are ignored and yet I have never heard of any Black/Brown child shooting up an entire school, go figure. I keep going back to Kyle Rittenhouse a boy 17 and at anytime his Mother was there to advise him and keep him home safe and yet either ignored or. allowed him to drive there that fateful night. And with that the same in Michigan, once the parents realized the gun was gone they did not go back to the school immediately to locate their son, no they took off to hide. We cannot ask what Ms. Lanza was thinking as her son killed her with the gun she bought him and failed to secure despite his struggles with mental health. Or Nicholas Cruz the Stoneyman Douglas shooter who had a video made prior to shooting that said this. “With the power of my AR, you will know who I am,” Cruz said, referring to his rifle. In one segment, he stated: “My life is nothing and meaningless. I live a lone life. I live in seclusion and solitude. I hate everyone and everything.” His Guardians knew he was depressed and had sought therapy so it was even beyond their grasp how seriously ill. he was and how well one can hide it.
I am exhausted hearing about how distance learning failed kids and yet when I walk into these classrooms and schools without sufficient staff, yet through metal detectors, school security placed throughout the buildings and my personal favorite school, with a prison classroom within a school that is for those already at risk and little to no education provided I do laugh out loud. The restrooms unclean, the food garbage and yet a new interactive learning screen that costs millions in every class with chrome books everywhere. What the flying fuck? Yet as a Sub I have no internet log in, no keys to rooms, nowhere to secure my belongings and no lesson plans or any way to know who is who once the class roster leaves the room. Yeah tell me about my lack of a real job. You know the kind with health care, sick leave and other job securities. As I watch parents in buildings adjacent in pajamas all day working, dropping their kid off, then running to the gym, doing some Zoom work and then their Snowflake comes home they throw together a meal that was delivered and after the kid goes to bed they work until the wee hours. I see it all over the city, parents with kids in strollers sitting in amenity lounges “working” and then getting up and taking turns working out and taking the kids for a walk, getting coffee etc. They have a life made with most of it in the hands of others. Must be nice. No wonder I am feeling the blues of late.
May 6th was another school shooting, it is not defined as a Mass Shooting as there were fewer than four victims, only three and none fatal. What was unique was that the shooter was a 13 year old girl, the other that it was stopped by a Female Teacher who simply talked to her, hugged her and simply removed the gun from her hands. Well Wayne LaPierre I guess that ends that idea that a good man with a gun will stop a bad guy with one. No guns no men, go figure.
Idaho teacher disarmed school shooter and hugged her until help arrived
Krista Gneiting said she was trying to help one of the students who had been shot when she saw the girl holding the gun
Last modified on Wed 19 May 2021 The Guardian
When a student opened fire at an Idaho middle school, teacher Krista Gneiting directed children to safety, rushed to help a wounded victim and then calmly disarmed the sixth-grade shooter, hugging and consoling the girl until police arrived.
In an interview with ABC News that aired Wednesday, Gneiting said she was preparing her Rigby middle school students for their final exams when she heard the first gunshot down the hall. She looked outside her classroom and saw the custodian lying on the floor. She heard two more shots as she closed the door.
“So I just told my students, ‘We are going to leave, we’re going to run to the high school, you’re going to run hard, you’re not going to look back and now is the time to get up and go,’” Gneiting said in the interview shown on Good Morning America.
Police said a sixth-grade girl brought the handgun in her backpack and shot two people inside the school and one outside. All three were wounded and released from the hospital within a few days.Advertisement
Gneiting said she was trying to help one of the students who had been shot when she saw the girl holding the gun. She told the wounded student to stay still and approached the sixth-grader.
“It was a little girl, and my brain couldn’t quite grasp that,” she said. “I just knew when I saw that gun, I had to get the gun.”
She asked the girl: “Are you the shooter?” and then walked closer, putting her hand on the child’s arm and sliding it down to the gun.
“I just slowly pulled the gun out of her hand, and she allowed me to. She didn’t give it to me, but she didn’t fight,” Gneiting said. “And then after I got the gun, I just pulled her into a hug because I thought, this little girl has a mom somewhere that doesn’t realize she’s having a breakdown and she’s hurting people.”
Gneiting held the girl, consoling her until police arrived.
“After a while, the girl started talking to me, and I could tell she was very unhappy,” Gneiting said. “I just kept hugging her and loving her and trying to let her know that we’re going to get through this together. I do believe that my being there helped her because she calmed down.”
Once police got there, Gneiting told the girl that an officer would need to put her in handcuffs, and the child complied.
“She didn’t respond, she just let him. He was very gentle and very kind, and he just went ahead and took her and put her in the police car,” she said.
The girl has been charged in the shooting, but because juvenile court proceedings are kept sealed in Idaho, neither her name nor the nature of the charges has been released.
Gneiting, meanwhile, said she hopes people can forgive the girl and help her get the support she needs.
“She is just barely starting in life and she just needs some help. Everybody makes mistakes,” she told ABC News. “I think we need to make sure we get her help and get her back into where she loves herself so that she can function in society.”
Not the first time a school shooter was talked down by a Teacher. There was a Coach who did exactly the same, talked to the student and provided the most essential bear hug in anyone’s life to de-escalate the situation. Go figure, a good man with a good bear hug brings a gun down. Wayne are you there?
Now let’s talk about the Police that went into a school recently in Knoxville, Tennessee and shot the kid to death as he barricaded himself in the restroom. That worked out as the Police were afraid, very afraid and will not be charged for any of it.
Funny how two Teachers simply used their inside voices and hugging (remember those?) to bring down a potentially dangerous or already dangerous situation. They both realize that these children are not acting rationally and their years of experience with young people enabled them to take up arms, the limb kind, to help a child in need.
Read the explanation of the incident and tell me this was handled correctly:
In the video, Knoxville officers and a school resource officer, Adam Willson, enter the bathroom to try to remove the teen from the stall. One of the officers repeatedly tells Thompson, who was wearing a hoodie, to take his hands out of his pockets.
A skirmish ensued after Clabough said he spotted the barrel of a gun peeking out from Thompson’s hoodie toward Lt. Cash, according to Allen. Moments later, a shot rings out from Thompson’s gun. That’s when officer Clabough fired two shots, one of which hit Thompson in the chest, Allen said.
Police originally reported that Thompson’s bullet struck SRO Willson, wounding his leg. In reality, Willson was hit by the second bullet fired by Clabough, investigators later said.
At Wednesday’s news conference, Allen presented forensic evidence that showed the bullet from Thompson’s gun fired through his front pocket “went through the stall door and … hit the trash can.”
Still, she said it was “reasonable for [Clabough] to believe” that Thompson had seriously injured Willson and thus was justified in returning fire.
A Gun was seen and rather than talk to the kid in a calm rational manner it appears he tried to wrestle the gun and in the process shots fired and they appear to be from the Officer’s gun and in turn not only killed the kid but wounded another officer. Hmm, where I have heard that before, the friendly fire death. Oh yeah, here, the Borderline Shooting.
And we have the chaos at the Gay Bar, Pulse, in Orlando, Florida where the mass shooter was trapped in a bathroom and sat there for hours. Wow they should of called the School Cop he could have solved that one in minutes. I never liked James Comey so on that one Trump and I agree.
But then there is another story about “Friendly Fire” when a Cop was killed by his own. This happened just a year before the Floyd story but it is not anything new when it comes to Police and their need to assert authority by shooting anything that moves. As the Times states in the article:
Experts on firearms training have said the adrenaline that flows during a live gunfight can cause officers to make mistakes. Firing can also be contagious, experts say; when one officer fires, other officers believe the threat against them is growing, and also shoot.
So that explains the numerous bullets that seemingly verge on overkill as they are all hopped up on adrenaline or have a caught the Gunshoot Disease as in the case of say, Breonna Taylor. Wow Gunshoot Disease is more contagious and deadlier than Covid!
This is what it means to defund the Police. They have enough arms and equipment to invade a small country, they are trained to shoot first ask questions later and they have immunity from any potential lawsuits or investigations as to their history and background when it comes to the use of force throughout their career. They can be fired from jobs, reinstated or simply transfer to another municipality and that record stays sealed. Really, can I have a job like that? We are constantly derided as Teachers as having summers off, when in reality we are required to have constant training or clock hours to maintain our license, at our expense. We have a constantly changing work environment and demands by State and Federal Legislators as to our students failures on testing that we have no control over and lastly any criminal activity is often prosecuted and we are terminated and our license lost. Any of the situations where that has not happened is due to a failure by the district to properly document all the allegations and in turn dump the situation onto another school or district the same way they do with Cops. The Unions do write policy to ensure that a protocol and procedure is in place to discourage false allegations and have a consistent methodology to protect all – it is clear that for many in positions of power it is easier to dump that onto someone else and we all suffer. But there is nothing like the Police Unions and their control over large budgets, the ability to do harm and see little change in response. Sorry if a Teacher did one tenth of the bullshit a Cop did they would not last a year in the gig, especially in today’s climate. Here kid you annoy the fuck out of me, down on the ground and shut the fuck up while I kneel on you until you suffocate. Or what the fuck kid you threw a pencil, I am choke holding you asshole until you suffocate. Let me taser these little fucks into submission for acting out! Hmm on second thought…..
And I want to say that I am exhausted right now endlessly harping that much of this, no almost al of this is due to the proliferation of guns on our streets. We are fucking New Jack City with the bullshit surrounding gun violence. And what we offer is thoughts and prayers. Here is thought, regulate guns like cars, require licenses, background checks, 72 hour holds, training and of course annual taxation via licensing and registration fees. And my prayer is hug someone and see if that does the trick when they feel like shit. It might bring the tension down. Me, I am not a hugger but if I saw a kid with a gun it is preferable than a shot in the eye.
I end it on this Teacher’s wise words: “She is just barely starting in life and she just needs some help. Everybody makes mistakes,” she told ABC News. “I think we need to make sure we get her help and get her back into where she loves herself so that she can function in society.” Don’t we all.
As I wrote about in my last post I don’t think there is a rise in Anti Semitism but there is simply a rise in hate. Period. Hate. We are at a breaking point when it comes to suppressed rage in this country and while most of it has been at the hands of angry white fucks who hate Jews, Black People, Women, Cops, Gays, Country Music, Yoga practioners, Church goers, Grocery Shoppers, Walmart Shoppers, Mall Shoppers, Drivers, Politicians, or just anyone really as we have a problem that crosses all of that – the access and availability of guns.
It has long been pronounced by my favorite right wing fringe group – the NRA – that good people with guns will stop bad people with guns. Well guess that doesn’t work out as a good person with a gun was mistaken as a bad person with a gun and killed by the Police. Then the Police who went in alone and possibly reduced the number of deaths in a mass shooting became a casualty but not at the hands of a gunman but of his own. That friendly fire thing we hear about.
Or how about those killed during wellness checks? Well that solves that mental health crisis. No Cops are not exempt from overusing their fire arms.
Is there such a thing as friendly fire? If PETA wants to stop violent expressions about animals could they add this oxymoron to the list?
No guns are friendly and few times do they work out to stop and/or prevent mass shootings. That is what they are made for to kill or be killed.
And the rise in children and guns has become the tipping point. Kids with guns come from homes with Adults with guns and nothing says crazy more than Daddy shooting Mommy for kissing Santa Claus. The rise in Domestic Violence around the holiday times cannot be ignored and here in Tennessee which has dropped to apparently number five in the country with deaths associated with Domestic Violence (although these last few weeks may change that. We can do this Nashville!) it shows that families that shoot and kill together stay together. Brings new meaning to that vow, “Until death we do part.” Guess not.
We have school shootings on the rise and I suspect much of it is also a need for infamy and fame. The reality is that kids have zero filter and little self control. I work in Nashville’s public schools and while I can attest that as true you should really see the adults here. Again hit the highways that should be sufficient to see road rage.
The last week a student at Maplewood high found with gun and at Donelson Middle school a kid brought a gun to the school dance. I recall my last holiday sub gig there and I was so freaked out by it I lied and said my cell phone was stolen. It was in my rental car. I just wanted out of there I could not take even the last hour of the day being confined in the room with these kids. Two days of being with kids who have major discipline issues, carts being wheeled around with treats of which none shared with them, movies and parties ongoing and none where we were included and then the last insult literally slop served to them in brown bags for lunch. Yes what kid does not want to eat broccoli with Velveeta as a nice Christmas lunch? By the end of the day I was losing my mind but I don’t feel compelled to arm up. But most kids don’t have that much self control. Welcome to my world. It is why I note where the exit doors are and my escape route the minute I walk in.
2018 is worst year on record for gun violence in schools, data shows Research cited by Sandy Hook Promise counted 94 incidents, a near 60% increase on the previous high, 59, set in 2006
Jamiles Lartey Guardian Sun 9 Dec 2018
Two women attend a vigil in Boca Raton, Florida, on 16 February for the 17 people killed at a school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
This year has been by far the worst on record for gun violence in schools, the advocacy group Sandy Hook Promise said, citing research by the US Naval Postgraduate School (NPS). Newly empowered Democrats ramp up calls for stronger gun control Read more
The NPS Center for Homeland Defense and Security counted 94 school shooting incidents in 2018, a near 60% increase on the previous high, 59, an unwanted record set in 2006.
The NPS database goes back to 1970 and documents any instance in which a gun is “brandished, is fired, or a bullet hits school property for any reason”, regardless of the number of victims or the day of the week.
In 2018, high-profile attacks in Parkland, Florida and Santa Fe, Texas, have intensified a national conversation about gun violence in schools.
Seventeen students and staff members were killed in Parkland. Ten students and teachers died in Santa Fe.
“This is beyond unacceptable,” said Nicole Hockley, co-founder and managing director of Sandy Hook Promise. “It is inexcusable. Everyone has the power to stop violence before it starts, and we want to arm as many people as possible with the knowledge of how to keep their schools and communities safe.”
Hockley’s six-year-old son, Dylan, was shot dead at Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut in December 2012, with 19 other children and six adult members of staff.
In response to the NPS findings and to mark the sixth anniversary of Sandy Hook, on 14 December, Sandy Hook Promise will release a jarring public service announcement.
The short film, the group says, “reveals the many warning signs and signals exhibited by an at-risk individual that can lead to gun violence – signs that SHP wants to train individuals to recognize and intervene upon before a tragedy can occur”.
The video, made by director Rupert Sanders and Oscar-winning cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, among others, shows a series of interactions between high school students from a first-person perspective. Near the end, a student appears to retrieve an assault rifle from a bag. Sign up for the new US morning briefing
In a statement, the group said: “While the scene is set with excited students in the hallways, there is another story unfolding simultaneously: a shooter planning to attack the school and exhibiting the warning signs of impending violence.
“These signs happen amongst peers and educators who could have identified these signs and intervened before it was too late. An astonishing 80% of school shooters told someone of their plans prior to taking action – yet no interventions were made.”
The spot is an extension of the Know the Signs program, which Sandy Hook Promise says has been used to train more than 5.5 million people from more than 10,000 schools in all 50 US states.
I have been both a full time Teacher and a Substitute. I used to leave copious notes and then I realized the regular Teacher never reads them. Or if they do they toss them. I had a sub only a few times and that act of not knowing the Sub, the whole dynamic of kids and subs that are tough to know when you are not there can also affect what is done or not in a classroom.
I have a lassiez faire attitude when it comes to kids and the lesson plans largely based on school/classroom dynamics and age of the kids. It is a temp job that needs flexibility and experience.
I hear and see a lot. Under law I am to report many things that I hear, am told, overhear or suspect. There is no way of knowing if a kid is full of bullshit or in fact being honest as at times kids will tell strangers the most bizarre things.
I had an 8 y/o the other day complain about her tummy hurting, she shared a tale about her family that was to say the least alarming and about the family pet equally so, so when her Teacher came to pick the kids up I mentioned to her the story and she agreed that there were problems there. It is that simple. I have had kids threaten me and I do when I feel necessary to call for help immediately. The only time I had a dismissive response was by the staff at a school where there have been numerous problems and that afternoon just in the park across the street a shooting, so when I was told I did not “understand” her kids I took it as the allegation of me being racist and her alluding to me that not.racist.at.all. That said I took it upon myself to leave and never return.
Now I have had kids share many stories and one has to counter with the two questions of import: Have you told anyone else in a position of authority at the school? And I have to by law share this with the authorities if you discuss any type of harm to yourself and others or by others to law enforcement, so are you sure you want to proceed. And I have never had anything that was so severe that I needed to contact law enforcement and I am hoping as I end my teaching career I don’t.
So when I read about the Sub in Marysville who told the media she knew of the boy’s plan, had told varying people and left a note and no one recalled or found said note, I thought this is off. She later altered her story and then in turn claimed she was pressured to do so. Funny on that note I believed her given what we know about Police. But no note, no one recalling her at all was not odd in the least. That that would be forgotten or even disregarded not surprising. When you are a Sub you are invisible. Do I think she was lying? Do I think she wished she had knew or did know and said nothing? All are possible.
Frankly it is that simple if you were told anything by a Student that serious, ask why they are telling you a Substitute and not an Authority at the school? And in turn contact an Authority with the Student present, getting their name in case they do a runner and in turn do it immediately. Why one would contact the Attendance office and not Security, and Administrator or a Neighboring Teacher is beyond my comprehension. So when I read that the victims families are suing this woman along with the school, I thought this is all for naught as nothing will change the reality. The girlfriend had warned the father, the father had a gun and we know that even when warning signs exist there is little to be done to actually stop the carnage.
This is just another sad way of realizing that gun control is the issue. As for that Sub she probably was told nothing or in passing and she like many disregard it as the ramblings of kids. I used to I don’t anymore. But even before I was sure to document any encounter that could be misconstrued. As one accused of hitting a kid it is immensely important to document document document. That is why when you have to do that you are not collaborators you are adversaries and it is time to rethink your profession.
Lawsuit: Marysville-Pilchuck teacher may not have passed on warning before mass shooting New pleadings in a lawsuit over the high-school shooting indicate a substitute teacher may never have passed on a warning of the impending shootings.
Mike Carter By Mike Carter Seattle Times staff reporter April 6, 2017
The substitute teacher who claimed she warned school officials of the impending mass shooting by a student at Marysville-Pilchuck High School in 2014 may have actually kept the information to herself and is “grief stricken” over the guilt, according to new documents in a lawsuit filed by the parents of the dead and injured students.
The disputed efforts by substitute teacher Rosemary Cooper to notify officials of the threat, including allegations that she never told anyone, will be argued in Snohomish County Superior Court on Friday at a hearing to determine whether Cooper remains a defendant in the lawsuit.
Her attorney, David Schoeggl, claims that Cooper is immune from liability because she made a good-faith effort to report the information she had. They have asked that Cooper be dismissed from the lawsuit,
However, the victims’ families allege there is no real evidence Cooper told anyone, and that her own medical records indicate she’s guilt-ridden because of it.
The lawsuit was filed by the families of the four students who were killed and a fifth who was critically injured when 15-year-old Jaylen Fryberg gathered five friends at a table in the high school cafeteria on Oct. 24, 2014, then opened fire on them with a .40-caliber Beretta handgun before killing himself.
Killed were Gia Soriano, Zoe Gallaso and Shaylee Chuckulnaskit, all 14, and Andrew Fryberg, 15. A fifth student, Nate Hatch, 15, was shot in the face but survived.
The lawsuit names as defendants Cooper and Raymond Fryberg, Gaylen’s father, who had illegally purchased the handgun and left it where his son could take it. He was convicted in U.S. District Court and sentenced to two years in prison.
The families had also sued the Marysville School District, however the district was dropped as a defendant, according to the families’ lawyers, after the School Board agreed to indemnify Cooper as a school employee whose actions, if reasonable, would be covered by insurance.
Cooper’s claim that she had warned the school about the shooting first surfaced in a 1,400-page report released by the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office. She told detectives that, on Oct. 22, she was told by a student there was going to be a shooting, and that she reported it to the front office.
Cooper retracted part of the story to detectives, though later she claimed she was pressured to do so.
According to the newly filed court documents, Cooper claims she told someone in the attendance office about the message and wrote a note to the teacher whose class she was covering, but nobody — not the detectives nor the civil attorneys during discovery — have turned up anyone she talked to, according to the documents.
Likewise, the teacher has said he did not receive any note.
The new documents also include notes from Cooper’s medical files, turned over in discovery, that raise additional questions. Notes from two therapists Cooper saw in July 2016 indicate Cooper “was suffering from extreme guilt for never having passed along the student warning.”
One therapist wrote that Cooper was “feeling guilty that prior to the shooting … a student showed her a text message where the perpetrator had texted he was going to kill himself but the student said not to worry … and (Cooper) did not follow up with staff.”
Two days later, Cooper told another health provider that she had mentioned the message to someone in the attendance office and intended to go to the administration, but “did not feel she needed to make a report as she determined that since her students knew about this, so must everyone else,” according to portions of the reports contained in court pleadings.
Cooper, the therapist wrote, “is filled with regret that she did not specifically report what she heard, feeling if she did, there may have been another outcome.”
Investigators and attorneys have never found anyone Cooper spoke with, and the teacher she was subbing for recalled no mention of anything like it in Cooper’s handoff note.
“An entire school staff does not forget about being warned of an impending shooting,” wrote Lincoln Beauregard, the attorney representing the families. “The truth is that a student warned Ms. Cooper of the shooting, and excessive guilt has caused her to create stories to the public about purportedly properly conveying the warnings.”
Off the Rack Publishing 