Stop the Bullies...

The following is an excerpt from a letter written by someone who has been and continues to be a target of bullying at her high school in Maine. Her testimonial begs the question of why this behavior can't be stopped.

"You wake up, sick to your stomach at the thought of coming to this place. You dread walking through the doors because you know it’ll be the same story, different day. Imagine faking illness’ and begging your parents to just let you stay home. You walk through the doors and your stomach drops, who knows who will be the first to say something. The last thing you want to do is go to your locker because all the people who terrorize you are standing around it. You pretend you didn’t do your homework and get the zero on it even though you worked so hard on it just so you don’t have to face these people. What about when you leave your headphones at home and have the actually listen to these girls yelling “Slut, bitch, whore, jesus freak, bible thumper” to you, and thats just those three minutes between each class.

How about when you know an answer in class and are so happy you finally get it but don’t want to raise your hand because of the murmurs of the girls who hate you and tear you down. You go to lunch and are forced for sit somewhere amongst these people, they stare, they laugh, they whisper. What happens when the whispers turn to chants? You hear these girls talk about your weight and the way you look so you leave lunch early to change yourself. You risk unhealthy behavior and harm yourself to form the expectations of these people. When these people make plans to beat you up and you even have to re-evaluate your route in school to avoid it. The most dangerous place you feel is at school. You know the bathroom stalls like the back of your hand because you leave each and every class to cry and let the feelings they caused, out. This place is just for education right? Its 2:05, the bell rings, finally time to go home and get away from all of this. You get home and your phone goes off. It hasn’t stopped.

To be honest, its just begun. You get tweets, chats, text messages and it all hurts. You ignore them, you defend yourself or delete them but they don’t go away. Not only has everyone already laughed at them but they’ve already cut you deep enough for you to remember it and for it to terrorize you. That night you get ready for bed even though the truth is you won’t be sleeping. Walking by the mirror is the worst part, you see yourself, the real you, the valued you. You take a second look and it’s the person they see. The ugly, worthless person. You lay in bed and just cry. You finally see what they see. No one sticks up for you. Your alone with your thoughts and the words they’ve imprinted on you. Now its become a control issue, you want to control the pain you feel, you look at your bare arms and pure body, you tell yourself you’re weak and cut. You feel better for what? 2 minutes?" from Victoria Pabst's Open Letter

Teens Cursing??? - Naahhh...

Home » News » Students News » Teen Literature Heavy with Profanity

Teen Literature Heavy with Profanity

By RICK NAUERT PHD Senior News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on May 21, 2012

A new study finds that the authors of teen literature often portray their more foul-mouthed characters as rich, attractive and popular.
For many adults, the beauty of the popular movie Hunger Gamesis the absence of sex and profanity, a followup to the remarkable Harry Potter series. Nevertheless, these examples appear to be exceptions, not the rule.
In a study, Brigham Young University professor Sarah Coyne analyzed the use of profanity in 40 books on an adolescent bestsellers list.
Coyne discovered that on average, teen novels contain 38 instances of profanity. That translates to almost seven instances of profanity per hour spent reading.
Coyne was intrigued not just by how much swearing happens in teen lit, but who was swearing: Those with higher social status, better looks and more money.
“From a social learning standpoint, this is really important because adolescents are more likely to imitate media characters portrayed in positive, desirable ways,” Coyne said.
Coyne’s study will be published in the journal Mass Communication and Society.
While profanity in TV and movies has been studied extensively, this research is the first to examine it in the realm of books aimed at teens. Thirty-five of the 40 books – or 88 percent – contained at least one instance of profanity. One of them contained nearly 500.
That’s a far higher rate than what’s found in video games rated T (Teen), of which only 34 percent contain profanity. In a way, that’s comparing apples to oranges because books contain more words – also known as “opportunities to swear” in the academic literature.

Teacher Appreciation Day

Wow... People are actually taking time out of their day to do something nice for teachers. Thank you. Bless you. We will not forget your kindness!

Pacific Coast Highway

For some of us aging Californians, even today, this remains a magical, mythical roadway - a path leading somewhere new and exciting. And from the photograph, it would appear that traffic is not a problem.

John Gray: "Progress is an illusion..."

In Straw Dogs, a work of thoroughgoing iconoclasm, British philosopher Gray attacks the belief that humans are different from and superior to animals. Invoking pure Darwinism, he savages every perspective from which humans appear as anything more than a genetic accident that has produced a highly destructive species (homo rapiens)--a species that exterminates other species at a phenomenal rate as our swelling numbers despoil the global environment. Gray explains the human refusal to confront the darker realities of our nature largely as the result of how we have consoled ourselves with the myths of Christianity and its secular offspring, humanism and utopianism. Human vanity, he complains, has even converted science (which should teach us of our insignificant place in nature) into an ideology of progress. But neither hope for progress nor confidence in human morality passes muster with Gray, who envisions a future in which the human population finally contracts as a world politics that grows ever more predatory and brutal shatters all such illusions. As a work of ruthless rigor, this provocative book will force readers to reexamine their own convictions. Bryce Christensen - 

SCARY STUFF from a British pessimist!

Simon Critchley - Philosopher

The Faith of the Faithless (2012)
From the paradox of politics and religion in Rousseau to the political stakes of the return to St. Paul in the work of Heidegger, Taubes, Agamben and Badiou, via explorations of politics and original sin in the work of Carl Schmitt and John Gray, Critchley examines whether there can be a faith of the faithless, a belief for unbelievers. Expanding on his debate with Slavoj Žižek, Critchley concludes with a meditation on the question of violence and the limits of non-violence. The Faith of the Faithless - Experiments in Political Theology will be published by Verso in 2012.

How to Stop Living and Start Worrying (2010)

How to Stop Living and Start Worrying (Polity, 2010), a sort of anti-self-help book, is a series of conversations between Critchley and Carl Cederström from 2009 and 2010, originally based on Swedish television series. The conversations are intended to provide an overview and introduction to Critchley's life and work. They are based around a series topics: life, death, love, humour and authenticity. The volume also contains a discussion with Tom McCarthy.

Lava Hot Springs Nostalgia