if one, why not the other

.

.

.

.

.

we all know kyle

Although I have never met him, I know Kyle Rittenhouse. Most teachers do.

He is that kid in class who really needs to establish himself. He wants to be part of something, and the more popular or powerful that might be, the better. It might not be the best thing for the kid to do, but once he has decided on his direction, the only people in his mind who would stop him, or attempt to, are people who do not want him to triumph.

He is that kid who attempts to impress his peers with certain comments and opinions without realizing that no one believes him or accepts what he has to say or who is saying it. He is blind to the constant rejection of his attempts to matter, and this blindness does not set any limits. If I do something stupid, and realize that, I will modify my behavior, but, if I am blind to reality, I am encouraged to continue as I found my statement very impressive and only those trying to hold me back will have anything negative to say.

I would be molding reality to fit my narrative.

He is the kid who unofficially attaches himself to something like the football team where, over time, he has gone from the marginal shadow of observation through the stages of taking a presented opportunity to be seen doing something for the team, and the coaches, out of pity and through practice, slowly increase the menial things he does for the team until he is that kid, not really connected to the team who stands beside the team bench like he has a real reason to be there, and is known for being that kid.

While in his mind he is one of the team, in reality, he is the accidental mascot, a quiet charity case.

Although there is no real value to his “position” with the team, he revels in the accolades the team gets as if they also apply to him because, in his mind he is part of the team.

His convictions are fluid as he will mold them to fit the environment so that he will be accepted and is willing to do what it takes to get that acceptance. And they are malleable as they will change when needed to get the praise of those from whom he really needs it according to what he is willing to do for them if they make it look like he has some authority.

He becomes the patsy who the other, more aware kids, will have do their dirty work for them as he is more than willing to impress. and they avoid any consequences for their actions as they are done through him.

The simplest compliment becomes to him words of high praise and encouragement, and this need for recognition leads the kid to do more increasingly obvious actions for attention that ignore the real world consequences.

He is the kid that will attempt to get a copy of the test because some Big Man on Campus has expressed a desire for it and expresses admiration for anyone with the intestinal fortitude to address the need. Impressing the “important” people on campus blinds the kid from considering the consequences, and even if caught, will assume the acceptance of his bravery in those instances far outweighs the real consequences that he just does not recognize.

He becomes a stooge for those who benefit from his willingness to impress as they continue on unscathed, while he has negative marks on his school records that may affect him later.

Unfortunately, unlike the water boy in sports movies, he will never get real praise for his accomplishments but will get dumped the minute his usefulness ends or will be abandoned by his puppet masters when caught.  He will not see it that way.

He will forever live in the moments of his greatest acceptance by his peers, using this to build a self-esteem with sand for the foundation.

He will continue this behavior even after school, looking for those individuals and groups who will most likely accept him for that same usefulness.

He gravitates toward authority positions like the Police because the association grants his idea of himself and his importance some validity.

In the case of Kyle Rittenhouse, he has reached the point where reality meets fantasy, but he is clinging to the fantasy that what he did in Kenosha was pure, just misunderstood.

His running around that night was eagerly done because authority figures gave him things to do, and it was them he had to impress. He needed to be seen and praised and this would feed into his self-esteem.

What many people do not understand about bullying, especially in the younger years, is that there are two victims.

The obvious victim is the kid with the bruises, the kid who stays apart from most, the kid we all saw in our own time whose victimization was to make the bully look impressive if even just in the bully’s own mind.

The unseen victim is the bully, the tough kid, the real man, the person who is a leader, the one we see as the giver not the receiver. What we do not see is that with this person not being made to pull it back a bit, he assumes his acts are acceptable everywhere and becomes that person as an adult who victimizes others, while coming ever closer to that point where his life becomes negative and without promise.

Jail, perhaps.

As a child, it might have been cute when Rittenhouse recognized his attraction to those things that would end with his crossing state lines with an illegal rifle to be part of something big, something he could tell his friends about after, something that would increase his stature in their eyes and more importantly his own. Without set limits, whatever he was going to do would be justified as a good thing because people liked or to him it seems they did .

There is no problem with his mother driving him to Kenosha to play medic as he claimed was his intent. The limit should have been set by her insistence that if he is being a medic, he leave the rifle in the car. She played the role of enabler when her son needed anything but.

And like the bully who was not given an option and sits in jail because of escalating offenses that reached an avoidable limit, regardless, if acquitted, found guilty, or gets a mistrial, this is one ruined individual and, rather than learn from this, Kyle Rittenhouse will see it as approval and encouragement, and he may ruin lives along the way, but he will certainly live a ruined life.

Teachers like me are old enough to have seen former students hitting retirement age in their various fields, and we know how some kids turned out. We have seen the fruition of the warning signs we saw with certain kids but went ignored either because of a false parental need to defend the child regardless of realities, boys will be boys, or devoted people should never be disciplined for their devotion regardless to what.

And if you are not a teacher or a hermit, there is that kid in the neighborhood who is that character that people are not sure to pity or avoid as just a disaster waiting to happen encouraged by bad parents and the influence of those who find his willingness to do bad things a benefit to them.

You know Kyle too.

.

.

.

.

.

double standard

.

.

.

.

.

foundations

.

.

.

.

.

.

just because

.

.

.

.

at the school board meeting

.

.

.

.

.

.

Teddy vs Goliath

.

.

.

.

.

.

Biden steals Christmas

On the plus side, now that getting material things to give at Christmas is really difficult this year, this could be Joe Biden’s way of getting us all to put Christ back in Christmas.

.

.

.

.

.

THE DEFLECTION

More and more I am encountering people who, after having a talking point corrected, or a baseless claim disproven with facts even they recognize as facts, apparently seeing their mistake, hoping to avoid admitting their error and moving on with the new information, attempt to deflect to another topic, blaming you for bringing it up, and avoid any further reference to what you had been speaking about, to rant about your new offense that must be dealt with.

They jump from one erroneous assumption to a new one so their anger can be fed.

.

.

.

.

.

free the deputies

I was a public employee.

I wasn’t a “public servant” because servants get room and board along with other expenses paid for by their employer and not out of their own pockets, plus the word “servant”, as undefined as it is, makes a lot of people treat public employees like they were a beholding class and at their beck and call.

That said, I would also like to point out a great unknown, or a highly ignored problem is that the people in the leadership positions with whose directives public employees must comply are political beings not true professionals in the area they want to run.

As a schoolteacher, no matter where I taught, regardless of what expertise I might have had in any area, I could not make educational decisions that mattered when it came to fully educating my students. I was answerable to people who got their decision-making power from the elected officials who are their boss, School Boards.

This is common with all teachers.

Unless people have a kid in school, there is very little interest in school board elections. Provided nothing too scandalous happens, most people only know of the school district workings through their only real contact, the teacher, who becomes the target of any unhappiness as if they have any say in things.

This lack of interest hands the education of children over to people who, rather than coming with an informed educational plan have a political agenda with little to no experience in actual classroom teaching while ignoring the teachers who do and who know what would be best for the students sitting in their classrooms as opposed some blanket approaches that are required to be applied to all students regardless of reality.

And no matter how hare-brained a school board’s decision is, it must be followed by all employees who could get fired for insubordination real or imagined if they don’t.

While they do not have a say in who runs the school board and have to be ready to be bossed around by whomever the few interested voters decided should be their boss, whatever goes wrong as a result is laid on the parents’ only real school district contact, the classroom teacher who may very well disapprove of the same thing the parent does and who has to wait for the next largely ignored election hoping the few voters who show up at the polls will pick the right boss.

The day after School Board elections, there is either relief if things go well, or pessimism. Too often it is the latter because the teachers’ new boss is a one issue person with no grasp of the whole picture, yet teachers know they have no choice but to do as they are told, hoping next time things go right.

In a recent city election where I live, only 11% of the people voted. There were some Ward Councilor seats up for votes, but until there is a pothole at the end of your driveway, who really pays attention to city government unless they royally screw up?

People just let off year elections slide by because the positions people are running for are on the fringe of public interest.

This means teachers, and others, have to live with 100% of what the winner of the few votes decides is the way the district will go and has a huge influence over the future not only of all the children, but their parents and greater society who benefit from a well-educated population.

I wish the winning board member who ran for the seat did not do so just so she could change the eligibility rules for participation in sports so that her son, upon getting to high school, could get on the football team was a rarity, but just change the personal issue, and this is frighteningly common.

Boards will pick those who will implement their plans, regardless of merit, and they in turn will hire people most like themselves in background and ideology, thus creating a culture that will last until people pay attention and vote.

After 12 years of school where the kid really does not care about the mechanics of education but the personal whole school experience, and as parents really enjoy the cuteness of elementary school but can’t adjust when ‘his nibs” hits adolescence and becomes a whole new being, people move on and with them any interest in the real education of other people’s kids.

Outside the classroom, school district’s goals are often about promotion, authority, big money, and instant expertise.

Imagine working where people not in the industry decide who will run it, people who get the position only because they appealed to others not connected to the company except for reasons other than the purpose of it.

And then you get condemned because of the bad decisions made by those people.

The same goes with the sheriff’s department.

In Massachusetts a person can be sheriff without any law enforcement experience as the sheriff is more of an administrator with all that entails than an active-duty law enforcer. They can come from any profession. Their job is to run the facilities, make the schedules, and pay the bill.

The deputies, on the other hand, must go to an academy to be certifiable as law enforcement officers and do the actual hands-on work while the sheriff poses for pictures and issues statements.

While some do run for the right reasons, to improve the penal system, ridding it of what was once acceptable but is no longer as times changed while instituting programs that are more effective and relevant, to rehabilitate inmates, watch out for their well-being, and follow all laws pertaining to jails and who are in them, there are those who see the job as power, perhaps the first rung on what they hope will be fame, fortune, and political party recognition to start a climb in that area.

Sheriff elections, when paid attention to, are really about which political party gets someone in that chair to make sure jails are run according to their ideologies, good or bad. Like school board seats, this is also the first rung in what is intended by person and/or party to be a rising political career, and as with school board members and city council members, those who vote are acquainted with the candidate and so have involvement with the results of the election, while most people stay home because of six of one, half a dozen of the other thinking.

The joke about running for dog catcher only works if people know such an election does not exist.

The deputies are trained in their field. They have to pass muster before they get the badge. They too may be the ones who get into that career for the right reasons, but every so many years, a politician steps up to run for sheriff, and not for the right reasons, and again, with little interest, perhaps the same as that given to school boards, slim percentages of the possible voters decide who it is the sheriff deputies will have to obey.

They have to watch the public, an extremely low number of them, decide who their boss will be, usually for political reasons or because they talked tough and scared enough people to get their votes.

If the sheriff is a forward thinking person who recognizes the need to get things more up to date with the facilities and how they are run, what programs should be instituted to rehabilitate and reduce recidivism and recognizes that some reasons for a person committing a crime can be more complicated than their just being a bad person and runs the jail accordingly, the deputy sheriffs will go along with this more positive approach willingly.

If the sheriff is one who really has no interest in changing the status quo because to keep it raises his or her visibility with politicians which could open doors, and will run their jails as centers of punishment switching the target according the political winds that could work in his favor, being in the position to do so, the deputies hired will be molded to fit, or continue to fit the type of deputy the sheriff needs to have for his purpose, not that of the inmates.

Non-conforming deputies in the second scenario will be weeded out, wrongfully most likely, while new hires will be those who, when interviewed, say the things the sheriff wants to hear. And, so, a chain of MINI-MEs is hired and the culture begins.

There is that tipping point, though, when it becomes obvious that the sheriff is not a good one, and that frustrating moment when the deputies learn if things are going to continue or if things will be improved.

Will they be allowed to do their jobs as they know they should be done, or will they be given orders and assignments which, no matter how wrong, must be followed or refusal merits loss of job.

Who will a small number of voters choose their careers depend on?

Another thing that must be considered.

In the majority of cases where no law enforcement experience is necessary, the sheriffs have not worked their way up the ranks proving them selves at each step, so, someone with an ideology and a political appeal to those who can benefit from it can take the job cold.

Political positions don’t need the burden of a track record.

The sheriff’s tenure is 6 years. Either good will begin to happen, or it will be more of the same old political abuse of a house of corrections solely for the political advantage of the person in charge who, rather than work for the system has the system work for him or her.

Most of the individuals and groups dealing with getting rid of obviously bad or too political sheriffs, give their attention to conditions of the inmates, as it should.

There is, however, little attention paid to the toll on deputy sheriffs and corrections officers who have no control over who their boss is or what kind of person with what ideologies he is, but most follow all directives and requirements or get the boot because a horrid minimum of the registered voters chose that person as their boss. The deputies will be the ones who receive any anger from whatever source that finds what they are doing and have to by directive without a choice has gone too far in their estimation.

Mr. Burns never releases the hounds. He always directs Smithers to do it.  

Our next election is in November 2022. That means candidates will start vying for various positions.

There are a lot of problems at county jails all over that need attention, and as they are in charge and as they are the administrators the sheriffs need to be held responsible.

Importantly, if for no other reason, especially as people have a decidedly negative attitudes of people in jail based mainly on assumptions that flavors their attitudes, freeing the deputies from an oppressive or incompetent boss is a good reason to pay attention and vote.

A sheriff does not make law, but enforces existing law. The position is not a political office. It is a neutral job because the law is the great equalizer. A sheriff candidate should be judged on what they have done and will do, not on their personal beliefs.

Consider also that some very fine people who would like to join the ranks may decide otherwise so as not to work with a bad sheriff.

This go-round let’s free the deputies. It may be something they are hoping for but, because of low turnout, have no faith in. Depending on who their boss is, speaking out might cost them the job, so they have to hope in silence that the public does them right this time.

Support law enforcement. Pay attention to who is running for sheriff.

.

.

.

.

.

.