Politically Incorrect

So I have come across some reading material lately that seriously disappointed me.  Everyone has become so seemingly progressive and passive in their thinking, that they fail to take into account any amount of common sense.

I read of a middle school child who was both physically and emotionally bullied for three years.  His parents addressed this on many occasions with the school and nothing was ever done about it, much to the parents dismay.  The child never defended himself, nor did the parents want him too.  The parents taught their son never to hit and were proud that he remained non violent.  After three years of their son enduring daily bullying and the schools lack of action to put a stop to it, the parents hired a lawyer, in part, because of a fear that their son would commit suicide before the bullying stopped.  They never wanted to be seen as those parents, causing trouble and calling lawyers.

Bullying is wrong.  Schools should not tolerate it on their grounds.  This child should have had trusted adults to ensure his safety while at school.  I completely agree.  I am not a violent person, however that child should have been defending himself and should have been encouraged by his parents to do so.  IT IS NEVER WRONG TO DEFEND YOURSELF!  It's called self defense.  The parents relied on the school and the district to protect their son and when they failed their son, it still took the parents three years of the poor kid tolerating this, to the point of parents fearing for his life, before they decided to look to the law to defend him?  Seriously?

I personally would have insisted that my child defend them self and in fact I have done so in the past.  I do not advocate violence, but I do advocate self defense.  I teach my children to always defend themselves and anyone smaller or weaker than themselves.  Bullies like easy targets, because bullies are in fact cowards.  Standing up for yourself, win or lose, sends a message that you will not be an easy target.  Also, you walk away with your self-esteem in tact knowing that you stood up instead of just having it beat out of you.

As a mother, I would have not waited three years to take some sort of action when the school/district wouldn't.  I would not care about other peoples impressions of me or possible labels when it came to the protection of one of my children.

What's going to happen to that poor kid when he runs into a violent situation in real life, when he doesn't have a lawyer, a teacher, or a mommy holding his hand?

The 1st and only person to ever try to mug me wound up with his arm broken at the shoulder.  My parents taught me to defend myself.  I was 17.

The other disappointing read was a hubub about bloggers and high fructose corn syrup or rather how some community of bloggers or another were given gift cards or something in exchange for writing about high fructose corn syrup not being the anti-Christ.  These writers were called names and accused of being sell-outs, blah, blah, blah.

I had absolutely nothing to do with this campaign what-so-ever.  I don't even know any of the players, but I say, seriously?

Everybody has their own own opinions about what they want their family ingesting.  Some people choose organic.  Some people choose to 'green'.  Some only want all natural arsenic is a natural substance or no msg. Some families have to contend with food allergies. Everyone is allowed to have their opinion and to use their shopping dollar in any way that they choose is best for their family.  I think that's great and encourage it.

I personally don't think that high fructose corn syrup is evil.  There is no moral conundrum about the issue. It's not made of soylent green or anything. Sure, I think that straight sugar tastes better, but I have no issue with the substance and my family ingests it.  I don't find it to be harmful to them in any way.  My family also ingests real butter (we dislike the taste of margarine), red meat, fried chicken, white bread and all sorts of things that may have been banned from other homes.

 We are also all happy any healthy.

If someone wants to send me money or gift cards because I stated my opinion on this, contact me via email it would not make me a sell out.  It would make me a few bucks wealthier than I am currently.  It would not change my words on my blog.  If someone writes their opinions about local organic vegetables is the only way that their family rolls and got paid to do it, they wouldn't be selling out either.

Maybe I am not being politically correct here, but I am being real and honest.  I think that's why most of you come here to read anyway.

Social Promotion In Blogging

The school system has been working within the concept of social promotion for quiet some time. Self esteem is so very much an important factor in life that you would never want to do or say anything that could make someone feel as if they are less than the best. It might hurt their feelings to know that there are people are out there who may be stronger, faster or smarter than they are. We wouldn't what that.

We make sure to give out participant certificates just for showing up to any given contest. After all, 90% of success in life is just showing up. We don't keep score in t-ball and we dare not ever hold back a failing student. They will excel at a faster rate if we allow them to finger paint their way to the 5th grade, before we expect any crayon work from them. The powers that be have even finally come around to understand that students should be given partial credit on standard testing for wrong answers and/or a lack of answer - it shows the student is at least thinking about the question.

I think that we should adopt these same principles into blogging.

Using myself as an example of proper implementation of this concept, I'll explain to you what I mean.

I write mostly garbage, hence your current reading pleasure, a modest little blog, you may have heard of it (Hint:you're on it right now.) but I showed up and wrote something today. I should get an award and 207 extra comments today out of the deal. You wouldn't want my feelings to get hurt.

I have been writing this blog for almost 2 years now. That alone should be enough for google to boost my ranking all the way to 7th grade. I could get discouraged after 2 years without enough outside promotion.

Companies should want to advertise with me and give me money, even though my audience is not large enough to pass the cost/benefit analysis test, because I am here and I am established as a mediocre blogger. They should want to cheer me on for trying my best.

I play nice with others in the sandbox that is Twitter follow me @WeaselMomma and for that you should be compelled to award me with constant link love and re-tweets to my blog posts, even if you think my writing is, well, meh. After all, I offered to share my sand covered lollipop.

I haven't earned should be granted 300 more followers and subscribers today on World of Weasels, just click the widget thingy in the right sidebar before you leave, because if you have the read this far along into this nonsense excuse for a post, you're diggin' it, you want to come back for more and just think how soon it will promote me up to being trusted to use safety scissors and we all know that safety scissors will boost my self esteem.

Now excuse me while I go dine on some fantabulous paste!