The Toxic Pathology of Mass Shootings, PC and the Internet

I’m sending this to you because I think if anyone will investigate it, you will. MSM is ignoring this story and I think the case could be made if you start linking the El Paso shooter to the Dayton shooter as well as other mass shooters. I sent this to Rick Roberts as well because he was discussing it. We live in the north Dallas area. We know people who knew the shooter. Two things come out-first, as a child he was showing psychopathic cruelty to animals. This was reported by neighbors to the parents and nothing was done. Such behavior is often the result of violence in the home. Also, peers in his high school said the El Paso shooter was autistic and had limited abilities. Even the founder of 8Chan said he didn’t write the “manifesto”-so who did?

What I am seeing as a parent and as a teacher is a commonality of mental illness with all these shooters. This has been the case since the UT Tower shooting in the 60’s. But what has changed is how we handle the mentally ill. ADA has created a situation where too often the seriously mentally ill are treated on a medicate and release basis. Many of our homeless fit this to a tee-trading serious psychotropic drugs for street drugs or alcohol. But many of these seriously deranged people are in our offices, our workplace or our classrooms where more victims are available. ADA and well meaning liberals shut down mental hospitals and demanded that the mentally ill be allowed to direct their own fortunes.

They assumed that the mentally ill wanted to get well and would take the medications. They ignored that some psychotic people prefer their delusions to reality. As a result, it is difficult for even the most loving family to involuntarily commit a seriously deranged relative until something bad happens. Frequently the first victims are the families-as we saw at Sandy Hook. Sometimes the victims are coworkers or strangers. A man jogging at White Rock Lake in Dallas was brutally murdered by a man with a machete who had chosen not to take his meds. His family knew. But until he killed someone, nothing could be done. In the classroom it’s even more terrifying. A coworker had a male student who told her daily he was going to kill her. Only when that student threatened to rape a school board member’s daughter was he removed from the classroom. This is the legacy of good intentions not taken out to the full endgame.

Added to this issue is the mantra of “don’t judge” with which we remove the last animal vestiges of self-preservation from potential victims. Whether it is at school or work, we are told we must accept weird behavior and not to judge others negatively when they act out in menacing ways. This is a true disservice to our children because some people do give off dangerous vibes and our children should be able to turn away if they’re uncomfortable. At work it’s a harder problem because too many HR departments enforce the “don’t judge” mentality even long after coworkers have been verbally threatened. Sometimes we need to make judgement calls. And that shouldn’t mean we face social stigma, public attacks or doxxing  for the sin of valuing our own safety.

So we have a public health problem in the form of mental illness that is growing. This is something that on some level every single mass murderer shared.

Sandy Hook-he was known to be mentally ill and we still don’t know the minutes of the last ARD which I belief would show an escalation in violent imagery and manifestation of increasing menace.

Aurora-This guy was so off that when he applied for a job with Texas A&M they wrote “under no circumstances offer a job to this person” Also his family moved two states away from him.

Columbine-Both shooters were isolated loners who didn’t fit in.

Tucson-The shooter was mentally ill and his family bought a separate house for him because living with him was a nightmare.

Parkland-He was a Special ed kid, personality disorder, alienated and isolated from an abusive home

Sutherland Springs-This guy had a history of domestic violence that the Air Force agreed to cover up so they could muster him out.

Even the various religious  terrorists have absorbed a toxic pathology that leads them to check their humanity at the door and allow others to make dangerous decisions for them.

So I ask, how hard would it be for “someone” to access online game rooms-especially those active shooter games that are so popular-and befriend some isolated, loner with a patter that promised them fame, power and a group to which they could belong? Now we have to ask, what individuals or groups would see it as a plus to create anarchy? Hint: They have the reference in their name. I don’t think this El Paso shooting was random. Nobody drives 700 miles to shoot up a mall when there’s one right down the street. Police say the shooter is responsive and confused, which would fit the description of someone who is on the spectrum or who was medicated incorrectly. I’m not giving him a free pass because I hate the ‘not guilty by reason of insanity” plea, but I think there are other factors in the background working that are far more dangerous.

Please look into Antifa’s online involvement via anime and gaming sites. The chatrooms will be where they show up

Battle of the Sexes: Soccer

Soccer is not "America's Sport". Having said that, soccer is very popular with kids and parents and leagues like Major League Soccer are seeing a growing viewership. With changing demographics, soccer is becoming even more popular especially in the southern US. That's fine. Soccer is an exciting game and for those who follow the sport, watching any good team is a bonus.

That being said, the US Women's National Team is off base with what I view as a socialist scheme for what they label "equal pay." True, they train just as hard as the men and they win as much or more than the US National Men's team, BUT......

In the end all athletic events are entertainment business commodities events. Compensation translate to fans in the seats and licensed merchandise sold. There's a reason the mediocre Dallas Cowboys are the most lucrative franchise ever (if you believe the reports) and that is because like it or not, Cowboys fans are willing to fork over an obscene amount of money to attend games, buy merchandise and otherwise make Jerry Jones richer. You say "But that's AMERICAN football.....what about soccer?" So let's look at that.

The argument being put forth by the likes of Senator Manchin and the USWNT is that this last Women's World Cup (a FIFA production) earned more than the last Men's World Cup which incidentally did not include the US Men's team. When you cut out the largest and most lucrative viewing segment, you get less revenue. Even AOC should be able to figure that out. But then there's the story of ad revenue. From "Money":

"...Total money paid for TV ads during the women’s 2015 FIFA World Cup on Fox. That’s nearly three times as much as the $6 million in ad money collected by ESPN for airing the 2011 women’s World Cup. Still, it’s a tiny fraction of the $529 million in TV ads paid to ESPN during the men’s 2014 World Cup on ESPN..."

This translates into less revenue for the women due to outside forces that are not controlled by US Men's Soccer. Also, most of the men on the US Men's Team play in the growing Major League Soccer. While there are existing Women's teams and leagues, they do not have the following of the MLS teams.You cannot MAKE people buy tickets. This is not to say womens' teams will never achieve the same compensation as men, but when you go out of your way to antagonize and alienate the people who might actually pay to see you play, it's counterintuitive to growing your brand and attracting fans to buy tickets and merchandise. Right now, there's a surge of people buying USWNT merchandise but down the road this will fade as all bandwagon jumping diminishes. This is why you so seldom see successful pro athletes take controversial public opinion based stances. Rapinoe did more damage to their argument for equal pay that many of these players-and let's remember they are entertainers not politicians-will not recognize until later.

Also, for the sake of argument, I'll just leave this here from 2015 where the same lame arguments were being made by largely the same groups and media outlets:

From: National Review by Tim Cook

"ThinkProgress is in a huff because the real world insists on standing athwart its unicorn paddock:

The U.S. women’s soccer team defeated Japan on Sunday to win the World Cup. For their dominant performance, the team will collect $2 million from FIFA, the international body that runs the tournament. 

The championship prize for women pales in comparison to the $8 million in prize money awarded to men’s teams who lose in the first round. Every men’s team was awarded $1.5 million just for participating.

Gosh, why could that be? Perhaps it’s because there is an entrenched worldwide conspiracy to be mean to women. Or perhaps it’s because the women’s World Cup doesn’t bring in much revenue and the men’s World Cup does. Per the right-wing apology website Huffington Post:

“The World Cup pays for all the 20 World Cups FIFA organizes, the under-17, under-20 men and women, club football, beach soccer all is financed by the men’s World Cup which brings directly $4.5 billion to FIFA.”

The women’s game continues to grow in popularity with next year’s finals featuring 24 nations, up from 16 in 2011, for the June 5 to July 6 at six venues across Canada.

The Canadian Soccer Association said it expects attendance to come in a close to 1.5 million.

COMMENTS

The actual figure was far below that, even after FIFA reduced the price of tickets to try to gin up interest. By contrast, the 2014 World Cup in Brazil attracted 3,429,873 people to the games, and 5,154,386 fans to all FIFA events. Likewise, according to the openly misogynistic New York Times, the Women’s World Cup of 2011 “brought in just $5.8 million, while the men’s cup in 2014 netted $1.4 billion.” Advertisers, the Times confirms, will pay 80 times as much to cover the men’s competition as the women’s.

The women are being stiffed. Stiffed, I tell you."

Retirement

I am retiring from teaching.
I am 63.
I should be working a few more years, but honestly I just can't.
I am tired of change for the sake of change.
I'm tired of administrators dismissing the work I do and have done for nearly 20 years, and celebrating the work of others.
I'm tired of being invisible.
I'm just tired.

What's odd is that I am not alone. My principal is retiring. The head of my department is retiring. The head counselor is retiring. I've heard rumors the lead in science is retiring and the lead in social studies is as well. Basically this is the departure of the entire top staff at the school. There's a message there for anyone paying attention, but it is not just about age. This is about what is happening in our schools and our society.

Society at large has become both more permissive and more accusatory. No teacher in their right mind would dare enter a classroom today without liability insurance. Parents, who in earlier times were partners with teachers, now seek loopholes and make excuses for why their kids fail. They don't enforce dress codes, they don't require attendance, if a child fails someone writes a 504 to make the problem go away so they can graduate. I have seen this happen. It should be illegal. It probably is. I know our administrators have been in ARD's every day the past two weeks trying to make the path smooth for seniors who haven't given a damn about achievement to graduate. Why? Why are they doing this? Are there no consequences left in our society?

I've been on here for years first talking about the lack of rigor, the lamenting the invasion of cell phones and the utter lack of rules under the new auspices of restorative justice-a program which the kids treat like a joke. What used to be a good school-orderly, innovative, encouraging and even fun-is now an adversarial division where students roam in packs and engage in provocative behavior which teachers and staff can't control.

There are many contributing factors to the demise of school:
1. Helicopter parenting, not to be confused with parent concern or involvement. We have parents who even with online gradebooks and a system that provides safety nets to a degree not seen before in education, who don't get involved or concerned until their kid is so out of hope of passing that it's impossible to fudge the numbers. These parents are big on lawyering up and pointing fingers. They are also frequently the types who try to get special perks like extra time on the SAT or take kids out of school for vacation the week before scheduled vacations. These people are insane and their kids are basket cases.
2. Cell phones can be helpful, but too many parents, especially after Columbine, mistake them for electronic umbilical cords. Having a cell phone does not insure your child is safe. What is more, like the pagers before them, your child will lie about where they are, who they are with and what they are doing if they think they can snow their parents-which is often the case. It's been estimated that 70% of kids have porn on their cell phones. This includes boys AND girls. These "children" have secret lives hidden on their phones and too many parents (see #1 above) think that looking at their texts and photos is an invasion of privacy. I have found phones with salacious selfies of girls on their desktop left in the room. I've also seen IPhone 10's plugged into the wall and left to charge so that kids who have depleted the charge watching movies and texting in the morning can continue to do so in the afternoon. As I tell my students, technology is a good servant but a bad master. Trying to get a phone away from a student who will not comply is like trying to separate a junkie from his fix. Just try it sometime with a 15 year old girl. Terrifying.
3. Restorative justice is a joke. The kids treat it as such. They know they can make puppy eyes and excuses and be forgiven for even the most egregious actions. I have kids who have missed more than 13 of 45 classes. By state law they should absence fail, but no instead they can sit in a room playing on their cell phone after having missed classes and instruction to play hooky. I had two boys square off in a class the first week of school who I marched down to the office. They came back 20 minutes later with an AP saying " They've gotten restorative actions and they are really sorry..." Needless to say those two continued to be a problem for the entire course. I think society at large is seeing much of the same. Sooner or later you have to stop letting people break rules. The same code applies to laws.
4. The incoming teachers are not trained in the way they were before. They seem to be full of social justice memes, but short on true depth of knowledge in their subjects. They call kids pet names, something that I was warned against as a young teacher. They try to make kids their friends, make plans to meet for shopping and coffee-things which I have never wanted to do and things that I would find suspicious if my own kids' teachers were trying to do. I keep my private life private. I think that teachers must be separate from the students, but our young teachers don't seem interested in being part of the faculty and instead socialize at lunch and after school with students, which sets up a strange chemistry. These same teachers don't want to teach entry level courses and have been very manipulative in getting our young, and somewhat clueless, administrator to go along. The result was that as department lead next year I would have had all entry level courses because they new teachers claim they can't teach them. One of them refuses to teach watercolor. They other only teaches portraiture. They are big on making scenes and signing up for events that they then dump on others-most often me. One has complained every single day about being on a cart. I was on a cart for eight years teaching just entry level classes. I guess millennials don't want to learn on the job and insist on starting at the top. Whatever happened to paying your dues?

So I am done. I will travel. I will paint. I will renovate my home.
I am sad. I had hoped to end on a high note, but in the end even the senior show got sabotaged by one of my teachers who refused to tell her students.

Of course, she tweeted and posted about HER students' show in the library Friday.

On that alone I would be ready to leave. Combine that with new administrators, construction and what looks like a collision of events of which I want no part.
In closing I leave you with this:The Way

Graduation Inflation

Graduation inflation is definitely a problem. Because so many state base school ratings on graduation rates, schools are often unwilling to enforce rigor in the classroom. I saw this happen when Texas began the "four by four" scenario designed to make all students take four years of Language Arts, Science, Math and Social Studies. The fear of having low income or minority students face hard classes that would limit their graduation rates drives this-which in and of itself is racist since it assumes such students cannot succeed. In the meantime, administrators at every level use cosmetic solutions like screens and gadgets to give the appearance of solving the problems, when that often just makes it worse.

I can tell you from first hand observation, that the students I have now lack the vocabulary and reasoning skills to do what the same level of students accomplished just five years ago. They are not prepared for college. They have little self-reliance because the main message they get from parents and administrators is that they can always go back and do things over with no penalty. I see terrible trouble ahead and it's all in the hands of educational bureaucrats who are more concerned with keeping their jobs than educating our kids.

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