First
Question: One either gets it or doesn’t. What should I do when I do get it but most don’t?
Second
Question: Anyone wishes what’s best for himself. Do I think that I can* decide what’s best for myself?
If ‘Yes’: Why would I allow/let/support someone else to decide what’s best for me? Why would I want/wish/desire to decide for someone else?
If ‘No’: What makes me think that someone else is going to decide what’s best for myself?
*Replace I can* with ‘someone else should‘ and try to answer the new question by providing a justification if your answer is positive.
I grew up in a country where child abuse can be encountered almost everywhere. I’ve been abused by my parents, by some of my teachers and coaches, there’s no question about it. I grew up in a country where this winter, 10 days after the televisions broadcast images with the president hitting a child, the president got reelected (see video bellow).
I think I pretty much felt the abuse and I realize now that I took all the actions I could to limit the effects and I tried to isolate myself as much as I could from people with violent behavior from both points of view, physical and psychological/emotional. Starting with 13 years old I got lucky because I grew up 24 cm in one year, which got me to 194 cm (6′ 4″). Suddenly things changed, the physical abuse vanished and the psychological one diminished and changed up to a point that it became hilarious and easy for me to defeat.
Spanking can easily escalate into a 3 hours beating. Spanked children are usually too confused to learn any lesson, other than they should obey the spanker, as the spanker is more powerful and dangerous. This is terror, not education. Hate, not love. Stupidity, not wisdom. And when the spankers are the ones that should provide you with care, food and education, it becomes tragic.
Now, here is a test the parents may want to have in mind when raising children. When the child will leave home (at 20… 25 years old?), the parents can ask their child to take the following test: ACE Score Calculator. If the child scores 1 or more, they failed as parents. The bigger the score, the bigger failure they are.
This doesn’t mean that we don’t have to have children. No kids means a higher personal success and probably a more enjoyable life, however, it means a failure of our genes, which may be very important, for reasons that I will not discuss here (hint - the movie Idiocracy (2006)).
Think to your childhood for a second. Were you spanked? Did you like it? Do you think violence taught you anything else but violence? Do you think you were such a fool that you couldn’t “learn” in any other way?
Now, moving to my adoptive country… I was surprised to read the comments from the To spank or not to spank? article. The comments can be rated and to my surprise, pro children spanking/beating comments have a 5:1 ratio of positive votes to negative votes, while the rating of the anti spanking comments is the other way around. This says a lot about the state-sponsored propaganda and the brainwashing levels our society reached. I will post at the end of the article some of the comments and their current ratings.
If you don’t have kids yet, or you have and so far you didn’t choose the easy way for yourself, here is a good website one can learn from: Project NoSpank
I hate to sound moralistic, but I can’t help myself after I read those comments and since I understood that child abuse is a very important issue for each of us to fight against.
Now, let me finish in a more optimistic and enjoyable light, by posting a video on what Russell Peters (an amazing Canadian stand-up comic) thinks about beating the kids:
There are three main categories I use to classify the movies I like: (M) Mood-Changing Movies - Few are the movies that can shift your mood when you see them. Doesn’t really matter if it makes me feel happy, upset, angry, revenged, etc… once a movie can change my state of mine… I like it. (E) Entertaining Movies - Go figure… usually high budget movies. (A) Art Movies - Since filmmaking is an art, some movies can show a great video editing, sound editing, costumes, have philosophical touches, etc.
Before going over what I think are the best movies of 2009, I would first suggest “Michael Jackson’s This Is It“. As I said last year, the order is not random:
Watchmen (M&E&A) - This is the movie I like the most, not just because it’s a great one, but because I saw it when I needed the most. Avatar (M&E&A) - If Star Wars revolutionized the film industry three decades ago and Matrix did it a decade ago, I think Avatar did it this time. The Boat That Rocked (M&E) - Sex. Hot and passionate sex. Invictus (M&A) - This is just another made for Oscar movie. I couldn’t help myself to notice that in South Africa they were having CRT flat screen TVs back in 1995. Probably it was just a technical issue to use old TVs, as they needed a refresh rate higher than 60hz to look good. The movie is about true leadership, uniting people and the 1995 Rugby World Cup that I had the chance to see on TV, not on a flat one, though. The Hurt Locker (M&E) - Nicely made. If it would not be for the propagandistic idea in the end, the movie would be even better. I love you man (M&E) - there were -5°C when we got out from this movie, but I was feeling it like +40°C Star Trek (M&E) - Awesome job in reinventing Star Trek. Fantastic Mr. Fox(A) - Art. Pure art. Angels & Demons (E&A) Everybody’s Fine (M) - Very well done. I have no idea why some people were laughing during the movie… Paranormal Activity (M) - Brilliant! Probably the biggest ROI a movie can bring. Nine (M&A) Up (A) The Blind Side (M) - when it’s about him/her, it doesn’t really matter what you think is better, but whether if he/she care about your opinion or not. Sherlock Holmes (E&A)
Other good movies of 2009, this time in the order I watched them: The International (E), Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (E), Knowing (E), State of Play(E&A), The Proposal (E), Flash of Genius (A), The Soloist (A), Public Enemies(E&A), The Hangover (E), The Ugly Truth (E), (500) Days of Summer (M&A), District 9 (M&E&A), Inglourious Basterds (E), Julie & Julia (A), Mr. Nobody (A), Moon (M), The Informant (E), Coco avant Chanel (A), Couples Retreat (E), Law Abiding Citizen (M&E), The Men Who Stare At Goats (E), Disney’s A Christmas Carol (E&A), The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day (M&E), 2012 (M&E), Ninja Assassin (E), The Road (M), All About Steve (M), Armored (E), Up In The Air (M), Precious (M), The Young Victoria (A), The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans (E), The Last Station (A), The Lovely Bones (A).
What can I say, it was a great year to go to the theater. If my math is correct, 4 movies from the above I watched at home. In total I watched just above a hundred in the cinema room.
Again, shame on me, I’ve fallen asleep during two movies in the cinema room, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs and The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus. However, during one of them I was not the only one to do it, a friend of mine slept too, probably because of the night before
