What's on your mind?

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Re: What's on your mind?

Postby pa_friendly_guy » Thu Apr 10, 2014 1:22 am

I live about 30 min away from Franklin Regional High School. I drive right past it on my way to our monthly electric car club meeting. It is a very sad day for the school and for the community with 21 people stabbed by that 16 year old student. Please pray for the 3 people still in ICU, the Doctors say it may take several days for us to know if they will live. Franklin Regional is an excellent school district, the area is quite affluent with expensive homes and good students that score highly on their tests. It saddens me that this kind of senseless violence can happen anywhere in our country. At lunch today I spoke with a Youth Exchange officer for Rotary. Rotary has 2 exchange students at that school, one of them witnessed his host family's son stabbed in front of him. [ Think your Brother ] It was very traumatic for him. I am saddened by what is happening to our Nation.
Never doubt that a small group of dedicated people can change the world, indeed it is the only thing that ever has.
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Re: What's on your mind?

Postby SilverFlame819 » Thu Apr 10, 2014 6:23 am

I think if we had harsher punishments for people who did shit like that, we'd stop seeing those incidents pop up. I read the reports on that - they were talking to the kid to see why he'd done it. For REAL?! He stabbed over 20 people! I don't care what his reasons were, shoot him and be done with it. You think there's a chance that little psycho could be a productive, sane member of society in the future? Yeah... right. People are already saying it's because he was bullied. Lots of kids are bullied. Kids are assholes, they do mean things, and they can make others' lives hell. If every kid who was bullied went on a killing spree, the schools would be empty right now. The kids doing the bullying need their asses beat, for sure. But murdering people in retaliation? Come on. And not only that, but these are not calculated. These psycho kids who go on killing sprees at school don't target the people who hurt them - they simply kill whoever's closest. That's not revenge, that's crazy. I just have very little tolerance for that crap anymore. Killing innocent people should be punishable by death. I don't want to pay to house him for the next 50 years, giving him cable and 3 meals a day. What's the point? Jail is supposed to be for rehabilitating people... If we're just keeping them in a cage until they die, I fail to understand why I would want my money going to that. If we kicked all the people on weed charges back out on the street and stopped paying to keep killers alive, we'd have money to actually work with the people who are there for a reason...

Annnnnnd on that note... *lol* I unsubscribed from a bunch of people on my Facebook today, because I decided I was sick of having negative people around, and people who are happy to spread lies and misinformation and hate-mongering, scare tactic bullshit... Ugh. I just can't stand people who choose not to use their brains anymore. I'm hoping my life will be a little more rainbows-and-bunnies from here on out. I could certainly use the positivity.

Today is my girl's one-year memorial day, so she's on my mind as well. Dog of my heart. There will NEVER be another like her. I miss her every day.
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Re: What's on your mind?

Postby GrahamB » Fri Apr 11, 2014 1:45 am

We had our monthly safety drill on Tuesday and it happened to be an Intruder On Campus drill. As I'm a member of the school safety team, I am part of the debriefing after every drill. We were talking about the usual things like how we would actually deal with an Active Shooter in a given situation and whether we should have an armed response team in school. Someone actually asked the question about what we would do with a knife carrying intruder. Then the next day this all happened and a hundred and one questions start running through your head.
This sort of situation is never black and white. It's many shades of gray and it boils down to what would you do in that particular shade of gray. Every teacher and para-professional worth their salt feel very deeply for every kid in their school, even the bad ones. Those teachers will be praying for the injured as well as for the assailant. After all he was one of their kids too.
No matter how many mistakes you make or how slow you progress, you are still way ahead of everyone who isn’t trying.
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Re: What's on your mind?

Postby pa_friendly_guy » Fri Apr 11, 2014 1:04 pm

I agree Graham, the Local TV News has been showing many of the students when they go home from the Hosp. They all talk about trying to forgive the actor and praying for the injured. There is only one student that is still in very critical condition. It looks like everyone else should made it but he is still touch and go. The other thing that the TV is talking about is the fact that many students and teachers were heroes in the way they acted. Stepping in font of friends being cut with the knife to save their best fiends. Staying with an injured student and applying pressure to the wound while everyone else was fleeing thus saving the student from bleeding out. Many Heroes, times like that often bring out the best I people .
Never doubt that a small group of dedicated people can change the world, indeed it is the only thing that ever has.
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Re: What's on your mind?

Postby GrahamB » Sat Apr 12, 2014 3:03 am

I pray he makes it through, but the healing will probably take years. I'm not far from Joplin and they are still counseling students after the tornado. School districts have a fantastic recovery system for situations like this, but it's never a quick fix. And it's the one subject in a district where budget is never questioned.
It's at times like this that the public school haters who think teachers and staff have an easy time, should recognize the sacrifice these people are willing to give for the sake of the students and their colleagues. Like the teacher at Sandy Hook that got between the gunman and her students, and paid the ultimate price.
Back in England, I once worked in a halfway house/school for young offenders and was attacked on numerous occasions. Nothing as serious as a gun or a knife, unless you can count a large pair of scissors. But when it happens, you don't think about being hurt. You do the job and make sure everyone is safe. I am restraint trained and here in the US I have gone in and broken up fights, Again, you don't think about whether you're going to take a hit. Those kids are your kids and you'll do what's needed to make sure everyone is safe.
No matter how many mistakes you make or how slow you progress, you are still way ahead of everyone who isn’t trying.
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Re: What's on your mind?

Postby SilverFlame819 » Sat Apr 12, 2014 7:26 am

I agree, Graham. I used to work as a youth counselor/life coach at a residential treatment center for teenage boys and am also restraint trained. When shit goes down, you don't think about "saving yourself", you think about protecting the ones you care about. I don't know that that makes one some kind of fantastic person though... It's just how humans work. My go-to is not fight OR flight. It is to calculate options. In scary moments, time slows down for me, and I can see myself weighing options and making decisions in the way that a camera takes burst shots. I can observe it almost from a third person standpoint as it's happening (and I'm nerdy enough that I find that incredibly cool and interesting). The options available are always fight, flight, or freeze, but in high-stress situations, my brain is VERY active, and I don't instantly revert to any of those options. I'm not sure that it's possible to change flight or fight response, and I think that a lot of people are either the type that are cool under pressure, or their brain jumps straight into flight or fight mode. I guess I just don't know that inherent behavior is really... commendable, I guess? The teachers should be getting respect for what they do no matter what their reactions are in a situation like that. Because they do control going to work and dealing with budget cuts and entitled brats every day... They don't necessarily choose their reactions in life or death situations.

Oh, yep, it's past my bedtime. *lol*
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Re: What's on your mind?

Postby SilverFlame819 » Mon Apr 14, 2014 6:51 am

Finished the tune-up on the RV today. Thinking about redoing the floors inside with bedliner. Finishing packing all that's left in the house this week (which is not much). Gonna have a baking day tomorrow... Been doing that on all my days off, just to use up all these ingredients! Recently took my crackhead pup on her first hike...

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Re: What's on your mind?

Postby SilverFlame819 » Tue Apr 15, 2014 7:04 pm

A chick in a homesteading singles group I'm a part of just said something that totally made me laugh out loud. It's my quote of the week, for sure.

"The face powder may get 'em, but it's the baking powder that keeps 'em."

HAHA!
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Re: What's on your mind?

Postby matt walker » Tue Apr 15, 2014 9:09 pm

Nice to see the canyons, that's a beautiful pic.
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Re: What's on your mind?

Postby SilverFlame819 » Wed Apr 16, 2014 6:46 am

That's the Pipeline Trail up Millcreek, Matt. Here's the other direction, facing SLC (of course, the parts of the trail where you can see down the canyon are also the ugliest parts).

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