Hazing...How Far Is Too Far?

When mentioning to a friend that I was going to place an opinion on my blog about hazing, her first declaration was, “I think it's stupid and usually male-initiated!” But I think the evidence shows women can be as hazeing as men can. Consider the following headline, Sorority accused of hazing in $100 million suit. Alas, my thoughts on this matter are not directed at which species is more capable or contributing, but more about the point of too-farness.

While in the US Navy, I served aboard the USS Boston, SSN-703, a Los Angeles class fast attack submarine. Hazing is a way of life in communities like these. When a person became submarine qualified, an exhaustive process that usually takes about one year to complete, it is considered a big deal. By obtaining this qualification, the person had earned the right to wear the coveted Dolphins insignia that declared them a fully qualified submariner.

After the formal ceremony, the hazing portion begins. The crew ‘tacks on’ your dolphins. This consists of removing the pin backings from the pin, passing the pin through your clothing, and still without the backings, the crew takes turns hitting your pin as hard as they can, causing bruising and the pins to penetrate your flesh. This barbaric display of testosterone is no longer endorsed by the Navy and in fact, is now a violation of protocol even though it still happens.

So, the big question naturally is, why? According to Inside Hazing.com, The psychology of hazing involves several elements, which collide within a specific framework and cause "the perfect storm" increasing the likelihood of hazardous hazing events. The conditions of the theory are made up of the following attributes.

1. Human Nature
2. Developmental Needs
   a. Separation from family
   b. Identity and mood
   c. Acceptance in a group
   d. Aggression and sexuality
3. Traditions
4. Environmental Circumstances
5. Personalities and Emotional States
   a. The perpetrators
   b. The bystanders
   c. The victims
6. Dynamics of the Group
7. Personality and Style of the Adult Leader
8. The Sado-Masochistic Paradigm
9. Attitudes Towards Authority
10. Unconscious Psychological Forces
    a. Identification with the aggressor
    b. Repetition compulsion
    

This theory basically states that hazing can occur with any one or all of these attributes present. Obviously, the more of these attributes that are present the more escalated the event becomes. Also, any one of these attributes can be taken to an extreme and become hazardous.

WARNING SIGNS: Hazing may skid into the hazardous zone when:

• The leaders of the group are very aggressive, and intimidating.
• You have heard rumors from your peers about activities that are hazardous.
• Your gut is churning and you sense danger.
• You have been warned by authorities that the group has a reputation for being extreme.
• You don't want to acknowledge it, but you have witnessed some events which are dangerous or are inconsistent with your own morals and values.
• You feel stuck. You are already involved and do not know how to get out of the group or process.
  

In closing, it seems that a little hazing can go a long way. Being in EMS and working closely with the fire and police services, I have seen hazing on multiple levels; it’s commonplace. Most of the time it is in good fun. It can only be in good fun though, IF both parties are willing participants and as long as it does not cross any moral, sexual, racial, and/or ethical boundaries and is of non-violence origins. Crossing any or all of these boundaries is dangerous.

Adultery! Who's To Blame?

Newsweek Dec. 4, 2006 issue - When George Berg's wife, Sandra, began spending three nights a week studying for an MBA, he didn't mind. But when the manager of the family's Myrtle Beach time share called two years ago to say someone left behind a Blockbuster video card—during a weekend when Sandra was supposed to be away at a company event with their son—George got suspicious. Asking his 5-year-old about the trip, he made a heartbreaking discovery. "I asked him. 'You went with Mommy's [female] boss?' He said 'No, I went with Mommy's gay friend from work'."

Using an arcane North Carolina law on "alienation of affection," Berg filed suit not against his ex-wife (they divorced earlier this year) but against the other adulterer. In August, they settled for more than $150,000, and in January Berg will begin receiving monthly checks.

I have always maintained that, as a society, we make marriage more a matter of convenience then a matter of commitment. It's become more, "as long our love shall last," then "as long as we both shall live."

Marriage is more of a contract then it is anything else. It's a contract between a husband and a wife; it's a contract between the couple and their family and friends; and it’s a contract between the couple and their God. Contracts of any other nature are subject to enforcement of their terms by civil litigation and possibly criminal prosecution resulting in some form of compensation. Isn't it fair, then, to insist that the marriage contract be held to the same standard?

When someone who is legally united into the establishment of marriage goes outside the marriage without the consent of his or her spouse then a violation of the contract has occurred. When a third party outside the marriage pursues and engages someone they know is bound by the marriage covenant then that person has also violated a legal contract; albeit not a contract they themselves have entered into necessarily, but one that exists nonetheless.

There are a myriad of angles and reasons someone might be inclined to violate the contract. The question, in my mind, isn’t who drove whom to what? It’s more, who committed the act and violated the contract? Unhappiness, indeed emotions of any kind, in general, does not give you free license to act without the reprisal of consequences.

While, as in the case of this article, the law invoked may be based on an archaic notion that “a wife is her husband's property,” I maintain that there should be a more appropriate law that declares that the husband and wife are bound, by contract, to certain standards (unless specifically stated otherwise) and therefore subject to penalty.

My final synopsis…good for the guy who sued and won. Generally, I think we, as a society, sue far too often and without proper justification. We must make marriage a serious, sacred occasion again and not something to be dismissed when the emotion carries us briefly in a different direction. It’s bad for families, it’s bad for the kids, and it’s bad for our society.

Live In America? Speak English!

The following excerpts are from a very well written view point from John Rocker, former major league pitcher. This article parallels the message I was trying to communicate in the posting from 11/13/06.

...This campaign is in no way intended to degrade or demean the cultures or heritages of others' nationalities or races. There is never an excuse to show disrespect to anyone based simply on the diversity of his or her culture. However, this is a two way street. When immigrants vote with their feet and come to this country with the intent to live, work, raise a family and enjoy all of the incredible advantages that America has to offer, but make no attempt to learn the language, observe the customs, or celebrate the holidays, these immigrants are showing a tremendous amount of disrespect to their hosts. They are showing a tremendous lack of respect as well to the men and women who over the course of history have sacrificed much to make this country great.

...My life during my time abroad was certainly much easier trying to conform to local society rather than trying to make local society conform to me.

...Every current and future immigrant should realize what all early American immigrants knew, that assimilating the American culture is the only way to truly realize and enjoy all that this great country has to offer.

...The fastest way to destroy America is to destroy the cohesiveness that Americans feel toward one another, and the fastest way to destroy that feeling is to encourage people to separate themselves from one another along the lines of culture and language. The historian Seymour Lipset observed, “The histories of bilingual and bi-cultural societies that do not assimilate are histories of turmoil, tension, and tragedy.”

...These new immigrants, however, will strengthen America and realize genuine prosperity for themselves and their families only if they are willing to integrate themselves into the fabric of this country and truly become Americans. Without assimilation, America will grow more and more divided; and a country divided against itself cannot stand.

Thank you,
John Rocker
September 25, 2006

Joshua & Santa 2006

Presidents Deported Millions of Illegal Immigrants

During the Great Depression, President Herbert Hoover ordered the deportation of all illegal aliens in order to make jobs available to American citizens that desperately needed work.

And then again in 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower deported 1.3 million Mexican nationals! The program was called "Operation Wetback" so that American WWII and Korean veterans had a better chance at jobs. It took 2 years, but they deported them!

Now, if they could deport the illegals back then, they can sure do it today!! If you have doubts about the veracity of this information, enter Operation Wetback into your favorite search engine and confirm it for yourself.

Reminder. Don't forget to pay your taxes... 12 million illegal aliens are depending on you!

Cherokee Indian Rite to Manhood

Do you know the legend of the Cherokee Indian youth's rite of passage? His dad takes him into the forest..blindfolded...and leaves him....alone.

He is required to sit on a stump the whole night...and not take off the blindfold until the ray of sun shines through it. He is all by himself. He cannot cry out for help to anyone. Once he survives the night..he is a MAN. He cannot tell the other boys of this experience. Each lad must come into his own manhood.

The boy was terrified...could hear all kinds of noise...Beasts were all around him. Maybe even some human would hurt him. The wind blew the grass and earth... and it shook his stump. But he sat stoically..never removing the blindfold. It would be the only way he could be a man.

Finally, after a horrific night..the sun appeared and he removed his blindfold. It was then that he saw his father..sitting on the stump next to him...at watch...the entire night.

Amanda Paige Qualley

New pictures have arrived of Amanda. Enjoy!

Dallas Suburb Passes Landmark Anti-Illegal Immigration Laws

FARMERS BRANCH, Texas — This Dallas suburb became the first Texas city to pass tough anti-immigration measures, prompting fears they could lead to sanctioned discrimination and racism.

City Council members unanimously approved fines for landlords who rent to illegal immigrants, making English the city's official language and allowing local authorities to screen suspects in police custody to check their immigration status.

The church Lezlie and I have been attending for the past year recently posted a sign on their new property (which is in our neighborhood). This sign is written entirely in Spanish and I have no idea why, but it is a serious misjudgment by the leadership of the church. This inflammatory sign has put a bad taste in the mouth of those who live in this neighborhood and caused some to wonder just what kind of neighbors this church will be.

What’s the big deal you may ask? This is America! Why place a sign in the front lawn written in a foreign language, especially when there isn’t a significant Hispanic population here? Why do this when illegal immigration is such a political hot topic?

Facilitating those that do not speak English in a country that English is the primary language does nothing for unification. In fact, it is quite divisive. It enables people to live in and claim ignorance because of language barriers on so many different levels.

This isn’t really about racism or prejudice as much as it is just being able to understand each other. What purpose does it serve to use Spanish in America? Do you ever see signs or hear prompts to direct you to German, Dutch, or Russian interpretations? No, because English is the language in America. I have nothing against Hispanics or any other nationality and if I have left you thinking I do, then you have misunderstood the point of this posting. I am sick of seeing Hispanics waving American flags and hearing them declare their loyalty to the US, yet they refuse to learn our English. I especially have a problem with it if and when those same people have violated our laws to be here in the first place.

This sign has disgusted me enough that, along with other reasons, my family and I are most likely going to be looking for a new church home. I wrote a brief, pleasant, but to the point letter to the church leadership and they simply thanked me for the letter and offered no explanation. Much the same way we’ve been disregarded on other fronts.

So if you’re wondering about the sign on Mt. Zion road in Florence, Kentucky it belongs to Florence Baptist Church. I hope if you’re considering a new church home that you’ll remember this inflammatory display and keep right on looking.

My Mini-Me

This adorable little boy is my mini-me. My mother's greatest wish was that I would have a boy that would act just like me and her wish came true; high spirited, bull-headed, and determined! BUT, he's also gorgeous, full of charm, a ladies man, highly intelligent, and strong. I'd say that more accurately describes him as being a chip off the old block.

Amanda Paige Qualley

Announcing the birth of our beautiful neice Amanda. She was born just after 1:00 PM CST today, weighing in at 7 pounds 13 ounces. She is the daughter of Dr. Rachel and Mr. J.D. Qualley, Lezlie's brother and sister-in-law. Congratulations guys. You do good work.

For this, I do not have a webcam. :)

Live Puppy Cam

In an effort to ease directing people to our puppy cam I have created a more accessible internet address. Please go to http://puppycam.yourmoralcompass.net in the future to view the puppies. To view the webcam you must use Internet Explorer and Internet Explorer may ask you to install an active x tool. The tool is completely safe and installs itself once you give it permission to.

By the way, their all spoken for except for one female.

Michigan School Pulls 'Huck Finn' After Parental Complaint

TAYLOR, Mich. — Mark Twain's classic "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" has been pulled from high school classes after a parent of a black student complained that a teacher had students read portions aloud. More...

I'm so annoyed at this crap. Mark Twain is one of the prolific authors of his time. In a lot of ways he is a great historian. Huck Finn has been read in schools for decades. I read it in school, my mother read it in school, heck my grandmother read it. The book, a novel about a young man who befriends a runaway slave near a Mississippi river town, is a great representation of what life was like growing up on the river in the late 1800's.

I'm so sick of affirmative action, political correctness, and claims of discrimination. I mean, we need to be respectful of each other, but history is history and the offense of one or two students should not penalize the entire student body. Its history! Its part of our country's past! It’s just how it was! How can they just take it out? Are they going to stop teaching history now? Forget about the civil war; might as well pretend Lincoln wasn't even president.


Is 'Huck Finn' Racist?

Controversial in death as he was in life, Mark Twain has been seriously accused by some of being a "racist writer," whose writing is offensive to black readers, perpetuates cheap slave-era stereotypes, and deserves no place on today's bookshelves.

To those of us who have drunk gratefully of Twain's wisdom and humanity, such accusations are ludicrous. But for some people they clearly touch a raw nerve, and for that reason they deserve a serious answer. Let's look at the book that is most commonly singled out for this criticism, the novel that Ernest Hemingway identified as the source of all American literature: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

For Twain's critics, the novel is racist on the face of it, and for the most obvious reason: many characters use the word "nigger" throughout. But since the action of the book takes place in the south twenty years before the Civil War, it would be amazing if they didn't use that word.

A closer reading also reveals Twain's serious satiric intent. In one scene, for instance, Aunt Sally hears of a steamboat explosion.

"Good gracious! anybody hurt?" she asks.

"No'm," comes the answer. "Killed a nigger."

But anyone who imagines that Mark Twain meant this literally is missing the point. Rather, Twain is using this casual dialogue ironically, as a way to underscore the chilling truth about the old south, that it was a society where perfectly "nice" people didn't consider the death of a black person worth their notice. To drive the point home, Twain has the lady continue:

"Well, it's lucky, because sometimes people do get hurt."

That's a small case in point. But what is the book really about? It's about nothing less than freedom and the quest for freedom. It's about a slave who breaks the law and risks his life to win his freedom and be reunited with his family, and a white boy who becomes his friend and helps him escape.

Because of his upbringing, the boy starts out believing that slavery is part of the natural order; but as the story unfolds he wrestles with his conscience, and when the crucial moment comes he decides he will be damned to the flames of hell rather than betray his black friend. And Jim, as Twain presents him, is hardly a caricature. Rather, he is the moral center of the book, a man of courage and nobility, who risks his freedom -- risks his life -- for the sake of his friend Huck.

Note, too, that it is not just white critics who make this point. Booker T. Washington noted how Twain "succeeded in making his readers feel a genuine respect for 'Jim,'" and pointed out that Twain, in creating Jim's character, had "exhibited his sympathy and interest in the masses of the negro people."

The great black novelist Ralph Ellison, too, noted how Twain allows Jim's "dignity and human capacity" to emerge in the novel.

"Huckleberry Finn knew, as did Mark Twain [Ellison wrote], that Jim was not only a slave but a human being [and] a symbol of humanity . . . and in freeing Jim, Huck makes a bid to free himself of the conventionalized evil taken for civilization by the town" -- in other words, of the abomination of slavery itself.

In fact, you can search through all of Twain's writings, not just the thirty-plus volumes of novels, stories, essays, and letters, but also his private correspondence, his posthumous autobiography and his intimate journals, and you'll be hard put to find a derogatory remark about the black race -- and this at a time when crude racial stereotypes were the basic coin of popular fiction, stage comedy, and popular songs.

What you find in Twain is the opposite: a lively affection and admiration for black Americans that began when he was still a boy and grew steadily through the years. In a widely praised post-Civil War sketch titled "A True Story," for example, he wrenchingly evoked the pain of an ex-slave as she recalls being separated from her young son on the auction block, and her joy at discovering him in a black regiment at war's end.

And on those occasions when Twain does venture to compare blacks and whites, the comparison is not conspicuously flattering to the whites. Things like:

* "One of my theories is that the hearts of men are about alike, all over the world, whatever their skin-complexions may be."

* "Nearly all black and brown skins are beautiful, but a beautiful white skin is rare."

* "There are many humorous things in the world; among them is the white man's notion that he is less savage than all the other savages."

Mark Twain a "racist"! Isn't it about time we put this ridiculous notion to rest?

-- Peter Salwen