It Gets Better

The boy became a young man. The young man became a cause.
The cause became the hope for the country and its laws.

Too many martyrs and too many dead.
Too many lives, too many empty words were said.
Too many times for too many angry men.
Oh let it never be again.

-Phil Ochs 

"The Ballad of Medgar Evers"

Hating Kids

It is a fact that some people don't deal well with kids, but do those same people genuinely hate the existence of kids? That is what I hear when someone says they "don't like kids"--that they would rather kids not exist. It is plausible someone could be so scared of kids, (viewing them as fragile beings physically and or emotionally) that they fear contact with them, but that isn't "hating" kids. The phenomenon of hating kids probably just comes from thinking they have no tangible value or worth (to them). Its akin to hating the neighbors obnoxious ugly puppy that just yaps all day.

My general thought is that society divorces harm and safety from love and hate. It's almost like, loving a child puts you in the "potential for harm" category, and hating a child puts you in the "no potential for harm" group. The rationale is that loving kids puts you in their path, and hating kids causes you to stay away. Therefore, it becomes more advisable to make like you hate kids than to express any kind of love for them, because then society views you as too distant from them to be a threat.

Under My Thumb

I wasn't cut out to work with kids. I'm no good in the female-dominated world of childcare. It was rather disheartening to see how they treat the kids, but what do I know? They're the professionals, I'm just the caring young man. The children would have eaten me alive.

I'm too nice. I can't yell at kids. That's the personality issue that can not be undone. I am too patient to work with kids, too passive. I can't adequately take out my personal frustrations on a kid. Therefore, I'm no good in that line of work.

Adults thrive on keeping children living under their thumb, which is probably why I was so unsuccessful at passing myself off as an adult.

Stan, on Class Warfare

I didn't create this image, I just gave him a name and a voice.

I felt this was appropriate considering the same US politicians he's talking to are currently playing Russian Roulette with the global economy to advance ideological agendas favored by millionaires to the detriment of everyone else. The stability of the world is "too big to fail." If we don't bail it out, we destine our children to live on a sinking boat. 

So Stan says, bicker later, raise the debt limit now.

Bleeding [F]earts

Don't like an adult's opinion on young people? Wait twenty minutes, it will change.  

Don't trust anyone over 30 (because they can't make up their minds), but don't trust anyone under 30 either (because they can).

A Small Noise

Remember the old joke about adult power: "a man farts at a kid's eye-level"? I've been thinking about aphorisms of empowerment geared for kids, to get them thinking about non-destructive ways they can influence their own destiny and those around them, and this one I just can't seem to shake. Tell a kid you know to go in easy but leave a big impression--to be a small noise but leave a big stink. You could say, it's contrary to being 'loud and proud,' and it cures their pinkeye.

It is better to disorient one's oppressors in a creeping blaze of controversy than to open fire in a physical gunshot that can be easily deflected and get the bigger guns brought in. The mightier opponent doesn't have to know they've been marked until they are consumed in it. It's like allowing the fire in a young heart to spread on its own without calling attention to oneself as the arsonist, or the "shooter."

There will always be some who adore the attention that comes with being 'loud and proud', but in the end, the small noise from the undetected rebel always stirs the largest influence. It is what the adults will call subversion. It is control taken where power is given.

Tell a kid they got to be "silent but deadly," and they'll understand and appreciate it--the ready ones.

Happy New Year

Another year has come to a close. It's a new year for all of us together. This is a time we as humans have set aside for forgiveness, let's not forget that going into the new year.

Peace, love, and justice. -Crake

Someday at Christmas

Someday at Christmas men won't be boys
Playing with [kids] like kids play with toys
One warm December our hearts will see
A world where [love] is free.

Someday at Christmas there'll be no [culture wars]
When we have learned what Christmas is for.
When we have found what life's really worth
There'll be peace on earth.

Someday at Christmas we'll see a land
With no hungry children, no empty hand.
One happy morning people will share
a world where people care.

Someday at Christmas there'll be no tears,
Where [all ages] are equal and no one has fears.
One shining moment, one prayer away
From our world today.

Someday at Christmas man will not fail,
Hate will be gone and love will prevail,
Someday a new world that we can start
With hope in every heart.

Someday all our dreams will come to be,
Someday in a world where [all] are free,
Maybe not in time for you and me
But someday at Christmastime.

The Antichrist

For now, an aphorism.

Cyber-vigilantism is an Antichrist. If anything can be said to be an antichrist in this day in age, and the mere labeling of such calls the same immediacy and fear from the populace as the labels it gives it's own well-meaning adversaries, then it makes sense to call a spade a spade. The Antichrist is alive and well, and its name is the anti-pedophile group Perverted Justice. Its name is the vigilante group Absolute Zero.