Unexpected Event: Mike Passes Out In Fire!!

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Archive through March 06, 2001 25   03/06 12:13pm

Karuuna

Wednesday, March 07, 2001 - 08:53 am Click here to edit this post

Guru -- as someone who has suffered many "beatings" with a belt, a brush, and the flat of the hand, I can assure you a great deal of damage can be done -- both physical and emotional. I would respectfully ask that you take a moment to carefully consider your remarks and thoughts about this.

Guruchaz

Wednesday, March 07, 2001 - 09:32 am Click here to edit this post

Oh please. Like you're probably the only one to ever be disciplined and dislike it.

I agree that some parents excessively spank their kids for different reasons at the drop of a hat and that causes problems later in life. I really don't know your situation but my senses tell me that your situation was no different than many others who were disciplined similarly and grew up to be caring, upstanding citizens.

Again, I'm talking about the belt, flyswatter, and flat of the hand. Not the fist.

Max

Wednesday, March 07, 2001 - 09:41 am Click here to edit this post

You can't believe everything you read or hear about what cast members from these kind of shows are doing in "real life."

Just because someone says they saw the guy "beating" his kid doesn't mean he was doing anything other than giving a swift smack on the butt when the kid messed up. Acutally, all it really means is that someone wants to get a rise out of you by saying they have some dirt on someone who's in the media spotlight. It's just gossip.

Guruchaz

Wednesday, March 07, 2001 - 12:20 pm Click here to edit this post

Exactly, in 90% of the cases.

Rollerboy

Wednesday, March 07, 2001 - 12:38 pm Click here to edit this post

Ah, finally, the idle gossip, wild speculation and baseless rumor thread. Now we're having fun.

Guruchaz

Wednesday, March 07, 2001 - 12:38 pm Click here to edit this post

You got it.

Karuuna

Wednesday, March 07, 2001 - 01:49 pm Click here to edit this post

Guru -- your senses are quite wrong. I was *beaten* by a belt till my legs bled and I couldn't walk. I was slapped repeatedly in the face with an open hand, until my lips and nose bled, and I was almost unconscious. I was also choked repeatedly, thrown down stairs and locked in a small windowless closet for hours -- all in the name of discipline.

You jumped to a quite erroneous conclusion without asking questions and while making a lot of assumptions according to your own biases. If there is anyone guilty of wild speculation and baseless rumor, it would appear to be you.

Karuuna

Wednesday, March 07, 2001 - 02:30 pm Click here to edit this post

To be more clear, my point is simply this: that what instrument was used is not necessarily the determining factor in whether something could legitimately be called a "beating" or not.

Rollerboy

Wednesday, March 07, 2001 - 03:10 pm Click here to edit this post

Karuuna, I was the one who mentioned wild speculation and baseless rumor, not Guru. I was simply making an observation regarding the character assassination of Michael being perpetrated here. Further, the observation was tongue in cheek.

Karuuna

Wednesday, March 07, 2001 - 04:51 pm Click here to edit this post

Roller, I'm aware that you made the comment. However, Guru agreed with it by saying "You got it." So I think I'm correct in believing that he accepts that view.

As for character assassination, my comments about Michael were my opinion, just as others have offered opinions about other participants in Survivor, both positive and negative. It is based on my years of working with both the battered and batterers, and seeing striking similarities in the personality of Michael with many of the batterers I've worked with and studied. It is, however, MY opinion, as I have stated clearly previously. I have never *accused* Michael of doing anything in particular. I don't know the facts about any such accusations, so I have chosen not to comment on their veracity.

In looking over other comments, I don't see anyone wildly assassinating character. I see people offering their opinions of his character, based on what they have heard or seen. That's what we do here, comment on the folks in the Survivor game, and what our impressions of them are.

I did think your comment was tongue in cheek. I do not know if Guru's was also. However, Guru commented about MY character, and I do know that Guru was quite wrong about his impression of me, and his assessment of ME was based on his own wild conjecturing, and I presume his own biases. I think I have every right to correct that.

Guruchaz

Wednesday, March 07, 2001 - 05:52 pm Click here to edit this post

Karuuna, just because in your paradigm you believe you were "beaten" based on your own personal situation, it doesn't mean that's the solid definition for everyone else's paradigm just because a news article prints the word "beat" in its pages.

If you were treated that horribly, I am sorry for that but that doesn't mean Michael is automatically guilty either just because a supermarket "rag" says so.

Rollerboy

Thursday, March 08, 2001 - 08:07 am Click here to edit this post

I think you have tunnel vision Karuuna. Pre- judging others based on your own experiences, without all the facts, leads to flawed conclusions. Also, slandering someone and then stating you were only expressing your "opinion" about them is a cop out. Of course that's just my opinion.

Moondance

Thursday, March 08, 2001 - 12:57 pm Click here to edit this post

Rollerboy and Guru ... it was Eaglemagic who brought up hearing he was a child beater not Kuruuna... I believe Kur was just stating that Mike had characteristics similar to the people she had worked with. She was open and expressed her experience and feelings and shouldn't be condemned for that... JMO

Karuuna

Thursday, March 08, 2001 - 01:27 pm Click here to edit this post

I don't know if I have tunnel vision, but I surely have a problem with the logic being expressed here. Because I fail to see the difference in my expressing my "hunch" that Michael was violent, and Guru's "my senses tell me" comment that he made about me; and RollerBoy's "I think you have tunnel vision" comment -- both of which were negative comments about my character.

All of these things are conclusions and opinions, based on observations we have each made as individuals. They may be right or wrong. They may be somewhat right or somewhat wrong. They should be subject to change if new information presents itself that contradicts them (IMO).

Perhaps one of you could enlighten me about why it is okay for you two to speculate about my character, but it's slander if I speculate about someone else's?

Guruchaz

Thursday, March 08, 2001 - 01:42 pm Click here to edit this post

The problem, Karuuna, is that I can't tell if you were properly disciplined and just bitter about it or if you were actually beaten senseless. It's the same for supermarket "rags". What's true and what's not and how does your story fit in with Mike? I'm confused as you now want to seem to talk about your childhood.

Moondance

Thursday, March 08, 2001 - 01:49 pm Click here to edit this post

Guru "properly disciplined" is defined differently for everyone. You seem to only think your definition is the right one when there are others who would disagree.

Digilady

Thursday, March 08, 2001 - 02:01 pm Click here to edit this post

Absolutely, Moon. IMHO from what Kar wrote, there was nothing proper in THAT discipline at-tall.

We call that 'abuse' in these parts.

Rollerboy

Thursday, March 08, 2001 - 02:07 pm Click here to edit this post

Please explain how the tunnel vision comment can be construed to be a negative statement about your character. A lack of objectivity is not a negative or positive state and it isn't "good" or "bad". The ad hominum statement you responded with didn't really advance the discussion or address the issues raised.

Guruchaz

Thursday, March 08, 2001 - 03:10 pm Click here to edit this post

Karuuna, you are right. It wasn't my place to make assumptions on the severity of your past.

Moon, you are also right. Some parents spank their kids and some don't. In most cases both situations generate individuals with positive, moral, upstanding character.

The definition of "beat" is different for everyone, but my definition is a parent who hits their child for every little thing they do wrong or drag them around on the floor at the supermarket. They also use their fists and also hit them in areas other than the legs and rump causing bruises or damage, especially on a repeated basis.

Now you can use my definition of "beat" and see how it matches up with yours.

I have got the belt from my dad in the past and I have got the flyswatter from my mom a few times and was slapped once by my grandmother for saying something smart to my mom. In all those cases, I never grew up thinking I was beat or that my parents were "beaters".

Moondance

Thursday, March 08, 2001 - 03:27 pm Click here to edit this post

I don't need to match and compare... I find the subject interesting. I have worked in a Rape treatment and abuse center and the people who do abuse usually have been abused themselves ... it is a difficult cycle to break. I have met some that have abused because they were disciplined with physicality (anything from a slap to full force). I have met some who have high moral character that their parents have never touched them but yet disciplined with in a non physical way.

I feel as a society we have tend to fall back on physically disciplining because it is faster and easier when there are so many more different choices to make. I want us as a society to know that we can move forward in a more positive and fair way of raising ourselves and our children.

Just to bring up a point ... the recent shooting in a California School...Santana... there were many factors but the one that stands out is how hard children can be to each other... Granted this boy made a drastic choice ... he probably didn't have the tools inside himself to make a better one but I feel we all need to take responsibility for what goes on in the world... These kids learned how to make verbal and physical fun of this boy somewhere ... and the boy who decided to express himself to this extreme learned this also... I guess what I am saying ... the less abuse ... verbal and physical we can use the better.

Karuuna

Thursday, March 08, 2001 - 03:33 pm Click here to edit this post

Guru -- I appreciate your response. All I have been trying to say all along is that one cannot deduce whether something constitutes a "beating" without more information, which appears to be what you are saying now. However, your initial comment was as follows:
"Parents fear being sued for another person's definition of "beating" like with a belt or a fly swatter or the flat of the hand. I seriously doubt they meant with a fist."
From your comment, it certainly sounded as if you believed that someone could hit a child with a belt or fly swatter or flat of the hand, and that would clearly NOT constitute a beating. From your comment, it sounded as if the only thing that counted as a beating in your mind is if a fist were used. That's what I responded to, because in my personal experience an open hand, or a belt could be used for a beating. In fact, in a town not far from here, a child was beaten to death by his adoptive mother with a wooden spoon.

I have never responded in any way as to whether I thought Michael beat his child or not. All I have said in response to that was that I don't have enough information about that claim to accept or deny its veracity.

My own personal definition of "beating" has to do with intent, motivation and severity. When one's intent is to inflict great pain, one's motivation is to vent anger, and the results are any kind of marks or anything that takes time to heal, that's beating -- whether it happens once or many times.

Personally, I don't believe in any form of hitting a child, however, I certainly agree that there are variations in degree.

Guruchaz

Thursday, March 08, 2001 - 03:41 pm Click here to edit this post

That's a good example, Moon. Who's to say that the boy who shot everyone at the school probably had been lightly disciplined in the past? You get kids today who mouth off at their parents and at authority figures at the drop of a hat. You have other parents out there who basically expect their friends' parents to raise their kids because they don't have time or can't make time. You have those that are so liberal that they let their kids run off and do whatever they want without knowing where they are or what they are doing. Yet, when interviewed, they probably state they are the best parents in the world.

Who's to say that a historical smack on the butt wouldn't have changed the future outcome of that boy shooting the gun? It all adds up, one way or another.

Karuuna

Thursday, March 08, 2001 - 03:53 pm Click here to edit this post

Rollerboy- I can't help but feel that you are being somewhat disingenuous here, or that we're from different planets.

First of all, Merriam defines tunnel vision as "narrowmindedness". Merriam further defines narrowmindedness as "lack of tolerance or breadth of vision". Perhaps you truly don't see any good/bad implications here. But in my simple mind, I can't say that I've ever heard of anyone aspiring to be narrowminded. Rather when someone is called narrowminded, it is generally used in a disparaging way. Perhaps you didn't mean it that way, but then your use would seem to be the uncommon one.

As for the ad hominem argument: you accused me of prejudging others and slandering someone. My response addressed that concern, and asked why it was okay for you to make comments about personality traits (and that was neither prejudging without all the facts or slander), but I could not. That was certainly on point of the argument.

An ad hominem attack would have called into question your character. I fail to see where I have attacked your character. I called you to explain your logic. If in some way you feel I have attacked you, I would appreciate it if you would point that out to me, so that I could learn from it.

Karuuna

Thursday, March 08, 2001 - 04:00 pm Click here to edit this post

Moon - thanks for your participation here. I always appreciate reading your viewpoint. I agree that often parents resort to physical discipline because it's faster. I also think it's because they don't know what else to do. It only makes sense to me, however, that if you teach a child by hitting them to make them behave, then what they learn is that the appropriate way to get others to do what they want is to hit them. And it helps if you're bigger than they are.

From what I've read initially about the young man who did the shooting in Santee, his father was very strict with him, and frequently used physical punishment. Again drawing from my own experience of such things, it would not be surprising to me to hear that his father bullied him much the way the other kids did. His learned response was to fight back physically. And since he was much smaller than most of the kids that picked on him, he found a way to equalize that.

I've known too many kids who resorted to violence out of the pain caused by the violence inflicted on them. That's the typical situation. And it breaks my heart that we, as a nation, don't seem to get it.

Moondance

Thursday, March 08, 2001 - 04:08 pm Click here to edit this post

I agree Kur... children only do what they know.

I have not read into the history of that family but that would back up the point that the boy only acted out the only way he knew ... if he knew how to communicate without physical violence then I believe he would have not made that choice.

Max

Thursday, March 08, 2001 - 04:36 pm Click here to edit this post

NOTE: This discussion is now taking place in the General Discussion room so that more people can participate. :)

Thanks, Guru, for taking the initiative to move this conversation over there.