Doll using http://elouai.com/doll-makers/candybar-doll-maker.php 

Alan Duff's "Once Were Warriors"

I might have to read this book someday. An excerpt from the summary:

Following in his father's footsteps as a displaced warrior is Nig Heke, the eldest son, who becomes a member of the Brown Fist gang. While Maori warriors of the past fought with honor, even tending to their wounded enemies in an effort to ensure they could continue to fight, these Brown Fist modern day warriors have no such code of ethics. Instead they threaten their neighborhood with unprovoked violence, even going so far as to kick a woman in the face. As Nig poignantly reflects, "The dream'd turned to a nightmare" (Pg.153).

After becoming a Brown Fist, Nig has his face tattooed like his Maori warrior ancestors. He gets his tattoo done with a tattoo gun, rather than in the traditional Maori method of chiseling it on. Nig has a dream one night in which he asks men with detailed face tattoos if they are his Maori ancestors. They answer:

'No. We are not of your cowardly blood, for we know you are knowing fear. We are warriors'... Nig gestured frantically towards his face, his new tattoos just like theirs and freshly swollen from doing... Their tattooed faces were deeply etched, while his manhood markings were but lightly marked (Pgs. 182-183).

In this passage, Duff reflects upon the difference between the Maori warriors of the past and the recent Maori gangs. The "deeply etched" tattoos were chiseled in, often taking several weeks or even months to do, symbolizing the deep honor, responsibility and work that went into becoming a warrior. The Brown Fists and other gangs were "lightly marked," both literally and figuratively. The tattoos took less time, pain, and investment to have done.

Functions of poverty

I was going to just type out what my college text says, but then I thought, "Surely someone else has done this already." And a quick search lead me to the original article:

Herbert J. Gans. The Uses of Poverty: The Poor Pay All.
Social Policy July/August 1971: pp. 20-24.
http://www.soc.duke.edu/~jcook/gans.html

To quote:

The Functions of Poverty
First, the existence of poverty ensures that society's "dirty work" will be done. Every society has such work: physically dirty or dangerous, temporary, dead-end and underpaid, undignified and menial jobs. Society can fill these jobs by paying higher wages than for "clean" work, or it can force people who have no other choice to do the dirty work - and at low wages. In America, poverty functions to provide a low-wage labor pool that is willing - or rather, unable to be unwilling - to perform dirty work at low cost. Indeed, this function of the poor is so important that in some Southern states, welfare payments have been cut off during the summer months when the poor are needed to work in the fields. Moreover, much of the debate about the Negative Income Tax and the Family Assistance Plan [welfare programs] has concerned their impact on the work incentive, by which is actually meant the incentive of the poor to do the needed dirty work if the wages therefrom are no larger than the income grant. Many economic activities that involve dirty work depend on the poor for their existence: restaurants, hospitals, parts of the garment industry, and "truck farming," among others, could not persist in their present form without the poor.

Second, because the poor are required to work at low wages, they subsidize a variety of economic activities that benefit the affluent. For example, domestics subsidize the upper middle and upper classes, making life easier for their employers and freeing affluent women for a variety of professional, cultural, civic and partying activities. Similarly, because the poor pay a higher proportion of their income in property and sales taxes, among others, they subsidize many state and local governmental services that benefit more affluent groups. In addition, the poor support innovation in medical practice as patients in teaching and research hospitals and as guinea pigs in medical experiments.

Third, poverty creates jobs for a number of occupations and professions that serve or "service" the poor, or protect the rest of society from them. As already noted, penology would be minuscule without the poor, as would the police. Other activities and groups that flourish because of the existence of poverty are the numbers game, the sale of heroin and cheap wines and liquors, Pentecostal ministers, faith healers, prostitutes, pawn shops, and the peacetime army, which recruits its enlisted men mainly from among the poor.

Fourth, the poor buy goods others do not want and thus prolong the economic usefulness of such goods - day-old bread, fruit and vegetables that otherwise would have to be thrown out, secondhand clothes, and deteriorating automobiles and buildings. They also provide incomes for doctors, lawyers, teachers, and others who are too old, poorly trained or incompetent to attract more affluent clients.

In addition to economic functions, the poor perform a number of social functions:

Fifth, the poor can be identified and punished as alleged or real deviants in order to uphold the legitimacy of conventional norms. To justify the desirability of hard work, thrift, honesty, and monogamy, for example, the defenders of these norms must be able to find people who can be accused of being lazy, spendthrift, dishonest, and promiscuous. Although there is some evidence that the poor are about as moral and law-abiding as anyone else, they are more likely than middle-class transgressors to be caught and punished when they participate in deviant acts. Moreover, they lack the political and cultural power to correct the stereotypes that other people hold of them and thus continue to be thought of as lazy, spendthrift, etc., by those who need living proof that moral deviance does not pay.

Sixth, and conversely, the poor offer vicarious participation to the rest of the population in the uninhibited sexual, alcoholic, and narcotic behavior in which they are alleged to participate and which, being freed from the constraints of affluence, they are often thought to enjoy more than the middle classes. Thus many people, some social scientists included, believe that the poor not only are more given to uninhibited behavior (which may be true, although it is often motivated by despair more than by lack of inhibition) but derive more pleasure from it than affluent people (which research by Lee Rainwater, Walter Miller and others shows to be patently untrue). However, whether the poor actually have more sex and enjoy it more is irrelevant; so long as middle-class people believe this to be true, they can participate in it vicariously when instances are reported in factual or fictional form.

Seventh, the poor also serve a direct cultural function when culture created by or for them is adopted by the more affluent. The rich often collect artifacts from extinct folk cultures of poor people; and almost all Americans listen to the blues, Negro spirituals, and country music, which originated among the Southern poor. Recently they have enjoyed the rock styles that were born, like the Beatles, in the slums, and in the last year, poetry written by ghetto children has become popular in literary circles. The poor also serve as culture heroes, particularly, of course, to the Left; but the hobo, the cowboy, the hipster, and the mythical prostitute with a heart of gold have performed this function for a variety of groups.

Eighth, poverty helps to guarantee the status of those who are not poor. In every hierarchical society, someone has to be at the bottom; but in American society, in which social mobility is an important goal for many and people need to know where they stand, the poor function as a reliable and relatively permanent measuring rod for status comparisons. This is particularly true for the working class, whose politics is influenced by the need to maintain status distinctions between themselves and the poor, much as the aristocracy must find ways of distinguishing itself from the nouveaux riches.

Ninth, the poor also aid the upward mobility of groups just above them in the class hierarchy. Thus a goodly number of Americans have entered the middle class through the profits earned from the provision of goods and services in the slums, including illegal or nonrespectable ones that upper-class and upper-middle-class businessmen shun because of their low prestige. As a result, members of almost every immigrant group have financed their upward mobility by providing slum housing, entertainment, gambling, narcotics, etc., to later arrivals - most recently to Blacks and Puerto Ricans.

Tenth, the poor help to keep the aristocracy busy, thus justifying its continued existence. "Society" uses the poor as clients of settlement houses and beneficiaries of charity affairs; indeed, the aristocracy must have the poor to demonstrate its superiority over other elites who devote themselves to earning money.

Eleventh, the poor, being powerless, can be made to absorb the costs of change and growth in American society. During the nineteenth century, they did the backbreaking work that built the cities; today, they are pushed out of their neighborhoods to make room for "progress. Urban renewal projects to hold middle-class taxpayers in the city and expressways to enable suburbanites to commute downtown have typically been located in poor neighborhoods, since no other group will allow itself to be displaced. For the same reason, universities, hospitals, and civic centers also expand into land occupied by the poor. The major costs of the industrialization of agriculture have been borne by the poor, who are pushed off the land without recompense; and they have paid a large share of the human cost of the growth of American power overseas, for they have provided many of the foot soldiers for Vietnam and other wars.

Twelfth, the poor facilitate and stabilize the American political process. Because they vote and participate in politics less than other groups, the political system is often free to ignore them. Moreover, since they can rarely support Republicans, they often provide the Democrats with a captive constituency that has no other place to go. As a result, the Democrats can count on their votes, and be more responsive to voters - for example, the white working class - who might otherwise switch to the Republicans.

Thirteenth, the role of the poor in upholding conventional norms (see the fifth point, above) also has a significant political function. An economy based on the ideology of laissez faire requires a deprived population that is allegedly unwilling to work or that can be considered inferior because it must accept charity or welfare in order to survive. Not only does the alleged moral deviancy of the poor reduce the moral pressure on the present political economy to eliminate poverty but socialist alternatives can be made to look quite unattractive if those who will benefit most from them can be described as lazy, spendthrift, dishonest and promiscuous.

My college text pulls out two more functions - 14) absorbing political and economic costs of social renewal by providing "foot soldiers" for these programs and 15) adding to political stability and centrist policies by non-participation. I noticed that some other sites also add two more, but state them differently. It seems to be a matter of how you break it all down.

Short summary of “Public Assistance and Income Maintenance”

In “Public Assistance and Income Maintenance”, H. Wayne Johnson introduces the social and demographic makeup of American poverty, and the functions that poverty serves in our society. He summarizes antipoverty programs like social insurance and public assistance, dispelling a few myths along the way. The chapter concludes with a short discussion of tax reforms.

Some poverty is insular, based on social grouping and geography, such as minority communities and areas with a high manual labor force. Other poverty is more of a case situation. People who are poor because of job lay-offs, disability, marital status, health problems, addictions, or lack of education. These people can be living in affluent communities and still are poor. Like some other social problems, poverty is tough to correct because it serves many roles in our society. The most obvious being cheap labor and someone to do the “dirty work”. One of the not so obvious roles is the prolonging of marketability of obsolete or lesser quality manufactured goods. Then there is the psychological dependency of the more affluent who use the poorer classes as a means to boost their perceived self-worth and give them a chance to experience the excitement of “slumming”.

Most antipoverty programs can be separated into social insurance and public assistance. Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance and worker's compensation are examples of social insurance programs. These are meant for all citizens, regardless of their social economical status, race, creed, age, gender, etc. Public assistance programs are usually aimed to a specific group(s), like the handicapped, aged and children, mothers and so forth. They include services like housing, food stamps, food assistance, Medicaid and educational assistance. Tax reforms have also brought more relief in the form of deductions and tax credits.

This chapter is informative and gives the reader a good basis for coming to terms with the truth of American poverty and the programs designed to combat it. One could ask themselves, though, if it is possible to remove some of the psychosocial need for poverty in our society might help us to actually succeed better in reducing it - or even removing it. To remove the deep cause of poverty and our reliance on it. Perhaps it is not, but it does cause one to stop and think of our convictions and beliefs.

tick -tick -tick

For my entertainment.

Though I will give you a personal invitation to my insanity.

The Changeling Chronicles

You'll have to click on the pictures to read most of them. I'm not a big time webcomic artist. I'm just a nut letting off steam.

The story actually begins here.

Meeting Spiritual/Emotional needs Iroquois style

Each nation is also divided into two halves, or moieties. Moieties provide ceremonial services for each other. In particular, they bury the other side's dead and console them during their grief.
(from Carnegie Museums)

Someone else caught this.

A friend checking out my objections to The Wealth Building Foundation, brought this to my attention:

Note the unauthorized use of the Verisign logo near the submit form ;) the form is not submitted securely, and there's no https:// version of the site, so there are no valid reasons to use the logo.

As I said before, an obvious scam.



Meanwhile, the debate goes on. One of the participants is summarizing his experience:

scam
Nase in a corner

He's still at it.

The genius of The Wealth Building Foundation is still at it. Here's what they supposedly want summarized by someone who studies economics:

What I'm getting out of all of this is that it's a cult. Members live, work, and donate everything to the foundation which controls everything. The company car, the debt management, the house, everything. Everything that the foundation takes in the form of savings goes to making the foundation more profitable for those that run it. In return for the foundation disciplining the members, the foundation gets to syphon off some of the money. If people learned to be more disciplined with their own money, whey would have the full benefit of the "free" houses, cars, and such without the foundation. (But were is the extraordinary profits of telling them that.) I once thought of running a sort of cult, when I was very young. Just because you can do it doesn't mean you should. I remember seeing pictures of Jim Jones with pictures of food that was supposedly grown in Jonestown. The food was in grocery store bags. If you promise 1000 people that you can give them the world. One of them will believe you. Jim Jones had over 700 people following him when his final pyramid came down. (Don't remember the exact numbers.) How long do you think you can keep up your scams? How many people are you going to take down with you? As many as Charles Manson? David Koresh? Are you going to have people kill themselves to join you on the other side of a comet, or will it be because your AI became God and gave some secret reason to drink the poison.

You can see the full reply with quoted text if you want.

Yep, that's WBF for you!

Ponzi!

Another analysis of The Wealth Building Foundation.

Main paper for Family Dynamics Class

(without the oral presentation, of course)

A Comparision of Historical Archetypal Intergenerational Family Roles

From the beginning of history, people have told stories and myths to pass on morals and role expectations. These archetypes live on in the lives of people even until this day, in some form or another. Carl Jung from his work with psychology and specifically dream symbolization summarized these roles into two categories with different incarnations. Joseph Campbell found many archetypal constants in his studies of ancient myths, folk tales and ceremonies. Much of Western Civilization takes its expectations of family roles from the Bible and Greco-Roman mythology, yet even in Native American legends, there is a correlation among many aspects of family roles. This is not to say that there are not exceptions or that the roles match completely, but the agreement of certain positive role traits for grandfathers, grandmothers, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters appears to support a stable intergenerational family interaction structure.

As people mature and grow, their specific family role often changes. Women can go from daughter to mother to grandmother. Men can go from son to father to grandfather. Not all do, but for most these two generational progressions are very likely. It makes sense on one level to look at the difference between the genders in a generalized manner before going into the specific role archetypes. Jung named the generalized gender archetypes animus and anima. In its positive form, the animus is a mediator of religious experience and ceremony, a champion and protector, an initiator of action, objective and full of spiritual wisdom. In its negative form, the animus is a robber, a murderer, a rapist, brutal, distant, cold and always sees absolutes. Likewise the anima in its positive form is a mediator between Ego and Self, a guide to the inner world, personal, spiritual and full of transcendent wisdom. In its negative form, the anima is a seducer, a "poison damsel", a witch, insecure, moody, depressed and uncertain. The aspects of the animus and the anima are present in folklore and legends and provide good comparison points for gender roles that seem to cross many cultures. (Jung, 1968, pp 186 - 207).

Though Joseph Campbell arranged his research in the form of archetypal hero stories, it is not that hard for us to see the family archetypal roles in the framework of a family gathering or feast. At the head of Campbell's dining table would probably be the Hebrew "Aged of the Aged", an ancient male ancestor, seen only in profile for no one can know all he knows, with a long beard that contains the Truth of all Truths, guarding the gates of mercy and dispensing splendor, descending in equilibrium and a balance of power (Campbell, 1973, pp 268). To his right possibly would be the Native American Spider Woman, a grand-motherly figure who keeps track of paternity, gives advice to the young and instructs them in the matter of traditions (pp 69 - 70, 131). To his left would be the archetypal Ruler or Sun God, the father and ruler who tests and challenges his children until he deems them worthy to receive his knowledge and power (pp 131 - 136). Next to him, is the Universal Mother, nourishing and protecting creatrix and life giver (pp 113-114). Across from her, is probably the Archetypal Hero-son, constantly challenging the father in preparation to someday take his place (pp131-136). Possibly keeping the peace, would be the daughter, The Princess of the World, the treasure of her father's eye as are all Sleeping Beauties and Midas's own child. A pure and affectionate young lady, destined to be the future wife of another hero (pp190 & 243).

This family feast would probably look like many that have been portrayed in film and literature. Grandfather giving out advice and direction. Grandmother making sure the traditions are being followed. Father demanding order and respect, while the Mother is creating a nourishing meal and occasionally breaking up tensions between the Father and the Son. And the Daughter trying to smooth things over between Father and brother to keep their conflict from coming to a head during this special time.

Still, one had to wonder if some of this primitive tableau may be influenced by Campbell's own experiences - it matches so well with many of the family gatherings shown by Hollywood. What would the same family feast look like with the Greco-Roman gods in attendance? Our grandfather figure, Kronus (alternate spelling "Cronus") was once the ruler of a great golden age (Buxton, 2004, pp 54) and tried to keep his off-spring from succeeding him by swallowing them whole (pp 48). One can only imagine the interaction between this grandfather and the father Zeus, who while not quite matching his ancestor's golden era in his endeavors, at least found a way to keep his own off-spring from usurping him (ibid.). "You'll never be the ruler I was!" would probably be said more than once, answered by, "At least I'm still in charge, old man." Our grandmother would be in the form of Rhea, the universal mother and goddess of grain and fertility. We could probably imagine her intervening between Zeus and Kronos, while making the meal. Hera, the mother figure and protector of marriage (pp 71), would probably be making sure no one was misbehaving. Her son Hephaestos, or Vulcan, who despite his despised lameness still uses his skills to support his father's rule and his mother's power (pp 84), would find himself often in the middle of the fights of his parents, making neither of them happy with him. While his half-sister Athena, goddess of wisdom, craftsmanship and war (pp 69), busies herself in a productive manner.

Looking at the Greco-Roman tableau gives us a much more contentious family gathering, more so if the rest of the Titans and Olympians are in attendance. And yet, we can see an exaggeration of the stereotypical Italian/Greek family dynamic also shown in films and on stage. The family still has a structure in which there the family needs are being met.

Continuing on, let us consider the Bibical family archetypal roles. Jacob, father of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, is the greatest example of a grandfather in the Old Testament. Head Patriarch of his family and its spiritual head, Jacob gave guidance, blessed his off-spring and became a surrogate father to two of his grandsons (Gen. 48: 1-20). A good example of a Biblical grandmother would probably be Naomi, mother in-law of Ruth. In the Book of Ruth, Naomi is the keeper of traditions and advisor of the younger women in her family. Through her knowledge and love, she helps her son's widow to find a stable life. Due to the amount of material written, our supreme father figure is Abraham, grandfather of Jacob. As shown in the Book of Genesis, Abraham was head of the home, provider, disciplinarian and teacher of his children. If any woman can be called the ultimate mother of the Bible, then it would be Mary, the Mother of Christ. A handmaiden of God, the Four Gospels of New Testament shows her to be a introspective nurturer, a pure soul and a keeper of social customs. The ultimate son could be none other than Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Throughout His earthly ministry, he sought to do His Father's will and even on the cross, He made sure his mother was cared for in His absence (John 19: 27). In the Books of Esther and Ruth, we find the ideal daughter in their main subjects. Both women were obedient humble, demur, faithful, loyal and cared for their elders.

This family dinner would be much more peaceful than those diagrammed before in this paper. Here all members would do being their duties with thought and consideration. There would be knowledge given freely from elder to youth. There would be teamwork shown among the family members to bring the feast together, each using their own skills and talents to benefit all. There would not be the insecurities of father against son, or mothers fearing to be displaced. The needs of the family are not only met, but are met with little conflict.

So far, we have found among the cultural forces discussed family structures most European Americans are familiar with. What would a Native American family structure be like? Interestingly, the legend of the Warm Wind Brothers Versus the Cold Wind Brothers from the American Northwest, describes a family dynamic very close to the Bibical one in regards to intergenerational roles (Edmonds & Clark, 2003, pp 26-27). The Grandfather is chief of the tribe and a diplomat, who doesn't withhold knowledge from his sons. The Grandmother is very supportive and alert to the spiritual signs. The chief's youngest son serves the tribe and dies doing his duty. His wife and mother of the Grandson, makes sure her son is trained to save his father's people and give him instruction to guarantee his success. Like the Bibical archetype, knowledge is freely given and the family members work together as a team.

In the American Southwest among the Hopi, the Spider is consider their Grandmother because she spun a web to give them light when they first came to the Earth's surface, which could be considered guidance - an archetypal grandmotherly role (pp 68). Later as the Spider Woman, she continues to give guidance and "light" the way. Death and the Locust are considered their Fathers because Death lead them onto the Earth's surface and Locust showed them great medicines, both actions acts of knowledge and an archetypal father's role (pp 70-71). In the Hopi legend of the First Journey through the Grand Canyon, the Wise Son goes on a quest for something helpful he can bring back to his clan as their tradition dictated (pp 77).

Among the Cheyenne of the Great Plains, grandmothers are also dispensers of wisdom and knowledge (pp 183). The surrogate parents of Falling Star, Father Meadowlark and Mother Meadowlark, prepared him to protect his people as a good son by making him a bow and giving him advice respectively (pp 190). The Dakota-Sioux, another Great Plains nation, has a legend of a grandfather who taught his people how to grow corn (pp 211). There are similar archetypes among other Native American nations. Daughters in most Native American tales are usually obedient girls waiting for a husband.

Summarizing the American Indian tales, we find an overall family dynamic in between John Campbell's primitive archetypal family and the Bibical one. A family dinner among this archetype would have the grandfather giving instruction, grandmother giving much wisdom and knowledge. The father would protect the family and make sure his son could same (unless he is the Sun-God). The mother and daughter would be making the meal. Here in this family there is also a sharing of knowledge and working together for the good of the whole.

Based on the archetypes studied for this paper, it would appear that an intergenerational family structure needs to have a sharing of wisdom and knowledge and a sense of teamwork to function smoothly. The more the elders share with the younger generations in regards of knowledge, skills, powers and responsibility, the less relational conflict there is between the generations. And the more the younger generation seek to learn from the elders, the more successful they are in their quests.





Bibliography

• Jung, C. G. & von Franz, M., -L., (1968). The Process of Individuation. Man and His Symbols, New York: Dell Publishing.
• Campbell, Joseph, (1973). Hero With a Thousand Faces, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• (1979). Holy Bible, Authorized King James Version, Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints.
• Edmonds, M. & Clark, E. E., (2003). Voices of the Winds, New York: Castle Books.

Another Essay for Class

Revolution in Family Structure Forces One Teacher
to Add to Her Teaching Methods

". . . After 1960 the proportion living in one-parent families with their mother also increased. The rise in the proportion of children living in dual-earner families or one-parent families was extremely rapid, since the increase from 15-20 percent to 50 percent required only 30 years . . . to take place." (Hernandez, 2003, pp 266)

In the 1970s, Stephanie Herzog was starting her career as an elementary school teacher. Much to her frustration, the greatest challenge she had was trying to keep enough discipline in her classes to allow effective instruction. She searched, studied and tried many methods to bring order to her classroom, with only lukewarm success. As the years passed, she saw a constant increase in troublesome students (Herzog, 1982, pp 1).

She had a system of discipline that gave some results when she attended a teachers conference and heard Deborah Rozman talk about teaching children how to meditate to help them concentrate better. Herzog was so entranced by the lecture that she decided to introduce it to her second graders - only to avoid the religious connotations of the word "meditation", she called it "centering" instead (pp 2, 53). Thinking only of the benefit of increase concentration, it never occurred to Herzog that this practice would produce a calmer classroom and less behavior problems. However, to the delight of her substitutes, the effects were still in place even when she wasn't (pp 7 -10).

The positive effects of using "centering" were widespread and contagious. Some of Herzog's students taught it to their families and improved the atmosphere at home (pp 29, 58-59). Some parents were so impressed by their child's improvement that they asked to sit in occasionally on these exercises (pp 55-57). Not everyone benefited from the exercises right away. Some students took several months to train themselves to sit still and just concentrate. Others needed clarification of what was actually expected and accepted of them. Many needed encouragement to pretend or imagine during the exercise. Surprisingly, having them imagine their mothers hugging them usually opened the gates and brought great progress (pp 47). Disruptive students whose families were in turmoil seemed to take to meditation right from the start (pp 74). In fact, Herzog found that many of her students spent many hours at home alone because their parents had to work (pp 77). Lacking parental guidance, the centering exercises help these children to be more productive and less helpless. The practice helped Herzog personally as well. She was able to teach with more confidence and enjoy herself in her work (pp 62).

As promised by the original lecture, meditation did increase the students ability to concentrate and helped several below performing students improve their skills. One student seemed unteachable for the first two months Herzog had him. He seemed to retain nothing that was presented to him. When he finally managed to keep his eyes closed and body still during the centering exercises, a great change came over him. "It was as if he had heard and learned everything during all the previous lessons had taught him, but could not concentrate long enough to show me what he knew."(pp 26)

Bibliography

• Hernandez, D. & Myers, D. E. (2003). Revolutions in Children's Lives. In Skolnick, A. S. & Skolnick, J. H., (Eds.), Family in Transition (pp 263 - 272). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
• Herzog, S., (1982). Joy in the Classroom, Boulder Creek: University of the Trees Press

Family Dynamics and Structure Essay

Family Essay on Violence and Abuse

Violence within the family has occurred since Cain slew Abel. Infanticide is a common way people have worked to insure they had sons instead of daughters. Parricide has been done either as a means to gain financial or emotional independence or as retribution against earlier child abuse done to the murderer, as is some elder abuse. The transmission of victimization doesn't always return to the instigator, abused people often go on to abuse others.

Because of their lack of physical stature and societal power, women are the most frequent targets of severe domestic abuse. Men can be abused too, but a woman is more likely to be hospitalized because of it. Men who are guilty of woman battering are far more likely to batter children than men who don't. In fact, sexually and physically abused people are far more likely to become alcoholics after the abuse according to studies. Though it was once believed that alcohol caused the abuse, further research is showing that it is more often occurs as a coping mechanism afterwards. It is also used as a scapegoat in battering and sexual abuse. In most cases, it is obvious that the abuser has more control over their actions than they want to admit, due to the fact that they are very careful not to leave physical marks on their victims in places where they can be readily seen. The same has been found with most sexual abusers, who claim that they cannot control their urges.

Victims of rape, incest, battering and other forms on intimate abuse often go uncorrected due to victim blaming. After all, who would attack an elderly parent who had been a loving one? What parent would hit a good child? What spouse would harm their better half without a very good reason? No one deserves to be abused, though. When it is all boiled down, abuse is purely a matter of having power over another person.

Ever wonder what type of person does scams?

An Obvious Scam

Check out their locations page and compare it to here. Eerie, isn't it? I know SYSCO is a well established company.

Ignore the BBB nonsense - the company was only "started" July 2004 - there's no way that any complaints against it has had time to make it through the BBB paperwork and procedures yet. The BBB believes in being thorough and giving the offending company a chance to correct problems before it will list them as a problem.

Read:
http://www.totse.com/en/bad_ideas/scams_and_rip_offs/pyramdz.html
and
http://www.pyramidschemealert.org/PSAMain/pyramids/newwrap.html
and look at this site again...

Recently one of the "senior partners" of this website joined a mailing list, where he has made many unsupportable claims - including things like claiming to written an expansion on Einstein's Theory of Relativity (while screwing up on basic Physics and mathematical principles) and recently creating the Light Transistor.

His greatest claim is to have developed a working AI, while showing almost no understanding of programming and logic. He started out saying he wasn't trying to get any money and trying to make it sound like he's just a poor inventor who wants to help the world, then says later that he is trying to raise $100 million and already has 23% of that goal.

When confronted with evidence of his misinformation, he insist his opponents are retards and posts things like:

"Yes, I have been called a genius many times in my life by mathematicians, physicists, business people, and people without education. I also didn't plant the idea of calling me that in their heads, nor did I give them a brief explanation of an idea, and just expect them to believe it. So the answer is that I am willing to help you understand, otherwise I wouldn't be writing you. Yes, the conversation is stimulating, but playing games with everyone isn't worth my time." (And yet he goes on to write reams of babble.)

or

"The problem is that people who claim to be experts cannot fathom how a novice could have a different point of view (that was not preprogrammed with the common belief system on the particular field of study) and run circles around them within the scope of innovation."

followed by:

"Yes, I've taken lots of courses in Physics. I've also applied this knowledge to real life experience. I do have an extensive formal education and have attended the best schools in the country."

(Someone needs to explain to me why someone with 4.0 averages school hops so frequently.)

And heaven forbid you start really taking his business plans apart. He starts to threaten you with illegal lawsuits and harrasment.