Hi, Weltall.Â
I'm glad you took the liberty to answer my questions, and I appreciate your answers. As you're about to read farther down in my post, you also accomplished an unintended result.
Weltall wrote: ... bullying comes from the decision of people to show superiority and humiliate their weaker counterpart (<- dunno about that word being right) ...
At the risk of submitting a post that's way too long to read, I'm going to copy and paste the text of an online column I previously featured in another thread entitled "online confession of a former bully." I won't make any comments regarding the article's subject, especially concerning the assumed "inferiority" of the former victim of bullying. The observation that can be made from reading this article is as plain as the nose on anyone's face and doesn't really need to be stated now.
Saturday, Oct. 30, 2010
Bob Bestler | Bullied victim is successful, the bully still a jockÂ
Hearing recently about so many young deaths that have resulted from bullying took me back to another time when I was involved in a bullying incident.
Sad to report, I was one of the bullies, not the bullied.
I have no idea why we decided to pick on this particular prey, a kind of nerdy classmate I will call Marshall. Maybe he had said or done something we didn't like. Maybe he was the smartest kid in class and we were, like, dumb jocks. Who knows?
Anyway, on a cold Minnesota winter day in our 13th or maybe 14th year, as we left school, three of us chased and tackled our prey, then proceeded to rub snow in his face and down his shirt.
It was, I guess, the meanest thing we could think of doing. It brought tears to his eyes and that was enough for us. Mission accomplished.It was really a small incident that lasted no more than five minutes, but through all these years, I have not forgotten it.
This may be a reason why:
A few years later, while serving in Japan, I picked up a copy of Stars & Stripes, and there, in a two-page centerfold, were several pictures of 21-year-old Marshall being wined and dined by the U.S. Navy aboard a ship in the South China Sea.
It turned out he had built something called a MARK V Rocket, an 11-foot liquid-fueled missile that he had constructed in his basement back in our hometown.
The rocket was described, according to a Life Magazine article featuring Marshall, as the most sophisticated rocket ever built by an amateur. It had been successfully launched by the Navy at its China Lake test facility.That same year, 1961, Marshall narrated a half-hour film about studying science in school. The film was introduced by President John F. Kennedy as part of push for space exploration. Yeah, who's crying now?
Marshall worked briefly with the Navy, then with Honeywell Inc. in Minneapolis.
Eventually he formed a high-tech company and received patents for dozens of scientific devices and procedures he invented, things that I could not pronounce, much less describe.
I don't expect that Marshall has totally cut his ties with his hometown, but as far as I can tell he has not attended a class reunion. One year he sent his regrets, saying he was busy with his company.
I sure hope he's not worried about the three bullies. While he was off doing great things for mankind, all we were doing was turning into even dumber old ex-jocks. So it goes.
http://www.thesunnews.com/2010/10/30/17 ... bully.html
Incidentally, I know that bullies come in all sizes and shapes. Many are not athletes, and some of them are girls.
Weltall wrote:Sports are not evil, they were not created in the first place to be used for that purpose, they make people be more healthy and fit, it gives them endurance to withstand some other activities, If those people now physically fit from sports decide to bring harm to other, It's not because sports made them become that way, it's because they chose to.
I agree with you. Of course, just throwing a ball around doesn't turn a guy into a jerk, unless he allows the fact that he's proficient in a sport go to his head. My current best friend, who is a deacon of my and my wife's congregation, is a former high-school football player. He's a rugged guy, but he wears his heart on his sleeve. He's a sensitive, caring person who's obviously a dedicated Christian. He says that labelling nonathletic boys as effeminate just because they have no interest in sports is stupid and wrong.
Attention, Fat Man: You're a personal friend of mine. Have you read Weltall's post? There's a very important fact for you to consider:Â
You prejudged him. I can understand how you might have gotten a false impression of him by the timing of his posts in this particular thread, but do you now see that he's not even a sports fan? Perhaps you might acknowledge to him that you were mistaken. That will make both of you feel better.
Brigan wrote:Earl wrote:I also have a question for Brigan: Why do you believe that Sporthater2000 is a troll? (... well, questions) How can you tell?
I even believe he might be the same person holding the account that ends with 500 aswell. (might be, I'm not certain of it yet)Their initial post gave it away for me actually, it's content seems fetched, erradicate sports (also recently the use of the word faggot)also..
SportHater2000 wrote:i have noticed there are too many sports fans invading our site i know there nothing we can do. But i think we should delete their accounts. Anyway in real life there are too many people with no life and their whole lives revolve around sports i think the front page of the site is true people are going to turn back into monkeys because of sport. People who play sport don't know anything so they chose to play sport instead of studying and becoming something better than sport player, like doctors, scientists, computer programmers etc. What is your opinion on this issue?signedsporthater2000"hating sports and its fans forever
"
Supersportshater500 wrote:i agree by far. ERRADICATE SPORT, DESTROY THE SPORT LOVERS ACCOUNTS!!! fuck the sportlovers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Trolls trolling trolls. or atleast he tried to pull that one.Hell I could be wrong but his input shows that to me.
Hi, Brigan.
I like you.
Well, I do have this very small fact to impart to you. There is no doubt that Sporthater2000 and Sporthater500
are two different individuals. I know this is true because I saw them listed as being online together at the same time. Sporthater2000 is a 13-year-old boy. At least his profile says that he's that young. In one of his previous posts, he indicated that Sporthater500 is a friend of his at school.
As far as the two of them being trolls is concerned ... well, come to think of it, I do see your point. I mean with the extreme stereotype of athletic classmates being extremely dumb and not knowing anything else and the silly comment about guys becoming monkeys because of sports. The comments do sound trollish; but, on the other hand, these are precisely the sort of comments boys that young would make. So, I don't know ... We shall see what our two young members do or what direction they take in the long haul.
Hi, Fit Man.
I think I like you, too.
I'm sorry that you and Fat Man are at loggerheads. Board messaging is not the best way for two individuals to communicate. That's because inhibitions are removed by the anonymity that comes with the territory of being keyboard kommandos. I've learned this sad fact the hard way through my own experience when I first started posting at any website in the early spring of 2009.
We're essentially in agreement, and I'm relieved that you've been civil with me.
I'm glad that you stood up to that bully. The problem that many bullied kids is that they have next to no self-confidence. That was my problem when I was a teenager. Bullies are drawn to lack of self-confidence like sharks are to blood in the water. I'm not excusing bullies either, but parents or other adults need to help the bullied kid discover why he lacks self-confidence. Of course, lack of self-confidence isn't a factor in all cases. Bullying could be talked about at length, but not in this post (fortunately, for the sake of the reader).
I'll mercifully try to bring my comments to a close: Last year a childhood friend of mine who played football in high school told me that most of his teammates had looked down upon all the nonathletic guys at their school. Last year a formerly active member of this forum (SportsGuy92) who was a football player said that many of his teammates regarded the nonathletic guys at their school to be "fags."
I've been amazed at the persistance of this ignorance. Homosexual men have always participated in rough contact sports (including football), just as they have participated in every other kind of the activities that define human beings. A recent example is Esera Tuaolo, who "came out of the closet" when he retired from the NFL. He once played in a Super Bowl game. That guy's
big. Of course, disclosures of this kind don't seem to matter to guys who are determined to perpetuate the negative stereotyping of nonathletes.
And as far as nonathletic guys supposedly being wimps (another mindless stereotype) is concerned, since you are Jewish, you may have heard of Raoul Wallenberg, who was one of the greatest heroes of World War II. He was a Swedish businessman who saved the lives of over 10,000 Hungarian Jews (including a future U.S. Congressman named Tom Lantos, who passed away a few years ago). When the Red Army drove the Germans out of Hungary, Wallenberg was abducted by Soviet agents to Moscow, where he disappeared into the gulag. His fate is unknown to this day. He deserved far, far better than this.
Anyway, he showed extraordinary courage, despite assassination attempts.
Generations ago there was a leading psychologist who stereotyped (foolishly, I might add) men according to body build. Sheldon was his name, I believe. According to him, endomorphs (fat build) were jolly. (Really?) Mesomorphs (muscular build) were brave and heroic while ectomorphs (slight build) were fearful. I recently came across a head-to-toe photo of Wallenberg that showed he was definitely ectomorphic. (And he wasn't even particularly handsome.) And according to his half-sister, he "destested competitive team sports." But not exactly a wimp, I'd say.
I judge athletic guys as individuals. There are decent athletes I admire. But playing a sport did not make them that way; they brought their own values to the game, as my deacon friend did because he was a
Christian.
Again, no major disagreement.
Brigan wrote:What I wonder right now is Why is Fit Man still labeled as a Sports Bore?Can the Admin Shine some light on this?
I have no idea, my friend. You can PM Skul.
I'm fat and sassy! I love to sing & dance & stomp my feet & really rock your world!
