“When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

 This is in my notable quotes (see the top of the page). Isn’t this the truth?

Keywords: resolute, boldly, timid.

Resolute–acting with determination, with the faith that the endeavor will be accomplished. Boldly going where you haven’t gone before because timidity is your normal habit (sorry, Star Trek).

Resolve, resolute, resolution. Very powerful words, yes?

…or where it shouldn’t be.

The attention should be on the absence of the kind of stupidity I described in Where’s The Outrage, not on the pervasiveness of it, because that kind of attention merely prolongs the situation.

I know this, and that’s one of the things that I need to improve in my own thinking processes.

So, that’s the answer

UPDATE:

Google’s even telling me I messed up! Ads for creating your own memorial web site, bereavement counselling — what did I unleash here? LOL!

It’s unbelievable to me what people are willing to put up with these days. There is so much stupidity and apathy in modern society.

There are children being expelled from schools for having aspirin in a locker. Zero tolerance drug policy.

A eighth-grader was expelled for having a weapon after he took a knife from a friend who was threatening suicide. I suppose he should have let his friend kill herself, eh?

In October 1999, Ratner, an eighth-grader from Loudoun County, Va., received a note in class from a friend who said she was contemplating suicide and had brought a knife to school in her binder. Ratner was familiar with the girl’s personal troubles and knew she had been hospitalized for psychiatric problems. When he asked for the knife, the girl refused, so Ratner took the binder from her and locked it in his locker. He intended to take the knife home to his mother, a nurse, who could determine an appropriate course of action.

A child on a school bus let a friend borrow her asthma inhaler during an asthma attack, because her friend had left her own at home. She was suspended from school. Guess she should have let her friend suffocate.

A girl was suspended from school when a kitchen knife was seen on the floor of her car. We’re not talking ‘kitchen knife’ as in ’sharp instrument used in the kitchen to cut things’. We’re talking ‘kitchen knife’ as in ‘a knife found in the silverware drawer used to spread butter or take out screws’.

A six-year-old boy is suspended for ’sexual harassment’. Sexual harassment? A SIX-year-old?

A five-year-old is suspended for a week for playing ‘cops and robbers’.

13-year-old Chelsea Fraser is arrested and led away in handcuffs for writing on a desk. Criminal mischief.

Where is the outrage against this kind of thing? We as citizens have allowed and even encouraged the ‘zero tolerance’ policies that those examples stem from. No room for common sense. No allowing for discretion. It’s a rule, you broke it, you pay the price.

More, you say? Here:

• A National Merit Scholar prevented from attending her own high-school graduation last year in Fort Myers, Fla., because a table knife with a rounded tip was found on the floorboard of her car in the parking lot;
• An 11-year-old fifth-grader permanently banned from an elementary school in Oldsmar, Fla., for drawing pictures of a gun;
• A 12-year-old honor student in Mount Airy, Md., barred from extracurricular activities when she violated drug policy by sharing her inhaler with a fellow student having an asthma attack on the school bus;
• A 9-year-old handing out Certs mints in Manassas, Va., and two students taking them suspended for ten days for drug-policy violations;
• And in Deer Lakes, Pa., a 5-year-old boy suspended for dressing as a firefighter for his school’s Halloween party. Part of his costume was a plastic ax.

Stupid rules? Ask anyone in authority. Go ahead, ask. There are no stupid rules.