It brings complex ethical and interpersonal decisions, not to mention the existential stuff.
And it sucks.
I’d rather go back to naming my clubhouse.
[Postscript: Mine was named Fort Wild Buffalo!! Wasn’t that cool?! The kid next door and I built a boat too!!]
A few lines of dialogue from my novel, “The Dogs Don’t Bark In Brooklyn Any More,” can now be found on the website bestquotes4ever.com:
http://www.bestquotes4ever.com/authors/eric-robert-nolan-quotes
The passage is part of Patrick O’Connor’s exhortation to his daughter not to join the armed forces in the story’s last chapters.
THANKS to whichever kind reader submitted the quote; I’m flattered. 🙂
“If any one unwarily draws in too close and hears the singing of the Sirens, his wife and children will never welcome him home again, for they sit in a green field and warble him to death with the sweetness of their song. There is a great heap of dead men’s bones lying all around, with the flesh still rotting off them.”
— from Homer’s “The Odyssey” (Samuel Butler’s translation)
Today’s quote arrives to us today from my friend Francis James Franklin, who is not only an accomplished independent author but also a terrific classical scholar. Thanks, Frank!!
John William Waterhouse’s “Ulysses and the Sirens” is extraordinary. I tried to download a high-resolution file here … if you’re so inclined, click to enlarge and then click again to zoom in on the troubled sailor being accosted by the “siren” that has managed to perch. Look at the expression on the faces of him and his would-be temptress.
Anyway, I am slightly confused by the painting despite its beauty … Yes, we have Odysseus (Ulysses) tied to the mast and able to hear the monsters’ irresistible call, while his men oar on with wax in their ears so that they cannot succumb to its attraction. But … am I nuts, or are those harpies, and not sirens?
Photo credit: François Schommer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
“One of seven a 16th century wooden corbels supporting a jettied floor of a former coaching inn at 25 Magdalene Street, Cambridge. The bracket is in the form of a succubus, showing that the inn was also a brothel. The building is mid-16th-century and was originally the Cross Keys Inn, the largest of five inns that used to be in Magdalene Street.” — from Wkimedia Commons
Photo credit: By © Andrew Dunn (http://www.andrewdunnphoto.com/) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons.
“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
“Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
— The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Photo credit: John William Waterhouse [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Check out the video linked below, in which a local FOX affiliate films parents and an Internet prankster teaching adolescent girls about online predators.
I’m going to go ahead and express what I am certain is the minority opinion here. Of COURSE I agree with the goal of protecting children from Internet predators. But is this the best way to do it? Just think about it. What we have here is an elaborate, staged situation that could traumatize a child, which is THEN BROADCAST and is PERMANENTLY ACCESSIBLE via the Internet. I don’t care if the girls’ faces are blurred — I’m willing to bet that their classmates, neighbors and extended family members know exactly who they are. And now there is a documented public spectacle that could follow them throughout their lives. (And any other Internet user could easily blog it, tag it, or link to it with the girl’s name.)
This is at least a bizarre manner of teaching children, and at most potentially harmful. I can’t imagine that something like this could be condoned by any child psychologist, or very many professional educators. Who comes up with these ideas? The Internet prankster, Coby Persin, whose modus operandi is impersonating adolescent boys? The parents? Parents can be idiots. It’s why so many children can be idiots. (I have schoolteacher friends.)
[EDIT: I should not have named Persin as a “professional” prankster or “consultant” in an earlier draft of this blog post — it implied that he is paid for his services. Persin’s Youtube account is set up to receive donations and has paid advertising, but I don’t see any evidence that he was paid by the girls’ parents.]
I generally think it is a very bad idea for parents to broadcast footage of them disciplining their children. It just seems … simple-minded, and maybe even (consciously or unconsciously) a bid for attention by the parents.
But, hey — I’m no expert. Correct me if I’m wrong.
I actually DO know exactly how to protect oneself from the movies’ “Predator.” You cover yourself with mud so that he cannot see you via his infra-red vision; then attack with with non-metal weapons, as Arnold Schwarzenegger did in 1987. I don’t have kids, but if I were raising adolescent girl, we probably WOULD re-enact that film. Any girl of mine would be raised to be the next Ellen Ripley or Sarah Connor.
FOX 12 Oregon: “Social Media Dangers”
