Richards

I have to disagree. When it comes to a childs safety, it is an adults moral obligation to intervene. If your child were abducted and you knew that several adults were witness but chose to do nothing would you accept that? I think as a society we place a higher value on a childs life than an adults (rightly so) and generally should expect adults to be willing to intervene when a child is in danger. Richards My biggest handicap is that sometimes the hole in the front of my head operates a tad bit faster than the grey matter contained within.

I was not aware of that. Thanks for letting me know. Richards My biggest handicap is that sometimes the hole in the front of my head operates a tad bit faster than the grey matter contained within.

Incredibly powerfull statements. Her courage to speak openly the way she has, in the presence of what appears to be a religious leader is inspirational. I hope nothing happens to her. Her style of openness and leadership style is so short in supply. Richards My biggest handicap is that sometimes the hole in the front of my head operates a tad bit faster than the grey matter contained within.

45 minutes later my phone rang. It was the 911 operator. She told me that the officer on the scene would like to come get a statement from me, I said "No, I want to remain anonymous. I live next to these people." Just then there was a knock at my door. It was the cop, and instead of walking over, he'd driven...with the bad guy in cuffs in the back of his car.*** Did you ask the cop WTF he was thinking identifying you to the suspect. I would have been livid! Good call leaving the neighborhood. That cops incompetence placed you in serious danger. Frightenning to think what would have happened the previous night if you had jumped the fence. I once jumped into something thinking it was a small thing like that and found out after the fact that I had stepped in some serious shit with some bad characters. Spent some time looking over my shoulder after that. Cheers, Richards My biggest handicap is that sometimes the hole in the front of my head operates a tad bit faster than the grey matter contained within.

Every time I have had rabbit it was terribly rubbery. How do you prevent that? Richards My biggest handicap is that sometimes the hole in the front of my head operates a tad bit faster than the grey matter contained within.

I am willing to wager he wasn't quite as courageous against you as he was against your kid. It's amazing how that works. Anyway glad you put the clown in his place. Richards My biggest handicap is that sometimes the hole in the front of my head operates a tad bit faster than the grey matter contained within.

That is very disturbing. I once saw a man going nuts on some 12/13 year old kids (who in fairness were being obnoxious) but he started to get physical (shoving and even hit one of them). While some people yelled comments, most seemed to want to walk away and no-one was willing to step up to the plate and do anything until I ran up and grabbed the guy, and made him sit down. Admittedly I was rather frightened because he was bigger than me, and had a dog that looked like a shepperd/husky mix. The dog was none to impressed with the way I was treating his owner. Again other people started showing up once I jumped in and started to back me up but I couldn't help but wonder what would have happened if everyone waited for someone else to make the first move. Basically in todays society if you are in deep shit you are probably on your own because most people are not going to do anything. Richards My biggest handicap is that sometimes the hole in the front of my head operates a tad bit faster than the grey matter contained within.

Better yet, don't bother pulling them out of the water to arrest them when you sink their boats. Leave them for the sharks. Richards My biggest handicap is that sometimes the hole in the front of my head operates a tad bit faster than the grey matter contained within.

Depends I guess. If the average person should have reasonably forseen that such actions may be hurtfull then you can be held responsible. There are clearly exceptions to this as with all scenarios so it depends on the context. Anything that appears to demean a person or category of people should be thought through real carefully before posting. Cheers, Richards My biggest handicap is that sometimes the hole in the front of my head operates a tad bit faster than the grey matter contained within.

Of course not. What the hell was the tree doing there in the first place....stupid tree! How can a man be held responsible when trees are conspiring to launch themselves in front of his vehicle without warning. Clearly the driver is the victim. Richards My biggest handicap is that sometimes the hole in the front of my head operates a tad bit faster than the grey matter contained within.

Kudos to you. There's nothing more inspiring than seeing someone who always lets people step on them finally develop self esteem/confidence and start saying "Do not fuck with me". Cheers, Richards

Fundies! Hey I like that. Classic. Cheers, Richards My biggest handicap is that sometimes the hole in the front of my head operates a tad bit faster than the grey matter contained within.

I am not up to date on my islam, but it is my understanding that merely being a non-muslim is not punishable by death. Converting from islam to another religion is however punishable by death. Non-muslims are not punished so long as they subordinate themselves to muslims. Still sucks of course, but then I am merely an infidel and too ignorant to understand the bigger picture with respect to the Religion of Peace. Richards My biggest handicap is that sometimes the hole in the front of my head operates a tad bit faster than the grey matter contained within.

Yes, of course. You voluntarily got yourself intoxicated and then proceeded to play big boy games with the "fat bird" (AKA Person), and therefore are held responsible as a big boy. Richards My biggest handicap is that sometimes the hole in the front of my head operates a tad bit faster than the grey matter contained within.

OUCH! FUCKING OUCH!!! Richards My biggest handicap is that sometimes the hole in the front of my head operates a tad bit faster than the grey matter contained within.

Too true. I myself have been tempted to not enforce rules as stringently against minorities as white people. Like many people, I tend to want to avoid confrontations of that nature, and I do find people will make that acusation against you at the drop of a hat. Richards My biggest handicap is that sometimes the hole in the front of my head operates a tad bit faster than the grey matter contained within.

Good post. I am of a similar opinion. Too much just does not add up. I am always told that it is about faith yet in the bible anecdotes, the people then never had to have blind faith. They had people walking on water, splitting oceans etc. to support their beleifs. If our beleiving in God is important enough to send us to hell for not doing so, is it not important enough for him to split an ocean or have someone walk on water, just to reassure us in advance of his existence? On the topic of Heaven or Hell. Why the two extremes? Depending on how you live your life you will either have the best eternal life, or the most horrifying eternal life imaginable, with no middle ground. And why is it neccessary for a person to be burning in hideous unendurable mindbending agony FOR ETERNITY. Five hundred billion trillion milleniums after the earth has ended, what is the purpose of still keeping a soul conscious for the sole purpose of inflicting agony on him/her for what was done during that persons 65-85 years on earth. Also this does not differentiate between levels of sin (unless you subscribe to Dante's theory). If someone just barely meets the criteria to go to hell then he or she suffers no less a fate than Adolph Hitler! I do not get it. And the business of sending suicides to hell. WTF! In theory child molesters can be forgiven by God if they ask for it and have eternal bliss, yet if their victims commit suicide to due their pain and suffering then they apparently deserve to spend an eternity shreiking from the horrible agony they endure 24 hours a day without there ever being an end to their agony. That seems a wee bit sick and twisted and contradicts the argument of a "loving God" While I am not sure that I am an athiest Walt, I do agree with you in that that I don't trust any of the religions dictated by human beings, and I see organized religion as just a control tool. Cheers, Richards My biggest handicap is that sometimes the hole in the front of my head operates a tad bit faster than the grey matter contained within.

Yup. Deadline pressing, therefor I am here attempting to be productive. Richards My biggest handicap is that sometimes the hole in the front of my head operates a tad bit faster than the grey matter contained within.

I apreciate your input. It sounds from what you are saying that this is the norm in universities (in fairness I did suspect that before I posed the question). I love what I am doing (research) and I have enjoyed the limitted teaching opportunities I have had. It is not all bad. I have had some excellent experiences here, I simply saw how when an office is run on non-private funds, bullshit baffles brains. I will likely keep going. The challenge as I presume is learning who the gatekeepers are. Again when I was a labourer, so long as you did your job to a high standard and were willing to go the extra mile to get a job completed the boss usually loved you (affection was paid in beer). I think here I will need to develop a radar for people who are out to protect their kingdoms. I am sorry for blowing off on this forum but I had recently been bidding for funding for a training project that I had been pushing for for some time. I picked up the internal newsletter and saw that another group (in conjunction with the organization that had previously fucked me on the student centre) had just been approved for the very same project (what a fucking miraculous coincedence). In fairness this could be a coincedence, but I got pissed off, hit the bottle and then the keyboard. The question I have is this. What happens when the "Idea stealers" who have never had an original idea of their own, and subsequently survive by stealing other peoples ideas, drive away all the "Idea creators" and are left to fend for themselves. Has the university not considered this as they stand by and ignore this obvious problem? Again I am not the only one this happens to. Richards My biggest handicap is that sometimes the hole in the front of my head operates a tad bit faster than the grey matter contained within.

Academics, however, is a different beast. Are you a good teacher? It's a nice side benefit, but not neccessary to a professorship. It's all about "To what is my name officially attached?" Sure, you may have done the work, but that's useless unless you get credited for it. It sounds like you have been there. I am nowhere near the point where anyone will be publishing anything of mine (nor is anyone else at my level). At this stage I am still building credentials. While I have taught I am not faculty. I am student (who works almost full time for the university). Most of my research has been on the assisting side. ***Academics is an entirely different thing. I find it worse than the real world. In a game of names, assassination of charcacter and name is the easiest, most efficient way of maintaining and building power*** Truer words have never been spoken. I was in the labour force for many years before I started my undergrad and while there was labour abuse bullshit I always found that if you were reliable you got by. In the bank I found that people encouraged you to develop. If my boss felt I had a greater aptitude than him in an area he would encourage it and give me some responsibility over a greater area. In the university people are terrified of subordinates who are smarter than them. It is ridiculous! I have people who worked for me who are smarter than me, and it did not bother me. I was glad to know I could leave them to work independantly. One woman I worked for was terrified of me showing initiative. She was like an insecure child who didn't want anyone showing her up. If I had an idea I was forbidden from mentioning it lateraly to other department heads. I had to check with her first, and then she would mention it to them (conveniently forgetting to mention my name). Nobody was allowed to look good except her. Universities are lucky they run on public and not shareholder money. Large investors would not allow feifdoms to supercede efficiency. Richards My biggest handicap is that sometimes the hole in the front of my head operates a tad bit faster than the grey matter contained within.

I spent several years in the workforce before becoming a professional student, so I have seen the real world and it's politics. I have never in any labour or corporate job seen anything like this. Have you worked in an academic institution? Pursued an academic career? Working for a large financial institution was actually quite reasonable compared to this (despite the awfull reputation FI's have). Yes we were worked 14 hours a day but at least there initiative was encouraged. It seems as though when there are shareholders to keep happy, the politics do not dominate, performance does. In socialist environments (like the one where I work now) you do not have shareholders, and therefore the "empire builders" can play their stupid games indefinitely. Richards My biggest handicap is that sometimes the hole in the front of my head operates a tad bit faster than the grey matter contained within.

Well I'm impressed! I had been cynical about universities preparing students for the real world, but it sounds like your school is doing an excellent job of simulating real-world corporate life*** I spent a fair amount of time in the real world before coming back to school and then I did some time in the industry before coming back to the university to pursue an academic career. I have spent years working in the real world and have never seen anything like this. In the real world there are shareholders to satisfy so politics can only go so far. Richards My biggest handicap is that sometimes the hole in the front of my head operates a tad bit faster than the grey matter contained within.

UNIVERSITIES ARE SOUL SUCKING VAMPIRES!!! I am taking the professional student route in life, but I have become completely disillusioned by my experience at the institution I am at ( I will not disclose the name of the University nor will I discuss my particular area, as anonymity is critical under the circumstances). I would really appreciate if any grad students (Masters or Phd), or even professors could read this and tell me if what I have seen here is normal. I battled to create a academic support centre, and spent a year on proposals, getting it set up, and putting my heart into building it up. As soon as it appeared that my idea was working and a useful investment in students, a large powerful sub-organization in the university moved in and took over the operation. I did not mind so much that I was sent packing but these motherfuckers are now writing about the centre in university publications as though they created the centre. I draw some comfort in the fact that the senior professors in my particular faculty give me credit for it in person but it hurts to see someone taking public credit for my work. It seems that a few power brokers in the university seem to want to make sure only their own get control over new and existing projects. Examples of the political BS I have experienced; > I am not the first person to have a project stolen from them. A tenured professor has told me that the same organization that took my project did the same thing to her, and that it happens all the time here, including with research ideas (no-one seems to want to discuss research until it is published for that reason). > Back when I was an undergrad I was asked by a professor to work as a TA for another instructor (non-tenured) so I could report back and help this person build a case against this guy and get him fired (for the record I did not go along with this plan) >I was witness to an excellent professor getting raked across the coals for some political bullshit. > I have been told openly by two professors that the Program Director (who I had idolized as a mentor), had been using me, while I had been under the impression that he respected me for being one of the top students, and TA’s. Everyone is backstabbing everyone and while I am well liked by most of the faculty, I am second guessing my aspirations to pursue an academic career. I think the only reason no-one has seriously fucked me over the way I have seen others get it, is that I am too junior to be a threat to anyone, but will that change if I gain greater academic credentials? I have the respect of several faculty members who insist I will do very well as an academic. They say I should let this stuff slide and stay the course but, I do have doubts now. I can always go back into industry. I was an older student so I had been in the workforce for several years before coming back to school, and I worked in the industry for a short while before I decided to go back to be a professional student, and while I have dealt with workplace politics, I have never in my life seen such a den of vipers Would any grad-students (Masters or Phd) or Profesorial types who have been through the process before me please let me know if this is common at all academic institutions, or is this particular school an outlier? Should I get used to this level of underhandedness wherever I go? I realize that politics is part of life but it appears that at this university it is all anyone does. I used to really admire some of these people. Please offer advice, personal experiences, perspectives etc. Richards My biggest handicap is that sometimes the hole in the front of my head operates a tad bit faster than the grey matter contained within.

I always have a few beers in the fridge for just such an emergency. If you lay in bed you will obsess and stay awake. Put a movie in the DVD player, have a couple of beers, and you will nod off in no time. Hope this helps. Cheers, Richards My biggest handicap is that sometimes the hole in the front of my head operates a tad bit faster than the grey matter contained within.

Do you require anyone who is pathetic, has thinning hair with a beer belly, a hairy back, couldn't please the most desperate woman, a small wee-wee and who fires of after ten seconds? Please try to control your excitement. There is only so much of me to go around. Richards My biggest handicap is that sometimes the hole in the front of my head operates a tad bit faster than the grey matter contained within.