Smilla
Ordinary Human
sorry i didn't get back to you yesterday AT. i read your post just as my computer time ran out
sort of odd you should choose two of the more overblown charges against ron for your riposte. the first actually isn't serious child abuse. no, i don't like the idea of locking a kid up. thankfully and by the grace of god i wouldn't do it. i don't condone it and if i were in a position to block it i would. still it's not impossible but that is very unlikely to seriously traumatize a kid. it makes the kid pretty uncomfortable but doesn't injure. children are very resilient. once the kid gets out their going to be so happy about it they'll bounce right up the tone scale and leave the moment in the past, a thing they might recall later or might not.
and something else. i doubt many people on this board are truly aware of the astonishing magnitude of the influence of dr. benjamin spock's postwar writing on childrearing on societal standards and attitudes. in the world in which ron was born and raised locking a kid up for a day or two wasn't even considered child abuse
by our current standards which i endorse and practice it is thought to be abuse. it still isn't severe. hey! anyone see the recent documentary on bukowski? that kid got abused. three times a week from the age of five until he was eleven his german father marched him into the bathroom had him drop his pants put his hands on the windowsill and whacked his hindside eight, ten, fourteen times with a leather belt. jesus! you think that's bad? there was a middleaged woman in the office at the cab company where i worked in the nineties and i got to know her driving her home a few times. you wouldn't expect it in a middle class jewish home but her parents beat her badly. the worst incident resulted in 147 stitches in the ER. THAT is serious child abuse.
the guy with the peanut...
i'm not into hazing. that college frat boy crap ain't my style. but although i am not trained and certified as an army DI i am qualified for the task. i am ready willing and able to address a recruit as "maggot" with unrestrained tone 40/one point five TR-1 and smack my right combat boot into his rump if it sticks up while he traverses the low crawl pit. you want to acheive mission objective and bring your men home that's how you train your troops. the peanut with the nose around the deck is an acceptable disciplinary action. the guy was 50 and the usual cutoff age is 45 but if he had no physical infirmity i wouldn't nitpick on that point. you didn't mention that he had to perform in front of his wife and child. in front of his wife is considered a serious violation of the form and in front of his child a gross and highly pejorative violation.
yeah. right on. it is entirely proper to question ron's character and it's meaning in relation to his work.
but...
bottom line...
michealangelo was a pederaast. i'm sure some of my fellow prods would cheerfully wallpaper the ceiling of the sistine chapel but it ain't gonna happen. and though it was kept out of the gossip columns and scansal sheets, our much beloved dulcet voiced crooner bing crosby was a bigtime wifebeater and childbeater. you think that's gonna stop your local DJ from playing "white christmas" 473 times this december?
hey AT, i notice on one of your posts on this thread you were in 25 years. i didn't know that.
please...
if you would be so kind...
tell me...
were you one of our ex-scn kids born in who escaped or did you walk in on your own? public? staff? SO? trained auditor? if so could you give a thumbnail estimate of WDAH? did declare clear?
time short, more later
1. Locking the child up was major child abuse, and he should have been arrested and brought before a court for doing it.
2. You demean the US military by implying that they would feel OK about someone doing that to a soldier.
I can hardly believe that you actually mean what you have said about those two incidents.
They are both examples of extreme and sadistic abuse.
I'm shocked and saddened by what you posted.