Maggie's Farm

Actually, the Crimson piece was okay for a kid (like I used to be). He wasn't being a whuss about the squirrel killing the thing, tho some of the other onlookers may have been. He used it rather well to examine his own and his peers' fall into complacency about their safety within the ivory tower.

I know that I do the same thing today. Not because I am a pacifist or pc twit shrinking from (eek) powerful males,or think violence is unnatural, or to shriek at, but because I just don't see much of it these days. Partly the result of deliberate efforts on my part, partly just blind luck...

On the most mundane domestic level,I didn't ever need to spank my kids (partly because I was beaten to a pulp by my own parents and it only served to make me leave home as soon as possible). My kids now say "Mom doesn't need to resort to physical violence, her voice alone strikes fear in grown men. "

In 19 years where I presently live, I have never been mugged, robbed, or menaced except by blonde bimbos in $75,000 SUVs cutting in front of me or honking at me when I impede their kids getting to soccer. I leave my car and house unlocked, leave a laptop and wallet in the car in plain sight, cellphone ditto. One gets sloppy being safe for too long. I used to live in New York and wasn't manic, just terribly, terribly alert. No one ever succeeded in mugging me, tho several tried (I ran away).

I've worked in drug-infested projects, dragged kids away from their gang friends, been brought in to separate warring factions when two gangs had members wounded in the same ER. I used to be around a lot of violence. It scared me, but I just focussed on what I had to do.

The violence outside, from evildoers, individuals or nations, does not scare me so much as violence at home. The harm that a beloved family member has done in the past (because of illness), the fear of its recurrence, that scares me. The one you love who may kill you when their psychosis recurs...

Enemies I can deal with. You arm to the teeth, don't negotiate with terrorists, bomb em into the stone age, etc.

What do you do when it's a family member who may kill you?

Related questions complicate the mission of our fighting men and women who try to serve their country, protect civilians, grow close to people they are around, yet fight an enemy who never heard of the Queensberry rules and who will burst out murderously in the midst of a group of friendly locals. How to avoid killing a village to save it?

That is more complicated than a hunting dog...or a patriotic rant in support of our brave troops.

And no discussion of violence can neglect that within ourselves. As I write this, I know that my kids may take for granted that I never hit them, but resent my disgusted remarks at bad behavior far more...


To flip flop a little, as I watch our new kitten grow visibly, a killing machine in training, I wonder if the reason some dog lovers hate cats is that cats are constantly stalking, pouncing, torturing, rending their prey in our sight. Dogs, the ones we live with anyway, only go after the occasional squirrel or rabbit, rarely catch them, and seem quite utilitarian about dispatching them. Mostly, they just help us be the Great White Hunter. No tormenting the victim as cats do, to hone their skills. Well-trained dogs' violence seems contained enough but available should humans need it (ie: growl and bite a burglar, or anyone menacing their family).

Sorry, Freudian typo. I meant "dog killing the squirrel". As a gardener, I think the only good squirrel is a dead squirrel. Growing fat and chittering on all my fruit....leaving not an apple, nectarine, cherry, plum for me...