Let’s talk about bullying

A Texas family whose daughter is a victim of cyberbullying is suing the parents of those children who created an Instagram account to mock other kids.

I say good for them.

We live in an overly-litigious society, but this case seems like a good use of the courts. Just as there are slander and libel laws, so, too, should there be defamation laws that prohibit the kind of mean-spirited bullying that kids face today. And while the kids who do the bullying should be held accountable, so, too, should their parents who permit such behavior or who have neglected to keep an eye on their children’s activities.

Someone asked, “What happened to the time when you just punched a bully in the throat?” You constantly hear people saying kids are wimps today, man up, stand up to the bullies, etc. Sure, blame the victim. Always blame the victim. That way you don’t have to take any responsibility for your own cruelty.

To answer that woman's question, this is what happened: parents stopped being parents. Parents stopped teaching their kids to be civil to each other, stopped teaching them about respect and responsibility, stopped teaching them about how to be decent human beings. Parents stopped parenting, stopped paying attention to what their kids were doing, stopped disciplining them. They ceded parenting functions to schools and television, then sued the schools when they tried to do anything resembling discipline.

Bullying today is not the same as it was ten, twenty, thirty years ago. It's relentless, it's widespread with swift dissemination thanks to the internet, and it's done after years of parents teaching their kids that they were special snowflakes, that they can do no wrong, that everyone gets a trophy even if they lost the game. This last point creates both more bullies and more victims, since kids think they can do whatever they want and more things are offensive to those who think they are special. 

I’d venture to say that most people who blame victims of cyberbullying simply don’t understand the internet, because I find it difficult to believe that many people are so heartless. Before the internet, bullies were limited in the number of people whom they could reach; now, the reach is virtually limitless. Bullies are connected in an unprecedented way, and the anonymity of the internet has created the space for even more of them.

Blaming the victim is the same as bullying the victim and is done with ignorance and the same lack of respect for fellow human beings as the bullies who've sent other kids to their graves. It’s time to hold parents accountable for their children’s actions. People who blame the victim should be ashamed of themselves.

Soup's on again

Made a big pot of soup last night, this time tomato based. Filled my giant soup pot with water, added two cans of tomato paste, a lot of oregano, a tsp of basil (all I had left), chili powder, chili flakes, black peppercorns (15), garlic salt, worcestershire sauce, salt, and 5 moles of chili piquino dried peppers. Then I let it boil while I made a cup of white rice and cut up half a green pepper, a small onion, two large carrots, a dozen black olives, and several cloves of garlic. Red lentils were soaking as I did all of this.

I turned down the heat to medium and dumped in the cut up veggies and let that cook a bit. Eventually I threw in the lentils (uncooked) and the rice (cooked), as well as a half a bag of frozen peas, and let all of that simmer for an hour. Of course, I had to keep tasting it and adjusting the spice level, and I burnt my mouth a couple of times.

I cook soup and leave the big pot on the stove, heating it up for the next few days when the desire arises. No, you don't need to freak out about refrigeration. That hurts the flavor.

I was looking through some of those recipe sites, not for the recipes, but for ideas on what to add, and I read some of the comments on the food.com site. Wow, were people clueless. One woman asked what she could do to her pumpkin soup recipe that tasted too much like onion and not enough like pumpkin. (Um, hello? Use less onion?) Another commenter asked what a leek was and where he could get one. (Um, the grocery?) It was fascinating.

I thought back to my school days and home economics. We had to take that class in middle school and it was divided into four sections - wood shop, cooking, sewing, and to be honest, I have no recollection of the fourth quarter class. We didn't learn anything. We baked a lot of cookies but never were taught about spices or cooking times for certain foods or how to pair foods together. What a shame. We've raised two or three generations now who have no idea about food, how to cook it, nutritional values, etc. Ask an intern how to cook something in this city if you want evidence. I never knew cooking was an art; I thought food was a necessity. It wasn't until I ate fresh food consistently in Europe that I realized how wrong are processed foods.

I started thinking about this the other day when I read this article about teaching kids to be grateful that included a bit about including children in the cooking process. How great is it that they make special knives for children so they can participate in the process!

Why can't we have cooking classes in our schools that teach something meaningful about food? Why can't we incorporate actual cooking into classes about health and nutrition? We're so busy teaching kids to do well on standardized tests that no one is learning anything practical. It's no wonder we have an obesity epidemic in this country! I look at the things people are posting on sites like Pinterest - baked goods, junk food, nacho dishes, desert ideas, dishes loaded with cheese - and I find a great example of the lack of awareness we have about food. Why is that?

I think it has to do with spices. Americans don't know how to use spices. Once you learn the flavors of a wide variety of spices, you can cook healthy food (like my soup) and love it! Enough with the cupcakes! Bring on the broccoli!