Chicken Soup has an embarrassing question...

Someone using the online name "Completely disgusted by ignorance" expressed her disagreement with my perception of Ryan Tucker's criminal behavior on Debbie Schussel's website a few weeks ago. The post she left a comment on was dated August 22, 2006 and the comment she appeared to be replying to was dated November 19, 2009. It's unlikely she stumbled upon it randomly so I'm left to assume that she was doing an internet search for Ryan Tucker.

I replied to her comment with an invitation to present the facts of Ryan Tucker's behavior as she perceives them.

"Completely disgusted by ignorance" is always welcome to enlighten all of us "schmucks" by presenting a few "facts." We could begin with why she believes that we're "schmucks." Could it be that her achievements in life are so great that she has every right to look down on the rest of us? Has she cured cancer, developed a new and efficient form of spacecraft propulsion, established world peace? After all, I've led a pretty unremarkable life. I've been consistently employed for the better part of forty years. I've managed to avoid establishing any professional relationships with our nation's law enforcement community. In a society that boasts an impressive divorce rate, I've managed to stay married to the same woman for 25 years. Stranger still...we actually like each other. My children are earning high grades in their various science disciplines in college...

But that's about it...the portrait of a total loser.

Her Majesty in comparison has...um...well...what is it she's been doing anyway? What exactly has she accomplished that makes her feel so superior to the rest of us?

I have a potentially embarrassing question for Her Majesty...

Have you ever supported yourself by working a job?

Please...enlighten all of us ignorant schmucks. Regale us with tales of your many worldly accomplishments

I'm assuming that this is the same woman who is the subject of the post immediately preceding this one...but I cannot be sure. Perhaps she will enlighten me with facts.

Chicken Soup with Ryan Tucker's greatest fan revisited...

Many years ago a close acquaintance of mine relayed a memorable scene from the play, "Evita."

Evita Peron is complaining to an old naval officer that people are still referring to her with a very uncomplimentary term. The naval officer calmly replies, "I've been retired for years and people still call me captain."

Someone whom I assume to be a close female relative of Ryan Tucker left a few comments here and on other weblogs criticizing our decision to remind readers of Ryan's criminal behavior. She expresses her frustration with the fact that after so many years Ryan Tucker and his three friends still have to read about their crime. I'm also assuming she's concerned because his children are now perusing the internet and beginning to realize that their father, in spite of being retired for years, is still being called a violent criminal. So here's my solution:

Assuming you really are a close female relative of Ryan Tucker, you can expose the horrible lies written about him by bringing his children to meet Bryan Boyd. They will see that he is perfectly healthy. They will see that he is not a brain damaged cripple living in his mother's spare bedroom. They will see that he has a regular job, a girlfriend or wife, and lives a reasonably good life. And when you're finished exposing me as a liar, have Bryan Boyd leave a comment on this weblog explaining that he was not attacked by four vicious sociopaths, one of whom attacked him at least once before. Have Bryan Boyd provide a link to his Facebook page or weblog where I can view photographs of Mr. Boyd enjoying his good health. Do something besides whine about the fact that in the information age, being a close female relative of a violent criminal is embarrassing.

And if you are the woman who knowingly chose to marry a violent criminal when you could have chosen almost any one of a million far more civilized men to spend your life with, there is something very important you can do for your children.

You can strongly advise your children to avoid doing anything they don't want the entire world reading about for the rest of eternity.

Tally Ho Horned Frog.

Chicken Soup comments on Izzy Kalman's defense of the First Amendment...

As readers may already be aware, Chicken Soup has been prevented from leaving comments on Izzy Kalman's Psychology Today website. When I attempt to leave a comment, I'm rewarded with a blank white screen. After a few attempts, I did what Kalman probably hoped I'd do. I simply stopped trying.

Then I read his latest article.

Izzy Kalman criticizes any effort to restrict what students can say while preventing me from posting comments, not just on his articles, but on every article by every author on the Psychology Today website.

I then found that I could leave comments under the name and e-mail address I'd been using all along as long as I didn't do it from home. Here's what I wrote.

"If you are a public school student and you are physically strong, unusually aggressive, or skilled in the fighting arts...in other words...if other students have good reason to fear you, then you enjoy the right to say anything you want about anyone.

If you are physically weak, unaggressive, and unskilled in the fighting arts, you are free to keep your mouth shut or someone will shut it for you.

By the way...why am I not allowed to post here from my i.p. address? Is my freedom of speech unusually disturbing to you?

My comment was titled, "Some are more equal than others" and though I didn't include this description in my comment, I like to think of Kalman's interpretation of our Constitutional Rights as the First Amendment, Columbine Style.

Feel free to let him and his readers know what you think.

Chicken Soup with Matthew Barnett's rapist and attempted murderer enablers...

I wrote about Matthew Barnett's behavior in a previous post.

A few weeks ago America once again shamelessly demonstrated its customary level of depraved indifference for violent crime victims. Matthew Barnett received the token, ritual finger wagging from the Judiciary including such horrible, medieval punishments as "a suspended sentence of four months in the county jail and two years of probation." In layman's terms this is roughly equivalent to the "double secret probation" imposed upon Delta House in the movie "Animal House."

Judge Glen Dietrich also imposed seven special restrictions:

1) "No alcohol." Yeah...I'm sure this is enforceable.

2) "No contact with the victim." There were no such restrictions placed on the assholes who harassed the victim's family enough to prompt a change of address. Nor was there any mention of the arsonists who burned the victim's home. Blaming an electrical fault is worse than insulting to anyone with an I.Q. over 50.

3) "100 hours of community service." No doubt coaching children's football. He is, after all a role model.

4) "Restitution of $1800 for counseling services for the victim." No doubt paid for by the wonderful parents who role modeled his majesty's behavior.

5) "Drug testing." How often and how much warning will he receive from his politically connected family?

6) "Substance abuse counseling." This has a questionable history of success.

7) "Acknowledgement of wrongdoing to the victim in the form of a verbal apology delivered by the Jackson County prosecutor. That apology was “heartfelt” and “genuine,” Peters Baker said during the press conference." He wasn't even required to apologize himself. The prosecutor did it for him. This last gem of depraved indifference is especially heartwarming. A politically connected rapist and attempted murderer was saved from the embarrassment of having to deliver a disingenuous verbal apology in person.

As the group "Anonymous" tweeted, "Good job America."

I'm sure the world's terrorists are sleeping soundly knowing that we're such a caring and civilized nation.

Chicken Soup with the Super Columbine Massacre Role Playing Game (SCMRPG)...

At the request of one of my readers I'm writing about a website titled, "Super Columbine Massacre Role Playing Game" otherwise known by its acronym, "SCMRPG." No, I can't pronounce the acronym either.

The link will bring you to the front page of the site where anyone who understands why individuals choose to build bombs or pick up a gun will find two points of interest. If you scroll down just a bit you'll find the official trailer that features cheesy, early 1980's Atari style images of the videogame in question. These images are combined with an audio track where journalists reveal their ignorance about human behavior, or perhaps just their herd mentality by blaming mass murder on videogames. If you scroll down a bit further you'll come to a montage of windows. The lower right hand window includes a statement from one of the parents of the deceased.

"My son was killed in this senseless tragedy. He is dead now because two angry boys had very easy access to guns."

Being a parent, I can certainly feel sympathy for the individual being quoted. But, from the standpoint of someone who understands why it happened, his/her statement only reveals the usual mindless herd mentality of those who want to blame the Columbine Massacre on anything but a toxic environment where large, physically powerful sociopaths were deified, lavishly rewarded, and allowed to victimize anyone they looked upon as different and therefore unworthy. Consider the oxymoron "wrestling scholarship" while pondering the consequences of maintaining such an environment.

Several years ago I encountered an internet character known as "Trench Reynolds." During one of our online debate/arguments where he was displaying his usual hatred for individuals whom he labeled as "mutants," I asked if he'd ever bothered to talk to them and take the time to listen and understand their position. His response was to provide me with a couple of web addresses where "mutants" congregate and to wish me luck. SCMRPG was one of them.

I posted regularly at the site from about June, 2009 until January, 2013. I encountered a wide variety of characters ranging from articulate and cool headed to borderline explosive. I stopped going there largely because I'd learned about as much as I expected to and became bored with it. The name I was using, "Columbine101" linked to my Chicken Soup weblog which allowed anyone who was interested the opportunity for further reading.

A few days ago I learned that Adam Lanza also posted there under the name "smiggles." I don't remember him but given the fact that there are hundreds of individuals posting there and the possibility that we may never have posted under the same subject headings that's not surprising.

Feel free to visit the site and if you have any questions or comments particularly regarding anything I may have written, please address them here as I no longer post there.

Chicken Soup with one of Ryan Tucker's most loyal fans...

Way back on November 17, 2010 I wrote about a violent, 300 pound sociopath and NFL hero named Ryan Tucker. Normally, he would have stayed in the background but at least one of his fans recently left a comment riddled with grammatical errors and what I consider to be blatant falsehoods.

"WOW! What is this all about? Do you know Tucker, as a person? Did you know Boyd, as a person? This was an incident that happened while all individuals involved were in their teens. Where are they now? Ever crossed your mind that this incident changed their lives forever? And yet they have to continue to read about it. I just don't understand why you would have to bring this back. Why not make a blog about positive events? A bar fight is the best you got? And that is simply what it was.... a frigging BAR Fight that was not started by any of the players. Check your facts, this is absolutely a ridicule of men who battle bad guys on a daily basis. These were boys behaving like immature boys!!!! Why glorify and condemn. That is not for you or anyone else on this earth to do. Do a current, where are they now story. See what good things all of them have done for their communities. My guess is that would be way too one sided and no fun for you to print due to your biased opinions. Totally immature!"

Based on this individual's claims, I'm left to assume that all of the authors who wrote news articles and the author of this book (scroll down to "Crime Pays") have all decided to blatantly lie in writing just so they can say bad things about poor, poor Ryan Tucker.

As for the "where are they now story," the individual who left this comment is welcome to have Bryan Boyd contact me and tell me all about his quality of life since the attack. And while you're at it, contact Scott Meyer and James Loftin. I'd like to hear their side of things as well.

As always...no one who is civilized enough to have earned the right to complain about terrorism would be caught dead defending what Ryan Tucker and his friends did to Bryan Boyd.

Chicken Soup with Izzy Kalman's latest Psychology Today article...

It may be my imagination, but Izzy Kalman seems more defensive than in the past. At the beginning of his latest exercise in victim blaming, Kalman declares his financial interest in the "anti-bullying industry" with an "Author's Transparency Declaration."

Then he includes a quote from someone named Rumi. "Yesterday I was clever so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise so I am changing myself." This isn't unusual. Kalman frequently uses quotes as if he believes that we'll become more supportive of his ludicrous ideas.

Here's a quote I dug out the Old Testament (Joel 3:10) that reminds me of school shooters:

"Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears. Let the weak say, I am strong."

The meat of his article tells the story of a man who learns that he is sick because of a bacterial infection from which he has no immunity. The doctor refers him to a company that will follow him around 24 hours a day, sterilize anything he's likely to come in contact with, and do whatever it takes to protect him from bacteria regardless of cost. Obviously Kalman is trying to equate what this business is doing with the efforts of the anti-bullying movement.

This is one of his worst analogies yet...

People are not bacteria. If you kill millions of bacteria with disinfectant spray, none of the other bacteria will become frightened and stay away from you. If you make an example of some of the worst bacteria by treating them like dangerous criminals and locking them in a cage far away from their victims, none of the other bacteria will learn from their example. If everyone ostracizes bacteria, all of the other bacteria will behave exactly as they've always behaved.

Really Izzy...

How does a man with a Masters Degree in Psychology shamelessly advertise his inability to tell the difference between human behavior and the behavior of bacteria?

Izzy Kalman then continues by attempting to equate administering an antibiotic with blaming the victim. The doctor refuses to provide penicillin because that would be the same as blaming the victim of the infection.

Where does he get this stuff?

I occasionally visit the websites of various hate groups and I've seen many of their members interviewed on television or in documentaries. There's no end to the creativity they'll summon in order to rationalize their hatred of whoever they happen to hate. I don't know why a school psychologist has chosen to fixate on hating victims so tenaciously but it's very reminiscent of more honest bigots.

Kalman titles the concluding section of his article, "Taking responsibility doesn't mean the problem is your fault." He includes a couple of ridiculous examples.

He says that if you own a house and it snows, it's your responsibility to shovel the snow out of the driveway. Owning a house doesn't make it snow so it isn't your fault. Kalman is correct on both counts, but he's hoping his readers are just stupid enough to miss the fact that meteorological effects, unlike bullies, are not predatory. Snow is just snow. Bullies are violent sociopaths who find hurting smaller, weaker people pleasurable.

His second example involve an individual who has developed "emotional problems" as a result of growing up with abusive parents. He says it's not your fault for being abused, but it is your responsibility for addressing your emotional problems. Once again Kalman is betting on stupid readers. If Kalman's such an expert at teaching victims how to stop making others abuse them, why doesn't he offer a little advice for those who are currently being abused by their parents? How about a program called AbusiveParents2AdmiringParents? Those who successfully turn their abusive parents into "Buddies" would never develop "emotional problems" in the first place making the whole question of taking responsibility for them academic.

As always...buyer beware.