Bullying and Community
I found this on AOL/Huffpost Parenting: it contains a line – I italicized it – that I need to think about. In America, we tend to think of the individual over the community. For the most part, we don’t encourage our children to continue with an activity they don’t like ‘for the good of the group,’ we tend to take them out of the activity. I’ve lived in cultures where obligations to the group are much stronger, and I’ve always felt confined and constricted by the burden of those expectations, but it does make for a more peaceful situation when we consider the needs of others and the needs of the group.
Preventing Bullying Begins With Us
Richard Weissbourd and Stephanie M. Jones
On Feb. 29, Lady Gaga will launch a foundation dedicated to creating caring communities and stopping bullying. Hosted by the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Harvard’s Berkman Center, Lady Gaga will be joined by Oprah and other celebrities. A powerful new film, “Bully,” will be widely released at the end of March, and many Americans in recent years have been galvanized by a blizzard of tragic bullying stories.
Yet too often in the past a problem plaguing children like bullying has received huge waves of public attention that simply never translates into any positive changes in kids’ lives. What will it take to capitalize on this attention? How can we curb this problem once and for all?
We can start by recognizing where the main solution lies. There is a tendency to simply blame bullying on “bad” kids or peer groups or destructive media. But bullying often has deep roots in parents’ attitudes and behavior, and stopping bullying begins with us.
How can parents prevent bullying? Parents in recent years have been flooded with articles and books that guide them in shielding, or “bully-proofing,” their own child. But just protecting our own kids won’t stop bullying, and this guidance reinforces the damaging tendency of many parents to just focus on their own children. The best way to prevent bullying — and many other forms of cruelty and harassment — is to encourage and enable children to care for and take responsibility for each other. Research indicates that bullying is greatly reduced in particular when children who witness bullying stand up for the victim. Bullying brings home to parents our fundamental moral responsibilities. How can we help our children widen their circle of concern and stand up for other children? How can we help our children build more just and caring communities?
Bullying, unlike more typically developmental teasing and hurtful remarks, is commonly defined as prolonged or frequent cruelty to others, often characterized by imbalances of power. This kind of cruelty can produce intense and often lasting feelings of shame in children, a sense that they are defective in some core way. About 30 percent of children are bullied each year on school property alone. Adults’ understandable reflex is to curb this kind of bullying by punishing perpetrators. Yet this strategy alone usually fails to stop bullying, and sometimes it backfires.
On the other hand, bystanders — especially a friend of the bully — tend to be far more effective. A bystander is present in 85 percent of bullying situations, and bystanders who intervene appear to prevail over half the time. Yet in the vast majority of cases bystanders elect not to intervene.
What can we do as parents to help our children stand up for others? Research suggests that parents bolster their children’s ability to act independently and to withstand disapproval when they respect their children’s capacity as independent thinkers from early ages and give them input into family decisions. All the things parents do to build in their children a sturdy sense of self make it easier for children to hold their ground against a powerful peer. As parents we strengthen the self, for example, when we praise appropriately, know and appreciate who our children are and maintain their trust and respect. Nurturing empathy in children from early ages certainly matters as well. That means in part helping children appreciate people who may not be on their radar, whether a bus driver, a custodian or a new child in class. It means helping children consider the perspectives of those they’re in conflict with as well as people who are different from them in customs or background or other characteristics.
While it’s vital that we convey high moral expectations and underscore the importance of sticking up for others, we also must listen carefully to our children and understand the complexity of their social worlds and ethical decisions. We as parents will be more real and valuable to children if we pay careful attention to their perceptions and experiences of bullying and discuss when and how to stand up for someone else. We need to talk to them about the complexities of balancing our needs with others and what consequences are worth and not worth bearing. We need to help them figure out how to challenge someone else constructively.
But perhaps most important, stemming bullying will require us to seriously examine our parenting priorities. As a good deal of research now indicates, we live in an era when many parents are intensely focused on their children’s self-esteem, happiness and achievements, not on how well they care for others. And in all sorts of subtle ways we can prioritize happiness over taking responsibility for others. Too many of us, for example, don’t push our children to fulfill obligations that might distress them. We let our children write off friends they find annoying, or fail to reach out to a friendless child on the playground, or quit a team or chorus without asking them to consider what it means for the group. How many of us simply tell our children that their classrooms, schools and neighborhoods are communities to which they have obligations?
Just as worrisome, many of us as parents are failing to model for our children a sense of responsibility for others. Over and over we have heard from teachers that many parents are occupied with their own child and care little about other children in the classroom. “It’s a dog fight,” one recently retired teacher says, driven out of the profession in part by his fatiguing battles with parents. “Parents are out of control. They’re always seeking an advantage for their own kid… they lobby for a gifted class or they want their kid to get extra attention… and they don’t care how they might be hurting other kids.” Some parents say they want kids with behavior problems immediately removed from the classroom because they believe their own child’s learning is compromised. But that message certainly doesn’t convey responsibility for others and the community. At least for some period of time, we as parents ought to encourage teachers to work with that child and ask our own child how she/he might support the struggling child.
It is, of course, a great deal easier and tidier for us as parents to simply wrap our attention around our own child or to periodically remind our child to respect others. But such bland reminders will never get us where we need to go. Our children’s moral development is deeply interwoven with our own. If we want our children to be fair, courageous and humane, we have to take a close, hard look at whether those values are priorities in our parenting, and whether we are living those values day to day.
Qatar’s Balancing Act (from National Post)
Fascinating article on Qatar – thank you, John Mueller, who sends me these great news articles.
From the National Post
Qatar’s balancing act
Fadi Al-Assaad, Reuters Files
Qatar’s Emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, has steadily built a reputation for mediation and seeks to be regarded as an “honest broker” in the Middle East.
TwitterEmail
inShare
Peter Goodspeed, National Post · Feb. 25, 2012 | Last Updated: Feb. 25, 2012 5:16 AM ET
The tiny country of Qatar used the slogan “Expect the Amazing” when it successfully bid to host soccer’s 2022 World Cup.
It’s a phrase that could summarize the reign of Emir Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, who in just 17 years has turned a small Arabian peninsula of salt and sand flats, once one of the poorest countries in the Persian Gulf, into the world’s richest country and possibly the Middle East’s most influential state.
A former British protectorate, which was noted for its declining pearl fishery when it became independent in 1971, Qatar was once described by the Lonely Planet Travel Guide as “possibly the most boring place on Earth.”
Now, according to the World Bank, its 250,000 citizens and 1.5 million foreign workers have the highest per capita income in the world (US$84,000, twice that of the United States) and an economy that outstripped China by growing 15.8% last year.
Since 2006, Qatar has been the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas and the kingdom is transforming its new wealth into worldwide influence.
Qatar recently led the Arab League’s expulsion of Syria and, on Friday, called for the creation of an Arab military force to open humanitarian corridors to protect civilians in Syria.
Last month, it allowed Afghanistan’s Taliban to open an office in Doha to facilitate peace talks with the U.S.
And in the spring, it was the first Arab country to recognize the rebel government in Libya.
The emirate sent six Mirage fighters to Crete to help NATO enforce a no fly zone over Libya.
It also supplied rebels with the fuel, weapons, cash and the training they needed to overthrow dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Qatari special forces provided basic infantry training in the Nafusa Mountains, west of Tripoli and some helped lead the final assault on Col. Gaddafi’s compound in the capital.
They were so proud of their achievement, they hung a Qatari flag from the wreckage of his palace.
“The Qataris have really adopted a kind of adventurous foreign policy in the last couple of years and shown a willingness to send special forces to these kind of areas of conflict,” said Andrew McGregor, senior editor of the Global Terrorism Monitor for the Jamestown Foundation.
“They’ve used their considerable wealth to supply arms and whatever else is needed.
“I would be keeping a close eye on what they are doing [in Syria]. They are rapidly emerging as a real power in the Arab League, despite their size. They are very influential and very wealthy, and they have shown a willingness to be engaged.”
The Emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, sometimes referred to disparagingly as the “Arab World’s Henry Kissinger,” has steadily built a reputation for mediation and seeks to be regarded as an “honest broker” in the Middle East.
“Since the mid-1990s, Qatar has pursued an activist foreign policy, using its affluence, unthreatening military position and skills as a mediator to interject itself in conflicts around the Middle East and beyond,” said David Roberts, deputy director of the Royal United Services Institute’s Doha Centre.
In recent years, Sheikh Hamad has carefully inserted himself in conflicts in Libya, Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank, Sudan, Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan.
In 2008, an agreement negotiated in Doha averted another civil war in Lebanon by establishing a power sharing agreement between the country’s different factions. Around the same time, Qatar helped negotiate a short-lived ceasefire in Yemen, mediated a border dispute between Djibouti and Eritrea, and hosted peace talks between Sudan and rebel groups in Darfur.
A regional actor with international reach, Sheikh Hamad has pursued a foreign policy that is ripe with conflicts and contradictions.
Qatar maintains good relations with Iran, while still offering the U.S. its biggest and most important air base in the Middle East at al-Udeid, a few kilometres outside Doha.
Unlike most Arab states, Qatar has generally had good relations with Israel and allowed the Israelis to maintain a commercial office in Doha until the 2009 Gaza invasion.
At the same time, it has warm relations with Israel’s enemies Hamas and Hezbollah, and provides safe haven to hardline Islamists from all over the Arab world.
Leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Syria fled to Qatar in the 1960s and 1970s, even though the kingdom’s rulers frown on organized political Islam and ban all political parties.
Qatar “has a reputation for ‘omni-balancing’ between seemingly incompatible policies,” said Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a Gulf expert at the London School of Economics.
“Qatar’s rise, seemingly from nowhere, is rooted in deeper political, economic and security shifts and, in turn, is reconfiguring the balance of regional power.”
Those changes highlight Sheikh Hamad’s own rise to power and his reign in Qatar, where his family has ruled since the 19th century.
Raised by a maternal uncle’s family, after his mother died young, the Emir attended the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, west of London, graduating in 1971, the year Qatar won its independence and when its first natural gas field was discovered.
He was made a lieutenant colonel in Qatar’s army and, after his father deposed an uncle to become emir in 1972, he rapidly rose to become commander-in-chief of its armed forces.
As crown prince, Sheikh Hamad was gradually given the power to run the country day-to-day, while his father cultivated a taste for extravagance and spent most of his time on the French Riviera.
Sheikh Hamad oversaw development of Qatar’s oil and gas industry and carefully planned an economy that provides Qataris with free education, health care, housing and utilities – and no taxes.
But when his father returned home briefly in 1995 and arbitrarily demoted another son from his position as prime minister, Crown Prince Sheikh Hamad staged a bloodless coup. He informed his father by telephone while he was holidaying in Switzerland.
The old emir returned to the Gulf the following year, publicly disowning his son and trying to drum up support for a countercoup, but Sheik Hamad snuffed out the plot by freezing billions of dollars in his father’s overseas bank accounts.
Then, just 44 and the youngest ruler in the Gulf, he set about to reform and redefine Qatar.
Surrounding himself with young, Western-educated advisors, he drew up a longterm plan to develop a post-oil knowledge-based economy.
He has allocated 40% of Qatar’s budget between now and 2016 to massive infrastructure projects, including an $11billion international airport, a $5.5-billion deep-water seaport and a $1-billion transport corridor in Doha, as well as $20billion in new roads.
He has also invited foreign universities to establish Middle East campuses in a $100-billion Education City in Doha.
Without an elected parliament to advise him, the Emir has final say in the disposition of the country’s $70-billion to $100-billion sovereign wealth fund, which has made it a financial powerhouse internationally by investing heavily in everything from German carmakers Porsche and Volk-swagen to the Agricultural Bank of China, Harrods department store in London, a Brazilian bank, Chinese oil refineries, a Spanish soccer team and a French fashion house.
The Emir’s most influential investment was his creation of the 24-hour Arab-language Al Jazeera television network in 1996.
Granted a level of editorial independence unheard of in the Arab world, Al Jazeera is encouraged to report freely and aggressively on everything but Qatari politics, and is the most watched TV network in the Middle East.
The broadcaster was widely regarded as one of the driving forces behind the spread of the Arab Spring.
“Qatar hopes to insert itself as the key mediator between the Muslim world and the West,” Mr. Roberts said.
“Qatar sees its role as a highly specialized interlocutor between the two worlds, making – from the West’s point of view – unpalatable but necessary friendships and alliances with anti-Western leaders.”
Sheikh Hamad Bin Jasem Al-Thani, Qatar’s Prime Minister and a distant cousin of the Emir, likes to say his country is small and has to be proactive to protect its interest and avoid being run over by more powerful neighbours.
“Our policy is to be friendly with everybody,” the Emir said recently in a television interview. “We are looking for peace. It doesn’t mean if two parties turn against each other, we have to go to one party. No, we would like to stick with the two parties.”
– Formerly a British protectorate, Qatar has been ruled by the Al-Thani family since the mid-1800s. The current Emir, Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, overthrew his father in a bloodless coup in 1995.
– Oil and natural gas revenues have enabled Qatar to attain the highest per-capita income in the world (US$84,000 according to a report this year by Global Finance).
– Oil output at current levels should last 57 years, according to the CIA World Factbook.
– It has a zero unemployment rate and zero percentage below the poverty line.
– The mostly flat and desert land is 11,586 square kilometres – only slightly larger than Jasper National Park.
– It has a population of 848,016 – similar to the population of Edmonton.
SOURCE: NATIONAL POST NEWS SERVICES
JONATHON RIVAIT / NATIONAL POST
pgoodspeed@nationalpost.com
The Problem of Saint Bridget
Today is the Feast of St. Bridget, and I found the following in our Lectionary for today. The problem for Christians is that we are to travel lightly on the earth, caring not for possessions, as Bridget did. The poem is hilarious:
ST BRIDGET OF KILDARE
ABBESS (1 FEB 523)
Bridget (Brigid, Bride, Bridey, or in Welsh, Ffraid) of Kildare was born around 450 into a Druid family, being the daughter of Dubhthach, court poet to King Loeghaire. At an early age, she decided to become a Christian, and she eventually took vows as a nun. Together with a group of other women, she established a nunnery at Kildare (meaning, Church of the Oak). She was later joined by a community of monks led by Conlaed. Kildare had formerly been a pagan shrine where a sacred fire was kept perpetually burning, and Bridget and her nuns, instead of stamping out the fire, kept it going but gave it a Christian interpretation. (This was in keeping with the general process whereby Druidism in Ireland gave way to Christianity with very little opposition, the Druids for the most part saying that their own beliefs were a partial and tentative insight into the nature of God, and that they recognized in Christianity what they had been looking for.) Bridget as an abbess participated in several Irish councils, and her influence on the policies of the Church in Ireland was considerable.
Many stories of her younger days deal with her generosity toward the needy. This aspect of her character has been the subject of a poem:
“The Giveaway” (from The Love Leters of Phyllis McGinley, New York, Viking Press, 1957)
Saint Bridget was
A problem child.
Although a lass
Demure and mild,
And one who strove
To please her dad,
Saint Bridget drove
The family mad.
For here’s the fault in Bridget lay:
She would give everything away.
To any soul
Whose luck was out
She’d give her bowl
Of stirabout;
She’d give her shawl,
Divide her purse
With one or all.
And what was worse,
When she ran out of things to give
She’d borrow from a relative.
Her father’s gold,
Her grandsire’s dinner,
She’d hand to cold
and hungry sinner;
Give wine, give meat,
No matter whose;
Take from her feet
The very shoes,
And when her shoes had gone to others,
Fetch forth her sister’s and her mother’s.
She could not quit.
She had to share;
Gave bit by bit
The silverware,
The barnyard geese,
The parlor rug,
Her little
niece’s christening mug,
Even her bed to those in want,
And then the mattress of her aunt.
An easy touch
For poor and lowly,
She gave so much
And grew so holy
That when she died
Of years and fame,
The countryside
Put on her name,
And still the Isles of Erin fidget
With generous girls named Bride or Bridget.
Well, one must love her.
Nonetheless,
In thinking of her
Givingness,
There’s no denial
She must have been
A sort of trial
Unto her kin.
The moral, too, seems rather quaint.
Who had the patience of a saint,
From evidence presented here?
Saint Bridget? Or her near and dear?
It is reported of Francis of Assisi that as a young man he had a dream in which God said to him, “Francis, repair my church.” He took this to refer to a church building near Assisi which was in need of repair, and he sold a bale of silk from his father’s warehouse to obtain building materials. His father was furious. Francis had not asked for permission: he simply took it for granted that his father would wish to contribute to such a worthy cause. It is said of Bridget that as a young girl she made similar assumptions about her family.
 |
| St. Bridgit’s Cross, at St. Bridgit’s Church in Kildare |
There is a problem here. On the one hand, it can be argued that if our family members do not choose to make sacrifices for God we have no right to make that choice for them. Some time ago, if I remember aright, one listmember wrote in considerable bitterness about a childhood that had been blighted by the decision of the father that it would be nice if the whole family lived in Christian Poverty. (Said listmember found no spiritual blessings in the experience, and saw no sign that anyone else did, emphatically including said father.)
On the other hand, I far more frequently hear Christians argue that their sacred duty to keep everything nice for their spouses and children prevents them, not only from going as missionaries to distant shores, but also from volunteering even quite moderate amounts of their time and money for worthy causes down the block. (Not that all unattached Christians are blameless in this regard.) You will note that Saint Paul, writing to the Corinthians, told them that marriage, while instituted of God and a sign of the union between Christ and His Church, was not without its dangers to the spiritual life of the Christian. But the danger he saw had nothing to do with sex. He was concerned instead that the married are tempted to overvalue security, to feel that they cannot afford, for their families’ sakes, to take chances. And since he expected Christians to be facing persecution soon, he saw this as a matter of urgency.
So, as I said, there is a problem here. I have no final answer to give, but commend it to your consideration.
by James Kiefer
Social Network Interactions
I do go to FaceBook now and then, and I have connected with old friends, college friends, high school friends, and people from the many ‘places I remember’ in my life . . .
It’s pretty public, don’t you think? And you do one little thing, and it’s like glue, you’re stuck with that relationship. I am now careful who I ‘like’, because I seem to end up linked to them, and honestly, I try to be careful to limit my connections to people I know, or have known, people I have something in common with, like a family member, etc.
It’s like if you indicate any interest at all, you get linked. Is it just me? I don’t think of myself as isolationist, but time is precious, and I try to spend it wisely, focusing on genuine long term relationships, family relationships and people with whom I have commonalities.
I find that magazines who which I subscribe, cultural organizations, charitable organizations are all sending me surveys; they want to get to know me better. (? ? ? )
It’s too much relationship for me. I know there are people who can handle a huge number of social acquaintances . . . that’s not me. I am civil, even cordial. I don’t want to get to know organizations through surveys, nor businesses, relationships take TIME. So many of the ‘relationships’ make me feel rushed, and when I feel rushed, or pushed, my reaction tends to be to drop the relationship; it just doesn’t work for me.
I do believe we are all supposed to be connected, to be kind to one another, to care about one another. It’s asking too much of me to expect it to happen quickly. Am I the only one? Does anyone else have any problems with the instant sort of intimacy that seems to spring up so commonly on the social networks?
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
We couldn’t wait. We saw the earlier version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, you know, the one with Alec Guiness, and we couldn’t wait to see this new version, with Gary Oldman playing the Smiley role. He was awesome.
The LeCarre’ books featuring George Smiley are grim and grey, and the opening captures that exactly. The entire movie has a bureaucratic, institutional bleakness, with all the power plays, the petty snobberies, the jockeying for position that these bureaucracies seem to nurture. The only times in the movie when there is color and life is the annual bureau party, once done entirely in Russian, once in French.
The movie is faithful to the book, which I think I need to go back and read once again. It all seems so historical now.
One of the things we noticed was that the theatre was utterly quiet as the movie progressed. A lot of the action is in the mind, figuring things out, and trying not to get caught, so the suspense is of the subtle kind, not the car-crashing and jumping off buildings kind. It was as if the entire theatre were holding its breath; noticeable because of its rarity.
We were oddly jangled as we left the theatre, and over dinner we talked about how we never thought we would be obsolescent, but the Cold War has passed; the soldiers of today weren’t even alive when the Berlin Wall came down and the Iron Curtain parted and the cars flowed east. Life goes on.
There were several quotes, one that made us laugh was spies talking about recruiting other nationalities “You can hire an Arab but you can’t buy ’em.”
Helping Others, Help Yourself
I found this article this morning in an e-mail from Bottom Line, and it rings true to me. When AdventureMan was in the military, there were social events I was obligated to attend. I often felt so much reluctance I just wanted to go to bed; just the thought of the events made me tired. Then I discovered a secret – when I got there, to look for someone shy, and to go over and talk with them. There was always someone, and it made all the difference – to me!
It feels good to be a Good Samaritan, of course. But there’s more to the story—because science reveals that being of service to others brings numerous health benefits. Maria E. Pagano, PhD, an associate professor of psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, has investigated the helper therapy principle (HTP), which is based on the concept that when people help others, they are also helping themselves—particularly when the helper and the recipient of that help share a common malady. Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly published her recent review article on the topic. Among the evidence cited were studies showing that…
- People with chronic pain who counseled other pain patients reported a significant decrease in their own symptoms of pain and depression.
- Multiple sclerosis (MS) patients who were trained to have monthly 15-minute supportive phone conversations with other MS sufferers showed improvement in self-confidence and self-esteem as well as reduced depression.
- Alcoholics who helped other alcoholics were almost twice as likely to stay sober in the year following treatment…had lowered levels of depression in the three months after they started helping other alcoholics…and had significantly improved self-image. Dr. Pagano explained, “Helping others with a desire to live sober transforms the helper’s dark past and pain to greater good and enables him or her to be uniquely helpful to a fellow sufferer.”
While service to fellow sufferers is a cornerstone of 12-step programs of recovery, such as Alcoholics Anonymous, Dr. Pagano noted that it is not necessary to share a common health problem in order to benefit from doing good. For instance, helping others in general has been linked with longer life, less depression, higher self-esteem and greater life satisfaction.
Bottom line: For a “helper’s high” and a significant health boost, lend a helping hand to someone in need.
Maria E. Pagano, PhD, is a psychologist and an associate professor of psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland. She also is a recipient of a career development award funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. www.HelpingOthersLiveSober.org
US Navy Rescues Iranian Fishermen from Somali Pirates
I love this story. I found it on AOL News / Huffington Post; it’s an Associated Press Story.:
WASHINGTON — The political tensions between the U.S. and Iran over transit in and around the Persian Gulf gave way Friday to photos of rescued Iranian fisherman happily wearing American Navy ball caps.
The fishermen were rescued by a U.S. Navy destroyer Thursday, more than 40 days after their boat was commandeered by suspected Somali pirates in the northern Arabian Sea. The rescue came just days after Tehran warned the U.S. to keep its warships out of the Persian Gulf – an irony not lost on U.S. officials who trumpeted the news on Friday.
“We think it’s very doubtful that the Iranians or the pirates were aware of recent events of the last couple days,” Rear Adm. Craig S. Faller, commander of the U.S. Navy Carrier Strike Group involved in the rescue, told reporters by phone Friday. “Once we released them (the fishermen) today they went on their way very happily, I might add, waving to us wearing USS Kidd Navy ball caps.”
Faller, speaking from the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis in the Arabian Sea, said the fishermen, who had been living off the fish they could catch, expressed their thanks and are believed to be headed back to their homeport in Iran.
The rescue was carried out by American forces flying off the guided-missile destroyer USS Kidd, after crew on the Iranian fishing vessel, the Al Molai, made it clear they were in trouble.
The USS Kidd, part of the Stennis carrier group, was sailing in the Arabian Sea, after leaving the Persian Gulf, when it came to the sailors’ aid. It was alerted to the hostage situation when the captain of the fishing boat spoke by radio to the Americans in Urdu – a Pakistani dialect that he hoped the pirates near him would not understand – and managed to convey that he needed help.
A U.S. Navy team helicoptered to the ship, boarded it without any resistance, and detained 15 suspected Somali pirates. They had been holding the 13-member Iranian crew hostage and were using the boat as a “mother ship” for pirating operations in the Persian Gulf.
“They were scared,” U.S. Navy Cmdr. Jennifer L. Ellinger, commander of the USS Kidd, said of the Iranians. “They pleaded with us to come over and board their vessel, invited us to come over. And we reassured them that we would be on our way.”
Amid escalating tensions with Tehran, the Obama administration reveled in delivering the news.
“This is an incredible story. This is a great story,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said, explaining that the very same American ships the Islamic republic protested for recently traveling through the Strait of Hormuz were responsible for the Iranian vessel’s recovery.
“They were obviously very grateful to be rescued from these pirates,” Nuland said.
The episode occurred after a week of hostile rhetoric from Iranian leaders, including a statement by Iran’s Army chief that American vessels are no longer welcome in the Gulf. Iran also warned it could block the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic waterway that carries to market much of the oil pumped in the Middle East.
The Iranian threats, which were brushed aside by the Obama administration, were in response to strong economic sanctions against Iran over its disputed nuclear enrichment program. Last week, President Barack Obama signed into law new sanctions targeting Iran’s Central Bank and its ability to sell petroleum abroad.
According to Faller and Ellinger, the incident began Thursday morning when the Navy got a distress call from a Bahamian-flagged ship, and saw six individuals in a small boat next to it, throwing what appeared to be weapons into the water. They checked but found no evidence of piracy, so they released the small boat, but followed it by helicopter.
The small boat headed back to the Iranian-flagged ship, where U.S. Navy officials said it looked like there were both Middle Eastern and Somali on board.
The radio conversation with the Iranian captain made it clear his crew was under duress, so the USS Kidd launched a Navy search and seizure team. The suspected pirates hid on the ship, but the Iranian crew told the team where they were, Ellinger said, adding that the pirates surrendered quickly.
“The Al Molai had been taken over by pirates for roughly the last 40-45 days,” said Josh Schminsky, a Navy Criminal Investigative Service agent aboard the Kidd. “They were held hostage, with limited rations, and we believe were forced against their will to assist the pirates with other piracy operations.”
Schminsky said the Iranian boat’s captain thanked the U.S. for assistance. “He was afraid that without our help, they could have been there for months,” Schminsky said in a prepared release.
The U.S. team gave the crew food, water and medical care, and on Friday morning they moved the captured pirates to the Stennis. They will remain there while the U.S. considers options for prosecution and consults with other nations that have joined forces against piracy.
“Sadly, this is not a new thing,” Nuland told reporters, citing more than 1,000 pirates picked up at sea who are under prosecution in some 20 countries. “So this is always a question of where to send them and who will do the prosecution.”
Asked if the rescue mission could provide a chance for a thaw in relations with Iran, Nuland declined to comment. She said the Navy had made a “humanitarian gesture” to take the Iranians onboard, feed them and ensure they were in good health before setting them off. She said the U.S. and Iranian governments have had no direct contact over the incident.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called Faller on Friday to congratulate him on the rescue, adding that, “When we get a distress signal, we’re going to respond. That’s the nature of what our country is all about.”
Insecure
How can I be this ripe old age and still suffer from insecurity? Thanks be to God, it isn’t often, actually only a couple situations. I always joke that when I visit my Mom, I gain ten pounds on the way, and feel huge as I waddle off the plane. Flying back home, those new pounds miraculously disappear. I know it is all in my imagination, and knowing that doesn’t help.
There is a competition coming up, a quilt show, and I am trying to get a couple entries ready. One design I knew would be a snap, I’ve done all the various parts a hundred times before (well, many times anyway) but this time I am painfully aware if points don’t match up or placement is not perfect. It is costing me time, crucial time for the preparations, as I rip out and re-do, sigh, rip out again and re-do. Just when I think I have it licked, I see something else that needs a re-do.
I know that the problem is that I am looking with a critical eye of the most critical judge. Most of the time my quilts are for babies, or friends, or family, and while they may be flawed, my family and friends love me and love my quilts, and they live happily ever after. It’s only when I know the quilts will be compared to other quilts, other, more painstaking and meticulous quilters, that I start to quail and flounder.
When I teach, I tell my students “this is supposed to be fun! Have fun with it! If you struggle too long, set it aside and come back; a solution will appear.” I teach tricks to cover flaws, I build their self-confidence, I show them how to attain ‘good enough’.
I am my own worst critic. I just have to fight discouragement and defeat at the hands of my inner critic.
(The quilt at the top is not one of the entries; it is a quilt I did for an earlier competition.)
Adult Bullies: They’re Everywhere
How to Deal With Adult Bullies
From bulldozer bosses to pushy neighbors, bullying continues long beyond the playground years. Here’s how to recognize a full-blown, fully-grown bully – and what to do about it.
When you hear the world “bully,” what comes to mind — a pre-teen ruffian who’s constantly picking on the neighborhood wimp?
Actually, bullying lasts well into adulthood — and instead of the playground, the abuse is most likely to occur in the workplace. A recent survey of American workers found that more than 41 percent of them had experienced some form of bullying at work in the past year; 13 percent of them were bullied on a weekly basis. “Often, adult bullying occurs between bosses and employees,” explains Irina Firstein, LCSW, a relationship counselor in New York City.
But that’s not all: Many adults find themselves emotionally tormented by fellow employees, nasty neighbors, aggressive friends, and even their spouse, says Firstein.
No matter who’s doing the antagonizing, the effects of bullying can be extremely damaging psychologically. Here’s what you should know about adult bullies.
How to Spot a Grownup Bully
A recent Iowa State University study found that childhood bullies may very well grow into adult bullies. Of the participants, those with a history of childhood bullying were six times more likely to get in a fight and two and a half times more likely to threaten someone than those without a bullying past.
“Adult bullies tend to be opinionated, judgmental, and coercive,” says Katherine Krefft, PhD, a practicing psychologist in Buzzards Bay, Mass. “If a person repeatedly makes you feel intimidated or humiliated, you are probably dealing with a bully.”
These people tend to:
- Abuse a position of power.
- Repeatedly give undeserved criticism.
- Use verbal or physical abuse.
- Have excessive and unrealistic expectations.
- Repeat insults or threats.
- Abuse the rights and dignity of others.
The Toll Bullying Takes on the Victim
“Repeated bullying — whether it occurs between bosses and employees, between spouses, or in any adult relationship — is a form of traumatic stress that is toxic to one’s emotional health,” says Firstein. In fact, the effects of bullying have been linked to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a trauma-induced anxiety disorder.
In addition, bullying victims may experience:
- Anxiety and depression
- Loss of self-confidence or self-esteem
- Fearfulness
- Financial losses from missed work
- Sleep disturbance
- Aches and pains
- Digestive disturbances
How to Put an End to the Abuse
The worst thing you can do if you’re being bullied? Ignore it.
“The reason child bullies grow up to be adult bullies is because the behavior is repeated and reinforced,” warns Krefft. If not confronted, a bully will likely continue his antagonizing ways.
Here’s what you can do:
- Recognize that being bullied is something no one deserves.
- Document the bullying behavior as well as you can.
- Try to have witnesses to support you.
- Seek help from an appropriate authority.
Never try to retaliate directly, says Krefft. The proper authority will depend on the situation: If at work, your employee handbook or HR department may identify the right person in your workplace to talk to. If you have been physically threatened or attacked, you may want to go to the police.
Could You Be the Bully?
What if you’re the browbeater? In a national survey on bullying, 6 percent of adults admitted to picking on others.
If you’re constantly taunting others, enjoying other people’s discomfort, have trouble controlling destructive behavior, take out your anger on others, or have threatened other people, you could have a bullying problem. Other warnings signs include frequent lying and fighting.
Whether you are the bully or the bullied, it is important to recognize it and take steps to stop it. If not, it could continue on a destructive path, affecting the emotional health of everyone it touches.
From AOL Health News
Recent Comments
intlxpatr on Give to Those Who Ask ExpatAlien on What Country am I Living … intlxpatr on Yellowstone: Old Faithful to C… Michelle on Yellowstone: Old Faithful to C… Cathy on No Grown-Ups in Charge Wikipedia Donate Button
Amazina
Early Voting in Florida
Here There and Everywhere 