Hurlshort

Your hemorrhoids are flaring up again, eh? The proper response is "How appropriate, you fight like a cow."

That's a fact, Jack.

Strange, because I was enjoying the movie for about an hour then it scurried, in my opinion, up it's own arse. The ending was awful to this callsign. I thought the car accident was pretty clever. The rest of the ending left me a bit meh, but I'm a sucker for a somewhat happy ending.

Oh wow, so am I. My main is Taranto, feel free to add me to your friend list. As I said, I'm on sporadically, but I do try and play a couple times a month.

We should do a SoDOFF raid/instance sometime! Are you playing? I'm pretty sure Setzer is on another server. One of the devs was a player too, if I remember correctly. I tried to get a few others to play but none of them stuck with it. It's weird, I find LotRO way more engaging than I did WoW, and I feel like it is easier to go back to after a month or two break, but a lot of people I game with lose interest in it rather quickly. To each their own, I guess. I picked up Civ5 yesterday. It is phenomenal. I don't know how they keep managing to improve what is already a fantastic game.

Played Lord of the Rings Online a bit. I absolutely love the new area, it is really nice looking and has some great new creatures and characters. I also bought an outfit that makes me look like Indiana Jones via the new Turbine in-game store. I have a ton of points since I have been playing forever, over 3,000 right now.

I'm sorry that happened to you Calax. I agree that the dad should not have gone over in his uniform. How about we meet there and call a truce.

This is why I'm having trouble with your posts. He didn't murder the kid. He didn't even rough him up. He used words and a pair of handcuffs. It crossed a line, but we are disagreeing with how far over that line he went. I say it deserves a reprimand, you seem to disagree with that vehemently. We can't fire people every time they mess up or lose their cool. If he has no history of abuse on his record, then I just don't see how he deserves to have his career taken away over this.

I get that kids disobey parents. I'm saying he should expect consequences when he gets caught. I think I've made it pretty clear what I think of the kid's point of view. He did something wrong and he got a lecture for it. He was scared, which seems about right. This is the main problem here, he didn't communicate well with the parents. It is a bit sad that they could not see this for what it was, an angry father with no real legal recourse. This is the main reason he deserves a reprimand. I don't get the relevance here. Does the officer have a history of losing his cool with people he pulls over? I'm pretty sure you are wrong. My wife and I, Di, and a few other folks I've talked to all understand why an angry dad would go off on the boy. Of course he could have handled it better. You keep saying I'm only looking at it from one viewpoint, but have you really taken the time to look at it from the father's viewpoint?

I better call my mom and let her know she can stop worrying, I've reached the age cut off.

And yet you still get to stress and worry about them as much as you did while they were growing up.

You don't stop being a parent when your children grow up. And thanks Krookie, that made me feel better.

Are you really comparing baby sitting to parenting? Depends on the length of the babysitting... I mean you're basically parenting if you babysit kids while their parents spend a week on vacation. I used to substitute teach, sometimes for a week or two at a time. It is a world of difference compared to teaching for an entire school year. Parenting is not a week long gig. Calax, your last few posts have basically been you lecturing me on how to be a parent. What gives?

Are you really comparing baby sitting to parenting?

Uh, wot? I find it concerning that you are waking up a bunch of times every night to take care of a couple kids if you are not a parent.

I'd like to apologize for the hooligan comment then. It was not meant to be offensive.

Wow, this post was really more in jest. I was tired, I had kids to put to bed, and I was glad that there was finally someone in the thread on my side of the argument. Is hooligan usually a serious insult in your cultures? Look, it isn't an insult to say you guys really don't know what you are talking about when it comes to parenting. It is a statement of fact, it would be like me giving my opinion on the menstrual cycle. Sure, I've seen people go through it and I've dealt with the consequences of that time of the month, but I've never physically gone through it. Being a parent is the toughest thing I have ever gone through, and I still have a lifetime of being a parent ahead of me. Last night I was up every 45 minutes taking care of one of my children. A few nights ago I rushed my 3-year old to the emergency room with a temperature of 103.5. Then I went to work the next day. I went to 5 different stores looking for the right medicine for her. There are times when I nurture her, discipline her, teach her, and I am pretty much always exhausted. It is always worth it, but that doesn't make it any less completely exhausting. The reason I am saying all this is a lot of you are extremely fast to judge the guy. You have called him a bad parent and a bad cop. I've tried to meet some of you halfway, conceding that he acted badly as an officer, but the bad parent argument is a lot more complex. There isn't a department handbook that tells you what to do as a parent. We don't really know what type of parent he is. Di and I are telling you as parents that his reaction as a parent was very understandable. Many of you have dismissed that, so I'm not sure why you would be surprised that we are dismissive as well. Heck, I've been called a bad teacher and a bad parent because I said I would protect my child using any means available. It is my belief that 14 is way too young. You can disagree with me, but this is my child, and as long as she is a minor, it is my job to make those calls. If she goes against those, then there will be consequences in my household. Trust me, my consequences will be a lot easier to deal with than a teenage pregnancy.

I didn't say anything about the kid's respect towards the girl. I said he was disrespectful to the parents of the girl. Given that the dad states he had talked to the kid previously, it is a fairly obvious conclusion that the parents disapprove of their daughter having sex. I doubt that was a secret to the boy or the girl. It doesn't matter what age you or me or anyone else thinks it is alright to have sex at, it matter what the parents of the girl believe in. She is their child, their ward, living under their house. Both the boy and the girl should respect the parent's wishes, and expect consequences when they don't. I'm really shocked that there is this attitude that this was just some lovestruck naive boy. This whole 'protect the boy from consequences' shtick does nothing for me.

Well, we all agree that an abuse of power took place. The argument here is how serious was the abuse. He used his handcuffs inappropriately, I can concede to that. He was hard on the kid verbally. He didn't rough him up. He didn't take out a gun. He didn't tazer him. He didn't drive him downtown to booking, he didn't press charges, he isn't even the one that filed the report (which makes sense.) He didn't bring other cops in on it, he didn't trump up charges or plant evidence. He didn't confiscate the cell phone, he didn't threaten the parents, he didn't blah blah blah blah. There are a lot of different types of abuse out there. As I said, the use of the cuffs deserves a reprimand. Appearing uniform deserves a reprimand, it was a personal matter. But was he in the wrong to go off on the kid verbally? I'm not convinced of that at all. This wasn't some honor roll kid, it was a kid with a record for assault, a kid the cop had already had a talk with, and a kid who clearly lacks respect for the parents of his girlfriend. The kid WAS stupid, and I have a hard time feeling bad about the fact he was told so.

I answered your question directly with the quote from the article.

So I'm guessing Volo is against spanking then? Here is a quote, since you probably don't read the linked articles:

I'd say calling for the guy's head is a bit of grandstanding as well. I've been very willing to to discuss what he did wrong, how he could handle the situation better, and so on. But he is an underpaid public servant and I'm not going to just throw him under the bus. His intention was to protect his daughter, and I am going to take that into consideration. The story is also pretty incomplete. We don't know how the boy reacted to the cop at first. The cop hasn't issued any statement, we just have the word of a 15-year old boy. The parents aren't even releasing statements. Maybe the cop showed up at the house to talk and things went sideways. We just don't know, none of us know the boy or girl or the parents involved, and yet many of you are rushing in to condemn the cop about as fast as you can.

I've been called a bad teacher and a bad parent, and I am the douchebag?

It is a bit daunting to have nearly the entire forum arguing with me, but I can find some solace in Volourn. If he is disagreeing with me, I am probably on the right track. Roofles at being called a bad parent by a guy with a dissociative personality disorder! Um, I'm still getting the impression some of you didn't really watch the video. He isn't yelling at the kid, he's lecturing him. Apparently the cuffs were applied because the kid didn't take him seriously at first. I disagree with the use of the cuffs, but that explains why they were used. Apparently the kid also has a record for abuse of some sort, and apparently the cop already met with the boy earlier and asked him to stop seeing his daughter. The boy's father is also supporting what the cop was saying in the video. So yeah, the kid deserved to have some fear put into him. The biggest crime is that a bunch of people are rushing to his defense because 'boo hoo, he got scared!' That is the over-protection I see.

Oh no, the armchair parents don't want me to teach their make-believe children! It is a bit hard to take you guys seriously when you go on like this. Let's review - - I believe he should be reprimanded. He crossed the line. I don't believe he should lose his job unless he has a history of this sort of thing. - I understand why he reacted in the manner that he did, and I would very likely react in a similar manner. I would hopefully be smarter about it, for example I would approach the parents first and work with them. It is a little difficult not to be dismissive here with the non-parents, because there is a major disconnect. Just the fact that the majority of you are ok with 14 and 15 year old's having sex is a huge chasm in our ability to understand each other. But I am somewhat comforted by the fact that if and when you folks do have children and you spend a little time raising them, you will realize just what a complete change in perception it really is. The way you view the entire world will change.