What's Wrong With People

Not wanting to show another video, I'll just give you a link. But you have to watch it.

Ok, if you don't want to watch it, here's the breakdown. (heh) Break dancer in Times Square subway station is doing his routine. A toddler breaks away from parent into the circle and break dancer kicks kid who proceeds to tumble in the air and land on their head.

Now...I've found this video at least 19,000 places online. YouTube has no less than 30 billion people who have this video. (Look it up, 30 billion. It will be 50 by the time you're done reading this.) And yet no where in any of the blogs, articles, comments, teletypes or smoke signals was I able to find out if the kid was ok.

You know what I found? People saying "stupid parents" and "stupid break dancers."

First of all, I can't speak for the "stupid break dancers." I don't know what the MTA's stance is on performances in the stations. I've always thought break dancing was cool, took a lot of skill and if you're going to pan handle, I'd rather give my dime to some kids breakin' then a dude with his guitar riffing on Weird Man Dylan. But that's just me.

What really gets my fur raised is the idea that the parent of this child was a bad parent. And I'd love to counter with testimony on how hard it is to watch a toddler 24/7 but I know the response to that would be that no one asked me to have a kid and it's my responsibility to keep track of them. And to that I have no response. But, I'm sticking to my guns about it being hard to be ever vigilant. Toddlers are fucking quick and single minded hell-monkeys and they will bolt away from you faster than a spurred horse. Even if you were watching them and were actively keeping track of their movements, they can get away from you and it doesn't take long for them to get into trouble.

Thing with toddlers is they've just learned to walk and run and you want to encourage them to do so, so more and more you have to let the go on their own. They want to walk in front of you, to lead you, to show that they are a big kid and have some power and control over their environment and you HAVE to LET them DO that. But then, as they are a foot away from you, they get a tickle-hair in their ass and they run - suddenly - as if shoved by the invisible man. And you know where they go? Into the street. Into a fenced off construction area. Into the assembly line. Into a break dancer.

So the question arises, why let your kid near those areas? Well, we have a busy street out our front door. When we go outside, G-man comes with us and hovers around our heels. We've got a car to pack or unload and while we take our eyes off him for a split second, he's trundled off into the street. The mom here was probably answering her cell phone or looking at the schedule or - shocker - the performers and for a split second lost sight of her kid. Kids will always take that opportunity to run, always. It can't be stopped, it's nature. In later years that same behavior becomes sneaking out of the house, dating cult members, becoming a member of a political party which you loathe. It's called finding boundaries and it's the way nature promotes growth.

Here's the thing, if that kid is ok, do you think she'll run away from her mom any more?

But dammit, people. The mom is not a bad parent for this. She is not negligent or unfit to raise offspring. There is no need to call for a parental license because of this. I know it's not just the CFBHs out there who feel this way either, it's just people, even parents, who think this mom was out of line.

What happened to calling these kinds of things "accidents" and then moving on? What happened to both parties acknowledging that it was a nexus of fluke occurrences and not something for which one party should be at fault. The idea of the accident has been lost in our world and people are always looking to blame someone. It's one of the true failings of humanity that there always has to be a malicious intent on the part of one person or that their negligence was so egregious that it warrants a punishment beyond reason. I don't think humans would have got this far if there wasn't something inherently forgiving in our nature.

Ironically, I blame civilization for our lack of civility. We've lost all perspective as to what's really important, dangerous and evil. Because we can keep warm/cool, safe, removed, fed and stimulated by our fabricated environments, we've lost our innate sense of danger and preservation. It's a different jungle now. We're not running from mountain lions or bears. We're not spending a week tracking a herd so we can have food for a month. We're not searching for caves before the onset of winter. We're trying to blame a break dancer for causing an accident. We're trying to blame a parent for having a lapse in attention.

Here, do you want to get bent out of shape over something? Go listen to this story. There are people in this world being beheaded, de-limbed, raped, gutted, burned for reasons I'm sure most Americans or Europeans don't understand. Women in the middle east as recently as last week are still being STONED TO DEATH for the same types of actions that will appear on a highly rated network show. Families are being torn apart so groups of men can lord over small areas of barren waste.

And yet day after day I see people getting all fired up because their lucky pants were ruined at a dry cleaners, or they find out that AP is whiter and more male oriented than congress, or that banking machines are charging a fee for their money.

Seriously, no perspective. Non at all.

But, you know, keep watching that video over and over. You can laugh if want, it is kind of funny at first. Kids get a bit floppy with they get kicked in the head. I don't want to come across as righteous, I watch AFV too. But don't tell me that this lady was a bad parent. Don't tell me that performer was breaking a law which then caused this. If you can absolutely and without a shred of doubt in your soul say that this is one of the worst things happening in the world right now, then I offer you my sympathy. Small shit like this should be over-fucking-looked, not glorified beyond imagination.

When we as a people stop killing, maiming and destroying each other over things like land, faith, biological make up or personal preferences, then I will be the first in line to go after the MTA for allowing this kind of thing to go on. Until then, there better be more compassion on the tubernet and a greater sense of perspective.

Carry on.