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[Sergarr]

archimedes of the new fucking age i'm not

[Gentlefish]

archimedes of the new fucking age i'm not

You are Archimedes of the new fucking age, though.

[Helgoland]

archimedes of the new fucking age i'm not

C'mon, I'm just still disappointed we didn't get some full frontal nudity towards the end of Interstellar.

[Tiruin]

tiruin is plenty worrying yes

but i assume she's smart enough to not fall into something abusive so

also skyru you can give your brother a warm welcome to the school system - where not doing fucking anything about the students social situation is a sacred law

get the guy a knife and teach him how to use it is my advice

...You could really check your words and advice before posting it.
Teaching self-defense instead of weapon handling would do a lot better.
I mean, I could relate--our national sport is eskrima, and it has historical origins in the use of bladed or lethal weaponry.
But...really. >_>
(also get the police there)

..And yeah. I understand how those processes (of abuse) work. They're very vast and situational, but there are always similar aspects to each and every case.

I don't either... can you even report an underage to the police if your only witness is the victim, and have a good chance of getting them sentenced? And is it worth the time and effort?

YES.
It's better than doing nothing.

[Flying Dice]

tiruin is plenty worrying yes

but i assume she's smart enough to not fall into something abusive so

also skyru you can give your brother a warm welcome to the school system - where not doing fucking anything about the students social situation is a sacred law

get the guy a knife and teach him how to use it is my advice

...You could really check your words and advice before posting it.
Teaching self-defense instead of weapon handling would do a lot better.
I mean, I could relate--our national sport is eskrima, and it has historical origins in the use of bladed or lethal weaponry.
But...really. >_>
(also get the police there)

..And yeah. I understand how those processes (of abuse) work. They're very vast and situational, but there are always similar aspects to each and every case.

I don't either... can you even report an underage to the police if your only witness is the victim, and have a good chance of getting them sentenced? And is it worth the time and effort?

YES.
It's better than doing nothing.

Tiruin's right on the money here. An attacker can't grab your martial arts training and stab/shoot you with it, and a court of law has a harder time proving violent intent vs. self-defense. Not to mention it being easier to obtain legally to begin with.

Also: Do everything possible to shut it down. If the system is really that resistant to doing anything about it, the best way is probably to get your brother some sort of self-defense training, avoid being caught alone, and next time A engages him in public to go as hard as possible. Bullies more than anything else go for easy targets; even if you lose the fight, fighting back (preferably being as nasty about it as possible, kneeing their crotch, gouging eyes, going for joints, &c.) will usually make them move on to greener pastures.

It's a sad thing, but in most cases the absolute worst thing you can do is be completely passive and not make any real effort to get help for fear of retribution. The worst part of that is that you usually don't realize it until it's too late and you're in high school or adulthood and are socially withdrawn with trust issues and GOD DAMN IT-

[Eric Blank]

Sky; only way to deal with these kids, if the police do nothing, is to kick their asses to next Tuesday, and then even your brother must maintain the upper hand. Get your bro in shape. Spar with him, beat the shit out of each other, become the sensei. (Prior knowledge is not necessary...)

[Arx]

Posting this from my cellphone, by the light of a candle, whilst working on my laptop's battery power. Welcome to the third world: enjoy your stay, because you won't be leaving until we can figure out why our figurative airliner won't get off the ground.

[Descan]

Is South Africa really considered a developing nation though?

[Arx]

Depends on the standard you use. Sure we're doing better than a lot of African and post-colonial countries, but there's plenty of bad stuff.

For instance, the fact that our electricity system cannot produce enough power for the whole country, or the horrifying number of people without easy access to running water or even non-chemical or hole-in-the-ground latrines. Or the enormous number of people living in informal settlements, or the highest HIV/AIDS rates in the world (unless we managed to fix that somehow). I can't look up other stuff at the moment, so my unreliable head-library is all I have.

Edit: you can swing it both ways, of course. Mediocre but functioning goverment healthcare, some industrialisation, good tertiary education.

[sjm9876]

@ Sky:

Whilst going to the police might solve the immediate problem, it'll likely just make things worse for your brother down the line. If they speak to the bully, and don't go further, then the bullying could get worse as easily as better. If they go further, it'll definitely earn your brother a bad reputation, which could potentially lead to more bullying.

From my personal experience the only satisfactory (and I use that term very loosely) solution is to learn to fight back to an extent. It puts off the bully themselves and any other potential. Of course, if the teachers like the bullies, this could also make things worse.

Of course, none of this is word of god, and may not even be good advice. Just my experience.

[Baffler]

Watched Black Hawk Down, and what a load of shit that was.

[Sinistar]

I am all for Skyrunner's brother standing up for himself, as I said. But one thing we mustn't neglect is the possibility of that bully having more than one buddy(s). If he has a stronger group behind him or is part of some group of known thugs, things could get seriously out of control.

Then again, Skyrunner said it's an elementary school, so I guess kids at that age don't yet form a cohesive groups of troublemakers... right?

Watched Black Hawk Down, and what a load of shit that was.

In what sense? I'm honestly interested. I have some knowledge about the Somalia conflict and from what I know the main problem with BHD seems to be it telling the story from one side's perspective only ("forgetting" to mention, for instance, that failed attack few days prior to the big operation, that only riled up the anti-American feelings in that particular part of town), but it is at least a decent action movie from what I remember, no?

[Baffler]

All the action sequences were kinda boring and same-y, and the ending bit where they try to portray "19 Americans dead" as a tragedy, right next to the words "over 1,000 Somali militants and civilians" pissed me off more than a little bit. It's also apparently not terribly accurate as far as actual events, but that doesn't really bother me too much because it isn't a documentary and doesn't really pretend to be.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Yes, a lot of civilians [estimates of 3,000 civilians dead with 800-1,000 militants dead] were killed because the militias that downed the copters knew that downing US copters in Mogadishu's densest populated areas would result in a huge amount of crossfire and casualties that they could blame on the west.. Fun fact; it worked. Scarred international forces still won't go full tilt into Somalia anymore, leaving it up to big brother Ethiopia to help the provisional governments from collapsing to the embedded Islamist groups... Good thing the world abandoned Somalia to be riddled with extremism and sectarian violence forever, likely helping the Islamic groups to establish a permanent foothold in the region.

[EnigmaticHat]

All the action sequences were kinda boring and same-y, and the ending bit where they try to portray "19 Americans dead" as a tragedy, right next to the words "over 1,000 Somali militants and civilians" pissed me off more than a little bit. It's also apparently not terribly accurate as far as actual events, but that doesn't really bother me too much because it isn't a documentary and doesn't really pretend to be.

Haven't seen the movie, but its especially lovable that they didn't split that statistic even though their source for it almost certainly did.