Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Occam's Razor as Applied to World Peace

I come from a long line of educators (and if National University, the place I graduated from an entire year ago and they have somehow yet to send me any of my accredidations and licenses, would get off their behinds-- I will join that line). A lot of my family works with high-risk populations.

Dealing day-in and day-out with high-risk populations, you develop a situational vocabulary much different from that of dealing with normal-risk populations. And that vocabulary really the only difference between high-risk and normal-risk populations, because if you tell a normal-risk to "knock that crap off and get back to work", the normal-risk student's parents will be in the principal's office demanding to know where you get off talking to their child like that.

One day, Mtr. Mother was driving down the road, and she was stopped at a light in a not-terribly-nice part of town. One young man (still in his teens), a few feet away on the sidewalk, pulled out a gun and started firing into the crowd at a bus stop. Mtr. Mother (a middle-aged, overweigh woman in a business suit) jumped out of the minivan and yelled at the top of her lungs, "What the HELL do you think you're doing?"

The young man startled, looked into her eyes, dropped the gun, and ran like hell.

Mtr. Mother will be the first one to tell you what she did was purely instinctual, and utterly crazy. But you know what? I bet you five dollars that if we parachuted in a battalion of teachers and grandmothers (especially those with big purses), we'd have world peace right quick.

The reason, though, that caused Mtr. Mother to jump out of the van was she saw someone in trouble, and she just reacted.

*Looks around this world* I dunno about you, but I see some people who need to be asked just what the hell they are doing. Politicians, religious leaders, the guy in the house next door, bloggers...

I double-dog dare you.

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