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Kaiser, Jerrod and Roger are back! As I say in the Foreword, I didn't plan on wiriting a sequel straight away, but received many email queries about what happens in their Senior High School year. So, I had to respond.
Those of you wondering why there's a ceramic figurine instead of a picture of a Golden Retriever, will have to wait until the tale unfolds!
I look forward to comments and questions!
Bensiamin
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luvtwinks
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Likes it here |
Registered: August 2018
Messages: 175
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"Bensiamin wrote on Sat, 28 November 2020 23:08"Those of you wondering why there's a ceramic figurine instead of a picture of a Golden Retriever, will have to wait until the tale unfolds!
--
I was wondering about that! 😀
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ray2x
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: April 2009
Messages: 429
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Hi Bensiamin. I'm sort of a newbie here, but I was a member awhile back...needed to concentrate on raising a daughter. The character named Sean was a pleasant surprise. I had a 30 year working relationship with developmentally disabled people. Having a character with developmental disability is a tremendous plus. Your story would make many people feel "creeped out", since people with disabilities are often depicted as less than human. I have personally heard people make cruel remarks towards my students. It made me angry and usually lead me to yell at that person.
Anyway, you gave Sean depth and warmth as a character. You made him a human character within his limited time in the story. That is quite commendable.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13766
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"ray2x wrote on Tue, 22 December 2020 06:39"Hi Bensiamin. I'm sort of a newbie here, but I was a member awhile back...needed to concentrate on raising a daughter. The character named Sean was a pleasant surprise. I had a 30 year working relationship with developmentally disabled people. Having a character with developmental disability is a tremendous plus. Your story would make many people feel "creeped out", since people with disabilities are often depicted as less than human. I have personally heard people make cruel remarks towards my students. It made me angry and usually lead me to yell at that person.
Anyway, you gave Sean depth and warmth as a character. You made him a human character within his limited time in the story. That is quite commendable.
--
I ought to have noticed that, but I volunteer with a charity that takes folk with disabiiities afloat to learn and enjoy sailing and powerboating so just thought of Sean as a part of usual life. That means I hadn't noticed that his arrival in the tale was commendable, nor unusual. And it is both.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Ray2x: thanks for the comments about Sean. You are correct in how developmentally challenged people are viewed. I was fortunate in that my sophomore year in high school I was in a boarding school and roomed with two other kids, one of whom had CP. He wasn't the sweet kid that Sean is, but it did teach me that in spite of being crabby much of the time (and he certainly had reason to be), he was just another kid like me worthy of equal treatment and respect. The most impressive part about him to me was his drive: he never gave up and there was never a whiff of self pity about him. He was quite memorable!
Bensiamin
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Tim: good on 'ya, and probaby the most commendable aspect of what you shared is that you didn't notice!
If only we could all get to the place where it's just part of life, what a better world it would be!
Bensiamin
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13766
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"Bensiamin wrote on Tue, 22 December 2020 16:14"Tim: good on 'ya, and probaby the most commendable aspect of what you shared is that you didn't notice!
If only we could all get to the place where it's just part of life, what a better world it would be!
--
For those of us who volunteer it is a normal part of life. Everyone recognises that those without disability are needed to help those with disability take full advantage of the programme, and we all have a load of fun together as a unit, not 'us and them'. We are moving towards enabing those with disability take instructor roles. This depends on our governing body. Locally we use anyone with the right skill to teach it
The difference between a member and a volunteer is simple. An injury moves us from one category to the other, brain injury or physical.
With an ageing and active population the future of sport is disability
[Updated on: Tue, 22 December 2020 22:05]
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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ivor slipper
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Likes it here |
Registered: September 2013
Messages: 128
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Sad to see this finish - a great mix of tension and love. Just hope to see more of 'Team Kaiser' in operation in the not too distant future.
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Thanks, Ivor. Comments much appreciated.
Also, you have an eagle eye for detail, so in as much as you are not commenting, I heave a sigh of relief. I've awaiting comments since Tim told me to get ready for them!
The subject being American versus British law which made for the cock up Jerrod experienced in the Macbeth assignment. Hard to know when the Bard set Macbeth, and it is set in Scotland rather than England, but suffice to say that the structure of the legal system at the time was very different from what it is today. The point in the story is about a difference in interpretation, rather than making a historical case!
Bensiamin
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13766
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I hazard that there was no American law in the time of Macbeth
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Ha, ha! Actually, there was, but it had no connection to Anglo-Saxon precedents. Among some Native American tribes, most notably the Iroguois, not only was there a form of democratic governance, but also a legal system. European colonizers, with their usual hubris, considered it primitive when they arrived. But, it was there.
However, Macbeth took place in Scotland. Who among our readers knows the mind of the Bard as concerns the legal system at the time?
Bensiamin
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13766
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Macbeth is generally regarded as being set in the 11th century. Details of Scottish law then are vague, but History of Scots law has some relevance.
It is likely that Trial by ordeal would have been the main route for trying an accused murderer. This suggests that the accused is most assuredly guilty until proven innocent, something that does not persist in the laws of the four nations making up the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland today. Life in the 11th century was by no means primitive, but the legal systems, such as they were, were heavily based upon superstition
[Updated on: Thu, 24 December 2020 22:41]
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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I received this observation from a reader:
In Macbeth's time Scotland and England were two separate countries, so it is no surprise that their laws would be different. In fact, the two legal systems are still different (and separate) today. As an aside, in Scottish law there are three possible verdicts in a trial: Innocent, Guilty, and Not Proven. The last meaning that the jury thinks you really did do the crime but that the prosecution has not proved their case. In American law Not Guilty covers both Innocent and Not Proven, leaving some doubt.
Scottish and English laws were separate systems in medieval times, and the still have separate "systems" with significant overlap. Relative to the situation Jerrod's English Lit class found themselves in, the pivot point in the story line is based on the following statement from Legal History Sources:
The maxim "Innocent until proven guilty" cannot be found in any English court case or any jurisprudential treatise before ca. 1800.
The change towards innocent until proven guilty appears to have begun after the Civil War and the execution of Charles I, with the incorporation of major aspects of Common Law, but was not codified as a legal principle until after 1800.
Which still leaves the quandry of jurisdiction! Jerrod's class was trying Macbeth in the USA in 1997. The crime was committed in Scotland in (some argue) the 11th Century and Scottish law was still quite undefined. Shakespeare was English, so would he have projected English law to his characters or expected that Scottish law applied?
Bensiamin
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Yet another truly lovely story. One of my favorites so far from you, Bensiamin, And I've loved them all. Thank-you. 
“There's no grays, only white that's got grubby. I'm surprised you don't know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That's what sin is.” - Terry Pratchett
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