Re: Selecting common records from two files.



"Howard Brazee" <howard@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:5j16021jjc3iv2mpgk71lshsr0vnvls38v@xxxxxxxxxx
On Sat, 25 Feb 2006 14:36:20 +1300, "Pete Dashwood"
<dashwood@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Discuss the proposition: "Repetition of war stories simply glorifies and
perpetuates war. " :-)

It is interesting to watch little boys play who are from households
that don't allow toy guns. At least watching them when their parents
aren't around.

I remember when I was around 8 years old I lost my toy gun and had to go to
school without it. My father was deeply sympathetic and totally understood
it was nearly impossible to go to school without a gun at that age. He
actually made me a new one from wood while I was at school. For a whole day
I was virtually excluded from "cowboys and indians" and "cops and robbers"
and took it pretty hard...My mother was delighted and did not approve at all
of my Dad replacing it immediately.

Yes, we played with guns, we had sword fights, enacted "King Arthur" and
"Horatius holds the Bridge" (there was a plantation adjacent to my school
with vines on the trees you could swing on, and a stream running through it
with a small bridge that was ideal for our own Roman epics and for playng
Tarzan). We re-enacted the deeds of bygone days and invented new glories of
our own.

There were scratches and bruises and the odd torn shirt or ravelled
pullover. There were wrestles and the occasional fist fight (scrupulously
fair and no one ever got bullied or beaten by bigger kids; it just wasn't
decent. One on one in fair fight until one withdrew, or it was declared a
draw.). It's a boy thing. Never did us any harm. Some of the alliances and
friendships formed at that time have lasted through the years until the
present. We learned respect for each other, even when we won the fight.

Some years later when an automatic weapon was placed in my hands and I was
told I should face the prospect of going to Viet Nam and killing people I
had never met, because our government believed it was necessary, my somewhat
hawkish childhood did not affect my judgement, any more than if I had played
with dolls instead... OK, I guess that is hypothetical, but I don't believe
it did :-). Certainly I had a sense of duty, and a sense of survival, and a
certain thrill of adventure at putting myself in harm's way (at 20, unless
you have had a VERY sheltered upbringing, that is pretty normal) but I
resolved then and there not to shoot anyone who wasn't threatening me, or to
kill people just for wearing black pyjamas. Fair play. Duty and honour. Good
concepts that have served me well throughout my life.

I'm not saying you can't grasp these principles unless you have a
belliferous childhood. What I'm saying is that playing with guns doesn't
make you a killer. Kids DO understand the difference between being shot in
play and being shot for real. (If they don't then there is a serious screw
loose somewhere and they would come to a sticky end anyhow.)

And little boys (and some little girls too) will play violent games that
involve death and mayhem. There is no reason for parents to be alarmed by
this or to attempt to stifle it. Instead, channel it. Make sure they use
their ""weapons" in defence of the weak and oppressed. Let them be heroes.

I don't personally believe that repetition of war stories is a bad thing...
and I think that is true of IT war stories as well as real war stories. :-)

Pete.



.

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