venomai

Funny you post this. A couple days ago I suddenly became interested in meditation, out of body experiences and lucid dreams. I'm still using I-Doser to enter a meditative state, which might be considered "cheating", but hey, it's a start. :P I'll hopefully experiment with this a bit more tonight. We'll see how things go...

She is a high school teacher? Then tell her the honest truth -- that what she is doing doesn't belong in a literature class. Calmly warn her that she is wasting time that could be spent on lit. Tell her that it's great to practice freedom of speech, but make it clear that you are in a literature class where students are to study literature, not hear about PETA. If the discussion gets very heated and she doesn't seem to be changing her "lessons" then stand up, say goodbye politely, and go straight to the principal's office to tell them what you're teacher is doing. Speak out and others will follow. :) If it were me, I would wait it out a few weeks, trying to have some good class debates on the subject before I try to stop her. :lol:

Here are some sources. It seems pretty real. http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/d ... s_sons.php http://uk.news.yahoo.com/skynews/200711 ... ed5_2.html

Or it just leaves two people with one eye each. In real life, fights don't stop simply because both parties have each had a hit. :-k In real life, it's often an endless cycle of equally (or more) violent retaliations.

You're right, prison doesn't always help. In fact, over 60% of offenders are re-convicted within two years after release.[1] However, that means about 40% of the offenders may be learning some kind of a lesson. In 2002, the U.S. prison population was at around 2 million persons.[2] This means up to 800,000 of those inmates may be released with lessons learned. Do they all deserve to die? There are a number of inmates who manage to turn their lives around while in jail. Especially those who seek help. Many prison inmates live normal and otherwise innocent lives after serving their time. It would be a shame if all these now-great people were killed by acts of savage and useless revenge. Because it's the 21st century. :?: Or should we scrap all that we've been striving for? Should we simply fall back to the savage past of our ancestors, killing anyone who opposes us? IMO these "horrible" people are people who are born/raised with a different set of morals. Through proper psychological treatment we can shift their morals into the social norm, allowing them to think and act much like the rest of us. Torturing them with "an eye for an eye" motive is a poor option; it makes us just as horrible and savage as the offender. It's also very rare that the offender learns any lessons. Getting tortured will only enrage the offender more, making them more violent and more aggressive. Killing them is also a poor option; death is an easy way out and in no way should we allow them to damage our society without giving back to it. I don't doubt it... And that is the ultimate power of revenge. :( This is all speculation, but what about high doses of etheogens (psychedelic drugs) as a form of treatment? Take, for example, the LSD thumbprint -- where users ingest hundreds of hits worth of LSD crystals in a single lick of the thumb. The experience that follows can only be explained as death without actually dying. Inexperienced users will not have a pleasant trip, but will come out of it a much different person. The inmate who has committed such awful acts would endure more pain, guilt and suffering than any physical revenge can bring them. They would return with a vastly different set of morals and a changed psychology, often with a great amount of faith/religion. This method of treatment would be relatively humane and not very physically harmful. If it works, it would be the ultimate solution to "punishing" criminals, and the idea that they are "getting a taste of their own medicine" (even if it's only psychological) might even help satisfy our revenge. Society would never let that happen, though. :lol:

I mostly agree with you. :) You make some great points. I agree that who you are depends on who raised you. However, I would argue that biological differences also play a role, however minor. An example is the ability to carry offspring, which very much affects the way females react to certain situations. There's also testosterone and estrogen levels, but research is still on-going so I'll leave that to somebody else. In a certain sense, you are right. However, if an individual knows their family has a history of those issues they can seek help to avoid going through the same problems. A vast majority of alcoholics, for example, suffer from depression. This is a genetic disorder that can lead to offspring also being depressed and perhaps, in turn, also become alcoholics. Even so, proper treatment can help substantially and often proves to diminish/remove the issue at hand.

Carpe diem. :lol:

"I cried because I had no shoes, 'till I met a man who had no feet." - Steven Wright "Some people are so afraid to die that they never begin to live." - Henry Van Dyke "Turn on, Tune in, Drop out." - Timothy Leary

Hey guys. I noticed a lot of people were talking of revenge in a recent thread about parents abusing their children. Many people seemed to want the parents to suffer painfully for their actions. It got me thinking... Why do we feel the need to revenge so violently, and so equally as brutal? We consider ourselves a civilized and intelligent species, yet many of us don't hesitate to stoop to the same savage low as the original doer of evil. Are these appropriate or rash decisions? Is revenge a good or bad thing? Although I sometimes feel revenge I do not act on it; I prefer to find a non-violent and more civilized way of solving the problem. (yea, I'm a big hippie) "An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind" Discuss? :-k

Heh, my apologies Luckee, I know how ya feel. : I'll clean up the quote tags to make it clearer. Torturing (and sacrifice) of innocent children (and adults) is illegal in almost every part of the world including India, Africa and Iraq. And all of these countries have police officers. (Note: At the moment, Iraq is at war with the U.S. which obviously limits their emergency-response abilities, but they still do have police officers) Sometimes, horrible things can happen in a country, but these awful acts are rarely ever condoned by the entire population. It's extremely racist and offensive to stereotype these entire countries as savages just because of the actions of a select few (ie: radicals). Whackos exist in every country, in every culture, and in every race. Not word for word, but you certainly implied it. Better and worse are opposites. When you say X is worse than Y, you are implying that Y is better than X. Anyways, sorry to hijack this thread with another debate. #-o I'm done for now.

Sorry if I sound like I'm blowing things out of proportion, but your message was quite clear. You said this sort of child torture is "expected" to happen in "not normal" and "irresponsible" places like Iraq and Africa, where everybody is weird and sick and homeless. Hah... Now you're bashing on India, too? There aren't very many "whacko tribes" in India, and there certainly is strict rule. Maybe you are confusing the country with the ancient Native Indian tribes of America? But those tribes died out many years ago, and attempts to revive them and their "child sacrifice" cultures are very uncommon. Why? I can understand if the parents were rapists or paedophiles on the loose -- that would be reason to worry -- but in this case the parents were not harming their neighbours and are now in custody. What makes it "better" for children to die in non-Western locations? Why would you say it's better for a child to die in a tribe than down the street from you? What the hell does child sacrifice have to do with this, anyways? The two children are alive and the parents made no known attempts to sacrifice them.

I hate iPods. :wall: I can't stand them now that I've tried a Zen and SanDisk. It's more of a fashion statement than an MP3 player, and the white earbuds are a magnet for muggers after midnight. I wouldn't give up my right to vote for an iPod, or any other MP3 player for that matter. That's pretty selfish... :| Although I would give it up for better health care, education, marijuana legalization, gun control, etc.

Normal, in this case, is relative to culture. Certain cultures accept pain/death as a blessing, and would consider it a "normal" part of life. It's irrational and ignorant to think that only Westerners are normal and responsible. I find it disgusting that you suggest all non-Westerners are "poor weirdos" and "sick homeless people" and that you don't care about them. What's more; why should location change the way you feel about this? A child suffering in England is no worse than a child suffering in Iraq. Yes, in our Western culture, this is a deeply sad act. However, I agree with others, this is nothing compared to what is happening across the globe. Every day in Darfur thousands of innocents, including chilren, are dying of hunger and sickness. These are people who must endure far more pain than a safety pin through the mouth.

Decent start, but it's a little to square & uniform for my tastes. After all, real life is never so perfectly straight. Sorry to hear about your computer dying... lol :|

Did you draw the anime? It looks nice. One thing I'd watch out for is empty space. You've got a lot of pure white in your graphics which can sometimes be a little boring to look at. Love the hendrix one, by the way... :P

Sounds like fun... :)

I love the background -- it has a cool fresh style and some nice shading. Granted, the trees are a bit strange and distracting... But otherwise good. The foreground (face) needs a bit of work. You've got most of it down right, but it's a bit flat and needs more midtones. You should soften (anti-alias) your lines, especially the ones around the chin. Also, those eyes are massive. I'm not a fan of the pink text and border. Great work though. Nice attention to detail and lighting. Nice style, too. :) Keep 'em coming.

Meh.. I would call that artistic. Not in the sense that the OP did the art, but in the sense that the screen shot at least has some decent composition and an interesting mood. I've seen a lot of RS screen shots, and although they're all really horrible to look at, this one isn't so bad. Anyways... as it's been said there wasn't much to the piece. Most (all) of the credit goes to Jagex artists. And I didn't see the text until you pointed it out. :|

Great start; it's got a wacky style to it. Fragment (consider revising). :P

Pretty neat, it reminds of modern art. The colours are a bit too soft. Make sure you use the pen tool when your shapes are this simple. It will make them a lot sharper. The font is a bit boxy IMO. It looks like a type writer, which is a bit old fashioned for a "modern" piece like this. If the colours were rainbow (think of The Coke Side of Life ads) it might look even better. Keep at it. :) It's original, follows some elements of design, doesn't have any stolen art and it doesn't involve random brushing/filtering. So, it's immediately better than a lot of the crap you find on TIF these days.

Why bother? You'll end up there eventually. Unless you're going to Hell, in which case seeing Heaven would only make you depressed (knowing what you could have had). I don't believe in Heaven, anyways. I'd rather spend my free trip on something that interests me. My first option would be to travel to the future. I'd love to see our evolution and advancements. My second choice would definitely be Amsterdam. :)

This would make a good debate if you broadened the subject a bit. After all, it's males who tend to cause wars, start fights, murder, hunt, use weapons, drive wrecklessly, abuse substances, abuse partners/relatives, etc... Obviously women do these things too, but it's far less common in females. One question that comes to mind would be: If every male was a 'sissy' and had lower testosterone levels, what would life be like on Earth? Would we be a step closer to world peace? Or would the lack of aggressiveness somehow make things worse? Sorry if I'm trailing off topic. Love and Peace :

I would scrap it. That sprite is extremely overused, it's already popped up a couple times on TIF. No matter how much eye-candy you add around the sprite, it will never be an original concept and it certainly won't be "unique". Sorry. It's been done a million times before. :-k

There's a bit too much empty space IMO, mainly just the white is a problem for me. Great work though. Very psychedelic. :P

Great shading, love the softness to it. I'm not a fan of the perspective or anatomy, though, there are some noticeable flaws (especially the head and chair). Good work. Keep it up. :)