blog #1

A controversial issue in today's society that is brought up in one of the works we have read is bullying. this issue was raised in the Power of One. Bullying is a major part of Peekay's life while in the boarding school. The amount of bullying and intensity of his bullying, however, made me look at it as basically torture. the judge and his peons were so cruel to peekay. like when peekay is forced to hold the metal rod at arms length for as long as he could, and if he got a worse time then the last session, he would be beaten. or like when he was forced to eat someone's poop. this kind of experience, especially in a small child, would be horrifying and would scar them for the rest of his or her life. although this torture turned peekay into a better person, the bullying that goes on in the real world usually makes the victim more susceptible to depression, and the like. in extreme cases, unfortunately, the victim will either commit suicide or bring a gun to school and kill others, or possibly even both. if bullying always resulted in the positive output that peekay had, then bullying wouldn't be so looked down upon. like i said earlier, though, it usually results in the negatives. i think it is unfortunate that bullying occurs, especually since the bully-er is just making himself or herself feel better about the insecruities they have about themselves by pointing them out in others, and most times exaggerating the severity of them. like with the judge. i think he picked on peekay, not just because he was a rooinek, but because of the fact that the judge was not smart at all, and he felt that having power over a defenseless little boy made up for that lack of intelligence. this example is how a stereotypical bully scenario is seen as- a person bigger, and whom usually is dumb, picks on a smaller child than he or she is. another typical bullying scenario is the jock against the athletically challenged (or just a talented person against a not talented person). this scenario doesn't come up against peekay in the power of one, though, because he is very good at boxing, and he is good at rugby as well.