Sausage Casserole and Soapbox.

 I made a Potato-Sausage casserole last night as an attempt at a new recipie, it actually came out pretty well, but the potatoes actually needed to cook longer. ((I've noticed that problem with some of Taste of Homes recipes that involve potatoes.)) Also if you *cough* happen to use spicy sausage... leave out the pepper. It was good enough though that we'll probably do a second run at it.

 Otherwise: sorry, I'm rambling today.

 I felt a bit like Geek-Ebert yesterday with the giant Zombie blog, which was kinda fun ((G-Ebert. ;) )), although I felt more growly later when a topic came up on Ravelry about Bullying. I am happy that people are becoming more concious of the enormous harm it can do, but I'm a little annoyed but one of the current blanket assumptions I keep seeing.
 "All Bullies must automatically have abusive/terrible parents."

 I'm sorry... but I flatly CAN'T agree with that as a blanket truth. I'm sure a number of them do. But not all of them, there's just no way. It doesn't take an abusive parent to make certain children crave authority, power, and the 'respect' they earn from making others feel that they are supreme above all others. True, many of these bullies are cripplingly insecure, especially among the girls, but that doesn't mean they come from bad homes. It may mean they've made bad choices, that they've wrapped themselves up in the illusion that the tangled and barbed knot of peer pressure and the urge to climb to the top of the heap by beating down everyone around them actually will MEAN something once they've left school... but it doesn't mean they were abused.

 It's the goddamn Lord of the Flies. I've said it before and I'll say it again. It's a little savage microcosm, a tiny island where who has the latest fashion, the best sports scores, and the most important parent make or break you, where if you're new, you're a target, because you're a threat to the established order.

 At some point along the line, it is, weather or not people want to admit it, the BULLIES choice to Bully, and something they, personally, need to take responsibility for. That's the only way I see the cycle being broken. You can stand on a soap box all day long and say "I abuse (insert other person here) because Mommy and Daddy abused me", but at the end of the day, you're the one who made the choice to continue the cycle of abuse.

 Blaming everything on the previous generation's actions is only an excuse not to change, and it's a pathetic one.