For me, there are a couple of things wrong with this scenario.
The first is a violation of the trust I place in my kids' sports coaches. I expect those folks to teach my kids the sport, not seek to impart the coach's views on politics, religion, or gun ownership -- whether expressly or, as in this case, impliedly -- on his captive group of malleable minds. I am working damn hard to scale back my kids' exposure to violence and weapons, and I neither expect nor appreciate someone whom I hired to teach my kid to swim to be working at cross purposes with me. If I saw one of my kids conducting a mock execution, whether using a squirt gun, starter pistol, or a finger, we'd have a long chat about what it was about. Where did they see the visual to copy? What point are they trying to make? Is there a more effective way to make that same point? No, I don't expect exposure to this little drama to turn my kids into homicidal maniacs, or cause irreparable psychological damage, but I surely don't appreciate some dork who ought to be working on my kids' bilateral breathing to undercut my admittedly uphill battle against endemic violence.
The second issue is the parallel to the sickening videos of the executions of aid workers shown on Al Jazeera, and the inexcusable images from Abu Ghraib. Or go back further to the haunting image (run in Life magazine, I think) of the execution of the Viet Cong soldier in Vietnam. I remember the controversy over a National Lampoon cover in the 70's with a photo of a gun held to a dog's head with the caption "Buy this magazine or we'll shoot the dog." Clearly a joke, but a lot of folks felt it was over some imaginary line. The images out of the mid-east are too fresh, and too raw, for me to to write this off as a harmless prank.
For me, there are a couple of things wrong with this scenario.
The first is a violation of the trust I place in my kids' sports coaches. I expect those folks to teach my kids the sport, not seek to impart the coach's views on politics, religion, or gun ownership -- whether expressly or, as in this case, impliedly -- on his captive group of malleable minds. I am working damn hard to scale back my kids' exposure to violence and weapons, and I neither expect nor appreciate someone whom I hired to teach my kid to swim to be working at cross purposes with me. If I saw one of my kids conducting a mock execution, whether using a squirt gun, starter pistol, or a finger, we'd have a long chat about what it was about. Where did they see the visual to copy? What point are they trying to make? Is there a more effective way to make that same point? No, I don't expect exposure to this little drama to turn my kids into homicidal maniacs, or cause irreparable psychological damage, but I surely don't appreciate some dork who ought to be working on my kids' bilateral breathing to undercut my admittedly uphill battle against endemic violence.
The second issue is the parallel to the sickening videos of the executions of aid workers shown on Al Jazeera, and the inexcusable images from Abu Ghraib. Or go back further to the haunting image (run in Life magazine, I think) of the execution of the Viet Cong soldier in Vietnam. I remember the controversy over a National Lampoon cover in the 70's with a photo of a gun held to a dog's head with the caption "Buy this magazine or we'll shoot the dog." Clearly a joke, but a lot of folks felt it was over some imaginary line. The images out of the mid-east are too fresh, and too raw, for me to to write this off as a harmless prank.
