EFFECTS OF CHILD ABUSE ON PERFORMANCE OF PRIMARY SCHOOL IN KAPYEMIT WARD, TURBO CONSTITUENCY, UASIN-GISHU COUNTY.





BY
ERICK NYAKUNDI
KIS/03013/14




A RESEARCH PROJECTSUBMITED TO THE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES, DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY IN THE PARTIAL FULFILMENT FOR THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF SOCIOLOGY



MAY, 2014

DECLARATION

I, the undersigned, declare that this project is my original work and that it has not been presented in any other university or institution for academic credit.

Signature...............................................­..... Date...................................
ERICK NYAKUNDI
KIS/03013/14






SUPERVISOR
This project has been submitted for examination with my approval as university supervisor
DR. W. O. ABUYA
Signature..................................................­.. Date....................................




DEDICATION
I dedicate this work to my Dad, Mom, my sister Lydia and my lovely brother Dun who contributed in one way or another to make this project to be successful.


















ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to thank all individuals who contributed and sacrificed their time towards completion of this project.
To my supervisor, for the guidance and support in the development of this research project, His advice and criticism made this project what it is.
Thanks to colleagues and friends for their suggestions, advice and encouragement. To all of you may God bless you abundantly for your tireless effort.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents Page
DECLARATION i
DEDICATION ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS iv
LIST OF TABLES vii
LIST OF FIGURE viii
ABSTRACT ix
CHAPTER ONE 10
STUDY OVERVIEW AND STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 10
1.1 Background of the Study 10
1.2 Research Questions 13
1.3 Research Objectives 13
1.4 Justification of the Study 13
1.5 Significance of the Study 14
1.6 Scope of the Study 15
1.6.1Assumptions of the Study 16
CHAPTER TWO 17
LITERATURE REVIEW 17
2.1 Introduction 17
2.2 Common Forms of Child Abuse 17
2.2.1 Child ****** Abuse 17
2.2.2 Physiological or Emotional Abuse 17
2.2.3 Physical Abuse 18
2.2.4 Child Neglect or Abandonment 18
2.2.4.1 Physical Neglect 19
2.2.4.2 Educational Neglect 19
2.2.4.3 Medical Neglect 19
2.2.5 Child Fatalities 20
2.3 How Child Abuse Affects Academic Performance 20
2.3.1 Child Abuse and Academic Performance 20
2.3.2 Child Abuse and School Image 23
2.3.3 Child Abuse and Dropout Rate 25
2.4 Strategies that Schools can Employ to Curb Child Abuse 26
2.4.1 Role of Public Regulation 26
2.4.1.1 Nurturing and Attachment 27
2.4.1.2 Social Connections 27
2.5 Theoretical Framework 27
2.5.1 Learning Theory 28
2.5.1.1 Relationship with the Study 28
2.5.2 Family Dysfunction Theory 29
2.5.2.1 Relationship with the Study 29
CHAPTER THREE 30
RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY 30
3.0 Introduction 30
3.1 Site Description 30
3.2 Research Design 30
3.3.1 Target Population 30
3.3.2 Sample Size and Sampling Procedure 31
3.4 Description of Research Instruments 32
3.4.1 Research Instrument 32
3.4.1.1 Questionnaire 32
3.5 Data Collection Procedure 32
3.5.1 Validity and Reliability of Research Instruments 33
3.5.1.1 Reliability of Research Instruments 33
3.5.1.2 Validity 33
3.6 Data Analysis and Presentation 33
CHAPTER FOUR 35
DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS 35
4.0 Introduction 35
4.1 Background Information 35
4.1.1 Age of the Respondents 35
4.1.2 *** of the Respondents 35
4.1.3 Education Level of the Respondents 36
4.1.4 Marital Status 36
4.2 Specific Information 37
4.2.1 Effects of Child Abuse on Academic Performance 37
4.2.2 How Child Abuse Affects Dropout Rate of Students in School 38
4.2.3 Proposed Strategies that Schools can Employ to Curb Child Abuse 41
CHAPTER FIVE 43
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 43
5.0 Introduction 43
5.1 Summary of the findings 43
5.2 Discussion of the Findings 44
5.3 Conclusion 45
5.4 Recommendations 46
REFERENCES 47

LIST OF TABLES & FIGURES
Table 3.1 Target population 32
Table 3.1 Sample size 33
Table 4.1 Age of the Respondents 36
Table 4.2 *** of the Respondents 37
Table 4.3 Education Level of the Respondents 37
Table 4.4 Marital Status 38
Table 4.5 Effects of Child Abuse on Academic Performance 38
Table 4.6 How Child Abuse Affects Dropout Rate of Students in School 40
Figure 4.1 Views of the Pupils on Abuse 41
Table 4.7 Proposed Strategies that Schools can Employ to Curb Child Abuse 42





















ABSTRACT
Child abuse is the physical, ****** or emotional maltreatment or neglect of a child or children. The consequences of child maltreatment can be profound and may endure long after the abuse or neglect occurs. The purpose of the study was to investigate the effect of child abuse on school performance in Primary Schools in Kapyemit ward, Uasin-Gishu County. The objectives of the study were: To assess the impacts of child abuse on academic performance; to determine the effects of child abuse on schools image, to identify the impacts of child abuse on pupil drop out rate, to investigate the effects of child abuse on pupil transition rate. The study employed a survey study design. The study targeted 160 respondents which includes; 5 Head Teachers, 40 Teachers, 70 Pupils and 35 parents of which a sample size of 48 was obtained from using 30%. Purposive sampling technique was used in selecting the head teachers while simple random sampling technique will be used to select the teachers, Pupils and parents who formed the respondents of the study. Questionnaires and interview schedules were used as data collection instruments. Data was analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively and presented in form of tables, percentages and frequency. The study helped in the understanding of the effects of child abuse on the school performance, the realization of the roles parents and teachers play in the curbing of child abuse among pupils and raising awareness on the same.
 
CHAPTER ONE
STUDY OVERVIEW AND STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
1.1 Background of the Study
Child abuse is the physical, ****** or emotional maltreatment or neglect of a child or children. The consequences of child maltreatment can be profound and may endure long after the abuse or neglect occurs. The effects can appear in childhood, adolescence, or adulthood, and may affect various aspects of an individual's development (e.g., physical, cognitive, psychological, and behavioral). These effects range in consequence from minor physical injuries, low self-esteem, attention disorders, and poor peer relations to severe brain damage, extremely violent behavior, and death. In extreme cases, child abuse affects the performance of schools in the affected region (Daniel, 1978).
Performance refers to how students deal with their academic studies and how they cope with or accomplish different tasks given to them by their teachers. Performance is also the ability of a school to portray a good image which can influence the public (Decastro, 1978). There are several factors that influence the performance of a school at large, however, there is a critical factor that most researchers have avoided to discuss, and child abuse has been a crucial factor that has contributed to children’s dismal performance. Apart from children’s personal intelligence, child abuse is among then key factors contributing to poor performance of learners. Child abuse can lead to school dropping, emotional trauma or can even be fatal, hence destructing or even terminating the educational ambitions of a child. (Harris, 2005)
Worldwide, according to World Health Organization (WHO, 2000) approximately 40 million children are subjected to child abuse each year. According to Human Rights Watch (2001) about 30% of all severely disabled children relegated to special homes in the Ukraine died before they reached 18 years of age. UNICEF estimates that two million children died as a result of armed conflict during a recent 10-year period and that another six million were injured or disabled. In Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, over 6.5 million children annually are exposed to unwanted ****** materials over the internet; over 1.7 million of these report distress over exposure to these materials. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Department for Children and Families (DCF) define child maltreatment as any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or other caregiver that results in harm, potential for harm, or threat of harm to a child. Child abuse can occur in a child's home, or in the organizations, schools or communities the child interacts with. Each year, approximately one million children around the world are introduced into commercial ****** exploitation despite this problem; these developed countries have put measures to curb the vice. Rehabilitation schools have been formed and introduction of counseling centers as well. Despite the prevalence of child abuse in this developed nations they narrowly affect the academic performance since there are organizations put in place to curb the situation e.g. child associations, guidance and counseling institutions, and school based counseling programs (Giles, 2001)
Concern for victims of child abuse in Africa expressed by the African network of the International Society for The Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (ISPCAN) which gave five main presentations of child abuse: child labor, street wandering, ****** abuse, child battering and abandonment (Elma, 1977). Child labor according to the international labor organization (ILO), about 10 million children less than 15years in Africa are in formal employment, working long hours with poor pay and are exposed to substantial health hazards. Wandering of children refers to children, usually unkempt and with delinquent propensities, living rough in town. The reasons for children taking to the street remain poorly understood particularly in relation to factors in the child rather than parental hostility and economic (Dubowitz, 2002)
****** abuse is another. For example, arranged under-age marriages are common in some parts of the continent and doubt was often expressed as to whether a young girl fully gave consent to being betrothed (Galdsone, 1965). Prevalence rates in Africa are very difficult to ascertain because of the fear of disclosure by victims and lack of proper documentation. Most of the girls by reasons of shame fear or surprisingly respect for their usually older perpetrators. Physical battering is also eminent. Physical abuse of children is widely claimed to berate in the third world; however, there are anecdotes from east Africa skeletal frame or localized body areas of all first attendees aged 0-12 years at this hospital during the four-year period 1 January 1987 to 31 December 1990 (Garbarino, 1975). Sixty-nine of these reports reveals evidence of multiple bone fractures wither without evidence of rib or skull fracture. Abandonment of children to roam around the streets in what we call street children is also eminent in Africa, though valid and adequate information on abandonment are difficult to obtain due mainly to failure of offending parents to show up out of guilt, shame, judicial repercussions or a combination of these. However, some euro-American missionaries identified inter alia breech birth. (Erickson, 2003)
Child protection measures in Kenya are currently not implemented effectively and fully (Galdstone, 1965). Compliance with such legislation would increase if the magnitude of the problem and better knowledge about the factors that put children at risk was available. Additionally, involving stakeholders, especially agencies charged with protection, as well as involving affected children, will highlight the issues and thereby promote adherence to protection policies. Kenyan children, child activists and children organizations are pinning their hopes on the implementation of the Children’s Act to improve the lot of the nation’s youth. The Act, which came into effect on 1 March 2002, puts in place full safeguards for the rights of the child. Its passage was a giant stride in harmonizing the national laws with international agreements which Kenya has signed such as the UN Conventions on the Rights of the Child (CRC, 2002)
There is hope that the new legislation will dramatically change the inattention, neglect and abuse towards child rights. The Act outlaws any form discrimination of children, and forbids Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), child prostitution, and child labor, among other forms of abuse. The Children’s Act has immensely improved the lives of many Kenyan children plagued with high illiteracy levels, frequent **** cases and child labor since it guarantees children the right to health and medical care, provision of which is the responsibility of the parents, the extended family and the government (Erickson, 2005).
Cases of child abuse in Uasin-Gishu region have been so eminent in the recent years ((Kenya Media Report, 2004). In the year 2010 and the year 2011, there was a program started to rehabilitate this behavior. This problem is clearly evident when you first arrive in Eldoret town, it is among the towns in the country with the highest number of abandoned children who keep on moving from one Centre to another seeking help from passersby. Parents have developed behaviors of abandoning their children and deliberately sending them to the town so that they can benefit from their borrowing. So to say this has led to child labor in this region. High profile cases of school dropouts have been recorded regarding the environs of this region. Young school children from different locations in Eldoret converge in town to persuade people to offer them financial assistance. Some attend school in numbered days and decide to spend some good number of days out of school.
The communities and societies around tend to assume this situation and term it as norm. A few who might seem concerned lack cooperation from the rest. This has adversely affected the performance of most of schools, hence leading to poor living standards of the people and a poisoned future of a young citizen. The problem has affected learners in regions like many areas in Uasin-Gishu County. It has really affected child development and affected their attendance and performance in school. Little intervention measures has been taken to advocate the holistic development of the children. It was to this reason that the researcher conducted the research in the named above region
1.2 Research Questions
The study was guided by the following questions;
1) What is the effect of child abuse on the academic performance of students in Kapyemit Ward?  
2) What are some of the proposed strategies that schools can employ to curb child abuse?
1.3 Research Objectives
The study was guided by the following research objectives;
1) To identify the effect of child abuse on the academic performance of students in Kapyemit Ward.
2) To identify proposed strategies that can be employed to help curb child abuse.
1.4 Justification of the Study
It is becoming increasingly difficult to separate child abuse prevention into separate categories. For instance, strategies on the societal level include increasing the “value” of children, increasing the economic self-sufficiency of families, discouraging corporal punishment and other forms of violence, making health care more accessible and affordable, expanding and improving coordination of social services, improving the identification and treatment of psychological problems and alcohol and drug abuse, providing more affordable child care and preventing the birth of unwanted children.
Very little analysis has been done to estimate the total cost of preventing child abuse and neglect or the long-term social costs of not preventing it. There is now a move to situate child abuse and neglect within the continuum of intervention which addresses multiple aspects of family behaviors. The efficacy of tackling portions of the problem of child abuse apart from broader societal needs is not known. And, perhaps prevention can only come in tandem with efforts to reduce poverty, improve health care and make children’s issues a national priority. However, despite these constraints, evaluations of prevention programs can be improved by coming to terms with definitions of key varia

Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret,Kenya;aopicho@yahoo.com)
This essay is based on the observation research that had been carried out  by a social research firm in  Eldoret, Kenya, in the preceding six moths, which has been concluded on 30th January 2014.I the writer of this essay was among the lead team that carried out this study.We unobtrusively observed two thousand University graduates from east African states of Kenya,Uganda,Tanzania,Rwanda,Ethiopia,Sudan,and Burundi plus a few form some parts of Congo .Our target population of two thousand graduates was used under the guiding assumptions that it would help the study to arrive at water tight social conclusions.Our problem of focus was that ;why are male graduates in east Africa not marrying fellow graduates but instead go for marital partners who have substantially lower education qualification and even academic achievement.
The conditions of serendipity was also encountered and taken care of , when we also deviated from the natural social settings and charted with our digital social media friends who were approximately two thousand as well.They were digital social friends from Facebook and twitter digital social platforms. We  posted a thread in question form that ; if you were marrying today , would you marry a girl you graduated with the same year? Eighty percent of the responses to this thread was no , only twenty percent was yes.
The actual situations in an empirical experience is that male graduates prefer marrying ladies who stopped schooling in high school,and male high school or diploma college graduates prefer marrying ladies who don’t have clear high school education.And male primary school leavers prefer marrying ladies with inferior social positions like those who come from poorer families or from different tribal communities that are geographically, economically or culturally disadvantaged.
And in case where a male graduate dares to marry a fellow graduate , the dominantly observed social behaviour in this juncture is that ; the boy will go for the girl in a different school or faculty that is perceived to be inferior within the university academic climate.Like a student of medicine or law will go for a girl doing education or any University course perceived to be inferior.But the observation  produces insignificant cases of where a medicine student daring to marry a fellow medicine student.The minor cases of where a medicine student dares to marry a fellow medic will only take place in a social fabric that the male student at fifth year level will go for a girl in first year.Still there is a social tilt.
When we asked for reasons in a non-obtrusive manner from our unsuspecting respondents.We got both positive reasons and negative reasons.The positive reasons our respondents gave are that in most cases girls who don’t make it to the university happen to be more beautiful or their physique is more sexually appealling than those ladies who make it to the university.when we projected this type of reasoning , we also found that ladies who are in schools like education,journalism or any other school perceived  inferior in the cultures of the University are again more beautiful and more socially enticing than the girls doing University courses like law ,medicine or engineering.One of the respondents made a socially outlying remark by saying that girls at the polytechnic or certificate colleges are usually light in the skin,**** in character and blessed with big or pronounced bossoms than ladies at the university.
When we asked the negative reasons , our respondents argued that  ladies from the university are not controllable,neither are they prepared to be controlled come even the marriage. Further argument for these behaviour by male  graduates is that the University ladies are sexually exhausted,As they usually stay with a man in the hostel or in the cube during the four or the five years of their live at the University. Some even live with different men interchangeably, after which they divorce those many on the graduation day.Another response is that University ladies have a proclivity towards social hangout behaviours like smoking ,pinching or revving in the wine spree and loving the pocket but not the owner of the pocket.
This social phenomenon have imperative concerns that there is high level of genetic mismatch through marriages in east Africa or any other part of the world which east Africa can be socially generalizable to in such particular socialization.Graduate ladies are often forced to marry as second wives , or marry non graduate husbands or stay as a single mother but playing a mistress somewhere, a social behviour described as mpango wa kando or chips funga in the the east African Kiswahili parlance. Such social encounters have a long term consequences of fettering the genetic potential of the family in terms of  academics.When we conform to a warning by an eminent American psychologist that ; ninety percent of academic brilliance is contained in the genes but not influenced by environment we then obviously concur with the findings of this study that if a graduate marries a graduate there is a guarantee for academic performance among the offspring , but where a graduate marries  a non graduate ,  academic performance among the offspring is either mediocrous or probabilistic.The findings of this study also fall in technical tune and intellectual tandem with the observations of Lee Kuan Yeow in his book; From the third world to the first world in which he pointed out that; failure by the male graduates from  Universities in Singapore to marry the fellow female graduates was an impeachment to development as the ultimate consequence of these social behaviours is unnecessary inhibition of good genetics at a macroeconomic level.
The conclusive position of this study is that University leaderships in Africa, with a particular focus on east Africa, must inspire new University culture that has a turnaround effect on this behavioural status quo.The reality is that male graduates behave like this out of a dominance syndrome not out of anything technically worthwhile.Kindly , let our graduates change their marriage behaviour so that we can substantially protect our genetic advantages.

References;
Lee Kuan Yeow; From Third World to the First World
Alexander K  Opicho, is a social researcher at Sanctuary Research agencies in Eldoret, Kenya.He is also a lecturer  for Research Methods in Governance.

Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya;aopicho@yahoo.com)
The Al shabab on 22 day of September 2013   attacked Kenya again. It has attacked and lynched siege on the Nairobi’s biggest mall known as the West Gate. This is one of the severest after other similar attack in 1998.The people who are averagely assumed to be killed are  one hundred.Al shabab is a regional east African arm of Arabo-islamic global terrorist group known as the Algaeda.But something notable about all the terrorist groups in the world, inclusive of Alshabab, is that they all have an Arabic, communist and Islamic bias with overt expression of anti-American movements.
The Lynching of the Mall in Nairobi has affected all the Kenyan communities. Asian and African, Europeans and Americans. However the survivors of the West Gate mall attack has narrated out that the attackers were discriminately asking for ones religion before they shoot. Thus Muslims were not shot but non Muslims were shot and then held hostage. The military sources on the site shared out that the terrorists were foreigners but they perfectly worked through their plan through co-operation of locals and citizens of a victim countries; Kenya and America.
Immediately after this terror attack in Nairobi, a group of social researchers in Kenya carried out an electronic survey on the social media to find out why the Alshabab has easily recruited the followers and why an African youth can easily accept recruitment in to the membership of terror groups like Boko haram, Al shabab, and Al gaeda.The responses gathered from diverse digital socialites  skews into one  modal direction which  shows that America alone with its ostentatious international relations  will not win the war on global terrorism.
The motivation for easy recruitment into membership of the terror groups was established by the social media survey as diverse factors but most august among them are ; extreme conditions of poverty among the youths in contrast to the rich and wealthy elderly echelons of the most African societies. Also, sharp contrast in the economic conditions between America and Africa where American societies wallow in extreme riches whereas the African societies contemporaneously are stark deep in idyllic poverty perpetually wallowing in the mire of need and economic challenges. Some respondents cited the crooked way through which the state of Israel was formed as well as the atrocious nature of American foreign policy towards the Arab world through which there was perpetration of killing of Muamar Al Gadaffi and regular Military bombardment of Arab countries like Syria and Afghanistan.
Also the current American presidency and the preceding one of George Bush provoke distasteful responses on the social media. Especially in relation to the Prison maintained at quatanamo bay which basically was established as a basic torture facility used by the American government to torture terrorist suscepects from North Africa, Arab emirates and Europe. But the prison at Quatanamo bay is composed of a large number of North African as detainees. A respondent on the social media quoted Pravda, the Russian Newspaper in English version which had a revelation about the Quatanamo prison. The Pravda projected number of North Africans in the Quatamo prison to be currently standing at one hundred and thirty seven. The Newsweek also concurs with this position by narrating in its july 2013 edition that, there are very many prisoners of North African descend in quatanamo prison who began a hunger strike sometimes ago but they are forcefully fed through a tube.

The facebooking ,tweetering and charting thematically show one modal position that American discriminatory foreign policy towards Israel and Persia, American extreme capital amid critical world poverty, poverty in Africa especially among the youth, presence of weapons of mass destruction in Israel to which America is oblivious or nonchalant  ,Russian technological casuistry and Chinese economic dominance combine into a blend of extensive anti-American feelings that  make the world youths not reliable when it comes to the moral duty of desisting from joining the terrorist groups. American hard politics and hard diplomacy will make America not to win war on global terrorism.

Assisted suicide?
Physician Assisted Suicide is the process of a doctor providing the necessary sleeping pills/lethal dose to allow a terminally ill patient to perform the life ending act. In the United States, all but four states have made physician assisted suicide (PAS) illegal.When in a situation a terminally ill patient is in, they should have the right to commit a physician-assisted suicide.
In 1994, the state of Oregon enabled the Death With Dignity Act (DWDA). With 51% voting in favor of the act, it gives terminally ill patients access to PAS. Attorney General John Ashcroft challenged the act by saying it was not “real” and that allowing doctors to do perform that, violates the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). CSA protects the regulation of doctors from performing unauthorized distributions of drugs and drug abuse. If doctors are able to assist suicides, through Ashcroft’s claim, they would be using drugs as an abuse. In the Supreme Court, petitioner Paul D. Clement argued in the case about the violation of CSA, with 6-3, “we conclude the rule is not authorized by the CSA, and we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals” (Gonzales V Oregon).
Patients of irreversible illnesses often develop disorders that go underdiagnosed causing them to live a life that isn’t happy for them or their family members. According to Dr. Fine of the Office of Clinical Ethics, terminally ill patients usually get depressed when dealing with intense suffering. When the patient is depressed, they may not respond to treatment as expected. If the patient is not responding to treatment well, the doctor may up the dosage of medication or consider adding antidepressants, causing the patient to be reliant on medication for the rest of their life.
Patients who receive a terminal diagnosis usually experience high levels of anxiety.  According to Dr. Fine, anxiety can cause problems such as, agitation, insomnia, restlessness, sweating, tachycardia, hyperventilation, panic disorder, worry, or tension. Sleep deprivation plays a huge part in the anxiety the patients feel. The patient’s sleep is often interrupted many nights and several times to get their blood pressure checked, blood withdrawals, checkings of veins, etc. Because these medical requirements can not be withheld, many doctors may feel the need to heavily sedate the patient to make them feel lucid during the day time.
Studies have shown that patients of terminal illnesses fear that they’d burden their families. The patients feel, “grief and fear not only for their own future but also for their families’ future” (Johnson), researchers say. The feelings of being in the way can cause emotional, physical, social, and financial problems. In  doctors Johnson, Nolan, and Sulmasy’s research, they found that feelings of burden are most likely to affect emotional symptoms, quality of life, and patient satisfaction. Wanting to feel like they aren’t a burden to their families and society was most important to patients seen by the doctors. The research the doctors conducted found that out of a list of 28 qualities, the wish to not be a physical or emotional burden on family, 93% of respondents said that this was very or extremely important to them. The doctors made three categories of experiences that were related to “self-perceived burden” (Johnson). The first one being “concerns for other” (Johnson), then “implications for self” (Johnson), and last being “minimizing the burden” (Johnson). Feeling like a burden can cause “empathic concern engendered from the impact on others of one’s illness and care needs, resulting in guilt, distress, feelings of responsibility, and diminished sense of self” (Johnson).
To let a patient commit an assisted suicide means, they’re freed from pain. To force someone who knows that their time's coming to an end quickly when they do not wish to be in pain anymore should be a crime. In Epidemics, Book 1, it states, “practice two things in your dealings with disease: either help or do not harm the patient”, by allowing the patient to continue their life is harming them, all physically, mentally, and spiritually. Doctors take an oath, the Hippocratic Oath when practicing medicine. In the oath, there is a phrase that says “Also I will, according to my ability and judgment, prescribe a regimen for the health of the sick; but I will utterly reject harm and mischief”, if the patient has considered an assisted suicide, they’ve been in too much pain and wish for it to end. Refusing them the help causes them more physical and emotional pain; physical being the illness itself and emotional being the feeling of being a burden.
Patients with terminal illnesses have the right to commit assisted suicides because it allows them to end their life from something no drug would be able to fix. With the illness being irreversible, dragging it out will cause both suffering and financial problems. Terminally ill patients have the right to die with dignity. Dying by choice will let their loved ones know that they are ready and have accepted their fate, easing weight off their families shoulders. Having the ability to die will portray the patients as human beings who want to make one last decision before going rather than people who are laying in a hospital bed waiting to die. A patient knows that the doctor’s job is to relieve pain, with a doctor refusing their wish, only cause distrust in their relationship. Letting assisted suicide would allow their families to begin healing. By refusing the patient their right to die, forces them to live a poor quality of life no one would ever wish upon anybody. It is in everyone’s interest to let them go. Doctors have a responsibility to make the patient happy and to relieve them of any kind of pain, letting them go is relieving them of the pain they wish to no longer feel. PAS gives them the ability to go happily and contently.

Everyone's out to outdo everyone else
It's not even about meaning anymore
It's how much press coverage it gets
Whoever makes them "just" statistics
And there's no fantasy draft yet

Somewhere alone in his dark place
Ruminating his environment
Some bedwetting, fire starting, animal abuser
Infantilized by the hatred of maternal instincts
Projected on him
De-evolved

He likes the way she hurts him
She abuses open hand words
or clenched up fists of embarrassment
It just fuels his homicidal tendencies
His brains on the hate frequency
And he's ready to let the fantasy slip

Home is where the heartless host
absence of emotional ghosts
the boy
the man
the monster

He lost it

Family annihilator,
He took his mother out last
So she'd suffer through
the destruction of the *******
Her wasted wish
of abortion'd children.

This was before the news vans
This was before the first respondents
This was before the society outlash

Back to him alone in a dark place
In the depths of his disturbing mind
He sets higher stakes.

Inspired by Meg Cranston's Artist for President
(http://www.uniteddivas.com/megcranston/megpresident.html)**

We assert that there is a youth culture that is different and separate from all other cultures and that our culture is governed by principles which the aged population finds peculiar or offensive.

We are tired of being labeled.
We are tired of being segmented.
We are tired of hearing old people talk about us.
We are tired of being the respondents to your 20 city questionnaire.
We are done with being ignored.

We are sick of 1980s spandex.
We are sick of your Top 40 hits on a compact disc.
We are sick of your rom-coms and big budget fantasy sci-fi sequels.
We are sick of 60 billion ad messages being hurled from satellites in outer space.
We are done with being disappointed.

We demand the right to change everything.
We demand the right to create our own words.
We demand the right to define what is cool in the morning.
We demand the right to re-define what is cool in the evening.
We are done with being told to follow.

We reserve the right to be elitist.
We reserve the right to choose our heroes.
We reserve the right to create jobs that never existed before.
We reserve the right to outsource, open-source and crowdsource everything and all.
We are done with your rigid ways.

We condemn the wars that you started.
We condemn the poverty and hunger you created.
We condemn your irresponsibility in ignoring our dying planet.
We condemn the forces of greed that keeps an honest man from climbing the income brackets.
We will fix the mess you left behind.

This is for school kids
This is for college students
This is for young professionals
This is for the young artist who shares his creations on DeviantArt
This is for the young blogger who dreams of being a travel journalist
This is for the podcaster who is on her way to become a successful RJ
This is for the YouTube user who dreams of her own television show and feature film
This is for the photography enthusiast who spends his pocket money on a Flickr Pro Account
This is for the opinionated Twitter-for-Blackberry addict destined to become a Twitter celebrity. (Even we don’t know what that means!)
This is for the coding guru who gifts his geek friend a mobile gaming app based on Dungeons & Dragons for his birthday. Yes that is cool...for now.

This is youth culture

Survey space office

Headset monitor keyboard

Hello Respondents?

Have you ever really listened
To the wind, the trees?
Heard the song of the forest
The respondents of the breeze?
The twitter, titter, chitter
Of the Happy birds that sing
A beautiful soprano
To the Symphony they bring.
I feel a creek and cracking
With my foot beat tracking
Through the forest I
Contribute to the beat
Pounding, crunching, snapping
The earth beneath my feet.
Never more alive I’ve felt
Than when amongst the woods I dwelt
With Bird and beast and song and rhyme
release my mind and lose the time
This music it reminds me
How to hear, breath, feel and see.
My senses truly heightened
My soul today is brightened.
Then a rude awakening.
An engine roars.
Tyres Screech.
Machine, man and Device.
(The New World’s most
Insidious vice)
Changed the course of life forever
I feel it now more than ever.
To my oasis I returned
A simple lesson learned
We must give ourselves
Wholly to Our Planet
We do not own it
We man it.

oh, well, it takes roughly
                   staying up to 1am
to listen to foxes...
     maul through their desperate cries
of existence...
       the persistent reiteration of
                   linguistics,
        the overt-subject matter of *** -
can the tongue please find the mouth,
then the head,
   then the brain, then the mind,
then the substance of soul,
and move away from
        the genital preoccupation...
i know some gentiles have been
circumcised in the wild wild west...
but... please...
               well: evidently this is a counter...
infringing on the freedoms of
others, is to somehow: feed
the inhibitions,
   of my already inhibited freedoms
that others share?
                rigidity,
that's what i've ever experienced...
      language this,
language that,
              genesis primordial english,
erasure,
                  like some sort of lapse,
amnesia,
                             remains?
a nodding approval...
                            or the leprosy haven...
more concerned with
a testimony of telling a bad joke,
than resentment...
          base fact:
   i want to capture language in
the anti-voyeuristic sense of transit...
it's not a people,
it's not a place,
english, is... very much a lingua franca...
a means of transaction...
      a language of tourists...
that's it...
                   which is why i feel sorry
for the natives...
   caught-up in this whole h'american
"debacle"...
concerning the integration
of immigrants / ex-pats for the "in crowd"...
so you want me to speak
the language, but you want me to speak it,
you want me to speak it,
but you don't want me to keep
my diacritical "bias",
entertain your lack of,
   you know...
    playing with a Ken & Barbie
would be much simpler...
you want me to speak english
without minding accent...
but then miding an accent,
you want me to make diacritical distinctions,
but not make them...
you want me to mind
"orthography", when "you",
     "yourself" don't have any...
apart from dyslexia...
                    
     the ****?!
      you: pronouns
         +r: determiner
            self: noun...
  ego: noun...
        
the english language,
      the mongrel that it is,
it sure as **** dictates
itself rightly as a lingua franca,
the language of tourists...
but is it a universal *******
                         arbiter?

"gender neutral" pronouns...
then they're not pronouns
to begin with! are they?
you think that resurfacing from
   under the eisenvorhang...
at least back then
        back in 1986...
  the soviets had power...
   what is this...
                a revisionism
               of the english language?
              
****... if you're going to play
the "gender neutrality" card,
might as well play
the "plural inclusivity" card,
given how some
schizophrenics might settle
the debate with: WE...
confusing, i know,
but given their hallucinatory
symptoms...
      
             we as i,
               i as we,

i wasn't even born in england,
and i'm supposed to be, inclined,
to have a share,
in this country's, "inheritance"?
so i'm supposed to
**** off h'america?
  because of the shared
   allegiance of the shared tongue?

ha ha...
             rewriting the strict
obligations to grammar,
   as necessary refinement to
approach communicated speech...
so no meow,
no blah blah,
   no growl will do?
    please bring back the soviet
intellectuals,
   the whole world is laughing...
i'm laughing...
     i'm laughing in a hysterical
venture of...
        minding "the" fact that...
there's a madman,
   and he sounds more sane
than some of these counterfeit
sanity respondents...
**** it...
this whole circus of en masse...
as nietzsche pointed out,
            is the                  oll-neu-norm...

bettering the cause...
what the hell is "bettering"
and what the hell is, "the cause"?
by now...
people are not even bothering
to reference the dictionary...
we're talking about only
sourcing the application
of the thesaurus...

                cue misnomer,
cue the interpolation
   of the general standard of meaning...
wrap up a **** in
the flag of conveyance
    and call it: choccy thursdays.

My motto comprises to exalt in this moment rather than delude myself with any grandiose illusions.

PREFACE: PREPARE TO SET ASIDE A PARTIAL ETERNITY
TO PERUSE THE CONTENTS OF THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE.

Ohm my...volt a mort...
coalescence of coaxed friendship
analogous to miarculous birth
whoa there lovely reader,
no doubt without resistance,
your smile can generate
amp pull power to light up earth
noah matter this totally tubular stranger
unknown to thee as Adam,
evokes an aura, charisma, enigma,
patina, persona...wis spurs this note
to kindle courtesy tinder warm
fine companionable individual connection
exuding sheepish mirth
per intuiting your wool e worth.

I enjoy making accessible, convincible,
evincible, gullible, intelligible,
kissable invoking comments
perhaps on account oof a cerebral dent
though many respondents rage at this gent
sans his playful wordiness leant
only genuine acquaintanceship meant,
and their valuable time spent
to decipher my gibberish,
which binary logorrhea might rent
asunder unsuspecting cyber surfer
evicted out the human league

since possessing propensity
for presenting ambitious, burdenous,
conspicuous, disadventurous, onerous,
and tremendous cerebral task
necessitating hours decrypting
blurb subsequently forcing
whatever gender appended recipient
to an anonymous he/she,  
forsaking their precious time
maybe even unwittingly affecting individual
impacting his/her employment
ending result they/them live in a tent.

This poet knows a mew lion
ranges of feline artful dodging cat skills,
(especially when cavorting among comedians
associated and linkedin with Borscht Belt - ha)
concocting incomprehensible confusing trills.

Some of these claws pickling skills include maintaining mouse sized dignity muttering cheeses crust (while under fire from Stuart little), kibitzing, nibbling on self crafted bon mots, and rubbing dead giveaway crumbs (from double entendres) using all faux paux into thy maw paw cent less whole foods masticating mouth, where commestibles enter without choppers.

Sanguine at one hundred minus thirty six, or two squared + three squared + four squared + five squared + square root of one hundred = an apt and pithy phrase to matt's matrix labyrinth best characterized as a twisted maze (along a boulevard of broken dreams) lodged deeply inside this dutiful dada shackled to an endless role of scullion, but silently gesticulated for salvation.

This spruced up fun guy (and not unduly coy -- see) pines for friendship to cure nostrum from domestic plight i.e. living like a caged rat in cell bite size state.

Just a spoonful of sugar (hummed to that classic mary poppins melody) will most definitely help this medicine go down.

Mine current existence like a modern Henry David Thoreau.

After perusing this rambling prose (from mine being psyche feeling walled in), you might judge this personal struggle more on a par with Oliver Twist.

I sincerely seek salient gallant wings (with or without dish pan hands) to take this humble human being who can (ha) bring a fairy tale ending to my Cinderfella patterned existence.

Away I want to soar no matter such fantasy a fool's paradise.

An extra ticket to paradise (actually four powerball tickets bought today – September 7th, 2023 for that reason) just needs to be made manifest, and thee could be a boon, balm, salve, and tonic plus receive preferential treatment to travel in tandem with one stranger in a strange land.

Only upon surrendering to a deep and peaceful boss ah nova heavy metal sleep, (which dream state will take place soon) does the fictional world (within the wide wedded web of this wayward thinking wanderer) take hold and serve up a brief hiatus to a life devoid of contentment.

This amateur baker would cook up a souffle or rhubarb ken pie if willingly processed from mine own personal lake woebegone awash with raw bits of flotsam and jetsam and empty boxes of powdered milk biscuits, the one with big blue stains on the outside.

San sol invictus served ancient civilizations as their com-stock load.

Like a modern day icarus this wedded warbler mulls the possibility of finding a real live likeness of what constitutes a hologram of his mythic muse, who exudes able bodied confidence donning every filament.

Keep on dreaming cyber buddy, an anonymous reader might think, telepathically communicate or even communicate via email, which idealism goads me to broadcast the following fanciful (and perhaps not so far fetched) feasible find among the frequent purveyors of this website.

The vague nebulous barely perceptible kernel of a fictional account per my own conjured up vision (as pertains to what might comprise a companionable buddy to me) could conceivable materialize into an actual arch de triumphant revelation once landing this wistful nugget of an idea into the conscious of unconscious mind of an unknown galivanting fellow writer, who just by a fluke (of the worm holes populating the universe) finds themself piqued with curiosity about me.

Not a whit of information yet exists about this dabbler of prose, who envisions himself in seventh heaven (no matter he in truth really admits to espousing an atheistic outlook on the cosmos), where fickle finger of fate (usually the middle one raised by an obstreperous onlooker) ideally finds me all in the family within human species able to articulate in a civilly (disobedient) and democratic manner emotions, ideas, sentiments and thoughts with an unpretentious air of sophistication.

Said **** sapien (meaning balsamic scented hominid) would also possess a cosmopolitan demeanor, yet clear of all any modest knotty suaveness, but also able, eager, ready and willing to allow, enable and provide quite an ability to get into an amazing tangle of literary profundity.

This older fellow seriously believes he got borne in an in apropos century and revels in another illusory consideration - aside from trying to summon forth a living gal of flesh and bone from this overactive imagination maybe an accompanying bipedal hominid within medium of time travelling.

Frequent farcical notions flit to and fro inside the biggest *** ***** triggering bonafide premature ejaculations of bonhomie. Case in point hair with not an immensely large head.

This wordsmith would feel at home if transported to the renaissance or medieval ages, or more recently that war between the north and south.

If hedging bets with yours truly being a reincarnated union soldier of yore, you no doubt already can infer, where thy political and more pertinently national federation of me as singularity amidst webbed wide world would get cast.

Okay, the original aim of (what many might hashtag as yahoo) really wishes to explore make believe world, and just maybe ***** inquisitive online browser, who although she might not be seeking male relationship just by happenstance or circumstance experiences some inexplicable necessity to reply.

In the event should lady luck liberate yours truly would be like a divine guiding star, I know best to tamp down any precipitous illusions of grandeur, but would let the natural course of familiarity usher the chap a roan of sacredness to be cherished for however short or long such a friendship might endure.

Oh yes, an ongoing (specifically offline) interaction motivates this doubting thomas fool hardy spurious posting to be ransacked with absolutely total consent in an effort to be plucked from this (utterly difficult to describe) morass of contemptuous husbandry discontent with self, yet consideration to stay faithfully married with wife (since July 25th, 1996) would be a moderately strong consideration.

So, now with a zing
or an unexpected
gold plated invitation after yodeling
hoop ye kin be a yang 2 me yin
Asia step into the digital xing
via summit da fall low wing
written *** jest byte ting
tongue in cheek unsure if phone will ring
in an effort to hear pleasant,
yet discordant musical ka -- ching
for cherished pennies, nickels, dimes,
et cetera from heaven to bring.

The First Respondents deserve all the cheer
Honor and courage is what they preserver
Words can’t express thank you enough
Some people just talk, but this is no bluff
Your lives are put on the line for our health
It’s not about wealth
It’s about dedication and devotion no matter what
This virus crisis involving human life
So applause is in that order
Continue to achieve the way you always have
But don’t forget about your own health
I pray for you on that aspect
Our lives are appreciated in your hands
I thank God for being part of the caravan
Heart to heart
Voice to voice
Thank you for your honor and dignity in commitment being your choice.