Rose Brucia Educational Foundation

Red Flags(Copy)

Wed, 13 May 2026 10:26:07 -0700

Imagine you want to go to the beach on a glorious summer’s day. You pack up everything you believe you will need for a refreshing day on the sand, anticipating yourself relaxing as a warm sea breeze moves across the beach, salt spray misting about you, and the sound of the surf filling your ears. Leaving the parking lot, you envision finding the most perfect spot to camp out for several hours. You walk through an opening in the dunes and, scanning the seaside, you notice nobody is in the water. Red flags dominate your line of sight. Something is out there to aware of. Maybe the rip currents are ridiculously powerful right now. Maybe there has been a shark sighting.

Perils and predators have been constant threats to every species on the planet since there have been predators and prey. The two-legged type of predator that is of concern probably started stalking the cyber universe the day after the internet was launched.

Grooming involves all the actions taken by a predator/pedophile to befriend and develop a relationship with an underage victim with an eye to sexual exploitation.

John Shehan of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) noted that in April 2020 this organization recorded 4.1 million child cyber abuse reports! 4.1 MILLION! In her work, Interpreting the Intentions of Internet Predators, author Catherine D. Marcum stressed how important it was that the public knew how much abuse occurs on line , “but how predators use blatant tactics of manipulation-often successfully.”

San Jose, CA, based attorneys, Lauren Cerri, Mark Boskovich and B. Robert Allard, handle cases for sexual abuse victims. They point to various stages of a pedophile’s abuse cycle:

1) Monitor and surveil the...Read More

Red Flags

Thu, 07 May 2026 10:14:37 -0700

Grooming involves all the actions taken by a predator/pedophile to befriend and develop a relationship with an underage victim with an eye to sexual exploitation.

San Jose, CA, based attorneys, Lauren Cerri, Mark Boskovich and B. Robert Allard, handle cases for sexual abuse victims. They point to various stages of a pedophile’s abuse cycle:

1) Monitor and surveil the...Read More

Fellow Man

Mon, 02 Feb 2026 08:09:25 -0800

In 1959, the Kingston Trio recorded the album, Live at the Hungry I, which was a nightclub in

San Francisco. One song on that album, written in the late ’40s by future Pulitzer Prize and

Tony award winning lyricist, Sheldon Harnick, The Merry Minuet, is a piece in which the

tempo of the music does not match the anxiety of the words. The satirical lyrics in short

order cite issues plaguing the post-World War II consciousness: drought, famine,

hurricanes, nationalism, the threat of nuclear war, anti-this or that group. The song

concludes with this none too cheerful observation: What nature doesn’t do to us, will be

done by our fellow man!

Newsday had a headline on 12/11/25, that blared, SEX TRAFFICKING AT LI HOTELS, WITH

AN UNDERLYING CAPTION THAT READ Newsday Found 59 places cited in charges, with

victims as young as 11. Additional articles appeared: an instructor at a community college

grooming/soliciting a supposedly teenage girl was snared in an FBI sting, an actor arrested

on charges of child abuse. The National Crime Information Center in 2023 recorded over

375,000 missing children entries. New York State reported 12, 623 missing children. In

2024, the Department of Homeland Security, focusing on cyber exploitation, recorded

more than 2,600 cases involving child victims. The National Center for Missing and

Exploited Children saw a staggering increase of 1,325% in its cyber tipline reports (1-800-

THE-LOST) that involved...Read More

Numbers Do Not Lie

Tue, 30 Sep 2025 10:50:17 -0700

A day doesn’t go by without an article appearing somewhere about the impact of social media on tweens and adolescents.

Recently, my wife and I went to dine in a nearby restaurant. As we were waiting for our meal, a family of five, father, mother and three daughters, was shown to a nearby table. As soon as this family took their places at the table, the mother passed a cell phone to the youngest of the children, an animated three- or four-year-old. Displaying ample dexterity, this child scrolled though the phone’s menu until she settled on some site that held her interest. She did not interact with her siblings at all.

Diana Graber is the founder of Cyberwise, a website for adults who want to help young people use technology safely. In her book, Raising Humans in a Digital World, she reports 44% of children under 1 year of age use a mobile device daily. By age 2, this number will climb to 77%!

Common Sense Media reports that tweens, ages 8-12, spend 5 hours and 33 minutes daily on their phones; adolescents, ages 13-18, will average 8 hours and 39 minutes engaged with a device....Read More

Full Circle

Sat, 01 Feb 2025 12:48:23 -0800

Antonio Vivaldi composed the enduring Four Seasons over three hundred years ago. Many of us have heard the highly recognizable notes of introductory passage, Spring, as a bride walked down the aisle. The Four Seasons, I have learned, is “intended to evoke something extra-musical.” Vivaldi uses a four-note motif, repeated to call to mind the “harsh cold and sometimes unsettling feeling of the season.” It fulfills its mission.

Winter changes the pace and focus of everything. There’s the lower sun angle; the brevity of daylight hours; more time indoors; more time spent within the confines of memory; more time to be
analytical, critical, but also hopeful. Maybe there is truth in what Oscar Wilde wrote: Wisdom comes with winters.

Twenty-one years can wear and tear on a volunteer organization. The energy level spikes at times; at others, it’s like running on empty. Covid knocked us for a loop. Schools were and are hesitant to bring in outside presenters. Myself, I truly miss the personal give and take, the interaction with a group of interested, enthusiastic children. I never participated in any online courses; never took part in distance learning. These methodologies are not part of my teaching DNA. As with everything in
life, it’s Adapt! or become ignored, out of sync with the times.

Because of Matt’s foresight, we have a presence on the internet: videos, lesson plans, blogs.

This past January 9th, Matt Barbis and I were scheduled for an interview at the Catholic Faith Network (CFN). We would be guests on the station’s LIVE news segment and engage in a question and answer with the host, Colleen McVey, about the book we coauthored with...Read More

Cyber Considerations

Thu, 06 Jun 2024 12:17:18 -0700

1939: Moviegoers flocked to the theaters to see the adventures of adolescent Dorothy Gale in the fantastic land of Oz. Viewers could sense the teen’s wonderment as she spoke to her companion: "Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore"!

Can today’s children comprehend the technological advancement their parents and grandparents have lived through? Nuclear weapons, TV, Color TV, VCRs, Video discs, computers, mobile phones, the iPad, the iPhone, electric cars, the Cloud, AI, robots, to name a few. The stuff of dreams and nightmares. These innovations have been part of their everyday existence since birth.

At PTA sponsored presentations about our program, Matt and I have been approached by parents who sought our input as to the appropriate age a pre-teen should be given some sort of independence, some autonomy in their decision making without constant parental oversight. Our reply: "There is no one absolute answer for that". You and your child share a unique relationship that we might not fully understand. Years ago, a highly respected peer, a coach for various sports, voluntarily resigned all his positions. Asked why he did so, he said, "I believe my children need me more as teenagers than when they were little".

Everything changes.

03/73: The first demonstration of the Motorola handheld mobile phone

01/01/83: The official birthday of the Internet

10/83: Mobile phones become commercially available

It is difficult to believe it is almost twenty years since the murder of Carlie Brucia. Details about her senseless death were transmitted over all print media and even national airways during February of 2004. Numerous people, police, first responders, reporters, clergy, were quoted in the reports as being filled simultaneously with rage about this depraved act and intense sorrow for its innocent victim.

These emotions are hallmarks of grief for some people. The word, grief comes from the Latin, gravare, meaning to be heavy. Grief, surely, from observation and personal experience, weighs heavy on the body and soul. Bereavement, while often used interchangeably with grief, has a different root meaning, reave, which means to rob.

Ask yourself, right now, how you define the word "grief". This question was randomly put to several people. My daughter defined...Read More

It's Halloween Again

Mon, 30 Oct 2023 09:24:37 -0700

It's Halloween again! Our children's favorite day to dress up as their favorite character and enjoy moving from home to home collecting treats. We want to review a few stranger safety awareness tips to ensure that they continue to enjoy the treat and not be tricked!

Awareness is all about LOOKING & LISTENING. Remind your child to always walk with their head up, paying attention to other children and of course, looking for cars as they cross the street. Here are a few more tips to share with them before they go out tomorrow:

Do not go trick-or-treating alone. Bring someone with you and use the buddy system
Never go to houses that are not well-lit
Try not to wander ahead of your group even though you are excited
Always have an adult check your treats before you eat them
If a stranger does approach you, move away from them immediately – run to a trusted adult
You may also want to play this instructional video for you child to view these tips as they are presented by their friends at The Rose Brucia Educational Foundation

Enjoy & Be Safe!

19

Thu, 02 Feb 2023 07:56:01 -0800

According to the Yale Journal of Medicine Autumn 2015 issue, memories “are a series of links among neurons in our brains. Somehow, we turn these synaptic connections into stories that give our lives meaning.” The article describes memory as “a story. The entirety of our lives, real and imagined, is grounded in learning, thinking, and doing, making our memories inextricably linked to our identities.” Memory involves acquiring, encoding, and retrieving information to put it clinically.

Now, go and google Dean Martin’s song, Memories are made of this. For some of you old enough to remember the singer and his work, you may have already listened silently to the lyrics of this number 1 song of early 1956. Lasting two- and one-half minutes, the recording effortlessly evokes the stuff of postwar contentment: kisses, bliss, some grief, some joy, little kids-these are the dreams you will savor!

Early this past Thanksgiving morning, my mother-in-law, Rose passed away at age 102. She was kind, loving, gracious and generous until her last moments. She put the lie to the age-old image of an overly intrusive in-law. I was constantly amazed by the wealth of stories she shared, the laughs, the tears, the personhood she attained. This allowed her family to eulogize her publicly and privately. In his short story, Reconstruction, writer Mark Helprin described a character lamenting his father’s passing: What I want I cannot have. I cannot ride in...Read More

Numbing Facts

Wed, 09 Mar 2022 12:09:56 -0800

If I asked my peers to repeat Dragnet’s Sergeant Joe Friday’s signature phrase, they would say, "Just the facts, ma’am". (In truth, he never said that. He did say, "All we want are the facts, ma’am"). Bill Murray’s character in Stripes, John Winger, replies to a question from a superior officer with "That’s dah fact, Jack"! Scientists at Chicago’s Field Museum define a fact as an indisputable observation of a natural or social phenomenon, one that can readily be seen and shown to others.
Statistical information concerning abductions can lead us to the conclusion that the world’s evil doers have not gone into hibernation due to Covid-19 but remain an active menace in the world.
Worldwide, over 8,000,000 people go missing each year. The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (Namus) reports over 600,000 go missing in the United States every year. Furthermore, it notes that over 70% of those cases involve children, those 17 and younger. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), 421,394 children were reported missing in 2019. Digging deeper into the numbers, NCMEC concluded there were 4,600 abductions by strangers. This group noted that one child in the US goes missing every 90 seconds, one in every 10,000 missing children is not found alive. The organization, Kids Live Safe reports that as a...Read More