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https://www.baltimoresun.com/2000/09/12/growing-up-is-hard-to-do-3/

Growing up is hard to do
PUBLISHED: September 12, 2000 at 12:00 AM EDT

NEW YORK — So when he was a kid, George W. enjoyed putting firecrackers into frogs, throwing them in the air, and then watching them blow up. Should this be cause for alarm? How relevant is a man’s childhood behavior to what he is like as an adult? And in this case, to what he would be like as president of the United States.

Cruelty to animals is a common precursor to later criminal violence. But in rural West Texas, where George W. grew up, it was not uncommon for some boys to indulge in such cruelty.

His blowing up frogs or shooting them with BB guns with friends does not have the same significance it would have if, for example, a city boy blew up the family cat. In fact, George’s childhood friend, Terry Throckmorton, openly and laughingly admits, “We were terrible to animals.”

But there were surely many boys in George’s hometown of Midland, Texas, who would have been repelled at the thought of blowing up frogs. So how much importance should we attribute to this early behavior?

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