Walking from Scranton PA to Greenboro NC...

Not me. I couldn't walk from my house to the store. But my friend George is
doing it, to raise money to help stop bullying in schools. He's asking
people who support his efforts to donate $5, at this website:

http://www.winwinresolutions.org/

George is a good guy. I'm proud to know him. His work as the board president
of Win-Win Resolutions is 100% volunteer, he is doing this because he
believes in it. If you agree, and have a spare fiver, give him some consideration. If you don't, thanks for reading.

dont get me wrong man......
but scranton to g-ville ? really ??
i see the idea behind it, but there are thousands of people out there who have hiked the entire Appalachia trail..... not a huge or unique event..... why not maine to miami ? or fly out to san fransisco and walk the entire length of interstate 40 back to wilmington NC 
now that would get some national news coverage!! if your gonna go, go big !
 
personally i dont believe in bully reform in the form of education......the idea of "shaming" someone into not doing something is akin to mind control. what it takes is for the weaklings to stand up and fight back...... otherwise, your just going to get more and more white collar, sneaky bullies.
 
and yea, i have the right to say these things, i was the victim of bullies in grade school.....i was a late bloomer, short and fat in grade school, by the time i was halfway through jr high, i was 6'4 and filling out in the right ways... one by one i got my just desserts (there were 4 of them)..... you cant imagine the feeling of triumph and victory i felt..... dont take that feeling away from young victims, it will make them stronger, more compassionate people.

BackAlleyBurger

and yea, i have the right to say these things, i was the victim of bullies in grade school.....i was a late bloomer, short and fat in grade school, by the time i was halfway through jr high, i was 6'4 and filling out in the right ways... one by one i got my just desserts (there were 4 of them)..... you cant imagine the feeling of triumph and victory i felt..... dont take that feeling away from young victims, it will make them stronger, more compassionate people.

This is all well and good IF you are lucky enough to be "6' 4" and filling out in the right ways" in junior high.  I wasn't that lucky.  When I graduated from high school I weighed about 250 lbs. and wasn't muscular in any way.  I just buried myself in studying to try to avoid the bullies.  I think most of us that got bullied just suffered through it and ended up being "loners".  It wasn't until our twentieth class reunion that the "jocks" and the popular girls would even think of speaking to me in a "normal" conversation.  (By the way, this year is our 60th class reunion.)
 
I don't think that educating the bulliess will help.  I am pretty sure that making laws concerning bullying won't do any good, since many bullies get a certain pleasure from breaking rules as it is.  I still am not sure what the best solution is. 

If George is able to help just one person, it's worth my five bucks.

My youngest son was the victim of bullying. I think one of the problems in our public schools is that they bear no resemblance to real life. If I were bullied as an adult, I can call the police and press charges. If a manager is a bully in most large companies - at least the ones I've worked for - they and the company either get sued, or the manager leaves. Small company owners can get away with a lot more, though.
 
I decided if my children are ever bullied again in school, we will not worry about "educating" the bullies. We may or may not report it to school administration. We will press charges. Me - I was also bullied in school, to the point were a student pulled a knife. Absolutely nothing happened to the bully. I should have reported it to the police and pressed charges.
 
Educate a bully? No. Hope to grow to be 6'4"? Not in the cards. Press charges and let the student deal with a police record.

To George , way to go! To Joerogo yup, I agree

To George , way to go! To Joerogo yup, I agree

To George , way to go! To Joerogo yup, I agree

To George , way to go! To Joerogo yup, I agree

To George , way to go! To Joerogo yup, I agree

George lives in Scranton, and the headquarters of Win-Win is in Greensboro. Hence the end points.
 
Do with it and feel about it as you will. I offer it to be accepted or rejected, no hard feelings if it's not right for you.

BackAlleyBurger

personally i dont believe in bully reform in the form of education......the idea of "shaming" someone into not doing something is akin to mind control. what it takes is for the weaklings to stand up and fight back...... otherwise, your just going to get more and more white collar, sneaky bullies.

 
But I will reply to this. To clarify, what you are saying then is, instead of "shaming" them into changing, we should beat them into changing, and that will work? I think I'm going to go ahead and disagree with you on that one. 

lmao, no...the only thing that works on a bully when he is in his "bully prime" is a bigger bully paying attention to him, either in a positive or negative light.
 
and no, dont put words in my mouth, what i said was the "victims" either "fight" back or deal with it....at some point in time, you need to either stand up for yourself, or go sit in a corner and wait for round two.....
 
"educational" reform, what is that, put a bully in a class ? put the victims in the same class ?...... thats about the same as sexual harrasment and PC classes in the corporate world, a joke at best
 

BackAlleyBurger


(snip)
"educational" reform, what is that, put a bully in a class ? put the victims in the same class ?...... thats about the same as sexual harrasment and PC classes in the corporate world, a joke at best

I know two people that rightfully lost their jobs by not paying attention to sexual harrasment and PC classes at work. It wasn't a joke for them.

callmebruce

BackAlleyBurger


(snip)
"educational" reform, what is that, put a bully in a class ? put the victims in the same class ?...... thats about the same as sexual harrasment and PC classes in the corporate world, a joke at best

I know two people that rightfully lost their jobs by not paying attention to sexual harrasment and PC classes at work. It wasn't a joke for them.

 
and you think a bully is going to pay any more attention in class ?

I think we're going way too far afield from Mosca's original post. For that I apologize. In the corporate world (I worked for a large 2 letter company for a long time, then two different three letter companies) - if you do not pay attention to sexual harrasment rules or you harass someone based on their religion, orientation or ethnicity - you will end up having to work somewhere else. I witnessed it. I support it. I would not do it. There are real consequences.
 
I think there should be education and real consequences in schools as well. And if the school administration does not take bullying seriously, parents need to support their children by involving people who WILL take it seriously - even if it means calling the police, filing a report and pressing charges.
 
I think classes help for those that simply need to see the world from a different viewpoint, or at least acknowledge that there are other viewpoints. For those that can not be educated, there need to be real consequences, just like in real life.
 

I backed out when Backalley said I was putting words in his mouth. Sorry, BAB, that wasn't my intent; but it told me that we weren't communicating in print the same way we would face to face, and that continuing wasn't going to fix it. We probably agree on a lot of things specific to this issue, but we aren't doing a good job of sharing it.
 
I know George, and he's a good guy and he will do a lot of good in this world regardless of this walk, regardless of the level of contributions he gets. He's pretty impressive. He doesn't get taken down easily, that's for sure.
 
I was bullied by my high school basketball coach. Talk about not being able to fight back. I used to fantasize about how I could kill him and get away with it; I decided there was no way to do it. I played out the season, and didn't go out for the team next year, and started taking drugs.

Mosca, lol, i'll be the first to admit sometimes what im trying to convey comes across the wrong way.....
dont get me wrong, i have a lot of respect for the guy taking the trip....i just have my own outlooks on how to deal with bullies and those type situations.... they fall into a special class of people they should be dealt with in extra special ways...
 
while i was growing up(younger years) i was pretty passive and got bullied a lot.... A LOT, mainly because i was still bigger then most in my school, but i was an easy target....well, when i hit my stride i started fighting back..... it took me 4 years, but one by one(i had 4 different bullies at the same time) i caught them alone, and extracted extreme revenge, never got bullied again, in fact, i sort of became the "big brother" to a lot of the more passive school mates i had from then on.....
and yes, my "teacher bully" was the head football coach in high school....i played first string in jr high, and was "recruited" strait off the field during a visit from the high school coaches during our last home coming game, i played off and def tackle, so i stayed on the field the entire game, every game....lol, it was brutal, but fun......
 
well, when i got to high school the next year, the whole politics of being a jock just never set well with me..... they treated the rest of the kids in school like ****, and held themselves on pedestals above everyone else..... i quit a week before the first game, and he was so pissed, i was in his target sights for the next three years, he went out of his way to make my life a living hell every chance he got. 
i dont know if anything would be better or worse had things been different back then..... but all in all, i think i turned out pretty good

SOMETHING needs to be done and good for George and his efforts. Bullying can be a lifelong painful memory, big or small. It can change kids minds about themselves because they dont have the mental or physical tools to deal with it.

Interstate 40 doesn't come near San Francisco. 
That's it for today's geography notes.

There's much more to bullying, these days, that pushing someone around in the locker room.
 
These days, kids start websites and facebook accounts harassing their victims and quickly spreading vicicous rumors. Using technology to make extremely realistic fake pictures of the victim doing unpleasant things. It isn't as easy as waiting to get one's just desserts later in a fair fight.
 
Bullying, has gone well beyond the normal heirarchy of junior/senior high life.
 
My nephew, a very popular student, with popular friends, saw bullying as the #1 problem in his school - above drugs, alcohol and sex. He mananged to remain drug, alcohol and sex free through high school. He also protected the weak and vulnerable. For a 2008 HS graduate, that's pretty unbelievable.
 
 
 
 

$5 sent.
 
Well done Mosca and good luck to George!

Here's a video that's going viral right now. The setup, from the video description (I don't know these kids): "The larger kid on the right, is my son's friend Casey - thankfully they don't go to the same school. Poor Casey has been bullied his whole high school life, and this is what happens when he snaps!!"
 
http://www.facebook.com/v...297615657&comments
 
Okay. Hooray for the big kid, he stood up to the bully. Great! I'm all for stopping bullies. Except, if that little kid lands on his head, he's dead. And there's a murder/manslaughter charge. And THAT is what is wrong with encouraging standing up: kids are kids. They sometimes snap and use more force than is necessary.