Yesterday, my children and I went to an amusement park. It was a great time and much needed.
I have always been a watcher of people, so being at such an occupied place gave me plenty to see. The interactions between people, their dress, their hair, their mannerisms...such fun. I don't make fun of anyone, I just observe.
There is so much to observe between parents and kids and kids and kids. I am always amazed at what I see. Unfortunately, it is everywhere I have an opportunity to watch. Disrespect and disobedience...and sometimes purely evilness. I do not understand it. I was never allowed to be this way, and I guarantee you, either were the parents of the monsters....so what happened? Maybe parents got lazy because they got too busy. Maybe the "threat" of arrest hinders them from a good spanking on the bottom. Whatever it is, it sickens me. I am looking at these next generations to come in horror...complete horror.
We come home and I am scanning my Facebook page to see some poor bus monitor's torment on video. She is a 68 year old woman from Greece, New York, and a group of 4 middle schoolers are bullying her to tears.
I did not watch the video as it would only upset me. Just knowing the few details has made my blood pressure rise! Honestly, what could she do? What means of discipline could she have taken? Her hands were tied, but her heart was not. Many people have given donations to this woman, over $400,000! They want her to go on a vacation of lifetime. I think that is awesome.
What about those kids, though? What about the parents of those kids?? It is all over our local news stations. Everyone was talking about it on FB, there is no hiding at all. Who should be punished more? The kids, or the parents who have allowed their kids to grow up this way? And what about all the other kids on the bus? NO ONE, not ONE stood up for this woman!!!! SHAME ON THEM ALL!
Here is one of the latest new reports.
Posted:
Jun 22, 2012 2:48 AM EDT
Updated:
Jun 22, 2012 12:08 PM EDT
Associated Press
A video of four
seventh-grade boys mercilessly taunting a 68-year-old bus monitor in New
York state that went viral has turned the victim into an international
fundraising juggernaut and opened her tormentors to an onslaught of
threats and abuse.
From around the world,
small donations for Karen Klein poured into the crowd-funding site
indiegogo.com, at one point crashing the site and pulling in a
staggering $443,057 by early Friday.
At the same time, police in
the Rochester suburb of Greece, N.Y., were stepping up patrols around
the houses of the middle-schoolers accused of taunting her. Police
didn't name the boys but their purported identities leaked out on the
Web.
Greece Police Capt. Steve
Chatterton was compelled to warn against vigilante justice. One boy
received more than a thousand death threats and commenters online were
clear - and sometimes venomous - in their desire that the boys be
severely punished.
"A threat for a threat does not make the situation better," Chatterton said at a news conference Thursday afternoon.
The verbal abuse was
captured in a 10-minute cellphone video recorded Monday by a student of
Athena Middle School and later posted to YouTube. The video shows Klein
trying her best to ignore the stream of profanity, insults and outright
threats. One student taunted: "You don't have a family because they all
killed themselves because they don't want to be near you."
Klein's oldest son killed himself 10 years ago.
Eventually, she appears to break down in tears.
The swell of support for
Klein follows a recent surge in awareness of bullying that has brought
the issue from the classroom to the stage and screen to the White House.
Bullying expert Stephen Birchak, a professor of counseling at Albany's
College of Saint Rose, said the enormous flow of money for Klein is no
surprise given the shame we feel as a society over the incident.
The stickier question is: How could the students be so cruel?
Birchak noted that the kids
are growing up in a world of harsh political debates and reality TV
shows in which berating people is part of the entertainment. Meanwhile,
taking videos of people in humiliating situations and sharing the images
has become all too normal among many adolescents, "Kids are growing up
saying, 'OK, this is how you treat your fellow human being and it's OK
to do those things,'" he said.
Police said Klein does not want the boys to face criminal charges, partly because of the storm of criticism leveled at them.
Klein told NBC's "Today"
show Thursday that it took "a lot of willpower" not to respond to the
jeers from the four boys riding the bus operated by the Greece Central
School District. Klein said she was "amazed" at the support she
received.
"I've got these nice
letters, emails, Facebook messages," she said. "It's like, wow, there's a
whole world out there that I didn't know. It's really awesome."
Klein did not immediately return a call from The Associated Press seeking comment.
The fundraiser flew past
its goal of $5,000, initially designed to send the grandmother of eight
on a "vacation of a lifetime." Some 20,875 people had donated by early
Friday, many in denominations of $20 or less.
"You want to jump into that
bus and you want to grab those kids and say 'Knock it off!' And you
want to hold her," said Amy Weber, a 43-year-old independent filmmaker
from the Detroit area who pledged $100.
"I think we hear about
bullying every day and we become a little desensitized to it. This puts
it in our face" said Weber, who is making a feature film about a bully.
Slava Rubin, Indiegogo's chief executive officer and co-founder, called the outpouring "an incredible campaign."
"We're seeing good
Samaritans come together to support this brave woman, and we hope that
this campaign contributes positively to the important national
discussion about bullying," Rubin said in a prepared statement.
The boys had not yet
apologized to Klein as of Thursday afternoon, though police said they
regretted their acts. The district will pursue disciplinary actions
against all four students.
___
Carola and Hill reported from Albany, N.Y. Associated Press writer Mary Esch in Albany contributed.
Copyright
2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not
be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
These kids, these rotten kids, are not exceptions, they are becoming the rule. Our future. Parents, wake up!
Sorry for the "shouting" today, reader. Very passionate about this topic. Thank you for continuing to come back.
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