Actually, cyber bullying was already here.  Whatever happened to the good old days where the bullies just made everyone’s life miserable on the playground? 

Area schools and parent-teacher organizations are meeting to discuss the growing trend of cyber bullying where children and teens use computers, hand-held devices, cell phones and blackberries to harass torture and embarrass their peers. 

Apparently the problem is so epidemic that PW County Schools plan to include cyber bullying in the Code of Behavior.  Regular bullying is already a point of emphasis.  In the past few years, schools have become increasingly sensitive to the harmful affects of bullying.  Deputy Superintendent Rae Darlington has been a champion of the anti-bullying programs that already exist in the county.   

According to the News and Messenger:

 

The suggested changes to the Code of Behavior, which the School Board reviews and updates annually, would expand the definition of bullying to say that “cyber bullying, the intentional and/or repeated harm of others through the use of computers, cell phones, and other electronic or technological devices, is strictly forbidden.”

Clarice Torian, Director of Student Services for Prince William County Schools recently told the school board:

“The suggested additions to the code of behavior would apply to student behavior in school, and outside of school if the behavior impacts the school environment.”

 

News and Messenger also reports:

According to a study by criminology professors Sameer Hinduja and Justin Patchin, who started the Web site http://www.cyberbullying.us, 9.4 percent of middle schoolers reported being recent victims of cyberbullying and 17.3 percent reported being victims at some point in their lives.

The study also said that 8.2 percent of middle schoolers reported being recent cyber bullies themselves and 17.6 percent reported being cyber bullies at some point in their lives.

According to the study, some examples of cyber bullying are sending harassing e-mails or instant messages, posting insulting or slanderous things on online bulletin boards or social networking sites.

 

Does this behavior stop at adolescence?  Is this something kids outgrow or is it something we continue to see way into adulthood?  Certainly those of us who have traveled about the blogosphere are quite familiar with bullying.  Additionally, those of us who have dealt with political issues are certainly familiar with some of the bully tactics that are used in against the ‘enemy.’

What is adult cyber bullying?  Would those who bully do so on the playground or is the anonymity of a computer what brings out this disturbing behavior?  How does it manifest itself in the blogosphere?  The chat rooms?  Emails?

Over the weekend, let’s take a look at examples of cyber bullying as it relates to blogging and politics.  I am sure many of us have a story to tell. 

 

 

 

 

 

168 Thoughts to “Cyber Bullying Comes to Prince William County”

  1. Moon-howler

    Michael, I don’t have time to do that. The racism offer did not involve work. Isn’t there something over on bvbl you can find? Surely Greg isn’t falling asleep at the switch.

    It sounds like you and SA both have the same complaints. Am I reading that right?

  2. DiversityGal

    Well, geez…sorry y’all. You know, sometimes something said on a thread leads in another direction. Sometimes we go back to topics discussed before and talk about them. It seems only natural to me, but I get the picture that it is not appreciated. Sorry for asking the question and causing all the hubbub.

    I do want to say this…I’m sorry that others are bored with the conversation here, or are just offended by the use of the term racism. They are welcome to have the floor and I’ll back off.

    Have a good weekend:)

  3. Moon-howler

    I am grouchy this week. Would you all like a thread on racism? If yes, email me and narrow it down a little and I will gladly do it. Just please nothing that makes me think.

  4. @Moon-howler
    “I feel like we are beating a dead horse. I know people who won’t even come on this blog because they claim that is all they read about. Frankly, they are bored.”

    We are, MH. I have my stuff about racism–definitions et al- posted on my own blog. I have no desire to open a thread about it here. If people stop asking me, I will stop responding. I will also try to ignore it–something that is difficult for me to do.

    I tend to over-communicate because I keep thinking if I say it in a different way, people will “get” what I am trying to say. They don’t. So it’s best to just leave it alone.

  5. michael

    Diversity Gal I welcome your comments. They are usually very polite, represent your views and provide me a means to offer a balanced debate that helps all of us understand the world better with more information rather than less.

    Moon it is OK to be grouchy once in a while, I just wish you picked topics that offer more neutral viewpoints or occassionally showed both side of the debate better. I would not have to work so hard to explain why I disagree.

    I have a very good topic for you but don’t know where to put it, that should not take much research. I’ll dump it on the latest blog and you can copy it to a new thread if you wish.

    This topic is very important…The DOJ justice committe congressional review yesterday with the attorney general announced that Justice department now has 2100 cases of MORTGAGE fraud under investigation (lying on forms, misrepresenting income, brokering to target ethnic groups, and illegal immigrants who falsly made statements of credit, address claims, and creditworthyness, and of brokers and insurance companies who falsly misrepresented the ratings of high risk loans to investors and hedge funds, and as I told everyone before DOJ and FBI is digging deeper into why the housing market collapsed, who caused it, who profited, who was illegal and fraudulent and who was to blame for our entire economic meltdown. I am happy to see the truth come out and justice be exercised on people who profited from all of our misery.

    Related to that…Michael Greenberg (professor of economics), had the most crystal clear explaination for why the derivatives market is “fraudulent, needs to be banned, is unethical, and places our entire ecomomic stability and current woes in the hand of “casino gamblers” who bet that “illegal” immigrants and others who obtained fraudulent mortgages, whould not pay them and would default. The $167Billion dollars spent in TARP money actually went to these “criminals” who held the “vapor paper” and expected bernanke and geitner (and earlier paulson, regarding his buddies at Goldman Sachs) to have the American taxpayer cover the “gambling losses, dollar for dollar. That loss is why we are in this economic meltdown…
    Every American should understand this and be outraged enough to demand that derivatives trading, and the concept of selling short, SHOULD BE BANNED AND MADE ILLEGAL. Derivatives and selling short, then marking the gain of that “bet” to market, on the institutions daily balance sheet,that something bad happens (like a homeowner defaults) they then profit on other people’s losses and misery and conspire to drive the market down (and GM into bankruptcy) by “betting” it will fail, when they own nothing of capital in any of the assets these derivatives are based on.

    Obama is trying to “fix this” but he needs all of our political help to get OUR MONEY BACK FROM THESE CRIMINALS THAT STOLE IT FROM US, and put it back into middle income wealth and the economy. It is the losses of these “bets” being required by contracts to be paid, that caused companies to collapse, companies who did not have capital to gain more income and capital to cover the “loss on their bets”, TO FIRE LOW INCOME and MIDDLE INCOME employees, while pocketing EXECUTIVE BONUSES.

    Now write that thread and you will be doing our entire country a big favor. I can then add the details and convert fraudulent and covert financial geek speak to average American speak.

  6. @DiversityGal
    Thank you, DG! I appreciated the question. I wasn’t referring to you in my previous post, BTW. I was talking more about people who keep bringing subjects up from past posts. They use past posts to bash current posts, which makes no sense. Then when they do that, I repeat myself. See how that goes? It’s tedious, at best.

  7. @Happy Harry
    “For a rich white SAHM, I’m not so sure that your intentions are a pure as you claim them to be.”

    LMAO!

    Okay, Harry. Keep making those ass-umptions.

  8. michael

    This is also the reasoj why we have high gasoline prices, low gasoline pices and then higher gasoline and food prices rising again. People are placing “bets” that the economy will get worse, and buying more insurance to cover losses that will then pay them 3 to 1 odds, without them even holding a single asset of capital, if that capital (our homes, cars, gasoline, food) is made more expensive and we suffer financial losses and lose more jobs.

    These crimninals who create the vapor papr derivative products and hedge funds that allow this (they make 100 billion dollars per year), need to be arrsted and pput into jail for the misery they cause on all of us, but they pay off our congressmen to make laws that hurt us and help them steal even more (Geithner, Bernanke, Cris Dodd, Barney Frank, etc)

  9. michael

    Sorry about the spelling (I don’t use a spell checker), and type fast becuuse I have too many other things to do…

  10. michael

    The world-wide economic “sucking hole” caused by the pervasive “gambling” using the derivative market, short selling, SIV and CDW insurance derivatives (promises to pay if people lose homes and default) and to conspire (with key government officials) to make even more profits if they can convince congress, Fannie May execs, and Freddic Mac execs, and ethnic-centric brokerage companies to target illegal immigrants, and former illegal immigrants, and low income poor people and to commit financial fraud by “ignoring” and encouraging reporting and credit FRAUD on mortgage applications, look the other way and get as many people of poverty as possible to buy homes(who are guaranteed to default on 50% of the ARMS, so short sales and insurance derivatives will make HUGE profits). If investors and bankers can be encouraged to sell a significant number of 8A mortgages, then the losses on those mortgages WILL CAUSE GAMBLING DEBTS OF 4 TRILLION DOLLARS TO BE PAID to hedge fund investors in thse derivative products.

    This is not real economics, it is thievery…

  11. michael

    Not CDW, CDS credit default swaps, or insurance promises to pay out Gambling PROFITS to hedge fund investors (At Goldman Sachs, AIG, Bear Sterns, Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan, etc, etc) if a homeowner losses his home.

  12. michael

    Thievery and gambling economics 101:

    If I buy a home, I put up Cash (downpayment capital), and agree to pay interest on a promise to pay note, in return for the right to “borrow” or “rent” the home from the bank. My “promise to pay” note is backed by the capital value on the market of my home, if and when I chose to sell it. So I have a capital interest and “risk” of loss of the home if I do not pay my “promise to pay”.

    The bank used to withold “capital” or cash, to cover their potential loss of monthly income if I stopped paying monthly payment, and could sell the home to recover their “investment”. In 2000 however, congress allowed the bank to buy “insurance” from an insurance brokerage house (CD
    S) credit default swap, so they no longer had any risk if I defaulted. They could then make loans to anyone (no money down), commit fraud and sell the risk AND the promise to pay to brokerage houses. The more “illegal immigrants, former “illegal” immigrants and 8A loans they could encourage fraud and false reporting one, the more MONEY at high interests rates they could make WITH NO RISK.

    Brokerage houses could package these “promises to pay”, falsely and illegally call them “low risk” investments, when they were actually a mix of low and high risk investments and sell them in two ways, one to investors who wanted the monthly payments and the debt to be paid (the holders of my loan), and the second to hedge fund investors who “borrowed” my loan paper without MY APPROVAL or KNOWLEDGE, gamble or bet that I would “default” and then after taking a profit from my misery and loss, give the paper back to the “investor” who held my loan and tell them they had to pay the “gambling loss”. Worse, the investor who held my promise to pay, in order to hedge his bets against losses, bought credit default swaps, or insurance that promised to pay him for my loss, if I defaulted, and if so he would then profit. Not only was the investor who held my loan allowed to buy insurance against my loss (because he actually had a stake in the capital vale of my home at risk), but an UNLIMITED number of other hedge fund investors, who had NO CAPITAL AT RISK, or even had any connection to my “promise to pay” could “gamble” that my mortgage default would happen (like gambling it will rain, or gas prices will go up) and buy 4 Trillion dollars worth of those credit default swaps as “insurance product” DERIVATIVES or GAMBLING vapor paper. If I defaulted, they ALL profited, IF I paid my mortgage, then the ones who bought “long” profited. Either way someone else profited from my misery and my loss. When 50% of the ARM mortgages issued in 2006-2007 defaulted, the US suffered an economic meltdown, because the people who promised to “cover” the gambling losses, and gambling winnings, had no captial (cash), reserved to pay the losses or gambling debts. These companies, Bear Sterns, Leiman Brothers, AIG, etc, had to mark these “gambling” loses to market (daily balance sheet, because they held derivative vapor paper), went bankrupt, and begged Poulson, later Bernanke and Geithner, to BAIL them out, pay the gambling LOSSES with taxpaper money so they could keep their bonuses, exhorbitant salaries and not go bankrupt from “gambling at the race track”.

    Again this is not economics, it is thievery from the unsuspecting American public (not smart enought to figure it out), and NEEDS to be made illegal, and the public NEEDS to demand the MONEY BE RETURNED TO INDIVIDUAL TAXPAYERS.

    This derivative and short selling concept should be made illegal so we never suffer this misery again, while 1% of the nation gets filthy rich from criminal activity.

  13. michael

    The $167Billion TARP bailout money did not bailout AIG or keep it from failing, just allowed one fraudulent insurance derivative division that had run up billions of dollars of debt, pay ALL of these gambling insurance derivative holders (however many thousands of criminal gamblers there were) whose gambling winnings demanded payment of the “bet” that I would default. They did everything they could in their power and influence over congress and the market to make sure as many people as possible who could not afford homes, bought and defaulted on homes, so they could profit from losses and “short” positions that profited from OTHER PEOPLE’s MISERY.

  14. Moon-howler

    Michael, Do you suggest we let banks fail? I sort of feel like the horse is out of the barn now. I would like to see all the funny money business stopped.

  15. Happy Harry

    Posting As Pinko :
    @Moon-howler
    “I feel like we are beating a dead horse. I know people who won’t even come on this blog because they claim that is all they read about. Frankly, they are bored.”
    We are, MH. I have my stuff about racism–definitions et al- posted on my own blog. I have no desire to open a thread about it here. If people stop asking me, I will stop responding. I will also try to ignore it–something that is difficult for me to do.
    I tend to over-communicate because I keep thinking if I say it in a different way, people will “get” what I am trying to say. They don’t. So it’s best to just leave it alone.

    Actually, look at post #19 – NO ONE was talking about racial profiling until YOU DID. YOU CONTINUALLY BRING IT TO THE CONVERSATION. Go back and look. Nobody asked for your crack pot definition until later on. You mentioned it first. You have this strange obsession with calling everyone and everything racist. I think the lady doth protest too much.

  16. Happy Harry

    Posting As Pinko :
    @Happy Harry
    “For a rich white SAHM, I’m not so sure that your intentions are a pure as you claim them to be.”
    LMAO!
    Okay, Harry. Keep making those ass-umptions.

    Kiss your kids with that mouth? Nice. What do you deny? Do you deny that you are a SAHM? That you get to spend your day blogging about weight loss and fat loss surgery instead of having to work? That you are white? That you have privilege to live in an area that doesn’t have overcrowded housing? That the school your children attend isn’t predominately a minority school? Do you live in a neighborhood where your neighbors don’t piss on your lawn, openly drink in front of children and cat call women and teenage girls? Are there houses all around you in foreclosure?

  17. Harry, the Immigration Resolution was fixed a year ago. The county is no longer putting our officers at risk of being accused of racial profiling. The BOCS is no longer dominated by Corey Stewart/Greg Letiecq/John Stirrup. All three have been discredited. If any of this is upsetting to you, you can blame those three every bit as much as you might blame anyone on this blog. More over, the people on this thread are no threat to you. Anyone who is willing to read 166 comments (I have not) already knows all there is to know about the policy, who wrote it, who pushed it, and who overturned it. You have nothing to gain by your nastiness.

  18. Moon-howler

    HH, it’s probably a good idea not to let personal issues arise on the blog. What Pinko does on her blog should not be discussed here.

    Now would someone please tell me what a SAHM is?

    WHWN, I am not as confident as you are about who might still be overly influencing county government. While I agree that the Immigration Resolution has been neutered, I am not ready to say that the three folks you named have been neutralized in any way. I hope you haven’t been lulled into a false sense of security.

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