Tea at Trianon: The Cure for Bullying

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, February 3, 2011

The Cure for Bullying

People who try to help. To quote health care professional Nick Jacobs:

The Today Show story that I saw featured the Massachusetts school where, due to cyber-bullying, a young girl committed suicide last year. Apparently, another girl is now having the same experience at the same school. With the help of programs like this comprehensive anti-bullying program, the former Secretary of Education from PA, Jerry Zahorchak, (now Superintendent of the Allentown PA school system), embraced the effort to quell and discourage this type of destructive behavior. And the program, under the direction of Dr. Matt Masiello has successfully been introduced across the entire State of PA. (Matt had started the Allegheny County’s Goods for Guns program in 1994, when he was the head of pediatric intensive care at Allegheny General Hospital. To date, this program is responsible for collecting more than 11,000 illegal guns from the streets of Pittsburgh.) Matt has had the same success with this anti-bullying program. Now, both Massachusetts and Maryland are looking into embracing this effort.

Unknown said...: Have you heard of the Kind Campaign? It was started by two college grads. I saw their documentary this past fall and was really impressed with their efforts to curb and prevent girl v. girl bullying!; February 3, 2011 at 2:34:00 PM EST
The North Coast said...: Efforts to end bullying among children are decades overdue. Millions of kids have suffered through a dozen school years or more of bullying that ranges from malicious gossip, verbal attacks, and sabotage, clear up to dangerous physical assaults, and there was no support for the victimized child. It was seen as a personal problem the bullied child was having, and the fact that he was bullied was proof that he was having "adjustment" problems.

I'm not so sure about the Goods for Guns program, though. Here in Chicago, we have regular gun buy-back programs and the authorities brag about how many guns are turned in and consider the program a success. However, when you look closely, it isn't successful, because most of the guns turned in are not good guns, and at the last buy-back, not a single usable weapon was turned in. That means the thugs are turning in junk to get the money while holding on to good weapons, and there are even stories of one thug arranging for three people to turn in three useless guns, to get cash toward a good one.; February 3, 2011 at 5:30:00 PM EST