WTF?

Dog and pony show, every White House does it...

Ronald Reagan found time to meet Michael Jackson and out Republic held up just fine...

http://www.google.com/search?q=ronald+reagan+michael+jackson&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&ie=&oe=

SensorG

I agree.

How about Nixon and Elvis shaking hands?

OK, I'm wrong. Celebrity is the new god. Let's encourage more because it's tradition.

Nah, you are just cranky...not wrong. :) When it comes to anti-bullying efforts, which we can all agree is a serious issues that parents have given up addressing (kids will be kids) she is a good choice to bring in. She has made it clear she was bullied in school for most of her life. She also has the attention of many in the younger generation, as well as the 20/30 somethings that are now starting families. This makes her a good outlet to reach those that are getting bullied or are doing it.

Celebrity isn't the new god. They are useful tools for getting messages out to target audiences. Not everything in life has to be the work of evil. You could almost argue that the message she is being brought in to help spread is to stop people like you.

"Freak", "Half-Wit"...yeah nice flash back to middle school name calling. I bet you were just a treat to your fellow classmates back then. Or were you bullied and this is your way of getting back at those that oppressed you by putting other people down? Also I would suggest listening to her sing when it is just her and a piano with nothing else - plenty of videos on YouTube - and you'll notice how your characterization of her singing talents would be off base.

Yes there are many serious issues happening in this country. However we can't have tunnel vision and just focus on one or two things. A short meeting at the White House is not going to impact anything to fix unemployment or financial issues. We also need much more local involvement to fix those issues. The state I currently live in (though I consider Toledo home) has a 5% unemployment and budget surpluses for most state and local governments. Mind you local governments don't collect income taxes down there, and the state is evaluating eliminate the state income tax. Almost everything is sales tax generated and things are doing quite well.

Just to be clear Sooner, Oklahoma also gets huge amounts of federal tax dollars. Almost a $1.50 for every dollar they send in. If Ohio could get that kind of federal cheese, we'd could lower our state taxes to nothing too...

Oh I am well aware of that. The VAST majority of those dollars though are due to the massive military presence in the state. Vance AFB offers fight training in NW OK. Altus AFB in SW OK provides flight training and a base for C-17 and C-5 heavy lift/transport aircraft. Tinker AFB in OKC is the home base for the AWACS fleet as well as most tanker/bomber engine overhaul and maintenance. Then you have the Ammunition Depot in SE OK which stores a large portion of this nation's munitions/bombs. So when you look at the large military operation, that definitely would explain the huge amount of cash coming in.

However, when you look at the federal dollars coming in for roads and such, Oklahoma severely lags behind other states. So you have to really bust the numbers down when you take military operations out. I guess the problem against Ohio is that it isn't strategically located for military operations. Yes there is Wright-Patt, but not much else. Oklahoma is nice and centered to allow for each dispatch of assets from most of the lower 48. Side benefit to that are other benefits from the private sector. Boeing recently announced a new 500-1000 jobs in OKC as well as a new office complex. A lot of this is to accommodate growth from moving jobs out of California.

So yeah, OK does get its share of fed bucks...however a lot is tied to military operations. The other items like roads and such aren't nearly as well funded.

How did our nation survive with all those "nerds" getting swirlies? I bet Bill Gates hides some deep seeded anger while he counts his bullies.

The reason kids are "suffering" from the "traumatic" issues of bullying is because Dad is busy to tell them life is hard but you preserve no matter what because he is stuck on the third level of Call of Duty and Mom isn't their to provide support because she has 3 episodes of Dancing with the Stars to catch up with.

Life is real hard, the work place is cut throat, adults are no more "nicer" than school children. The answer to these problems isn't anti-bullying programs, it's PARENTING. I feel sorry for this generation where everyone gets a medal and all interpersonal problems can be solved with "programs". Assholes are gonna be assholes, it's been that way since the dawn of time. Teach your children their life or self worth doesn't depend on the words or views of others.

"Assholes are gonna be assholes......."

Dare I?

so it's the kid's and parents fault when the kid can't handle it anymore and kill themselves?? No blame goes to the assholes that are doing it??

This isn't a problem kids should have to worry about. They should be able to be kids and enjoy their childhood. They have plenty of years after their childhood to learn how rough the world is.

I was the poor kid, who wore hand me down clothes, and didn't have the money to go on the out of town class trips. Sure it was hard, but my parents surrounded me with love and let me know that I was worth all the world to them and more than that to myself.

If you child is facing something as backbreaking that would make them want to kill themselves and you are doing nothing about it than yes it's your fault. We eat around the table and spend quality time together everyday, I know when they have had a "bad day" and we talk about it. We are not the richest family on the block, not the prettiest, or "coolest" but we are always their for our children. If you kids are driven to suicide because of "bullying" then yes I do place a lot of the blame on the parents for not being involved in your children's life enough to see and do something about the warning signs.

dbw8906 - Other than "suck it up", "the world owes you nothing" what advice would you offer or steps would you take?

Being poor as a child is not the same as being bullied. My son was sucker punched every day for over a month on the school bus, out of sight of the driver, by a kid twice his size. How would you have handled that?

Holland you don't think you don't get bullied because most of the other kids in school wore the polo shirts with the "gators" on them and you had the K-Mart blue light special.

I would inject myself into the situation and make sure the problem was solved even if I had to sit on the principle's desk 5 days a week till the problem was solved. At some point I might have looked into pressing assault charges, I wouldn't wait on a program.

You really think "school bully panda" would have solved your son's problem? No program would have fixed a complete breakdown in the discipline or oversight process that lead to that. The kid punching your son does give a damn about your son and no professor form the Institute of Government Childhood Niceness was going to make him stop because they watched a 30 min video on being "nice" and had a pep rally.

On one hand, "Sticks and stones....." and if parents would parent, the harrassment and the victims would be reduced.

Is it just me or is the repeated use of the "f" word in the original post a sign of not only what is becoming acceptable today, along with the behavior that this entire post is about?

+1

Hey Ace!

Thanks for posting the pic of Mr. T!!

I met him and he's a pretty cool guy!

My husband was extremely poor as a child. I understand the ramifications of that. He missed out on a lot and was left out on a lot of activities. He flunked gym because his mother couldn't afford gym shorts. He still talks of it today at age 73. It took him a long time to get past the anger and the bitterness that those conditions can instill in a child and carry through to adulthood. It was poverty and the social ramifications that made him suffer.

Bullying is different. It happens to kids regardeless of their family's financial condition. It would have made it lot easier for the other kids who witnessed my son's sucker punching to come forward and report what they saw if there had been a program or structure in place for that. My complaint would have been taken seriously instead of basically ingnored at first. I went to the bus driver, I went to the teacher, I went to the principal and then I went to the School Board members. It was in about 1982. No school official wanted to deal with it. Springfield Local Schools. Eventually we did get it stopped. I wish there had been a program in place back then and bullying was recognized for what it is. I applaud every effort made, no matter how silly it might seem, that gets kids, and adults, to recognize how serious it is.

Actually one of my friends did kill himself because of bullying. His parents and his friends including me were there for him constantly. His parents went so far as to go to the school and to the bullies parents. They even went to the police and they didn't do anything because it was his word against everyone else and they didn't have any proof.

They got the typical kids will be kids crap from the school the bullies parents, and the police because no one really believed them. Guess what it didn't do shit. They found him dead in his room a few months later with a note saying that he couldn't deal with it anymore.

Is it just me or is the repeated use of the "f" word in the original post a sign of not only what is becoming acceptable today, along with the behavior that this entire post is about?

My apologies for the repeated use of the dreaded "f" word. I'm sorry. The "Seven Words You Can't Say On Television" now extends to Toledo Talk, at least for me.

"400,000 words in the English language...and 7 you can't say on television...they must be baaaaaaad words" -- George Carlin.

Forgive me, for I know not whom I offend.

You could almost argue that the message she is being brought in to help spread is to stop people like you ...."Freak", "Half-Wit"...yeah nice flash back to middle school name calling. I bet you were just a treat to your fellow classmates back then. Or were you bullied and this is your way of getting back at those that oppressed you by putting other people down?

Your armchair psychology is rather pathetic. So either I was the bully or I was bullied and that explains everything? Pfffft.

I had fights in school. I had friends in school. I had people I didn't like in school. I met people I love to this day. I sat at the "nerd" table and I sat at "jock" table. I remember what it felt like being embarrassed in front of what seemed like the whole school and getting teased about it. I now regret joining some other kids teasing someone else who was also embarrassed at a different time. It's called being a kid. Ups and downs. And entirely not the point of the post.

As for your response, it seems like you are a little sensitive to bullying. Were you a bully...or were you the bullied one? If we use your logic, it's the only thing to explain your response. Move over on that armchair, buddy...

Hmmmm....me saying she's a "freak". OK, if you saw this (meat dress!), this , or this walking down the street, you wouldn't say "wow, freaky chick"? You'd engage her in debate on Proust and the intricacies of multiple regression analysis? Sure...

Quote from justasooner: "Also I would suggest listening to her sing when it is just her and a piano with nothing else - plenty of videos on YouTube - and you'll notice how your characterization of her singing talents would be off base."

Quote from oldhometown: "What the ---- [bad word--bad, bad, bad word] does this freak know about anything... except singing ...and why are we letting her in the White House?

I acknowledge she is a decent singer. A great voice. The whole point is what she is not : any sort of public policy expert that needs to waste the time of people in the White House. And yes, you can extend this to a lot of other "celebs" who are there for their pet project (although I think Mr. T was there for Christmas, not exactly a pet project). Take it from someone who has interviewed a lot of celebrities of every stripe, practically none of them are any sort of smart or experts in anything other than their primary talent--acting, singing, dancing, etc. They know their lines and repeat them after softball questions. That's it...and that's also why I said "half-wit". I apologize for going to far with that one, as her interviews seem to be somewhat more together than your typical pop star. However, just because she went to NYU for a couple semesters doesn't make her brilliant, nor an effective public policy advocate. Nobody in D.C. is going to say "jump on board--GaGa [or insert celebrity here] is behind this one!"

But bottom line: she's going there because it's a place to be seen. There will be cameras. And the press will fawn and she will get more coverage...(oh-oh...wait...we have a report from ABC News!) And it will be mentioned for a total of about 5 seconds on the news. On the other hand, perhaps if she produced anti-bullying PSAs for children's television programming on network television and PBS (that repeated often), maybe that would be a better use of everyone's time and more effective. That is my criticism of this--that it is more about her than any of the issues since brought up on this board about bullying. It's about coverage. It's about more media attention to her. Note the linked to ABC report that just had to include a breathless "fashion update".

P.S.--When Elvis visited Nixon, he went to talk about the bad influence the Beatles music and drug culture had on youth. Hey wait--Elvis was sort of an expert...as he died a prescription drug-addled mess 7 years later.

lfrost: I am sorry about your friend. That is terrible.

lfrost - I too lost a friend to drug abuse and depression, I'm sorry for your loss.

In no way am I trivializing people with mental issues or those who are suffering. I'm just stating that no government mandate on social behavior ever changes anything. How is "Just say No" or the efforts to stop teenage pregnancy working for us? Spending millions of dollars to create the The Office of Childhood Niceness will do little to no good. I agree we should take a tougher stance on the matter at a personal and local level but federal programs that send around people to have pep rallies at schools are ineffective at the best.

People are sick creations and that is a fact that will never change, only putting your foot down any and refusing to be a victim is the only thing that will make an impact. Only people helping people on a personal level is going to do something about it.

BTW what did Gaga have to be bullied about? Being rich or Jewish in NYC. Sorry if I see this as pandering.

I do think that the internet has changed bullying from when we were kids and not for the better.

Not sure what we can do to change that. Hell, adults bully each other via the internet, so we (as a group) aren't exactly setting a good example.

@ dbw.....Have you always been such a bigot???

What did she have to be bullied about, dbw? She was overweight and she didn't fit in. She was harassed, taunted, crammed into a trash can and more. She has been able to use her experience to empower kids who are in similar situations. Good for her.

Kids are cruel, and showing victims they can rise above it and love themselves for who they are is a darn good message, if you ask me. The fact that she is open about what she experienced and that she makes a point of saying "I was where you are, and you can be where I am if you believe in yourself" is pretty powerful.

Yes, there will always be bullies. Changing the way the victims deal with it is another way to lessen the impact and, hopefully, save lives.

You sir are either a master troll, or if you're serious, let's talk about where the fuck pResident Bush spent most of his time, including when a Category 5 hurricane was bearing down on New Orleans (hint: he wasn't in the White House trying to mitigate the disaster).

Bill Gates didn't fear bullies, bullies feared him and his dad, who was a prominent lawyer in the Seattle area. His mom was on the board of the regional United Way and that's how he got the hookup with IBM.

And the problem with PARENTING as you put it is the number of parents who LET their kids be bullies or don't believe the school administrators who tell them their kids are being bullies or just don't give a fuck about their kids period. It's not the parents of the victims, it's the parents of the perps NOT putting the smackdown on their vicious brats.

That only works if the school administrators give a damn, which they don't. I know for a fact they don't give a fuck about making the bully's parents do anything... in fact they sometimes don't bother to tell them at all. And in certain cases, they don't tell them because they know they'll whale seven kinds of snot out of the kid because the bully is living in an abusive household, and they don't want the mess of Child Protective Services bullshit... assuming CPS would do a fucking thing when they actually needed to.

AC, right on the money. In my son's situation the bully was from a home that was terribly disfunctional. The bully was constantly in trouble. The "parents" were also combative trouble makers. The mother is in state prison today ( a term of 25 yrs I think). School officials turned a blind eye to my kid and his circumstances rather than face the difficulties that would result from dealing with the bully or his parents. The mother actually physically threatened me at one point. I had no witnesses and the police said they could do nothing. I decided I would risk taking a hit from the Mom if it meant getting the problem resolved and I just kept battling away at school administrators and officials.

Its taken nearly twenty years for schools to assume some responsibility for the actions of one student bullying another. Sadly it hasn't come soon enough for some. Bullying can kill. Its time we faced up to the problem and dealt with it. Give kids a safe avenue for reporting it. Get the bully and his/her parents on notice that it won't be tolerated and that it has to stop. Involve counselors, police and child protective services if necessary.

Toughing it out just because the word is a cruel place anyway and you should be prepared for it is not a solution. It just lets the bully win and the problem perpetuates itself.

Yes, he has, it goes hand in hand with his right-wing "nobody ever did anything for me and I pulled myself up from my bootstraps and since nobody ever helped me I'm not going to give one thin dime to help anyone else since anyone on welfare or charity is a lazy bum" outlook. It's the "I got mine so FUCK YOU!" outlook, and it fits perfectly with his Republican cheerleading over in the Politics section.

I grew up poor and bullied and didn't get welfare, reduced school lunches, or anything else either, and in the 'hood I was in I watched people abuse welfare and spend their time drinking and either neglecting or beating their kids, but that doesn't automatically mean I'm going to hate on every group that's not me because they beat me up and nobody helped me.

dbw would tell you the parents are at fault for not being personally responsible. And that's true to an extent. At the same time, the problem perpetuates itself as you've noted (abusive parents lead to abusive kids, kids abusing kids like dbw lead to kids like dbw growing up into an adult who says "fuck trying to solve the problem, I've got mine so fuck you, it's their own fault" as well as more abusive parents... and instead of assigning 100% fault and blame on any one party everyone should be taking a stake in this. The school, the parents and kids on both sides, and society. When both parents are working 2 jobs just to make ends meet, that's a societal problem. Bullying kids over what brand of clothing they wear is a societal problem. It's all self-perpetuating bullshit and it continues to be self-perpetuating because very, VERY few people recognize it and put forth the conscious effort to change or stop it.

Kids born into poverty didn't ask to be born into that situation. The werent lazy, or stupid, just a victim of cirumstance. They suffer the consequences through no fault of their own. Some make it out, many dont. Some people who grow up and do make it out recognize the need to extend a hand back to youngsters stuck in the same situation they were. Others dont. For reasons I clearly don't understand.

It seems like bullies are born from bullies. Anyone remember the mother who bullied her daughters friend and the girl eventually killed herself? Don't quote me, but I believe it was in Maryland or somewhere in the north east. I could be wrong.

Tell that to the victims they leave behind.

Nope and that's quite a overstep. If you read my post I've stated time and time over it must be tackled on a personal level. The problem is most people expect some program or speaker to come in a rectify social issues when they must be tackled at the individual level. You keep waiting for someone to come in and wave a government flag to make all your problems go away.

It's not a societal problem, it's a people problem. The human ego has caused people to hate each other for the color of skin, monetary worth, size, shape and countless number of issues. But your a fool if you think celebrities, pep rallies, and after school specials are going to make it go away. Civil Rights where not earned because people sat around and watched TV coverage of MLK, but because PEOPLE took to the streets and said enough.

As Holland stated the her child's bully was a bully because of POOR PARENTING! You think that bully's momma gives a rats ass about "Be Nice School Bully Panda" programs or what Lady Gaga has to say. I commend Holland for making a stand for her children, maybe if more people did the same we could actually do something about this problem. People who are not confronted about their shortcomings are not going to make changes, once again I commend Holland for her bravery. It's called being a parent.

"Nope and that's quite a overstep. If you read my post I've stated time and time over it must be tackled on a personal level."

as I said above: *dbw would tell you the parents are at fault for not being personally responsible" YAY FOR READING COMPREHENSION DBW.

"You keep waiting for someone to come in and wave a government flag to make all your problems go away."

No, I don't, but unless you're sending your kids to private school, your tax dollars go to the schools where bullying happens and to the salary of the teachers, administrators, and school boards who let this crap keep happening. And they pass idiotic "zero tolerance" policies so when the bullied kid finally hauls off and decks the bully, guess who gets expelled because the act was witnessed (or the bully has 6 buddies who will swear they saw it vs. nobody seeing anything the bully does).

"Civil Rights where not earned because people sat around and watched TV coverage of MLK, but because PEOPLE took to the streets and said enough."

Yet you and your Teabagger ilk diss #Occupy. COGNITIVE DISSONANCE MUCH?

"You think that bully's momma gives a rats ass about "Be Nice School Bully Panda" programs or what Lady Gaga has to say."

No, but momma might give a damn if she's gotta take time out of her day to deal with her kid at school, or participate in some kind of program that keeps her from loafing on the couch watching TV... and if she takes it out on the kid and he comes in all bruised up the next day, maybe it's time to have CPS do their actual job. Of course, the schools can't afford to keep the heat on, and the cops can't afford to keep Officer Friendly around too, so nobody's going to spot this crap and stop it... and you stated you're opposed to ANY tax dollars going to keeping an eye out for this stuff. It shouldn't take Holland #Occupying the principal's office to get the situation rectified.

From OldHomeTown:

#1: What the fuck does this freak know about anything... why are we letting her in the White House?

You're criticizing the source, which is a logical fallacy. You have presented few facts and less knowledge about Lady Gaga's understanding of school bullying. As to why we are letting her in the White House - for openers we don't have the keys to the front door.

#2: What is this place--a big PR vehicle for any half-wit "singer" who wants to discuss pet projects?

I think you're being a bit too generous here. I'd say it's more a sterling example of a FUBAR situation that should never have happened.

#3: Is she arriving in the egg-thingy from the Grammys or covered in milk and Cheerios?

Clearly she is not.

#4: What the fuck can the White House do about bullying?

Quite a bit should the head of household in the big double-wide on Pennsylvania Avenue choose to do so. Like it or not, The Anointed One wears the crown, sits on the throne and chooses the courtiers - who have likely advised him that school bullying is not a major factor in being re-elected next year. I gather that Himself was out of town during Lady Gaga's visit, so I would suppose that Herself and Brood wanted to meet yet another star of stage and screen.

Possibly your memory is slipping (old age?) as you've clearly forgotten that the Federal Government has an entire department all about education - how about that! Since The Anointed One is Lord and Ruler of All He Surveys, Himself could, as whim struck Him, make a few changes. Here's a link that you might find interesting: U.S. Education Department Releases Analysis of State Bullying Laws and Policies.

You were victimized by a school bully, AC? Well, we're all real surprised! Imagine that... you make some wise ass remark in person instead of over the Internet and the recipient bitch slaps the crap out of you. Well, that just isn't right.

I'm sorry to learn that Holland's son was the victim of a school bully. I'm glad Holland kept after the situation until officialdom stepped in and fixed things. Holland probably should have filed a civil suit.

What I see DBW8906 advocating (correct me if I'm wrong, DBW) is personal responsibility. The thing that gets under a Moonbat's hide worse than anything is the refusal to advocate shifting responsibility from the individual and from the immediate family to the government. Government intervention should always be the last resort - not the very first preemptive option, which is what AC generally advocates just before he denies that solution to any given problem.

What I would like is the freedom of choice. It should be my choice to support the poor and disenfranchised or not. It should also be my choice as to how I support them. What the Moonbats want is control of that choice - they know better than I how my money should be spent, and how much of my money I should be allowed to keep for myself.

The truth is they don't. They are in denial at best, ignorant and stupid at worst. The welfare system is not working, nor is the public school system.

As an anecdote to this diatribe, I too had trouble with a certain young man when I was in grade school. Later on I discovered two interesting facts about this fellow: His parents were swingers and had a Polaroid camera, and he found the pictures. He was about 10, I think. Something like that's going to leave a mark. I also watched the same boy being bullied by another young man who lived close by, and this wasn't any small deal, either. So I suppose he came by his bullying habits honestly, with good reason.

It couldn't possibly be the parent's fault.

It's not that when a celebrity speaks about something or does an appearance somewhere that they are experts, it's about them bringing attention to something.
Lady Gaga, while I don't personally like her, has a song about being "different" and brought bullying to the mainstream when she "tweeted" a boy who posted a video about his own bullying on youtube. While I'm not a big fan of twitter, etc., the social networks might just help bring this issue to the forefront. Just like how O.J.'s trial brought abuse to the forefront.