Remember my last entry? Granted it was awhile ago, so in case you forgot (it's here)

My neices, 7 & 10 were booted out of the lunch program and into the snow because of a $90 bill that my sister couldn't afford to pay. Her story ran in The Times today.

click on the picture for the story, until next Thursday...

<td width="210"> Photo by Elisha Cumbers Toriea and Aurora Harry were told to eat outside because their mother couldn’t pay the lunch program fee. </td>
The story has generated a lot of response, it's good, but my poor little sister is overwhelmed! She was called by global & cjob today at work, did a short 2 minute interview on the radio, found here, sound starts right away (not sure how long this link will work) and she'll be going there tomorrow morning to do a radio interview on their morning show.

Global did an interview at her place this evening, which should air tomorrow. She was really nervous but I'm sure she did fine. Apparently the woman was pretty rude to her, or at least she percieved it that way. Asking her if she was just looking for a free ride or something, or if she expected the woman who put the girls outside to be fired. I don't know if she was looking down on my sister's situation (renting a couple of rooms in a small house), or if my sister just felt bad bringing her in right after she got off work, and completely unprepared... probably a bit of both. I'm proud of her anyway, by speaking out she may be able to help change things, with a little help from an awesome reporter of course ;)

Also anonymous people have been showing their support and generosity by taking money to the school to pay her bill. She's going to use any excess to help others in the same situation. So cool. Hopefully things will change for them.

Good morning dear flist,

I mostly just want to remember this dream myself, there was a lot going on, but you were all in it too. My dear aunt and bread baking companion and I were making large, and rather elaborate decorations with scarves and tassels... later, she was murdered, literally 'stabbed in the back' several times. Right after I got the news, my entire friends list popped in for a visit, good thing my house was so much bigger, heh. Strangely enough Roman wasn't even bothered by all the people (he's quite the introvert) we were suddenly entertaing. After feeding everybody 'sausages?' lol, redridcully was probably the most helpful as he joined us in washing dishes, and I had the most interesting conversation with juniperus, bluejupiter and valkyri, which some random person who was just crashing the party came to interupt, I sent her home and decided to finally get out of my PJ's lol. I bought a nice new black truck, and watched a serious car accident involving two other cars. One drove right 'into' the other from the side, the driver was killed of course since the other car went right through his like it was made of tinfoil.

~

No hitting the snooze button for me this morning, the stupid school division saw to that. The radio announcement blaring through my 'peaceful?' sleep, that the school division we're in is hiking school taxes more than double any other division in the city! It's enough of a hike, that any cuts the provincial government has made to the school tax will be zero'd out! Some of you know how much 'fun?' I've had with the school division, IMO it's the worst division in the city, so I'm hardly impressed about them raping my finances too.

[EDIT] OMG, How many school divisions are there in Winnipeg? I decided to check around a bit, and call Winnipeg 1 to see what their student fees are. They DON'T have ANY. WTF, so on top of a few hundered in school supplies, weekly pizza day fundraisers and crap, $40 -$50 in student fees (which they hold your kid's report card until you pay) AND a 14% tax increase, I might as well stick all my kids into private school and sell my house just for being in this area!

Now back to your regularly scheduled livejournaling...

I just found a thread in New Winnipeg about bullying in our schools.

For me this topic is an emotionally charged one so I have to be very careful with it. *I thank my Libra Ascendant for the power of impartiality* I'm just so tired of hearing people talk about bullies like it's one kid who goes around picking on weaker kids because of low self-esteem and bad parenting. Not that there aren't bullies like that, it just seems to me that most of the alleged bullies are really the victims.

In my experience the kids who are being picked on are labeled as bullies when they retaliate against groups of kids who are tormenting and harassing them. If you get a group of kids together and there's one kid with a physical defect or something the kids tease and exclude that kid.

Picture a caged gorilla and a group of kids surrounding the cage teasing, poking and throwing rocks, while the supervising adults are watching a vast area with many groups of kids and are chatting or otherwise distracted. The gorilla takes it for awhile and then when it can't take anymore it starts violently shaking the cage and makes alot of noise, one of the kids gets hurt in the process.

Bad gorilla.

What happened? The gorilla just went nuts!!! All of the kids agree. The gorilla has no defence, it must be punished, put to sleep or otherwise isolated.

Is it the gorilla's fault? Maybe it's the fault of the gorilla's caregivers then. Or is it the fault of a mass prejudiced society that are teaching kids this kind of behaviour is ok, perhaps even unintentionally?

What happens when a kid grows up with a parent who is obsessing about... say - their weight? Maybe they make comments about getting fat, or that it's disgusting - maybe they make even snide comments about others to their friends. What kind of message does that send to kids? Maybe the adult wouldn't harrass someone, they should know better, but kids don't know how to make that kind of distinction. How widespread is that senario?

How does that affect the way the pudgy kids are treated in our schools? The kids with physical or mental defects? The not-so-well-off kids in hand-me-down clothing (especially in middle or upper class areas)?

All kinds of grownups look down on others flaws, mainly the flaws that they don't like about themselves (but that's another topic) They may even think they're being discreet about it (which is probably giving them too much credit) but kids pick up on it anyway. That's a much subtler problem that is more difficult to isolate but IMNSHO it's effects are far more widespread and dangerous than the few bullies that spawn from abusive or negligent environments.