For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for November 14, 2012

Oh, crud. Tomorrow’s about to get ugly.

Michael, you should whirl around rapidly and backhand him in the face. Then, stomp on his feet a few times. That’ll give youi room to get away.

Uh oh!

Bullies only understand force, which is why I took up Karate. It didn’t take long for word to get around that I was not a soft target.

poor Mike…

Reminded me of the bully who chased April on her bicycle.

Mike should have gone to see the principal as soon as the first incident happened.Maybe his two friends did already and they’re waiting just outside the doors.

OOOOOOPS!!!!!!!

Bullying: Oddly, at my schools when growing up – it was taken very seriously before it became common, accepted practice. There was zero-tolerance before we knew what that meant.

Well, that’s a Halloween scare, just 2 weeks late!

Straight left to the bridge of the nose, he will never bother you again… Code of the hills

This may wind up going too far, but don’t forget Michael actually started it when he whacked Brad in the head with his eraser. Surely he couldn’t have thought anything good would come of that.

Made they were.

And severe, painful repercussions for their actions will unmake ’em, too!

I just had a lot of bodyguards – every girl in the Drama Club. They had a vested interest in keeping me in one piece, so they pulled a mass Lysistrata on their boyfriends and told them, “Lay off him, or else.” :-D

The ones that deserve the pummelling are the parents who don’t discipline their children for being a bully.

Newton’s Third Law of Motion: “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

In other words, Michael — if you don’t want to get the snot beaten out of you by the class bully then DON’T deliberately hit him upside the head with an eraser, starting something you may not be able to finish!!!!! Even a 7, 8, or 9-year-old with at least two connected brain cells should know by now that absolutely no good can ever come from doing something like that. You need to apologize to him again . . . and this time, say it like you actually MEAN it!!! Your previous “apology” was lame and untrue and he knows it. After this incident is over, learn a very important lesson from it: never deliberately “poke the bear” ever again!!!!!!!!!!

Having said that though . . . DOWN WITH TERRORIZING BULLIES!!!

Looks like a scene from Oz!

Sadly many adults are still bullies and they breed little bullies.

The others are right. All of the politically correct posturing out there on this subject these days does not negate the fact that the only effective way to stop it is to give them a taste of their own medicine. Yes, Michael did start the problem. But reasoning and apologizing didn’t solve it. So Michael needs to do his best to administer an attitude adjustment, or he will have that problem for a long, long time.

In my school experience, many bullies I knew were spoiled rotten little brats. There were certainly the ones who were getting it rough at home or who were just plain…odd, but they were a decided minority. And all of them were powered to a large extent by getting a lot of attention for their behavior from the school or at least their victims. They were not just lashing out in pain and I can tell you from personal experience that a good thumping from a victim of their abuse quickly put them off—unless, of course, they could go whining to a teacher and present themselves as a victim, or get a pack together to attack a victim en masse.

I have zero sympathy for bullies and I think anything they get due to their behavior, they had coming.