I’m sitting here taking care of my convalescing husband, who just had brain surgery (true story), so between answering his many pages on the phone intercom I’ve got time to pontificate, bloviate and just kill time before he asks for another cup of coffee. Judging by the alarming trend of Americans to be passionate about just about everything and think about just about nothing, well, here’s 2012’s shining example: the YouTube video of school bus monitor, Karen Klein, being bullied by some horrid pint-size monsters (video here). Since “bullying” became a subject worthy of national focus and not just something that parents and teachers used to nip in the bud and handle, this viral video spread faster than the 1918 influenza pandemic (great book on that here).
Everyone from Matt Lauer to Glenn Beck (who broke down into tears talking about it) had something to say about these horrible hooligans and poor grandma being bullied. The rational mind might ask, what happened and what measures were in place to insure safe school bus travel? Aha, the school bus driver and school bus monitor were tasked with keeping the kids under control. Now comes the hard part, because it’s easier to let your emotions (you know those reactions that impede rational thought) take over as you want something done to those horrid kids (and that should and was done). Of course, we can’t forget that in modern American life everyone joins the cause before they even have digested the facts (this fits right in with running with a story before gathering the facts, but who cares, how you feel is all that matters).
I’ll be the bully here and point out the thing no one seemed to have the heart or brains to say – this lady was not doing her job. She sat there and did absolutely nothing to stop these children. And for being a complete failure at her paid job, she was monetarily compensated by sympathetic fellow citizens, cosseted by every media outlet in America and now Karen Klein is set to ‘fight back” as Marlo Thomas points out in a Huffington Post piece (here) a couple months ago. She’s using $100,000 of the money given to her to start up her own foundation (the Karen Klein Foundation). The Huffington Post article lists her foundation’s goals as:
- To create educational curriculum that will teach about bullying and what each of us can do to stop it;
- to support organizations that are bringing awareness to the anti-bullying movement;
- and to provide funds for anti-bullying counseling in schools across the country and around the world.
It’s nice to know that she has found her voice, because I’m still wondering why during that entire video, she didn’t bother to tell those kids to stop what they were doing (not even once) and sit down. Then again, I’m the mom who told my misbehaving kids, “this is a benevolent dictatorship, but that’s liable to change if you don’t’ knock it off.” Luckily for me all my kids knew the meaning of “benevolent” and “dictatorship”. Yes, I am a cruel woman ……. Time to take him another cup of coffee. later.
libertybelle diaries 
I’m with you. I sat watching the video and wondered why the monitor and the driver didn’t stop the bus and deal with it. If the students continued to be rowdy, call in school security and let them deal with it. Good grief, to sit there and be abused the ultimate in self-disrespect.