Jump to content
Search In
  • More options...
Find results that contain...
Find results in...
NiTROACTiVE

Bully Victim Karen Klein Makes Lots of Money and Goes on Vacation

Recommended Posts

Bus monitor Karen Klein was bullied on a bus by some kids on a school bus. She was bullied so hard that she cried, and I felt sorry for the old lady. Here's the video showing what happened:



The video caused so much outrage and many people were mad at the kids who bullied the old lady. People felt so bad for her that there is a Indiegogo page made to help her raise money for retirement and a vacation.

Read this article for more info. Also, read this article to find out what her bullies are receiving.

Share this post


Link to post

Wow, they have raised over $566,612 for her, and with twenty-eight days left to donate. Christ, I'd allow these kids to beat me senseless with aluminum bats for that kind of cash.

Share this post


Link to post

If there was enough money in the world to do this for everyone we'd all be fucking millionaires.

Share this post


Link to post

Isn't it this person's job to curtail bullying on the bus? What is it she is monitoring? Does this person not have any authority? I'm confused.

Share this post


Link to post
Use3D said:

Isn't it this person's job to curtail bullying on the bus? What is it she is monitoring? Does this person not have any authority? I'm confused.


They usually just get stuck on a run, trying to make a living. What would she be able to do anyway? Tell the office and get them in trouble? With the way things are now, they probably would have gotten off scott free anyway.

For most of forever I think it worked out because people used to actually have at least a measure of respect (if not to their face, at least to the power of their authority). Unfortunately, the world is becoming a place where people are desensitized to others and it is all about themselves. Poor parenting? Maybe, maybe not. A sign of the times and our eroding culture, likely spurred on so quickly by the advancement of technology and anti-social (known to some as social networking) behavior becoming the norm? Almost definitely.

Share this post


Link to post
Use3D said:

Isn't it this person's job to curtail bullying on the bus? What is it she is monitoring? Does this person not have any authority? I'm confused.

Authority only counts if the students respect it. What's she gonna do? The students know she doesn't have any real power. She probably has the ability to write them up, give them detention, or whatever, but kids like that don't care. Hell, you write the kids up, that's only giving them more incentive to bully. I'm being dead serious, what do you think she should have done?

I don't want to say we need to go back to corporal punishment, but basically, schools have been crippled in their ability to punish misbehaving students. Students, in turn, know that and exploit it. Not to mention, half the time, you punish a student, and pretty soon you have irate parents to deal with (because their child is a perfect little angel who'd never act up in school - clearly, then, the teacher must have a vendetta).

It's just, schools have less power to deal with bad behavior, and parents are no longer supporting schools. I'm sure these kids weren't raised properly in the first place, too, but definitely, yeah, at the very least, I think a major source of this problem is the fact that parents these days are too quick to rush in to their kids' defense when clearly the kid's behavior was problematic.

Share this post


Link to post

People talk about a recent erosion of culture. I think they're crazy. My mom tells stories of her class sending substitute teachers home in tears when she was that age. This was in the 60s when they still did have corporal punishment in a lot of schools.

Events like this are far too common among people, and not just kids. I'm glad they were recorded so the parents who care can do something about it (some of them already have). Keep in mind that she also refused to press charges, which she may have been able to do.

That money looks like it's easily going to be enough to retire. That's a very nice gesture from all the donors.

Share this post


Link to post
Use3D said:

Does this person not have any authority? I'm confused.

In effect, she was most likely quite scared and too intimidated to do anything about it. It's also a safe bet to think this wasn't one time event.

Ralphis said:

A sign of the times and our eroding culture, likely spurred on so quickly by the advancement of technology and anti-social (known to some as social networking) behavior becoming the norm? Almost definitely.

Oh come the fuck on. I know how old you are and there's no way you can be pining for 'the good old days' because I'm older than you and people much older than myself even have done mean, nasty, scandalous shit to others in their youth. Children have been mean little bastards since time immemorial. The fact that everything everyone does now gets recorded and uploaded to youtube doesn't mean it's more common now.

But quite frankly, I think youtube, social networking and the internet as a whole will lead to curtailment of these types of behaviors as people will begin to understand that you aren't going to be able to get away with being an asshole in public because the entire world is going to know about it and come down on you. But it takes time. Give it a generation.

Share this post


Link to post

Blows my mind to see just how ugly kids can get... the part that especially got to me was when the one kid made a remark about the women's mother being dead and that she'd soon follow. Oh well, these guys are going to have to deal with the ugly side of going viral on the internet.

Share this post


Link to post
Quast said:

But quite frankly, I think youtube, social networking and the internet as a whole will lead to curtailment of these types of behaviors as people will begin to understand that you aren't going to be able to get away with being an asshole in public because the entire world is going to know about it and come down on you. But it takes time. Give it a generation.


Yea, good luck with that.





Cue whatever other video online that people will rip whoever uploaded the video all day long. You're delusional if you think the internet, a place pioneered by dudes ripping their assholes open, 4chan type folks ripping into people everywhere constantly, and facebook where people can passive aggressively eat away at each other all day are going to lead to some sort of future utopia.

I'm 24, but even when I was young in the early 90s, things were different around where I live. Kids didn't walk down the street at night cursing and yelling about their pussy, didn't curse out teachers or neighbors, and all of the other crazy shit that goes on. In the meantime, I can see a huge difference just between my age group and the one that my brother is in only 2-3 years younger than I. If you don't think that people are much more disrespectful to each other now than ever before you must be an absolute shut in. Does that mean it never happened in the past? No. I'm just saying that it seems a lot more prevalent now and you can even see it in our music, on tv, and everything else that people have less respect when compared to our predecessors.

What needs to happen is that youth needs to start getting their ass whipped again without being able to scream "CHILD ABUSE!!!".

Share this post


Link to post
Aliotroph? said:

People talk about a recent erosion of culture. I think they're crazy. My mom tells stories of her class sending substitute teachers home in tears when she was that age. This was in the 60s when they still did have corporal punishment in a lot of schools.

We had a french teacher that we used to abuse regularly in middle school. The principle came in and set some boundaries, but to little avail. To say the least, not much was taught in her class. Some people just can't demand authority like others can, I guess.

Quast said:

But quite frankly, I think youtube, social networking and the internet as a whole will lead to curtailment of these types of behaviors as people will begin to understand that you aren't going to be able to get away with being an asshole in public because the entire world is going to know about it and come down on you. But it takes time. Give it a generation.

I think the only people who are truely affected by the populace eye are cops, and even they are trying to stop recording so they can bully, but the internet is the accumulation of asshole concentrate.

Share this post


Link to post
Ralphis said:

What needs to happen is that youth needs to start getting their ass whipped again without being able to scream "CHILD ABUSE!!!".


Look, no offense, but have you ever had to deal with having your ass whipped? And no, I don't mean a paddling when you act like a little shit, but the kind of beating that leaves scars. I'll avoid making any judgement about where you grew up, but the only people I've ever heard say that are either a) from the generation(s) that think abuse is a great way to "teach them chil'ren a lesson" or b) sheltered suburban kids.

There's no fucking reason anyone should ever have to beat a child. Some kids need help, but no, we don't need to give people in authority the power to smack our kids around.

Share this post


Link to post

This is nothing to what I see every day at my school; I used to have a brace on when I dislocated my knee. Kids would regularly purposely kick it, and one kid kidded my good knee really hard - still have problems with that knee and it's been three months since then.

I've reported all this to the authorities but nothing has happened, and nothing will.

What you're seeing here, while still should not have ever happened, is nothing, and she is week to get so upset by it. I've had worst things said to me by teachers, and I'm just as innocent as her.

It's absolutely ridiculous that $566,612 was raised for her, imagine how that money could have helped people in need.

Props to her though for not pressing charges:

Jim Axelrod said:
Perhaps the most generous thing Klein has done is to be very clear that she doesn't want to see any criminal charges filed against the four boys. To her, community service would be fine, or perhaps the boys not being able to use the buses. But at the end of the day, she doesn't feel what they did was criminal.


Note that I am not saying that this is acceptable, and those kids should most definitely be punished, but to call this "bullying" is kinda ridiculous and dums the word down. Real bullying is when kids kick pregnant girls in the stomach, when kids tease others about their friend's (real) death, when kids attack the handicap. Yes, those kids are "bullies" by definition, but it's like saying "you have a revulsion towards tomatoes." If you don't like tomatoes, I guess the word "revulsion" would fit but it's too strong of a word to be taken seriously. "I have a revulsion towards Nazis" fits much better.

Maybe I've just been hardened by my school environment, but to me it's petty to get so upset over this. I see way worst than this everyday, and at least once a week I see some type of physical bullying - the real type of bullying.

Share this post


Link to post

"Bus monitor Karen Klein was bullied on a bus by some kids on a school bus."

This is mind blowingly hilarious to read for some reason.

Anyways, kids can be cruel. This is quite awful and I hope these kids do feel like crap after a while.

Share this post


Link to post
Ralphis said:

For most of forever I think it worked out because people used to actually have at least a measure of respect (if not to their face, at least to the power of their authority). Unfortunately, the world is becoming a place where people are desensitized to others and it is all about themselves. Poor parenting? Maybe, maybe not. A sign of the times and our eroding culture, likely spurred on so quickly by the advancement of technology and anti-social (known to some as social networking) behavior becoming the norm? Almost definitely.

Ugh. Someone go find that Socrates quote.

Never mind here it is

“Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.”
― Socrates

Keep in mind also that this was around the time that the Greeks were developing the written alphabet and true literacy was developing. Many saw this new innovation as a detriment to society and their arguments are similar to the things people say about computers and the internet today.

I do disagree with Quast though. Yeah things spreading through the internet can cause public shame to people who do things we don't like, but on the other hand the mob mentality can enable things that most people would never consider on their own.

Share this post


Link to post

Duck, the Greeks were obviously onto something, as the empire had fallen millennia ago. THE CHILDREN ARE TO BLAME!


We're through the looking glass here, people.

Share this post


Link to post
Membrain said:

Look, no offense, but have you ever had to deal with having your ass whipped? And no, I don't mean a paddling when you act like a little shit, but the kind of beating that leaves scars. I'll avoid making any judgement about where you grew up, but the only people I've ever heard say that are either a) from the generation(s) that think abuse is a great way to "teach them chil'ren a lesson" or b) sheltered suburban kids.

There's no fucking reason anyone should ever have to beat a child. Some kids need help, but no, we don't need to give people in authority the power to smack our kids around.


I got the hand to the ass, I got the belt. I'm obviously not advocating beating your children until they're bleeding and scarred regardless of hyperbole. Typical internet forum over reaction. I feel like I'm reading E/N.

Share this post


Link to post

Yep, that's compulsory education, what an absolutely hellish institution; I've been right in her shoes day after day after day. It can only get worse if you graduate from the adolescent prison into a real prison. I saw a video where a prison guard purposely left a gate open to cause a bunch of gang fighting for entertainment, abu ghraib, and all this shit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse

Its just sickness, individual mental illness, cultural illness, institutional sickness. Stefbot had some great videos about 'peaceful parenting', before he got all uninteresting and wanabe comedian-like. The problem with ethics (i define evil mostly as intentionally causing pain) is that our evolution is waste deep in evil. Lions kill cubs that don't belong to them, wasps lay eggs inside living hosts, chimpanzees have eaten people's faces etc.

I like nature though and would probably feel free existing in it if it still existed in its normal state and I was a normal animal. Instead I belong to this big brained species that developed technology and elaborate herding mechanisms like school to manipulate the very development of their competing humans. The world really sucks now, everything is saturated, like there's absolutely no economic niches left, no freedom left, no soul. People are friends with their computers, not eachother. Everyone has mental illnesses because the whole system is an artificial mess that makes no sense to our hunter-gatherer evolved brains. (gooddayandre on youtube has some nice videos about that). I'm sure living the life of a dinosaur was really rough with a really saturated ecology with few niches left, but evolution did the probing for you. It was all natural and so all fit together holistically with cohesion, as opposed to modern life which is a mess of artificial fragments grating against eachother heading for collapse. Like in nature bees and flowers have symbiosis, and you can connect a line from bees to a bunch of other things in a big efficient mutually supporting network. Humans churn out a bunch of landfill destined products that don't integrate with the whole system. Being a dinosaur would be awesome compared to this I think; you're born with with what you need in that's that. You don't have any 'stuff' or money or stupid job etc to worry about. Even brushing your teeth is some ridiculous thing no other animal bothers doing.

The kids aren't at fault in the above video, they're in a shitty system that produces that type of behavior. School isn't even about kids. The kids are like the PR arm so teachers can trick people that their jobs are needed 'for the kids'. Its like a for profit funnel pushing everyone into college and corporations. School is a memetic parasite on top of humanity, one of the many many parasites on top of humanity, all created by humanity. Humanity's large brain and technology is the root problem in modern times.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_DJAZ-ByV0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ogCc8ObiwQ

Share this post


Link to post
Archy said:

What you're seeing here, while still should not have ever happened, is nothing, and she is week to get so upset by it. I've had worst things said to me by teachers, and I'm just as innocent as her.

You've had teachers threaten to stab you and find out where you live? And you've also told authorities about this and nothing has happened? I'm going to call bullshit.

but to call this "bullying" is kinda ridiculous and dums the word down. Real bullying is when kids kick pregnant girls in the stomach, when kids tease others about their friend's (real) death, when kids attack the handicap

So...bullying isn't actually bullying unless a violent felony, possibly attempted murder (kicking pregnant girls in the stomach, what the christ?) is committed?

Share this post


Link to post
Ralphis said:

What needs to happen is that youth needs to start getting their ass whipped again without being able to scream "CHILD ABUSE!!!".


I agree with you wholeheartedly. I was smacked on the ass when I was younger for doing bad shit, boy did it set me straight.

Share this post


Link to post
Ralphis said:

I got the hand to the ass, I got the belt. I'm obviously not advocating beating your children until they're bleeding and scarred regardless of hyperbole. Typical internet forum over reaction. I feel like I'm reading E/N.


Well, in that case, what are you asking for? All I hear is how "we need to go back to the good old days." And yet I've seen many kids of today who are given a spanking or what-have-you because they are being little shits. So, what needs to change? Do you want teachers to be able to use physical punishment? If so, think back on the multitudes of teachers you've had. Do you really think that's a good idea?

Share this post


Link to post
Membrain said:

Well, in that case, what are you asking for? All I hear is how "we need to go back to the good old days." And yet I've seen many kids of today who are given a spanking or what-have-you because they are being little shits. So, what needs to change? Do you want teachers to be able to use physical punishment? If so, think back on the multitudes of teachers you've had. Do you really think that's a good idea?


My point is that kids in general have no fear because they can learn from an early age that they have the upper hand by pulling out the child abuse card. In addition to this, some parents are also just very lazy and not doing an effective job of raising their kids. When I was in elementary school, I had gym teachers and assistant principles grab me pretty firmly by the arm and the point usually got across to me very quickly that what I was doing was wrong. Keep in mind, this was only a little over ten years ago. At that time we could've gotten sue happy most likely but to do that I would've had to tell my Mom what happened. After she heard about all of the horrible things I usually did to rightfully deserve reprimand, I probably would've also gotten punished at home anyway because my Mom has a brain and was a good parent. Looking back to certain moments like this, I learned more about respect because I did not have the same idea of physical invincibility that many kids do today because I directly felt pain correspond to my negative actions. More or less, some basic classical conditioning.

Now, I'm certainly not preaching that physical punishment needs to always be used in every situation and it definitely isn't the only way to learn respect. As a matter of fact, if you were to only try to teach somebody how to behave just by beating on them all of the time, it's my UNexpert opinion that they'll end up pretty maladjusted. It needs to go hand in hand with physical and emotional love from parents and being taught the correct way to act around others (this was once known as manners). Corporal punishment should not be the first reaction, but it should be on the table.

With all of this said, I'm not a parent yet and when I do become one I'm sure I'll begin to find out if my own parenting theories are effective or not. Most of the upbringing I spoke about in the second paragraph is almost a description of my own childhood and I still found ways to step out of line and be mean. All children do this though thanks to group mentality. One thing I would have never done as a child was verbally berate someone older than my own grandmother and say some of the absolutely disgusting things that these kids were saying. I might not have always had total respect for my own peers (and this will never occur in society ever) but I certainly respected those who held obvious authority over me (parents, teachers, cops, etc). Pretty basic concepts here people.

Share this post


Link to post
Ralphis said:

Corporal punishment should not be the first reaction, but it should be on the table.


100% agreed with Ralphis on this one

Share this post


Link to post

My girlfriend is from the Philippines. She's always disturbed by stories of bullying in Western society because, as she attests, bullying just doesn't happen where she comes from.

In the Philippines, school officials are allowed to physically punish children.

Just sayin'.

Share this post


Link to post
Membrain said:

Do you want teachers to be able to use physical punishment? If so, think back on the multitudes of teachers you've had. Do you really think that's a good idea?

What's worse? Deserving kids get physically punished for bad behavior? (And a few undeserving kids, granted.) Or kids offing themselves in droves because nobody has the power to step in and end their personal bullying hell?

You could argue that this isn't the choice. I would argue that you're dead wrong. Western society has chosen the latter option. It's that simple.

Share this post


Link to post

What if, and now this is completely hypothetical, but what if school wasn't mandatory? What if we could just say, "These are the rules, you don't like it, don't let the door hit you on the way out." Realistically, I know such a system would cause problems, but sometimes I think about how pleasant the school environment would be without all the deadbeats who don't give a shit about getting an education.

Realistically, though, what it really boils down to, I think, is just that parents need to support teachers in how students are dealt with. I just think too often, you have a case where a student is, say, screaming obscenities at a teacher, and then when the student is written up, the parent comes in screaming more obscenities, thus reinforcing the behavior.

Maybe we need corporal punishment, maybe we don't, I don't know, but I do know that any form of punishment is useless without support from the parents.

Share this post


Link to post

I think this incident marks an interesting new attitude in contemporary society:

Hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people will suddenly care dearly about you, but only if you're publicly humiliated first. Contrarily, they will also show the utmost hatred toward the person who victimized the humiliated person. It's really great that this nice old lady is getting the vacation of a liftime, but if those young boys had simply taunted her without shooting it on video, it would only be a concern to the immediate community she lives in, and all that support wouldn't have existed.

Share this post


Link to post

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×