I've got a PSA, right here....

Hmm.

http://bit.ly/exyD6m


First, I Twittered:

http://twitter.com/#!/SpookSquad/status/13222946751381504
http://twitter.com/#!/SpookSquad/status/13223375895793664

Then I pondered, which is longer than a tweet...


No one wants their children to be teased or bullied. No one. But it still amazes me whose stories will get practically PROMOTED, and which get a two second blip on local news between traffic reports. Or go completely ignored. Why is this still a news story? Is George Lucas behind this? You JarJar loving jerk, is this you??

Okay, hey, I get it. Perhaps it is the Star Wars element, which IS huge pop culture fun. I totally get that.
And yes, I do get that at the root of this story, it's about bullying. Yes, there are degrees of bullying, but it's still bullying. All bullying starts small. That's how bullies get so good, they start learning how to be sh*tty at a young age and get better with practice.

And I get that this woman is just a good parent. She's understandably worried about what to do about her baby girl bursting into tears in front her, and her panic at how to fix it. Oh, and trust me, it is a kind of panic. It is immediate, and it is sharp. Dude, I totally get that. Physical boo-boos are always easier to fix than emotional ones, and those are the ones that do the most damage. How a child feels about something, is an abstract idea to many people. Very. And well, they don't make a Neosporin for that. Parents are triage docs and therapists in training every single day, to some extent. So many problems to repair and things to keep at bay. (And I told that chick go get after it. Start snatching. If you think I won't kick the door open on a 3rd grade classroom, you are wrong. I will go Rebbecca DeMornay Hand That Rocks The Cradle on those little bullying bastards.

Awe. See. This is another reason why I can't have kids right now. I would go to jail every week.)


But news media is not the parent of an adorable little blonde girl with no front teeth and nerd glasses. You guys need to take a #!$@ing harder look around.
OR, just make an official announcement...

Sorry to all you little bastards out there in schools who aren't the 'face of America'. You *may* get a currently popular "It Gets Better" PSA, but aside from that, you're probably on your own. We realize that there are millions of children out there, many of them bullied in some shape or form, buuuuut, unless you look like Katie and have Star Wars problems, you are not nearly cute or acceptable or safe enough to be featured so much in the media feeds. No one cares. We won't get the numbers. Seriously, we got like mad hits on this thing!

Anyways...Good day and good lucks!

This extremely gentle rant, was brought to you by someone who is both girl and Star Wars** geek. (SW geekery is endlessly entertaining, no it really is) Compared to some others, it is gentle, because for some people, any mention of preferential treatment, no matter how obvious it is, will send them into a Mental Denial Coma, or whatever the hell that shut-down is. I'm not anti-Katie. I'm pro-Katie, anti-media.





**And not only SW, but for pretty much my whole life I've been right in the middle of lots of things that I was preached at about, because "thats for boys". Being a girl, and existing with other girls in the Secret World of Girls, I can tell you that we are bullied on several different fronts. And I can tell you that parents (unless there is an extremely intuitive mother on the scene, and I mean very. Like f-ing Deanna Troi) are usually unaware as to what their daughters have to experience in their daily lives, the subtle (and not subtle) things that do harm, no matter how vigilante they think they are. Man, I should do like a seminar or something...

Wait, what? I digressed. The POINT is----nobody ever sent me a damn lightsaber. Hey! ThinkGeek! Where is my frakkin' lightsaber? And while I'm at it, to Hasbro, Mattel, and whoever else wants to contribute, I am missing some Hot Wheels, Transformers, and G.I. f-ing Joes.

---- edited to add! ----

Yes, it's true I am very much pro-Katie and it was pointed out to me that I when the story first hit, I was just as annoyed as the other nerds that she was being picked on because of her SW style. As I said, I am a geek girl, been there, doing that. I relate.

All true.

But here's the difference between me and other people. I was mad for Katie, for about oh, two days or so. Then it was over.
You see, we've got 10 year-olds hanging by the neck from closets and stuff, stuff like that. Right?? I think 24 to 48 hours worth of outrage is enough for a Star Wars cup.

For some of the parents of the dead children, I wonder if they'd think it deserves even that much.