Yes, I know. I’m an eevil bad mean person. But you knew that already.
When I first heard the story of the bus monitor, I was furious at the little punks, and heartily sorry for her. This nice, 68 year old woman reminded me of my own grandmother, and I wanted the punks who abused her punished publicly and severely. I was delighted that a fund had been set up. And at that point, enough had been donated for her to have a really, really nice vacation with her family, and even after taxes, end up with a year or two’s worth of her $15K salary besides, so if she wanted, she could retire early. Wow! I thought. This is amazing! I wrote on Facebook. With $150,000, she never has to set foot on a school bus again!
Now the total is approaching $350,000, and it’s just overkill. Stop it, already.
Okay, it’s a free country, and people are perfectly entitled to donate money to whomever they want. And it’s very exciting to see this nice old lady basically win the lottery. I’m not sure why exactly I’m grousing except that it just feels so excessive at this point. Am I the only one who’s getting annoyed?
But...
I’m somewhat bemused that it’s almost a certainty that a huge percentage of the people donating have kids *exactly* like the ones that harassed that woman and, yet, are blissfully unaware of the little monsters, they so skillfully created, lurking in their midst. (Because, of course, their children are all well-raised, respectful, darlings that would never, ever, act in such a fashion)
In other words, we now live in a nation of Eddie Haskells…or, if you want to go a little darker, Jekylls and Hydes.
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That’s possible, and I think it’s also probable that a lot of donators have been bullied themselves. Kids that are pretty well behaved at home are quite capable of acting like animals when they’re out of their parent’s sight. But even so, it baffles me that these kids would be so hateful and so rude to an adult; they were completely fearless. That’s very creepy.
I don’t have a good reason for being annoyed at what I perceive to be excess; that’s emotion, not logic talking.
Wow, uh, have you seen this?:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/06/22/donations-for-bullied-new-york-bus-monitor-approach-450000/?test=latestnews&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Put down any breakables before viewing!
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OH. MY. GOSH. $650K?! That’s insane.
Uh…. who cares? It’s not your money. People have their own brain and can make up their own minds, if they want to donate, let them, unless you’re jealous that she’s getting that much money over this incident, which seems to be the case.
Yeah, I know, which is why I wrote “Okay, it’s a free country, and people are perfectly entitled to donate money to whomever they want.” in the original post. As I said, a payoff of over half a million dollars for having to deal with some punks for half an hour just feels excessive to me. Yes, they were obnoxious and cruel. It’s just that in the larger picture, I don’t think cruel speech is an adequate reason for that kind of payoff. It obviously doesn’t feel excessive to the donors who kept giving, and that’s their right, as it is mine to have a contrary opinion.