How to Deal with Bullies

Following a long chain of links from the Yahoo Stoic Forum (which sounds like an oxymoron), I came across the the official British government guide to dealing with bullies. No, this is not advice to Gordon Brown one how to stand up to George Bush, it's advice for children about ordinary playground bullies. And yes, they are still repeating the old lie: "although it's tempting to hit back, it's a bad idea as you may get yourself into trouble if you're provoked into a fight." I mean come on, do you really expect any child to believe this crap? Kids have an intuitive understanding of game theory, and are familiar with the idea of worst-possible-case scenarios, so let's do an outcome analysis.

Situation: You are lying on your back with a bully sitting on you pounding his fists into your face.
Strategy 1: You refuse to be provoked into a fight, but follow the government guidelines and report the incident.
Best possible outcome: After a few painful blows, the bully gets bored and leaves. The school ignores your complaint, so the bully never hears about it.
Worst possible outcome: The bully doesn't have ADD and pounds your face into a bloody pulp, causing permanent disfigurement. The school takes action and he gets an ASBO. He then decides that a snitch doesn't deserve to live.
Strategy 2: You bring your knee up into his balls.
Best possible outcome: He rolls over in agony. You then give him a few good kicks and walk away with your head held high. Nobody ever bullies you again.
Worst possible outcome: It doesn't produce the desired effect, and he still smashes your face into a bloody pulp, but you have earned the respect of your peers.

No choice, really. When I was in primary school, I had a problem with a bully, and followed the government-approved advice and talked to someone about it. Fortunately, the person I talked to was maggie_lucy, my mother and constant source of wisdom. Her advice was: "Hit them on the nose - that really hurts." Of course, as with scripture, you need to take a broad interpretation of such pronouncements, so I also included kicks to the shin and so forth. I had no serious problems with bullies after that.

Spelling Error

I've just been looking at the Temple of Psychick Youth website and found a spelling mistake: "The Psychick Cross is a symbol of TOPY." Of course this should read "Thee Psychick Cross is a symbol of TOPY."

Immutable Dresses

I don't normally bother posting just to point to an article I like with no further comment, but this particular article on Feministe is wonderful, and needs no further comment: Time to Create That Fuckwit College Columnist Tag.