This is a fabulous clip, and shows off why I (and lots of people like me) would have preferred Clinton in the presidency.

What exactly are you trying to achieve here? If it is merely to alienate every single commenter with your idiocy, then you have achieved it, but if it was something else, you should maybe go sit in a corner and rethink your life. All you're doing is distracting from the attempts at intelligent conversation occurring here.

Why don't you go hang out at the New Republic or somewhere where unscientific bullshit and ignorance are embraced?

I have heard a lot from people who think the victims ought to fight back. I think this is rather wrong-headed. I mean, you do realize that we live in a day and age when kids bring knives and guns to school? Is it really a good idea to try and beat someone up if there's a possibility he's going to join a violent gang in the next couple years?

There are other aspects to fighting, too. My brother was huge for his age - 6'6" by the time he was a freshman in high school, and always tall before that. He got picked on because he was a gentle giant, got called "fag" and "queer" because he a nerd and not athletically inclined. But the one time he stood up for himself, he got pounced by a whole group of smaller kids, because he was the giant "freak" who tried to "hurt" some poor little innocent angel who happened to be making his life a living hell. The teachers and administrators punished my brother because he was strong enough to hurt the other kid, but they didn't bother to do anything about his tormenters. They straight out told my mom and dad that there was nothing they could do, because my brother was the "physically dangerous" one. Nevermind the fact that it's my brother's glasses that got smashed and his eye that got blacked in the ensuing dogpile.

Just because punching a kid may have worked for you years ago doesn't mean it works now. There are a lot more factors at play in adolescent social dynamics.

No one is saying that all teachers are bad people or unqualified. What we are saying is that there are many teachers who ignore bullying, and probably most teachers aren't really capable of truly altering the social dynamic in any given school even if they can do so in their classroom. And many school administrators do not treat bullying as a particularly serious problem because they are more interested in funding and statistics.

The point is not that schools are awful but that, like at any kind of institution, people are stretched too thin, not all educators are equally or adequately qualified, and inevitably bullies and victims are going to end up falling through the cracks. Only a systematic shift in the way we treat both bullies and their victims is going to do anything about that.

Additionally, I imagine there is very little incentive for the parents of bullies to move their children to different schools. Most parents of bullies probably refuse to believe that their child could possibly be a bully, or that even if he/she is, that it's really that big a problem.

If a bully understands the meaning of the word "gay" and uses it anyway as the most derogatory insult he/she can think of, how else can one respond but to say that it is a result of homophobia?

Just because bullies are, like their victims, tiny and cute, does not mean they are incapable of homophobia. How many white kids raised by racists in the South learned racism before they learn to tie their shoes?

To not call bullies who knowingly use the word "gay" to taunt their victims homophobic would be pointless. All intolerance is learned behavior - just because elementary school bullies learned it more recently than everyone else does not excuse it.

All I have to say to Norm Coleman is the same thing he's been saying to Minnesota:

Fuck you.

How is it that you are the only person commenting in this thread who seems to believe that Salon.com is calling the boy gay?

We call that "inferring" not "implying."

In other words, it's all in your tiny head.