It’s Monday, and before I do anything else, I have to give a shout-out to my long-suffering husband.
If you happen to see him, and a lot of you know who he is, take a minute to congratulate him on another successful trip around the sun. Yes, Steve Smith turns the big 4-1 today. (He is a BIG fan of cookies, especially chocolate chip. If you happen to have one – or a few – handy when you see him, I’m sure he’ll be thrilled).
Happy Birthday, darling. How you put up with me, I will never know. I admit that I am a very difficult person to live with – a prickly, self-absorbed, hypochondriac, anxious, mess.
And that’s my birthday gift to you, because I will not be publicly admitting that for at least another 364 days – maybe longer.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.
Back when I was a child – you know, when we walked uphill both ways to school, barefoot and in the snow – bullying was something that usually took place on the playground or in the hallways. Someone meaner, bigger, or more popular and/or better looking than you said something nasty or hurtful or maybe even shoved you into a locker.
I very clearly recall being in fifth grade and being called a Jewish slur by a football player whose name I remember but won’t repeat here for fear of embarrassing him unnecessarily.
I, of course, reported him to the authorities (in other words, the teacher, who then told the principal, who then called his parents). He was made to apologize. And life went on. But I certainly was impacted – I mean, I’m now 50, and I remember exactly where the incident occurred, and how his face looked when he called me…well, what he called me.
It was hardly the last time someone would malign me because of my faith, but it was the first I can recall, and it left a mark.
The advent of the internet, social media, cell phones, instant messenger and all the other modern means of communication have brought bullying to a whole new level.
To be clear, I am not excusing or explaining away the old-school way of bullying. It was wrong. It was bad. Sometimes it got out of control and became violent or drove the victims to extremes – just like today.
But cyberbullying has taken things to a whole new level – especially during the pandemic, when schools went virtual and so many of our everyday interactions were forced online – allowing perpetrators to engage in terrorizing behavior from afar, relentlessly, and even anonymously. I could not have even dreamed of revenge porn when I was a kid, and yet, here we are.
A few sobering statistics:
- One out of every five (20.2%) students report being bullied – though this percentage goes up or down depending on the grade level.
- Among students ages 12 – 18 who reported being bullied at school, 15% were bullied online or by text – reports of cyberbullying are highest among middle schoolers.
- The percentages of individuals who have experienced cyberbullying at some point in their lifetimes have more than doubled (18% to 37%) from 2007-2019.
- Physical bullying is more common among males than females, though a higher percentage of girls report being the subject of rumors, or purposefully excluded by their peers.
- Less than half of students who experience bullying – about 46 percent – say they reported it to a teacher or other adult at school.
- The federal government began collecting data on school bullying in 2005, when the prevalence of bullying was around 28 percent.
- Students who experience bullying are at increased risk for depression, anxiety, sleep difficulties, lower academic achievement, and dropping out of school.
- Students who are both targets of bullying and engage in bullying behavior are at greater risk for both mental health and behavior problems than students who only bully or are only bullied.
Sadly, there’s a lot more statistics and data where that all came from. But there IS something we can do about bullying. The first step is to raise awareness about the fact that it’s happening with alarming frequency, and to teach people how to recognize it and what resources are available to them if they experience it.
The first Monday in October – today, in other words – kicks off the 16th annual World Bullying Prevention Month. Today is known as #BlueShirtDay (apparently in Canada, it’s Pink Shirt Day, and it’s held in May). But blue was chosen as the signature color here in the U.S. because it is seen in many cultures as a color of calmness and peace.
We could all use a little more peace in our lives, right? And kindness. We could use a lot more of that, too. Let the change start with you. No better time like the present.
Another partly cloudy day is on tap with temperatures hovering around 60 degrees.
In the headlines…
Millions of people across the southeast U.S. are tallying their losses and assessing the damage left by former Hurricane Ian, a devastating storm that claimed dozens of lives.
The number of confirmed storm-related deaths – 44 in Florida, four in North Carolina and two in Cuba – is expected to increase as recovery efforts continue in the worst-hit places.
Hundreds of thousands of people were stuck without power and other basic needs days after Hurricane Ian ripped through Florida, as recovery from the deadly storm was estimated to easily cost billions of dollars.
About 200 households on Sanibel Island did not leave ahead of Hurricane Ian. Rescue teams are tracking down the stranded and evacuating them — if they are willing.
President Joe Biden will travel to Florida and Puerto Rico this week to survey storm damage and meet with officials and residents after hurricanes battered both regions within a 10-day span.
The Bidens will visit Puerto Rico today and Florida on Wednesday, the White House announced over the weekend.
Biden, a self-described “car guy,” often promises to lead by example on climate change by moving swiftly to convert the sprawling U.S. government fleet to zero-emission electric vehicles. But efforts to eliminate gas-powered vehicles from the fleet have lagged.
Biden signed an executive order on Friday to relaunch the President’s Committee on The Arts and the Humanities, an advisory group that has been dormant since a highly publicized standoff between its members and Donald Trump.
Biden touted his historic student loan forgiveness order despite significantly scaling it back just two days earlier — and bashed Republicans who opposed it.
Biden compared his executive action to cancel student loan debt for certain borrowers to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) established by the CARES Act, which passed Congress with bipartisan support during the Trump administration.
The last U.S. Supreme Court term ended with a series of judicial bombshells in June. As the justices return to the bench today, there are few signs that the court’s race to the right is slowing.
The Court opens its new term with a new member, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, and a docket that could reshape features of American society ranging from college admissions to political redistricting.
Chief Justice John Roberts is looking forward to the start of the Supreme Court’s new term, especially now that the public will be able to attend oral arguments in person and the metal barricades erected to ward off protestors on the plaza have been removed.
The normally relaxed season for heading to vacation homes and teaching abroad was marked by the most intense security footing ever for the justices, along with uncommonly public internecine strife among the court’s members over overturning Roe.
In its final vote before lawmakers left Washington for November’s midterm elections, the House overwhelmingly passed bipartisan legislation that would authorize $2.7 billion in compensation payments to the families of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.
House lawmakers headed back to their districts ready to campaign in earnest for the next month, with Democrats seeking to protect their fragile majority and Republicans eager to retake control of a chamber they lost four years ago.
Violent political speech has increasingly crossed into the realm of in-person confrontation for members of Congress in both parties, raising the prospect of a disastrous event.
Asylum seekers in Texas were recruited for flights to Martha’s Vineyard by a woman who appeared to be a former Army counterintelligence agent. “We were tricked,” one migrant said.
A senior Indonesian official said that he will set up an independent inquiry into the deaths of at least 125 soccer fans after the police fired tear gas at a game.
California’s Marin County is the anti-vaccine capital no more.
Far more Long Islanders died from COVID-19 this past summer than during the summers of 2020 and 2021, data shows, and doctors said those dying are mostly unvaccinated and vaccinated, but unboosted, people with weakened immune systems.
After months of low numbers, parts of upstate New York are once again seeing an uptick in COVID-19 community levels, according to new data released Friday from the CDC.
Nine counties – Albany, Columbia, Fulton, Jefferson, Montgomery, Onondaga, Orange, Oswego, and Rensselaer – meet CDC masking criteria. Only 13 counties remain at “low” risk, while the majority of the state is holding at “medium.”
The National Archives and Records Administration said that it hasn’t recovered all the presidential records that were supposed to be turned over at the end of the Trump administration.
In a Friday letter to the panel’s chairwoman, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, the National Archives and Records Administration, or NARA, said it had been unable to obtain records from a number of former officials and will continue to pursue their return.
Republican Sen. Rick Scott avoided criticizing Trump, asked repeatedly about threatening and racist language posted by Trump against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his wife on Saturday.
Trump, in a post on his Truth Social website, wrote that McConnell must have a “death wish” after supporting a continuing resolution to fund the government, and should “seek help and advise [sic] from his China loving wife, Coco Chow!” (Elaine Chow).
Trump railed against New York Attorney General Letitia James at a Michigan rally Saturday, accusing her of being “racist” as he and his family contend with a lawsuit from the prosecutor alleging “staggering” fraud.
While New York had a higher percentage of high-speed internet in households than most states in 2013, the state expanded access to broadband subscriptions at one of the slowest rates of growth in the U.S.
Despite new state data and billions of promised federal funds, the path to broadband connectivity for the final 2.5 percent of New York remains unclear, according to many close to the issue.
To help readers identify dead zones in their areas, the Times Union analyzed coverage maps submitted as of May 2021 to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission.
Farm laborers are set to be paid overtime for hours beyond a 40-hour work week by 2032 following a decision issued Friday by state Department of Labor Commissioner Roberta Reardon.
A national farmland preservation group is joining forces with a pair of green energy developers to create what they hope will be a new crop of solar installations that can help keep some of New York’s and nation’s farmers in business.
The nationwide staffing shortage that has crippled in-patient psychiatric facilities for young people is blamed for the stalled rollout of a new statewide mental health program designed to keep troubled teens in their communities and out of residential centers.
Independent expenditure committees critical of Hochul are spending millions of dollars on TV and digital ads as the race for governor enters its final weeks.
Gubernatorial hopeful Lee Zeldin slammed Hochul as “hypocritical” after she promoted New York’s new electric vehicle mandate — citing her frequent trips across the state in gas-guzzling helicopters.
The daughter of Biden’s chief of staff Ronald Klain is now working for Hochul as assistant counsel to the governor.
Hochul attended a secret meeting last week at the Upper East Side townhouse of Alexander Rovt — a billionaire mega-donor to her campaign whose hospital network was bailed out by the state in April.
Hochul has promised not to raise taxes, but she voted to do just that — 11 times — as a member of the town board of Hamburg, in western New York.
Independent Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh didn’t hesitate when Democrat Hochul asked for his endorsement.
New York’s first recreational marijuana growers are starting to harvest the inaugural crops that will eventually be legally sold as drugs to adult consumers.
Newsday endorsed state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli’s re-election bid, saying that the policies he’s put in place and decisions he’s made as sole trustee of the fund “have served the state well.”
The 50,000 member Police Conference of New York — representing Big Apple detectives, sergeants, captains and lieutenants — is backing underdog Republican Michael Henry over Democratic incumbent Tish James for attorney general.
Ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo made his first public appearance Saturday since recently announcing his return to public life, showing up in the Bronx to join a relief effort for Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Fiona.
Dr. Miriam Levitt Flisser, a registered independent running on the Republican Party line and a pediatrician who served as the mayor of Scarsdale, is launching a long-shot bid to topple New York’s newest “Squad” member, Rep. Jamaal Bowman.
Timothy Pearson, the close confidant who Mayor Eric Adams put on the payroll of the city’s economic development corporation earlier this year, is earning more than $242,000 in salary — making him among the highest paid employees in city government.
Pearson signed paperwork acknowledging he was barred from outside employment before spending at least two months simultaneously working for a Queens casino seeking a lucrative license to expand its operations.
Immediately after appearing together in public for the first time Friday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took aim at Adams’ plan to erect a migrant tent camp in her district, charging that there’s a “better solution” to be had.
At a rally outside City Hall, Manhattan Council member Carmen De LaRosa used Adams’ previous crackdown on squalid, makeshift homeless encampments to claim hypocrisy in his tent city plan.
Adams is finalizing a deal with the Norwegian Cruise Line to house migrants on one of its massive cruise ships and dock it at Staten Island’s Homeport.
Despite recently released images showing disturbing conditions at Rikers Island, Adams on Friday said progress is being made at the notorious jail, implying a federal receivership is unnecessary.
Adams is falling behind on his pledge to the MTA to build 20 new miles of bus lanes this year — with one signature project in The Bronx facing opposition from the local city councilman, Oswald Feliz.
Taxpayers shelled out a whopping $794.4 million in legal judgments and claims during the fiscal year ending June 30 – up 38% from the $575.9 million paid out during the previous 12 months, according to the mayor’s management report released two weeks ago.
The unprovoked stabbing death of veteran FDNY paramedic Alison Russo-Elling will likely further fuel the ongoing exodus of emergency medical technicians and paramedics leaving the job, a top union leader predicted.
After nearly 25 harrowing years as a first-responder, Lieutenant Russo-Elling was serving the tail end of her career in a quiet section of Astoria, Queens, months away from the retirement she would be entitled to at 62.
It was the kind of random, vicious attack that chills the city, leaving neighbors and detectives alike struggling to detect any hint of motive: the broad-daylight stabbing of a decorated paramedic by a stranger in the quiet Astoria neighborhood in Queens.
A makeshift memorial in the Astoria neighborhood where Russo-Elling worked and was killed called to “Defund the Politicians,” as locals Saturday recalled her accused killer as the “crazy” man who wandered aimlessly in the neighborhood.
Right now there is an undeniable, palpable sense of fear in New York City – people are terrified they will be the next victim of a random attack.
Adams has expressed support for two City Council bills he says will help stem gun violence in the city.
City Councilwoman Tiffany Cabán tweeted that “Subway violence is a one-in-a-million event”, outraging the woman who may lose the sight in her right eye after being viciously attacked days earlier in the transit system.
A public safety tip sheet released by Cabán and Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, both Socialist Democrats from Queens, has critics questioning their recommendation against using the word “overdose” on 911 calls for fear of attracting the cops.
A lawyer who torched an NYPD patrol car during the George Floyd riots is begging for a reduced sentence, claiming that she was drunk and dealing with “unprocessed trauma” at the time, according to court documents.
Brooklyn College — which was recently ripped for campus anti-Semitism — scheduled “implicit bias training” for staffers on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year when many of the faithful do not work.
In the wake of hacks of big companies like American Airlines and DoorDash, the feds need to boost cybersecurity for consumers, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said.
United Airlines said it would temporarily stop flying in and out of Kennedy International Airport in New York at the end of October after struggling to gain a competitive foothold there.
Members of the Association of Art Museum Directors have voted in favor of allowing American institutions to sell their art to finance the cost of caring for works in their collections, the organization announced.
New York is the fourth largest wine producer in the US after California, Oregon and Washington, but city vinophiles are hard-pressed to find a homegrown brand on liquor stores shelves stacked with bottles from Europe, Australia and the West Coast.
Trivia is the new craze in NYC.
The relative of a Marist College student died yesterday morning in a shooting at a hotel 10 minutes down the road from the school where “Family Weekend” was underway, college and police officials said.
A 20-year-old Albany man has been charged in connection with a shooting Friday afternoon on Hamilton Street that left an 18-year-old dead.
With two financial institutions – CapCon and SEFCU – merging to create the new Broadview Credit Union, employees are looking to form a labor union.
Property taxes will remain steady but homeowners will pay more in water, sewer, and garbage fees under a roughly $104 million preliminary spending plan that Schenectady Mayor Gary McCarthy touted as a “budget of stability.”
The Friends of the Ulysses S. Grant Cottage will mark the bicentennial of his birth later this month with a gala that will also raise funds to build an education pavilion at the cottage site on Mount McGregor.
Maria College is enjoying unprecedented growth this year, with the largest incoming class in the college’s history.
