Bullying and social climbing

I heard about this on the (local) news this morning, a study done at UC Davis that suggests that it's not the people at the bottom of the social ladder, the disturbed and troubled kids, but the ones busily climbing the social ladder doing the bullying. Who would have thought? And these days, it's less physical and more verbal and, thanks to the internet, anonymous.

The link at the top should work, but just in case it doesn't, here it is again:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=%2Fc%2Fa%2F2011%2F02%2F08%2FBA5V1HKBD5.DTL

Today is/was purple day

Quite a few of my Facebook friends (and plenty of others) are/were wearing purple today in support of the gay teenagers who were harassed so badly they saw no other way out than to take their lives.
There isn't a whole lot I can say about this, I'm not good with words and it's all been said I would think.
I am quite familiar with bullying; always having been on the small and timid side I made an easy target. I am quite certain that bullying also contributed to what happened with Henry. Not necessarily bullying towards the end but along the way. He was a rather sensitive child.
One of my friends said it perfectly in her blog post today: It does get easier. And I can attest to that. One grows up, learns to deal with things, gains a certain distance, realizes that the problem is the other person's (the bully's) and, with any luck, is the stronger for it.
Sometime today I remembered a quote by Eric Idle (of Monty Python fame) I heard recently: Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will make me go in a corner and cry by myself for hours. So true!