Bullies of the Infobahn

I have never been in a fight.

Nor have I been pelted by rotten fruit, tripped in the rain, given a wedgie, or asked to meet behind the gym after school to be taught a lesson.

These are all fine examples of the Norman Rockwell school of bullying -- the minor trials, travails and tribulations of which our best artists and writers have made such good use. Yet our children may, in fact, be deprived of such homespun hijinks, as even schoolyard bullies make their way into the future through what commentators are referring to as cyberbullying.

Westchester County (New York) has hired an expert on cyberbullying to talk to students, teachers, parents and police about young people who harass their peers with mean-spirited Web sites, hounding text messages, invasive cell-phone photos and other high-tech tools. [Link]

We are also informed that a summit on such matters will be led by Parry Aftab, executive director of wiredsafety.org; she will be assisted by Spider-Man: "Kids will listen to him," she said, pointing at a man in a Spidey outfit during a news conference.

And so we bid a fond, or perhaps more accurately bittersweet, farewell to another mainstay of our society, another underpining of all that has made America what it is today.

They have taken our hula hoops and our slide rules, and now they have done away with our bullies. Godspeed.