Scrabble Psychos of the Internet

by Pat Brown

As we always warn children and young adults, the Internet is a world with little law, a Wild Wild West that extends the circumference of the earth and is peopled by every sort of weirdo one can imagine. They are on blogs, Facebooks, Twitter, chat rooms, and, much to my annoyance, my online Scrabble site.

Not that some of us Scrabble players who show up at the local clubs aren't a bit odd (and while nonScrabble players are thinking I am being judgmental, the Scrabble players themselves are nodding their heads and thinking, well, yeah, that's true). But, at the club and the tournaments (that is me in red at a MN tourney in 2005), we have rules–like you have to hold the bag at eye level so you can't peek down into in and look for a blank or an S to make your big play. Although there are still poor losers and those who whine and argue about how things should be done, there is a code and you have to stay within the group comfort zone or you will be ousted.

Online, however, the personality disordered can have a field day! First of all, they can cheat. They can use electronic dictionaries and programs and simply put in the letters on their rack, hit the button and come up with big words. You can always tell these cheaters because while their strategy is terrible, they know words like DROUKED and DAIKER and DUIKER (yes, those really are words in Scrabble). Then there are those who get mad at you if you happen to actually know some weird words because you are a fairly highly rated player and they furiously type in "CHEATER! CHEATER! CHEATER!" even though they should recognize that they are a novice player and you are not.

There are those who lose and immediately whine that the computerized Scrabble game always give them bad letters! If you win, they call you lucky; if they win, they are skilled.

Sore losers and poor players with personality disorders have interesting ways of punishing their opponents which sometimes includes attempting to force you to stop playing so they can get the win. Sometimes they call you names and cuss at you hoping you won't be able to stand it and run away. Other times, they simply don't play for so long that their opponent goes crazy waiting on them (it is a timed game, but they have twenty minutes on their side). I multitask when they do that and I snicker as I watch their time run down; I am not sitting there staring pointlessly at the board, so, haha, it isn't working, buddy. A variation of this is to log off and on and off and on and off and on until the other player feels like a ping-pong ball.

Another interesting childish maneuver is to play gibberish, an entire game of nonsense words that, of course, one must challenge off the board each and every time. Some are not even trying to win; they are just being abusive and getting a kick out of it. Most people will suffer through a whole game of this crap because if they stop playing, they lose and their rating drops. In one of my last games, the player, losing badly, waited until his last play and then he asked me to abort the game....uh-huh. Didn't happen. So sorry. Nyuck, nyuck. The abusers turn me childish in return.

And, yes, the perverts are there as well.

ScrabbleDude: Hi and good luck.

Pat: Hi and good luck to you too.

ScrabbleDude: GOLDEN 22 points

Pat: SINGULAR 70 points

ScrabbleDude: ZEP 53 points

Pat: HAO 18 points

ScrabbleDude: Do you have big tits?

We have antisocial folks on the site who block any communication during the game and there are those who are friendly until they lose and when you type "Good game!" the reply is "Your opponent is not logged on."

At least in the real world where people have to interact face to face, abusive and psychopathic creeps can get cut off or penalized for bad behavior. On the Internet, they can strike over and over, fueling their feeling of power, getting satisfaction every time they get over on another person in the Cyberworld. One has to wonder that this kind of gratification and validation is not a good thing to be so easily obtained by someone with psychological issues. Even worse, teens and grade school children with personality disorders and behavioral problems are finding out that the Internet provides a world without adult supervision and controls; Facebook and chat rooms are filled with teens abusing teens and children getting some very nonhealthy kicks from antisocial behaviors. Probably some of my opponents in Scrabble on the Internet are juveniles and have no adults in their lives paying attention to what they are doing.

The Internet can be a fabulous tool for communication and socialization but if we aren't careful, bullying and predation and harassment will invade our life online and our children may get the brunt of it. We need to be very aware of the dangers of the Internet to our well-being and our children's well-being and make sure we are vigilant about allowing strangers access to our lives and our minds without even leaving our homes.

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Bullies and School Officials Beware: We're Watching

by Stacy Dittrich

It’s a story that sounds like it’s right out of a Lifetime Movie of the Week (undoubtedly, it will be). Pretty Irish girl immigrates to a small Massachusetts town. Pretty Irish girl catches the eye of the popular football player and succumbs to his charms — they have sex. The other girls in the school grow quite jealous of the pretty Irish girl and begin to bully her in a relentless and utterly disturbing manner as school officials sit by and do nothing. Pretty Irish girl commits suicide. She was only 15.

But this horrific and absolutely outrageous story is anything but a Lifetime movie. It's a growing trend that occurs daily across our nation’s schools: Bullying. Some refer to it as the “Mean Girls Syndrome” or “Clique Attacks,” but it has gotten completely out of control. It's long past time it gets recognition. Finally, it's getting the attention, but at the cost of young girl’s life.

Fifteen-year-old Phoebe Prince (above left) left a picturesque, seaside village in County Clare, Ireland to come to America. Her family had hopes of a better life. The brunette beauty could now experience the real life of an American teenager -- and then some. Somewhat of a novelty at her school, Phoebe attracted the most popular boys. As a young girl in a new and strange environment, Phoebe undoubtedly felt like a princess as an attractive football player courted her. Unfortunately, Phoebe engaged in sex with this boy, and another popular, strapping young buck.

What followed is a text-book case of unrelenting stalking, harassment, and assault, and a group of school officials who turned their backs. The boys began bragging about having sex with Phoebe. This, of course, gave the group of Mean Girls ammunition to continue their pursuit of her. Each day, the harassment grew worse. As Phoebe walked down the hallways from class to class, they knocked her schoolbooks out of her arms onto the floor, then kicked away. They would shout names at her like “Irish slut” and “whore.” She was constantly subjected to items being thrown at her. One girl drove by Phoebe and pelted her with a full can of Red Bull.

Phoebe’s parents continuously asked school officials at South Hadley High School to intervene. Clearly, their pleas fell on deaf ears. On January 14, 2010, Phoebe had a particularly brutal day at her new school. Avoiding the lunch room, she went to the library to be alone and concentrate on her studies. The bullies followed her into the library and unleashed a verbal tirade of degrading names and physical threats. Astonishingly, a teacher sat quietly nearby, witnessed the entire incident -- and never said a word. After school, Phoebe went home and promptly hung herself in the stairwell of her home. Furthermore, what brought this sickening story to the forefront was that after news of her death spread throughout the community, those bullies had the audacity to go on Phoebe’s Facebook page and continue their verbal tirades against her. Phoebe Prince couldn’t escape the bullies even in death.

The community was outraged. As the case made its way onto the national news wire, pundits debated whether or not anyone should be held responsible. I happened to come across one talking head who ignorantly stated: “So she was called a few names and pushed a little! She obviously had other problems to go so far as to commit suicide.” I seethed with anger at this. I wanted to look him(Juan Williams) in the face and ask if he had ever lived his life as a 15-year old girl. I wanted to know if he had ever known the emotions and the constant depression a girl that age can go through if she didn’t fit in with the cool kids.

I experienced a year of pure hell with my own daughter when she was only 11-years-old. Each day in her 5th grade class, she was subjected to name-calling and shoving in the bathroom. It got so bad that every day she left for school, my stomach was in knots. When she got off the bus crying, I wanted to drive to the school and scream. I felt completely helpless. I can’t even begin to imagine the anger and anguish the parents of Phoebe Prince are going through. With my daughter, I was in the principal’s office every week demanding that he take care of the problem. If I heard, “Well, you know how girls can be … they’ll work it out,” I thought I would come unglued. Even after I explained that it is the school’s responsibility to protect my child for six hours each day, the school did nothing.

Finally, I simply called the school and told them she would not be attending until they fixed the problem. And that they better get her assignments ready so she doesn’t fall behind. It was only after I threw in the towel and said I was going to the police department did any action ensue. It was unbelievable. It was a gamble on my part since, I was fairly certain the police would take no action against any 11-year olds unless there was a genuine assault.

I heard similar stories within my community, including one mother who literally kept her daughter home for a year due to lack of enforcement by school officials. This is everywhere. What’s even more shocking is the parents of the bullies refuse to see their children for what they are. In the case of Phoebe Prince, the mother of one of the girls criminally charged, Sharon Chanon Velazquez, 16, publicly defends her with sheer ignorance. She blames Phoebe Prince.

“Sharon exchanged a couple words with her, that’s all,” Angeles Chanon told the Boston Herald. “Phoebe was calling her names, too. They’re teenagers. They call each other names.”

I commend the district attorney’s office for criminally charging the group with charges ranging from statutory rape, assault, and harassment to civil rights violations. However, they completely wimped out when it came to holding school officials criminally liable. They said their failure to act was concerning, but not criminal. Really? The school officials hold an enormous amount of culpability as far as knowingly failing to act, or being negligent to say the least.

Between 1999 and 2007 the number of students being home-schooled in the U.S. nearly tripled and is growing at a rate of 5-12% per year, according to the National Home Education Research Institute. What used to be known as a somewhat freakish practice has gone mainstream. The socioeconomic groups of home-schooled children have leveled. There are children of doctors, lawyers, and judges as well as of lower class households being home schooled. What has become the number one reason for the rise? Bullying. Females being home-schooled almost double the number of males.

Needless to say, it is time that school officials are held accountable. By law, we are required to put our children in their care. Why doesn’t the law protect our children while they are there?

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