Bullies be buggered.

There is no doubt at all that this modern world allows for all sorts of fabulous; instant just about everything, and access to just about everywhere, but there is quite the downside.

When I was girl, yeh way back when kids played outside until the street lights came on and their parents had no clue that they were making full scaled obstacle courses in someone's cow paddock, cos there was no, 'I'll just text 'em', or when the first your mother knew about a broken mangled foot, caught under the steel grill of the road drain, which was dropped on said foot after being raised in search of the 10 cents dropped down there, was not a photo on facebook but when you came limping into the kitchen, to hear her cries of, 'Don't you dare bleed on my floor!', yeh when I was a girl, being mean to someone required guts and determination and for me anyway, a good amount of feeling very hard done by.

You had to work up to a confrontation. Your feelings of being wronged drove you to put yourself on the line in the quest for justice. It took real courage.

I was 17 in my final year of school and was quite the clever little smart arse. I had my own sense of right and wrong and would stand up for people being picked on and certainly for myself. My geography teacher - favourite subject despite least favoured teacher, was giving the run down on the rules for the upcoming field trip which was to take us all away for a weekend. Well my drop kick brother had gone the year before and made a mess of himself, his tent and my future husband's shoes, as he spewed and spewed after too many too quickly, cheap cinzanos. Anyway mid flight into the dos and don'ts, she stopped and pointed at me and tried hard to humiliate me by telling ME not to bring any booze and to behave myself.

I am not a great believer of the sins of the brother and all that, and I had been her best student for years. I was a school leader and had not given her any excuse to think I might caused trouble. I sat through til almost the end of her 'briefing', boiling mad. Finally I had to stand in front of about a hundred people, kids and staff, and tell her that I would not be going on her stupid camp because she had been unconscionably rude to me and I had no faith that she would treat me fairly while I was away and therefore I would not be safe from continued harassment. ( No I would not have said harassment - that is a new word, but you get the idea.)

I was shaking and scared, but my sense of justice was such that she needed to be told, publically, like she had told me. There were some terrible consequences - for me not for her. I have hated her all these years.

But now when people are pissed off, they just cowardly fire off a text and if that doesn't get the right response, they just keep firing. The vitriol gets thicker and nastier. It seems that many people have lost their 'off button'.

I reckon that people who bully via text are just spineless cowards and are best ignored. If at all possible save some of the best rants and let these become the stuff of ridicule. It is important to remember that they are bullies and not worthy of upset or response.