Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for February 23, 2012

Ha!

Zero tolerance for bullies? Wow. I’ve got friends with kids in several grades and the zero tolerance seems to be for their victims.

Oh, so that’s how they spin it.

“See? Wad I TELL Ya? All Gunth had to do wuz USE His SMARTS on old Needlenose! No CONTEST!! Awww, too BAD, ‘Gunther-HATERS’. Looks like theres gonna be at least ANOTHER week of THIS Arc!” – Said Mordock with a Triumphant Cackle.

Get in line, bro. No pushing.

They are both going to get expelled! In today’s school being a victim of violence is still being involved in violence.

and you wondered why they blocked your bobby butcher name, if you dislike the comic don’t read it

Wait till Saturday.P.S. If you don’t like Greg’s writing, why are you reading it?

Thursday Gunther will have an In-And-Out Hamberger for him with Fries and a Soda.

Nothing here has indicated they were summoned to the principal’s office. Only the counselor summoned Gunther after hearing the disturbance – did not witness what transpired between Knox and Gunther. Therefore, since she did not witness, there is nothing to report to the principal. It is how it goes in schools. I used to be a teacher in middle and high schools, so I would know how it works plus I had two sons who got into fights in high school. It is ONLY if the student gets HURT that they are summoned to the principal’s office. Or caused property damage or a big disturbance, affecting other students, etc. With 3,000-5,000 students, principals don’t handle minor stuff like Knox and Gunther.

I always thought you were a little harsh on Greg, but I’m going to have to agree with you on this one.

Looks like Gunther’s setting something up…witnesses and all…all he has to really do is let Leslie show the first aggression.

“Les” is less than bright, and Gunther may be able to talk his way out of a thrashing after all. We’ll see, come Thursday Hign Noon!

I LOVE IT !!!

King Shark said, about 3 hours ago: Nothing of consequence.

“Leslie” isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, is he?

My cousin has 3 children, 2 boys and a girl. He thinks it’s sooo funny that his sons push around other kids (they are 10 and under). He was bullied when he was a kid so I think he’s living vicariously through his kids but I just don’t even know what to say to him. It seems like his children are awful and headed for lengthy rap sheets.

I know the feeling. In grade school I was beat up too because I was smaller than the rest. I was also the one that got into trouble because the other kid twisted it around so it looked like I did whatever even though it was obvious that I was alot smaller the other kid. The teacher really was a dimwit too. Case in point. We get back to the classroom after lunch and one boy 4 kids behind me said I punched him in the shoulder. I said to the teacher He is 15 feet behind me. How can I punch him in the back when I am 20 feet ahead of him. You would think the other kids or she would use common sense? Nope I got into trouble. My mom found out and figgured someone was lying because we always lined up in size order. Geez that skicks in my mind after 40 years. Worst year in grade school. Enjoy your day everyone.

Wow…what is with all the hate from “King Shark”? It is just a comic strip. Today was actually kind of funny to me. Sort of like classic misdirection a la Bugs Bunny.

Gunther said “next Thursday” but he probably didn’t say what year…!;)

In the real world Les would take or break Gunther’s phone.

In this world, I think they’re about to do the Jets vs. Sharks dance. Rumble!

and the school would face a massive lawsuit for letting it get this far. like i’ve said, realistically he’d been capped long ago, and it wouldn’t have come to this lame junk.

1970, middle school hallway…one of our school bullies was shaking my short and skinny 12 year old self down for change. I told him if he wasn’t so much bigger & stronger I’d tell him what a insert your favorite insults in here he was and walked away while he said…“Good thing you didn’t, ‘cause if you did, I’d…..I’d…come back here!” spent the next two weeks dodging him, but it was worth it. :)

If Gunther would have stayed at the Dojo through one or two classes, they would have shown him how to effectively defend himself against a simple one-handed lapel grab…white belt 101.

haha, apparently YOU haven’t been to school for many years. Of course hitting and punching isn’t usually the bullying thing these days, but the false rumors and the no friends and all the crap is worse than hitting and punching. Haven’t you ever heard, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me!”

Ignoring the war among certain folks above, Greg’s line in this is dead on spot as I used to teach. Unfortunately, as others mentioned above, Gunter may be expelled also. Since he laid the first blow with his backpack and the principal knows it he could be ruled the instigator in all this and Les walks away (doubtful since he will attack Gunter in the lunchroom publicly.) In some school districts, if you raise a hand to defend yourself, you are seen as fighting and fighting will get you expelled or suspended. Sometimes the Zero Tolerance policies work against the victim.

Go Gunther! Stumping a bully like that is a good thing, and gives you some breathing room to come up with other ways to disarm them in the future.

Zero tolerance in schools, you say? You evidently don’t realize that this is not the deterrent you think it is. After all, no weapons are allowed in schools, either. Bullies have always, and will always find a way to intimidate and harass their target.

Fancy footwork.

Kiss him, Les! The sexual tension is so obvious.

The stupid meter arrow is heavily in the red!!!!

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t this just a comic strip? Why are so many taking this so seriously? It is a cartoon. Truth be told, if accuracy is a problem there is no such thing as one-on-one anymore. The dude would jump the other dude with like 5 friends.

Might I speak as a teacher on the zero-tolerance/Les would have been expelled by now mess? We in education like to think that we catch and put an end to ALL bullying fairly quickly. The truth is, however, that we just can’t police our schools well enough to catch it all. For example, if Gunther and Les were girls, Les would be walking around with his arm around Gunther, and it would look for all the world like they’re best friends, making it difficult to tell the actual friends from the bully-victim sets. However, they are male, and males tend to NOT tell the adults, especially at this age. It’s a machismo thing. It tends to be worse among Latino/Hispanic males, but it affects all races/ethnicity. For Gunther, if he tells the principal or another trusted adult, he can be seen as even more of a whimp, and Les will just go after him outside of school to teach him for telling. If a teacher were to talk in on this right now, it would look as if they’re planning to have lunch together and work things out, something which both Les and Gunther would say is happening. The teacher might be skeptical, but there would be no way he or she could prove something more sinister.Ending bullying is not nearly as easy as putting a zero tolerance policy in place. It requires constant vigilance and training the students from early on two things: 1) the difference between telling and tattling, 2) the importance of telling when someone is being hurt, especially themselves. This is a message that HAS to be drilled into them starting in preschool and all the way through high school.

Listen, it a comic!

I like the take Greg is going here, if it was over it one panel, where’s the story? I have to wonder if Les(s) will follow along, or get back on track.Finally, I agree with many here, if you don’t like the story, don’t read it. I don’t like, “Get Fuzzy” and sometimes “Garfield,” cats like that would be sent to the pound, but I don’t read them often and I definitely don’t take the time to .complain week after week.

I was hoping for a romantic breakthrough with Gunther & Rosa, but in 28 days all that has happened is she touched his arm once. Greg always takes his story lines in opposite directions from what I’d like to see. Oh well, the art work is very good.

Hey folks, again it is just a comic strip, but Evans usually has decent arcs, though this is not one of the best, it still gives room for thought and discussion.

Dave, again you prove you are wise beyond your years (53?)…. too bad Greg wouldn’t portray any violence of that kind in this strip…. now that would be real-world…! (maybe he’ll time leap to the next Fri morning with Gunther sporting a shiner…)

Impossiblebones- That’s exactly the point! Gunth has outsmarted Leslie Lizard.

Zero Tolerance is like Just Say No.

Lip Service.

Although the definition of bullying is actually very broad (at least at my daughter’s school), very little is done about it even when incident after incident occurs. The onus is on the parent of the victim to document everything, and then administration uses that documentation to peel away at the proof until there is nothing more than “childhood drama” left.

Isn’t that what bullying is? Childhood drama?

But about the strip: it’s fantasy. I would love to have something like this play out when someone gets bullied. We know it’s not going to happen, but it’s like those “I should’ve said…” moments when one reflects on an argument.

That said, please don’t feed the trolls.

I’m impressed. Gunther finally used his brain to set up his attacker. Now we can see what his follow thru will be.

Stupid is why it works. Would sane reasoning have deterred Les? I’ve often thought that the best self defense is pretended madness.

@Barbara UptonYou are asking why some people bother to read the strip when they obviously do not like it. They do so they have the opportunity to annoy those here who do like it. Look up “Troll (Internet)” over at Wikipedia for reference.

Are we going to have brains over brawn for the finale of this Gunther/Les confrontation?

Don’t know why I keep reading this strip. It’s been going downhill for years.

Book it for Feb. 30 – nothing else going on that day.

Good for Barbara, I was about to ask that same question myself.

Being new here, but I don’t understand why somebody can’t write a disagreeing-type comment and then have so many people tell that commenter to “leave” or “quit reading it”? Jeesh, they are just expressing their opinion like the rest of the commenters, no?

I love the color in these Luann strips, but are these story lines always this drawn out? (Hah – I just got that unintended pun I made)

Man, Gunther’s so clever!

quick thinking ya wimp. He’s got one week to man up.Or Greg will just have Leslie ruin himself into being expelled.

Suppose April Fool’s day has anything to do with it??

I was bullied by a creep in the 60s. He wanted to fight me. We did. We both went to the office. Don’t know what happened in the office for the bully but the assistant principal told me to bend over and whacked his shoe. School administrators know who the bullies are and act accordingly . . .

school is closed next Thursday…..

Okay, I’m sorry but everyone keeps saying stuff about zero tolerance and that Greg Evans doesn’t know what is going on in today’s schools – this is a COMIC Strip folks! It’s not meant to be completely realistic!!

Wow… just keep stalling! Maybe he’ll forget. =)

It’s a very sad state of affairs when a school victim of bullying has to, in essence, “turn the other cheek” and allow themselves to be assaulted/injured in order to avoid being “punished” by a school system for what amounts to an act of “self defense.” God forbid a child dies, as a result. In that case, I think school officials should be subject to criminal charges, and the surviving parents should be allowed to sue their pants off.

I do hope that’s not where Gunther is going with this. I hope he’s got an ace up his sleeve somewhere.

that is the point

I’ll tell you why I read the strip although I find most of the story arcs too long, filled with outside trivia, and therefore as boring as some say. I read it to get to the comments. Life in retirement is fairly boring and you guys help me pass an enjoyable hour or two. So I thank the fans and the anti-fans. P.S. I don’t think I’ve ever meet anyone in real life who had a happy time of it in school. What does that tell you about the public and the private school systems?

Swift kick to the nads if that fool grabbed my shirt like that. Either that, or my Lady Smith would be warm and smoking right about now…

Impossible Bones: Not in the schools my nieces and nephews go to! My sister ended up having to home school her kids because they were each bullied so much. The school officials did NOTHING to stop the situations and punished the victims as well and their aggressors.

Vegasgirl-

I think I would probably have much more fond memories of school if I wasn’t bullied for my weight right up into college. That’s right. For some of us, it doesn’t end in high school. I mean, I used to fake being well so I could go. But the bullying was so bad that I cried a lot, to the point that one instructor asked if I was pregnant. (I was still a virgin at the time.) I got sent to the counselor a lot, too.

The problem is that many victims of bullying just don’t feel comfortable admitting that they’re being bullied.

That’s some fast negotiating there, Gunther!I trust you will use the time inbetween to… say… reconsider that martial art class?

I suspect that Leslie has just found his new best friend, and doesn’t know it yet.

What need has Gunther of marital arts. He already has a bluff check so high he could probably convince Les to work for him.

Les reminds me of Moe from Calvin & Hobbes

That may happen yet. Stay tooned.

There are bullies at school, online, at work and even in the cliques your kids join. It’s going to get worse. The schools and police are barely working together most of the time. Glad my kids survived high school and its over. There were even bullied in the military, different branches. It’s the way our society is. We don’t get what we want or expect so we show everyone else how pathetic someone else is so that is what they all focus on. and how well he set him in his place.

Get witnesses. Smart.

Kids here in Washington, DC report their teachers bet on fights instead of break them up.

The sad thing is, at my school, people would probably cheer Les on.