Just went though my purge, delete and block - one level deeper. Thinning out the herd.

Susan, thanks for sharing. The kind of close, nurturing attention by the teachers, social workers, psychologists and staff at Positive Tomorrows, gives these kids hope that might otherwise be completely absent in their lives. I'm so glad that there is a place that kids with few other options can find enough trust that they'd want to move in. With that kind of trust - anything is possible.

I'm also interested in their transcription service. Google Voice needs an upgrade.

Your Parker is one of my favorite names in the world, so Panza ranks much higher than Posey, but Peter? Now that's Spiderman.

Alex - thanks for giving me the inside scoop. I love Youmail and will probably stay with the service for the foreseeable future.

For the time being, I'm sticking with youmail, but keeping options open for GV.

One thing that I'm concerned about is that all of the hype about bullying might lead to policies that stifle healthy aggression. Do you think there is such a thing? What would our society be like if we weren't careful in defining where that line is?

There is still a cultural difference for valuing intellectual performance. In this country, we value the accomplishments of the individual. We recognize one's abilities for their own individual distinction, but in China, value may be placed on contributing to the benefit of the whole. Those that can distinguish the country or the society more, are rewarded with more support and more opportunity. In summary, I'm speaking about individual power v/s collective power.

Don't you think that smaller schools also represent different cultural groups? Imagine the difference in a community that can support classes of 700 or 1,000 students v/s a class size of only 50 or so. (I mean an entire grade at a school). Do you think that the demographics and interactions within the types of communities that the peers belong to influence the types of peer relations?

I suppose that there are attributes of popularity that are universal and some attributes that are culturally relevant. If you broke popularity down into those components, what attributes would be in which category?