11 YO Suspended for Alleged WTC Smiling

[Tim May]

On Saturday, October 6, 2001, at 09:32 PM, Eric Cordian wrote:

> Better not express a dissenting point of view when the government school
> orders you to sit in your cubicle and write the state-mandated "Peace
> Poem."
>
> http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/News/DD965CD05B568F2386256ADC00189CA3
>
> -----
>
> A Jefferson County fifth-grader served a three-day suspension this week
> for drawing the World Trade Center attack on notebook paper and grinning
> while showing it off.
>
> Paul Volz, 11, last week drew the skyscrapers side by side with smoke 
> and
> fire pouring from the left tower. He said he taped the drawing to the
> outside of his study cubicle at the North Jefferson Intermediate School.
>
> In a discipline notice sent to Paul's parents, school Principal Jeff 
> Boyer
> indicated the boy had made "disruptive physical conduct or speech" and
> "communication of a threatening nature."

Someone has dubbed this "griefcrime," after Orwell's "thoughtcrime."

The notion that a child grinning while displaying his "Peace Poem" 
assignment is cheering on some act is bizarre. Many years ago I got 
interested in the way people will smile or grin (or do something besides 
weeps and frown) when they are reacting to bad news or talking about it.

Because of this interest, I've watched thousands of people on t.v. 
dealing with bad news or sorrowful news with various upturns of their 
mouth, grins, etc. Does it mean they're "happy" with what they are 
talking about? No. It means that people react in various ways. Some 
grinning is due to nervous reaction. Some is subconscious.

  (Not that I countenance punishing a person for such thoughtcrime.)

Griefcrime is out of control this time around. When children are 
_required_ by law to attend school, there is no place for punishing them 
for incorrect thoughts...if these thoughts were even incorrect in any 
meaningful sense (pace the point about grins being personal reactions).

I'm glad I don't have any rug rats in the U.S. educational system. I 
expect I'd be arrested for threatening to blow the heads off of teachers 
and administrators.


--Tim May, Occupied America
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety 
deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759.