11 YO Suspended for Alleged WTC Smiling

[James B. DiGriz]

Tim May wrote:

> 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.
> 
> 

No, no, don't punish him. He is obviously traumatized by the incident 
and, and like so many other kids,  needs counseling, treatment. And 
medication. Don't forget medication,  so he can be trusted not disrupt 
his "Just Say No" D.A.R.E. lectures. Congress should  immediately 
appropriate $100 billion to help America's youth deal with this tragedy.

Now that I've got that out of my system, did it ever occur to any of 
these idiots that, to most normal 11-year old boys, the idea of planes 
crashing into skyscrapers might just be a way-cool, fascinating subject?

What's really disturbing is that it almost certainly did.

jbdigriz