Oh this story made me so crazy!! This is no different than the cops arresting and having 3, 12 and 13 year old boys spend 4 days in jail for running up the school hallway wacking a few girls in the butt! This teachers assistant and the prosecuter wanted them charged with sexual assault and to be registered as sex offenders!!!THANKFULLY all bad charges were dropped, but they did get some sort of misdemeanor charge and a fine. How ridiculous.
Last year was rough for me. A 16 year old boy threatened to bring a gun to high school to "Pull a Columbine" and shoot up a few students. He told my son and another boy. My son told me and the other boy told his parents, who in turn called the police. The police came to my house and took statements, that week the boy was expelled from school. Game over, right? WRONG!
After 2 months the school decided to let the boy back to classes! During this boy's 2 months off he called my home, called the classroom my son was in to threaten him for getting him busted and in trouble! I was angry and contacted all 14 members of the school board, repeatedly made phone calls to the school security officers, disciplinarians and counselors to discourage him from coming back to school. Guess what? Not one single person on the school board even acknowledged me, I got a constant telephone runaround and after everything, they allowed him back to school.
I tried to get the police involved, but nah...taunting and idle threats are not enough to get a restraining order against! No one helped me and I was in constant fear that this kid WOULD bring that gun and shoot MY SON! As a result I pulled my son out of school as a Senior and he had to graduate from a different school with no one he knew and no friends. There is only one high school in my county so I had to send him out of state.
This saga started 6 weeks before Virginia Tech. Had it started after, I wonder if I would have been listened to and taken seriously.

Cathleen, I'm so sorry to hear that! That's just crazy.

This saga started 6 weeks before Virginia Tech. Had it started after, I wonder if I would have been listened to and taken seriously.

I wonder as well. While it seems that it likely would have, you never know. I hope your son is okay. Don't let him forget that he did the right thing. This PC bullshit is really out of control.

Cathleen, I'm so sorry that you and your son had to go through that. Kudos to him for doing the right thing here and telling you about that. Your story provides some confirmation of my cynical opinion about zero tolerance...namely, that it does a good job of targeting reasonably stable kids who unwittingly run afoul of one petty rule or another, but does a bad job of really dealing with the small but dangerous group of kids who are really out to hurt someone. Ugh.

As for the "gun," have none of the school administrators ever seen a sci-fi action movie? Gah.

When dealing with the school board the best bet is use lawyers, good ones. Or at least convince them that you have a few waiting in the wings. However fundamentally the idiot taunting your son was guilty of nothing more then being an asshole. I got taunted plenty of time, threatened too. This was all years before Columbine or any other such widely publicized incidences. I never gave it any credence and nothing happened.

The idiots who do the most taunting are the least likely to do anything stupid. Cowards are cowards. That said this does not change the fact the those nutbags from columbine did some taunting and then being utterly insane followed through. So the big question is, how do you sort out the cowards from the nutbags?

I doodles tanks in my notebook out of bordum and no one ever cared. I had one hardcore face to face with that waste of organic materials principle of my high school. I won and her career was ended. Yeah I did have a mouth and it got me in plenty of trouble. Never shot or killed anyone and I got picked on a lot. So how do you differentiate between a load mouth smart ass who is now a contributing member of society, and the nutbags everyone should be scared of? Where is the break point between harmless doodling and idle threats and the point at which someone becomes dangerous?

I'm also sorry that you and your son had to go through this. Marion makes a fantastic point. Zero tolerance only nails those of us not conniving enough to skate the letter of the law. Conniving mixed with cruelty makes a very dangerous combination.

I don't think anything would have been done different if it was after VT because the nasty little friggers parents would have pulled the lawyer card. The nasty little ass could only have been sent to a troubled (violent and dangerous) youth program AFTER he actually did something. Thus giving little concelation to anyone injured by the little bastard. You both did the right thing regardless of how unpleasant the outcome was.

thanx everybody. He is much happier now, though a tad homesick. I'm a bit sad now that he is out of the house and living in NC so early. I still have 2 teenagers to go. Luckily they move in different circles and have been flying under the radar. Our lone high school is incredibly overcrowded (2,800 total with 500 graduating) and they don't know the same people. I hope that continues for them and I'll be happiest when they are both out of school and I can move away.

I'm disgusted by two things, maybe three, here.

The first is that this situation is self-energizing. You're complaining to the school board, calling everybody, because a kid threatens yours? You're actually justifying the zero-tolerance policy, because that's as far as the school system can go when you demand that they perform your own task of self-defense.

If you'll notice, nobody seems to have visited the home of this kid. Five minutes at his house would tell the football coach everything the school needed to know. I bet the school is trying to treat their students like carnival marks - all the same, good only for coughing up cash.

And finally - that's a sorry drawing for a 13-year-old. I suspect his nanny-state family has never taught him anything about guns, and so only the twisted legends about how they make you a real person have ever been heard. If the principal knew anything about guns, a few questions would have cleared this up instantly - if awful parents didn't get in the way.

Fascinating post and poignant commentary.

I had read about the vervet monkeys; can't wait for researchers to figure out what essential toy features the young of both species are responding to. The doll is pretty clear, but guns, vehicles, and pots? Mystifying.

Cathleen, I think your son's adventure may turn out all right. For an entirely different reason (better music ed), we boarded our daughter out for her last two years of high school. She got the education we were looking for and broadened her circle of friends.

And the gun-picture affair shows a disadvantage of being a symbol-using species: some of us confuse the symbol with the thing itself. Hence magic incantations, taboos against "profane" language, and nonsense like this case.

Rarely the confusion goes the other way: the thing itself is presented as just as innocent as the symbol. I remember reading about an "entertainer" arrested for throwing feces into the audience. His defense was that Shakespeare and Goethe used shit, so he should be allowed to as well. They used only *words* for it, of course.

Rad, I'm not sure where you are coming from:

"You're actually justifying the zero-tolerance policy..."

It seems there was a legitimate gripe here.

"...you demand that they perform your own task of self-defense."

I'm forever being told, on the left-wing blogs, that government does things we can't do for ourselves. I generally go for self-care, but it is not always bad to get help.

Is the situation in Arizona really the result of "Girlie-fication", or is it the extension of the brain-dead "zero tolerance/three strikes and you're out" policy that has moved from our courts into our culture? I think it's an easy and eventual move from jailing someone because they have a few marijuana plants in the basement to suspending a child from school because he likes to draw weapons. There's no subtlety in American society anymore. A lot of people, from our President on down, have adopted the intellectually lazy view of the world that sees everything in black and white, despite the complexity of many issues.

The next step in this evolution is suspending the nerds and geeks in class who draw barbarians and sci-fi characters with laser guns and swords in hand. God forbid one of them get any ideas and bring a trebuchet to class!

"The first is that this situation is self-energizing. You're complaining to the school board, calling everybody, because a kid threatens yours? You're actually justifying the zero-tolerance policy, because that's as far as the school system can go when you demand that they perform your own task of self-defense."

If this was about my situation, my response to that: 1)This boy was expelled from school for threatening to bring a gun to school and shoot people up. I live in the country where owning and having guns and hunting is extremely commonplace. 2)When an expelled student calls a direct school line to a classroom and THE TEACHER HANDS THE PHONE OVER TO THE STUDENT and the expelled kid threatens him, uhh...you're damn right I'm going to the school for answers! 3) I went to the police and sherrifs dept. and was told that the boy threatening bringing a gun to school to shoot students was not selective and random and was not a real threat to any one individual. So I could not file a restraining order. 4)I am not a gun owner and I do not trust crazy people who might be. You don't go to a rednecks house to discuss them threatening your kid. ie: recently a crazy guy shot a 15 year old dead for walking across his grass. You think I can afford to put MYSELF in danger to create a confrontation?? I'm a single Mom! 5) This happened AT SCHOOL and the school does have a responsibility to keep my kid, AND EVERYONE ELSE'S safe. This wasn't a 13 year old crude drawing doodle, this was a direct threat from a gun owning, morose teen full of angst to 'pull a Columbine'. Big Diff!!

Rebecca - the answer to your question is "yes".

The 'girlification' is what leads to the assumption that all masculine behavior is criminal, or at least ought to be.

The zero-tolerance policies mean that context is thrown out to avoid accusations of selective enforcement. They also were intended to prevent lawsuits by saying "we don't tolerate any offense, no matter how minor, so you can't sue us for negligence".

Although not strictly related, they feed off of each other.

And we get teenage girls getting arrested for carrying Midol, thirteen year-olds getting arrested for drawing weapons, and five year-olds getting arrested for kissing a girl on the playground.

Welcome to hell. Here's your accordion.

I think this is a result of both the girlification that stresses that this sort of drawing is abnormal as well as zero tolerance of the sort that kicks a student out of high school because a butter knife is found in the bed of his pickup truck.

It's hard to say which is more evil, zero tolerance or the legal-psychological industrial complex. Well, I guess the latter formed the former.

Where is the ACLU on these issues?

Oh, and as to boys and girls gravitating to different toys - DUH!

Of course, Time Magazine had a cover some years ago announcing that boys and girls are different. As though this was some new discovery.

I mean, seriously, when's the last time the girls were interested in playing "kill the guy with the ball". Although I guess that game's illegal for kids now too, isn't it.

There was that one case of a teacher who reported her Kindergartener for sexual contact because he hugged her and called her pretty. She said she felt 'so disturbed by his mannerisms'!!Now until he leaves Grammar school, he has a sex offense written on his school record!

And we get teenage girls getting arrested for carrying Midol

Well, if the culture was really as girly as you say, Brian, than Midol would be a sacrament.

Red Skelton knew what was up, ever hear this joke of his?: "I was born so poor that if I hadn't been a boy I'd have had NOTHIN' to play with".

Rebecca - the midol thing was pointing out the stupidity of zero tolerance. I could have just as easily used the example of two asthmatic teens sharing an inhaler because one of theirs got left at home.

And since when has any ideologue had a problem with sacrificing their own for the "greater good", anyhow?

The nanny-staters and gender-feminists are cut of the same socialist cloth. Some must be sacrificed to save all. The girlification is not about exalting the feminine, it is about disparaging the masculine. The modern American feminist movement is about misandry, not equality. Those who consider themselves "

I practically grew up in a machine shop, and had made my own forge by the time I was in middle school. I had the principal's permission to bring swords I had made to school, as I was giving the Latin class a presentation (once a year for 3 years) on the swords typical for various cultures during the time of Rome. The Latin teacher even bought my gladius after my last presentation, so she could show it to other students after I graduated.
I drew all sorts of crazy stuff (guns, sci-fi, horror, comic book stuff) throughout school, kids bought copies of my version of Eddie from Iron Maiden. I even did all sorts of dangerous science experiments (some things never change, eh?) and made my own explosives (I lived in the country, they didn't care what you did as long as it didn't hurt anyone or anyone's property, and didn't wake them up.). At no time did I threaten or hurt anyone with any of that stuff.
Keep in mind, I was massively bullied and harassed all throughout elementary school. The school did absolutely nothing. It stopped in middle school because I stopped waiting for the school to do something, and just fought back (verbally and physically) when necessary. No weapons, no firearms, just my wits and the occasional physical self-defense. I was apparently raised better than to "pull a columbine."

I think schools should do something when there's a clear threat (when a student threatens to "pull a columbine", something should be done...at least mandatory counseling)...but overreacting is just counter-productive. Unfortunately, it's MUCH easier to CYA with "zero-tolerance" than to critically judge on a case-by-case basis. Intellectually lazy. Even if the kid has threatened people -- if it's just talk -- putting them in jail for it will make them MORE likely to follow through when they get out. They need intervention (at the most extreme in-patient mental help) to help fix the situation, not incarceration that'll likely make them more broken.

"3) I went to the police and sherrifs dept. and was told that the boy threatening bringing a gun to school to shoot students was not selective and random and was not a real threat to any one individual. So I could not file a restraining order"

Cathleen - this is the point at which you get your own lawyer to do this.

Actually, Cathy Seipp wrote about how daughter, Maia Lazar, had her asthma inhaler taken away from her under "zero tolerance" policies. Just say no to drugs? I say "Just say no to passing out and conking your head on the desk as you fall!"

Oh I would have loved to, but as a single mother, I have no resources to afford a retainer.

Brian, I'm anxiously waiting to see what those who consider themselves " think. My guess would be punctual.

Oh, I crack myself up occasionally.

And I do consider the automatic presumption that guns are evil part of the girlie-fication of American culture. Playing with and fantasizing about weaponry is a big part of being male. Moreover, if somebody mentions Clausewitz on this blog, 9/1 odds they're male. No, no wiki-ing...how many of you girls know who Clausewitz was?

P.S. For those of you who don't, here's his book:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691018545?ie=UTF8&tag=advicegoddess-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0691018545

And here's the book about Clausewitz's book by Hew Strachan:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0871139561?ie=UTF8&tag=advicegoddess-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0871139561

Allow me to pat myself on my girly back. I know simply because I have a degree in history (it's chiefly in historic preservation and American labor and immigration history) and I'm still a devoted history buff, thirteen years after graduating from college. I'm the girl you find in the non-fiction world history section of Barnes & Noble.

And just to extend the streed cred theme, I'm the girl who owns a .410 shotgun and likes to hunt upland game birds.

> that's a sorry drawing
> for a 13-year-old.

Excellent comment.

> Rarely the confusion goes
> the other way: the thing
> itself is presented as
> just as innocent as the
> symbol.

Excellent comment.

> leads to the assumption that
> all masculine behavior is
> criminal, or at least ought
> to be.

Excellent comment.

Wish I'd said those things... And now I have!

Here's a fun passage from Amy's clipping:

>> The Mostellers said their
son has no discipline record
at the school because they
just moved from Colorado this
year.

Written as if "He hasn't had a chanceto threaten anyone yet! We're still unpacking!"

When I used to sullenly draw stick figures doing automatic-weapons fire (gave it up at age 8, Raddy), most of the experimentation was in the length, number, and spacing of tracer markings that stretched out across the page. The targets were unimportant, and usually not depicted.

The metaphor to the lonely concentrations of the teen years shortly to follow is pathetically apt.

It's a guy thing, teach.

Where are Joe, Tressider, and Justin? Are they vacationing in Hawaii with Chuck and Cat Brother?

Where indeed? Without you and Jodi having at least one tussle, my blog day is incomplete.

Sam Clausewitz was a farshtunken alta kocher from Chelm. We used to daven together every day and then enjoy a bissel of schapps. The goniff made toys. Barely had two nickels to run together, then he comes to New York, meets with a fancy shmancy Coka Cola representative, adopts a goyishe name, and kene hora, becomes big, joins a country club, and forgets his old friends. Used to be another schnorrer, now he's the kocher.

Putz.

Ok, how about this kid's parents getting a lawyer and suing- isn't there a grounds called 'intentional infliction of emotional distress'? I am suprised as litigious as people are, we haven't seen a lawsuit like that.

Also, it was a crappy drawing. In court, they could claim it was the Titanic, or something.

Crid, I take it our comments aren't entertaining enough for you that you miss Pelto already? If you like, I can start posting in memo format (evil chuckle).

I take it back! I take it back!

TO: Crid
RE: Too late now...

RTTA. BWAHAHAHAHA!

Jamie Nichols[and dimes]
"That which does not kill you, leaves you very sore in the morning."

Gah...I feel so icky now.

Damn. Part of that comment got lost to either an errant keystroke or the vagaries of HTML. And that train of thought got derailed as soon as I hit POST.

But if I had to guess, I'd say I was going to warn those who consider themselves feminists to be wary of those who define what it is to be a feminist.

Something about being judged by the company you keep and all that.

Arrrrrrgghhh!

(PS- Jerry is funny)

Jamie, I hope you're proud of yourself, because that was an excellent impression--right down to the Nichols[and dimes].

Rebecca... If you're going to do something, even if it's snarky and evil, you might as well do it right. Besides...Crid hardly ever responds to my comments (My comments aren't inflammatory enough?), but he cannot ignore memo-formatted Kryptonite.

Amy -

This item also seems to merit entry in the ever-expanding file labelled "us being scared of that which is statistically unlikely to harm us." But with "To Catch a Predator" reruns seemingly airing every night on MSNBC, I'm not sure there's room.

"I mean, seriously, when's the last time the girls were interested in playing "kill the guy with the ball"."

You mean, "Smear the Queer"? Yeah, they probably don't play that one much any more.

I'm touched my absence was noted. Not on vacation, but new work situation is keeping me quite busy.

I find myself almost in complete agreement with Brian, Crid, and Radwaste here. It's gotten so that it's not OK to do boy stuff in public anymore. A poorly rendered drawing of a gun warrants a suspension for a 13-year old boy who isn't deeply disturbed. Would I have been expelled for listening to Suicidal Tendencies, or Megadeth, or Slayer? What if the school found out that I was permitted to go shooting a .22 with my brothers? Or that my friends and I would swipe cigs and beer from parents when we thought we could get away with it? To me, all of these things seem like normal parts of growing up as a boy, just like getting in a fight or two, learning to act decently when you lose at something, and figuring out how to talk to girls.

When schools freak out so much over nothing, it seems to me they do one of two things: 1) they turn young people into fearful adults scared to risk crossing any line, or 2) they turn young people into adults that hold all authority in utter contempt because it was so clearly crazy when they were growing up. Neither is a good situation.

I would never have made it through public school. When our teachers told us about the colonization of the Americas, I remember once I drew a picture of a French settler shooting a native American. I wonder how much trouble I would have gotten into for that?

Thanks Crid,

I think the best Yiddish impressions I've seen are Whoopi Goldberg's and Eddie Murphy's. Go figure.

But I teach my kids what I can....

Jerry, I take it that bit of Pidgin Yiddish was funny, but you'd have to understand Yiddish to laugh. I really regret reports that it's a dying language, should that turn out to be true.

At the rate we're going, English will soon be on its way out, too.

A reminder, and maybe news for those who would call the school board and the sheriff, and think that's a solution: look up the Supreme Court case, Warren v. DC. Calling those people is a good thing to do, but it's not a remedy. Police are not required to protect you. Just to make this clear: an armed police officer standing right beside you is not required to do anything in the case a thug appears and attacks you right in front of him. This is because the first lawsuit for non-protection will disband any police department. Thus, police are not the cure-all many seem to expect.

The zero-tolerance policies seen all over the country are the direct result of people clamoring for authorities to do something they cannot: produce personal security. This does not change because of any individual's desires.

If you are assaulted, the insurance company and the Sheriff's office will not be able to kiss your boo-boo and make it OK. If you are injured, the scar will be permanent. There is no "undo" key. The best approach, a fiendishly difficult one with many variables, is to avoid confrontations when possible and win them decisively when they occur.

Yes, this is easier to say than do - but it is still correct.

You might want to look at an essay related to the environment which produced this thread. See www.frfrogspad.com/cowards.htm

I would say "zero tolerance" is part and parcel of an environment of nonthink, from religion to the drug war.

> You mean, "Smear the Queer"?
> Yeah, they probably don't
> play that one much any more.

The thing about Smear the Queer --at least as it was played in Indiana childhood-- was that it wasn't about sex or athleticism as much as it was about being alert and stoic and not getting all weepy just because you had a bad day. Even to a liberal child, it seemed like a great name for the game. The withering focus of Bad Events (the "Smear") was a soulless, scanning searchlight of random destruction, unconcerned with human feeling (the "Queer"). And one day soon, in a recess nearby, its rays of terror will bombard each of us.

Life is really like that. It's not just a means of oppressing the pretty boys.

A guy at work 'splained the Isaiah Washington showbiz scandal to me a few months ago, and it ended with "and of course there's no excuse for him using the 'F' word."

This was appalling in more ways than there's time to type about this morning, but the last thing we need in these years for these issues is to have more language put off limits. Especially by a bunch of fucking prisses....

quoting: I would say "zero tolerance" is part and parcel of an environment of nonthink, from religion to the drug war.

----

Well said. It gives fools and tyrants the means to do their mischief with impunity.

In case anybody is wondering, speaking of "fuck" and prissies, this is a full fuck website. No F**ks, please. They make me itch.

In case anybody is wondering, speaking of "fuck" and prissies, this is a full fuck website. No F**ks, please. They make me itch.

AARRGGHH!! My delicate fucking sensibilities!!!

I find this on a par with the fright the boys who were jailed in my neck of the woods for whacking girls on the butt gave me. I just have a hard time sending my kid to school in this environment

TO: Amy Alkon, et al.
RE: Too 'Funny'

Political Correctness can have it's say when all is safe. However, where the tread meets the pavement, contrary to popular opinion, 'image' is not everything.

Put a cardboard tire on a car and see how far you get.

Anyone here ever read Niven and Pournelle's classic LUCIFER'S HAMMER?

Written in the mid-70s, it hypothesizes a cometary impact on Earth. As they put it there, the feminist movement collapsed one millisecond after the impact of the first large fragment.

Regards,

Chuck(le)
[Teach your children well. -- Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young]

P.S. Who's this 'bozo' using MY formating? I like em already....

In case anybody is wondering, speaking of "fuck" and prissies, this is a full fuck website. No F**ks, please. They make me itch.

I fully fucking agree! If you are too prissy to type "fuck" then you don't get to use it in a sentence!

Well, unfortunately some of us like to peruse this at work, and we have to watch what we type, lest our very keystrokes be monitored by ill-tempered corporate typing trolls...

As for the zero-tolerance policies, it's really the behavior of a bully. Ever notice how nearly every student who gets nailed on one of these zero-tolerance things is a meek young kid who intended no harm and is just trying to get through his twelve years of school with as little fuss as possible? They're easy marks for brainless, soulless administration. On the other hand, when presented with anything that actually looks like a show of real strength (as we've seen here in Cathleen's case), said admin readily rolls over and assumes the position. The innocent are punished while the guilty go free. And the administration gets to pat itself on the back and say that it's solving all of the world's problems, without actually doing anything productive. It's got all of the bad features of both anarchy and authoritarianism, with none of the good features of either.

And to Cathleen: I grew up around some pretty rough characters, and one thing I observed is that people who go around making verbal threats are usually harmless. They make threats precisely because they don't have the moxie to actually do anything. I don't know if that's any consolation. The people you have to watch out for are the ones who *don't* make threats -- they know that making threats gives up the advantage of surprise, which is the biggest possible advantage you can have in any kind of physical confrontation.