Tuesday, November 02, 2010
Squashing all the fun out of life: No more horsing around
If the "Tea Party" indebted GOP does anything, it should be to temper the financial liability associated with fun, to wit:
A teen's spirit week stunt has landed him in hot water.
Hamilton-Wenham Regional High School Senior Dan Depaolis, dressed in medieval garb, rode a horse into the school's parking lot as part of spirit week.
What he, and his parents, thought was a good-natured stunt, the school deemed dangerous. Depaolis was suspended from school for two days.
Goddamn. And here's the really stupid part: "The father tells FOX25 the school compared the stunt to bringing a “loaded firearm” to school...."
One of the biggest problems with arrogating the management of our schools to government employees is that government employees then become the role models for our children. They are, apparently, teaching them that any sort of fun, no matter how creative, is verboten if it might theoretically offend or hurt somebody. Which pretty much describes all fun. How is this good for America?
10 Comments:
By 
, at
Tue Nov 02, 04:45:00 PM:
What I can't figure out is how my generation, those coming of age in the late seventies, managed to create this sort of make-no-mistake sort of world when all we ever did was smoke vast quantities of pot, work at nothing jobs for low pay, maneuver to avoid yet another paper on Thoreau, The Importance Of Being Ernest, or the causes of World War One, get brought home by the cops for being drunk and disorderly at sixteen....
Where and how did we go so wrong, as to set ourselves up as such over-achieving moralists?
By , at
Tue Nov 02, 05:00:00 PM:
That does it. I'm voting again.
M.E.
By 
Bomber Girl, at
Tue Nov 02, 05:04:00 PM:
M.E. - You get my vote for "favorite comment of the week."
By Diane Wilson, at
Tue Nov 02, 05:24:00 PM:
Hey, that horse could have been loaded, you know. Someone could have stepped in something ucky.
Damned school officials have been smoking roadapple red. That's how we got here.
By Viking Kaj, at
Tue Nov 02, 08:11:00 PM:
It is ironic to note that the mascot for Hamilton-Wenham is the Generals after General George S Patton, who apparently kept a summer home in the district.
For the record, Patton was a cavalry officer.
By Dawnfire82, at
Tue Nov 02, 08:12:00 PM:
"over-achieving moralists?"
Knee-jerk reactions and blanket bans of unorthodox conduct are not hallmarks of overachievers, but of fools unable to reason things out for themselves or too fearful to take responsibility for allowances. It's safer for their precious careers to punish a child than to allow creativity, humor, and (God forbid) risk into their little fiefdoms.
By , at
Tue Nov 02, 08:16:00 PM:
Sure, laugh it off with your typical racist right wing neocon stupidity.
Suppose there had been a couple of Muslims there - this clown could have started a Crusade right in the parking lot!
I really wish we would return control of schools to the local communities. Federalized, union bureaucrats are not the people we want in charge of education.
By pam, at
Tue Nov 02, 09:31:00 PM:
I wish the hue and cry in Massachusetts existed.... what a load of horse hooey.... No fun, no creativity, in short, no horsing around....
I wonder why pens and pencils aren't banned. Surely they resemble a firearm more than a horse does?
By JPMcT, at
Tue Nov 02, 10:14:00 PM:
Please be aware that the zombies in Massachusetts just re-elected Barney Frank by a large margin.
Proving that they have brains the size of marbles...and twice as smooth.
By Georg Felis, at
Tue Nov 02, 10:18:00 PM:
They should have sent in the Mounted Police to arrest him.
/sarc
