Subject: Wasn't gonna do that anyway.
Author:
Posted on: 2009-11-16 22:32:00 UTC
The PPC don't have anything to do with this other than some of our members may be joining in the protest. Can I copy-paste that example you wrote and send it? You said what needs saying better than I could.
http://community.livejournal.com/mockthestupid/3223937.html
"Danvers High School is banning students from uttering the word “meep,” a trademark of Beaker from “The Muppet Show.”
The Salem News reported Principal Thomas Murray banned the word after school officials got wind of a student plan brewing on Facebook to stage a major disruption on school grounds using the “meep.”
WBZ-TV reported Murray informed students in an e-mail and phone message that police are monitoring the situation.
A call to police and a message and e-mail sent to Murray were not immediately returned.
The Urban Dictionary defines meep as another way to say “ouch,”or “uh-oh.” It can also be a substitute for a swear word."
The comments on the Boston Herald news article provided the principal's public email address. Several people have already sent him emails reading only "meep". Apparently he forwarded the emails to the police. I cannot for a minute imagine the police will do anything, so I'm very, very, very tempted to join in.
...that is a fantastic word. What exactly does he think he'll accomplish by banning it?
...whether I should be laughing or bemoaning the fact that people like this are actually given the job of teaching future generations.
Ah, High School. What a bastion of civil rights you are. In fact, what a bastion of civil rights yo have ALWAYS been.
Someone give me the Principal's email, if you find it.
I want to exercise my constitutional rights.
murray@danvers.org
Is there any conceivable way this could get us into any real trouble? Because if not I am SO joining in.
The E-mail address is posted in public, on the school's official website. The act of sending E-mail to that address definitely shouldn't be illegal.
The other legal issue one could run into is harassment - Massachusetts law (Chapter 265, Section 43A) defines harassment as "willfully and maliciously [engaging] in a knowing pattern of conduct or series of acts over a period of time directed at a specific person, which seriously alarms that person and would cause a reasonable person to suffer substantial emotional distress"
Interpret that as you will - I could see someone making a whiny brat plea in front of a court, and given the way this idiot is responding to E-mails by forwarding them to the police, I wouldn't put it past him. However, felony harassment is something that's up to the prosecutor's office to indite for, rather than the principal of a high school, so I doubt anything would come of it.
So, yes, it could conceivably get us into trouble, just like conceivably, you could get hit by lightning while roller-skating. I'd give them about equal odds. Just for a bit of protection, you might want to include more in the E-mail than just "meep" - something like
"I protest your ban on the word "meep" and the associated infringement on the students' first amendment rights to free speech. While I understand and agree that disruptions to classes are intolerable, I believe that banning the use of a word is both overreacting and ineffective - what the meep will you do if they start using "the" or "math" instead?"
should lower the odds of legal action to something resembling those of getting hit by lightning while roller-skating indoors.
(disclaimer: I am not a lawyer)
Definitely do not mention the PPC or any sort of organization in E-mails - that's just begging for trouble.
The PPC don't have anything to do with this other than some of our members may be joining in the protest. Can I copy-paste that example you wrote and send it? You said what needs saying better than I could.
Consider it in the public domain, for whatever little it might be worth.
That's just stupid. The disruption will take place regardless.
Because as everybody knows, telling teenagers to stop doing something ALWAYS works, and definitely NEVER backfires.
/end sarcasm
And seriously, doesn't Beaker suffer enough in his own universe?
Meep? Meep? A school banned the word "meep"? I got my seventh-grade Social Studies class officially renamed "MEEP", for crying out loud!
What can students saying "meep" possibly do? Meep-meep-meep-meep-meep! Ha!
This reminds me somewhat of the law severely fining a financially floundering teenaged girl for sharing a whopping ELEVEN SONGS with her friends on the internet. So that the millionaire artists don't miss out on a few extra bucks.
...Does this mean they've banned old Looney Tunes Roadrunner cartoons?
And America wonders why people don't like us.
But things like this are just a little bit too ridiculous.
Right to free speech, and all that.
(P.S.: Meep!)
I think of the "WHAT THE F*BOOOOOOOOOM!*" meme.
