Superfriends makes me scratch my head . . .

Today's post is about one of my favorite cartoons as a kid, The Challenge of the Superfriends. This is where the superfriends battle the Legion of Doom in various and sundry adventures. The particular episode this week was a variation on ST-TOS "Arena" where some advanced being brought five superfriends and five LOD members to a planet, where, the superior collective would be determined. In the first test, Batman and the Joker competed to be the first to navigate a maze. Joker barely misses falling in a pit, which was carefully carved out in a rectangle from the cement floor. So, Joker, in this cement maze, conveniently finds palm fronds which he covers the pit. Batman, a superhero with no real superpowers other than his intellect, fails to ignore the palm fronds on the otherwise cement floor and falls in the pit. Mmmhuh. In another improbable contest, the Scarecrow (whose superpower{s} I have yet to ascertain) and Apache Chief have to find and defeat a two-headed snake. OK. Apache Chief's power is that he can grow to fifty feet tall. He fails to use this, his only superpower, and loses the contest. Mmmhuh. All is well, however, because Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman, despite his fuckup, win their contest and the match.

WTF?

Our creepy homeland security chief, Michael Chernoff or whatever, was on the television commenting on the British terrorism incidents. He said something like - "I don't see there being any credible threat to the homeland." WTF? What is this, Nazi Germany? Next thing, the police will be stopping me as I'm walking my dog at 1 a.m. and asking for my papers?

This reallly is a scary place we live in. I think to myself, well, I don't win the lottery, I don't win big when I go to the casino, but, those are the odds. Sometimes the odds work in your favor, as when I am NOT the person who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and, as a result, get the police busting through your door at 1 a.m. Seriously, in this day and age, how easy is it for the police, in the name of "homeland security" to totally fuck your life up? Pretty easy.

Students have no, and I mean no rights

I remember back in my days of mandatory school. I'm not talking about college or law school, where they didn't care if you went to class or what you wore. Elementary school and junior high were, for me, a place where teachers had unquestioned authority. Part of it was my conformity to the system and part of it was knowing that if my parents found out I sassed a teacher, well, I'd be in a world of hurt. High school was the same for the most part, at least until I was a senior. Then, perhaps an unwritten rule gave us freedom to skip class, wander the halls during class, etc. However, if a teacher told me to get back to class, I would.

This brings us to the case recently decided by the Supreme Court, where the justices, by a 5 to 4 decision, upheld the rights of a school to regulate activities of students with regards to speech. The question that I have, that I haven't had answered to my satisfaction, was whether this student was at a "school sponsored event." In a wonderful column, James Kilpatrick dissects this most ill decided opinion. He seems to think that this was not a school sponsored event. If not, it opens up the door to teacher regulation of student behavior anytime.

However, whether on school time or not, I think that the Court overturned the Tinker case, where a previous court upheld the wearing of black armbands to protest the Vietname war. As the court stated here the test seems to be whether, in the opinion of the teacher or administrator, the action of the student upsets good order and discipline. In this case, the court said the "Bong Hits for Jesus" was determined by the principal to advocate drug use. It follows, using the court's logic, that advocating drug use upsets good order and discipline in a school. This means that the administrator was well within their rights to suspend this student.

The court leaves it to the teachers and administrators, then, to be the decider as to what is disruptive to good order and discipline . As long as there is a rational basis for the teacher's decision it will be upheld. If we believe Kilpatrick, then a student can be spanked down anywhere, for anything, depending on the mood of the teacher or administrator (and presumably their political affiliation) So, if you have cool teachers, you are okay. However, if you have a bunch of hard assess, well, you better not even speak ill (even at the mall) of our chimpanzee in the white house you you gonna get a suspending.