Planet America

[arthwollipot]

That idea is a couple of years old at least, and yeah it's absolute bullshit.

[Admin]

I'll vote for parents shit-stirring.

Dear old Di once posted a story about kids turning up to school as furries, and as Arth said, it was total bullshit.

[Meadmaker]

That idea is a couple of years old at least, and yeah it's absolute bullshit.

There's a new wrinkle this time, though.

Over the last couple of years, there were incidents where someone said at a school board meeing, "What next? People identifying as cats?" or, "I heard that there's a school where...." and ususally a statement about litter boxes.

This is different. This time there are a large number of students organizing a protest and saying "This happened to me".

https://www.abc4.com/news/wasatch-front ... y-protest/

Normally, I would take that as a sign that the story is true. I can't imagine a group of eleven year olds organizing a protest over some hypothetical thing that might happen, or that they heard was happening somewhere else. Moreover, there were students interviewed on the news stories that said they, personally, had been bitten and scratched by children who were pretending to be animals.

And yet, I also can't imagine a real school district actually allowing anything remotely like that behavior.


Another sign that it''s bullshit is that I can't find some of the same articles I found 12 hours ago online. A little bit of research and fact checkig may have happened overnight.

My current theory, reading between the lines, is that a few people started wearing cat ear headbands. In this case "headband means something that goes over the head, the shape of headphones. You can get those things I've seen young girls wear them. I imagine their might be dog or bear or mouse ones as well. A little clique of nerdy girls. And then some kids got bent out of shape. And then some parents heard of it and decided it was part of Americas moral decay.

And before you know it, "Compelled speech is not free speech". I'm still trying to figure out the connection between that slogan and this event.

And that's why I put it in "Planet America". I think it's a case where eveyone and everything is political, and where childish fashion accessories with no meaning whatsoever gets turned into a protest that makes national news.



But....maybe we'll learn more.....or maybe this one will just be buried.

ETA: One thing I also didn't get is the school's involvement. They seemed to take the side of the "furries". That seemed odd. Unless.....a clicque of nerdy girls starts wearing cat ears, and they start getting harassed and insulted or bullied by the "cool" kids. The kids who got in trouble for bullying complain to their parents, with a wildly distorted story. The parents get involved, beliebing the wild distortions of their perfect children who would never, ever, bully other kids, and they invent a political issue that matches their narrative. This is speculation, but when I see a story that makes no sense that's kind of what I do. I try to fit it to something that resembles normal human behavior. Not decent and positive behavior, mind you, but normal.

[Meadmaker]

If you can't trust The Daily Mail, who can you trust:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... otest.html


And yes, it is the most complete, and I believe accurate story I have seen on the subject. (Maybe I just like it because it affirms the speculation from my last post.)

[Admin]

Looks pretty legit, and the Fail is occasionally right.

Kelsey James, a spokesperson for the Utah State Board of Education, said that a small group of students had been wearing headbands with animal ears, prompting other pupils to throw food at them, according to KSL.com.

I'd say the timeline goes something like this:

Jenny wears cat ears to school.

Johnny bullies her for it, culminating in food being thrown.

Johnny gets detention and cries to mommy about the cat people scratching and biting.

Johnny's moron parents buy the story, because their darling can do no wrong and stage a protest.

Even more idiotic media outlets cover and amplify the story.

Welcome to the 21st century.

[Meadmaker]

Looks pretty legit, and the Fail is occasionally right.

Kelsey James, a spokesperson for the Utah State Board of Education, said that a small group of students had been wearing headbands with animal ears, prompting other pupils to throw food at them, according to KSL.com.

I'd say the timeline goes something like this:

Jenny wears cat ears to school.

Johnny bullies her for it, culminating in food being thrown.

Johnny gets detention and cries to mommy about the cat people scratching and biting.

Johnny's moron parents buy the story, because their darling can do no wrong and stage a protest.

Even more idiotic media outlets cover and amplify the story.

Welcome to the 21st century.

We don't do detentions any more in America. Seriously. (Maybe some schools still do. My kid's didn't.)

But other than that, I think the above is right.

And I don't think you can ignore the political story in it. Parents read in something politcal that wasn't there. Suddenly, the parents are protesting about free speech and "we the people" because their kid threw food at an unpolular kid.

[arthwollipot]

My school still used the cane. That's how old I am.

[Meadmaker]

My school still used the cane. That's how old I am.

Here in America, there are still places where paddles are used.

I thought for sure they would die out completely after "50 Shades of Grey" was so popular.

I look back at my own experience in early grades, and while paddles were employed by several of my teachers, there was only one who used it frequently. Looking back, I would bet you 100 dollars that he was getting off on it.

[arthwollipot]

It was always a cane, not a paddle, with our teachers. It was outlawed back in the 80s, I think. Rightly so, too. Schools shouldn't be a place where physical abuse occurs.

[stanky]

i'll say.

the psychological is more potent.