I'm not usually one to advertise anything that might not be completely true, especially when it involves famous professional athletes, but I cannot help myself with this one. For those of you who read Sports Illustrated, you may have already heard about the blog run by a group of women who just so happen to be Major League Baseball groupies. There are a few pictures on the blog, so that alone leads me to believe that at least most of what is posted on the site is relatively true. Check it out, if nothing else it is good for a couple laughs.
http://www.itsasecretsohush.blogspot.com
Friday, March 24, 2006
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
A Call To Arms
The following is a rather sad story about a recent event concerning my sister, Jessica. However, I see the consequences of future actions in response to this becoming the larger and more depressing issue at hand:
Jessica is a student at Loyola University in Chicago, where she is majoring in secondary education. She is currently in her student teaching internship phase of the program, and is completing her assignment at a high school in Plainfield, IL. She has told me a number of times how much she enjoys her career choice, and that she cannot wait to start teaching students on her own. All in all, it has been a positive experience for her.
That is, until recently.
You see, my sister also has a job at a local resturaunt here in Joliet as a bartender. She works along side a 20 year old hostess and a 16 year old busboy who has a crush on the 20 year old hostess. He also has a 16 year old girlfriend, who in turn found about this little love triangle and decided to go to the resturaunt with a friend to "beat up the 20 year old". Unfortunately for this girlfriend, Jessica recognized her and her little friend as students in the class that she teaches at Plainfield. So, Jessica reports this activity to school and the students are disciplined.
Enter the revenge portion of the show.
These two students take it upon themselves to seek out Jessica's MySpace profile, and in doing so discover a comment in which Jessica included on her page: "I can't help but wonder if I was that dumb in high school"... or something to that effect (I am paraphrasing). The students print this page out, show it to a teacher, who in turn shows it to the Dean of the high school, who THEN shows it to the Plainfield School District.
Yesterday, my sister recieves a phone call from the District informing her of all that has happened, and that they are releasing her from the student teaching position at the school and possibly from the entire Loyola Secondary Education program. Bad fucking times. Jessica is then told that she needs to sit before a disciplanary panel for Loyola and defned herself so that she doesn't get kicked out of the fucking school.
Fast forward to today: everything is fine, Jessica gets away with a slap on the wrist (transferred to a different student teaching assignment where she will have to re-do the semester). However, it certainly seems as though the District is still winning this war.
Are you fucking kidding me? Is this really happening? Is there actually a town/society that exists that goes against every little right that an individual has in terms of expressing oneself?
Apparently so, and it exists in Plainfield, IL.
Obivously, my problems with this whole ordeal are quite evident to anyone that knows me. Bring up Freedom of Speech, indiviual rights, or ring the Complete Bullshit alarm and you are pretty dead on as to what my thoughts are. But I think there is a little something more that must be seen here, mainly because it isn't just limited to this one situation.
MySpace, or any other website that specializes in personal profiling or networking, or in any way brings one's personal life to light for everyone and anyone to look at freely is definitely walking on thin ice. In fact, blogging can be included in that statement, and believe me when I say that this is extremely sad and a true sign that our society is falling apart from the top down.
When someone is unable to freely express themselves as they deem fit and on whatever medium they choose, it is a tell-tale sign that people who run our lives are fucked in the head. If you can get fired for writing a simple statement about your job, or if you can get arrested for making a comment on a website, or if the mere fact that you have a picture of alcohol on your page while being underage and can get expelled from school because of it....
I don't know anymore. The amount of ridiculousness and conservative chaos in this country right now is downright sickening. Everyone is afraid of getting someone else angry, or they are the ones being incredibly hypocritical and taking offense to meaningless opinions and comments that were never meant to harm anyone in the first place.
This world is in trouble.
Jessica is a student at Loyola University in Chicago, where she is majoring in secondary education. She is currently in her student teaching internship phase of the program, and is completing her assignment at a high school in Plainfield, IL. She has told me a number of times how much she enjoys her career choice, and that she cannot wait to start teaching students on her own. All in all, it has been a positive experience for her.
That is, until recently.
You see, my sister also has a job at a local resturaunt here in Joliet as a bartender. She works along side a 20 year old hostess and a 16 year old busboy who has a crush on the 20 year old hostess. He also has a 16 year old girlfriend, who in turn found about this little love triangle and decided to go to the resturaunt with a friend to "beat up the 20 year old". Unfortunately for this girlfriend, Jessica recognized her and her little friend as students in the class that she teaches at Plainfield. So, Jessica reports this activity to school and the students are disciplined.
Enter the revenge portion of the show.
These two students take it upon themselves to seek out Jessica's MySpace profile, and in doing so discover a comment in which Jessica included on her page: "I can't help but wonder if I was that dumb in high school"... or something to that effect (I am paraphrasing). The students print this page out, show it to a teacher, who in turn shows it to the Dean of the high school, who THEN shows it to the Plainfield School District.
Yesterday, my sister recieves a phone call from the District informing her of all that has happened, and that they are releasing her from the student teaching position at the school and possibly from the entire Loyola Secondary Education program. Bad fucking times. Jessica is then told that she needs to sit before a disciplanary panel for Loyola and defned herself so that she doesn't get kicked out of the fucking school.
Fast forward to today: everything is fine, Jessica gets away with a slap on the wrist (transferred to a different student teaching assignment where she will have to re-do the semester). However, it certainly seems as though the District is still winning this war.
Are you fucking kidding me? Is this really happening? Is there actually a town/society that exists that goes against every little right that an individual has in terms of expressing oneself?
Apparently so, and it exists in Plainfield, IL.
Obivously, my problems with this whole ordeal are quite evident to anyone that knows me. Bring up Freedom of Speech, indiviual rights, or ring the Complete Bullshit alarm and you are pretty dead on as to what my thoughts are. But I think there is a little something more that must be seen here, mainly because it isn't just limited to this one situation.
MySpace, or any other website that specializes in personal profiling or networking, or in any way brings one's personal life to light for everyone and anyone to look at freely is definitely walking on thin ice. In fact, blogging can be included in that statement, and believe me when I say that this is extremely sad and a true sign that our society is falling apart from the top down.
When someone is unable to freely express themselves as they deem fit and on whatever medium they choose, it is a tell-tale sign that people who run our lives are fucked in the head. If you can get fired for writing a simple statement about your job, or if you can get arrested for making a comment on a website, or if the mere fact that you have a picture of alcohol on your page while being underage and can get expelled from school because of it....
I don't know anymore. The amount of ridiculousness and conservative chaos in this country right now is downright sickening. Everyone is afraid of getting someone else angry, or they are the ones being incredibly hypocritical and taking offense to meaningless opinions and comments that were never meant to harm anyone in the first place.
This world is in trouble.
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