More yearbook photo censorship silliness

[KBCraig]

Remember Blake Douglass, the Londonderry senior whose yearbook photo was rejected because he was holding his trap-shooting shotgun?

This time it's Providence, RI, and a sword instead of a shotgun. Heaven forbid the kid learn some actual history, or something.

http://bob.wjla.com/headlines/0107/388003.html

School, Teen Clash Over Medieval Photo
UPDATED - Saturday January 13, 2007 7:38am from our sister station WJLA-TV

PORTSMOUTH, R.I. (AP) - Seventeen-year-old Patrick Agin often spends a week whittling a single arrow, and he's learning to make chain mail armor by hand. So when it came time to submit a senior yearbook photo, he selected a snapshot of himself wearing chain mail and slinging a prop sword over his shoulder. Portsmouth High School rejected the photo, citing a "zero tolerance policy" for weapons, and Agin and his family sued, claiming the school was violating his right to free speech.

(more at link)

[Spencer]

Shame on him for not having "normal" hobbies and interests, like spending money he doesn't have, text messaging non-stop, shoplifting, and listening to most of the crap produced today that is called "music."  And goddamn him for having some pride in the work that he has done as an individual.  No wonder this country's so screwed up.

[AlanM]

  In a world supposedly of tolerance and inclusion, intolerence and exclusion becomes the norm. Go figure.

[Crocuta]

And the mascot of the school in question is a revolutionary war soldier.

Oh, the irony.

[CNHT]

Remember Blake Douglass, the Londonderry senior whose yearbook photo was rejected because he was holding his trap-shooting shotgun?

This time it's Providence, RI, and a sword instead of a shotgun. Heaven forbid the kid learn some actual history, or something.

http://bob.wjla.com/headlines/0107/388003.html

School, Teen Clash Over Medieval Photo
UPDATED - Saturday January 13, 2007 7:38am from our sister station WJLA-TV

PORTSMOUTH, R.I. (AP) - Seventeen-year-old Patrick Agin often spends a week whittling a single arrow, and he's learning to make chain mail armor by hand. So when it came time to submit a senior yearbook photo, he selected a snapshot of himself wearing chain mail and slinging a prop sword over his shoulder. Portsmouth High School rejected the photo, citing a "zero tolerance policy" for weapons, and Agin and his family sued, claiming the school was violating his right to free speech.

(more at link)

The reporter spelled chain maille wrong.

[Dreepa]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chainmail

[CNHT]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chainmail

Mail (also maille,...

Yep mail is the american corruption, whereas maille is the word for 'net' or 'mesh' in French.

Lumberjacks like Ed wear these over their feet to prevent chopping them off when they miss!

[KBCraig]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chainmail

Mail (also maille,...

Yep mail is the american corruption, whereas maille is the word for 'net' or 'mesh' in French.

Teacher, you get an 'F' for "History of Spelling", especially when translating Norman French through Middle English into Modern English.

But I love you anyway. 

The concept of consistent spelling wasn't popular until Daniel Webster grew rather insistent about it. Just peruse the founding documents of 230 years ago, much less the spelling of the 15th Century. Your reference text can be the King James bible. 

Kevin

[CNHT]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chainmail

Mail (also maille,...

Yep mail is the american corruption, whereas maille is the word for 'net' or 'mesh' in French.

Teacher, you get an 'F' for "History of Spelling", especially when translating Norman French through Middle English into Modern English.

But I love you anyway. 

The concept of consistent spelling wasn't popular until Daniel Webster grew rather insistent about it. Just peruse the founding documents of 230 years ago, much less the spelling of the 15th Century. Your reference text can be the King James bible. 

Kevin

Huh? My translator software gave me that meaning of maille, which is 'net' or 'mesh'. Try it!

Anyway, big deal.  And I hope Mary isn't looking over your shoulder at your  to me. <giggle>
I already got in trouble for something like that once, at PF '05. LOL.

I was shocked because, well I don't do those things!!!

[Spencer]

Here's an update:

Teen's Sword Picture Can Go in Yearbook
Education Officials Allow Yearbook Photo of R.I. Teen With a Sword
The Associated Press

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Rhode Island's education commissioner ordered a high school on Friday to publish a yearbook photo showing a teenage medieval enthusiast with a sword.

Portsmouth High School authorities can regulate editorial content in the yearbook, but they acted unreasonably by rejecting Patrick Agin's photo, hearing officer Paul Pontarelli wrote in a ruling approved by Education Commissioner Peter McWalters.

Agin, a 17-year-old fan of the Middle Ages, wore chain mail and slung a prop sword over his shoulder for his senior portrait at Portsmouth High School. School officials said the picture violated a zero-tolerance policy on weapons and rejected the picture for the yearbook.

The Rhode Island branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents Algin's family, has argued that the school has allowed students to pose for more than a decade with props that show their interests, including musical instruments and horses.

Portsmouth Schools Superintendent Susan Lusi did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment Friday night.

In the ruling, state education officials wrote that school officials offered to publish Agin's photo if it was part of a paid yearbook advertisement.

"Tolerance for weapons can be purchased," Pontarelli wrote. "This is illogical."

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/print?id=2809393

[citizen_142002]

Keene High School lets the gun photos in. Not bad for a liberal school district. One of the faculty actually had a safari photo, in which she knelt next to some kind of antelope with her rifle.

[aries]

Yep mail is the american corruption, whereas maille is the word for 'net' or 'mesh' in French.

If we're going to use full french spelling shouldn't chain be cha?ne

[KurtDaBear]

Here's an update:


The Rhode Island branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents Algin's family, has argued that the school has allowed students to pose for more than a decade with props that show their interests, including musical instruments and horses.

"Tolerance for weapons can be purchased," Pontarelli wrote. "This is illogical."[/b]

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/print?id=2809393
[/quote]

Horses!  They let pictures of horses in?  That's even more illogical than anything else in the article.  Those damned dangerously dumb animals can kill you half a dozen different ways, and they don't require a person to activate them or aim them!

[burnthebeautiful]

My sister's class all dressed up in Halloween type outfits for their senior photo, and everything objectionable was photoshopped out. One guy was dressed as some kind of serial killer holding a knife, and the knife was edited out. Another person was dressed up as a drug addict and was holding a syringe, and the syringe was edited out. I never found out who initiated the censorship and why. I know it was a private company that took the pictures. I don't know if the censorship was the companies own policy or if the school asked the company to do it.

This isn't just an American thing, anyway...

[KurtDaBear]

This isn't just an American thing, anyway...

Oh, we all know it's not just an American thing.  It's just that those of us who went to public schools were all propagandized from an early age to believe that we have superior rights and freedoms in America, so we think it's especially terrible when something like that happens here.

It's hard to unlearn that even after you find out that they were lying to you and that you have to fight them tooth-and-nail to obtain and preserve those freedoms just like people everywhere else in the world do.