Grass grows in Chester, S.C.

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If you believe marijuana plant tending is a lost art, read what recently happened in Chester County, S.C.

Personally, I was always afraid of marijuana--even in its hey day of the 60s, 70s and early 80s. Grass everywhere, it seemed. At parties, on university-sponsored trips in vans I took during graduate school, sprouting up in basements.

The weed isn't dead--by a long shot.

Read about it in the headline link above.

Seen on the wall at the Veterans Affairs Hospital

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I had to go to Mountain Home Veterans Affairs Hospital in Johnson City, Tenn., today.

Spent about half a day there getting poked, listened to (heart beat), drained (urine sample), pricked (blood sample) and photographed (X-ray).

Results not in yet. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, noticed something interesting--from a slide in the hospital orientation Power Point presentation I sat through:

"It is the VETERAN, not the preacher, who has given us freedom of religion.

"It is the VETERAN, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press.

"It is the VETERAN, not the campus organizer, who has given us freedom to assemble."

Well put.

Bloggers keeping watchful eyes on murder case

If anyone doubts the power of blogging (as well as how bloggers are keeping the mainstream media on their toes,) they should read about the horrific double murder-rape case unfolding in Knoxville, Tenn.

Seems that a young couple (who happen to be white) were sexually assaulted and mutilated.

The five suspects, each charged with first degree murder, happen to be black.

So some are saying this is a case of a too little publicized black on white crime.

That said, bloggers are attacking the mainstream Tennessee media for not making a bigger deal of the race factor. After all, according to the bloggers, look what happened year (with the extensive local, state, national and even international mainstream media coverage) when an alleged white on black crime rocked Duke University. This was, as you may recall, the case where three white Lacross players at Duke were indicted on charges of sexually assaulting a young black exotic dancer.

Why all the hullabaloo about race in the Duke case and so little mention of it (by mainstream traditional news media) in the murders/rapes of University of Tennessee student Channon Christopher, 21, and her 23-year-old boyfriend Christopher Newsom?

Good questions.

My memorable encounter with Tiger

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Two days ago, I sat within 40 feet of Tiger Woods, the greatest golfer on the planet.

I'm perched in my canvas chair on the edge of the third green at the Wachovia Championship in Charlotte.

I'm waiting, waiting, waiting...

From the early afternoon (about 12:30 p.m.) I get to green # 3 and figure my strategy.

Sooner or later Tiger will prowl that green.

Turned out, because of a rain delay, my Tiger sighting occurred in about four hours. (As I waited, got to see the likes of Phil Mickelson, V.J. Singh, Rory Sabbatini, Sergio Garcia and others.)

Will never forget it.

The guy is tall.

He appreciates his millions of admirers--thousands of whom were at the Wachovia Championship. It's a thrill when he tips (ever so slightly) the bill of his cap--letting us all know that he sees us.

He's quiet and focused. Never seemed to blink an eye. Never uttered a word, far as I could tell, on the green to his caddie or to anyone else. Walked all over that green, surveying and feeling it, kneeling down and staring--taking measure of his challenge.

His ball is about 35 feet from the whole. Downhill, tricky putt with contours between the ball and the whole. Very difficult. Can't hit it too softly, I figured.

He didn't sink it, but came ever so close--settling the ball on the edge of the cup, within a fingernail. . . within a breath of dropping.

A beautiful putt from our world's best golfer.

That day, he wore a white Nike cap and a white Nike shirt.

Yesterday, when he won the Wachovia Championship (by 2 strokes, earning $1.1 million), he wore red.

Always does.

If I'm alive next year, I'll be at the Wachovia Championship in Charlotte at Quail Hollow--working to get another Tiger sighting.

My friend Terry Nelson says it all...

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About that sad scenario at Woodlan High School in Indiana--concerning a journalism adviser who has taken a lot of heat, and now has been transferred to another school, apparently, because of a student written newspaper column (on tolerance toward gays): Here's what my good friend Terry Nelson wrote and had published (a few days ago) in the Fort Wayne, Indiana, newspaper.

Right on, Terry!

I was a stranger in a strange land.

“You’ll be teaching the students from 9 until 5 each day,” Luba, the Slovak
administrator, whispered to me.

“Will I have an interpreter with me all day?” I whispered back.

“Yes, and he will help translate any handouts you want to use,” Luba said.

As I leaned in to catch the quiet conversation, I looked around the public
restaurant and heard women laughing, dishes clinking, doors opening and
closing. Why were we whispering in a public place?

Luba explained to me this was an old habit from the time her country was
under the Communist regime. She told me that you could not speak freely
during that time; that you could not trust anyone -- not even the person
drinking coffee next to you. It was ironic we were still whispering as I
was there to teach freedom of speech and fact-based journalism to the high
school students now that the country was under a different, political
leadership.

My Slovak students were so excited that summer. They were empowered to use
their lessons in communications to write stories of consequence and
interest to other teens. They researched their topics tirelessly and ran
down various individual news makers and experts for information and
quotations -- even the president of the Republic, whom they found in the
stands of a tennis match.

They became better informed, more engaged in their education and in their
country, and they realized that they could make a difference in their world
through the study of journalism. They were active, involved citizens of the
Slovak Republic.

Freedoms we treat so casually, the freedoms of speech and press, were
enthusiastically embraced by a group of teenagers halfway across the globe
to whom this freedom had only recently been made available.

Fast forward a half dozen years to Woodlan High School and the conflict
between the Board of Education and the high school’s newspaper staff. I’m
sure the principal meant well when he said he was disturbed after reading
an editorial regarding better treatment of students who believed they were
homosexual. After all, he is the administrator in charge of the high school
nd answerable to the community. I’m sure the adviser was sincere when she
said she never thought the column’s topic would upset the principal or the
school’s leadership. After all, she has been trained in journalism
education and is responsible for the protection of the students’ First
Amendment rights. Most importantly, I’m sure the student writer was earnest
in her positive message of respect for all students at school -- regardless
of their sexual orientation. After all, what other message would anyone in
the Woodlan school district expect?

In most other school districts, this student column would not have caused
the brouhaha and carnival that has erupted as a result of several knee jerk
reactions -- perhaps from fear of a perceived negative public reaction to
the column’s content or the school board’s need to extert control over all
players under their “regime.”

As one school board member remarked recently, “This is a school board
meeting, you can’t talk about free speech here.”

I mean, come on now.

Underneath the hastily-concocted restrictive publication policy, the
punitive administrative leave for the teacher and now a recommendation for
her termination, there is much at stake: a public school system’s
integrity, a young teacher’s livelihood and most importantly, the lesson
being taught to all students of Woodlan High School that you are not
American citizens, your opinions do not matter and you should not expect to
be treated with respect.

The conflict at Woodlan High School has an eerie feel of deja’vu for me.
As a journalism educator myself, I experienced a similar situation nearly
30 years ago when I was fired for supporting the students and their First
Amendment rights. I too was not yet tenured. I too was considered
insubordinate for not following an “order” that I felt would be unethical.
Following 21 hours of an open hearing over a period of four days, my school
board met privately -- in violation of Indiana’s Sunshine Code -- to decide
how they were going to vote in front of the public and media. So they
offered me a deal: Drop the lawsuit I had filed charging the administrator
with censorship of the student publication and I would keep my job. When I
sked if the principal would stop punishing the students who also wrote
letters to the editor or who commented on anything perceived by the
administration to be negative, the response was that the school board
backed the principal in whatever methods he used.

I said, “No deal.”

Enraged that a young teacher would turn down their offer, the board marched
in and voted 4-1 to support the principal and superintendent in their
recommendation of my firing. That summer, the school board reconsidered
after realizing the legal problems ahead, reversed their decision and
publicly reaffirmed freedom of speech and press for all students of
Yorktown High School.

It was a long, difficult year, but the conflict and the overturned
recommendation for my removal was a moral victory for the school system’s
students and an education on the First Amendment for the community members
of the small town.

I returned to teaching journalism and advising publications and am now
concluding my 31st year of teaching students about their rights and the
responsibilities to research, report, problem solve and tell the truth. I
try to impress on them that they must have knowledge and ownership in their
communities and in their world. Students have read the books of what
happens when citizens fall asleep: George Orwell’s 1984; Fahrenheit 451;
The Communist Manifesto.

Former students call to tell me they serve on their city’s councils and on
various committees. They volunteer for not-for profit organizations and
other humanistic causes. They are empowered as a result of their
publications experience in high school, and continue in their civic
undertakings now as adults. Exercising First Amendment rights and
responsibilities through the school’s publications is the best civics
lesson that can ever be offered in a school’s curriculum.

I’ve read that early Christians sacrificed their lives to get the word of
Jesus Christ out to the dismay of King Herod. I’m sure King George wasn’t
happy about the pamphlets advocating the dumping of tea in the Boston
Harbor. And the unpopular notion of freeing the slaves probably distressed
more than one plantation owner prior to the Civil War.

Speaking out about injustices, inadequacies and unpopular ideas is part of
our history. And part of the reason why problems get solved and unfair
practices revealed.

The East Allen County school district has an important decision to make
that hangs in a delicate balance. Will they model “bullying” and discharge
a young teacher who supported her student for writing a mature and
responsible column over a controversial subject? Or will they step back and
realize that true education involves an element of risk and trust in their
teachers and students to discuss a variety of subjects in the school
newspaper.

Now that’s something to shout about.

Terry Nelson
Journalism Teacher and Publication Adviser
Muncie Central High School, Muncie, IN
2001 Dow Jones National Journalism Teacher of the Year

Fort Wayne, Ind., newspaper responds

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The newspaper in Fort Wayne, Indiana, has an on-target editorial concerning the brouhaha Amy S. finds herself in. (See my earlier blog today AND see my April 24 post for background info.

My whole take on this mess in Indiana is that this particular school administration defines the First Amendment as "you're free to publish anything we agree with."

Sadly, too many school administrators throughout the U.S. have the same sentiment.

Click on the link above to read the editorial defending the teacher and blasting the school administration.

My friend Terry Nelson sent me this link. Thanks, Terry!

School superintendent grasps for straws...

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A few days ago, (See my April 24 post, I believe) I blogged about an embattled (barely hanging onto her job) high school journalism teacher/adviser in Indiana.

My good friend, Terry Nelson--former Dow Jones High School Journalism Teacher of the year for the entire United States (yes, you all, she knows her stuff about the First Amendment and how to do dance with journalism at the high school level), this morning sent me the following school superintendent's response to the hullabaloo. Terry definitely gets up early on Saturday a.m. when she's wrankled about something!

And who can blame her?

Here, courtesy of Terry's e-mail to me, is what the school superintendent wrote:


EACS Statement Re: Recent Events
>By
>
>Dr. M. Kay Novotny, Superintendent
>
>(April 27, 2007)
>
>
>
>It is a sad day for this nation, and the free society we live in, when
>public school administrators are chastised and ridiculed for taking
>actions that the United States Supreme Court recognized nearly twenty
>years age were permitted under that Court's interpretation of the First
>Amendment of the United States Constitution. It is equally disappointing
>when professional journalists, in their eagerness to sensationalize a
>story, ignore facts inconsistent with the journalists' "theme" for a
>story. East Allen County Schools, and several of its senior
>administrators, have been the victims, over the past three months, of
>just such an experience.
>
>
>
>Through no fault of EACS, or its senior administrators, a routine
>personnel matter has taken on a much larger existence. That routine
>personnel matter has now been concluded with the uncontested written
>reprimand and temporary unpaid suspension of EACS journalism teacher,
>Amy Sorrell, for neglect of duty and insubordination. Yet, during the
>time period this routine personnel matter has been pending, East Allen
>County Schools administrators have been accused of both intolerance and
>"waging a war against the First Amendment." Neither accusation has any
>basis in law or in fact.
>
>
>
>First, as part of the settlement agreement of this personnel matter,
>Mrs. Sorrell has issued a statement which recites: "None of the actions
>I have taken or comments I have made from January 23, 2007 through April
>25, 2007 were intended to suggest that the administrators of Woodlan
>Junior-Senior High School have been motivated by intolerance towards
>homosexuality. To the extent that any other person has interpreted my
>comments or actions as so suggesting, I apologize." East Allen County
>Schools senior administrators have accepted Mrs. Sorrell's apology and
>assume that her statement of apology was sincere and heartfelt and not
>some shallow, insincere statement made, with her fingers crossed behind
>her back, in order to save her job. Although Mrs. Sorrell's apology is
>the first one received, it should not be the last apology East Allen
>County Schools, and its administrators, should receive on this matter.
>
>
>
>Second, as part of the settlement agreement of this personnel matter,
>Mrs. Sorrell has made the belated acknowledgement that "EACS
>administrators have the right and duty to regulate the publication of
>school-sponsored publications, including establishing a uniform
>statement of editorial policy for all school-sponsored publications" and
>"SACS administrators may review all or part of any school-sponsored
>publication prior to its publication in order to satisfy this
>obligation, and that the mere existence of prior review does not imply
>intolerance on the part of the administration." Had Mrs. Sorrell
>displayed this "new-found" wisdom earlier, there would have been no
>personnel matter to precipitate this recent controversy. In contrast to
>the initial position taken by Mrs. Sorrell, the District-approved
>school-sponsored publications policy has been adopted and published in
>the school-sponsored newspapers of the other four EACS high schools.
>
>
>
>EACS officials have heard from a great number of individuals, on this
>matter, during the course of the past few months. Sadly, a significant
>majority of the comments received have been rude and disgusting
>character assassinations that could lead one to conclude that many who
>preach tolerance and observation of First Amendment protections do so
>only to provide themselves a forum and a protection for their own
>foul-mouthed commentary.
>
>
>
>Of greater concern are the comments received, and the editorial opinions
>expressed, that claim to come from First Amendment "scholars" and
>"fans." While there is certainly room for debate as to the meaning and
>application of any amendment to the United States Constitution, there
>should be no basis to accuse a public official of unconstitutional or
>illegal conduct when the public official's conduct is consistent with
>prior judicial interpretations of the constitutional provision in
>question. In this instance, not a single critic of EACS, or its senior
>administrators, called to the public's attention a recent 7th Circuit
>Court of Appeals decision that squarely addressed the parameters of the
>First Amendment rights of public school teachers. In Mayer v. Monroe
>County Community School Corporation, 474 F.3d 477 (7th Cir. 2007), that
>Court reaffirmed an earlier position it had taken in 1990 "that
>public-school teachers must hew to the approach prescribed by principals
>(and others higher up in the chain of authority)" and that public school
>teachers did not have a constitutional right to introduce their own
>views on a subject "but must stick to the prescribed curriculum--not
>only the prescribed subject matter, but also the prescribed perspective
>on that subject matter." As Judge Easterbrook, the Mayer opinion's
>author noted: "A teacher hired to lead a social-studies class can't use
>it as a platform for a revisionist perspective that Benedict Arnold
>wasn't really a traitor, when the approved program calls him one; a high
>school teacher hired to explicate Moby-Dick in a literature class can't
>use Cry, The Beloved Country instead, even if Paton's book better suits
>the instructor's style and point of view; a math teacher can't decide
>that calculus is more important than trigonometry and decide to let
>Hipparchus and Ptolemy slide in favor of Newton and Leibniz." There is
>no exemption from this well-settled rule of law stated in the text, or
>any footnote, of the Mayer opinion for public school journalism
>teachers.
>
>
>
>The journalism class Mrs. Sorrell was assigned to teach at Woodlan
>Junior-Senior High is described in the EACS secondary course catalog as
>"Student Publications (LA1160)." That course is a designated school
>newspaper or yearbook course and meets the State of Indiana requirements
>for such a course. The course, according to the catalog, "offers
>practical training in publishing the school newspaper and yearbook."
>Even the course syllabus authored by Mrs. Sorrell identified the course
>objective to be "to produce a quality newspaper for Woodlan High School
>within the budget of the Tomahawk staff." Once a decision was made,
>regardless of who made it, to discontinue publication of the newspaper
>for whatever reason, there was no academic basis to continue the-class
>under some alternative, self-selected curriculum. Once Mrs. Sorrell was
>removed, the course, with eight of ten students remaining in the class,
>returned to its stated purpose and is once again publishing a
>school-sponsored newspaper.
>
>
>
>EACS has appreciated the public statements from professional journalists
>who have recognized the soundness of the District's position throughout
>this matter. For example, the editorial staff of the Indianapolis Star,
>in its April 22, 2007 "Voices" section, noted that "the [Woodlan]
>principal seems to be on solid legal ground in limiting content." And
>apparently, according to the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, Steve Key,
>counsel for governmental affairs at the Hoosier State Press Association,
>confirmed that, under United States Supreme Court precedent, school
>administrators can serve as "publishers" of school-sponsored student
>publications. Locally, veteran News-Sentinel columnist, Kevin Leininger,
>recognized that EACS had legitimate reasons to be concerned about
>portions of the original student article that appeared to question or
>criticize some people's religious faith.
>
>
>
>Mr. Leininger also noted: "The principal is, in effect, the publisher--
>and has the legal authority and obligation to review content when deemed
>appropriate."
>
>
>
>The most difficult question to answer is why, with the strong evidence
>of multiple episodes of misconduct marshaled against Mrs. Sorrell, is
>she being allowed to teach next year at an EACS secondary school? The
>answer to that question has the potential to have multiple parts. But
>the central core of any answer would be compassion. EACS senior
>administrators have been able to set aside their frustrations with the
>"spin" applied to this situation to give Amy Sorrell a second chance to
>prove, despite her relative youth and obvious inexperience, that she can
>make as great a positive mark on EACS education as the administrators
>whose reputations her comments and actions have helped tarnish. Just
>last year Woodlan Principal, Dr. Ed Yoder, was Indiana's middle school
>principal of the year. And Assistant Superintendent Dr. Andy Melin was
>recently named Superintendent of Peru Community Schools. Both
>individuals have made significant contributions to the education of EACS
>students over many years. Neither deserved to be falsely and wrongfully
>accused of intolerance or "waging a war against the First Amendment."
>
>
>
>In the end, it would appear that EACS and its senior administrators are
>more tolerant and more knowledgeable about the First Amendment than
>their critics.
>