Post Script to my last entry:
I'm very glad to announce that Kevin Francois (the young man named in the article below) has been reinstated to his regular school schedule. This after an overwhelming volume of emails in protest were directed at the school administrators. It pays to stand up.
Monday, May 09, 2005
Friday, May 06, 2005
Zero Tolerance plus One
Zero tolerance seems quite contradictory to the principles of an ostensibly Christian society. As a Jew I know very little about Christianity. But the aesthetic I've come to know is one of togetherness, family, quiet time, listening to one another and mutual respect. But let's say for argument's sake that instead of a body politic uniformly decent and fundamentally good, what we have in today's America is a corrupted social order and a crest-fallen mantle of values and priorities. Something which needs change. A place where the music of the ghetto receives adulation and Columbine-type killing is written off as an increasingly common exponent of a 'child on overload,' Don't be confused for this is also the America where abortion doctors are shot and the nominee to the UN Ambassadorship position is avowedly opposed to the very principle of a UN. Yet we pay taxes to a government buttressed by the notion that the family and church values need to be more fully realized; that faith needs to play a more important role in the lives of our children, in school, in the home, on the TV set. This is a political climate which precipitates calls for the overthrow of so-called activist judges while Christian supported law schools are looking to raise the next generation of crusaders in the culture wars. We are witness to some manufactured, reactionary notion that there must be zero tolerance for guns or illegal drugs in the schools, for underage sex, for homosexuality taught as a viable alternative lifestyle, for flag-burning, for removing references to God in the Pledge of Allegiance. Remember that the term "zero tolerance" has its roots in fighting crime.
Among the widely perceived threats to America is any inkling of tarnished patriotism. The result is an absolute and complete marginalization of any person or group that does not fully support the war in Iraq. 'Support Our Troops:' that fairly ubiquitous yellow-ribbon magnet affixed to so many rear bumpers, is not only a message for unconditionally staking personal and national pride on our mission to eradicate terrorism. It doesn't read "I support Our Troops," or "Please Support Our Troops," but instead "Support Our Troops." The sentiment is quite simply as one commentator put it, a military order; to be carried out. There will be no tolerance for any other stance. You're either fighting the problem or a part of the problem. In other words, if you don't support the war, then by implication you do not support the troops, you do not support the idea that we must fight the terrorists, you do not support the government - that any variance means perhaps you are a terrorist.
Today a student in Columbus Georgia was suspended for 10 days as penalty for speaking to his mom on his cell phone during school hours. That school has a zero-tolerance policy regarding cell phone usage in class. The boy's mom began serving a one year tour of duty in Iraq four months ago. What we have before us is a clash of zero-tolerance policies. The child, likely misses his mother deeply. Could it be construed he felt that because answering a long-distance call from his mother, Sgt. 1st Class Monique Bates with the 203rd Forward Support Battalion, was tantamount not only to following a biblical axiom, but indeed to "Supporting Our Troops," that he probably concluded a lapse in lock-step compliance with the cell phone policy at that moment to be acceptable, given all the circumstances? When confronted by a teacher, he refused to hang up on his mother. He became distraught. He used profanity in his protest against the rule. What would anyone else have done? Picture it: "Sorry mom, I know you might be blown up today, but there's a no cell phone policy in school. Bye."
AM radio is rife with pundits who have no patience with unpatriotic behavior, for insubordination to the ideals of that "America First" and "..Love it or Leave it" zealotry put forth in the post 9/11 era. These same ideologues hail the zero-tolerance policies set before our youth in schools. And now the two courses, adhered to with practically unyielding silliness, and no regard for context or perspective have come home to roost quite poetically in this incident.
The familiar scholastic aroma of books and pencils again fills the air. If only for a moment it would be so wonderful for our national dialogue to cease its pubescent and prurient obsession with Paula Abdul, the runaway bride, Paris Hilton, and other fictional TV-inspired, sugar-fat absurdity to instead converge on the truly profound confluence of extremes meeting, again in front of the blackboard. Ah, the justice. Where our leader learned of the plot to bring America to its knees, is the same setting where a young man extended the love for his patriot mother by cell phone; both images evoking the supreme urgency of duty. Our leader waited seven minutes to respond to his call. Seventeen year old Kevin Francois answered the call - without considering anything other than the finest principle - that of "honor they mother . . ." His mother should be proud. Support Kevin Francois.
Among the widely perceived threats to America is any inkling of tarnished patriotism. The result is an absolute and complete marginalization of any person or group that does not fully support the war in Iraq. 'Support Our Troops:' that fairly ubiquitous yellow-ribbon magnet affixed to so many rear bumpers, is not only a message for unconditionally staking personal and national pride on our mission to eradicate terrorism. It doesn't read "I support Our Troops," or "Please Support Our Troops," but instead "Support Our Troops." The sentiment is quite simply as one commentator put it, a military order; to be carried out. There will be no tolerance for any other stance. You're either fighting the problem or a part of the problem. In other words, if you don't support the war, then by implication you do not support the troops, you do not support the idea that we must fight the terrorists, you do not support the government - that any variance means perhaps you are a terrorist.
Today a student in Columbus Georgia was suspended for 10 days as penalty for speaking to his mom on his cell phone during school hours. That school has a zero-tolerance policy regarding cell phone usage in class. The boy's mom began serving a one year tour of duty in Iraq four months ago. What we have before us is a clash of zero-tolerance policies. The child, likely misses his mother deeply. Could it be construed he felt that because answering a long-distance call from his mother, Sgt. 1st Class Monique Bates with the 203rd Forward Support Battalion, was tantamount not only to following a biblical axiom, but indeed to "Supporting Our Troops," that he probably concluded a lapse in lock-step compliance with the cell phone policy at that moment to be acceptable, given all the circumstances? When confronted by a teacher, he refused to hang up on his mother. He became distraught. He used profanity in his protest against the rule. What would anyone else have done? Picture it: "Sorry mom, I know you might be blown up today, but there's a no cell phone policy in school. Bye."
AM radio is rife with pundits who have no patience with unpatriotic behavior, for insubordination to the ideals of that "America First" and "..Love it or Leave it" zealotry put forth in the post 9/11 era. These same ideologues hail the zero-tolerance policies set before our youth in schools. And now the two courses, adhered to with practically unyielding silliness, and no regard for context or perspective have come home to roost quite poetically in this incident.
The familiar scholastic aroma of books and pencils again fills the air. If only for a moment it would be so wonderful for our national dialogue to cease its pubescent and prurient obsession with Paula Abdul, the runaway bride, Paris Hilton, and other fictional TV-inspired, sugar-fat absurdity to instead converge on the truly profound confluence of extremes meeting, again in front of the blackboard. Ah, the justice. Where our leader learned of the plot to bring America to its knees, is the same setting where a young man extended the love for his patriot mother by cell phone; both images evoking the supreme urgency of duty. Our leader waited seven minutes to respond to his call. Seventeen year old Kevin Francois answered the call - without considering anything other than the finest principle - that of "honor they mother . . ." His mother should be proud. Support Kevin Francois.
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