Crime and Punishment Part 1

"If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." - George Orwell

Today, a junior girl started her five-day in-school suspension for a crime that she did not commit. The crime: chalkboard vandalism. On Thursday, March 15, this girl, or should I say woman (since that is what we here at the Splooge believe our fantastic students to be), supposedly walked into a teacher’s classroom, whose name will remain anonymous, and wrote “bad things” about the principals. Now, I will not hesitate to say that I have written many “bad things” on many chalkboards, most famously changing a teacher’s name to read “Mr. Cock.” So, why was her crime so terrible? Did it have to do with the person that the writing was about? Did they really need to find a scapegoat to blame so that they could all feel like men and assert their authority on a five-foot tall, sixteen year old woman? All four principals and Mrs. Baker confronted this woman last week during four ELOs, simply because she would not sign a paper that said she committed the crime. She finally signed the paper last Friday “because [she] was tired of getting called into the office.” Don’t the principals have backpacks and ID cards to worry about? And shouldn’t Mrs. Baker be trying to catch those damn kids parking up top?

This fine young lady is in the top 10% of her class and is the nicest person I have ever met in my life. I have seen her write papers and do people’s homework simply because they asked her too. She is the kindest person I have ever met, and to ever think that she would write something about anybody on a chalkboard is simply the most absurd idea I have ever heard of in my entire life. When she first told me of her accusation, I laughed. I laughed because I pictured her writing obscenities about Mr. Elliot on a chalkboard, and that is pretty much a hilarious picture. Anyone that knows this woman will tell you that she would never, ever, ever, ever, ever do anything remotely close to “chalkboard vandalism.” Now, the funniest part of this whole ordeal is that the girl was not at the school. She was receiving a ride home from her friend, but to quote again, “they would not listen to [me], and it made me mad, so I guess I started acting a little disrespectful.” Started acting a little disrespectful? This reminds me of a quote from a very famous book: “Forgive them, they know not what they do” Damn straight, they have no clue what they are doing in anything.

We applaud this fantastic young woman for her simply beautiful character, and we hope that one day the administration will be able to accept criticism without throwing hissy-fits and suspending an innocent person for five days.

-Mike Ocksbig