God sucks!

[followsthewolf]

Kimmi -- thumbs up.

Do what you gotta do, girl.

[Palehorse]

If "God" in the public classroom drives this much conflict, what do you suppose it will drive in government?

[Henry Hawk]

If "God" in the public classroom drives this much conflict, what do you suppose it will drive in government?

give me an example of what you mean, God in government.

[Palehorse]

give me an example of what you mean, God in government.

Just look at the divisions it drives surrounding the posting of the 10 commandments and the utilization of the phrase "In God We Trust" on our currency!

[Locutus]

Given this ruling, the WCPSS should be thinking twice about pursuing action against this teacher.



(Feb. 16) -- Katherine Evans wanted everyone to know: Ms. Phelps was the worst English teacher she'd ever had.

So Evans, a Florida high school senior and honors student, posted a Facebook page to publicly criticize the teacher. Two months later, though, Evans was suspended for cyberbullying the teacher with her very precisely named group, "Ms. Sarah Phelps is the worst teacher I've ever had," on the social-networking site.

On Monday, a federal judge ruled that Evans, now a 19-year-old sophomore at the University of Florida, can sue her former principal, Peter Bayer, for suspending her, saying that her Facebook page is protected by free speech. Evans is asking that the three-day suspension in 2007 be cleared from her academic record.

Though Evans' case is far from over, it's clear that the First Amendment seems to have won precedence over the fight against cyberbullying. And many say the case is likely to shape the legal debates over free speech on the Web.

Maria Kayanan of the Florida branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, one of Evans' lawyers, called the ruling a victory for free speech on the Internet. "It upholds the principle that the right to freedom of speech and expression in America does not depend on the technology used to convey opinions and ideas," she told The New York Times.

In his opinion, Judge Barry Garber said the Facebook page is protected under the First Amendment because it wasn't violent. "It was an opinion of a student about a teacher that was published off-campus, did not cause any disruption on-campus, and was not lewd, vulgar, threatening or advocating illegal or dangerous behavior," he wrote.

On Twitter, the reaction to the judge's ruling was unsurprisingly supportive of Evans. "These academic thugs really believe [they] own the world," one man wrote Monday, in a clear reference to school officials.

The debate over cyberbullying is an intense one. Across the country, threatening speech made by students online has sometimes ended in violence. In Massachusetts, for example, school officials are blaming cyberbullying for the death of 17-year-old Phoebe Prince. The high school student, who had recently moved from Ireland, committed suicide last month after being branded an "Irish slut" on Facebook.

More recently, in Newburyport, Mass., last week, three 14-year-olds were charged with identity theft for allegedly creating a fake Facebook page to bully a classmate they thought was an outcast and too smart, police said.

The most notorious case of cyberbullying happened in 2006, when Lori Drew, a Missouri woman, posed as a teenage boy named "Josh" and befriended 13-year-old Megan Meier on MySpace. After about a month, Drew ended the friendship and sent Meier malicious messages. "You are a bad person and everybody hates you," she wrote. "The world would be a better place without you."

Meier, who was already suffering from depression, hanged herself. When prosecutors charged Drew with violating MySpace's terms of service, bloggers became concerned that free speech on the Internet would be limited. But Drew's conviction on misdemeanor counts of accessing a computer without authorization was overturned last year.

Across the Web, bloggers agreed with Garber when he said Evans' Facebook page was offensive, not dangerous.

At the Business Insider, Erin Geiger Smith said it was "difficult to see how, aside from technology, it's any different than a student who writes a note at home (which is where Evans created the site) whining about a disagreement with their teacher." Smith says it's a clear case of the First Amendment at work. "If she had done it at school and it was disruptive, that would be different," Smith wrote. "But if it's an outside-of-school activity that remains opinion-based (i.e., isn't slanderous), then this is just a byproduct of technology and the First Amendment."

The New York Times reports that the case could go to trial this spring.

http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/judge-students-facebook-page-is-protected-by-free-speech/19359849

[Locutus]

Also, I ran across some printouts online of the teacher's Facebook pages.   Obviously, someone took the time to print them out and hand them over to the press.  I read through the comments and I didn't see anything that rose to a level that would require disciplinary action against the teacher.  I've attached a PDF file of the Facebook printouts to this post.  For those unfamiliar with Facebook, you must read from the bottom up to see the posts in chronological order.

[Henry Hawk]

Just look at the divisions it drives surrounding the posting of the 10 commandments and the utilization of the phrase "In God We Trust" on our currency!

I don't think it  has caused any REAL emotional trauma by it being there.....the majority of folks are okay with it.  It IS part of the American Heritage......and blah, blah, blah...........


I don't even care to argue it anymore......I will ALWAYS believe it is important to NEVER forget, the role that God played in building this nation...according to our forefathers.

God does NOT suck...

[Henry Hawk]

Kimmi, merely posted "her two cents"....and I concur with her.

[Locutus]

I would encourage everyone, including you HH, to download the read the comments straight from the page.  This is a witch hunt by the fundies against this teacher.  Pure, flat out, and simple.   There was nothing there that even remotely rose to the level of requiring disciplinary action.  The PDF is attached to my previous post.

[followsthewolf]

Don't worry.

The parents will tie her into a chair that is suspended over a pool of water.

Then they'll drop her into it.

If she is pure, GAWD will keep her from drowning.

If she drowns, then she was impure and deserved to die.

I mean, what she did is certainly deserving of the ultimate test, right?

Brought to you courtesy of the residents of the Massachusetts Colony.

[Locutus]

[kimmi]

   Thanks FTW for the afternoon funny!

Well at this point I wouldn't put her suspension possibilities on hold.  Our new board is tearing through this school system and trampling everything in its path.  They make hasty decisions which in turn led to our Superintendent to resign last night stating that "based upon personal and obligatory considerations, it is clear to me that I cannot, in all good conscience, continue to serve as Superintendent."  This ship is going to sink faster than the Titanic! 

[followsthewolf]

Paraphrasing Mark Twain:

Ninety-seven percent of the people in this country have some intelligence. The remaining three percent are members of a school board.

[dan foster]

I don't think it  has caused any REAL emotional trauma by it being there.....the majority of folks are okay with it.  It IS part of the American Heritage......and blah, blah, blah...........


I don't even care to argue it anymore......I will ALWAYS believe it is important to NEVER forget, the role that God played in building this nation...according to our forefathers.

God does NOT suck...

Because you are full of shit.  AND, because you are totally ignorant of our Constitutional Republic and probably a traitor to it in your mob-rule mentality.  God didn't do a godamned thing in building this nation; freethinkers did, our forefathers. 

The majority assholes were all about slavery and jim crow, but fortunately, law prevailed over those fucking mobs.  You really are one of those son's a bitches.

[The Troll]

   If god exist, he sure is doing a bad job.  Any farmer in the world takes better care of his live stock than god is taking care of his flock.

  I have never seen a prayer answered,   But I have seen a lot of people plead, bow, cry and ask him for something and their prayers do not work.  I have seen people I thought really deserved it. 

I do not believe in miracles.  Never seen any parts of the body that were lost renewed.  Should be an easy job for God to replace an eye, lost arm, leg for a fact no one has seen it done, since he was to have  walked on the earth since 1,975 year ago  I have not seen any person survive a terminal disease except with good medical care and medicine.   I work out in a rehab center and I see these poor children who are brain damaged, crippled and with twisted limbs and I would ask the question, if I believed is, WHY!

  Why would God put the snake in the garden of Eden with a couple who knew nothing.  Then cast them out of the garden of Eden with a sin upon them and all of their children and all of their children and and all of their children through all time.  Then he had himself killed to pay for for all of those sinners, who would not have been sinners if he had not made them sin.  Don't make sense

  What I would like for the believers to do is, go to YouTube and type in George Carlin and his feeling of religion and god.  He has the best answers to what is god is better than any way  I can explain it.  The Troll.