http://www.salemnews.com/punews/local_story_313233045.html?keyword=secondarystory. Go take a look. The unapproved use of the word "meep" may well result in your suspension. While I understand that such a thing could escalate beyond an administration's ability to control it, the promised punishment seems extreme, imo. Back in the day, the random use of "meep" would have been something we did in the halls of my own high school. It would be a branding of who was in the know and who wasn't. And had the administration forbidden it, we would have continued to "meep" anyway, risking suspension. Well, the art room crowd would have. The college-bound might have hesitated, those folks worried about getting into the right school. My Chorale director probably would have included the following in one of our concerts, as a pre-meditated, fully authorized, thumb your nose, use of "meep."
Frog Out
The following youtube video needs some introduction...or none, depending on your perspective. Recently Walter Jon Williams blogged this article: Frog Out
Comments
Oz
Maybe our district is just a good one--well, actually, it pretty much is--but that's part of my reaction. Why I wonder if there isn't already a history there--if the kids who were promoting or participating the meep-fest already have a rap sheet, so to speak, that maybe has worse stuff on it and this was one step beyond the administration's patience.
I do believe incompetent school administrators exist, mind you--it's just that so often there's been something else behind a news story, everyone is shocked about how horrible someone is and then you hear the full thing. My personal platonic ideal for this is the McDonalds coffee suit, the entire story of which makes the whole incident take on a very different cast. But we never got those full details in the newspaper, you had to dig to find them. So I'm generally suspicious about automatic outrage stories like that.
The principal's reaction does sound, as you say, as if this was the last straw. OTOH, one never knows in Mass exactly what the full story is. Is it a witch hunt? Or is it an attempt to squelch something more sinister? Does 'meeping' really mask something darker? I'm not on Facebook, so I can't go look to see what the 'meep' community seems to be about.
Oz
But Beaker is my alter-ego. :-) Plus I'm in my second week of a holiday work shut-down, so I have a little more time to keep up with the flist.
Shirley