The horror of suicide

[Addym Kehris]

In the majority of schools in England, we have extremely strict rules on bullying. It is even part of law, schools are required to prevent it. When I was at secondary school, a pupil was expelled for homophobic bullying against an overly camp member of my year.

At least in my old school, tutors are required to look out for pupils. I they suspected any risk of suicide or harm to the pupil, they are obligated by law to reported.

From what I have read in AD stories, and what I have gathered from the news, it seems parts of america are extremely strict and conservative, promoting the bad side of Christianity. Banning 'indecent' books and withholding education. Allowing students to be driven to suicide. I imagine the school is happy, another 'sinner' gone from the world. Don't dispense your seeds on the ground and all that.

I imagine is quite a biased view, and it isn't the case in more culturally advanced states such as California. Then again, I can't predict the ethics of a country that murders its citizens

I imagine if we were to have the time and energy to investigate, we'd find that there are similar laws and procedures as you described, in place. It is my view, however, that the 'bad side of Christianity' is overtaking our politics, our judicial system, and even our schools, in this country.

Now please don't get in an uproar because of that statement. It's the truth and you all know it. I'm not saying there aren't good Christians out there trying their best, but they too are being overpowered by the bad elements in their faith.

My point is that with the right arguments, by twisting the evidence a certain way, and interjecting just the sliver of doubt into the proceedings, criminals get off. And I'm including bullies in that category. So these criminal children learn early on that in this country you have only to word your arguments cleverly to get out of any consequences. What a fine lesson. It certainly justifies gwilym's final statement.

[Graeme]

I would like to hear from those of us who have kids in their household comment on this topic. It is my opinion/observation that teens today live in a universe of their own making, and neither parents, teachers, nor other adults have a clue as to what really goes on there.

I haven't commented because I didn't want to. I have a teenage son who has been bullied several times during his school years. In one case, it had been occuring for months, but we didn't learnt about it until near the end of the school year. To be honest, our son didn't realise he was being bullied, either, because it was what is sometimes called social or covert bullying. He was being actively excluded from the social groups at school, and then picked on just enough to upset him, but not quite enough to warrant a strong response from the school. We only found out what was going on when he finally snapped and attacked another (largely innocent) kid at school. That's when we got the full history and realised the extent of the bullying.

I feel for the family of this boy. I can't imagine (and I hope I never learn) what it must be like to lose a child so unexpectedly. I also feel for the boys (presumably, though some girls may have been involved, too) who were involved in the bullying. At that age, I expect the suicide would've shaken a lot of them and it may take them time to recover. I won't excuse their behaviour, but I'm not going to ask for punishment with the limited information available. I suspect most of them are still coming to terms with what has occured.

[Cole Parker]

Gwilym and Addym, both of you are generalizing and coming up with over-the-top conclusions. Yes, right now the right-wing Christian organizations in this country are getting a lot of press. This makes them seem much bigger than they are. The fact is, religion as a whole is losing ground in the US. Church attendance has been on the wane for several years. Fewer people now identify themselves as religious, or as Christian. The right wing religious factions here have had an effect on that; more and more people don't want to be identified with what they espouse.

Yes, we do have the death penalty while most other countries have abandoned it. It can be argued well on both sides whether the death penalty should be abolished. The argument that innocent people get put to death is a very powerful one against continuing this practice. The argument that some crimes are so hideous and offensive to a civilized society that this punishment is deserved can also be made.

The thing is, you can't call out an entire country because of a small number of religious zealots and what they stand for. Gwilym, most of the things you cite as wrong with America are controlled at the state level, not nationally. You might be better off criticizing some of the Southern states for their views on religion and politics, or some Midwestern states for banning some books in the classrooms. But neither of those are nationwide problems. And Addym, I hope you don't want to change the justice system so a defendant doesn't have a right to present his case the best he can. I think, overall, it's a pretty decent system. Generally.

[Bruin Fisher]

It's quite hard, at a distance, to get a rounded balanced picture of another culture. What makes the international news is usually the most extreme events, and it's easy to get the impression that life in country X consists entirely of such events. Think, for instance, of the view held in much of the Western world of Islamic countries - and yet millions of people have liberty to live as they wish to do in at least some of those countries so it probably isn't as bad there as it's painted. In the UK and Europe we think we know a lot about the USA but we actually hear very little about ordinary suburban life in middle America. Instead we hear about the excesses of right wing fundamentalist christians, or about gun crime, or about bankrupt big cities, or about extreme poverty in the absence of proper welfare provision, and extreme wealth for others. I assume that it must be the same for Americans who want to know about life in Britain or Europe, judging from the comical assumptions I sometimes come across about us all going to work in bowler hats and carrying furled umbrellas.

My own antidote when tempted to believe the USA is rabidly right wing and unsafe to step outside without a bullet-proof vest, is to remind myself that lots of decent people that I know and love (such as the denizens of this fine community) live there and seem to do fine.

[Cole Parker]

Don't you need the furled, or unfurled, bumbershoots because is rains every day of the year there?

C

[DesDownunder]

...The argument that some crimes are so hideous and offensive to a civilized society that this punishment is deserved can also be made.

On the other hand, it can also be argued that a society which excuses the death penalty as being justified for hideous crimes, has given up the right to be regarded as civilised.

It is the justification of the death penalty which attracts the most criticism. Before we (Australians) stopped capital punishment, the research and resulting discussions revealed that the penalty had no deterrent value. That it was murder in the name of the state, and that the only justification was vengeance. But vengeance is not an acceptable reason for a civilised society claiming to be guided by Christian values. It certainly is not acceptable for a secular state which adheres to rational thinking. There is nothing rational about capital punishment.

The death penalty is an emotional response to the breaking of laws that themselves may be irrational, such as homosexual acts, or the breaking of other, often antiquated, ridiculous religious laws and customs.

Wherever the death penalty exists, we can usually find it as being justified on religious grounds for the most absurd reasons; where the innocent of any real transgression against humanity are put to death.

[Addym Kehris]

Well, lookee there, I managed to stick my foot in it once again. In my defense, it’s because I did not make the connection with capital punishment that the rest of you saw. That’s my bad, because after further review (I do a very good Fagan from the musical Oliver, if any of you would like to hear it), I agree that’s what was meant. So let’s clear up that little tidbit. I am not a proponent of the death penalty, but neither am I against it. Isn’t that enlightening. There are arguments for both agendas and I don’t feel it necessary to commit myself to one or the other. There are more than enough people with solid arguments fighting both sides of the question. If you feel that’s a cop-out, then fine, it’s a cop-out. I can live with myself each morning when I rise.

I am not, however, the least bit shy about my views on the bullying issue. Bullies are a blight, and they need to be treated as such. They are a cancer that requires formidable measures to eradicate their influence from our societies. And before you get all up in arms about my statement, hear the reason why I am convinced this is true.

I LIVED that poor boy’s pain. I LIVED that boy’s wish to be no more. And it all started when the subject of Big Band music came up in music class and I mentioned that I really loved that music. This was the 69’-70’ school year, and I was 14. The jibes began immediately and the few who started it managed to encourage others to take up the banner. It soon moved on to the fact that I didn’t walk in a manly enough manner. That, in their minds, meant I was a faggot and queer. I was extremely naïve about all things sexual at that age, much more so than any of my classmates. I didn’t understand a quarter of the things they talked about on the subject. I lasted out the process for six whole months before I finally snapped. I hadn’t had a real friend in three months, and there was no one that I felt I could talk to about it. Teachers weren’t any help, since they turned a blind eye and ear to the slurs that were spoken about me in their presence.

Oh I can go on and on about the abuses, but I won’t. Suffice it to say, I finally decided that it’d be best for all concerned if I simply took myself out of the equation. Unbeknownst to me, my parents had noticed my depression, but didn’t know how to respond to it. But they did begin keeping a closer eye on me at home. They found me shortly after I’d consumed that bottle of sleeping pills. I vaguely remember being yanked from my bed and carried out of my room, but nothing else until I woke two days later in the hospital.

Would you like to hear a detailed description of what it feels like after you’ve had your stomach pumped, all because some bully decided you were an ideal target? Would you like to know how long my chest hurt because they had to do CPR on me the minute I entered the emergency room, all because my peers needed to feel superior to someone, so they chose me? Would you like to hear how long I hated my parents for saving my life that night? (Okay, admittedly, it wasn’t that long. About a week. But a bully drove me to the brink of rejecting my parents’ love for me.)

So yeah, I have a serious issue with people who have not lived through the ordeal of that abuse, sitting in their ivory towers, metaphorically speaking, and telling us that these are just misguided youth. It’s all teenage angst. They’ll outgrow it. We just need to talk to them and make them understand that what they’re doing is wrong. They know damn well it’s wrong, and they need to be taught that doing wrong things comes with consequences that include more than talking, talking, talking.

In closing, I’ll return to the original question of my misunderstanding of the simple phrase, ‘a nation that kills its citizens’. When I read that, my mind saw a nation that is murdering its most precious resource, its youth, by allowing bullying to go unchecked and unpunished.

[Graeme]

As I said, I'm the parent of a child that's been bullied. I was never buillied myself (though I was an outsider), but I've seen how isolated my son became. The saving grace for him is that he had a limited amount of social interaction outside of his year group at school, and that kept him going. I don't believe he ever got to the stage of contemplating suicide.

[Cole Parker]

That was very powerful, Addym. I too hate bullies. Many of my stories show how I feel about them and the damage they do to the kids that are targets. Luckily, finally our schools are moving away from the position most of htem had when I was a teenager: it's just part of growing up and they have to learn to deal with it. Period. The fact that many kids can't defend themselves and can't deal with it seemed to escape those morons.

I like that bullies today get expelled. I don't like zero tolerance rules that don't allow for a kid fighting back, or fighting to protect someone else, but I do like bullies getting expelled. I just want it done intelligently.

C

[Nigel Gordon]

So yeah, I have a serious issue with people who have not lived through the ordeal of that abuse, sitting in their ivory towers, metaphorically speaking, and telling us that these are just misguided youth. It’s all teenage angst. They’ll outgrow it. We just need to talk to them and make them understand that what they’re doing is wrong. They know damn well it’s wrong, and they need to be taught that doing wrong things comes with consequences that include more than talking, talking, talking.

As one of those 'sitting in their ivory towers' I also experienced bullying which resulted in me attempting suicide at the age of 14, which resulted in eights weeks hospitalization, as a result of bullying and that was back in the early 1960s when you were told to toughen up and take it like a man. You don't stop bullying by applying tough hard sentences on them, all you do is show them that might is right, which just reinforces the underlying tendency to exercise their might over other. You only need to walk into any prison to see the pecking order of bullies and when they come out of prison the prison bully become even bigger bullies.

The only way you can stop bullying in all its forms is to change the way how people think. To do that you need to challenge their thinking patterns and that you cannot do by using force, you have to use one to one engagement. Anyone who has been through a process of behavioral realignment using techniques such as CBT will know that it is not an easy option. You will get emotionally and psychologically torn apart and then you will have to rebuild yourself.

The leader of the gang that bullied me ended up being sent to Borstal, for a particularly nasty beating up of a fifteen year old. That was the start of a number of stays at Her Majesty's Pleasure, which eventually resulted in a life sentence for manslaughter. I hear from a friend, who spends a lot of time in prison (I based the character on A Strange Warmth on him), that he is now one of the biggest bullies in prison, making the life of vulnerable or weaker prisoners hell.

Vengeance in the form of tough prison sentences does not tackle the problem. What is needed is the means to change the way people think. Prison does not and never will do that, it just reinforces anti-social behavior. You don't do that by just tackling the bullies, you have to tackle the whole of society. One of the first things you need to do is change the 'guilt' Anglo-American society has over issues of sex and sexuality.

[The Pecman]

Wow, Nigel, let me say I'm glad you made it to the other side and are still here with us. That's a helluva story. You really should turn that into a novel, if you haven't already; some of the most gripping fiction comes out of real life, and I think your situation is more than dramatic enough to serve as the basis of a good novel or short story.

I also have great compassion for Addym, since I was just about the exact same age and also went through some bullying during those same years of the late 1960s and early '70s. In my case, I eventually hooked up with a gang of total misfits, and we pretty much protected each other -- strength in numbers, you know -- and like the Beach Boys song goes, "the bad guys know us and they leave us alone."

I think this is a complex story for which we don't know all the facts. I read a couple of different accounts:

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-bathroom-video-bullying-suicide-20140714-story.html

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/jul/14/teen-suicide-prompts-claim-video-school/

This story was by far the most complete:

http://jezebel.com/bullied-teen-commits-suicide-after-masturbation-video-g-1605760110

While I'm still not in agreement that the school should pay the family money for not realizing the kid was being bullied, the additional details that the video went viral and that even other schools were watching it is extremely disturbing. The level of cyberbullying available today is beyond belief.

I had never even heard of cyberbullying until I was doing research on my novel Jagged Angel in 2003, and almost as an afterthought, I had one kid use a hidden camera to videotape our lead character, then post the photos to a private website, which he then used as blackmail. Never in my life did I consider that people would start to do this all the time.

My partner (the guy with the law degree) points out: if a guy puts a tiny camera on his shoe and uses it to shoot videos of women's underwear up their skits while at shopping malls, can the women sue the mall? Who's ultimately responsible here? Me, I say sue the guy with the camera.

I'm hoping against hope that the state of California will enact cyberbullying charges against the camera kid, and put him away for at least six months. This is a hideous, vile, disgusting act for which he should be punished. And I hope the kid makes a sincere apology and understands the horrific nature of what he did. The problem that I see for many kids is that they can't see far enough into the future to grasp the terrible repercussions for pranks they pull. I went through this in the 1960s and 1970s, and there are things I did back then where I now say, "good god! What the hell was I thinking?"

But posting a video of a naked kid to the net... that goes way, way over the line. I hope the parents get good attorneys and go after him, big-time. Note that the charges against the school have already been thrown out of court, so I'm curious to see if they can find a way to make that stick. I'm skeptical they can, but they'd have a better case if the kid who committed suicide had tried to get help first. Once that's on the books, the school can't deny the bullying was taking place.

[Addym Kehris]

Vengeance in the form of tough prison sentences does not tackle the problem. What is needed is the means to change the way people think. Prison does not and never will do that, it just reinforces anti-social behavior. You don't do that by just tackling the bullies, you have to tackle the whole of society. One of the first things you need to do is change the 'guilt' Anglo-American society has over issues of sex and sexuality.

And to this I can not argue. How about an entire school year spent in an environment of tough love or boot camp, where behaviors are strictly monitored. Let us please avoid the floggings and other forms of corporal punishment that some envision when they think of that type of environment. There ARE other, less violent means of reinforcing correct behavior.

I will wholeheartedly support your final sentence, Nigel, but gods help me, I haven't a clue how to make that happen. Alas, that I do not have all the answers, only the convictions that something needs to happen soon so that we stop losing innocent lives.

[Nigel Gordon]

I will wholeheartedly support your final sentence, Nigel, but gods help me, I haven't a clue how to make that happen. Alas, that I do not have all the answers, only the convictions that something needs to happen soon so that we stop losing innocent lives.

I must admit that I have no idea how to bring about the required change but I do know that we must keep on trying. What each of us can do might be very very small but remember a million small chips can wear down a mountain.

Personally I think the first step would be to dump the commitment to the culture of the Abrahamic faiths that pervades much of society, though I am aware some followers of those faiths would argue that opposite.

[Cole Parker]

Obviously, if the school administrators and teachers didn't know the boy was being bullied, then they did nothing wrong. The article I read said they did know and did nothing. If that is true, then they share responsibility for this.

I know newspapers almost never get all the facts in any case correct. Read any story that you yourself know the true facts about and it's always amusing, or scary, to see how it's reported.

I don't see how we can set out to change human nature. The strong like to prey on the week. How many millenniums has that been going on? How long have teenagers done things without a true perspective on the harm they may cause? Just as long, I'm afraid. Part of the problem here was that the boy and his parents weren't on the same page. If they were, and he'd spoken up about what was happening to him, this tragedy would have been avoided.

The fact is, most Americans are not open about sex. This boy died because he was ashamed that he masturbated. But almost all of us feel that way, certainly in our teen years. It's our culture. Europeans, for the most part, don't think like we do. I wish we could change that part of our culture. If an entire continent can understand that sex is a vital and normal part of life, why are we so stuck in the Victorian Age about it? Why can't we get past that?

[Nigel Gordon]

The fact is, most Americans are not open about sex. This boy died because he was ashamed that he masturbated. But almost all of us feel that way, certainly in our teen years. It's our culture. Europeans, for the most part, don't think like we do. I wish we could change that part of our culture. If an entire continent can understand that sex is a vital and normal part of life, why are we so stuck in the Victorian Age about it? Why can't we get past that?

Unfortunately Cole it is only the Western Continental Europeans who tend to have an open attitude to sex. The offshore Europeans (Scots, English, Welsh, Irish ) and the Eastern Europeans tend to have a rather closed attitude. Historically that is where most of the 19th and 20th century immigration to the United States originated from, so you ended up getting their sexual baggage with them.

One thing you have to remember is a large proportion of that immigrant population were from religious groups who found the attitude in their home country far too liberal.

[Cole Parker]

Yes, a crime is a crime. An adult perpetrator, however, is far different from an adolescent one. The former understands consequences and punishments. The latter doesn't to anywhere near the same extent.

C

[Cole Parker]

Unfortunately Cole it is only the Western Continental Europeans who tend to have an open attitude to sex. The offshore Europeans (Scots, English, Welsh, Irish ) and the Eastern Europeans tend to have a rather closed attitude. Historically that is where most of the 19th and 20th century immigration to the United States originated from, so you ended up getting their sexual baggage with them.

One thing you have to remember is a large proportion of that immigrant population were from religious groups who found the attitude in their home country far too liberal.

And here all this time I've been laying in on Queen Victoria. What you say makes sense.

We learn to be ashamed or guilty about our bodies and sexual feelings almost from the crib. Our parents, for the most part, hide their nudity from us and pretend there is no sex in their pairing; they scold us for baring ourselves if anyone can see and tell us never to do so with other children and never to let anyone touch us, or to touch anyone else ourselves. What else are we supposed to think than there's something wrong with our bodies and our feelings?

[Nigel Gordon]

And here all this time I've been laying in on Queen Victoria. What you say makes sense.

We learn to be ashamed or guilty about our bodies and sexual feelings almost from the crib. Our parents, for the most part, hide their nudity from us and pretend there is no sex in their pairing; they scold us for baring ourselves if anyone can see and tell us never to do so with other children and never to let anyone touch us, or to touch anyone else ourselves. What else are we supposed to think than there's something wrong with our bodies and our feelings?

Parental attitudes have a lot to do with it, unfortunately we tend to get our hang ups from our parents. Back in the late 1990s I was working in Denmark. The first week I was there I tended to walk everywhere to find my way around and walking up to the shops early one hot Saturday morning I was surprised to see a boy, about seven or eight, lying on the windowsill of a basement apartment, so virtually at pavement level, naked. I could hear his mother shouting at him from inside and thought, with my Anglo/American sensibility, that she was telling him to put some clothes on. It was only when a hand appeared in the window with a large bottle of sunscreen that I realized she was not the least worried about the kid's nudity but the fact that he had not put on sun protection.

Incidentally he was still there a good hour later when I walked back with my shopping, by that time a lot of people were around and nobody took the least notice. Over the next few months, which was quite a hot summer, I got quite used to seeing children running around outside in the nude, usually where there were fountains or pools but not always.

The point was the parents had no hang up about nudity and neither did the kids, nor will their children.

[Hoskins]

I have two thoughts about this, aside from the really horrible way this whole situation developed for the boy, the family, and the schools.

First, it may be a public BUILDING with no expectation of privacy in its public SPACES, but the expectation of privacy In a RESTROOM should be sacrosanct no matter if the restroom is on public or private property. I mean, come on.

Second, I'm an old crank who wants nothing but a lawn kept clear. I work with different companies in a consulting role. In several of them, it's a given that you can't enter the building with a device that can take a picture or a video without clear authorization and rules about where those devices can be used. You leave it at the desk when you enter, you pick it up when you leave. I think this should be a solid rule at schools.

[The Pecman]

Second, I'm an old crank who wants nothing but a lawn kept clear. I work with different companies in a consulting role. In several of them, it's a given that you can't enter the building with a device that can take a picture or a video without clear authorization and rules about where those devices can be used. You leave it at the desk when you enter, you pick it up when you leave. I think this should be a solid rule at schools.

I'm 100% for that, but the issue is, schools can't (in general) take away cell phones from students, and many, many cell phones these days have some kind of primitive video cameras in them. The local schools in my part of LA forbid students from using phones in class, but do permit them on breaks, at lunch, and in hallways.

My local gym has big signs in the locker room forbidding the use of cell phones -- for obvious reasons -- but you still see idiots jabbering away, having idiotic conversations and bothering people. Me, I'd never do it. There's nothing going on with me where I can't take a 60- or 90-minute break and just call the person back when I'm inside my car. And I wouldn't even think of using the cell phone camera anywhere inside the gym, because -- to me -- it's an invasion of privacy. I don't have the right to take pictures of other people in a place like this, clothed or unclothed.

I'm reminded of the new technical controversy on Google Glass, the wearable camera/monitor/computer that lets you record everything you see, and also lets you instantly look things up on the net (assuming you have a wireless connection). The problem is, if you wear these into -- say -- a bar, you're going to encounter people who don't want to be recorded. What if they're playing hooky from work? What if a guy is sitting with somebody who is not their spouse? What if it's an ex-alcoholic who shouldn't be in a bar? There are reports from San Francisco that several "Glassholes" (as they're called) have been beaten up and thrown out of bars, because the customers do not like being recorded. I agree with them, and I could see laws in place that say, "no recording devices are permitted in this establishment," period.

But how could you enforce this in a school? Gather up all the cellphones in first period, then give them back to the kids at the end of the day? What if they have an emergency? Taking their phones away infringes on their freedoms, too.

The problem is that we're expecting kids to act reasonably and sensibly, and they're often too stupid for that. Hell, there's more than enough adults who use cell phones and other cameras irresponsibly. I have a close friend who I've known for 30 years, and I've always chided him for bringing along a video camera to parties and other casual get-togethers because it's just so damned intrusive. My take is, "just shut up and enjoy the experience." I don't mind a couple of still pictures at the end of the gathering, but taking video crosses a line for me where I think it's rude.

In the case of using a camera in a restroom, the person should clearly be beaten and shot. (Metaphorically speaking.) I think we had many levels of bad behavior: the kid made a bad choice jerking off in a restroom; the camera kid made a bad choice shooting the video; whoever posted the video made a horrible choice in ruining the life of the first kid; the first kid made a bad choice not telling his parents and the school authorities what had happened (and I understand why); and it's possible the school authorities made a very bad choice not realizing the seriousness of the situation.

It's doubly sad when you consider this was clearly a bright kid who was almost an Eagle scout, on the water polo team, and on the wrestling team. I totally get why he would want to end it all. Somebody in this position clearly has no options. I wish to god he could've called somebody so they could figure something out -- move to Alaska and go to boarding school or something -- but we'll never know whether that might have helped. I'm also absolutely appalled that none of the kid's friends or teammates stepped up to try to help him. That to me might be the single worst aspect of the story -- that these kids knew their friend was in agony, and did nothing to help him.

[Hoskins]

"But how could you enforce this in a school? Gather up all the cellphones in first period, then give them back to the kids at the end of the day? What if they have an emergency? Taking their phones away infringes on their freedoms, too."

Having a cell phone is not a right. If a kid has an emergency, i.e. The parents need to contact them, they can call the school. If the kid needs to talk to a parent, they can do that through the office. That's what it's there for. I strongly believe that kids don't need or have the right to have a cell phone with them during school hours. As is shown in this situation: a cell phone was used as a weapon against a fellow student. If schools can ban guns and knives and prescription drugs and god knows what else, they can ban phones. And they should.

[Cole Parker]

Hoskins makes sense to me. The school is a closed environment. The school assumes responsibility for the well-being of the kids there. The kids don't need immediate contact with the outside world. They're there to learn, not be involved with stuff outside.

It makes perfect sense to me for homeroom teachers to collect the phones at the beginning of the day and return them at the end. It wouldn't be more than 35 phones, and could be accomplished in less than three minutes.

We had emergencies before we had cell phones. They were handled as Hoskins pointed out.

And of course, if there was an exceptional reason for a kid having one one day, an exception could be made.

C

[colinian]

So, I'm in homeroom and Mrs. Threadbare is collecting cell phones. She gets to me and I think, 'Fuck it, I'm not giving her my cell today.'

So I say, "I don't have it with me today."

She give me that look that says, 'If I could just search his backpack and pockets I'm positive that I'd find his cellphone,' but she can't because that's against the law. I smile sweetly, and she moves on to Roger who sits behind me.

Now, Roger is a quick study (that's one of my granddad's sayings that I like). So Roger says, "Since you'd just take my cell away from me anyway, I didn't bother bringing it to school."

Then Alicia says, "Same as Roger, I didn't bother bringing it 'cause I couldn't get it until after school."

This continues through the rest of the class, and old lady Threadbare ends up with a grand total of three phones in a class with 35 students.

We go to our next class, laughing our asses off. What dumbass came up with this stupid idea to collect phone in homeroom? The last thing we want to do when we hear the end of seventh period is come back to our homeroom to get our cells back. So either we lie about having them, or we put them in our lockers when we get to school, or we really do leave them at home.

As soon as I walk off campus I take out my cell and call Cole to find out if he wants to meet up and shoot some baskets.

Colin

[Addym Kehris]

Okay, Colinian, well done, and point taken. Of course, someone should have thought of that on their own. LOL. Having said that, I have to admit that my ole brain failed in the exercise and I had to be reminded about the deviousness of our youth. You know, they really are smarter than their elders at times.

Well played, my boy.

[Merkin]

I presume the same strategy could be used to bring a gun into the school. Surely the technology exists to detect both guns and cellphones upon entering the building.