<p>“black and white penguins” seems kind of like a statement of fact - sort of like “The Blue Jays”</p>
<p>I very much agree with the first post on this thread: “There seems to be no middle ground.”</p>
<p>That’s true not just of policies, but culture too. On this continent, I’ve lived on the west coast and the Deep South. The west coast is so PC it’s enough to make your teeth hurt. This thread is full of examples of that. The south is actually not that way, and at first it’s refreshing. But after a while here, you come to realize that instead of over-the-top political correctness you get to put up with a lot of unreconstructed rednecks and extreme right wing ideologues instead. Living in one of these places while regularly visiting family in the other is enough to make my head spin. Is there anywhere more middle-of-the-road? The midwest perhaps?</p>
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…Gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, questioning penguins…</p>
<p>weatherga, the midwest is not really better. I would like to think that most people are more practical, but on a state government level we have high levels of stupid to go around (at least in Indiana).</p>
<p>Around 2000, I got a call from the Assistant Principal at the school where my son was a freshman. He told me my son was the ringleader for a “fight club” which was meeting before school in a locker room that wasn’t supervised. Kids were boxing. He told me he was concerned, because in the past, kids would get together in barns and parks after school and have a 100 or more people watching kids pound the crap out of each other. He was afraid of serious injuries or worse.</p>
<p>I think my son and his friends were inspired by the “Fight Club” movie which was popular at that time. They fought with gloves. The participants in the fights were chosen when one kid challenged another. No one was forced to fight. They could tap out when they had enough.</p>
<p>My son’s punishment was mild, I thought. I think it was just a few days of after school detention. I think one could argue that a suspension, or even expulsion might be merited for the ring leader for an activity that could have had serious consequences. (I found out years later that one kid did get knocked out, and probably had a concussion. Of course they just woke him up and got him to class.)</p>
<p>The down side to severe punishments is that it puts a kid in the role of the “bad a**”. He may think of himself in that role. If my son would have been expelled and sent to the local Alternative Learning Center, his peers would have been kids who typically have had serious legal issues and chemical/alcohol problems.</p>
<p>I think Assistant Principal showed some wisdom and discretion in this case. My son didn’t get into any more trouble. The Fight Club ended, and didn’t start up outside of the school.</p>
<p>Thanks for the reassuring story, MNFlyer. It’s really nice to hear that good, measured judgement isn’t dead among school administrators.</p>
<p>Of course, 12 years later this situation may have played out differently. I hope that Assistant Principal is still working in the schools and hasn’t been driven out by some micromanaging school board.</p>
<p>My S as a first grader was punished severely for having kissed a cute little girl in his class. You would have thought he had done something truly hateful and disgusting like smear feces on her or something. Good thing that was years ago. Had it happened nowadays, he would have been charged with sexual harassment.</p>
<p>There is no common sense anymore. There are some academic dishonesty cases which are ridiculous too. I’m thinking of the young man who used a commonly-used phrase with Biblical origins without putting it in quotes and citing it and was charged with plagiarism.</p>
<p>Haha MNFlyer, I did the same thing in elementary school in the early 2000’s. I had to check to make sure that wasn’t my mom posting telling my story</p>