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not only does it not work, it will never work. for anything, not just in the glaringly obvious cases, such as a 12yr. old being arrested for doodling. yes, that’s right, a 12yr. old kid wrote a silly 12yr. old girl message on a desk:

“I love my friends Abby and Faith. Lex was here 2/1/10 :)”

for this she was sent to the principal’s office, who then called the fucking cops and had her arrested. not a detention. arrested.

i’m not that old. high school was over a decade ago, sure, but damn, it would have taken a fucking lot to get arrested. even if you got in a fight, you’d just get detention and maybe suspended for a few days. maybe if you were selling drugs in the school, but even then it was iffy. if you fucked up in school you got punished according to the severity of the infraction. detention, kicked off a team, parents called in: all the normal stuff. yes, i know there is now DANGER! in schools, and yes, there are schools that are rightly concerned about weapons and violence. there are plenty of parents who don’t give a fuck about their kids (part of the problem, of course). none of this, however, justifies “zero tolerance” policies. why? here is the single most telling quote from the article:

Kenneth Trump, a security expert who founded the National School Safety and Security Services consulting firm, said focusing on security is essential to the safety of other students. He said zero tolerance policies can work if “common sense is applied.”

that statement should be enough to convince anyone with half a brain that zero tolerance policies are fatally flawed and that mr. trump is either dishonest or just stupid.

zero tolerance means just that: zero tolerance. if one starts to apply the ever nebulous “common sense” to interpreting said policy, it is no longer zero tolerance. you’ve just introduced tolerance. you are making distinctions between the severity of infractions. you are taking a person’s background and prior behavior into consideration. you are admitting there is a marked difference between writing a) “i’m going to kill my friends” and b) “i love my friends” and responding to the intent behind the infraction, not the simple physical action. sure, good old common sense tells us that a) is a cause for concern and means the kid’s parents should be called, as well as the school psychatrist and, as a last resort, the cops. whereas b) means you stay after class and clean all the desks.

we continue to see these stories: kids suspended for bringing nail clippers to school, honor roll student suspended for giving a friend an advil, etc.. they all end the same way: school apologizes, says it was a mistake and the parents wind up suing. as long as we continue to have zero tolerance policies they’ll keep showing up in the news. considering our laws for adults allow for tolerance, to such an extent that we recognize there are situations where it is justifiable to kill another person, it make little sense to have no leniency for children. after all, there is a reason we do not try children as adults. as a society, we seem to recognize that kids are, well, kids. even the best kid is going to fuck up, particularly once they hit their teens. certainly we should keep an eye to security, but let’s try and avoid turning schools into psuedo-prisons and let kids make ordinary mistakes.

there is no reason for you to care about this. loss comes with life and is the price we pay for the joys of loving another. loss surrounds us, a shadow haunting the darkest corners of our mind. there is no reason to care about loss that afflicts stranger. but, who ever said reason was a factor here?

the way to help a friend touched by grief is to take some on yourself. we share the load, so when we must bear the brunt, there are others, too, to share with us. it’s the only way to get through. so, read another’s tale, share the grief, the loss and the joy too, however brief it may have been. you have no reason to, and that’s the best reason there is.

in the abstract, i knew there was a “loquacious” switch located somewhere within the toddler brain.  still, the actual flicking of that switch to on is quite an experience.  in other words, macduff has undergone the change from stoic and (mostly) silent to a proper chatterbox.  quite entertaining actually and good that he’s finally able to speak his mind, feverishly racing though it be.

 all this is to say that i now know there is a dinosaur in the downstairs bathroom.  you can hear him when the heat kicks on.

 oh, christmas photos!  soon (er, eventually).  also, new washer and dryer!  hooray for appliances!

here’s some new baby pics!  from the fair:

just picked up TMBG’s “here comes science”, supposedly for my son.  i suspect i may also have gotten it for myself, as listening to it just puts a big smile on my face.  highly recommended to TMBG fans (even moreso if you actually have children).

since it is actually not raining today, other methods of getting wet are required.

here’s hoping your thanksgiving dinner was as tasty as ours!

i’m at serious risk of turning this blog into a showcase for baby pictures.  frankly, i haven’t had much on my mind lately, i avoid the news like the plague and work has only been mildly irritating.  no more baseball either, and i don’t follow any other sports.  i suppose i could talk about house hunting, but that’s not terribly interesting either; nor is there much one can say about it, till it’s done.

instead, i’ll write about adventure!  we took young macduff for his first hike on sunday, in shenandoah natl. park.  okay, his method of hiking is to be strapped to one of us (perse, in this case, since i had everything baby and parents could want in my pack), but it was a hike nonetheless.  the little guy makes getting going a bit, well, challenging.  because, of course, he wanted food and change just after we left the house.  as in, at the CVS 3 blocks away where we stopped to get some snacks.  and then again at the trailhead.  then again when we stopped for gas after the hike.  just something to get used to, i suppose.  we used to be fairly punctual people, perse and i.  honest.

still, it was great fun to get on a trail and get the boy out into the woods.  we took the short loop to the summit of stony man (only 1.6 mi), cause we got a late start and it was on the cool side for the 2/3 of the family.  i’m beginning to think i may not adjust to the relative warmth down here (not necessarily a bad thing), but at the summit it actually felt like november.  not that i’m complaining (okay, i was complaining in the summer and during that ridiculous heat wave in october.  but not now.); i just have a predilection for weather on the cooler side.  brisk air and a nip on the tip of the nose.  melville wrote that some part of you must be cold in order to feel truly warm, and i agree with him.  we got some great views from the summit and got to see a bunch of deer and two black bears on the drive out.  actually, we couldn’t avoid seeing the first bear, as some dipshit in front of us stopped in the middle of the road to let passengers with cameras out.  that was irritating, but then the dipshit stayed stopped in the middle of the fucking two-lane mountain road.  not even an attempt to pull off onto the shoulder.  who the fuck does that?  the second bear we saw after dark, on the post-feeding drive out.  he had just finished crossing the road.  that was cool.  deer were not so cool, cause they are everywhere.  hell, i nearly hit a stag driving to pottery class, which is in adams morgan.  they’ve become like squirrels, except much, much worse if you hit ‘em with your car.

a nice fall getaway, for an afternoon.  even still some nice foliage.  and macduff can claim to have summited his first peak at 3 months.  he was even awake for that part.  i think.

i know the boy isn’t yet 3 months old, and thus doesn’t fully have control of his hands.  still, i can’t help but feel responsible for the fact that the only finger he seems to be able to straighten with any regularity is his middle finger.

has he some how been watching me while i drive?