Several people have written to me bringing my attention to a completely insane incident where a student in Kentucky has been thrown in a juvenile detention center for writing a short story in which zombies overrun a high school. More details can be found here…
http://www.lex18.com/global/story.asp?s=2989614&ClientType=Printable
What I keep thinking about was that when I was in seventh grade, I had an assignment to write a ghost story, and did a story where the ghost of a student exacts horrific revenge upon an obnoxious teacher. If I’m in seventh grade now and write that same story, next thing I know, I’m going to wind up talking to police and social workers.
PAD
• 
On the other hand, how scary is it that someone can be held on charges relating to terrorism and their bail is only $5000???
How scary is it that this kid is being charges relating to terrorism to begin with?
What’s next? A regular schoolyard bully being put on the FBI’s most wanted list next to Osama?
What’s next? A regular schoolyard bully being put on the FBI’s most wanted list next to Osama?
Sorry, a lot of the religious right doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with bullying.
Sorry, a lot of the religious right doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with bullying.
Oh, sorry. I forgot – the bully cannot be a Christian.
Sorry, a lot of the religious right doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with bullying.
Excuse me? Any other absurd broad generalities you want to make?
Iowa Jim
I am in complete agreement that the reaction to this kid is wrong. Based on the stated facts, he should not have been arrested.
My problem is the way some of you seem to think this is a result of “Republican” / “Conservative” thinking. That is so absurd it is laughable. This thinking is not solely Republican or Democrat, Liberal or Conservative. You find examples of this, or variations thereof, in school districts of all political and philosophical stripes. Yes, I 100% agree there is a problem. But the “evil” republicans/conservatives are not the source. They (we) can be guilty at times, but we are not alone. (My wife recently learned of a student who was suspended simply for pulling a cell phone out of his backpack to see if it was off. With that type of “Zero tolerance” going on, little wonder they would react to a kid as they did in this case.)
Since most school administration and teachers (based on numerous surveys), and quite a few school board members, are more liberal, it is rather funny to think “my side” has that much influence on the school system. But if you want to blame us and not look for the real root of this particular problem, go right ahead. Just don’t expect anything to really change any time soon.
Iowa Jim
I agree with Jim. this isn’t a left/right issue, it’s a “zero tolerance” issue. And zero tolerance is nothing more than an excuse for adults in positions of authority and responsibility to absolve themselves of any culpability for enforcing discipline.
Admittedly, teachers and administrators are placed in positions of huge responsibility. Not only must they educate, they also must manage and supervise kids. And that means they have to occassionally administer punishment. And there were enough bad parents that felt that Johnny shouldn’t have been suspeneded for that “harmless cherry bomb in the toilet” prank (despite blowing out the drainage pipes in the teacher’s lounge to the tune of $50,000) and sued that adminstrators turned to 0 tolerance in order to be able to say “I had no choice.” but it removes all reason and common sense for punishment. If it were our legal system, it’d be declared unconsitutional so fast the ink wouldn’t have time to dry. But it seems to be acceptable for our kids.
One more check mark in the homeschooling column.
Sorry, a lot of the religious right doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with bullying.
Excuse me? Any other absurd broad generalities you want to make?
Sorry, but I call ’em as I see ’em. There was a movement to install anti-bullying measures in schools around the country, but they were thwarted by elments led by conservative Christian groups. No attempt to compromise, no attempt to modify the programs to be agreeable to all.
Sorry, but I call ’em as I see ’em. There was a movement to install anti-bullying measures in schools around the country, but they were thwarted by elments led by conservative Christian groups. No attempt to compromise, no attempt to modify the programs to be agreeable to all.
Having suffered at the hands of a school bully, I am all for dealing with them. Having read quite a bit of conservative Christian literature dealing with child raising, etc., the “religious right” does have a problem with bullies and would want it stopped. I would be very interested in knowing the actual details of the case you site.
In the bigger picture, your statement did not sound like a statement about literal school bullies. It came across more as a jab that the religious right has no problem “bullying” others around who don’t agree with them. While that undoubtedly has happened at times, it has also happened from those on the left, religious and otherwise.
Iowa Jim
My problem is the way some of you seem to think this is a result of “Republican” / “Conservative” thinking.
Funny, I haven’t seen any of that.
However, when the kid is being charged with TERRORISM, I have to blame our current Idiot in Chief.
On top of Old Smokey,
All covered with blood,
I shot my teacher
with a .44 Slug
I went to her funeral,
I went to her grave
Some people threw flowers,
I threw a grendade
After the funeral,
just to make sure she was dead,
I took out my bazooka,
and blew off her head!!
Bill Hicks, that well-known lawyer said:
“Yes because, god knows, if we start by presuming innocence before guilt, who knows WHERE that sort of pinko liberal commie thinking will lead???”
There is a difference between presumption of innocence in a legal sense, and presumption of innocence in everyday life. Perhaps you would like to chastise all the people who think Michael Jackson is guilty despite the lack of a verdict?
Twit.
Bill,
“Lisa and I are moving east come summer, and once we’re settled in our new abode I may well consider something like that. (Of course, Thomas would undoubtedly say I’m part of the problem. :-)”
Tim, where are you guys heading? If it’s in North Carolina, look me up. I know some great sushi restaurants in Chapel Hill.
1) We don’t eat sushi. 🙂 (I know, I know, we’re the only two people in the state of California who can say that…)
2) Nowhere near NC, no. We don’t know the exact place yet (as there are little things like me finding a job that need to get worked out first), but somewhere in northern New Jersey. Lisa’s got a professorship waiting for her — and whither she goest, I go.
TWL
Tim,
Congratulations to Lisa. There are some fine schools in Northern New Jersey and it’s a nice place, once you get used to the awful smell. Sorry, that the New Yorker in me talking. No, Jersey is a fine place, actually I have a good number of my ex-wife’s family living there (and I still consider them to be part of my family as well). Good place to raise kids and close enough to NYC for those excursions to the Big City. Beastly housing costs but probably a bargain to a Californian. 🙂
Don’t like sushi??? Wow…I’ve heard of that…but to actually see it…
MTS, I just wanted to thank you for reciting that wonderful piece of poetry that many of us loved in our childhood. 🙂
However, when the kid is being charged with TERRORISM, I have to blame our current Idiot in Chief.
That is as lame as saying bill Clinton should be blamed for those teen kids who were kicked out of school because another teen girl gave them oral sex. I hate to remind you, but Bush did not invent the problem of terrorism. And it was a massive attack on our soil that has elevated it to the level of fear that currently exists.
This overreaction has nothing to do with Bush and everything to do with how screwed up our school system is these days.
Iowa Jim
This whole discussion sorta plays right into the theme of my screenplay, which has been happening a LOT over the last few weeks. Both sides in a conflict believe that THEY are the good guys and both sides want to completely eliminate the other FOR THE GOOD OF ALL. A question that comes to mind, though, is what responsibility is being assigned to the kid’s teacher? Not that too many of mine REALLY understood creativity or individuality. I mean, surely if the kid’s a criminal, then CERTAINLY incitement to criminal behavior is worth a night or two in jail, don’tcha think?
BTW, Micheal Brunner, you didn’t used to live on Pine Lane, by any chance?
I grew up in NJ, Bill — you don’t need to give me any warnings. 🙂 (My rule of thumb is that no one is allowed to diss New Jersey unless they’ve lived there — if they have, of course, it’s compulsory.)
Actually, Lisa’s job is going to be all of 2-3 miles from the house I grew up in. It’s seriously weird … especially since my old HS physics teacher is still there but probably not far from retirement. The thought of stepping in to take his place in a few years is absolutely mind-boggling.
As for housing costs … hey, Peter and Kath, you don’t mind if we crash at your place for six months while we figure things out, right? (Kidding. KIDDING. Though we would love to meet Caroline.)
TWL
And it was a massive attack on our soil that has elevated it to the level of fear that currently exists.
No, it was a massive attack followed by a massive wave of paranoia, propoganda, and fear, all three of which have been supported and in some cases initiated by the Bush Administration.
Got people in Iraqi who are fighting against us because they think we’re invaders? Terrorists?
They wanted Saddam just as dead as we do? They’re still terrorists.
Muslim living in America and don’t like what our government is doing? Terrorist.
Kid who possibly did nothing more than write a short story? Terrorist.
Man, it just seems like “terrorist” is just the great ‘catch-all’ phrase these days bandied about by the Bush Admin.
That is as lame as saying bill Clinton should be blamed for those teen kids who were kicked out of school because another teen girl gave them oral sex.
Pardon me for jumping in … but what kids are you talking about? Unless they had sex on school grounds or something, I don’t see how the school could possibly have a case for dismissal.
TWL
Pardon me for jumping in … but what kids are you talking about? Unless they had sex on school grounds or something, I don’t see how the school could possibly have a case for dismissal.
I am trying to look it up. It was in the news here in Iowa. It was a boarding school I believe, and the sexual act happened in the boys locker room. They have since learned that another one happened in the dorm, and a third in a local hotel room. All involved are under 18. I believe they were on the school hockey team. Because in at least 2 of the cases there were something like 5 boys involved and only one girl, they said the girl couldn’t help but be intimidated and somewhat forced into performing the sexual acts.
The school, as you can imagine, is quite embarrased by all of this.
Oh, I found it. Here is the link:
http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2005/02/28/earlier_sexual_incident_alleged?pg=full
Iowa Jim
Fair enough, thanks. (It’s hardly that they were thrown out just for having oral sex, though — there are a lot of extra factors there, the five-to-one ratio and the significant age difference being two of them.)
And yes, I’ve no doubt the school is quite chagrined (he said, avoiding the term “put out”) by the whole thing.
TWL
Iowa Jim:I am in complete agreement that the reaction to this kid is wrong. Based on the stated facts, he should not have been arrested.
Disagree. So far, what we’ve got in the way of “stated facts” comes from four Web sources: the LEX 18 report, the Winchester Sun report, the SPLC report, and the blog-posts from “Icarus”. (The other news links from Bladestar are all clones of the Sun story.) The assertion that the written material that got Poole arrested is a short story about zombies comes only from Poole in the LEX 18 story, and is directly or indirectly contradicted by (a) the police officer in the Sun report, (b) the school principal in the SPLC report, and (c) Icarus, citing Poole’s sister, in his blog posts. Given what the local non-Poole sources say about Poole, I’m inclined to trust the judgment of local law enforcement pending further data.
Bobb:And zero tolerance is nothing more than an excuse for adults in positions of authority and responsibility to absolve themselves of any culpability for enforcing discipline.
Not exactly. Practically speaking, zero tolerance is an artifact of school districts’ understandable reluctance to expose themselves to legal liability — the theory being that by treating every student exactly the same way under announced policy, they avoid all danger of “discriminating” against any individual student.
OTOH, you’re not far off in identifying the root issue. Schools today are frequently asked to act in effect as surrogate parents, taking on the role of caregiver and nurturer. But at the same time, we’re markedly unwilling to give schools the powers of discretion needed to successfully assume that role — when schools do try to exercise judgment in matters of discipline or caregiving, they almost always get sued. It’s not so much a matter of schools trying to dodge responsibility as a Kobayashi Maru “no-win” scenario — they’re going to be blown to smithereens no matter what they do.
This reminds me of the time when I was a high school sophomore and, for my English class, I wrote a short story that brought my close circle of friends to the Dark Shadows universe. By the time it was over, half the cast was vampire meat.
I think I dodged a bullet by three decades.
And following up on the “Estelle Getty on Blossom” digression: turns out it was a dream sequence in the show, putting it in that fuzzy category.
I for one would like to read the story in question. Without being able to read the story, it is too easy for either side of this debate to spin the information we are given. That said, I believe that in this country you are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. When I was in fourth grade I wrote a novel about zombies attacking my school. The school was named as my own and all of the characters were actual students. In keeping with the intellect of a fourth grader, anyone I didn’t like died in the story by being eaten by zombies. It was my way of venting the frustration I felt after a long day of school. I did not grow up to be violent and was never suspended even for fist fighting.
**1Posted by Darren J Hudak
Some years ago there was a story about a kindergarden student who was suspended from school because he kissed another student. The principal was quoted in the story about unwanted advances and how sexual harrashment would not be tolerated in his school, never getting the fact that the kid was six and he was overreacting big time.
(the rest snipped)**
There was an article about this case in Ms. magazine that was published around that time. If I recall it correcty, the story they told was that this was not the first time that that boy had been approaching that girl; that he had been ‘pestering’ her trying to make her his ‘girlfriend’ (as six-year-olds understand that term) for quite some time, and that her reporting of the kiss to an adult was an act of desperation (the boy would not take ‘no’ for an answer).
I have no idea how much of the Ms. version is ‘true’ (it’s a political magazine and proud of it 🙂 so naturally it’s going to slant the story to fit its worldview) but if there was indeed a history of prior ‘harassment’ by the boy against the girl then the principal’s reaction is much more understandable.
Chris
A fellow on a mailing list I’m on has been kind enough to post a couple of to post links to a couple of story updates about this kid.
Here’s the latest:
Details of student’s writings revealed
By Peter Mathews
CENTRAL KENTUCKY BUREAU
WINCHESTER – A lot of people think William Poole is being unfairly persecuted for writing zombie fiction.
That’s the theory on the Internet, where the George Rogers Clark High School student’s story has attracted interest worldwide. But the evidence presented yesterday in Clark District Court was quite different.
Poole, 18, was arrested last month on a charge of terroristic threatening. Authorities said he had made threats against students, teachers and police.
Poole’s grandmother found the writings at their Winchester home and was worried enough to call police.
In an interview after his arrest, Poole told WLEX-TV (Channel 18) that he had simply written a fictional story about zombies taking over an unidentified high school.
Sympathizers who saw the news story on the Internet have sent dozens of e-mail messages to
police, the county attorney, teachers and others. In e-mail and on Web bulletin boards, they have suggested local authorities are “idiots” and “incestuous hillbillies” who were out to take away Poole’s right to free speech.
However, Poole’s teachers told police they had not assigned such a story or talked to him about it — and had they seen it, they would have been obligated to report him to authorities.
And, as it turns out, Poole’s writings include no brain-eating dead folks.
What they do contain, Winchester police Detective Steven Caudill testified yesterday, is evidence that he had tried to solicit seven fellow students to join him in a military organization called No Limited Soldiers.
The writings describe a bloody shootout in “Zone 2,” the designation given to Clark County.
“All the soldiers of Zone 2 started shooting,” Caudill read on the witness stand. “They’re dropping every one of them. After five minutes, all the people are lying on the ground dead.”
The papers contain two different dates of Poole’s death.
Poole has corresponded with someone in Barbourville who claimed to have acquired cash and guns in break-ins, Caudill testified.
No other arrests are pending, he said, but authorities are looking for other potential suspects listed in Poole’s papers who are identified only by pseudonyms.
District Judge Brandy O. Brown ordered the documents put under seal because they contain references to juveniles. She sent the case to the grand jury and rejected a request from Poole’s attorney to lower his $5,000 cash bond. He is being held in the Clark County jail.
The story has attracted attention from traditional journalists at 60 Minutes and CNN, as well as Web sources such as morons.org and horrorwatch.com.
Authorities had released little information about the nature of the threats, and many people assumed from the WLEX story that Poole had been made a victim.
“I do find it sad that they would stunt the intellectual growth of a young person that way,” one Web poster wrote.
Another offered a suggested headline for a parody publication: “Kentucky Police safe from Zombies because of lack of Brains.”
Caudill said he had received more than 50 e-mails and perhaps a dozen “nasty phone calls.”
But after school shootings such as the one at Columbine High School in Colorado, where 13 people died, authorities must take threats seriously, he said in an interview.
“Do we as a society want the police to stop there — that he didn’t mean it?” he asked. “I’m not going to take that responsibility and have children’s and police officers’ blood on my hands.”
Hi Craig,
Thanks for posting that update.
While not answering all of my questions it certainly has answered a good chunk of them.
Say Seeya
So it was a case of sensationalist reporting by WLEX in the first place, posting the story without enough details to be meaningful.
Good thing the English didn’t have these kind of cops back in the late 1700’s…
I don’t think it’s answered anything. Reading a 3 sentence selection from anything can be taken to mean many different things. The idea that the story was about zombies must have come from somewhere. Maybe that particular passage didn’t contain the walking dead…or maybe the soldiers were shooting the zombies? You can’t tell, and of course the police would release information that seems to support them.
In any context, this is a disturbing case. If this Poole actually was trying to organize an armed incident in the area, that’s distrubing. If all it was was a ficitonal work of Poole defending his home from teachers-turned zombies, and his grandfather ratted him out, that’s likewise disturbing.
The idea that the story was about zombies must have come from somewhere.
Well, if the kid was lying from the start about the zombies…
But trying to recruit kids from the school for something? What would that have to do with a story?
Either way, this case seems to be shaping up more where the sensationalization was due to the nature of the Internet.
Kid could have been lieing about the zombies.
OR, the story could have been about the teachers turning into zombies, and the kids need to form an army to defeat them. And some need to be recruited. Maybe he saw Shawn of the Dead, and included some kids that didn’t notice that Mr. Gery the math teacher was now a zombie?
I think it’ll be something in between. Overreacting adults focusing on one portion of a work of fiction. Internet gossips making huge assumptions on very little actual facts. Wouldn’t be the first time for either.
And some need to be recruited
You’ve missed something: the article said that the kid was trying to recruit other students, not in his story, but in what passes for reality around here.
Simple solution, post the story to the internet…
Craig, I don’t think I missed that. The quoted story says
“And, as it turns out, Poole’s writings include no brain-eating dead folks.
What they do contain, Winchester police Detective Steven Caudill testified yesterday, is evidence that he had tried to solicit seven fellow students to join him in a military organization called No Limited Soldiers.”
The “they,” if it’s being used correctly, refers to Poole’s writings. And the police statement didn’t say Poole was trying to recruit, only that the writings contained evidence that he was trying to recruit. Which could have been a lot of different things, among which could have been a fictional account fitting within the confines of the story.
Point being, there’s no where near enough publicly available facts to determine what exactly is going on. Unless the story gets released, we won’t really know.
Incredible. Round up the writers of Buffy now, they’re going down.
// I have no idea how much of the Ms. version is ‘true’ (it’s a political magazine and proud of it 🙂 so naturally it’s going to slant the story to fit its worldview) but if there was indeed a history of prior ‘harassment’ by the boy against the girl then the principal’s reaction is much more understandable. //
Didn’t see the Ms artical, (was unaware that magizine was still being published actually), but what you state doesn’t jib with what I read elswhere. (As usual I suspect the truth is somewhere in the middle). What sticks out in my mind is the principal’s “sexual harrashment will not be tolerated” comment, as if a six year old could really “sexually harash” anyone. (If sexual harashment can apply to a six year old kindergarden student, it is time to retire the term because it has become funtionally useless). Even if what you quote from the Ms artical is correct it still strikes me as an overreaction because it doesn’t seem as if there was any effort to sit the kid down and explain the wrongness of his behavior to him. A six year old not taking “no” for an answer is not even remotly the same as an adult not taking no for an answer, hëll it’s not even the same as a teenager not taking no for an answer. Six year olds have, at best, limited social skills and they think the world revolves around them. That’s the joy of being six. Social skills, including the skill to be able to accept the personal boundries of others, especially girls who do not want to be your girlfriend, is something that has to be taught. I have friends and family members who are teachers , when that news story was going around they commented how they had experienced the same thing in thier careers, any teacher of young children probably has, and they had never once considered just suspending the offending kid. They found the story horrifing and felt suspending the kid was doing the kid more damage then he could have ever caused to his classmate, and they deal with the same thing for a living, that says a lot to me.
Yeah, Ms is still being published. They went though a sabbatical/reorganization period some years back where they restructured themselves so they could publish without advertiser support (so the advertisers couldn’t pressure them to stop covering stories they thought were important but the advertisers thought were too controversial) and they now come out once every two-three months. I look through it at my library every now and then (if I relied soley on the store racks to find Ms I’d only find an issue once every three years) and find much of it informative. I do have to remind myself though that they are not an unbiased source of news and to filter their content accorddingly.
It had been some years since I’ve read that article, and my memory of some of it might be wrong. If I get a chance in the next few days I’ll make a trip to the library and see which issue it was printed in and refresh my memory of what they printed about the case. I searched their website to see if it was on-line but I don’t think it is (I couldn’t recall enough significant details about the case to set the search filter to give me the relevant link(s). ).
Chris
But this all avoids the larger issue: where oh where can a person get t he chance to see a regular poster on this blog in a genuine 20 minute zombie movie? Well, it just so happens that the zombie short I was working on, SECOND DEATH, will have its world premiere at Kings in Raleigh, April 16th. A mere $7 cover charge and you also get to hear 3 ear bleedingly loud bands. Further info at http://www.seconddeath.com.
I get my innards ripped from my body in full color, if that’s a further incentive to show up…
Darren J Hudak: (assuming you, or anyone else is still reading this entry)
I went to the library today and was unable to locate the actual physical issue of Ms that had the article in question (the library doesn’t have physical copies of Ms beyond 2002 and doesn’t have them on microfiche either). With the help of a librarian though I was able to find out that the most likely issue that had the article I read (neither the article itself nor that issue is online that I can tell) is the May/June 1998 one. The article/series of articles is called ‘Backlash Boogie’.
Hopefully you have access to a larger library than I do 🙂 and can find that issue and see for yourself what it said.
Chris
I’ve been trying to learn more about this story from surfing a few sites and can’t seem to learn a whole lot about it. One article I read said weapons were involved
http://www.winchestersun.com/articles/2005/02/24/local_news/news01.txt
Who knows? Hopefully the truth will come out.
Craig J. Ries,
“Isn’t America wonderful?”
Yes. It is.
“How scary is it that this kid is being charged with terrorism to begin with?”
He is not. He is being charged with ‘terroristic threatening’, which could be as simple as telling someone ‘I’m going to kick your ášš.’
“What’s next? A regular schoolyard bully being put on the FBI’s Most-Wanted List next to Osama”
No, what’s next is you being your usual illogical, melodramatic self.
“I forgot – the bully cannot be a Christian.”
I don’t know what’s worse. That you would never make such an irrational and hateful generalization substtuting Muslim or Jew for Christian, or that far more people would call you on it if you did, yet remain silent now.
“However, when the kid is charged with TERRORISM, I have to blame our current Idiot-In-Chief.”
Since you still fail to comprehend the difference between what the kid is being charged with and being accused of being a terrorist, maybe you should watch who you call an idiot. people in glass houses and all…
‘And it was a massive attack on our soil that has elevated t to the level of fear that currently exists.’
“No. It was a massive attack followed by a massive wave of paranoia, propaganda and fear, all of which have been supported and in some cases initiated by the Bush Administration.”
I dont know what Bush has initiated in relation to the above three characteristics, but you sure display a healthy dose of all three.
“Kid who possibly did nothing more than write a short story? Terrorist.
Man, it just seems like ‘terrorist’ is just the great ‘catch-all’ phrase these days bandied about by the Bush Admin.”
Forgetting that further investigation has shown this kid did more than just write a short story…your post still makes no sense! Please cite me on e instance where the Bush Administration ever called this kid a terrorist. You can’t, because they didn’t.
I’m sorry, I forget you’re increasingly incapable of making rational arguments and seem determined to include Bush-bashing and or Christan-bashing into virtually everything you post, regardless if they’re related to the topic at hand.
I LIVE IN WINCHESTER KENTUCKY AND I KNEW WILLIAM POOLE…WE WERE IN INTRO TO CARPENTRY..HA HA…IF HE WAS A THREAT HE WOULD HAVE KILLED US ALL THEN RIGHT?..ACTUALLY HE COULD BARELY USE A SKILL SAW…
HE WAS NO HARM…
I STILL ATTEND GEORGE ROGERS CLARK HIGH SCHOOL IM A JUNIOR AND IN MY ENGLISH CLASS LAST WEEK WE WROTH ABOUT A FICTIONAL BANK ROBBERY WE HAD TO DESCRIBE DIFFERENT ROLES OF PEOPLE AT THE BANK..(what they saw, what they thought)….. IT WAS FICTION… IT DIDNT HURT ANYONE. IT WAS HARMLESS.