Don't Screw It Up For Me

I haven't slept well this week and I'm feeling punchy. So let's get it on.

Yesterday Brittney obviously thought things where too quiet, and decided to start a little war by highlighting conflicting posts on The Incident At Gallatin High's Graduation. And of course a war started in the comments section. Since I didn't read the post until a day later and no one is paying attention anymore, I'm commenting here.

He wasn't supposed to speak at the graduation. He had the highest grades? Big frickin' deal. What the hell does that have to do with speaking at graduation? The school decides who does that. Most of them decide for the kid with the highest grades, but they don't have to. There's no obligation to do so. You want to get hung up on definitions? Good point, the dictionary does have the force of law.

It's not like not getting to speak at the graduation invalidates his grades and four years of hard work. That's still the same. Colleges and potential future employers don't really care whether he gave the speech or not. Apparently this is a long standing custom at Gallatin High. So the kid didn't set out four years ago to work hard and get perfect grades so he could speak at his graduation. He knew perfectly well the valedictorian didn't speak.

I really truly don't understand Barbieux's comment either.

Requiring people to be polite is often used as a way to squelch descent. We wouldn't be living in the good ol' USofA if our forefathers/mothers put manners ahead of everything else. Neither would our country have developed the high state of freedoms we enjoy today if it were not for brave people willing to put it on the line with acts of civil disobedience. Sometimes you just have to do whatever it takes to make yourself heard.

So a lot of people died for my freedom means I don't have to respect laws, traditions, or other peoples freedoms? The commute home is going to be great today. Screw those red lights. Civil disobedience is supposed to mean something. Not be a finger in the face of a high school administrator who this guy thinks can't punish him anymore. They died so we could collectively make our own rules rather than having someone who won the birth lottery dictate them to us. Not so we could individually flaunt the rules.

Sure the principal is just as bad. You'd think he'd consider letting the valedictorian speak at graduation if he asked. It would be the decent thing to do. And he over reacted obviously. The punishment he wanted (arrest and no diploma) didn't really fit the crime. But maybe he just wanted to scare the kid. Whether it was a scare tactic or not, cooler heads prevailed and the kid got what he deserved. A good ole fashioned scare and then his diploma.

To be fair though, I doubt most of the graduations had their celebrations 'disturbed'. They were probably entertained during an otherwise boring ceremony and pumped the keg for Linzey at the after party.

This kind of crap is pretty common at graduations these days apparently. The Lady Friend attended graduation at the school she works at. She said most of the kids names couldn't even be heard as they crossed the stage due to all the hooting and shouting. I 've said it before. The Asshole Factor goes up exponentially as population density increases.

Celebration is fine, and understood. But why the hell does your celebration have to fuck up mine?