Student Arrested for Writing Zombie Fiction

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CLARK COUNTY
Student Arrested For Terroristic Threatening Says Incident A Misunderstanding

A George Rogers Clark High School junior arrested Tuesday for making terrorist threats told LEX 18 News Thursday that the "writings" that got him arrested are being taken out of context.

Winchester police say William Poole, 18, was taken into custody Tuesday morning. Investigators say they discovered materials at Poole's home that outline possible acts of violence aimed at students, teachers, and police.

Poole told LEX 18 that the whole incident is a big misunderstanding. He claims that what his grandparents found in his journal and turned into police was a short story he wrote for English class.

"My story is based on fiction," said Poole, who faces a second-degree felony terrorist threatening charge. "It's a fake story. I made it up. I've been working on one of my short stories, (and) the short story they found was about zombies. Yes, it did say a high school. It was about a high school over ran by zombies."

Even so, police say the nature of the story makes it a felony. "Anytime you make any threat or possess matter involving a school or function it's a felony in the state of Kentucky," said Winchester Police detective Steven Caudill.

Poole disputes that he was threatening anyone.

"It didn't mention nobody who lives in Clark County, didn't mention (George Rogers Clark High School), didn't mention no principal or cops, nothing," said Poole. "Half the people at high school know me. They know I'm not that stupid, that crazy."

On Thursday, a judge raised Poole's bond from one to five thousand dollars after prosecutors requested it, citing the seriousness of the charge.

Poole is being held at the Clark County Detention Center.

Source

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Here's a nice write-up expressing pretty much my feelings on this from Ain't It Cool News:

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Originally Posted by AACN

This is terribly uncool. Kid arrested as a terrorist for writing a fictional zombie story...

Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I'm sorry, this isn't movie news or anything even close to being cool. This might stray a bit into some angry political debates below, but I find it hard to believe even the most radical of conservatives can honestly look at a piece of fiction written by a kid, a school assignment no less, and say that warrants him being arrested for terrorist threats.

Really, where is the line going to be drawn? His story was about zombies overtaking a school and that was construed as a serious threat made against the school, ignoring the fact that no one in the story is a real person and the school is different. This guy's soon to go on trial for a felony offense and it makes me sick, personally.

What's next? Stephen King better watch out because he's murdered thousands of fake people and, like King did in THE STAND, Tom Clancy has set off fake nukes on fake American soil... if that's not a terrorist threat, I don't know what is.

Am I the only one pissed off by this? If you agree that this is just and right, please let me know what I'm overlooking in the talkback below. To me this is so amazingly unAmerican... I can't believe something like this is happening in my country.

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What do the rest of you think? Is the boy a terrorist? How many of you wrote stories like this back when you were in high school? I know I did.

Sometimes, it's really hard to love this country.

So when are they gonna arrest people that write otherkin fiction, or furry fiction?

Because then Id love this country.

He must be pretty talented to get people to buy his shit so deeply.

Otherkin fiction?

He should have written it using Rough Draft or something. If it was formated like a movie script they probably wouldn't have done anyting. But in any case, this is freaking retarded. Waste of time and money.

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Originally Posted by Kid

"It was about a high school over ran by zombies ... it didn't mention nobody who lives in Clark County, didn't mention (George Rogers Clark High School), didn't mention no principal or cops, nothing,"

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IronPlant?

George Orwell would be proud.

Welcome to America.

Land of the politically retarded.

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Poole told LEX 18 that the whole incident is a big misunderstanding. He claims that what his grandparents found in his journal and turned into police was a short story he wrote for English class.

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I hope the kid eventually gets right to put them in a home, a ULTRA CROOKED HOME
where they beat, rob & torture old people

You know another country where the old people are used to turn in 'suspected dissidents'? The People's Republic of China. I'm glad we're able to live up to that high standard in today's 'safer' America.

Yeah, this kid's grandparents suck. Turning him into the police for this? Thats fucking stupid.

But hey, can anyone really say that they're surprised by these actions? Double standards, hypocritsy(sp?), dumb southerners.... thats American for you.

I love how everyone is jumping down the throats of the gp's and cops when we don't know what the kid wrote.

Sure, he says he didn't use any names. Maybe he did. I doubt they're charging him for writing, "Mmmm...brains!"

We don't know what the kid wrote or what his history is. He says he's cool. Great. Nobody thought Kip Kingle would blow his parents away.

I realize this is the intertron and we're supposed to jump to conclusions but does anyone seriously think that if he wrote a generic zombie story he's going to jail?

... you make an interesting point.

The_Meach made the only logical post in this whole thread, since none of us have any information on which to base an opinion. There's a good chance that the grandparents and cops overreacted, but we sure as hell don't know that.

I find it hilarious that it's his grandparents above all else that gave him up. I don't think the cops are justified, and it seems like an over reaction to young adolescent writing. He said that it didn't even use the same names, and the police didn't deny this fact.

His grandparents obviously didn't think better to just ask and speak to him. So yeah, I imagine it is more over reaction than anything else.

If he mentioned real peoples names and locations, I'm sure that would have been in the article. That's usually the first thing they run with. "He likes Doom and named the characters after his classmates! On page 8 his grandparents are turned into dog food and eaten by homeless flesh eaters!"

They arrested him to cover up the conspiracy surronding the zombie apocolypse. They're not telling us anything but they know it's coming...soon....

:lol: :lol: :lol:

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Originally Posted by The_Meach

I realize this is the intertron and we're supposed to jump to conclusions but does anyone seriously think that if he wrote a generic zombie story he's going to jail?

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Considering what they arrest kids for these days, yes, I do seriously believe that they would arrest him for writing a generic zombie story. The schools in the States have gotten that fucking retarded.

I remember a time, long ago, when I was in elementary school. There was a period of time when the teacher would read to us and we could doodle or listen or do whatever quietly in our seats. I often made pictures of mass murders.

Then I went on to middle school. We would have to do journals for Creative Writing and I would write absolutely anything (non-sexual, anyway) that popped into my head in a stream of consciousness manner. These often included many acts of random violence and were usually non-sensical in a surreal kind of way. After some of those, my classmates loved them so much they took turns asking me to put them into my journal stories, so I ended up with a collection of writing primarily based around my classmates and violence.

There was a lot of fucked up shit I wrote and drew throughout my formative years and it kinda pisses me off that these days kids are arrested for doing stuff that's like 1/10 of how "wrong" my stuff was. No one had any problems with anything I did back then*, but then a whole lot of people got scared in a retarded way and have begun arresting kids for the stupidest shit.

*Well, there was this one time where I told a girl that I loved how it felt when her penis got erect and she reported me for sexual harrassment. So on one hand you could say that there was one person who had a problem with stuff I did, but on the other hand she was someone that everyone hated because she just liked to screw with people in mean, hurtful ways and so the odds that she was just doing that to get me in trouble and actually had no problem with what I said are pretty high.

You said you loved when her penis got erect?

Anyway, no, we are not overreacting. Even if it did use real names (which it said it did not) it is still a damn zombie story. Nobody should have a fellony arrest for writing about zombies, EVER.

Shit even I wrote some pretty graphic shit back in highschool. One of them pretty much was 911, except it was a nuke from china, and not two plains from terrorist. better yet, in my story the US gov let it happen becuase they wanted to go to war.

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Originally Posted by Mman

You said you loved when her penis got erect?

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Yes (I also barely knew this girl). I was going around saying it to teachers and various students, it was actually a reading of an encyclopedia descriptor of how a penis becomes erect but with a piece added at the beginning that was pretty much "I wanted to let you know that I adore it when stimulus causes the veins inside your penis fill with blood," etc. and whatever.

I was quoting from a huge collection of comic works of the past century or so, including scripts from the likes of the Marx Brothers and Laurel and Hardy. One addition was this whole script that was written as a conversation but with random in-depth descriptors that were obviously totally out of character added here and there. I wish I could remember the name of the book because it was damned hysterical (the cover had a drawing from the famous caricature artist whose work is black and white and usually uses only a few lines), but it was my grandparents and the only way I'd be able to ask them about it is, "Hey, remember that book that got me sent to Saturday school back in middle school?" and I really don't want to do that.

[edit] The artist's name is Hirschfeld.

So... I guess "The Faculty" is no longer legal to view, own, or distribute? I guess something good did come of this...

...Cause Wal-Mart's going down.

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Originally Posted by Gohron

They arrested him to cover up the conspiracy surronding the zombie apocolypse. They're not telling us anything but they know it's coming...soon....

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Yeah, that shit about umbrella is for real.

WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!

I'm so curious about what he wrote... I really want to see how a zombie story contained terrorist themes enough that it would warrant this kind of fuss.

Either way though, it's really sad how seriously they take this stuff now. They don't send him to a counsellor or a therapist. They don't ask him if anything is wrong. Instead they arrest him for $5000 bail (which is a huge amount considering he's done nothing reallly illegal yet). It's really a sad sign of the times we live in.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who really disliked school on certain days when I was a kid. When I was really young, I used to draw doodles of the school catching fire or blowing up and us getting the day off. These days, I'd be labelled a terrorist and would've been locked up.

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Originally Posted by negitoro

I'm so curious about what he wrote... I really want to see how a zombie story contained terrorist themes enough that it would warrant this kind of fuss.

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Judging from the quotes:

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"It was about a high school over ran by zombies."

Even so, police say the nature of the story makes it a felony. "Anytime you make any threat or possess matter involving a school or function it's a felony in the state of Kentucky," said Winchester Police detective Steven Caudill.

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It sounds like there was no terrorist theme at all. He wrote a story that involved something bad happening to a school and that's an arrestable crime in Kentucky.

For the record, Kentucky is the most sourthern state in the Union.

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Originally Posted by voltz

Yeah, that shit about umbrella is for real.

WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!

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Maybe you, I own an assault rifle and have a good few hundred rounds of 7.62x39mm at ready. I think I'm good.

that kids grandparents suck, its called creative writing. Stephen king wrote a short story called rage about some kid who shot and killed his teacher and held his class hostage, after columbine happened they stopped publishing it because they thought it might inspire other kids to do the same thing. This country is becoming way to strict about things.

what's otherkin fiction?

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Originally Posted by Blacklight85

that kids grandparents suck, its called creative writing. Stephen king wrote a short story called rage about some kid who shot and killed his teacher and held his class hostage, after columbine happened they stopped publishing it because they thought it might inspire other kids to do the same thing. This country is becoming way to strict about things.

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Give me a name, I'll download the torrent.

Preposterous.
I wish someone would get a hold of that, so we could talk about how mild and unoffensive it probably is.
I mean, serisously, I'm willing to bet my stories I made up for my G.I. Joes, when I was twelve are more offensive and violent than a zombie story.
I mean that, too.

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Originally Posted by Blacklight85

that kids grandparents suck, its called creative writing. Stephen king wrote a short story called rage about some kid who shot and killed his teacher and held his class hostage, after columbine happened they stopped publishing it because they thought it might inspire other kids to do the same thing. This country is becoming way to strict about things.

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Except for proper English.

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Originally Posted by Sqoon

Except for proper English.

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We are stricter now about the language now more so than ever. Have you ever read a newspaper from the 40's? The fucking butchered the language back then. The truth is though, that as long as you get your message across properly who gives a fuck if it fits a standard structure set up for intellectual reasons instead of practical ones. Most of the time it is easier and more efficient to avoid "standard" language use. But no, we have to have grammar fags running around telling people they did not put a coma in it's proper place. Language nazis fuck off!

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Originally Posted by Mman

we have to have grammar fags running around telling people they did not put a coma in its proper place. Language Nazis>,<fuck off!

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"It's" is joining of "it" and "is". Your sentence should read, "its proper place."

"Nazis" should be capitalized.

A comma should go after Nazis, and quotation marks ought to be inserted as you tell the 'Language Nazis' to, "Fuck off!"

I do not capatalize nazi. Same reason I do not feel the need to capatalize god. And tell me again why I should quote something I am saying?

dual posting!

Ach!

Way to not know how to post properly, douche!

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Originally Posted by Mman

I do not capatalize nazi. Same reason I do not feel the need to capatalize god. And tell me again why I should quote something I am saying?

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Nazi should be capitalized because you are referring to a specific group, namely, the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei of Language, or Language Nazis, as you so colorfully described them.

You should use quotation marks when you are addressing someone outside your post.

The entire post is directed to someone outside my post. I am not refering to a specific group. It is a group I made up. And even if it is a rule that I should capatlize it, I am not going to. Think of it as a big fuck you that breaking typical structure allows me to do.

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Originally Posted by Mman

Think of it as a big fuck you that breaking typical structure allows me to do.

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Yes, very droll. :)

All I can say regarding the matter is that white people should stop worrying about issues like illegal immigration and start worrying about how fucking stupid they can be.

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Originally Posted by The_Meach

Nazi should be capitalized because you are referring to a specific group, namely, the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei of Language, or Language Nazis, as you so colorfully described them.

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No, he wasn't actually saying that they were them theres fancy German words. He was dun using it in the way, them theres Jewish Hollywood people use 'em, on that Seindafield programme.

My friend wrote a story in 9th grade involving he and his friends (all people featured in the story asked to be put in the story) going on a road trip and killing a bunch of people (hobos, hookers, teutonic knights [?]). Anyway, I had a copy of it in class one morning and I was flipping through it and my teacher tellsme to put it away, so I put it on the desk and reach for my backpack. She comes around and grabs it off the goddamn desk and starts reading. I think the first line she reads involved racial slurs and someone getting shot repeadidly. She looked at me and said "You know, you can get in a lot of trouble for this" and then she kept the copy. Proceed me flipping out.

Yeah we thought we were going to get expelled. Nothing ever came of it though.

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Originally Posted by Mr-K

Yeah we thought we were going to get expelled. Nothing ever came of it though.

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She sold it to Playboy for 8 thou'

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Originally Posted by Andrew

what's otherkin fiction?

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Google is your friend.

http://reverend_kim.tripod.com/Otherkin/Other.html

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Originally Posted by AstroBlue

She sold it to Playboy for 8 thou'

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Well I know for a fact that she turned it into administration, they... just never did anything. They acted like they were going to but... then didn't. Scariest week ever.

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Originally Posted by AstroBlue

No, he wasn't actually saying that they were them theres fancy German words. He was dun using it in the way, them theres Jewish Hollywood people use 'em, on that Seindafield programme.

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Actually, more like the way Dead Kennedys used it, I think.

"Nazi Punks Fuck Off"

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Originally Posted by MechDeus

Considering what they arrest kids for these days, yes, I do seriously believe that they would arrest him for writing a generic zombie story. The schools in the States have gotten that fucking retarded.

I remember a time, long ago, when I was in elementary school. There was a period of time when the teacher would read to us and we could doodle or listen or do whatever quietly in our seats. I often made pictures of mass murders.

Then I went on to middle school. We would have to do journals for Creative Writing and I would write absolutely anything (non-sexual, anyway) that popped into my head in a stream of consciousness manner. These often included many acts of random violence and were usually non-sensical in a surreal kind of way. After some of those, my classmates loved them so much they took turns asking me to put them into my journal stories, so I ended up with a collection of writing primarily based around my classmates and violence.

There was a lot of fucked up shit I wrote and drew throughout my formative years and it kinda pisses me off that these days kids are arrested for doing stuff that's like 1/10 of how "wrong" my stuff was. No one had any problems with anything I did back then*, but then a whole lot of people got scared in a retarded way and have begun arresting kids for the stupidest shit.

*Well, there was this one time where I told a girl that I loved how it felt when her penis got erect and she reported me for sexual harrassment. So on one hand you could say that there was one person who had a problem with stuff I did, but on the other hand she was someone that everyone hated because she just liked to screw with people in mean, hurtful ways and so the odds that she was just doing that to get me in trouble and actually had no problem with what I said are pretty high.

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I personally was nearly jailed for writing a short essay on the back of some geometry homework. It was about people with poor social skills and why they're bitter old sots (not with that terminology). It was actually really well written and not nesisarrily directed at anyone. My geometry teacher turned it in to the police and I was escorted of school grounds.

I was also suspended by sending a letter to the AP saying that taking me out of class to shave some stubble was ridiculous. I stated that the cure was worse than the disease. No one minded the fact that my face was slightly rough and it was disturbing no one. It did however, disturb people when they had to take me out of class and it disturbed my classwork by taking 10 minutes out of my class day to make me shave and thus was doing more harm than good. I was escorted out of school again.

I finished dead last in my class despite a 1490 SAT score and being generally smarter than most people. I spent a LARGE amont of time suspended for retarded things. Once, I was suspended for a week for having tobbaco on campus (it was just after school and I was walking off grounds to take a smoke and walk to a friends place). An FBISD cop ran after me and apprehended my, apperantly, criminal ass for having had tobbacco on campus grounds. I was 18 years old. All told, I was placed in ISS (in shcool suspension) for some 5 months total (throughout 4 years in HS), about 2.5 months in regular suspension and no fewer than 20 Saturdays in Saturday Suspension (which means you go to what I called the "reeducation shack" for 5 hours on Saturday without break). It's like jail, except you sit in a desk and remain quiet while writing down behavioral rules (a set of rules roughly 10 pages long) 5 times. I had to repeat one because I added arguments to the rules I was writing. I have a sample:

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Originally Posted by Behavioral Rules Journal 1

Following Instructions:
1 - Look at the person
2 - Say "Ok."
3 - Do what you've been told.
4 - Check back.

*Looks at Instructor*
Ok, what if the instructions you're given are, "Kill your family or suffer the consequences," do you look at the instructor and say, "Ok," and kill your family and then check back later? This might be extreme, but just imagine you're given instrcutions you simply don't agree with? Are you supposed to bow your head and say, "Ok." and proceed to do what you truely do not agree with or wish to do? I think these rules are just trying to cull me into subordinance.

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Beyond suspensions, I was also placed in BLC (Behavioral Learning Center). BLC is a maximum security school for degenerates and violent criminals under the age of 18. I shared a class with people from 6th grade to 12th. There were 3 hispanic girls (7th and 8th grade) who were in BLC for prositution while there were a large number of others in for selling drugs and a handfull in for assault on school faculty. Me? I was there because I wrote an essay on human behavior on the back of some geometry homework.

I was assaulted in there my 5th day in. A black 10th grade drug dealer tried to jab a pen in the back of my head he missed but managed to give my head a good socking. I got up and got him to the ground. Wherein I was apprehended for assault. Eventually. The class consensus was that "The white guy started it." except for 2 quieter people who in secret testified on my behalf. They belived them and that kept me from prision for assaulting a minor (I was 18). That turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I was removed from BLC and placed in home suspension (it was like being home schooled with official text books and assignments I could do from home and have someone turn in my work for me (since I couldn't step foot on the campus). Later they moved me back in the the school and set me in ISS for the remainder of the year. I actually like the home suspension... changeing to ISS was definitly regretable.


One last note: When you're a teenager, this is the worst thing in your life and terrible thoughts do run through your mind, though later your realise that you always made mountians out of molehills and you brought a lot of touble on yourself because you wouldn't just shrug off rules you found offensive then (they were really of no consequence). It was a downward spiral but when a teenager find him/herself (seldom her) in these situations... the idea of shooting a school up doesn't sound 100% irrational anymore. The same people who most popularly think suicide is the way out (teenagers) are also the same people who think their life and freedom is being threatend by "the man," and understanding where the kids at Columbine were coming from isn't too difficult. It's still wrong and senceless, but teenagers are often wrong, misguided and indeed, at times, senceless. Personally, I never thought of it when I was in HS but when those things happend I could imagine fully what was going through their heads then. The irony is, this kid getting charged with a felony for wirting a zombie story is suspected of conspiracy to murder/terrorisim, might have never even considered such a thing, but with enough bullying from authorities like this - he may. Perhaps we always create our own worst monsters.

I would love to read this kid's story.

On a related note, I used to imagine huge Unreal Tournment type duels happening in one of the sections of my old high school (If anyone went to Hialeah-Miami Lakes Senior High School, the section in front of the gym with the shit-load of lockers under the stairs).

Heheh, I had a feeling those Tracer stories would march into this thread somehow... the only funny part to me in those days was that we would all be wondering where the fuck you were before school started and how come you didn't come to lunch anymore and whenever we finally saw you and asked you, you just mumbled something incoherently and changed subject. I dont think we really gave it much thought until afterwards, when you told us 'oh yeah I was suspended and shit'. Nice that high school is over in a way...

When I wasn't being crucified by the administration I had fun in HS with you guys. I hated my senior year because I couldn't hit the library at lunch with ya'll or hang out at the locker island before classes.

So have we obtained a copy of the story yet? I'm refraining from any judgment until I see the damn paper.

High school is, I think, one of the worst things in the U.S.A. Unless by divine providence you find a high school that breaks the mold.

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Originally Posted by Cowutopia

High school is, I think, one of the worst things in the U.S.A.

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Middle School is far worse. I actually had fun in high school.

Middle school sucked.
Nothing's worse than being a late bloomer.

I always got made fun of in Middle School so that sucked and some really bad shit was going down in my life.

Highschool was alright until my Junior year when some more really bad shit was going down in my life and I kind've gave up on everything and did really bad (and suffered for it, failed my junior year but still managed to graduate on time by only .6 credits). Senior year was eh, I never did anything yet still managed to do better then all my other years in highschool (I mean I did nothing, highschool was where I got most of my sleeping done, literally), I went into the USMC three days after graduation (which I didn't attend because I didn't give a fuck) and that was that, highschool is so far in the back of my mind that it takes some thinking to recall what happened back then.

I think middle school is terrible for *everyone*.

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Originally Posted by Cowutopia

High school is, I think, one of the worst things in the U.S.A. Unless by divine providence you find a high school that breaks the mold.

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My high school was pretty sweet.

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Originally Posted by diffusionx

I think middle school is terrible for *everyone*.

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No, about 5% of students like middle school, I think. The other 95% hated these people.

As my age suggests, I'm still in high school. Thankfully, I go to a decent school. My school in general doesn't have the overwhelmingly large groups of annoying people; the "rednecks", cocky rich kids, ghetto-ballers, etc., go to other schools in the county. We're pretty much strictly normal middle-class people. It also doesn't hurt that I'm in the IB program, so I'm pretty much isolated from the people that would cause any trouble.

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Originally Posted by MechDeus

Google is your friend.

http://reverend_kim.tripod.com/Otherkin/Other.html

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I was afraid. I was justified.

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Originally Posted by Tracer

One last note: When you're a teenager, this is the worst thing in your life and terrible thoughts do run through your mind, though later your realise that you always made mountians out of molehills and you brought a lot of touble on yourself because you wouldn't just shrug off rules you found offensive then (they were really of no consequence). It was a downward spiral but when a teenager find him/herself (seldom her) in these situations... the idea of shooting a school up doesn't sound 100% irrational anymore. The same people who most popularly think suicide is the way out (teenagers) are also the same people who think their life and freedom is being threatend by "the man," and understanding where the kids at Columbine were coming from isn't too difficult. It's still wrong and senceless, but teenagers are often wrong, misguided and indeed, at times, senceless. Personally, I never thought of it when I was in HS but when those things happend I could imagine fully what was going through their heads then. The irony is, this kid getting charged with a felony for wirting a zombie story is suspected of conspiracy to murder/terrorisim, might have never even considered such a thing, but with enough bullying from authorities like this - he may. Perhaps we always create our own worst monsters.

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I never did any of that. I never took anything as life-threatening or freedom crunching. I just went about my business and didn't mind much else.

I was a wise teenager. Wisdom beyond my years.

it doesn't matter what the kid wrote, so I don't feel any need to withhold judgement.

I used to think we had freedom of expression. Guess I should have known better.

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Originally Posted by johnk_

it doesn't matter what the kid wrote, so I don't feel any need to withhold judgement.

I used to think we had freedom of expression. Guess I should have known better.

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LOL. One thing I have learned in my 24 years is that you don't qualify for freedom of expression untill you're 18 (and even then...)

Yeah, if it was a hit list or a realistical tangeble threat on the school, its students or its faculty then they would (should) have said so. I feel no need to withhold judgement either.