Posted on 05/20/2004 12:49:27 PM PDT by TaxRelief
MOUNT AIRY, N.C. -- A local high school teacher who watched the beheading of Nicholas Berg in class with some of his students was suspended for two days.
Mack Hodges teaches social studies at Mount Airy High School and also coaches baseball and football. Hodges recently told his class that he could not find the Web site carrying the video of the beheading, a school official said.
In the video, Nicholas Berg is seated on the ground while five armed men disguised by head scarves and masks stand behind him. A man in the middle identified as terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi decapitates Berg. It is unclear when and how Berg, a self-employed telecommunications businessman, was captured. The video has not been shown on U.S. television but has been available on the Internet.
On Tuesday, one of Hodges' students came in before class started, entered search information onto Hodges' computer and brought up the video, Superintendent Bill Church said. Hodges, the student, and five or six other students all viewed the video, Church said.
This video still, obtained from an Islamist website, shows five hooded gunmen standing behind Nicholas Berg.
"The kids who did see it were those who chose to stand there and watch," he said. "It was not a captive audience. Even still, I do not see it as part of our curriculum or responsibility to show that. If parents want to show that, it is different. To discuss it and its implications is a matter of current events, but now to show the gruesome actions."
Hodges was later suspended for two days and was not available for comment late Tuesday.
Teachers in Nebraska, California, Arkansas and Texas all have been suspended or placed on leave in the past couple of weeks for allowing students to view the video in class.
Principal Sandy George will determine what, if any, disciplinary action the student involved will face.
hear, hear.
Well said CMAC51! Well said. Everyone should watch this video.
I am sure the millions that perished under Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot and other cruel dictators will find comfort in your assurances.
Being good has nothing to do with prevailing. It is the strong and resolute who will prevail.
"I am sure the millions that perished under Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot and other cruel dictators will find comfort in your assurances."
LOL! Look at what you're saying in sarcasm. FYI, we defeated Hitler and the followers of Stalin with the goodness we learned from our Greatest Generation. We will eventually defeat all who indulge in sadism--Saddam Hussein, for example. Sadists are vain. That's why they lose. They might execute their cruel tendencies against good people for a time, but they'll be defeated sooner or later.
Evil is not strength. Goodness is strength. The vain and evil ones only believe that their cruelties will keep victory for them. But their vanity and consequent underestimation of our strengths is what brings defeat to them.
That's why, in most cases, a good combat soldier can beat a nasty, dirty hippie any day.
I was a fighter for awhile in my younger, dumber days. It was fun, being a good boy and doing my training without a lot of thoughts about glory or meanness. ...something to be done with a clear mind and relatively clean conscience.
It was fun beating the hell out of big, fat idiots who wasted their time with weak meanness, trying to intimidate their opponents, and underestimating good boys.
Obviously you do not have any teenagers.
What age do you consider appropriate for teenagers to discover the real world? After they leave for college when there are no parents to comfort and guide them through their discomfort?
My son's girlfriend graduated from Mt. Airy High School. The Surry County and Mt. Airy Schools are a mess. Just about every other week, some teacher or counsellor gets hauled off to Dobson for having sex with a student. That being said, I have to say this seems excessive to me. It sounds like a knee-jerk reaction, all in all pretty typical for this school system. They were probably scared some hysterical soccer mom would sue.
I agree wholeheartedly!!! Part of the reason why the media has been so successful is because they would like to paint a picture of the enemy as these poor defenseless people that we're taking advantage of and abusing. Please! Enough already, THIS is the truth of it and EVERYONE should not only WANT to see it but NEED to see it. If for no other reason than to pound it into everyones skulls that THIS is the enemy...THIS is what they are capable of...THIS is the type of people that our men and women are defending us against.
Bravo, TR! Dr. Dobson would be proud of you! The reason we have so many slackers and ne'er-do-wells among the 18 to 24 crowd is parents who are too lazy or cowardly to deal with teaching their kids that the world is a pretty nasty place.
Oops. Where I wrote, "Our soldiers enjoy killing," that was intended to be "our soldiers don't enjoy, killing." With clear heads and consciences, they do it much better.
The vain and indulgent would worry too much about what Sgt. so-and-so said about them the other day. Such vanities are trained out of our soldiers in initial training.
"Obviously you do not have any teenagers."
That's a vain presumption. Our enemies assume too much, and that's why we defeat them. While our enemies indulge in cruelties and vanities, our soldiers are trained to defeat them. Our soldiers have clearer consciences than those of our enemies--the WWII NAZIs, for example, who believed that strength came through positive identification familiarizations with cruelties.
Our soldiers do what they have to do while concentrating on their tasks--not passions.
I'm sure the gentleman had good, pro-American intentions, but I have to say I think showing this to children is a decision parents should make, not teachers. The schools overstep their boundaries in so many ways.
"If you ever pull your head out of the ground, be sure to clean the sand out of your ears."
After comments like that, I have no respect for you or for your cheering section.
Snuff films won't make our kids more effective at fighting evil. Such things are for our enemies to indulge in and be defeated by.
This video isn't for our troops in the field. They already know the nature of the enemy. It should be seen by every American on the home front, so that we may recall, as we did on 9/11, the nature of the enemy and the reason why this is total war. After all, media liberals have been saturating us with their side of the story, the pictures from Abu Ghraib.
Big mouth. Come and tell me that to my face. You don't have the nerve.
Hi, TC!
Actually, he did not "show" this video. He let the few who wanted to see it do so. The military takes kids at 17-yrs-old. These kids may only have the next couple years to work up the necessary fury to be good soldiers, if that is their chosen career path.
Again, I ask you: what age is appropriate to allow teenagers see the world for what it is?
So, which school officials answer to YOU? Who made you judge, jury and executioner? WILL BE fired? Now, that's interesting. Which school board member's spouse are YOU sleeping with?
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