Posted on 05/28/2005 2:30:05 AM PDT by kingattax
LOS ANGELES -- Posters that depicted President Bush with a Groucho Marx-style mustache and cigar were ordered torn down at a high school after a student complained.
Theater students, who had created the posters to advertise a satirical play, countered with new posters with a First Amendment message.
Principal Kenny Lee ordered 100 posters removed from the campus of El Camino Real High School in the Woodland Hills area last week on grounds that they promoted smoking and "endorsing one ideology over another."
"That's our take on the student speech and conduct," Lee said.
The school-funded posters advertised the students' play, "The Complete History of America (Abridged)," which satirizes U.S. history.
A senior who supports the president wrote a complaint letter to the administration, teachers and students said.
"We had one student who was very upset," Lee said. "If something is bothering a student on campus, we're going to address it."
The poster ban infuriated some students.
"It taught us that the First Amendment certainly does not guarantee the right of free speech," said Jes Shah, 16, a junior in the school drama program.
The principal asked the drama students to come up with new posters. The new designs all feature a silhouette of Bush and a burning cigar, along with inscriptions such as "Free Expression for All (unless you are in high school)" and "What First Amendment?"
"They're good," Lee said. "I like the follow-ups."
The tobacco was a bigger no no in high school than attacking the president.
of course
Swordfish?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1411547/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1411996/posts
cross linking.
That's nothing compared to this.
LOL!!! What was that from again? Horse Feathers? It's been awhile, but I do remember that part.
Strangely enough, although it was clearly intended as an insult, I'm not sure being compared to Groucho Marx is all that bad. He was always poking fun at, screwing around with, and laughing at the elite culture, because he saw how rediculous they were. His absurdity was almost always a way of mocking them, a way of laughing at the fact that they don't seem to get what he's doing, when it's obvious to everybody else.
In a strange way, you could say that, that is exactly what Bush is doing with the media and elite culture around the US all the time.
If they are committed to the cigar, they might as well go ahead and pick a president who is associated with the cigar.
None immediately come to mind though. There has to be some recent president that had an incident involving a cigar....
Somebody needs to get a life. Depicting the pres in a Groucho mask is tame.
As for "rights" I don't remember having any when I was a kid.
Hey, Jes. Your already in school. Try learning what the First Amendment means.
Doesn't the First Amendment say something about the right to offend Republicans and Christians at taxpayer expense?
While this is a case of "turnabout-is-fair-game" in the Who's Offended Today game, I think all should realize that they were advertising a SATIRICAL play. Give em a break. Perhaps the play might even be funny, even if you disagree with the politics.
Let it go. Enjoy some liberty for all. Fight for liberty for all.
That's nothing compared to this.
Broward pressures Art Guild to remove graphic painting of Bush from 'Controversy' exhibit (Bush being sodomized).
Come on, they're just kids. We can't expect that kind of pinnacle of artistic achievement from them until they've been through a few years of college.
The Marx Brothers didn't really become the Marx Brothers we all know today until a fateful show in Texas.
They were playing a theater and the crowd ran outside during the show to watch a runaway mule causing havoc in the streets.
Struggling to keep an audience and also ticked at the crowd, Groucho started shouting "Nacogdoches is full of roaches!" and I think the show from the stage became more chaotic.
I can give you some first-hand information on El Camino.
I went there from 1989-1993. I knew the people on the champion teams. The teachers are all unbashedly anti-Republican, and brainwash the students as such. As a result, for example, in a mock election of 1992, Bush Sr. came in third behind Perot. I recall, one Academic Team member, made some long-winded speech in class with tears about how their health coverage, by way of their parents insurance, cuts off for college students past the age of 21
at the time.
My U.S. history teacher, the head coach of the Academic Decathlon team at the time, openly displayed a Clinton / Gore campaign poster. Other non-history teachers put up political cartoons by Conrad of the LA Slimes (Dan Quayle saying "Don't forget to vot.") My English teacher would repeated bash Republicans on their anti-abortion stance.
My cousins go there now and the enviroment has changed little. The same U.S. history, now just a coach of the Academic Decathlon team, took down his U.S. flag and replaced it with a tiny one you find on tables when OIF started. When Bush was re-elected, he threw it in the trash can and called Americans in red states stupid. He would proclaim Kerry the most intelligent candidate to run for President since Carter. Never once admitting that Kerry didn't get into graduate school and Bush did.
The sad thing is some of those smart students do go off to liberal colleges to continue their imbalanced promotion of selective thinking when it comes to politics.
I also thought that the other "reason" given was laughable: That the poster promoted one ideology over another.
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