Boy Suspended for Pointing Finger Like Gun

Newser ^ | 3/4/14 | Kate Seamons

[Impala64ssa]

America's kids have been suspended for pretending that pencils were guns, but an Ohio school may have topped that. A 10-year-old student at a Columbus elementary school was handed a three-day suspension for making a finger gun and pretending to shoot a classmate. The suspension letter more formally referred to his weapon as a "level 2 lookalike firearm," reports the Columbus Dispatch. Devonshire Alternative Elementary School's principal says students have been frequently told not to play pretend gun games, with a district rep saying kids were warned consequences would follow.

Those consequences hit hard last week for fifth-grader Nathan Entingh, who says he was "just playing around"; the rep said Nathan pretended to shoot another student "kind of execution style" in the head. And the "victim" didn't even see the mock execution, which was instead spotted by a teacher. Nathan's dad seems dumbfounded: "It would even make more sense maybe if he brought a plastic gun that looked like a real gun or something, but it was his finger." (Almost exactly a year ago, a Georgia teacher was suspended over a finger gun of his own.)

[Monkey Face]

Where I live, I EXPECT courtesy, and have no qualms about saying so! “Please” and “thank you” are well used in my lexicon!

As for other people, the complex I live in is rampant with rudeness...

I even had to get ugly with a resident, last week.

[Monkey Face]

I always blame my keyboard for typos. The gremlins keep moving the keys...

[Darksheare]

Heh heh heh.
Been kicking parts of that story around in my noggin for awhile now.

[Darksheare]

Typo virus.

[Darksheare]

I was lurking a lot over the last week.

[NicknamedBob]

"Been kicking parts of that story around in my noggin for awhile now."

I'd like to see it all put together. You don't have to have a complete story, you know. You could have snippets, and flashbacks, and partial explanations, and still leave a lot of mystery in the sequences and the timelines.

Later on, you could use that bare bones sequence as the introductory material to a fully fleshed out, (and meched-out), retelling of the more complete information, (comprising twelve books if you wanted to).

[Bikkuri]

lol.. peeps here are still confused when I say “Bless you”, when they sneeze ;)

[Darksheare]

I’m afraid that it is a glimpse into an entire universe.
I must admit, I have in the minds ear the sounds everything makes.
I can envision the movement of the inhabitants, the general workings of the tech, and both the good and darkly evil things in that universe.

[NicknamedBob]

The important part is that it’s never quite complete.

You can jump in at any point and expand it. It’s like Hypertext.

If you’ve got a battle scene worked out, write it up.

If you have a time of recuperation and recovery worked out, write it up.

If you have a long, boring stretch of travel, where your characters are forced to entertain each other, WRITE IT UP!

The point is, start writing. Lay flat on your back, and look up at that endless expanse of ceiling ... and then get started.

[Darksheare]

True.
Problem: ideas appear at the most inconvenient times.
Example, when trying to sleep or any time I’m nowhere near a computer or paper.

[NicknamedBob]

I don’t know if a recorder will work for you. It didn’t for me.

But I like to work out plot twists. Once I’ve done that, I remember it, because it pleases me. I’m making my own movie, right there inside my head. Why wouldn’t I remember it?

But you can use a different technique too. Write down those short snippets, and then work out a system to put them in order. Remember it doesn’t matter if your segue is logical or not. Just don’t jump around too much in time, unless it’s an obvious flashback, and is of short duration.

You’ve got a lot of it written already. You can start by putting those sections in order.

[Darksheare]

That’s what I’ve been doing, writing the bits and pieces.
Then throwing them into order.

[NicknamedBob]

Well, that's what I'm saying. Even that can work as a story.

You could say that your protagonist's memory is unreliable. Maybe he's relaxing on some shrink's couch, trying to pull the snippets together into sensible coherence.

The story still gets told, even if the gentle reader feels as though he's being made to skip eleven pages at a time.

[Darksheare]

Unreliable due to far too much stored information and bleeding same out into any nearby computer networks.
Concept I’m bashing about: nanite infested crewmen can at some tipping point cease being entirely biological in that spark that makes us human and become enmeshed with and within the programming of the nanites.
In essence they are inseparable from same.
Or they can infest open networks like a virus.
So one can meet the person they are speaking to physically and electronically at the same time.

AI programs interacting with this largely subconscious communication would be interesting to puzzle out.

[NicknamedBob]

There’s no question it’s going to be a lot of work.

The trick will be to learn to love it. Then it becomes play.

[Darksheare]

Email, some stuff to ponder and pick apart.

[NoCmpromiz]

had to get ugly with a resident

The parkingplace-pilferer perchance?

[Darksheare]

May the parking spot pilferer suffer from bizarre dreams -that I may or may not be the cause thereof- and slowly degenerate in sanity level until they apologize.

[NoCmpromiz]

So if you have been paying attention over time you have heard stories about most, if not all, of out resident alien overlords with assorted color-coordinated fur. I haven't said too much since I had to dig a hole and place the corpse of the late murdered-by-three-dogs Sooty into his final resting place. But needless to say, his absence has now wrecked havoc within the feral community (outdoors) and as a ripple affect, the indoor/outdoor feral-born-but-now-domesticated community which consists of, not surprisingly, his offspring (as nearly as we can determine.)

Along the way you might have heard mention of Smudge, the daughter of Sooty and the resident feral female Smokey (Naming conventions are purely based on color, which may be racist, but Sooty was black and Smokey is grey.) Daughter Smudge is grey. Except for the smudge. Under her chin. On her chest. Like this:

Her mama kept her away from us and it wasn't until Smudge became with child that she started claiming the cathouse we made on the back porch as her own. In the fullness of time she presented us with two kittens, both male. And because Mrs. NoC is a softie mama Smudge and her two boys soon were living in the house house instead of the cathouse. Except when they wanted to go hunting. Or use real dirt instead of ground clay for their latrine duties. Then they insisted on going out. And shredding the screendoor in the process. Do they make catclawproof door screen?

The day came when we scooped mama Smudge and her two boys into carriers and transported them to a magical place that reworked mama's internal structure to insure that her two boys would be her only heirs, while simultaneously converting the boys into congressional republicans.

So they now are indoor/outdoor cats with no chance of increasing the local feline population. And they typically come to the door and want to be let inside for the night. So it was that this pattern was broken Sunday night when Smudge did not present her fur at the back door requesting entrance while uttering the secret passpurr. While unusual, it was a warm night and just maybe we thought, she decided to hole up somewhere. But she didn't show up for her yummyyummy cat food Monday morning. And she was absent all day Monday. And all night Monday night/Tuesday morning. And all day Tuesday.

Of course, after having her father murdered by three renegade dogs Mrs. NoC was frantic and I was, um, worried. So I donned my neoprene-and-velcro knee amendments, dipped my BDU's and shirt is DEET, grabbed my leather gloves and my bandana and trekked into the North forty while calling out for the Smudge. I should have also grabbed the loppers and a walking stick and my machete (hindsight is always 20-20). The territory I trekked is in between two fields that are usually planted in corn (but not yet). Once upon a time, it was cleared and was part of the cow pasture but has regrown since the last dairy herd on the property was over a quarter century ago. It has a stream winding through it, a pond that I discovered still has goldfish in it, a lot of obnoxious irritating weed with leaves-of-three, a similar quantity of nettles, wild rose and berry bushes complete with pickers, er, thorns, wet slimy moss-covered rock, mud, fallen trees, remnants of a barbed wire fence, and uneven terrain. All impediments to traversing the block of ground. In the absence of the loppers and machete, I utilized the trusty leatherglovecovered hands to break, twist, bend, remove, or otherwise clear the thorny twiggy stuff out of my path. (As an aside, about four years ago I chopped a path through this crap, er, growth with my trusty machete, but all traces of that effort are nonvisible now.) Anyway, I traveled north in the west cornfield until the big oak tree (the landmark indicating the semiclear path to the pond), headed east to the pond and then circumnavigated about 66% of the circumference of the pond, then cut southeast to the oncepasture, headed south to the culvert behind the silo, and then headed back to the house. With no response or even a mewl from the Smudge.

And I was mentally preparing myself for the never-return. Which is distressing. Even if she's only a cat.

Darkness approached, and I came inside, removed the BDU's with the urushiol coated legs, the urushiol coated boots, the smelly T-shirt, and the neoprene-and-velcro knee amendments, and took a shower to further minimize affects of any contact with the leaves-of-three.

I made a samidge and poured a beverage. And I sat down. And it grew dark.

And along about 2230 Smudge showed up.

But how can you shake the snot out of some fur as cute as her...

Even if she would deserve it for making, um, Mrs. NoC worry..

[Darksheare]

That furry assassin!