Posted on 11/10/2004 8:49:24 AM PST by Doomonyou
SRJC teacher found dead
Instructor's 'kill the president' e-mail assignment controversial
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
By PAUL PAYNE
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Michael H. Ballou, a Santa Rosa Junior College instructor questioned last year by the Secret Service over a controversial assignment involving President Bush, has died, the Sonoma County coroner said Tuesday.
The 49-year-old political science instructor died Saturday at his Guerneville home where he lived alone, Sheriff's Sgt. Will Wallman said.
The cause of his death is under investigation, but detectives have ruled out homicide, Wallman said. "There's nothing to say he died at the hands of another, but, otherwise, the book is wide open."
He said an autopsy has been conducted and authorities await the results of toxicology and microscopic tissue tests.
A neighbor discovered the body.
Ballou, who also spelled his name Ballow, was a part-time teacher at the junior college's Petaluma campus and had been on the faculty since 1990.
Ballou was born in Ogden, Utah. He had a master's degree from Brigham Young University and a bachelor's degree from Weber State College, an SRJC spokeswoman said.
He became embroiled in controversy in the summer of 2003 when he assigned students to compose an e-mail with the words "kill the president" in the body of the text.
Ballou said he was trying to demonstrate to students' fear of government and the "growing police state."
Although he said students were instructed not to send the message, one e-mailed it to the Washington office of Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena. Within days, Secret Service agents arrived to question Ballou .
Ballou defended his lesson, saying he meant no harm to the president. In a newspaper column, Ballou said the response proved his point.
Students supported him, saying it was a valuable experience. But faculty, administrators and parents weren't impressed. Robert Agrella, the college president, said he was "ashamed and embarrassed," and fellow teachers wrote letters to the editor, calling the assignment irresponsible. However, administrators stopped short of disciplinary action.
"He was a pretty controversial guy," Agrella said Tuesday.
Touche'!!!
You nailed it!
Thank you for sparing Humboldt County...
There's something so pathetic about a liberal who can't even lie convincingly.
Really? Teaching students that the Secret Service doing its job to protect our President is evidence of the erosion of civil liberties is "harmless"? Planting the idea of killing the President in their minds and admonishing them not to send these emails, knowing that at least one of them will send it is "harmless"? Gratuitously alarming the Secret Service and causing taxpayers the expense of paying him a visit is "harmless"? Filling student minds with leftist propaganda on the taxpayer's dime is "harmless"? I think you and I have different definitions of "harmless."
I guess a klinker is gonna slip through every once in a while. I'm also a BYU grad, but the spooky thing about this guy is I know a Mike Ballou (different middle initial) who is about the same age. Glad to see it's not the guy I know.
Frankly, I don't care whether he's alive or dead, I just wonder why you see value in what he did. I don't have reason to be concerned about who's watching me because, well, I'm not involved in anything that would require someone from the Gov't to watch thru my window. However, there are those among us that choose to involve themselves in nefarious activities would certainly be concerned about what 'elements in our officialdom' are watching them. Seems like a shady 'lesson' to me.
Arlington Road
He was obviously trying to turn these kids into subversives under the guise of teaching a "civics" lesson. There are thousands of "teachers" getting paid to undermine our nation's security, just like this bastard.
good enough.
You wrote: I don't have reason to be concerned about who's watching me because, well, I'm not involved in anything that would require someone from the Gov't to watch thru my window.
Yeah, today, but whast if we had eight years of Kerry followed by Hillary for a couple of terms? And, as I said the phrase could be used in a myriad of totally innocent contexts..."The jilted cheerleader wanted to kill the president of the student government for standing her up at the prom"....get the point?
How do you know that he did this "knowing that at least one of them will send it"? You don't. To write this post as if you did is dishonest.
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You wrote: Filling student minds with leftist propaganda on the taxpayer's dime is "harmless"?
There is nothing leftist about his assignment, a libertarian might have easily done the same. If you want to talk about some of his other activities that's something different but there is nothing in the original post, the one to which we replied, that even hints at "leftist propoganda"...try to color inside the lines.
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You wrote:I think you and I have different definitions of "harmless."
No, I think that I use the actual words and info in the post and you add whatever comes to mind as if it were fact.
"The lesson that he was trying to get to his students was that they are being observed at a distance."
I agree. My view is that you never want to put anything in an email that you might regret saying at a later date. Email lives forever in the computer business, it is always available on some disk or backup tape somewhere.
The more likely scenario is that the email would have been sniffed electronically then spit out for further review had it not been sent directly to Congress.
Looks like this bozo checked out on his own, saving the cost of a bullet.
Boy the DU is gonna be all over this one, I bet.
Shakespeare (1000+ posts)
Response to Reply #19
20. Well, some of us are worried that it WAS foul play.
So, if there'd been information on cause of death, I was genuinely curious. Northern California is an interesting place; for the most part it's quite liberal, but we do have our share of mouthbreathing freepers around here, and this death strikes me as awfully suspicious.
See post #137!
OK, who's the stool pigeon?
Look, I was home last night, I swear!
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