Home > Jay Bookman > Archives > 2008 > June > 13 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USLearning the hard way….
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
OCEANSIDE, Calif. — On a Monday morning last month, highway patrol officers visited 20 classrooms at El Camino High School to announce some horrible news: Several students had been killed in car wrecks over the weekend.
Classmates wept. Some became hysterical.
A few hours and many tears later, though, the pain turned to fury when the teenagers learned that it was all a hoax — a scared-straight exercise designed by school officials to dramatize the consequences of drinking and driving.
“They were traumatized, but we wanted them to be traumatized,” said guidance counselor Lori Tauber, who helped organize the shocking exercise and got dozens of students to participate. “That’s how they get the message.”
You know, I think I finally understand now why the Supreme Court decided as it did back in 2000. They wanted to remind the American people that it matters who we elect as president; they wanted to dramatize the consequences of incompetence and “gut thinking” in the most powerful office in the world.
If so, mission accomplished.
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Comments
By Dusty
June 13, 2008 5:05 PM | Link to this
Bookman,
Your reprint and your comment have exactly nothing in common. Probably the worst “comparison” I have read in some time.
The Supreme Court decided on exact legal opinions and you haven’t gotten over it yet. And you want to compare it to some thoughtless school action by a lamebrain guidance counselor.
Talk about a sore loser, you are the epitome of “skulk and sulk”. Time to grow up and ACT like a grown up instead of a spoiled child.
By JAY BOOKMAN
June 13, 2008 5:12 PM | Link to this
Not surprised you didn’t like it, Dusty…. Not surprised at all.
By Pee'er Pressure
June 13, 2008 5:21 PM | Link to this
I was surprised at the versatility of school officials to create chaos. To inflict an emotional wound on individual students, who were told that specific schoolmates were killed by drunk drivers, shows a flexibility previously unheard of.
The cops first told the students that the cafeteria ladies had got drunk and drove their van loaded with shepherd’s pie over a ravine and died, but the students cheered.
To my favorite conservatives who try to criticize Jay Bookman: CNN just reported that Rush Limbaugh has writer’s block, and Hannity suddenly is dislexic. SUCKERS! I only made that up! How did it feel? How did you like it?
I wanted to traumatize you so you’d stop hacking everything.
By Pee'er Pressure
June 13, 2008 5:34 PM | Link to this
JAY BOOKMAN: Nobody is fooled. WHen a AJC editor comments on his own blog, there’s a Blue Link thingie that forms the signature and ID, not capital letters.
moron. WTF? Y do U people think that everyone is stupid? Oh, you fooled us! Wow! Jay Bookman said: @*#&$^!(!@
Really? He sure did, look his name is in capital letters instead of the blue thingie like on Wootens, but we’re all so stupid, that we believe it.
I’ve got a bridge in London that I’d like to sell the bloggers here. it gets 100 miles a gallon and receives faxes and everything.
morons. honestly.
Dont worry, Jay Bookman, nobody but the most retarded amoung us little people believe that JAY BOOKMAN is you.
Is it miller time yet?
By JAY BOOKMAN
June 13, 2008 5:47 PM | Link to this
Umm…. Peer? JAY BOOKMAN is, well, me. We’ll pull down the comments of anyone who impersonates the blog author.
By Dusty
June 13, 2008 6:07 PM | Link to this
The question is: Why would anyone want to impersonate Jay Bookman?
By Abomi Nation
June 13, 2008 6:13 PM | Link to this
The main difference of course is that those students in San Diego would have been offered grief counseling had it been true.
The victims of the Bush tragedy have been offered nothing. Look what has happened. Severe mental health cases have been documented all over the country. The need for not only counseling but real sessions with psychiatrists is desperately needed.
Oh not for the people that voted for Gore. No those people may be upset but for the most part are ok.
No, the ones that need the mental help are the ones that bought into the Bush myth. They have been shattered by the total collapse and incompetence. They bought into all those slogans and the make believe world that Bush, Cheney and company created. You can spot them here pretty easily. They are the ones stumbling and mumbling around the blogs shouting “liberal media” and “activist judges,” or “socialist commie.”
Unfortunately it has also caused them to miss out on the war they so love. They have come down with numerous psychosomatic mental problems that keep them from enlisting. One 22 yr old war lover just the other day was complaining about his severe case of Restless Leg Syndrome that kept him out of action. Then there was that outbreak of asthma that hit the Young Republicans in epidemic proportions at college campuses throughout the country. Hit them real hard.
Its really pretty sad. Get some help!!
By George Washington
June 13, 2008 6:27 PM | Link to this
A typical Repuke trick: better dead than red, or in this case, better scared po op less than driving 1 mph over the speed limit…we need to beat the po op out of those pigs…
By JAY BOOKMAN
June 13, 2008 6:34 PM | Link to this
George Clooney tries, Dusty, but he can’t quite pull it off.
By Craig
June 13, 2008 6:36 PM | Link to this
brilliant, Jay.
By Taxpayer
June 13, 2008 7:24 PM | Link to this
Mr. Bookman,
Do you do a good rendition of “Man of Constant Sorrow” by the Soggy Bottom Boys? I think that was George at his finest.
By JAY BOOKMAN
June 13, 2008 7:29 PM | Link to this
I sang the original. George was just lip-synching.
By Taxpayer
June 13, 2008 7:32 PM | Link to this
My, you are a man of many years — and talents. Some might call you “Old as Dirt”. Do you fiddle as well?
By JAY BOOKMAN
June 13, 2008 7:36 PM | Link to this
Not with a fiddle.
By Mike
June 13, 2008 7:40 PM | Link to this
Pretty lame analogy. The kind of lightweight “zinger” I expect from some partisan poster. All that’s missing is the typing in caps or calling Bush a “ReThuglican”.
Bookman is getting paid for this? Why bother. You can get this tripe all over the internet for free.
By Taxpayer
June 13, 2008 7:43 PM | Link to this
Give me your opinion now. Do you think that Al Gore would have been a better choice given what we know about Al and G.W.? Personally, I think we should have been given better options from the primaries or else the Supremes should have done us all a favor and declared the entire election null and void. If they had really been on top of things, they would have given us a verbal “butt kicking” and returned a simple one-liner such as “What the #!*$ is wrong with you people?”
By Dumb and Dumber
June 13, 2008 8:04 PM | Link to this
That’d be Dusty times two.
By Dusty
June 13, 2008 10:02 PM | Link to this
Clooney?? Joke?? Point?? Zero!!
By Bionic Blonde
June 14, 2008 6:45 AM | Link to this
It sure has been a very hard lesson and it continues to be. Who would have thought that a President of the United States needed to be competent? We all passed Bush fatigue a long time ago. It’s more like aversion therapy now—we all get a sick feeling in the pit of our stomach every time we see him.
By Bud Wiser
June 14, 2008 6:55 AM | Link to this
The simplicity of the previous minds on this blog is, well, staggering. Come on Jay, you can do better than this. To stick two completely different pieces of creative journalism together and try to use them to form a single thought line was lazy writing at best. Since you hate George Bush so much, then preface your statement with some facts, or, if it is the cops you hate, then comment on the astounding stupidity of the so-called adults that came up with that ignorant prank. But to try to mesh the two was lame; there is no connection. On he positive side though, you at least got some responses from bloggers who have now identified themselves as idiots by opening their mouths and speaking, instead of remaining silent and letting us only guess how stupid they are.
By Taxpayer
June 14, 2008 7:21 AM | Link to this
Mr. Bookman,
It appears you have hurt someone’s feelings. It’s OK, Bud, for you to be none the wiser. Everyone else knows that “Man of Constant Sorrow” defines George’s “accomplishments” from his surge of missions quite satisfactorily. Well, not everyone else.
By Pee'er Pressure
June 14, 2008 9:19 AM | Link to this
Bookman, if that’s you, then use the blue letter thingie wooten uses, and settle this. Every blog has a troll who ID’s the editor. JIM WOOTEN. CYNTHIA TUCKER. etc.
Maybe there’s a way I can prove you’re not JB. In the days before Greasy Grass, another general was attacked by the same tribes that were so successful at the Greasy Grass, and it should have been a total massacre. However, the action of certain individuals saved the day for this general and his troops. Who were these individuals, and what did they do to avert a military catastrophe for the US Cavalry in 1976?
Where was Sitting Bull during the action at Greasy Grass?
By ron
June 14, 2008 9:34 AM | Link to this
Jay,It seems that the guidance councelor needs both guidance and counceling.I hope they fire the b***.
By ron
June 14, 2008 9:40 AM | Link to this
Jay,B** Is not a female dog.
By Pee'er Pressure
June 14, 2008 10:08 AM | Link to this
Bionic Blonde and Bud Wiser, you’re drinking the koolaid. The GOP WANTS you to focus on Bush.
Bush did nothing wrong. He ordered the attack on OBL in afghanistan in 2002. Cheney and Rummy refused that order. Only with OBL at large could Cheney and Rummy get America behind the Iraq War.
Bush was a patsy, and the GOP would like nothing more than for America to spend it’s revolution in redefining national resolve and national pride on BUSH.
Honor Bush. Get Cheney and the conservatives.
We have a chance to crush conservatism once and for all, and make it as vile as fascism, which is what it is.
Dont blow this chance on a hapless stooge like Bush.
Honor Bush. Respect our president. He done good. It’s not his fault he fell to a coup. The Saudis were the money behind cheney and rummy.
Know it. Live it. Vote it.
I’m sorry, I know you mean well, but it takes a special ignorance to hate George Bush. It’s like hating Running Bear for cranking Little White Dove and letting Big Beaver get away…..wait that’s a porn site that owes me money….nevermind.
By Taxpayer
June 14, 2008 10:40 AM | Link to this
Pee’er Pressure,
We all should know by now what scum Cheney, “Rummy”, and “Rove[r]” are but why stop there. Why shouldn’t we accept that there’s more truth out there than the grassy knoll offers up, for example. Conspiracies in some cases are the delusions of sick minds but not always. Some times they are the leftovers of successful cover ups. Besides, Bush, Powell, and others may all be patsies but that is not a reason to give them a free pass — especially given their positions in power. Anyway, in theory, an accurate historical accounting could at least give us an opportunity to avoid repeats. So let’s get more McClellans publishing and set that record straight.
By Eric
June 14, 2008 10:41 AM | Link to this
In terms of the quoted article, I am quite disturbed that law enforcement and guidance counselors would stoop to such lows as to perpetrate a “hoax” and intentionally traumatize students. This is a perversion, regardless of the good intentions. In this case, the end clearly does not justify the means! Does anyone else agree?
By Mr. Chips
June 14, 2008 11:33 AM | Link to this
Yes, Eric. Everyone agrees. The question is about the judgement of those school officials involved in the hoax. If I had been present at that meeting, I would have objected. Had they proceeded despite my protestations, I would now be setting an investigation in motion and trying to prevent future hoaxes.
But I cant reform all of education. I’m not Mr. Chips.
I’m simply not Mr. Chips.
By No way. Yahwey.
June 14, 2008 12:26 PM | Link to this
Tim Russert. Peter Jennings. Jim McKay. Journalism lost some giants recently. A moment of respect and silence.
You’re at the top of the world, a king, one second. The very next heartbeat doesn’t happen, and you’re facing eternity, under judgement from a Supreme Being, a court of one, appointed by Himself (after rigging a Diebold voting machine, no doubt), and completely ignoring the popular vote of the angels and saints not to mention an assortment of demons who once demanded a recount.
Well, Tim Russert now knows what eternity looks like. Is he interviewing God? Does he have alternate translations of the bible in which Mary is actually called an “unmarried woman” instead of a “virgin”?
Does he bring up the fact that hundreds of thousands die from “acts of God” like tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes and other natural disasters? Russert: “Supreme being or not, you have to admit you’ve got a liability problem here in the court of public opinion, dont you Sir?”
Your press badge doesn’t gain you entry, Mr. Russert, your soul does.
“I’ve got a deadline to meet, God, so if we could continue with this interview…”
You dont get it, do you, Mr Russert?
“Just one last question and then you can judge my soul, okay? You have to admit it’s a bit cruel to create a human being with such a short shelf life and a consciousness that knows it will expire. It’s very distressing and terrifying for most people.”
Okay, I’ll give you this one answer. The angels who rebelled thought they had a chance to win. They wouldn’t have rebelled just to be cast out of heaven. They thought they could win. Get it? The human soul has enormous power in eternity, and I cant take any more chances on rebels. The only way to judge a angel is to watch the choices it makes when confined in a body that hungers, and thirsts. I’m still astonished at the denial. Some of you think you can save yourselves. It’s almost funny. You’re not going anywhere but right here. Now about your choices, Mr Russert…….
By Slick
June 14, 2008 2:07 PM | Link to this
Jay, When the announcement was made about the death of students over the week end due to drunken driving, were the students named? If they were, then I think the use of a hoax reflected very bad judgement. If they were not named, then I think it was an appropriate way to get student attention. A normal lecture on the dangers of drinking and driving would have been ignored, forgotten, or possibly even the subject of jokes.
It was sort of like the farmer who hit his mule “up side the head” with a two by four to get his attention.
Your Supreme Court analogy suggests the same thought, although it would take a hell of a lot of licks “up side the head” to cause as much pain and suffering as eight years of the Bush Administration’s imcompetence has caused.
By Politics Aside
June 14, 2008 2:35 PM | Link to this
The students were named. If they had not been named it would still be a mistake, because then the students would have never believed the danger was real, but only a remote thing to be pretended about.
By Me
June 14, 2008 10:02 PM | Link to this
True George Clooney was lip synching in Oh Brother Where Art Though, however it was Dan Tyminski not Jay Bookman doing the singing.
Only God can judge Tim Russert. Let the man rest in peace.
As for the school incident that the article is about…a very similar thing was done to us when I was in 6th or 7th grade in an unnamed Metro Area public school. That would have been about 1968-69….A teacher came running into our room crying that the Princpal had poisoned two teachers..We got over it in about 5 minutes. The idea behind this was for us to all write down what happened to show how different eye witness versions can be. Still a pretty dumb idea though.
Nothing in school ever traumatized me like becoming an adult and dealing with the real world though.
By Cynical Cindy
June 16, 2008 10:10 AM | Link to this
I wonder what would have happened if the highway patrol named the school’s most unpopular kids who’d been “killed”? Celebratory cheers or crocodile tears??