This guy may have thought he was just being cute, but this goes to far for just showing off.
The Secret Service investigated a teacher in Jefferson County, Alabama after “he picked the wrong example” and used a hypothetical assassination of President Obama to teach angles to his geometry students, the Birmingham News reports:
The teacher was apparently teaching his geometry students about parallel lines and angles, officials said. He used the example of where to stand and aim if shooting Obama.
“He was talking about angles and said, ‘If you’re in this building, you would need to take this angle to shoot the president,’ ” said Joseph Brown, a senior in the geometry class.
The Secret Service questioned the math teacher, but decided not to arrest him or charge him with a crime after they determined he was not “a credible threat,” an agency spokesperson said. Superintendent Phil Hammonds called the incident “extremely poor judgment” and “a poor choice of words,” but said he has no plans to fire the teacher… [emphasis original]
Inserted from <Think Progress>
I can understand not arresting the guy, because what he says falls short of being a criminal act. However, was the next Eric Harris or Dylan Klebold in the classroom? We cannot know, but given the nature of GOP hate in that state, it’s a distinct possibility that he may have planted the seed for an assassination attempt. The teacher should be fired.
I’m particularly disgusted that all concerned are letting him hide behind a cloak of anonymity. We may not know his name, but we know his party affiliation.
7 Responses to “Teaching Teabuggery”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
You’re absolutely right about planting a seed, especially in Alabama, a very red state. I agree that he should be fired for using an inappropriate example.
I posted on that too. That teacher would have been sent to Gitmo if he’d said that during Dumbya’s presidency.
I like to think the letter I faxed to Phil Hammonds helped in “changing” his mind (at least publicly) in both his name (Gregory Harrison) and his punishment (he’s been suspended):
“An Alabama teacher has been suspended after a national outcry for using an assassination attempt against President Obama to illustrate a maths problem to his class.
“Gregory Harrison, the teacher at Corner High School in Jefferson County, Alabama, was to receive a slap on the wrist in the form of a “long conversation” with the local school authorities, after sparking a Secret Service investigation when he discussed possible angles to use in shooting at the president.
“But officials only later decided they needed to take tougher action against Harrison following a flood of calls from people outraged at the lenient treatment. Harrison’s deadly lesson was revealed this week by the local newspaper….”
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/richard-adams-blog/2010/may/19/teacher-alabama-assasination-obama
[PS: Probably a small thing, but it might be useful to make available what HTML codes are supported in Comments. Also I quoted a bit less than three paragraphs from the source, as that seems to be a common limit for the Fair Use Doctrine – but you may have different guidelines.]
Good on you, Nameless. First here is the HTML include section for comments.
* allowed HTML elements.
*
* @global array $allowedtags
* @since 1.0.0
*/
$allowedtags = array(
‘a’ => array(
‘href’ => array (),
‘title’ => array ()),
‘abbr’ => array(
‘title’ => array ()),
‘acronym’ => array(
‘title’ => array ()),
‘b’ => array(),
‘blockquote’ => array(
‘cite’ => array ()),
// ‘br’ => array(),
‘cite’ => array (),
‘code’ => array(),
‘del’ => array(
‘datetime’ => array ()),
// ‘dd’ => array(),
// ‘dl’ => array(),
// ‘dt’ => array(),
’em’ => array (), ‘i’ => array (),
// ‘ins’ => array(‘datetime’ => array(), ‘cite’ => array()),
// ‘li’ => array(),
// ‘ol’ => array(),
// ‘p’ => array(),
‘q’ => array(
‘cite’ => array ()),
‘strike’ => array(),
‘strong’ => array(),
// ‘sub’ => array(),
// ‘sup’ => array(),
// ‘u’ => array(),
// ‘ul’ => array(),
);
}
On Fair Use Doctrine, the third componant, length, is not set in stone. My intent is certainly not to plagerize others’ work, as I invariably link back to the source. I hardly ever use an entire article, unless it is an Action Alert with request to pass it on. My use is completely non-commercial. And I thought I had an offer to remove anything someone considers proprietary in my footer. I need to see why that is not showing up.
Actually I was addressing my quote WRT Fair Use. (That’s the reason I was asking WRT HTML code – so I could place it as a blockquote.)
Although IANAL, I have seen language like this used on blogs as a fairly comprehensive disclaimer WRT Fair Use:
Fair Use Notice
This site contains images and excerpts the use of which has not been pre-authorized. This material is made available for the purpose of analysis and critique, as well as to advance the understanding of political, media and cultural issues.
The ‘fair use’ of such material is provided for under U.S. Copyright Law. In accordance with U.S. Code Title 17, Section 107, material on this site (along with credit links and attributions to original sources) is viewable for educational and intellectual purposes. If you are interested in using any copyrighted material from this site for any reason that goes beyond ‘fair use,’ you must first obtain permission from the copyright owner.
I see. Thanks for the notice Text. It’s better than mine. In any case both the ‘blockquote’ and ‘cite’ codes are supported.