Most people love power-structures, hierarchy, and “order” — it’s tidy, and not very challenging.
That’s why parents — stupid sheep — lobby to have “controversial” books and movies banned from school libraries, so the next generation is sure to turn into the same mindlessly-orthodox, passive little “goodthinkers”.

Orwell said: “Orthodoxy is unconsciousness” — protective stupidity, and we see that played out every day, from gay folks who just happen to question/transgress traditional sexual “roles” right on down to people publishing “controversial” books.

I’ve been saying this for a long while, but 9/11 didn’t really represent that much of a “shift” — the “new normal” is exactly like the “old normal” — corporate malfeasance, mindless nationalism, sloganeering — “Freedom fries” — we deserved Bush.

We deserve Obama now — he’s exactly the sort of feel-good “Raging centrist” we love: the fact that he’s bi-racial and has a foreign-sounding nickname makes us feel like things are “different” while the underlying sociopolitical structure remains intact in every way that really counts, perpetual war on down.

A “kinder, gentler” fascism, complete with Lee Greenwood and yellow ribbons.

I won’t get used to it.

Remember the words of Benjamin Franklin “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”

Better get used to it – the routine strip-search has become part of American culture – not to mention being exported around the world.

It won’t be long before EVERYONE boarding a plane will have to submit to a “virtual strip search” by a high-definition x-ray machine already in use at many airports.

see http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2008/06/20/bc-virtually-naked-airport-scanner.html

“The airport in Kelowna, B.C., will be the first in Canada to test a new type of passenger scanner that creates a three-dimensional image of people’s bodies.

The new body imager unveiled on Thursday uses high frequency electromagnetic waves known as millimetre waves to create a detailed 3-D image of what a person looks like underneath their clothes.”

While this happened to a child, at least the Supreme Court is thinking (except Clearance Thomas) in the right direction. What’s next is to establish accountability, especially by those in power.

If police (say VPD or BC RCMP) were actually held accountable for their actions, no coverups, no “shhh and they will forget” methodologies, if they were run by decent, honourable chiefs with bosses who honoured the law more than anything, these incidents would not happen. Anyone with authority, children or not, should be punished for their mistakes, especially when it is clearly a mistake, both logically and legally.

When a citizen makes a mistake, they are treated as guilty until proven innocent, somewhat by the public, but especially by far too many members of “authority.” The same MUST be followed for members of authority. Only then would rights abuse cases disappear. No bouncer who loves to brawl would apply to be an officer if he was fully aware that excessive use of force was met with extreme punishment (and I don’t mean no second donut), as outlined in the law.

These teachers need to stop pleading ignorance and trying to look for a legal loophole and start using their brains.

Anyone see Lord Of War? Ethan Hawke’s character is what any officer or teacher or principal should aspire to; one who will not break the laws that he/she swore to uphold, even though they suspect the person is guilty and probably is.

Do your job properly or quit and do something else!

The school had a “zero tolerance” policy on all medications – in order to get meds for a headache, a student would have had to have a parent bring the med to the school, leave it with the nurse with detailed instructions on when/how it would be distributed to their child, then go to the nurse’s office if needed.

Another student was caught with advil, and said she got them from Savana. They found nothing on Savana, despite the strip search.

The reason it’s news *now* is that it just passed SCOTUS, who made (the right) decision on it. It took it this long to get there, through lower courts, etc.

I’m appalled by this: “While children’s advocates and civil liberties groups cheered the decision, others suggested the high court may have created further problems for school systems by failing to make clear exactly when school administrators can strip search students and when they can’t,”

Um…how about NEVER. It’s NEVER okay for a school official to strip search a child. N-E-V-E-R. If there is really a situation that bad, then the police AND the parents need to be called in, before strip searching is even considered. WTH?

Why’d it take from 2003 to now to make the news? There should have been an uproar when it happened, followed by an investigation.

Who doesn’t get a headache and require an advil? Yes, even at 13 you can get headaches, and girls have extra problems which for some is very painful and very difficult to deal with.

“another student reported that Savana had given her pills” Is this being taken out of context? What is the context? Did some teacher see some student taking meds and hounded her until she said “I got them from Savana”? They seem to be throwing it into the context of Savana pushing meds onto students like a drug dealer, at 13 yrs old no less.

It really depends on how the media spins this doesn’t it. And I’m sure that depends on who approached the media first, most likely it was the school.