I'm So Outraged, I'm Inraged

Can you ever just be "raged?" I think you can in Europe.

I've taken a little hiatus lately, and I have a lot of catching up to do as a result. The last two Presidential debates have come and gone, and I could expound upon them at great length before saying a single thing that hasn't already been said by some more timely pundit. That probably won't stop me, though. But today I'm not here to talk about the debates. I'm not here to talk about the election at all, or at least not directly. Today I want to talk about some things that have popped up in the news lately that make me want to scream until I vomit. Bear in mind that in this scenario, just because I would be vomiting does not mean I would stop screaming. I would continue to scream while vomiting, creating a horrible, strangled gurgling sound that, combined with the sight and stench of my partially-digested anger-puke, would be offensive to at least three senses simultaneously. I call it scromiting. These news items make me want to scromit. But since I only had a small breakfast, and I can't seem to muster the energy to summon it back up, I will scromit as writers do - upon the page!

The first story that caught my attention this morning comes from Clark County, Kentucky, courtesy of LEX18 News. The headline: "Student Arrested for Terroristic Threatening Says Incident A Misunderstanding."

My issue is not with the use of the word "terroristic," although I could make a pretty strong case about that one. But no, I'm aiming a little higher today. The story concerns an 18 year old student at George Rogers Clark High School, William Poole, who is currently in custody at the Clark County Detention Center. Given the headline of the story, with its mention of "terroristic threatening," you might assume that young Mr. Poole mentioned something about blowing up his school or some manner of federal building, and now he's saying it was all just talk, and he wasn't planning to do anything. You might go on to think that teenagers, and particularly teenage boys, say stupid things all the time, and it's a shame that this kid has to suffer for saying the wrong thing in earshot of the wrong people. You might be inclined to comment on how idle talk doesn't hurt anyone, but in this uncertain world in which we live, we cannot simply ignore even casual threats, particularly when the safety of our children is involved.

Geez, did you even read the article?

William Poole did not threaten to blow up his school, or any other building. Nor did he threaten a teacher or administrator or fellow student. Nor did he say "they'll all be sorry" or any other melodramatically menacing remark. What he did was keep a journal. A journal his grandparents found and read. And what do you think they saw? Schematics for a homemade pipe bomb? A hit list? Plans to obtain illegal firearms for a shooting spree? The phrase "Death to America" written over and over again? I mean, if there was a threat in there that could be considered "terroristic," it must have been pretty bad, right?

It was a short story about zombies. Zombies. Now, there was a high school in this story. It was a story about zombies attacking a high school. William's grandparents, who are evidently not big George Romero fans, decided this was the work of a truly dangerous mind, and rather than talk to their grandson about it, they turned him over to the police, who quickly locked him right up. Good thing, too. I'd hate to think what could have happened if he had acted upon the content of his story and wandered the halls of his school in search of brains.

So, kid writes story about zombies attacking a high school, grandparents find story and freak out, police arrest the kid for being a possible terrorist. Yikes. Now, I haven't read William's story, and the article doesn't go into great depth, but in situations like these, we have to assume the worst. We have to figure that the story featured graphic depictions of William's enemies being devoured alive. That teacher who flunked him in math ripped to shreds by the clamoring undead, the girl who turned him down for a date eaten piece by piece, the bully who gave him a swirly in eighth grade torn limb from limb. Right, William?

"'It didn't mention nobody who lives in Clark County, didn't mention (George Rogers Clark High School), didn't mention no principal or cops, nothing,' said Poole."

Oh. Well, that's more of a gray area then. But still, you wrote it of your own free will, totally out of desire to live out your hateful terrorist fantasies, didn't you?

[Poole] claims that what his grandparents found in his journal and turned into police was a short story he wrote for English class.

Oof. Okay, now, I don't know if the story really was for English class or not. Even if Poole's English teacher comes forward and says that there was a short story assignment in the works, I doubt that the assignment specifically asked students to write about zombies attacking a high school. So William might not get that much help, there. He's still the one who chose to write about what he chose to write about. But there are a few issues at work here.

First, what the hell is wrong with William's grandparents? They read through their grandson's journal, which is not typically a public forum - this was an actual journal, here, not a LiveJournal - found something they didn't like, and so they called the cops on him? Maybe I'm lucky, in that I don't think my any of my grandparents would have just read through my journal without asking first, but even if they did, and even if they saw something they didn't like, I feel pretty confident that their first move wouldn't be to call the cops!

Second, and more importantly, there is the issue of Kentucky police holding this poor kid in custody and charging him with terrorist threatening, a second-degree felony. Detective Steven Caudill says, "Anytime you make any threat or possess matter involving a school or function it's a felony in the state of Kentucky." Okay, well, we've established that Poole's story didn't threaten anyone at the school, or even anyone in the county, nor did it mention George Rogers Clark High. So that just leaves possessing matter. Yes, there was a school in the story. Yes, the story was in a journal. Yes, Poole possessed the journal. Yes, the journal was made of matter. This is a felony? Like, as in a felony? Poole is 18, that stays with him. If this charge sticks, anytime he applies for a job for the rest of his life, he'll have to check that box that says "Yes, I have committed a felony." That never goes away. All because he wrote a story about zombies, which, I feel compelled to point out, are not real.

The law is the law, and the police are required to enforce it, even when it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The law says they have to hold this kid for writing a story about zombies, they hold the kid. I don't like it, and I feel pretty certain that William Poole doesn't like it, but hey, the police are just doing their job, right? It's not up to them. On the other hand, there have been a few people involved in this situation who did have a bit more say, and still decided to give ol' William the shaft. Sure, his grandparents for starters, but how about the prosecutor who requested that William's bail be raised from $1,000 to $5,000 because he is such a menace? Or the judge who agreed?

Terrorists are bad. You'll get no argument from me there. But look at the first part of that word - "terror." As in, "extreme fear." What was it we used to hear everyday in the aftermath of 9/11? "If you do X, the terrorists win?" Seems to me that the top contender for X in that equation would be "live in a climate of fear." If you live in a climate of fear, then the terror-ists win. Makes sense, doesn't it? We are living in a climate of fear if a high school student's short story about zombies is interpreted as a terrorist threat. We are living in a climate of fear if an 18 year old kid is imprisoned for working on a school assignment. We are living in a climate of fear if that kid is deemed such a threat by a prosecutor and a judge that they agree to quintuple his bail.

This is about privacy. This is about censorship. This is about Freedom of Expression. This is about understanding the line between fantasy and reality (hint: fantasy is the one with zombies in it). This is about the culture of intrusion, mistrust, and fear that has been fostered in this country under the Bush Administration. Yes, terrorists want to hurt us. This is a fact. But it is not new. It is not something that just started happening over the last eight years. Terrorists have wanted to hurt us for as long as we, as a country, have been trying to influence the way people in other countries live their lives, for better or for worse. They want to hurt us so that we will be frightened into changing the way we live. If we lock up kids for writing creative stories about imaginary monsters, where once we would have seen that same kid as potentially the next Stephen King or Clive Barker or George Romero - all celebrated creative artists who made their name by injecting horror into real world settings - then we have changed the way we live. The terrorists win.