Anomie At Waxahachie

Your Humble Scribe Is Making A Wild Guess At Pronunciation There

For your information, 'Anomie' is described as being a disintegration in societal norms and values, frequently accompanied by the Zombie Apocalypse. Which is what the Waxahachie School is going to allege - but I get ahead of myself.

     

Note the proliferation of sporting facilities

     Another MalCom (Malicious Compliance) case from 'rSlash'.  Unusually, Conrad has been able to find out a fair amount of background about this case, since it telegraphed details early on.  Thus the high school name, which was absent in the Reddit transcription.  Also, the narrator is down on Youtube as 'PTPESQ' when in real life they were Paul 'Pete' Palmer, and their case began in September 2007.  They described their high school as 'rural' and in the shot above they are indeed unencumbered by urban surroundings - which also helped track them down.

     Art!

     Hi, John Edwards!  You may not remember him from 2007, but he was one of the Democratic presidential candidates at the time, alongside Obama and (Hilary) Clinton.  His campaign was based on fighting poverty, economic inequality and advocating for blue-collar workers.

     ANYWAY from what I determined afterwards, PPP was at school wearing black jeans, a black jacket and a black t-shirt, which they were hauled up for by the Vice Principal, Brenda Johnson - a name plucked from the case files - since they looked rather too 'Goth'.  Art!

     Or, in rural redneck Texas crackerland, UNHOLY SATANIC VESTMENTS! or something similar (despite what rSlash says, the school did not have a dress code forbidding solid-colour t-shirts).

     PPP was offered a choice: go to Hades and boil in brimstone for eternity, or don a different t-shirt.

     His dad, who seems to have taken great delight in stirring the pot, is the one whom brought the John Edwards t-shirt from home, that his son changed into.  

     Cue another intervention from the VP, whom PPP describes as a 'toady'.  No, I cannot provide a picture of her; the events here took place nearly 20 years ago and she may well have been fired or decided to Spend More Time With Her Family.  Nor is the AI Art Generator any help, as it either provides variations on birds or frogs.  Art!

     Here begins the first attempt by the school to browbeat PPP into doffing the John Edwards tee.  He was threatened with being kicked off the football team, which might make attempts to get into college harder than they need be.  Since PPP was a chubby game-playing nerd, not a meathead jock, this had 0% effect.  Ooops.

     So!  The pressure continued, if misapplied and misunderstood.  The football coaches at the school - remember all those sporty facilities? - whined directly to PPP that they couldn't wear their 'Fellowship of Christian Athletes' tee-shirts.  Art!

     Since PPP manifested an air of shamelessness, this attempt also failed.  Oooops.

     Attempt Number Three took longer to arrange, since the school's teachers for that year were assembled and told PPP was 'a problem' who needed to be rigourously watched in case they managed a 'slip up'.  To Conrad this sounds HIGHLY illegal and was no doubt done verbally so as to avoid a paper trail.  Art!

      The VP got so desperate to defeat PPP that she canvassed all the students she could interrogate, asking for anything that could paint him in a bad light.  His activities as class clown came back to bite him on the glutes, and he got expelled - wrong word, it wasn't that as he was allowed back six weeks later.  He spent the time out of Wx at a Disciplinary Alternative Education Program, in a refurbished insane asylum (!).  

     PPP proved to be wilier than the VP ever expected, anticipating that Wx wanted him to kick off, so they could punish him further, so instead, 'motivated entirely by spite', he knuckled down and improved his GPA.  Art!

     Not only that, PPP got in applications for scholarships, making sure to lambast Wx whilst doing so.

     The rSlash tale doesn't have a vital bit of background info that I dug out myself: his father was an attorney.  So, resorting to law wasn't novel in their family.  Indeed, PPP and Dad sought out an attorney who would work pro bono, i.e. free, which must have been a professional courtesy within the business.  Wx on the other hand, needed to pay pay pay.  Art!

Hi

     Hiram Sasser.  He was looking for nominal damages of $1, and an injunction allowing PPP to keep on wearing his JE tee-shirt.  Art!

How it started

     The case went on for years, not finishing until all the appeals had been exhausted, by which time PPP was in university - on a scholarship - studying law.  He flatly states 'we eventually lost the case' which edits out years of legal process, all of which Wx had to pay for.  

Court records and public media coverage of the proceedings through the Fifth Circuit <span style="color:lib.utexas.edu/bitstreams/ddaf6887-92fd-4b43-9378-ac31310451b6/download] and the U.S. Supreme Court refusal to hear the appeal did not disclose specific figures for legal fees or settlement costs. [1, 2, 3]

I cannot find a cost for their case, but PPP mentions 'thousands', more probably tens of thousands, and they dropped the 'dress code' afterwards since they couldn't possibly afford to get sued again.

     Sweet!

Rejoice In The Wall Of Text Above

For Lo! I found a news headlines amongst my feeds, and couldn't resist getting a screenshot of it.  Art!

     You're looking at the man who's working through 4 books at present, and whom visited York Army Museum a couple of weeks ago, and who is on target for visiting RAF Duxbury in 4 weeks time.  On the other hand - Art!

     This sweaty, obese, sweaty, gurgling, sweaty biffer - did I mention 'sweaty' already? - has never visited a museum in his life and avoids books the way Supes avoids kryptonite, as he has to read with his finger pointed at each word in succession and mouthing their pronunciation.  He's 80 and looks 95.  Or - is that his IQ?

You Know Too Much About Flying Saucers

To steal a title from the late, great William Orbit - sadly recently deceased - and apply it to Bruce Pennington, in another illo from 'Sci-Fi Art's Youtube channel.  Art!

     Looks pretty barren out there.  Howcome UFO's never land on the town square of Elmsville or the football stadium during the half-time show?

     Another picture where there is a tell-tale 'Title Gap' at the top to allow the publisher to add in details without obscuring the artwork.  Annoyingly, there is no follow-up image with a book cover, title and author, so - off to dig.  Aha - Art!

     Now we now it's old Baz at work.  Note the four shadows of the folks waiting to greet the alien spaceman.  Or - is this a trick of perspective and what we're seeing is a four-man frisbee team chucking an insanely heavy and dangerous metal frisbee, meaning the catcher needs to wear armour?  Or am I overthinking this?

More Of Classics 

Skipping to the next entry in this slideshow, Art!

     I've heard of both the author and the play, but, frankly, it has no appeal.  Worthy But Dull is how I'd classify it.  Perhaps if there was a manga version with giant cyborgs and laser guns?  Not worthy at all but highly entertaining.

Serendipity But Not In A Good Way

One of the songs that has been popping up regularly in that incongruously lovely fluffy bunnies and white picket fences post-apocalypse series 'Paradise' is the old Starship hit 'We Built This City' from longer ago than I care to remember.  Actually 1985 when I did a bit of digging.  Ouch.  That smarts.  Art!

     What did my jaundiced eye espy on a Youtube advert?  A spoof of WBTC.  Art!

     What are they flogging?  Paper towels, which are quilted, so they have now perverted the lyrics to 'We quilt this city'.  Someone is going to rue the day when I take over.

Finally -

You can tell it's hot in Perfidious Albion, I've made a big batch of salad for consumption at lunch rather than the usual stew.

     I like to keep you informed.