Flutterby™! : misdemeanor sorcery 2000-10-30 16:03:45+00

misdemeanor sorcery

2000-10-30 16:03:45+00 by Dan Lyke 14 comments

Ahhh, those wacky southerners: Oklahoma high school suspends girl for casting spell.

Well, we can be wacky and I don't deny that something like this could happen in the south, but I don't think that Oklahoma is a southern state.

Well if your look closely you can see Dan is using a canadian accent(hoser humour eh?) so Oklahoma is one of those (southern states) and how come Hilary is allowed to be a "WITCH" and others get charged. On a serious note they are persecuting her for her religious beliefs (wiccan in this case). I don't go ripping peoples crosses off their necks because it offends my parking lot god. I mean these people don'trealize how offensive they are being walking across the parking lot (hallowed ground) with symbols of a competing god. But hey freedom of expression.

Wait, how is Oklahoma not south? Okay, so it wasn't a state during the war between the states, but the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Creek held black slaves there, making it effectively slave territory, and certainly from the example above they qualify culturally...

Larry: if there were any doubt about Oklahoma's being a southern state or not, this event should have settled it. ::grins, ducks, & runs:: What I want to know is, how exactly do the school administrators hope to *prove* she hexed the teacher? I don't care whether witchcraft works or not - it's irrelevant if they can't prove she did it. -Mars

Mars, the way I understand it, a wiccan spell is just the equivilent of a prayer for intecession, jut to the Mother God rather than Jehovah or Allah or . . ., you get the point. ;-) This being the case, all the administrators have to believe is that prayer works. The problem they are going to have is that unless the spell that was cast was a school sponsored spell then the spell is protected speech. Dan, the next thing you are going to be telling me is that Idaho, Utah and Montanna should be considered southern states due to seperatist that are moving there. I still have problems with Texas being considered a southern state and they did join the Confederacy.

What's your critera for "southern", then? Because I certainly see Texas as closer in attitude and culture to Georgia and Alabama than to New Mexico and Arizona. And Oklahoma doesn't qualify as "midwest" in any way that makes more sense than southern, perhaps back before the dust-bowl, but now to group it in with Iowa and Kansas, or even Missouri, seems like a misqualification.

I'll give you a list. Virginia, N. Carolina, S. Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Missisippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, Kentucky and I'll also accept Florida and Texas as southern states. Other than a wish to catagorize this story as an example of southern thinking, and Lord knows that you've got just cause to want to catagorize it as such, I don't know why you would believe Oklahoma to share anything with the south. What's wrong with Oklahoma being in a class by itself?

I ask again, what's your criteria? It was clearly confedrate territory during the War Between the States, with many battles that Civil War buffs think were important enough to continue re-enacting to this day, heck, even now people have trouble distinguishing it from culturally Texas. People for the American Way lists Oklahoma in its South regional page (Yeah, I know, another damned yankee organization), of course they also include West Virginia, so that's a dubious resource. The South Central region of the American Water Ski Association claims Oklahoma in the same region as Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Texas. The Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program counts Oklahoma in its southern region, and as the search goes in it's clear that most other organizations do too. So, I classify Oklahoma as southern 'cause everyone else does.

I looked at this twice before figuring out why I don't categorize Oklahoma as a southern state. It doesn't have the same trees the south does. It's a prairie state, not a forest state. To be a southern state, at least in my mind, I've gotta be able to find some kudzu and some decidious trees. Oklahoma is southern Kansas, perhaps, but not part of =my= south.

>> I ask again, what's your criteria? Grits are on the menu in every locally owned restaurant that serves breakfast. Ordering barbeque without specifiying the critter that is to be cooked automatically gets you pork. Summers are humid. Ponds are called ponds, not tanks. Killer tornadoes are more apt to form in late winter and early spring rather than during the summer. And, yeah, Topspin is right, there has to be kudzu. ;-)

Ya know, that kudzu argument does kinda settle it, even if it does write Texas out of the equation.

topspin: you almost have me convinced there. Oklahoma has more in common with the Sahara than it does with Alabama or Georgia. Maybe that was just because it was late summer the one time I was unfortunate enough to visit the place, but if we're going by climate & terrain, you're right, it should definitely get lumped in with Kansas. -Mars

Not that the "what's a southerner" thread isn't lots of fun, but via Shanmonster here's the ACLU brief on Brandi Blackbear: 11. After the semester started in the fall of 1999, the Plaintiff discovered a book that had a section on Wicca in the school library. She started to read the book, make notes, and do some individual study. She was seen by other students with the book and some comments were made jokingly about her studying the religion of Wicca. 12. On or about the weekend prior to December 13, 1999 one of the school teachers, a Mr. Kemp, had to be admitted to the hospital on an emergency basis. The nature of his illness or disability was unknown to the Plaintiff at that time and is still unknown. 13. The second incident surrounding and giving cause to the Plaintiff's civil rights cause of action occurred on or about the 13th day of December, 1999, Defendant Charlie Bushyhead, the Assistant Principal for Union Intermediate High School, along with Defendant Sandy Franklin, a counselor at Union Public Schools, sent for Brandi and had her come into the office. When she arrived at the office, Defendant Bushyhead started being hostile towards her and accused her of being a witch.

This incident is further evidence of public education's slide into paranoia. At a time in a child's life when creativity should be nurtured we see any hint of imagination that might be construed as violent being stamped out. I understand that there has to be some heightening of sensitivity to possible violent attacks on the student body and staff by some deranged student but those cases are truely rare. Common sense and trust in one's judgement has been thrown out the window in favor of things like profiling and zero-tolerence. When will this madness end?