From Wikipedia.

In January 2002, students were released from Juneau-Douglas High School to watch the Olympic torch pass by. Frederick, who had not attended school that day, joined some friends on the sidewalk across from the high school, off of school grounds. Frederick and his friends waited for the television cameras so they could unfurl a banner reading “Bong Hits 4 Jesus.” (Frederick was quoted as saying he’d first seen the phrase on a snowboard sticker.^[2]) When they displayed the banner, then-principal Deborah Morse ran across the street and seized it.

Morse initially suspended Joseph Frederick for five days for violating the school district’s anti-drug policy, but increased the suspension to 10 days after he refused to give the names of his fellow participants and quoted Thomas Jefferson on free speech.^[3] Frederick administratively appealed his suspension to the Superintendent, who denied his appeal but limited it to the time Frederick had already spent out of school prior to his appeal to the Superintendent (eight days). Frederick then appealed to the Juneau School Board, which upheld the suspension on March 19, 2002. On April 25, 2002, Frederick filed a §1983 lawsuit against Morse and the school board in the United States District Court for the District of Alaska claiming they violated his federal and state constitutional rights to free speech.^{[citation needed]}

The United States District Court for the District of Alaska ruled in favor of the School Board and Deborah Morse.^[4]9th US Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the federal district court’s decision. Regarding the circuit court’s decision, Juneau school district superintendent Peggy Cowan expressed, “My concern is that [the court’s ruling] could compromise our ability to send a consistent message against the use of illegal drugs.”

And today the Supreme Court reached it’s decision. 5 to 4, the 5 you would expect to go with the School Board going for the School Board, and the 4 you would expect to go with the “Bong Hits for Jesus” group went with the “Bong Hits for Jesus” group.

And so it goes. Score one for the Prison Complex of Modern Schooling, as often or not conceivable simple warehousing of the youth so that they don’t spend their days smashing in your cars. In propelling my way through some of those opinion-sters approving of the Holy 5 of the Supreme Court, I see comments to the effect of they’re not debating on the criminalization of drugs, they’re just doofuses looking to get on tv. So much the better, really. I remember high school stoners talking about drug legalization, and it was never a pretty site.
From the Ruling of the Holy 5:
At the outset, we reject Frederick’s argument that this is not a school speech case—as has every other authority to address the question. See App. 22–23 (PrincipalMorse); App. to Pet. for Cert. 63a (superintendent); id., at 69a (school board); id., at 34a–35a (District Court); 439F. 3d, at 1117 (Ninth Circuit). The event occurred during normal school hours. It was sanctioned by Principal Morse “as an approved social event or class trip,” App. 22–23, and the school district’s rules expressly provide that pupils in “approved social events and class trips are subject to district rules for student conduct.” App. to Pet. forCert. 58a. Teachers and administrators were interspersed among the students and charged with supervising them.The high school band and cheerleaders performed. Frederick, standing among other JDHS students across thestreet from the school, directed his banner toward the school, making it plainly visible to most students. Under these circumstances, we agree with the superintendentthat Frederick cannot “stand in the midst of his fellow students, during school hours, at a school-sanctioned activity and claim he is not at school.” Id., at 63a.

Hm. The “in the direction of the school” does not follow, but the rest is of some use. So, what, was this a field trip across the street? Those wacky students thought they were cutting class, but nope — here they are — dropping back into class!
In one sense the case is tedious, the Truant juvenile antic, the principal, and the Holy 5 Majority of the Supreme Court. In another sense, say, this rant that careens into “Fire in a Crowded Theater” is even more tedious, and it does not follow. Seriously? There’s a parallel between yelling “fire” in a crowded theater — the creation of an emergency where there is none — and waving a thought-de-voking banner?  No. There is not. Resume that part of the spiel for when something is provoked. Beyond that, they didn’t do this because of lack of love from Mother — but go down the list a bit further of cliched adolescent reactive causes and you’ll eventually find their motivation… beyond raging hormones, of course.

I can’t say I was ever where these kids are, except perhaps in the narrowest of terms.  I suppose, by the terms of the Supreme Court ruling, and in terms of their desired effect of bemusing themselves, they would have been better served flying their banner — a little bigger, I suppose — from the roof-top of a house located across the street — still in the direction of the school. Then we’d have to see what develops from there.

There is a side-splitting degree of sheer chutzpah with Dick Cheney and his brushing away of the National Archives that the vice presidency is not part of the Executive Branch.  He is daring the opposition to do something about it, which… nobody will.  Except, I suppose, record the incident for posterity.  Understand, there’s not much new here — this is the m’o for Bush as well, though he’s slid under various signing statements and procedures of “Executive Privilege”.
But while we’re on the subject, I now ask to open up Dan Quayle’s archives to see if he was part of the executive branch, or if this is a Cheney exemption, and there is a question of whether Dan Quayle’s archives include anything important enough to open up to the public.

A comment from elsewhere:

I think that either Obama or Clinton will be our next president. I also think that both have a very high probability of being assassinated–especially Obama. I would be surprised if he doesn’t have several attempts before the campaign is over.

Personally, I like Obama and would vote for him. He has a great deal of old-school class and dignity about him.

It’s sort of striking how ubiquitous that statement is.  The reason people come to that conclusion is obvious, and I note that all youtube submissions on Barack Obama are loaded to the gills with nasty racist comments.

I am wondering if this feeling — Obama = Assassinated — might find its way into voters’ minds, either at the primary or general election end.  The feeling that we would be unable to deal with this gut-feeling quasi-inevitable assassination, and as much as I personally would like to vote for him that factor forces me to vote for the Other Guy.   It’s a heightened version of the line against interracial marriage, or these days Homosexuals adopting: surely I’m fine with it, but the children are in for a lot of abuse, so might as well not put them through the abuse.
In the meantime — is Rush still doing that “Obama Osama” “gaffe”?

From xlcrer: The REAL understanding of Larouche is from the numerous scam artist outside security people who know how to use Larouche’s delusions and thievery against him. […]  Bunko artists themselves become victims to better bunko artists by playing up the greed and delusions of the mark.  

Some of that story came out in the Fraud trial in 1987, I guess.  The relationship between Larouche and the KKK?  Apparently what was going on was that the Ku Klux Klan was bilking money out of Larouche, providing false intelligence services, in order to get money to attend Star Trek conventions.

No, seriously.  Cue New York Times!  December 9, 1987!:
A neo-Nazi hired for security by Lyndon H LaRouche Jr., the political extremist who frequently runs for President, bilked and ridiculed Mr. LaRouche and his associates, according to testimony and statements in the man’s trial for conspiracy to obstruct justice.

The man, Roy E Frankhouser Jr., was sent by Mr. LaRouche to Boston in November 1984 to check on the progress of a Federal investigation into possible credit card fraud by LaRouche campaign workers.  But Mr. Frankhouser, a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, and two other members of a “security” team apparently went instead to a convention of fans of the television series “Star Trek,” being held in Scranton, Pa.

Well, I broad-swiped my description of… um… The KKK bilked money out of Lyndon Larouche in order to attend Star Trek conventions.  Just individual members.  And just one reported Star Trek convention.  The KKK did not, as an organization, make the organization choice to charge Larouche for fraudulent services, using the funds to attend Star Trek conventions, as my statement to that effect implies.
How did I miss this when I read through media history of Larouche in December and January.  It must have been that I read a few articles, understood the gist — sure: Larouche describes the conspiracy against him; the Prosecution goes to great lengths to say this has nothing to do with his politics — his organization’s just been bilking the elderly out of their credit card savings.  Throw in the ignoble quotation from one of those famous Larouche briefings about how this is for the victims’ own good, and some KKKers taking Larouche’s money and running off to a Star Trek convention gets lost in the mix.

I stumbled upon this looking for a very specific news item… a whimsical piece on life in Washington, as so happens during the great Stock Market Tumble of 1987.  I could not find the piece.  I was going to post the lines about Larouchies marching, singing and chanting to the effect of “We Told You So.” — the economic crisis that dear old Lyndon Larouche has gone about has come, darneditall.  Next to that, I was going to post a passage from Jeff Durstewitz’s part of Younger Than That Now, concerning his wild ride on the stock market at the time where he looked straight in the eye of whether to pay out his margin call or to sell his stocks and cut his losses.  He chose the latter, and noted that had he met the margin call, he would have become rich by the end of that year.

It was to be a simple lesson for the crisis-enfused denziens of the LYM, regarding perspective.  1987 is now 20 years ago, about the age of a LYMer one has to figure.  I remember the stock market calamities of the time merely because my birthday happened on that weekend — my age moving to one more finger on my second hand — otherwise I would not recall that.

Some financial bubbles are going to burst.  It is not an Economic Crisis that is the End of the World.  But Larouche will play it, and any slight occurrences — real or imagined — as such for the benefit of further tightening his control over a LYMers’ being.

Anyway that was going to be the purpose of this blog post.  Along with that last Larouche post I did, it would have pretty well closed the book on my “Purpose #2”.  But I couldn’t find that brief commentary.  But I found that KKK — Star Trek story when looking for it.  KKK Trekkies.  I suppose there’s no reason they shouldn’t exist.

I think I should reread The Neddiad.  Or maybe get the book on cd and have a listen.  Then I can ascertain the answer to the question:

So, where does The Neddiad fit in the Pinkwater canon?

Once I ask myself that question, I can slap myself silly for asking myself a ridiculous question.  What the heck is a canon?
Lizard Music garners critical respect, and is sort of unofficially titled The Best Thing Pinkwater Ever Wrote.  Alan Mendelsohn is the fan favorite, though I have some serious problems with that book, but those may be just as well because Pinkwater seemed to work out those “flaws” when rehashing the formula in later books.  I am partial to the second Snarkout Boys book, which sort of captured a certain elan of my high school years — perhaps just a trick in the book on tape’s rotation with my Talking Heads cds.   What I can say about Young Adults is that at the end of a particularly dreadful day (the one that involved law enforcement officers), I read and reread the 2 page chapter “Zen Christmas” for about half an hour.  Borgel is somewhat the most Douglas Adam-y of Pinkwater’s books.
I suspect The Neddiad falls somewhere between that bunch of books and Yobgorgle.  I forget just about anything about Yobgorgle.  Did I ever read that a third time?
I see some comments that The Neddiad shows that Pinkwater seems to be writing these days for his loyal fans as opposed to a more general audience, a half-criticism.   I think I would go ahead and give my “aye” to that proposition if the Chicken Man had somehow made an appearance, but as it is I shake my head “no”.  Perhaps the blogger I’m thinking of who made such comments was thinking in a general arc that spreads back to The Education of Robert Nifkin and goes more specifically to Looking for Bobowicz and The Artsy Smartsy Club, as well the audience for the online serializing of The Neddiad.  Looking for Bobowicz and The Artsy Smartsy Club (the latter of which I did not particularly like and don’t think my ten year old self would have liked either — ’twas didactic) were sequels to a 30 year old book.  We could be only so lucky to find that rumored third Snarkout Boys book released — which probably would find the audience of not much more than Pinkwater’s loyal fan-base.

By any measure, Rudy Giuliani had a horrible week.  It is bad enough that some oxygen was sucked out by the edging toward presidential campaign of his successor, Michael Bloomberg.  (I think there’s a limit to New Yorkers that the nation is going to be able to tolerate.)  Also bad is that his South Carolina adviser was indicted on cocaine charges.
Probably most importantly in the matter of policy decisions, Rudy Giuliani just pulled the “You Can’t Fire me.  I quit.” card on the Iraq Study Group, after the Iraq Study Group noted that he had opted out of their study sessions in favor of speaking engagements at those wacky “Get Motivated” Motivational Speaking tours.

Cue Fred Kaplan:

It was not as if Giuliani feared the group might take positions that conflicted with his own. For, as Josh Marshall and his researchers at Talking Points Memo discovered (to their surprise), Giuliani has no position on Iraq. He has long supported Bush’s decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein. But on the question of what to do now, he’s been mum. Last week, Giuliani issued “the 12 Commitments,” a document that lays out the agenda of his presidency. The First Commitment concerns terrorism (“I will keep America on offense in the Terrorists’ War on Us”), but Iraq isn’t mentioned at all.

First, what a bizarrely evasive comment, even by politicians’ standards. Second, does Giuliani have the slightest doubt that, whatever happens in the next 19 months, Iraq will remain one of the most urgent topics that a new president will have to confront? […]

His shrugged blow-off of Baker-Hamilton offers a glimpse at the darker side of America’s Mayor: that he’s in it not for the country, but for himself.
To be fair, they all are in it “for him(her)self”, and it’s a little too easy to see the sleights of hands the politicos are pulling on us, papering over their lack of policy acumen.  But something here, by a man who so easily pounces on the “absurdity” of a policy approach to the middle East that is not composed of a simple “Stay on the Offense”, who could have picked up some pointers from the Iraq Study Group for something that doesn’t redound back to Bush the Next.  I suspect a President Rudy Giuliani would do Dick Cheney one better.  Cheney, when convenient, declares that the vice president is not part of the Executive Branch, thus not subject to particular aspects of oversight.  When convenient, ie: for uses of power, it is.  Giuliani, I imagine, will just do the same with the Presidency: no longer part of the Executive Branch.  We’ll have to figure out a new name for it.

But I guess that this is roughly what the Republican’s rank and file dedicated want.  The ones who figure in Bush’s 26 percent approval rating, similar to Nixon’s 23 percent — and easily transferable as the same group of individuals.  They are the abuses of Power lovers.

For whatever reason, the tax-dodgers in New Hampshire — Ed and Elaine Brown, cause celebres for a narrow audience — have aligned themselves behind neo-nazi Randy Weaver, the Browns desirious of echoing Ruby Ridge. Next they need to find out where the Freemasons are, and we will be off and running!

And where’s Bo Gritz when we need him?

Incidentally, if you look around prisonplanet.com, Alex Jones’s site, you will find an interview with Randy Weaver. One nut deserves another.
I suppose we could revisit the 16th Amendment dealy-do, that being what the Browns believe to be null and void, subject to pretending that it does not exist. It is an interesting bit of history, the process that meted out the 16th Amendment, inextricably linked to the politics of Reconstruction — the, um, Occupied Dixie — and thus the charges of illegitimacy. I really don’t need to watch their video explaining their tax theories on youtube.
I have no special thoughts on the Browns. I trust that they have prepared well enough. Stock themselves with food. Stock themselves with electical generators. Stock themselves with food. Stock themselves with electrical generators. Stock themselves with food. Stock themselves with…

… They remembered their Survivalist training, didn’t they?
Really, if you can hold up against the Police State camped out just outside your compound for years and years, more power to you! It’s a romantic notion, Under Siege. Don’t expect me to have too much sympathy when it ends badly, though.
In the old days of bunkering down in a compound your link to the outside world was ham radios. Today we have the Internet. And so there are the videos floating on youtube.
Catch them while you can. The New World Order Government is going to take them away from us.