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| Aliya May, 14, left and her mother Karrie. Aliya faces felony charges for throwing a baby carrot at a teacher. |
CARROT TOSS VIOLENCE:
In Henrico County, Virginia, we have the case of a bratty 14 year old girl who threw a baby carrot at a teacher and hit the educator in the face.
The teacher wasn't hurt, but yeah, we need to get this girl in trouble. Detention! A letter of apology. Maybe even suspension from school for a coupla days.
All those ideas seem perfectly reasonable to me. But in the zeal of zero tolerance that I always whine about, we have to go much, much further than that.
We have to charge the kid with assault and battery with a weapon. We MUST ruin the kid's life because she stupidly threw a 1.75-inch long carrot.
After all, we shouldn't worry about gun violence. Who cares if 30,000 people or so die in gun violence each year. We shouldn't worry about guns. We should worry about carrots.
Television station WTVR even turned to legal expert Todd Stone to analyze this complex carrot law enforcement situation.
"If it's a soft carrot, it may not be as offensive.....But if it's a raw carrot, you don't have to have an injury or show you were hurt to prove a battery. It just has to be an offensive, vindictive touch. That's what the law says."
Got that? You can throw cooked carrots at your teacher, but throw a raw one, no matter how small, and you will spend years, YEARS in jail.
BoingBoing joked that something called The National Root Vegetable Association (There's an Association for everything) helpfully weighed in on this crisis.
Echoing the National Rifle Association in a tongue in cheek way, the National Root Vegetable Association says although it does seem like the time for a political debate on carrot violence, this question would not have arisen had teachers armed themselves and were trained in the use of small taproots and rhizomes.
The school district involved declined to comment, as dumb school districts always do when confronted by reporters reporting on administrators killing behavioral gnats with nuclear bombs.
GOOD SPORTSMANSHIP DISCOURAGED
Over in Iowa, high school student Zach Hougland was doing well in a cross country running race and was nearing the finish line recently. Yay! Go Zach!
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| Iowa high school cross country runner Zach Hougland was disqualified from a future competition for aiding a member of an opposing team who needed help. n |
But at that point, he saw that a competitor from another school, Garret Hinson, was in distress and crawling on his knees.
Hougland helped Hinson to his feet and held him up as both crossed the finish line.
Great sportsmanship Zach! It was inspiring. But not to race officials. They disqualified both Hougland and Hinson because the moment was "interference" that "violated state rules" for helping another runner across the finish line.
It's not as if he was cheating to help his own team. And if other runs zipped past the two to finish, so be it
But I guess state high school athletic officials would hate to instill any sense of kindness or morality into any kids. We're all in it for ourselves, right?
Although Hougland was disqualified, he'll be able to run in a subsequent race because his team overall did well enough to qualify.
DRIVERS LICENSE DOUBLE
Meanwhile, in Georgia, twin sisters Alicia and Alicen Kennedy went to the DMV to get their drivers learners permits, says television station WIAT.
They needed their photos taken, and Georgia DMV has super nifty camera with a computer that recognizes faces. This is handy if somebody's trying to get an illegal ID or is otherwise up to no good.
But the Kennedy twins were totally on the up and up. But the computer/camera that recognizes faces thought each sister was the same one person because they look so similar/
"Aftery try after try after try, the system just would not accept them and it kept saying that it was the same person, they finally said there was a problem and they had to call headquarters," said Wanda Kennedy, the twins' mother.
So I guess if you're an identical twin, only one member of the pair can drive a car in Georgia.
To be fair, the DMV is reportedly trying to make arrangements to ensure both teens get their learner's permit.
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Take a close look at their picture. Can you tell them apart? The state of Georgia sure can’t.
A right of passage replaced by frustration as the twins got denied by the DMV, all because a camera could not tell one girl from the other.
“We gave her our paperwork but we didn’t even get a chance to take the test because she kept saying something was wrong with the computer,” twin, Alicia said.
That computer can recognize faces, a feature that comes in handy if somebody’s is trying to get an illegal ID It apparently is not programmed to detect twins.
Alicia said she took her picture several times and then had to sign her signature several more time. She says she felt like it was her fault.
“I was listening to her conversation with the person on the phone and it said that one of us popped up as a fraud,” Alicen explained.
“The other lady came back and said that when we were taking our pictures it was picking up as saying that we were one person instead of two different people,” Alicia said.
All of a sudden, a day that these girls had dreamed about was dashed. Their high hopes of hitting the open road, brought down by a machine that didn’t know what to make of them.
“Af
Carter asked the girls, “Is that crazy to you that you have to go prove that you’re two different people?” To which Alicia responded with, “We don’t look exactly alike so you would think the computer would pick up somewhat of a difference, but it can’t tell us apart.”
Now the girls have to regroup. They have to get ready for whatever the state says comes next, as they continue their quest to get behind the wheel.
“I want my permit, I don’t want to wait a whole other year,” Alicia said.
We spoke with a spokesperson for the Georgia Department of Driver Services.
She says they have not heard of this happening before, but they do have a check box on the application asking if someone is a twin. The girls told me they didn’t see one.
After we picked up the story the DMV has been working with the teens to help this process move along as quickly as possible.
http://boingboing.net/2015/10/23/teen-faces-assault-charge.html
http://wbay.com/2015/10/23/twins-denied-drivers-permit-because-dmv-cant-tell-them-apart/
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