Because Some Lessons Are Never Learned

Some of you might remember the student who threatened to put his prof in a wheelchair. If you don't, here is where you can get caught up on the story. If you go to the link, you'll see there are many deleted posts -- deleted because the idiot student realized he was just creating more google hits for himself and deleted because he also threatened me for not removing my blog post. (They're not gone, however -- I save them in my email account, since all comments are emailed to me from blogger.) So imagine my amusement when I received this in my inbox and on that post a couple of days ago:

wow i do believe in freedom of speech but what do you gain in keeping this blog up. The professor was fired due to his un-natural relationship with some of his students. And some of the Professor did find it odd that he would ask his students to "hang out." Which i believe is crossing the line.this could have really effected students if the school believe that grades were not true due to teacher student relationship.Who protects the students that work hard and pay alot of money for their education. We all know that grades do get affected if the teacher did or didn't like you. And some people feel forced to do things they didn't want to do just to have a good grade. And if you don't then your grades are threaten. The News always make things seem like they are not. Its clear to me that the kid learned his lesson and if he was in fault don't you think he would be in jail right now. I disagree with his actions and how he handle things. But i could put money on it that everyone has lost their cool and said some harsh things. Due to my religious beliefs when someone ask for forgiveness or help we do so because we should love eachother. Be there for eachother. I bet that if this was what you did you would wish it away and try to get it removed. He did say he threaten a teacher and i see that it was big of him because he could lie till his face were blue but he didn't. And whos to say that if he did give you the report you want, you would hold your word to it. Look i hope you look into your heart to do the right thing. Let god do his job and judge him. In the end he will have to live with this and he would tell his children about this part of his life. Lets do good for others and help others. Thank you for your time Ms. Contemplator. I hope you do the right thing.

El -oh- El.

Boy just doesn't know quit, does he? Before you can say "sock puppet" three times fast, I decided that this comment needed brought to the front of the blog as its own story. Why? Because he clearly wants to keep talking about it, because it amuses me, and because it's my blog I can do whatever I want with.

My first comment: please stay in school. You allegedly learn things there.

My second comment: I know what happened to the professor. He was not fired. For you to continue saying he was fired is slander and/or libel on your part. That means you could be sued by this professor for the comments that you're making. The fact that you were already convicted in this incident will probably not bode well in the legal outcome of your civil trial. I'd think long and hard before I continued to put myself into further legal issues. But that's me, and I tend to think long and hard, which doesn't appear to be a skill you've developed yet. The "kid" didn't do jail time because he didn't act on his threat. Terroristic threatening in most cases is a misdemeanor -- which he was convicted of. Had he acted on the threat, he would've gone to jail. The fact that the legal system, which reviewed the emails he sent (and he alleges there were more, by his own admission), has already made this judgment indicates that there was nothing wrong with the professor's behavior. Most profs do not grade on whether they like you or not. There are too many mechanisms set up by the university to quality control how grades are distributed for people to be giving them based on whether or not a student is personally friendly to them. You know very little of how universities work.

My third comment: I'm glad your religious beliefs tell you to help people when they need help. I'm sure your religious beliefs probably also condemn people who threaten the lives and well-being of others. Happily, I do not need an invisible Sky-Daddy to confirm for me whether or not it's wrong to threaten the lives and well-being of others. Similarly, I don't need an invisible punishment figure to tell me whether or not to "help" people, as I have a developed enough ethical system to be able to work that out for myself without checking a centuries old piece of parchment written by goatherders. Apostalo Tsirogiannis is not asking for "help" -- he is asking for a cover up. And that is another thing entirely.

The fact that he (you) threatened me on this blog as well as lied and got caught in his (your) lies several times tells anyone with a working brain that he is not asking for "help." He is not "repentant", to use religious terminology that might help you understand. He is asking to mask behavior that he clearly still has not conquered.

Further, he's not learned the biggest lesson of all: You aren't special. You don't get to decide how everyone else should act and respond. You cannot tell other people what they can and cannot write about. You cannot threaten people, whether they are giving you the grade you earned or whether they are commenting on your behavior, and make them do what you want them to. You have to take responsibility for yourself, because that is the only person you control -- you.

So what do I get out of keeping the blog up? I assume you mean that post, as this blog does many things besides comment on idiot students. It amuses me. It's a small recorded instance in the vast reach of the internet that you're supposed to do the right thing and not threaten people over a grade. But more importantly, it's mine. If you believed in "freedom of speech", it might irritate you that it's up, but you'd just have to shrug it off and go on about your life. You wouldn't be trying to control speech.

So, to sum up again: I'm not taking it down. It stays. Period.

And in case you haven't noticed, every time you bring it up, I make another blog post about it. Because it's incredibly amusing to me.

-- Dante's Virgil

And Now For Something More Pleasant ...

Like the swine flu.

The head of Student Health at my uni recently announced that he expected up to half of our uni students to get the swine flu. That would be approximately 14,000 students. Now, what exactly, are they doing about this? From what I can tell, next to nothing.

Other schools have a "sick dorm" where students live and have meals delivered until they're considered well enough to come back to campus. When this uni had its first two confirmed cases, they wouldn't release any details except under pressure. I don't think it's right to ask for names, per se, but if the student lives in a dorm, then that floor needs to be notified. They finally did just that and then said that one other person with a confirmed case was a commuter.

It probably doesn't matter anyway. The vaccine won't be ready until October, if then. There really isn't much you can do besides wash your hands. But given the uni's typical response to disaster, whether it's scandal or administrative wrongdoing, my money is on the fact that they'll botch any potential response to outbreak as well.

However, since the head of Student Health didn't mention faculty, I believe that must mean I'm immune ....

-- Dante's "swine flu" Virgil