War, Peace, and High School

(Mountain Laureate put me on to this one. It fits with a thread about anti war marchers getting beat up by the police in Colorado Springs. If we just don't let anybody hear bad news maybe it will go away.)

High School students are learning about the real world and censorship. Wilton High has sacrificed more than it's fair share to the Iraq war, losing two graduates in the conflict. One in the miltary and one a reporter. The Students created a play using our troops' actual words, showing what they were feeling and thinking about the war...

The latest draft of the script opens with the words of Pvt. Nicholas Madaras,
the Wilton graduate who died last September and whose memory the town plans to
soon honor by naming a soccer field for him. In a letter he wrote to the local
paper last May, Private Madaras said Baqubah, north of Baghdad , sometimes "feels like you are on another planet," and speaks wistfully about the life he left behind in Wilton. "I never thought I'd ever say this, but I miss being in high school," he wrote. "High school is really the foundation for the rest of your life, whether teenagers
want to believe it or not."

"In an interview, the teacher said the objective was to showcase
people close to the same age as the students who were "experiencing very
different things in their daily lives and to stand in the shoes of those people
and then present them by speaking their words exactly in front of an audience."

"A school administrator who is a Vietnam veteran also raised
questions about the wisdom of letting students explore such sensitive issues..."

From the school administration's point of view, two of their own are dead and some of the student's who were prevented from seeing the play may serve in the war if it is not resolved very soon. Why let them find out the consequences of their elders failures?

The Principal cancelled the play.

Peace,

Steve


I'm liking Senator Jim Webb. Once a Republican, Webb was driven out of his own party by what he felt like was a sell out of American priciples.Webb seems to embody what I think we need in this country. Elected oficials who are direct, honest, and willing to do the hard work. Serving America should be about having a vision for the future and getting the people's work done. Not about playing golf, smoking big cigars, drinking with lobbyists, and getting rich by selling out your own country.


http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=12594