In an ideal world I'd agree. Me personally, I don't care if my teacher fucks goats or crossdresses. I'm not easily influenced to believe in things without it making total sense to me. I'm not very easily influenced. But some are, some are far more easily influenced. Influence in childhood is very formative and affecting.
The point is, here it seems they've thrown common sense out of the window and overreacted. Now, if it turned out the novel blatantly glorified school shooters as some kind of freedom fighters or sought to justify their actions, if there was clear evidence of the guy inciting kids into killing each other, if this novel was a thinly failed manifest of a homicidal maniac, if evidence surfaced about him trying to talk kids into using violence to solve their problems, then I'd consider him a loonie. The way it stands now, nothing warranted such a reaction. For all we know he wrote the book as a form of therapy to deal with threats against schools. Sure, kids are easily influenced, kids are impressionable, but they're also often smarter than we think.
I agree. In general it is better to be careful with what influences children. Sure children can be very smart but they can also be very dumb and naive.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/30/1326004/-Incarcerated-For-Writing-Science-Fiction# Anyone seen this article? I mean...wow. Whats the point of a pen name? Guess my co-worker who had an idea about a terrorist attack thriller novel would locked up faster than you can say "knick nack paddy wagon, read that man his rights!" This is really discouraging that anything we authors write can also condemn us. Guess an active imagination put to gut use is a crime.
In essence whats being said is "monkey see, monkey do with children. yes?" or maybe "monkey read, monkey do" While I agree that children are impressionable, there has to be limits to sanity. Sooner or later our children will turn into gestapo's, turning in their classmates for thought and writing control. Basically what I'm saying is if a kid gets a knee scraped we go nuclear. Our children are bubble-wrapped from the real world, and making things taboo, only makes the forbidden that much more appealing and tantalizing. Like the cookie gun, or the pretend dino murder. Too much over-reaction. http://joeforamerica.com/2014/08/student-arrested-pretend-killing-fictional-dinosaur/
I would want to see more evidence than just being a novelist. And it's akin to a witch hunt if that's really all they have on this guy. He wrote the novel a couple years ago, and the sequel last year. So what happened more recently is what I want to know. And so far nothing has been reported.
I read the free preview of the first novel. Meh, it's not bad but not great either. It starts with a prologue that comes off as a rambling something against the US, I really can't say what the griping was about, it wasn't clear. Maybe the feds saw that as too anti-American for them. If that's the case then wow, they better have more evidence than just a dystopian novel. He does a good job pacing the action but not such a good job making me want to keep reading.
Reading the reviews I see I'm not the only one to not be impressed by the writing. Most of the 5 star reviews are by people who admit not having read the book but bought it to support free speech and protest the arrest of the author. Also worth noting, the book was published in 2011. Not a single review was on that site until the teacher was arrested. I'm going to make a guess at this point in the story and predict this is going to turn out to have been initiated by a parent that one of the teacher's students told something to from the class.
This cracked me up in the Amazon comments on the author's page: People are confused posting the book was taken down from Amazon when it wasn't. So I can only assume they don't get the UK-US separation of Amazon book sales.
It's just such a bizarre case. Also ironic. How his work is getting more attention now, meaning more people will be corrupted by it.
Mental health issues, not books, led to teacher's suspension [Gilda Radner voice] Never mind. [/Gilda Radner voice] Should we switch this thread to the publishing/publicity sub-forum?
O!M!G! I have seen the light. Excuse me while I begin writing the story of the demise of the United States from an internal terrorist group circa 2015. A few days in jail and I'll be set, thanks to the publicity of my arrest. On a serious note, I paused while writing that. It was a joke - but it's scary to joke about such things these days. Never know who's listening.
I doubt the publicity will likely help those books in the long run. Our books need attention, but if the book doesn't carry the weight, that attention will be very short lived. He published too soon. Some good critique feedback and an editor could have done a lot for him.
Seriously. I mean, unless they want to invoke the Patriot Act, which is about as unpopular to pull out as a three centimeter long booger - mental health eval is the only way to go. No due process, no proof, and still no freedom.
"Consumed by communal turbulence, economic devastation, and absolute anarchy, the domains of the former United States decomposed into devastation subsequent to the overthrow of the central government and remained in desolation for five elongated years." decomposed into devastation? elongated years??? Maybe the subject matter he chooses to write about is not the reason why he should not teach language arts...
I was kidding. I'm not that paranoid. We see people all the time in the psych hospital I do infection control for. It's a legit 72 hour hold and you cannot keep people longer without an extended court order. Lawyers are involved. If the government wanted to abduct someone, they would do just as well to just kidnap them.
Follow up: Don't know what's the story now but on 9-4-14 the teacher contacted someone by phone (not sure if he talked to the reporter directly). Md. Teacher Who Wrote School Shooting Book Speaks Out From Mental Institution I couldn't find anything further.
I'm guessing that's the media narrative, so it doesn't look like he's been wrongly institutionalised... /cynicism