With ace’s treads, you need to look for updates first.
Sr Siete - “half blind” is still legally blind. If you expect all blind people to have no sight whatsoever then you’re wrong.
Maybe someone who wanted to help but couldn’t do so physically. Videoing it makes it harder for the assailant to claim the other guy hit him first and suchlike - and it seems to have helped in this case, esp for the kid who defended the blind kid. Putting it on youtube shames the assailant more, too, which I’m not personally in favour of but I can still see the arguments for.
Under the State’s “I Won’t Back Down” Law.
I don’t. I expect people reading this headline to conjure up the image of a person with a total or almost total visual impairment, just like the writer expected it. Because that’s what the term without qualifiers implies in common usage.
You got lucky with that one.
bienville, is your first name Tom? Cuz if so, I could say That’s petty, Tom.
Missed the updates.
Needless to say, this is a hot button issue with me as a martial arts instructor. I’ve had to accompany parents and educate more than one school administrator over this issue. The last one was obstinate about it to the point that I had to turn to the parents and start discussing filing the lawsuit, having the principal arrested as an accomplice to the assault, calling the TV stations, etc. The guy nearly shit himself before he backed down.
It’s best to consider the source of the news you’re posting on. If it’s being reported on The Daily Mail site (or if it’s a blog that’s linking to The Daily Mail) look for verification from a more credible source.
Also be suspicious whenever it’s a story about some unusual event that supposedly happened in China or Eastern Europe.
Look to see if the report you’re reading is distancing itself from the story. They’re making a point of saying that the event is “reported” to have happened or that somebody is alleging something happened. This is the news business way of saying “we can’t corroborate that this actually occurred so we’re essentially just passing on a rumor we heard.” Even if it turns out the story is false, the reporter can maintain it was factually correct in reporting that the story existed.
And above all make sure you’re not getting whooshed by a parody site like The Onion, The Daily Currant, The Duffel Blog, or World News Daily Report.
I am more careful these days. Doing many of the things you suggest. I definitely double check sources. I’m getting more aware of the exploitative tricks that the modern media uses to generate ad clicks.
The main reason I started this thread was the online petition. I felt very strongly this kid did the right thing and needed our support. That ended after the school made its decision not to suspend him. A very surprising and refreshingly intelligent decision. Heck, just a week ago those fools at that school in Texas suspended and had that kid arrested for building a clock for a school project. The charges were dropped but the suspension upheld. Nearly everyone expected a similar bad outcome for this kid that protected his blind friend.
But that’s not what blind actually means. Legally blind people often still have some sight, just not enough to make vision a very usable sense for them (even with corrective lenses). And none of us have any idea how much sight this kid had, anyway - none of the reports have specified his condition. Little enough for another kid to defend him because he’s blind, at least. There was nothing dishonest about the headline.
Were any of these kids dark-skinned, or Muslim, or carrying clocks? If not, why should we care?
Reading that the school quite rightly decided, IMHO, to not punish the defender reminded me of a family crisis.
There was the time my brother and his family were visiting and there was a family get together in his honor, I guess. Anyway, one member of the local family who was there was some elderly opinionated female cousin who was sort of a family matriarch. She was being her usual self and my 7 year old nephew called her on it and told her what many of us were thinking. Minor furor followed and I thought the quickest solution would be for me to remove nephew from the situation. My brother and SIL agreed, so they declared (to soothe matriarchs pride) that I was going to handle nephew’s punishment and I left with nephew. On the way to the car, I explained to him that his punishment was going to be he couldn’t get any hot peppers on his double dip ice cream cone, but sprinkles would be okay. And he couldn’t have a triple dip, but if he finished the double dip, I’d get him a single dip. But again, no hot peppers.