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Show Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009 Views&Op inion Page 11 TELL STATESMAN ADVERTISERS: "I SAW IT IN THE STATESMAN!" 000000001 THIS 5G=YI 11-4E 9A I TEPPOR ► ST5 TRI ED HERE! AMERICA CANT HANDLE THAT! The Best Price Everyday We consistangy beat any 50 70% sales, student discounts, or so called wholesale prices. Meeped about censorship he note simply read, "At exactly 10:37 everyone in the class is going to start humming. No matter what Mrs. Rotter does or says, just keep humming. She can't get us in trouble if we're all doing it. Pass this note along." I didn't know who had started the note that was making its way through my seventhgrade English class. Mrs. Rotter was one of the worst teachers in the school. I really didn't care for her at all, and I was more than willing to join in on the rouse to annoy the teacher. At exactly 10:37 everyone in the class began to make a humming noise. We weren't half-bad either; we managed to hit the same note and soon there was a class full of harmonizing seventh graders. At first she looked annoyed, but that annoyance soon grew to anger as she realized she had no control over the class. What was she going to do, suspend us all? "Stop it," Mrs. Rotter said. "Stop that right now or I'll go to the principal." She stormed out of the room and down the hall, and the class erupted with laughter. While she was gone we all swore a pact of secrecy and no matter what the principal said we wouldn't own up to anything. When Mrs. Rotter came back with the principal we all kept our silence and escaped punishment. At Danvers High School in Massachusetts last week, the principal, Thomas Murray, has attempted to pre-empt a similar situation and has had automated phone calls to the students' homes to tell them they will face suspension if they use the word meep. Murray said the students were using Facebook to escalate the use of the word. While he insists that the ban on the word has nothing to do with the word itself, the newest four-letter word in Massachusetts does seem silly, to say the least. Murray took anticipatory action in order to stop students from supposedly using a word that a Muppet uses instead of English T and the Roadrunner uses on occasion. While in junior high school, I was an accessory to the escalation of the process of humming. But it wasn't the word meep or the action of humming that caused students to cause problems. Those words could easily be replaced with other nonsensical words. Murray created a problem where there was none. By punishing those who say meep, Murray escalated its meaning. As a principal, Murray acted within his authority. However, unless Danvers is a haven of angel children, wouldn't there be much larger problems to deal with? And while all four-letter words are just words, society has decided such words as the F word and others are inappropriate. When was the last time that Murray sent home a message that threatened students with suspension if they dropped the F bomb? But I suppose meep could easily be considered a gateway word that could lead to other nonsensical words such as zoinks, jeepers or any other word that could be picked up on a Scooby-Doo rerun. Murray said he stumbled on a Facebook group called Meep that had about 370 members, four of which were members of his school, according to Salem News. What do you think? Should educators be able to restrict the freedom of speech in order to pre-empt a possible disruption? Log onto www.aggietownsquare.com and let me know what you think. Seth Braken's column will appear every Wednesday. Mr. Braken can be contacted by e-mail at seth. braken@aggiemaiLusu.edu For more than a century, thousands of couples throughout Northern Utah have experienced fair and honest transactions at S.E. Needham Jewelers. You don't have to be a skilled negotiator to get the best price. 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