From the Peanut Gallery

A couple weeks ago, when my first period class gave their informative speeches, one girl spoke about internet predators. She's very passionate about this topic--I did not ask why--and her speech was tasteful and informative and did not involve any nudity at all (and she's totally capable of adding that for shock value, believe you me).

So this morning, I'm getting ready for school and watching the news, and I hear about how this dumb bozo was corresponding with a fourteen-year-old girl and totally being ... er ... "inappropriate" with her over the internet. Now, just how stupid can a person be?

I want to state here that I do NOT think of my students like THAT; like, I just threw up in my mouth a little at the THOUGHT of treating any of them as a sexual being. Just: EW.

But I can totally tell you that Brian J. Doyle is a stupid, stupid man because 1)he used his real name; 2)he said he was the deputy press secretary for Homeland Security; and 3) he sent a picture of himself WITH his security badge. I mean! That is plain dumb, is what that is.

So anyway, as I was watching this on the news, I thought, "Hey! This is what M was talking about! I wonder if she's heard this story!"

And during first period, we had a little time left, and I said, "M, I thought of you this morning, because I saw on the news blooblahblee ...." She'd heard the story too, and we discussed it in a non-salacious and totally informative way, talking about how this affected our opinion of government officials and the effect on Homeland Security itself, etc. It was a good conversation.

Then, after we were done talking, there was a pause.

"Ms. Flower?" M says. "How weird is it that you heard about a sexual predator and you thought of me?"