A dispatch from Real Murka (h/t):
I have written a couple comments about my daughter regarding this birth control issue. She is on birth control and has been for almost a year now- not for sexual activity and pregnancy prevention, but even if that were the case so what?!?! No, instead beantown girl suffers from menorrhagia and secondary dysmenorrhea.
[…]My daughter took a trip with the school band for 5 days just a week and a half ago. Any student on prescription medication had to have a form filled out and signed by the prescribing physician turned in before the trip. The day of the trip, the prescription medication was given to the doctor who was traveling with the students. He would hand out the medication as prescribed. For beantown girl, this was every morning after breakfast. She never thought a thing about it- neither did I. They returned from their trip…
[….]They lined up behind my daughter to get their lunch tray and started in on her. “Birth control whore”, “I told my mom you were on the pill and she said you were nothing but a little tramp” “My mom said some guy she listens to on the radio was just talking about girls like you- he even said you were a slut!” “Yeah, my mom said the same thing, said it’s about time people spoke up and weren’t afraid to tell the truth”! They laughed, they harassed, they said so many things my daughter couldn’t begin to remember it all- she walked back to her table without food and told her friends what was going on. She cried through lunch and through the rest of the day. She said she almost went to the office to call me to come get her but she was trying to be strong and not let them win! The last class of the day, however, was the final straw- it’s her history class and 2 of these little monsters are in the class with her. They start the class off by talking about current events. One of the little witches brought up Rush Limbaugh and the (male) teacher said that he was an American Icon- sometimes he says things that can be construed as insensitive but overall, he was one of the few people left in today’s media who was not afraid to speak the truth!
They are we who we thought they were.
But what about that time the anonymous MoveOn member used “Hitler” and “Bush” in the same sentence? Both sides do it, and you all deserve Moore Award nominations if you suggest otherwise. The true heroes are the Olympia Snowes of the world, who dare not criticize a great American icon like Rush Limbaugh.
The Fat Kate Middleton
As a recently retired high school teacher, I can’t tell you how sick this made me. I wish Rush Limbaugh could be forced to read this every day for the rest of his miserable life. And as I said in the comments to this diary, how the HELL could that teacher say what he did? He needs to be yanked into the principal’s office and faced with the cruelty to which he was an accomplice.
kerFuFFler
Simply horrifying! It seems like they should be able to sue the school district for the failure to keep the girl’s medical information (her prescription, that is) private.
Killjoy
@The Fat Kate Middleton:
I get the distinct feeling he feasts on human misery and would probably enjoy doing this.
dmsilev
The utter assholishness of Rush Limbaugh, combined with the vindictiveness of the worst of the American teenager. Bad bad combination.
Emma
I have no words. Utterly. Completely. Wordless.
I hope the parents raise hell.
catclub
damn mobile version if you don;’t excize www. or comment.
I am getting sick and tired of it.
MikeJ
@efgoldman: You want to sue a 16 year old over a schoolyard taunt?
Donut
I don’t know enough about the intricacies of medical professional liability, but wouldn’t that doctor’s disclosure of the kid’s medical info actually constitute a violation of the federal HIPPA? That’s, um, kinda a big deal.
Schlemizel
It seems you have a prima facia case of a HIPPA violation. This would cost the person who spilled the beans a great deal of trouble ( and money) to paper over. I would immediately contact the organization that sponsored the trip & demand an investigation. I would also contact a lawyer for advice on how to proceed. There is no legitimate reason for this information to have been given out and her right to privacy was violated. The Dr. in charge could be fined & receive other punishments. You might also take this up with him or her. I would enjoy inflicting as much pain as humanly possible if that was my daughter. The HIPPA rules are there for your protection – USE THEM.
Brian R.
Fuck this nonsense.
Schlemizel
@MikeJ:
No dimwit – he should sue the asshole who had responsibility for maintaining the patient privacy.
Donut
@MikeJ
I think at the least the school district and the doctor involved could have a credible claim brought against them , as opposed to the kids taunting the girl using hormone therapy, which is what she uses the pill for.
rikyrah
I read this diary earlier and just shook my head in sadness.
Art
@MikeJ: Most likely not for schoolyard bullying, rather, a HIPPA violation.
No one but the doctor should have known the girl was taking an oral contraceptive.
MikeJ
@Donut:
It would if the doctor disclosed it it. there’s nothing in the story indicating he did.
Schlemizel
@MikeJ:
No – Silvia Brown was on the trip & used her mental powers to divine the fact the told all the girls at the cheerleaders table.
Please try again
PurpleGirl
@MikeJ: No, sue the school district and the doctor (or nurse) for a Hippa violation.
beergoggles
There isn’t any law against posting the names of bullies online right?
Post their names. Post their addresses. Post their phone numbers.
It isn’t going to change until people push back against the bullies. Just like the time the abortion clinic protesters had their pictures taken and their contact information posted online got them to behave and back down.
Spaghetti Lee
Just…why?
MikeJ
@Schlemizel: You’re not going to win a lawsuit based on that guess. There is no evidence that the doctor told anybody and the original post doesn’t even assert that.
Martin
Look, I doubt very much that a school administrator revealed that information. Odds are it was one of the girls friends. There’s almost certainly no HIPAA or FERPA violation here. It’s just a bunch of assholes.
The bigger question is what are the policies of the school with regard to bullying? At some schools it’s suspension/expulsion. At most, it’s just ‘kids will be kids’. Focus there – convince the schools that they need to take a hard line on this.
Gin & Tonic
Minor nit, but having some involvement with related data security, I still need to be a pedant – it’s HIPAA, not HIPPA. And for tolerating my post, here’s a bonus – your evil federal gubmint’s excellent overview of your rights under HIPAA.
FuriousPhil
I’m going to say it, even though it has been said a thousand times before.
Why are people so fucking stupid?
I can maybe understand kids being ignorant here. But the adults in the situation…shameful, just shameful.
AlladinsLamp
Santorum Robo-calls Arrive In Georgia
http://blogs.ajc.com/political-insider-jim-galloway/2012/03/04/robo-call-war-begins-rick-santorum-says-mitt-romney-wrote-%e2%80%98personal-checks-funding-planned-parenthood%e2%80%99/?cxntfid=blogs_political_insider_jim_galloway
geg6
Someone who is bound by FERPA, if not HIPPA, had to have let this personal information become common knowledge. I can foresee a huge, slam dunk lawsuit bearing down on these people like a runaway fucking train.
And that teacher needs a fucking punch in the neck. If I was that parent, that mother fucker would be looking for a fucking safe house by the time I was done with him.
MikeJ
@efgoldman:
The teacher was certainly an idiot for liking Limbaugh, but there’s no indication in the original story that the teacher even knew about what was going on with the student. I don’t see how the teacher has anything to do with it based on the evidence at hand. Had the student complained to the teacher and he responded with that idiocy, certainly. As it is, he was uninvolved.
I’m not saying the kids involved were stupid and evil, but there’s nothing in the story to indicate that the school was ever even notified before that.
Schlemizel
@MikeJ:
Thats why you have the organization investigate (reading comprehension? see my original post). Since it was the Dr’s responsibility to maintain privacy its his to lose so he should be on the hook. Certainly it could have been one of the other adults involved in the paper work but they would also be covered under HIPAA rules & probably should never have been in possession of the information in the first place.
beergoggles
Just realized this is in Mass – I’m guessing they are going to get a few hundred grand settlement on this one from the school district both for violating privacy and for allowing such bullying under the new anti-bullying laws we have.
Mnemosyne
BTW, if they haven’t already, the parents of the girl should call that teacher and let him know that he was used to bully their daughter. From the way the story was told, he sounds like he had no idea that the student was getting him to say positive things about Rush Limbaugh so she could torment the poster’s daughter and he may not be too happy to hear it.
And, yes, if this school has any kind of anti-bullying policy, these little shits should be spending a few weeks in detention until they understand that you don’t get to taunt other students because of the medication they take.
MikeJ
@MikeJ: Grr, my last sentence should have read, “I’m not saying the kids involved weren’t stupid and evil”, the opposite of what I typed. If the edit function didn’t lock up my browser I would have fixed it in place.
Constance Reader
I second geg6. If I’m that girl’s parent, that teacher is going to be lucky to be working as a part-time bank teller by the time I’m done with him. And I’ll have already put a criminal lawyer on retainer for the possible assault complaint that is about to be made against me. I’d *love* to see this fucker try to put me in front of jury.
rageahol
If you read some of the comments it becomes clear that the medications were dispensed in public, which led to others questioning the girl directly.
This is a clear HIPAA violation, and as a future healthcare provider myself, if I knew what school this was I would file a complaint my damn self. there is NO requirement that the person filing the complaint be the affected party, and there is additional law prohibiting retaliation of any kind.
yes, that would potentially complicate things for the family, but plenty of people are willing to let themselves be steamrolled. this shit has no place in a civilized society. if it were my family, i wouldn’t even go to the meeting and give these fuckwits an opportunity to draw me into their ass-covering horseshit, i would just send a lawyer and say “see you in court”
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
I normally don’t FB Daily Kos diaries, but I had to with that one.
gene108
It’s sad kids are thinking like this NOW, with regards to the Pill and slut shaming.
Seems like there needs to be a huge dose of education about sexual reproduction, hormone therapy, etc.
Shari
@gene108:
Abstinence only education covers everything
geg6
rageahol @34:
The meds were dispensed publicly? For real? Holy shit. Could the doctor lose his license for something like this? I would hope so! If I ever violated FERPA, I’d never work in financial aid or education ever again. No one would hire me, ever.
Martin
There’s no HIPAA violation here:
It’s not a HIPAA violation if YOU disclose the information. The girl unfortunately didn’t know what she was about to unleash. It’s a straight up bullying case. Now, the teachers could be culpable if they’re ignoring the bullying policy here, but that’s all that it is.
Kyle
As long as stupidity, cruelty and bullying exist in America, Rush and his slimy ilk will have a big audience.
Rush reminds me so much of the high school bullying mentality of using any excuse to pick on the weak. I suspect he was bullied himself, either at school or in an abusive authoritarian home environment, and instead of developing compassion as many bullied kids do, he took the Republican road and lives out his revenge power fantasies by being the biggest bully, the most unrestrained asshole in the country, rejoicing in the cruelty and anger he generates for an audience of millions.
Not that I feel sorry for the fat fuck. Sometimes it’s useful to know how monsters are created and what makes them tick.
Dan
Am I a terrible person because I assume 90% of DailyKos diaries are fake or at least significantly embellished?
Svensker
Grrrrrrrrrrrrr.
priscianusjr
Hey, I’ll use “Bush” and “Hitler” in the same sentence. Prescott Bush, George Bush’s grandfather, played a major part in financing Hitler.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar
Martin
@geg6: It’s not a FERPA violation. There’s no way in a setting like that to not reveal that medication is being dispensed unless you call every kid to a private room including those that aren’t receiving medication. That’s clearly not realistic, nor is is warranted.
The only way that dispensing the meds is a violation if the meds are disclosed. They weren’t in this case – the student did that part. It’s not a violation.
Mnemosyne
@Martin:
I dunno — at a minimum, you could make a case that HIPAA requires the school to dispense the medication in private because the patient should not be put in a position where s/he has to discuss their meds.
My husband has to deal with HIPAA at his job all day long and merely delivering a package of medication to the wrong address is a reportable HIPAA violation, so it’s hard to believe that it’s A-OK under HIPAA to hand prescription medication out in front of a group.
ETA:
You may not feel it’s realistic to do it that way, but it absolutely could be a HIPAA violation. And, given what ended up happening, I don’t see how you can say it wasn’t warranted since it was the form of the medication (packet vs. bottle) that triggered the questions.
DougJarvus Green-Ellis
@Dan:
I have my doubts too, generally speaking.
JCJ
@MikeJ:
I don’t see that there is any way that this is not a HIPAA violation. I have to review information every year about HIPAA to maintain my medical staff privileges at the hospital where I practice. The information covers who has access to protected health information (PHI) and what an individual’s responsibility is regarding PHI. There is no way that someone (the doctor, someone from the school) did not adequately perform his or her duty with regard to this PHI.
RedKitten
This just makes me shake with rage. That poor girl. Plus, as a commenter on my own wall put it, “we wonder how bullying has become such a problem in schools, with adults setting such a shining example…”
Well, if it’s any consolation, those vicious little bitches will all probably eventually have raging cases of chlamydia, given their opposition to birth control…
rageahol
@Martin: bullshit. handing out medications in public is a clear HIPAA violation, particularly when the type of medication is discernible by its packaging, as is the case with many of the hormones used for birth control. if it were a random little white pill that would be one thing, but the doc STILL should not have dispensed it in public.
Jenn
@Martin: Yeah, but the school should know better than to dispense meds out in front of everybody. She should never have been put in a position TO be asked. Even if the doctor didn’t disclose what the meds were himself, he created this situation by making private medical care in a public forum.
Rawk Chawk
Bingo. The original diary story as written reads as false or highly embellished. But to acknowledge that would severely decrease the opportunity for self righteous outrage by DougJ.
If there’s any truth to it, and the mother’s reaction is to sob hysterically on the couch for a few hours…wow. Nice way to play the victim. If this actually happened to one of my girls I would have gone from the car to the school office and not left until fur had flown and names were taken.
Rawk Chawk
@DougJarvus Green-Ellis:
So why did you feature this in a front page post along with your manufactured outrage?
Rawk Chawk
This diary entry is bullshit.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@efgoldman: I’m guessing FERPA violations and possibly HIPPA as well, if the band MD can be considered a health care provider. Though in fact I think FERPA is as strict as HIPPA, for that matter. The school district should just get out the checkbook.
Brian R.
I honored Andrew Breitbart’s memory today by taking the memoir of a civil rights leader and drastically editing it so that it appeared he was a racist. And when someone called me out for it, I denounced them as a liberal parasite.
geg6
Martin@44:
I find it hard to believe that HIPAA is less stringent than FERPA and I can tell you that if I would do something equivalent like leaving a student’s FAFSA information laying around where anyone could see it, I’d be fired and my employer would be facing another scandal and set of lawsuits. Hell, I can’t tell scholarship donors anything other than the name and major of recipients without all kinds of informed consent, not even the amount that the student received from their scholarship’s endowment. We only report the amount spent overall and most scholarship endowments pay for multiple recipients.
Corey
I have not been following politics closely for a few months, due to a combination of a personal shift in philosophy, complete resignation that whatever will happen, will happen, and also too, a desire to avoid the blinding rage that accompanies close examination of American politics.
So I’m asking, seriously – is this whole thing for real? Is our political discourse seriously now questioning the merits of birth control? It’s baffling to me; I would expect misogyny to be a part of the discourse but, let’s be honest here, birth control is awesome.
Something like 95% of people have sex before marriage. It’s one of the only universals of American life, something that connects liberals and conservatives alike. Presumably, the vast majority of those people would prefer to not get pregnant or to get their partner pregnant. Voila, the woman takes a pill, and it doesn’t happen, and you get to have guilt-free sex.
I honestly, for real, do not understand this; I feel like I’m looking at an alien culture. What on earth is going on?
Martin
@rageahol:
That would have been waived on the health form. I just went through this with my son. He did a week science camp with his school. He’s on ADD meds. We provided the meds and reviewed the form. It says right on there how the meds will be dispensed and asks if there are any special considerations. Then you sign it.
Fuck people, you’re so quick to jump into some kind of federal violation here while missing the real point. IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT THE MEDS ARE OR HOW THEY WERE HANDED OUT AND WE HAVE NO WAY OF KNOWING IF THERE WAS A VIOLATION OR NOT. Given how paranoid schools are about that sort of thing, odds are pretty strong they did it right.
What matters is the culture of bullying at the school. There are policies against that, and if they aren’t strong enough they need to be stronger. That’s what matters. That’s pretty much all that matters.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
Christ on a crutch, this shit is all fucked up. But you know what, it is our fucked up, and I am all for laying all the cards on the table, so we can have it out. No more of this Frank Luntz, and GOP slithering around doing their damage with code and increments. It seems the twenty seven percenters feel the same way and want a straight up fight. Fine by me, but I bet the wingnut braintrust are getting a galloping case of vapors that worsens each day with this puritan offensive their party is entering. This is the sort of thing that causes long term realignments, or complete disaster. I really do believe, when the American people are presented with the raw data, they will choose a measure of the progressive, over the regressive. So keep it up wingers, you wanted the crazies to make your boat go again, they have the helm now. What are you prepared to do?
Corey
That’s of course not counting all the married couples who don’t want to get pregnant. What is this? No one, male, female, Republican or Democrat, wants to be surprised by pregnancy!
Yutsano
@geg6: You know, for someone who has never had children, may I just say I love your maternal instincts? :)
Martin
@geg6:
Well, duh. Yeah, the FAFSA has everything from Social Security number to parents income on it. There’s at least a dozen protected pieces of information on there.
However, you don’t need to sneak students into your office under the cover of darkness to ensure that nobody know whether they are receiving financial aid or not. That’s the parallel here. We’re not talking about disclosing medical records – merely disclosing that the student takes a pill every day. Not what kind of pill. Not whether it’s a permanent thing or an antibiotic for an ear infection or whether it’s a vitamin that the parents out of due diligence wanted the staff to not mistake for drugs and strip search her.
Gin & Tonic
@Dan: No, you’re not. I’m skeptical too, a lot of the time. The Penthouse Forum letters, on the other hand, I’ve always had 100% confidence in.
Which, come to think of it, reminds me of the time I was on the train to Ulaanbataar, back in the Soviet days, minding my own business in my train compartment, when the door opened and in walked…
Bob S
Unless I botch the hyperlink, a Whitehouse.gov petition to remove Limbaugh’s show from Armed Forces Radio, mentioned in a follow-up to beantown mom’s Daily Kos post, can be found here.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@Corey:
I think what is going on, beyond the demographic pressures on the GOP, and a sense of building panic, is a kind of delayed, or latent knee jerk to all the shit that was litigated in the 60’s, on the personal freedom front, and escape from the strict mores of victorian viewpoints, especially female sexuality. The right wing never really got over that, though most of America assimilated those new personal freedoms, and once that is the case, the wingers are playing with pol dynamite trying to re litigate those victories for liberal progress.
Mnemosyne
Okay, I asked my resident expert, and it may not be a HIPAA violation if the medical personnel did not reveal in the information. (That’s the criterion — it has to be the actual doctor, nurse, pharmacy, etc. that reveals the information.)
@Martin:
Okay, but this is the first time you said this. Everything else you said was coming across as, “Well, if the kid didn’t want to be bullied, she shouldn’t have told anyone what the medication was.”
Mnemosyne
Is there something we can do about stupid fucking WordPress so we can actually have a fucking conversation about modern medicine without half the commments getting thrown into moderation because we dared mention the name of a store where you can buy birth control pills? Jesus fuck.
Martin
Because this seems to be all twisted up for people. There’s a distinction between anonymity and privacy. Laws in this country are almost always geared toward privacy and almost never for anonymity.
You have privacy protection for the information discussed between you and your pharmacist, but there is no protection against someone spotting you talking to your pharmacist and receiving a prescription. Having others know that you are on medication might seem like a privacy violation, but it’s not. Having others know WHAT the medication is – now that’s a privacy violation.
I’m not arguing that you shouldn’t have anonymity here, just that the laws aren’t written that way. And they aren’t written like that because they’re effectively impossible to implement.
mai naem
@Gin & Tonic: This diary just doesn’t seem right. Either this kids had issues with the other girls before or the diary’s exaggerated. I know there’s mean girls in HS but dysmennorhhea is hardly rare in HS and being on birth control for it is not exactly rare either.
Corey
@General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero): “The right wing never really got over that, though most of America assimilated those new personal freedoms, and once that is the case, the wingers are playing with pol dynamite trying to re litigate those victories for liberal progress.”
Yes, but my whole point is, the right wing has sex before marriage too. The right wing, when having sex before marriage, would presumably like to avoid pregnancy in general. The married right wing practices contraception too; it’s only the uber-Catholic and Mormon families who don’t, and they’re demographically so small that they can’t be driving mainstream conservative opinion here.
Right-wing women take the pill. Right-wing men benefit from women taking the pill, not even indirectly. It’s all very direct and presumably right-wing men can and do think to themselves, “hey, what if the pill didn’t exist?” – obviously with the answer being that he’d get laid a lot less or have a hell of a lot more kids, both bad outcomes for most.
Is everyone just posing as a pious, ubermoral Jesus freak here?
Mnemosyne
@mai naem:
I’m guessing you were never a 16-year-old girl in an American high school. One of the reasons so many of us are responding to this is that it’s ABSOLUTELY plausible that this girl’s friends would turn on her for being a “slut.” It’s like fucking living in Lord of the Flies, and if the adults aren’t actively fighting it, it can be far worse than this story.
Jenn
@Martin: Regardless of whether this is a HIPAA violation, it’s still a screwup on the part of both doctor and school, and hopefully their policy will change for the next school trip. And yes, hopefully the school will enforce their anti-bullying rules!
Yevgraf
The story reeks of embellishment to me. That’s why I haven’t facebooked it.
When there are real names, I’ll believe it.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@Corey:
Yes they do, but you are viewing their duplicitous behavior through liberal eyes. The average wingnut lives in two worlds, the one that is public, and the other that is private. There is no moral connection between the two. For them, the image they put forth to the outer world is all important, and they have no sense of hypocrisy when that image deviates from what they do in private. This is all pervasive in their general psychology. The world really is a stage for them, all of it orchestrated to appear as a genuine blueprint for living life, a conservative life. That usually is intertwined with religion, to paint themselves as above all the human rabble doing hedonistic and ungodly things. The fact they do it themselves, behind closed doors, is not a lie to them. Unless they get caught.
It all centers around a personal belief that not getting caught in a lie, is the same thing as telling the truth.
Martin
@Mnemosyne:
Come on. Give me a little credit here. Post #22, my first comment on this:
Jenn
@mai naem: yes, but we’ve just had several days of a prominent conservative screaming that anyone on birth control is a slut, and the gossip about this girl’s meds came out at exactly the same time. I have zero problem seeing that this confluence would lead to some mean girls getting on their bullying, and using this as their weapon.
The Fat Kate Middleton
@mai naem: Well, what’s rare is other kids knowing she was on birth control pills – what’s not rare is that those little savages would engage in this kind of savagery. I’ve seen exactly this kind of viciousness in my teaching career – right down to the bullying by girls who had previously bragged about being on birth control.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
@Mnemosyne:
I have no trouble believing stuff like this. High School maybe the glory days for some people, but for others, it’s a hell you never recover from, if you aren’t lucky enough to be part of and STAY part of the ‘cool kids’ and don’t end up having a good support structure outside of family. Family helps mind, but it’s at a time when peer pressure and support are at their peak. Family you take for granted, but friends, or lack thereof, can either save you or leave you a neurotic mess you have to either get help for or fake the rest of your life through, or…well…
That said, I hope honest to god that this is exaggerated. This is a HOPE mind, because if it’s even 60-70% true, it means that, however well it supposedly polls, the nationwide slutshaming over birth control is doing PRECISELY what it was supposed to do: Destroy people.
Mnemosyne
@Kyle:
There is a theory that seems quite accurate to me that bullies actually see themselves as the upholders of the social order. They’re the ones who make sure all of the other kids stay in line and obey the social rules. That’s one of the reasons it can be so difficult for schools to combat — in many ways, it’s easier for the administration if some students are disciplining the others for stepping out of line.
So of course Rush sees nothing wrong with vilifying a law student who testified in front of Congress — she is trying to overturn the natural social order where women are subordinate to men, and that cannot be permitted.
geg6
Martin @62:
Um, you kind of make my case for me. I would never even talk to a student about their aid unless it’s in the privacy of my office. And if the Chancellor of my campus told me it was okay to discuss it in the middle of the quad because the student signed a form saying I could, I still wouldn’t do it. And if I did, both the Chancellor and I would be fired. It’s unethical, no matter what. I really think you’re wrong though. Such a form as you describe would never be allowed where I work. The idea that it’s a-ok to make a public display of a person’s private medical information (and a birth control pack is quite distinctive from any other typical med container) when there are other, much more confidential options and no medical emergency sounds like something a fiscally prudent school organization should avoid.
Dan
Following up, if this really happened, I’m as appalled as anyone here. It all just seems a little too on the nose. Liberals aren’t immune to the allure of truthiness.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
so, just out of curiousity, what would the consequences have been if the girl did not tell the school, the doctor, whomever that she was on the pill.
this sounds like one of those regulations that is in place for the school to cover its ass, but people aren’t actually expected to follow it, for things like this.
it doesn’t change the sheer stupidity of it all, i mean one of the very few redeeming social features of an adolescent is a precocious pretense to sophistication. i can’t believe the attitude wasn’t, ok, cool, so what(secret jealousy)
IrishGirl
I wrote about this on my blog and said:
“Rush Limbaugh is a hypocritical, misogynistic carbuncle that needs to be excised from the body politic.”
I was promptly excoriated by a teabagger on Facebook that I was a hypocrite for engaging in “hate speech” against Limbaugh while condemning him for the same. Now what I said was angry, but hateful? I think not. Plus the fact that it’s demonstrably true! The fact that I am a nobody with maybe 10 consistent followers of my blog and Limbaugh reaches millions every day didn’t seem to register with the teabagger either. I finally had to block the guy….I’m sick of dealing with their lunacy and there is no hope for them….they are always the victim and they will always use the excuse that both sides do it. I’m not wasting any more time with wondering why. I am just going to expose their insanity every chance I get.
The Fat Kate Middleton
@Dan: Check the diarist’s profile (and earlier comments) on Dkos, if you don’t believe it.
Martin
@geg6:
It was a pill in a paper cup. From the author in the comments. Nothing more was disclosed at that point than if a student walked into your office. You can’t protect your students from being seen walking into your office, and you can’t protect them from being asked whether that means they’re poor.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
Edit: Fuck it. I should know better than to get into a discussion like this.
virag
no. not buying it. i’m pretty sure that even at band camp, the other little scamps could never find out what pills you are taking, especially if it is under the care of a doctor on the trip. unless you tell, but then the little scamps woulda known what a huge ‘birth control whore’ you are. i call bullshit.
first of all, when you put a young girl on ortho tricyclen because of bad periods or pcos or whatever, you don’t generally refer to them as birth control when you are writing the script. they’re therapy meds.
second, what 16 year old girl would refer to herself as a ‘birth control slut’?? jesus, my daughter is around half that age and she’s way more sophisticated than that. and she sure as shit knows about some of the different uses of hormone therapy. if she got put on that sort of medication, i’m pretty sure she wouldn’t react like this 16 year old supposedly did. nope. don’t believe it.
limbaugh’s a giant douche but the kos thing reads like bad jonathan lethem.
rageahol
@Martin: i saw nothing in the entire thread about a paper cup. indeed, there is a comment by the poster:
http://www.dailykos.com/comments/1070800/45219266#c46
that clearly undermines your assertions.
Nicole
@mai naem: I feel like a horrible person saying this, but I think the story might be embellished, too. In particular, the note she says her daughter was passed reads more to me like a grownup’s idea of what a bullying teen note would say, especially if the grownup would like to tie the bullying into Rush Limbaugh. In particular, the “my mom said this guy on the radio said…” just sounds fake.
I read her other posts on KOs, and she had one about her cat being shot with a pellet that somehow became about 2nd-Amendment loving, gun-toting conservatives, particularly her next-door neighbor (she had no proof on who shot the cat).
I very much hope I’m wrong and every word is true. I mean, I would rather the whole thing is fake in that I would be happier if a 16-year-old girl is not actually being bullied, but I would rather the whole story be true than that a well-meaning liberal is stretching the truth about her daughter’s being bullied in an attempt to further blame Limbaugh. It doesn’t help and gives right-wingers yet an excuse to dismiss everything Limbaugh said because some lady on the internet somewhere made something up, therefore Limbaugh is a victim, durnit.
Mnemosyne
@Martin:
Nope — it was dispensed from the pill pack, which is what the poster meant when she said “little, round, peach case,” probably something like one of these.
To me, that’s what verged on a HIPAA violation since the packaging for a BCP is so distinctive, but apparently it doesn’t reach that level. Still stupid for the school to dispense it that way in front of the entire group.
Mnemosyne
@Nicole:
One hopes that liberals learned from the backwards-B idiot in 2008 but, sadly, one can’t always count on common sense. The direct Limbaugh connection is probably the weakest link in the story, but the bullying itself is very plausible (IMO, of course).
Nicole
@Mnemosyne: I find the bullying plausible, too. It’s the kids being inspired to do it because of what their parents told them they heard Limbaugh say on the radio the day before that strikes me as not sounding real. Especially the quotes, which don’t sound to me like how teenagers insult each other. Admittedly, it’s been a long time for me since high school, and I imagine bullying may have evolved to some extent, but I don’t recall any of the insults thrown at me including “my mom said” and quoting mass media figures.
dcdl
@mai naem:
I can believe what happened to that girl happened. Just this past week one of my boys came home really upset. At lunch some classmates were laughing at him because of how he packs his lunch. We try not to use plastic baggies so pack his sandwich in a foldable cloth and have cloth ‘baggies’ for snacks. He had no idea how to react and he is very sensitive child.
I can completely see this girl get this ‘deer in the headlight’ look and not know how to act at the time without a little understanding and prompting from a parent or respectable adult.
Anything ‘different’, ‘strange’, or whatever children don’t understand they make fun of until it is corrected and they see the error of their ways.
FlyingToaster
As a BayStater, this is all too effing plausible.
Feb 20-24 was Winter Vacation; a number of schools and groups offered camps that week. WarriorGirl was at CircusCamp, fortunately at her preschool rather than away.
However, the weird and stinky thing is that the mom didn’t immediately call the school office after hearing her daughter’s situation. They’d have gotten the principal on the phone (or a call-back) and this mess would be in the process of being straightened out. Though, alas, it’s probably as simple as the parent NOT reading the parent handbook at the beginning of the year (this shit is spelled out EXPLICITLY, whether you’re in preschool, elementary, middle, or high; our handbook is a centimeter thick for a four-year-old).
Massachusetts finally has a real anti-bullying law; schools are required to report upward and implement actions on both perpetrators and facilitators (I’m looking at the teacher and whoever dispensed the meds in this one).
Mnemosyne
@Nicole:
Oh, I had plenty of friends tell me the stupid things their parents said. My friend’s mother hated me because her daughter told me that her mom said mosquito bites itch because the eggs are hatching in your skin and I said that was stupid and not true, which apparently meant that I was challenging her Parental Authoritah and a bad influence. So I find that part plausible, too, though I suspect the actual quote was mom’s reconstruction of what her daughter said the note said since the daughter probably threw it away after reading it.
@FlyingToaster:
The story indicated that the daughter tried to handle the bullying on her own and mom only just found out about it, which is presumably why she hasn’t contacted the school yet. From reading the story, to me it sounds like no one in authority at the school has been informed yet, so I hope they react properly tomorrow and throw the book at those little assholes.
wasabi gasp
@dcdl:
I wouldn’t either. Maybe ditch the rag.
Nicole
@Mnemosyne: Like I said, I really hope the story about the kids specifically invoking Rush Limbaugh. I really do. Because I totally buy the bullying and don’t want to think anything could be used by the bullies or the school to throw doubt on it.
FlyingToaster
@Mnemosyne: When I read it this am, the mom had picked up her daughter from school on Friday afternoon, daughter in tears.
11 years from now, in similar circumstances, I suspect I’d still turn the car around and go straight to the principal’s/headmaster’s office. Going in fast, with “here’s what your handbook says, we need a plan by Monday or this will have to go to the State” will get action around here.
Nicole
@Nicole: Er, I forgot an “is true” there in my last comment. Sigh.
FlipYrWhig
To me the scenario rang true, but every time there was a report of direct speech, it sounded made up, and every time the situation escalated, it was a little too neat. (And the way people kept calling Rush Limbaugh “this guy” or “some guy” instead of, you know, “Rush Limbaugh” had my spidey sense tingling.)
My hunch is that something along these lines happened, where the daughter was humiliated when other kids realized that her medicine was birth control pills, but the connection to Limbaugh was added for effect.
Brain Hertz
I can more or less guarantee that you won’t.
When one of these situations occurs (I’ve had to deal with a high school “situation” which was very unlike this, but equally serious) it comes at you so far out of left field that you just don’t know what to do right away, and don’t quite take in what has just happened. It takes a few hours of thinking about what just went on before you know who it is you need to talk to, and what you should tell them.
lou
brantl
Lou, I understand how your daughter feels. These people aren’t going to let your daughter feel ‘normal’. They should, but they won’t. I hope things get easier for her.
I had a lot of bullying when I was a kid (we moved around a lot, and my older sister (5+ years older than me) used to bully boys, who then came back on me) and my mom used to tell me that it’s really sad to know that there are that many snakes in the grass, but better to know them, then not. It was faint consolation, until I skipped bothering with the snakes.
You should sue that goddamn doctor, though.
dcdl
@wasabi gasp:
Actually, this is what we use. When I got them I got them for super cheap. When I have some extra money at some point I do plan on getting a different type of reusable sandwich container.
Corby Lawton
Wow so much vengfulness and what’s with the mean spirited disbelief. How about suggesting and even demanding that medications be kept private and dispensed discretely. A reminder that small people bully to look bigger wouldn’t hurt. It is cowardly to pile up on someone whose behavior is harmful to none. The statement about the private versus public was a good reminder of life for many of us older than 50 and I thiink still true in many places. Faith bases religion often leads to faith based politics. Evil is projected on others so one can imagine one iis good.