Suspended star ballplayers wrote of setting teacher on fire.

[donco6]

According to court documents, Scott McKnight, 17, and Sam Smith, 18, wrote about gluing teacher Alyssa DiSomma naked to a wall and cutting off her feet, committing other assaults on her and killing her friends and family while she watches, among other things.

"Right now you look friendly, soon you will look mutilated. I am planning on coming in your room late one night while you're still working," reads one entry by McKnight dated October 18.

DiSomma read the entries and brought them to the attention of school officials, who suspended the seniors October 20.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/12/02/student.threats.ap/index.html

So, should they have been suspended or not? They're claiming the journals were private musings, not intended as threats because no one else was supposed to see them.

[lildreamer316]

1. These kids need some help. Period.

Something is seriously wrong with them.

[donco6]

2. I agree.

The sad thing is, kids seem to gravitate to this stuff a lot these days. We see it in school all the time. When left to themselves, they come up with projects that inevitably deal with blowing up something or someone, killing themselves, etc. Is it the youth culture today that's just so violence-saturated that causes this or what?

[Skidmore]

6. It's even sadder that adults market this stuff to them.

[Frustratedlady]

3. I would be terrified to have those two around me.

I have several teachers in my family and you would not believe the threats that come from as low as students from 1st grade. The kids are hitting out at anyone of authority. There is a lot of anger out there, and it isn't because of the teachers, but because of the situation at home. Kids come to school frustrated and angry and for some, school is their only refuge. I've never seen it this bad.

Those two need help. If that is their fantasy, what must reality be like?

[la la]

4. yeah, yeah, yeah

but they're big deal high school football players, ya know - and they'll lose their scholarships to Hell U.

:sarcasm:

[Stevepol]

5. Having leaders with the same sick fantasies doesn't help.

When the leaders of your country have these kinds of fantasies and in some cases carry them out as in Iraq or Abu Ghraib, young people are more likely to have the same kinds of fantasies.

You can't help what birds fly around overhead, but you don't have to let one of them make a nest in your hair.

People have always had such fantasies and always will. Anything we can imagine we will imagine. But you don't go very far with them unless you've got some sort of social sanction, even if an unconscious sanction. When you have seemingly religious people excusing or justifying torture what can you expect?