Kiera Wilmot is a Florida high school student with a perfect behavior record and good grades. She was recently arrested, hauled from school in handcuffs, expelled, and now faces Federal charges — all because of shameful over-reaction by school officials and law enforcement.
Out of curiosity and the scientific spirit, she mixed some common household chemicals together, creating a vigorous reaction that blew the top off the container she used. No one was hurt — no damage was done. But instead of appluading her boldness of spirit and connecting her to a science teacher that could mentor it, she is being treated like a criminal!
This travesty of justice and education must be stopped. Reinstate her, and wipe her records clean. Then celebrate her!
More on the story: http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2013/04/florida_teen_girl_charged_with.php Her principal's email address: Ronald.Pritchard@polk-fl.net
Ah, I remember. Atic Atac. Moon Buggy. The Hobbit. All great games. But of course the coolest thing was to program that sucker. I always liked the Basic dialect better than Commodore's (which was far more popular in my school), and even liked the weird tokenized entry method. But the real game changer for me was when I bought (yes, bought!) a Pascal and a Forth compiler. Man, Forth rocked. It still is one of my favorite programming languages.
Funny enough, my father was really opposed to me getting one, so an (older) friend of mine had to buy one for me and "lend" it to me until my father finally gave up and let me outright own it. A Ph.D. in EE later I'd say it was a good investment...
Too bad at some point my brother ended up with it and rather than giving it back for proper conservation he discarded it. I miss it dearly.
You expressly referred to the differential in power between employee and corporation, which is completely irrelevant to this story.
It may or may not be relevant to this story (it'll be very interesting to see how this plays out). It is, however, very relevant to the argument I was commenting on, which tried to establish an analogy between an employer/employee relationship and a relationship between consenting adults.
BTW there already exist "whistleblower laws" to protect government employees from being fired for pointing out ways that a government bureaucracy is behaving outside of bounds.
I am very well aware of that. I just pointed out to you that, from your original post, you did not seem to be aware that the TSA belongs to a different branch of government than the judiciary and that this fact invalidates your original argument of the TSA being "unable to act as an impartial referee".
If those existing laws did not work to protect her (a dubious assumption, considering, as others have pointed out, that there was less than a week from her sending her letter to a congressperson and her firing), what makes you think that another law would do any better?
Since I am aware of existing whistleblower legislation, I did not advocate for any new or additional laws. In my original comment, I just argued against the assumption that legislation regulating the relationship between employers and employees is unnecessary because it equates to a relationship between consenting adults. And obviously, Congress agrees with me.
Excuse me for assuming the the USA had a system of checks and balances. The last time I checked, the TSA was part of the executive branch, and has to abide by laws that the legislative branch created. So we have two branches here, one making laws, one carrying them out. Wait, why don't we create a third branch as an arbiter, let's call it the judiciary?
Ah, nice. Latching on to the one thing I've neglected for the sake of argument, and for that sake only. Thanks for biting.
This is where the power differential kicks in. Your relationship with your employer is not symmetric. The potential impact on the employer is much lower than on the employee. That's why you need an impartial arbiter or a union (yeah, I know, good luck with that...)
And since you mention the word "friend" here, let me say that you'd be a pretty crappy friend who dumps someone you care about without trying to help him first, which is exactly what the agent tried to do in this case. Also, in this case, this is not only a matter between the employer and employee, because the safety of a third party is affected. As such, it becomes a matter of public safety and an ethical issue. Responsibility also means not just walking away from a bad situation.
Nope. Because the US is (mostly, there are obvious and absurd exceptions) governed in a way that assumes consenting adults can engage in mutually beneficial relationships without a nanny telling them what to do as if they were five year old children. In Europe most laws are written to the point where they assume the ordinary citizenry are mentally handicapped five year olds that needs to be monitored, watched and told what to do at all times by responsible adults.
I prefer the government treat me as an adult.
Are nanny analogies now the new car analogies on Slashdot?
Anyways, here's what's wrong with that picture:
Let's ignore the massive differential in power between a corporation/employer and an employee for a second and accept for the sake of argument that your assumption of both parties being consenting adults is valid. Of both parties in this case, only one acted responsibly, and that is the employee. The TSA chose to throw a tantrum worthy of a five year old and go "Lalala, I can't hear you!". At that point, I'd like to have a mechanism in place to make both parties behave responsibly. And that, pretty much, is the definition of a law (to lay down what "responsible behavior" is) and this subsequently implies it must be enforced by an impartial entity (judge, jury, whatever is customary in your local law system).
Isn't that the way it's supposed to work even in the USA? Why is everybody so afraid of laws and regulations when time and time again experience shows that especially those with a lot of power act like 5-year-olds any time they can get away with it?
I keep seeing people shocked about this trend and I just don't get it. Don't THEY feel paranoid if their kids happen to be in an unreachable situation?
If people feel paranoid about this, something's wrong. Good parenting should enable your kids to handle "unreachable situations" (whatever that is). You should have trust in your kids' ability to grow into an independent person. Granted, a cell phone is a convenient thing to have and I accept that argument, but if you need it to ease your paranoia, then the issue is more with you rather than the kid.
GTD and Omnifocus works best for me. I often capture spontaneous thoughts immediately on my phone so I won't forget (and forget I'd otherwise do). Capturing literally everything is key here, and random notes are no exception.
I've tried a lot of GTD programs, but OmniFocus is the best one out there, not least for the fact that syncing via WebDAV allows me to not sell my soul (and potentially proprietary information) to Google or any other random website I don't trust.
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." -- Albert Einstein