Randy Cassingham's Blog

Posted by Tomas, Sockholm Sweden on November 6, 2007:

Dennis is right, his children should be taught to not question authority and more importantly to not do it when they themselves don't agree with the authority.

As long as they do that my children will have a much easier time leading them when they grow up to be free thinking individuals (here's hoping that my children don't grow up to be fanatical fascists or anything...cause you know, there won't be that many around to question them when they go wrong and even if there are, it'll all probably seem reasonable at the time even if you don't quite agree).

The inherent problem here is the small minds of the authority figures involved. It doesn't matter if you, as an authority figure over these children, agree with the message or not; what you should be embracing here is the initiative where one kid sees a problem and tries do do something about it (using her own, albeit still limited, experience and references).

If you don't like the execution, then talk to the kids and explain why you think there may be a problem here and then try to help them do it better the next time. This way there won't be a next time.

Or maybe it's just me who isn't thinking straight when I believe that the kids that drink will drink regardless of whether someone wears a T-shirt with .08 printed on it or not but that maybe, just maybe one or two of them won't get into a car afterwards because they saw someone in that party they just left, wearing a T-shirt with .08 printed on it, reminding them of their friends that died in a car crash a while ago.

Posted by ~Treen, QLD Australia on November 6, 2007:

I think Dennis is missing the point a bit. In the town involved, everyone would know the story and understand the meaning of the shirt.

In Australia, wherever a car fatality occurs, the family is encouraged to put a white cross at that part of the road. Everyone knows what it means and it reminds everyone to drive carefully.

In this case, the shirts were fulfilling the same purpose - reminding viewers that 5 people died specifically because of drink driving.

You say that the students should be encouraging each other not to drink. You're right. And if this was a perfect world, no one under 25 would drink alcohol and there would be NO drink driving in any age group. But this isn't a perfect world.

Human beings tend to have short memories, so surely we should support anything that reminds people of the dangers of drinking and driving.

Posted by Doug, IL on November 6, 2007:

I would be interested to hear from law enforcement. I took a course offered by my local police department that covered everything from investigations to traffic stops. What I learned was that .08 is not a gold standard. You can still be ticketed a driving while impaired under that limit. The penalties change at .08, but if you fail a field sobriety test, you will be charged with DUI. Again, I may have the terms wrong, but it was apparent to me during my class that .08 is not the *legal* limit, but a point at which penalties are stiffer.

As far as the shirt, the students were clever. To me it reads, "we are going to drink anyway, so just remember don't go over .08". When it is read that way, I agree with the administration. The reaction could have been different. How about coming up with a way to reduce underage drinking or promote safety at parties?

Here in Illinois, a family was convicted for having alcohol available for an underage party.

Education and frank discussion about the consequences is needed. If the shirt helps that, then great. There has to be a better way to get the message across to the kids. Where I grew up, we had at least one fatal crash involving teen drinking and driving while I was in high school. We had an assembly before graduation that reminded us that the two do not mix. Did it help? We didn't have any incidents that year. Did students drink and drive? I would bet they did.

The kids' hearts are in the right place, doing what they can to keep kids from dying is a good thing. I'm not sold on the message on the shirt.

Posted by Charlie, Bloomfield, NJ on November 6, 2007:

I usually agree with your anti-zero-tolerance, and even question the wisdom of a 21- vs 18-year drinking age. But as the law now stands, the legal limit for those under 21, whether drivers or not, is .00-- not .08. The .08 implies that .07 is ok. It's actually illegal. The .08 limit has no bearing for a high school student, until the law is changed.

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And I doubt it will be. -rc

Posted by Phil, San Antonio, Texas on November 6, 2007:

I have never personally been, nor known, a teenager who would explain to an adult or any other person in authority that what they are saying means exactly the opposite of what they are saying (yes, I meant to say it that way, and yes, I am being facetious). If I were the person in charge I would have made the same assumption, that the message was pro-alcohol and not against drinking. If it had said "Let's NOT be known as the Class of .08", then its alleged intent would have been much clearer and more to the intended point.

Posted by Nick, Bakersfield, California on November 9, 2007:

I'm 17 myself and graduating in ".08". The idea of such a t-shirt, in my mind, is a great one. The message isn't targeting kids to go and get drunk, it's targeting the ones that already drink and tell them to stay safe. I see no reason for the administrators to give punishment as such was given (partly because I'm a rebellious teen, partly because of the "no could-be's").

In all honesty, talking to the kids about how the shirt maybe misinterpreted is a much more effective way to tell them than to suspend them. If it was me, I would have worn the shirt the same way as Katie did. We may be kids, but we have just as much a mind to express our feelings and wants as everyone else, and with that in mind, showing it on a t-shirt with a witty comment of "Class .08" is an expression that should be commemorated, not shot down.

Luck to Katie and everyone out there that feels the same.

Posted by Andrew, Austin, TX on November 9, 2007:

In Texas, the definition of intoxication has three parts, only one of which need be true: a blood or breath alcohol test showing a blood alcohol level of 0.08% or higher; not having the normal use of physical faculties; OR not having the normal use of mental faculties. Certainly, it's easiest to prove 0.08% BAC, but my sister prosecutes DWI cases all the time in which she is able to prove intoxication even in the absence of a blood or breath test.

(Incidentally, Texas law says that physical or mental faculties can be impaired by ANY drug or medication, not just alcohol. It's a pretty broad statute -- and I'm glad!)

Posted by Dennis, Colorado Springs on November 9, 2007:

Frankly, I'm surprised nobody else has questioned or pointed this out before. Nowhere in the story as written/edited by Randy does it suggest that one or more of the teens had been drinking - there is not enough information given to make that assumption credible. The first sentence reads "Five students at Oswego (Ill.) High School died in what investigators say was an alcohol-related crash." It does NOT say it was a one vehicle crash. It certainly could have been caused by some 30+, 40+, or 50+ year-old drunk driver in another or even the same vehicle, and that scenario can also fit the story as presented.

Even if we go with the assumption that it was one of the teens who was drinking & driving, I fail to see how adding a decimal point in front of the two digit year of graduation is promoting underage drinking. It appears to me to be a creative way of the students getting their peers to THINK about what they're doing - and/or to get supposedly responsible adults to think about what they're doing.

If this alcohol-related crash was based on a teen's drinking, then I would suspect that if that teen's BAC was .08 or less, it would more likely not have happened at all. Then again, teens (especially young drivers) do plenty of other things to cause distractions, causing tragic results. Cell phones (talking or texting), eating, having five (even sober) teens in the same vehicle, all have a profound effect on any driver.

Although I disagree with Colorado on many things, their revamping of the juvenile driving laws to limit the number of teens in a vehicle when a teen is driving was a smart choice. If Illinois had such a restriction and it was enforced (by parents as well as law enforcement), this tragedy would/could have been slightly less, and possibly even avoided.

Back to the "Class of .08", I see no way that it is promoting drinking; its sole purpose is (I think) to make people think. The administrators are using the worst or stupidest form of censorship I've ever seen.

Posted by Jim, Santa Barbara on November 10, 2007:

"Class of .08" is short and snappy and fits on a t-shirt; "Let's NOT be known as the Class of .08" isn't and doesn't. The comments from Dennis and Phil are just as poorly thought out as the action of the school administrators, and violate a basic principle of American justice -- Ms. Kusnierz should not have been suspended just because someone thinks she might have misrepresented the meaning of her shirt -- which, frankly, isn't very logical or plausible. I'm with Randy that people are being donkey's behinds in their treatment of and attitude toward Ms. Kusnierz.

Posted by Alice Shade @ Odessa, Ukraine on November 10, 2007:

To be honest, I`ve been quite puzzled, when I read the story.

IMHO, if teenagers have an opinion on matter strong enough to procure specially-printed t-shirts just to show that opinion as group, and openly admit their agenda... In that case, claiming their message is directly opposite to what they say is more then stupid.

Maybe it`s just my paranoia speaking, but from my angle, it looks like school authorities had been specifically attempting to hammer down the point, that students can not trust them under any circumstances.

To be honest, recent zero tolerance antics make me puzzled more and more often.

I would be willing to put down each separate of them as simply incompetence and stupidity, granted.

As Napoleon said - "Never attribute to malice what could be sufficiently explained by ineptitude."

But honestly - there is a definite pattern to all the occurrences. It looks more and more like the point of zero tolerance is to upbring the current generation of students as a culture of disgruntled iconoclastic anarchists.

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I'll just comment on one part. Napoleon?! I've never heard that quote attributed to him, but rather Nick Diamos. And it's "Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity." (example attribution) -rc