Since there’s no great way to paraphrase this, I’m just going to share with you this clipping from the morning paper, which I encourage you to read in its entirety. And, no, this isn’t The Onion.
Now, look, I hate to be one of those “back in my day” guys, but……….when I was around this age, the most popular movie was Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and the dreadful offense being referred to here was portrayed in this scene:
People didn’t burn down the theatre. We didn’t start suing one another. No chairs were pulled out of the floor. People just laughed (and approximately 50% of the audience retained vivid images of Phoebe Cates for the rest of their lives).
This is clearly no longer the case. Here we have two 16-year old kids in high school who were for some amount of time a couple. They broke up. The boy made some rude joke about her. And all hell breaks loose. Specifically:
- The girl’s parents filed a complaint with the school district and got the boy kicked off the robotics team;
- An expensive criminal attorney, Alec Rose, has been hired by the boy (from their website: “If you live in the Los Angeles area and you’ve been implicated in a serious felony such as homicide, theft, sex crimes, or Internet crime, you need top tiered, experienced legal representation to help you with your criminal defense.”)
- The girl’s parents have hired two lawyers (“With high-profile trials that have received worldwide attention, she has built her career assisting clients in all aspects of business, complex commercial, and intellectual property litigation.“)
- And now they’re dragging in the Americans with Disabilities Act, since the boy has “Social Communications Disorder” (which, when I was in high school, afflicted the vast majority of the male students). As the article states, his “social speech” is in the second percentile – – which actually sounds pretty cool, to be honest.
My hand to God, whoever wants to invade and take over the United States could probably do so with a butter knife at this point.
