Write a poem, get suspended

A teenager at a high school in California was suspended  after a teacher found a poem in her personal notebook with the line, "I understand the killings in Connecticut; I understand why he pulled the trigger." According to Salon , Courtni Webb and her mother, "told NBC’s Today that Webb was simply expressing herself and exploring ideas about helplessness and darkness that she believed were behind the Newtown massacre. 'Never in my life have I heard that you couldn’t mention a tragedy that happened. I didn’t say that I agree with it, I said I simply understand it' Webb told Today, noting that the she felt the school was making her look like 'a monster.' Her mother said that she believes her daughter’s free speech is being violated."

No threat was made, and there was no reason to believe that the poem was anything more than a creative outlet for Webb. (We still encourage creativity, don't we?) That this was a personal poem, not part of any assignment, I question why the teacher had access to it in the first place, but even if it had been part of a school assignment, I fail to see the reason for the suspension other than a "no tolerance" policy taken too far.

Scapegoating Mothers

Lionel Shriver wrote a great piece for the Guardian about the scapegoating of mothers after tragedies like the one in Connecticut earlier this month:

"Nevertheless, Nancy Lanza has been disparaged from the start. Multiple stories have pegged her as a "prepper" – a survivalist gearing up for economic collapse by stocking weapons and tinned food. Yet this gonzo tag hails from a single, biased source, Nancy's sister-in-law, and has since been contradicted by friends. An acquaintance said she seemed "high-strung" – an opaque and prospectively neutral adjective that went viral, repeated to insinuate that the mother herself might have been unbalanced. And tut-tut: she never seemed eager to invite neighbours into her home."

She also touches on the blaming -- and demonizing -- of mental illness, particularly Asperger's syndrome, which the shooter has been purported to have:

"Sandy Hook has been the most misreported story in recent memory, but a few facts may have emerged. To date, authorities have not located any confirmed diagnosis for Adam Lanza. Relatives and former classmates say he had Asperger's syndrome, but this mild form of autism has no correlation with violence. The boy is described as anything but menacing – rather, as withdrawn, antisocial, even "meek", according to an official at his high school, who explained that Adam was only assigned a psychologist because a scrawny, cringing loner might be tormented by peers."

I'm glad she mentioned that there is no correlation between autism spectrum disorders and violent behavior. The news media has been neglecting this fact, and it's feeding the narrative that something organic in Lanza's brain"made him" kill over twenty people. As for  blaming Lanza's mother, or at least holding her partly responsible, I'm torn. It's wrong -- and all too easy -- to fault the mother, but I can't understand why someone would keep assault-style weapons in her house in the first place.