Acting our age

Effective August 28, it will be illegal for Missouri teachers to friend their students on Facebook. In fact, Missouri Senate Bill 54 (SB 54), signed into law July 14, prohibits all social networking between teachers and students. That includes not only Facebook, but Myspace, Twitter, Flickr and Foursquare, to name but a few. Online gaming isn’t specifically addressed by the bill, but might be included as a matter of interpretation.

Dubbed “The Amy Hestir Student Protection Act,” the bill is intended to curtail inappropriate student-teacher contact, but Mashable columnist Charlie White has concerns about the bill’s enforceability, as well as its privacy implications. Joplin middle school teacher Randy Turner complains that the bill was “signed in spite of the positive effect that teachers and students being Facebook friends had on Joplin Schools’ effort to locate students after the May 22 tornado,” going on to say that the bill gives the impression that “all teachers are perverts and that impressionable children must be protected from them.”

What, may I ask, the fuck is up with these people?

I’m going to stick my neck out here and offer that students and teachers shouldn’t be socializing in ANY realm, not because socializing leads to sex, but because it’s a generally bad idea. So confident am I of this that I’m not even going to explain why it’s the case, nor why, if you disagree with me, you’re wrong. I just hope to hell you’re not raising, teaching or in any way influencing children. (I grant a pass, by the way, to college professors who do bong hits with the 18-and-over crowd. That’s totally cool.)

On a related note, McDain’s Restaurant in Monroeville, PA no longer admits children under six years of age. ” I’ve noticed there are certain parents who can’t leave their children at home,” said restaurant owner Mike Vuick. “You know, their child — maybe as it should be — is the center of their universe. But they don’t realize it’s not the center of the universe.” God bless you, Mr. Vuick. Well put. And to those parents, those selfish and self-absorbed parents, who now are questioning the “fairness” of Vuick’s new policy, I have only one thing to say: carryout.

And most fittingly, I found this comment appended to an article at cnn.com about Facebook allowing people to list fetuses as family members: “What about the gazillions of sperms that I murder everyday? Can I befriend them on FB before I take a shower and yank em off the list once they all drown?”