Apathy Jack writes:

In the next few weeks Tim Selwyn gets his sentence for being found guilty of thought-crime. See, my biggest problem with the guilty verdict isn't so much that Tim was tried for a crime no-one's been convicted of since the world was last at war, or because this is a major step towards the total destruction of free-speech in this country and will almost certainly lead to Patriot Act style legislating now that the government has figured out that they can get with it.

No, my major problem is that Tim was allegedly found guilty by a jury of his peers.

Now, those of us who have been around for a while, and have kept abreast of some of Tim's extra-curricular activities over the years, will know just how dodgy he truly is, and that a dozen workaday schlubs could never be regarded as his peers.

So, to help the justice department in the event that a retrial is necessary, I have taken the liberty of compiling a list of twelve individuals who could truly be counted as Tim Selwyn's peers, should a jury need to be convened.

Luthor
Originally uploaded by Brain Stab.

Lex Luthor

A comic book super villain. Pretty self-explanatory really.

Fu Manchu
Originally uploaded by Brain Stab.

Fu Manchu

Sure, Tim differs slightly in that he is an inscrutable occidental villain, but the key words here are "inscrutable" and "villain"...

Number 2
Originally uploaded by Brain Stab.

The Prisoner's Number 2

Vague, mercurial and frustratingly cheerful as he runs you around in circles and obfuscates the truth. Sounds about it.

Blofeld
Originally uploaded by Brain Stab.

Blofeld

Personally, I don't even really like the Bond movies, but you have to admit the list would be somewhat incomplete without this one.

Pinhead
Originally uploaded by Brain Stab.

Pinhead from the Hellraiser franchise

I don't know, I just can't shake the image of Tim chatting up some innocent wee thing in a bar with the line "We have such sights to show you" and meeting any rebuttals with "It is your flesh we want to experience, not your skill at bargaining."

Monkey
Originally uploaded by Brain Stab.

The Family Guy's Evil Monkey

Because there ain't no evil like monkey evil.

Freddy
Originally uploaded by Brain Stab.

Freddy Krueger

Haunting your dreams, and returning again and again when you think he's been defeated. Yep.

Josh
Originally uploaded by Brain Stab.

Brain Stab and Monkey Fluids' Josh

No, seriously, I know you all think he's clean and doesn't belong on a list of super villains, but for god's sake, check under his floorboards! You think all of those hookers disappearing was just a coincidence?

Jareth
Originally uploaded by Brain Stab.

The Labyrinth's Jareth

A semi-fictional villain come to life to fulfil the expectations of an innocent world that needs an adversary? Check.

Dracula
Originally uploaded by Brain Stab.

Dracula

I'm not sure if Tim bears more a resemblance to the historical Vlad the Impaler – who stuck thousands of innocent people on spikes for no reason other than general sadism, or the fictional Count Dracula – who was immortal, could turn to mist and drank the blood of virgins. There's evidence for both...

Viggo
Originally uploaded by Brain Stab.

Satan

Specifically the one played by Viggo Mortenson in The Prophecy. Partly because it is the best portrayal of Lucifer ever captured on the small screen, but also because I can see Tim in a bar, after the Pinhead pickup lines have failed, hissing "I love you more than Jesus!"

Zakk Wylde
Originally uploaded by Brain Stab.

Zakk Wylde from Black Label Society

I have no idea if Wylde is a villain or not, hell, he could give money to homeless people and adopt war orphans for all I know, but for god's sake, just look at him. I mean, seriously...



This all having been said, it is legitimately messed up that someone has been charged with sedition in the twenty-first century. I don't just say this because of my nominal acquaintanceship with him (this is New Zealand – everyone is a friend of a friend) – hell I happen to think he deserves a solid slap on the wrist with an only slightly moistened bus ticket for putting the axe through the window. That was actually a crime, and deserves to be treated as one. But Tim also thinks so, having put in a plea of guilty and shown willingness to accept any fair punishment.

But sedition?

This is, and let's be clear here, when you have an illegal thought. And not a thought like planning to kill someone, but rather an expression of discontent with the way things are. Well you know what: I have a bunch of those, and I'm pretty sure you do too. Ninety percent of the weak internet journals out there stand as future evidence at someone's sedition trial.

I want you to get angry at this. There's no activism coming up on this issue – Tim has pissed off one too many of the lefties for that – but I want you to stay angry for when this next comes up, because we can't allow this sort of thing to keep happening. They got Tim this week, but was that a one-off case of bitch-slapping the smartarse, or was it the beginning of something? Because if it is the second option; then they could come for you next.

And sure, right now you're saying: "Don't be ridiculous, that sort of alarmist McCarthyism doesn't really happen in the twenty-first century."

Which is exactly what we all said when Tim was first charged with sedition.

shop

Apathy Jack writes:

So me and one of my lot are looking at the recently released prospectus – our latest effort to convince you to send your children to Hoodrat Academy for Higher Learning.

The front cover proudly displays out student leadership team: The Head Boy, the Deputy Head Boy, the Head Girl, and Miscellaneous Asian™. The Deputy Head Girl was absent when the photo was taken, so the Powers That Be decided that a tall Chinese girl could look short and Vietnamese if you put her in a blazer.

Inside the booklet is a dream of photoshop. The actual picture of the Deputy Head Girl showed her wearing the wrong blazer. We photoshopped her into the right one. A student, beaming a radiant smile at the camera to show just how happy he is to be at our school, has had his braces photoshopped out, to send the message that, I don't know, we don't tolerate failure in the realms of the academic or the orthodontic.

My favourite shot is of a photogenic wee blond thing, smiling for the camera with a book open on her desk – surely she's just looked up from her intent study to show how happy she is.

We photoshopped in the book.

Yeah, my head hurt just a little at that one too...

Probably the most altered shot is of some students intently conducting a science experiment (in a laboratory that is depicted as being suspiciously stain-free). Both students appear to be model youths, but that's because one of them has had his dog tags removed from around his neck, and the other has had his beard removed.

"Wow!" Exclaims the student reading the prospectus. "If I saw this, I'd want to come to this school too."
"I haven't read it yet," I tell her. "What is the written copy like?"
"It all sounds sarcastic."
"Sarcastic?"
"Yes. Even on the first page."
"But that's just all of the stuff about how we foster academic excellence and turn young people into mature adults and actually I see your point when you look at it..."

Come on, give us your kids. If the prospectus doesn't work, we're sending a guy with a flute to your house...

Apathy Jack writes:

So I'm getting the latest gossip from one of my girls. As it transpires, one of my other girls was dumped by her boyfriend. The boyfriend dumped her because he was interested in another guy – one of my boys who has just come out of the closet.

I remember back when I was in high school – In the interests of breaking my friends out of their homophobia, I considered an experiment pretending I was gay. I never had the nerve to go through with it: I could handle the certainty that I would lose a friend or two. What scared me more was the fact that I couldn't guarantee that my friends wouldn't just kick the shit out of me before I had a chance to tell them I was kidding.

As my girl continues, I find myself smilingly slightly at the fact that the unthinkable has happened: The world has changed ever so slightly for the better.

A minute or so later, my girl is hiking up her skirt to show me the fresh cuts on her thighs.

See, her brother tried to kill himself. Made a pretty good stab at it, too. Rather than rally the family in this time of stress, my girl's mother decided to blame her, for reasons that are a little vague beyond "Mum's like that".

What she's sad about is her own hypocrisy. She's always denigrated cutters. She knows that the emotions from that night will fade in months or even weeks, but the scars will be there for years.

Every day this job makes me so happy I can barely contain it. And every day it finds another way to break my heart.

Apathy Jack writes:

So, the cellphone thing again.

The reason I went twenty-eight years without one of these toys was because I decided early on that I wouldn't get one until I needed one. They're tools, and in exactly the same way I wasn't going to buy a chisel to carry around and talk loudly into while people glared at me on the bus, the need had never arisen.

Anyway, there's this kid who's not safe at home. She can't leave for reasons that are far too unpleasant to go into. If she's not coming into school, she knows to text me in the morning so that I know she is alright. She hasn't turned up by the time my first class starts filing in, so I text her. I get back a clipped reply saying she is sick. This doesn't alleviate my concern, but gets me through my third formers. In my free period, I call her, but get her voicemail. I text her again, saying little more than "I'm still worried", which I hope she will recognise as a surreptitious request for proof that it is really her texting me and not her father (again: far too unpleasant to go into).

She does, and replies with a couple of facts that I know her father doesn't know.

Placated, I sit down to do some work, when my phone immediately starts beeping again. It's one of my lot in her English class. She's done some work on an internal assessment, but she doesn't trust her own teacher to check it. She asks if I can look at it before she hands it in.

Two minutes later she's in my room, note excusing her to go to the toilet in one hand, stealthily smuggled-out project in the other.

Shortly after she leaves, the bell for interval rings, and one of my lot borrows my phone. She's had some ridiculously convoluted breakdown with her family (she spent several minutes talking me through it, but I couldn't keep up) and needs to talk to her sister. But her sister has blocked her number.

She retires to a corner and has a hushed argument for several minutes.

That night I fall into bed at about nine-thirty, which I've been doing a lot lately. After a while, I'm awoken by the dulcet tones of my phone beeping at me. I figure it's the alarm, but notice that it's only ten-thirty and that I've received a text. It's my girl – the first one – saying that she's topped up her credit and listened to the message on her voicemail. She realises how worried I must have been, and promises to be more careful next time. I reply, apologising for being an old worrier, but she tells me Im realy hapy dat u r keepin n eye n me.

As it turns out, this thing has its uses.



Of course, I'd just like to point out two things to those now gloating about my transition to the twenty-first century:

1) I was right – I didn't need one of these before. The fact I do now doesn't change the fact that I was right for all those years.
2) No, you still can't have my number. If I wanted you fuckers calling me, I would have got a cellphone years ago...

Apathy Jack writes:

Me "Here you go."
Gretchen "Is this an autobiography?"
Me "Yes."
Gretchen "I don't like those."
Me "Cady, convince her to read that."
Cady "Seriously, you'll really like it. You'll cry. I cried."
Me "Right, and here you are, Cady."
Cady "This looks dumb."
Me "Gretchen, convince her to read it."
Gretchen "No, seriously, it's really good. You have to read it."
Cady "Okay."
Me "Sorted."

Bang! I mean, Zap!

Josh writes:

Normally I'd e-mail this sort of thing to Jack for inclusion in next month's Broken Planet, but since the last one just went out, this may not be as topical in a month's time...

The moderate view on tasers seems to be that they'd be a good idea if they're used instead of guns; a bad idea if they're used as a replacement for batons/pepper spray. In any case, I think we'd all agree that getting it the wrong way around is something we really want to try to avoid...

More serious side-note: This is clearly a case of using a taser (well, trying to) not for self defence, but in order to "induce compliance", which our local boys swear blind they won't be doing. Well, probably not. Unless they guy was, you know, a real dick...

Apathy Jack writes:

So my little hypochondriac has finally been invalided out of school. All I really need to get her back is ten minutes with her away from her mother's Munchausen-By-Proxy deathgrip. Having failed to procure this by any other means, I enlist her step-brother.

"Yeah, about that," he tells me. "She doesn't want to come and see you, because she knows that you'd talk her into coming back to school."

This is notable only because he is the second student who has said this to me – in almost exactly the same words – about a drop-out older sibling.

I think I'm developing a reputation...

Broken Planet News

Apathy Jack writes:

Right, my internet is up and working, so the news returns. No more trusting regular media for you lucky bastards.

Thanks to those who sent me BPN stories while my intarwub was down - they're out of date now, but don't let that stop you sending me new stuff. (I can't believe BPN was on hiatus during a time when someone tried to prove God existed by feeding himself to tigers and a three-armed baby was born. Ah well, regrets, I've had a few...)

On with the news...

The teacher in me is angry, but the hillbilly in me is thrilled.

..

Man molests girl "to see if he likes it"; blogger blinds self in repsonse to world.

..

So many things wrong...

..

What, locking students in cupboards is a crime now? You want I should stop?

..

Cops: trustworthy as ever.

..

Monkeygod!

Apathy Jack writes:

So I'm standing by myself guarding the bags at Stage Challenge. I've just returned from a smoke-break taken by some of my students. I don't smoke, but I needed to do a bit of sleuthing to get to the bottom of the rumours we were hearing about them getting drunk at lunch time. I considered going the route of "not angry, just disappointed", but decide instead to go with "angry and disappointed". It works, and the kids walk back in muted shame.

I send them off to rehearse, to work out the kinks that have developed in their routine since they dulled their reflexes. Returning to the communal area where the Guidance Councilor and the Pastor are looking after our gear, I find that one of our lot has gotten stoned (well, more stoned) during the lunch break and had something of a meltdown. He's fine (for certain sluggish values of fine), but has managed to piss off one of our key players, who has disappeared. The Councilor and the Pastor go off to find him.

To alleviate the boredom, I go over the survey that teachers are given, asking such ludicrous questions as "How has the Stage Challenge® affected the fitness of the participants as a group?" and "How has participation in the Stage Challenge® affected the students' overall oral/communications skills?"

I reach the question that asks "How has participation in the Stage Challenge® affected the students' consumption of tobacco, alcohol and other drugs?"

After a while, I have to stop myself from laughing quite so manically, because the other schools are starting to stare...

So how was your day?

Apathy Jack writes:

"Sir, do you remember Jasmine Connors?"
"Yeah, Big Jasmine, right?"
"Wait, you called her 'Big Jasmine' as well?"
"Well, I had to differentiate between her and Little Jasmine somehow."
"How many Jasmines were there?"
"Two that year: The big one and the little one."
"I didn't think teachers labeled people like that."
"You lot do it all the time. You created the name to begin with."
"But we're students."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"As arguments go, I"m not sure that one is as compelling as you think it is..."

...

One of my kids is depressed. Her reasons, what I know of them, are good. She wanted to stay home today, and her mother would have let her. But she couldn't, because she had English. She tells me that there's no way on Earth she's coming to school tomorrow. She doesn't have English then, you see. This means that she won't be missing the one subject she gives a damn about. It also means that she won't have me on her back about missing school – she knows I forgive people their wagging on days I'm not going to see them: out of sight and all – but my lot all know they're in trouble if the days off start mounting up.

There's hope for this one.

...

Half nine or so and a couple of my kids are waiting to be picked up. I feel obligated to wait with them because, hell, my school's not the safest place to be in broad daylight. If they turned up dead tomorrow morning, there'd be a lot of tiresome questions that would doubtlessly disrupt my mid-afternoon nap.

Eventually one of their fathers turns up, the car weaving about a little, because Dad is too stoned to drive, but just stoned enough not to realise it.

"You sure this is a good idea?" I ask my two.
"We'll be fine," they both reply as they cheerfully clamber into the car and it lurches off.

Have you ever been swamped by a feeling of pointlessness so overwhelming that it bordered on nihilism?

Yeah, me too.

...

Sitting on the bus at ten o'clock, reading poetry written by one of my little goths. It's a bit on the overblown side, and has borrowed a little from the Rollins I've been lending her, but hey, I like overly earnest angst poetry, and I like Henry Rollins (but I repeat myself).

This kid's actually good. And her stuff's more than a little scary.

I read the line

If you're hungry I give you my arm
Your hunger causes my veins to rise

I hunch down in my seat and pull the hood of my jacket down over my eyes, because I need to hide from an idea that intense.

Sleep deprived and half crazy though I may be, sometimes the little bastards amaze me.