News: The War On Deadly Mascots

[TGO David]

Editorial: The war on deadly mascots

Return the guns to Parry McCluer High School's pirate.

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<!--EndNoIndex-->Buena Vista's Parry McCluer High School has a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to guns on campus. That sensible policy became ludicrous when school officials disarmed their mascot, a flintlock-wielding pirate lost his weapons in a new logo.

Principal Haywood Hand saw conflict between the gun ban and the a mascot that featured pistols. "It is hypocritical to promote a mascot with a gun in each hand," he said. So he ordered the logo redrawn without guns.

No guns on campus -- smart.

No guns in a cartoon caricature -- silly.

Parry McCluer students did not look at their beloved pirate and think to themselves, "Gee, if it's OK for a buccaneer dressed in blue to dance around with antique guns, it must be OK for me. The school sure is sending me mixed messages."

High school students are smarter than that. They can discern between a cartoon that looks like Yosemite Sam and reality.

Such smothering protection is just as detrimental to maturing teens as letting them run wild without oversight.

What's next?

Will Christiansburg High School ban its Blue Demons? That is what a number of Christians demanded a few years ago after the Montgomer County School Board forced Blacksburg High School to change from the Indians to the Bruins. A zero-tolerance policy against devil-worship seems to demand it.

Or maybe Roanoke County's high schools need to update their mascots. Images of Knights, Highlanders, Titans and Vikings -- at Cave Spring, Glenvar, Hidden Valley and Northside -- all could go the wrong way. The schools do not allow lances, swords and axes on campus. Surely they share Principal Hand's concerns about hypocrisy.

Only Roanoke County's William Byrd High School seems safe with its incongruously tame Terriers. Then again, aside from service dogs, the school usually does not allow canines. That's another mixed-message.

Parry McCluer administrators should focus on the real guns that could make a campus dangerous, not a cartoon pirate.

Source: http://www.roanoke.com/editorials/wb/wb/xp-131653

[dariks]

No guns on campus -- smart.

No guns in a cartoon caricature -- silly.

Why does being at a school (not as a student) suddenly make me no longer trustworthy? Location does not make me any more, or any less, of a danger to people.

[TGO David]

It's not about you... it's about them. The people who want to feel safe and think that so-called deterrents like hanging up signs or passing ridiculous laws will actually make them safe.

I hear the politically correct crowd hollering all the time about "minority rights" but it never occurs to them that the smallest minority is the individual. And my individual rights are supposed to be life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and it it's my individual right to be able to protect all of those things.

[molonlabetn]

They should just give schools 11-digit alpha-numeric codes instead of mascots, and tattoo that cryptogram as a bar-code on the student's forheads...

[SkWaShDeM]

Don't let the politically correct journalists see a football game at my old high school... The sight of a dozen cheerleaders in mini-skirts waving the Stars & Bars when the Rebels take the field might scare them all the way back to Yankee territory.

[dariks]

Don't let the politically correct journalists see a football game at my old high school... The sight of a dozen cheerleaders in mini-skirts waving the Stars & Bars when the Rebels take the field might scare them all the way back to Yankee territory.

I don't know about other Yankees, but I never really associated the Stars & Bars with anything other than a Southern pride sort of thing. I think watching the Dukes of Hazard as I grew up is probably why I feel that way.

/I wasn't born in the the South, but I got here as quick as I could.

[dariks]

It's not about you... it's about them. The people who want to feel safe and think that so-called deterrents like hanging up signs or passing ridiculous laws will actually make them safe.

I understand what you're saying, but I am tired unto death of all these laws and regulations that are for our safety and security. When in actuality they neither makes any safer nor any more secure.

Any time a politicians wants to pass a law, that they know will not pass on its own merits, they invoke the Children. You know how it goes......"It's for the children" is their mantra. I've gotten so fed up with this ploy that anytime I hear that phrase uttered I will almost immediately reject whatever they are trying to sell.

I know it has been used to death, but Benjamin Franklin really did say it best.

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

[Guest Phantom6]

Back when I was in high school we brought our rifles and shotguns to school with us during deer season because we were either coming or going from the field. I was in the band/orchestra and we performed the 1812 Overture at a Fall concert one time and fired a semi-auto shotgun loaded with reloaded shot shells (nothing but powder and wad) into a 55 gal drum with about 10 inches of water in it to replicate the cannon volleys. That'll never happen again I guess.

[towerclimber37]

I don't know about other Yankees, but I never really associated the Stars & Bars with anything other than a Southern pride sort of thing. I think watching the Dukes of Hazard as I grew up is probably why I feel that way.

/I wasn't born in the the South, but I got here as quick as I could.

The Stars and Bars made you have DOH flashbacks? or the Confederate battle flag?

I guess I'm different, when I see the Stars and Bars, I think of not only a wonderful country, but there's always a corner of my mind that thinks of the war of northern aggression...not much though...we're ALL Americans here, regardless of what state we're from...some are just a little stranger than others.

[dariks]

My apologies.

I meant the Confederate Battle Flag.

[jgrauman]

although his name is the headline for the school, haywood hand is a great man. he was my high school football and baseball coach a decade ago. talk about somebody who has integrity, he taught me a lot about respect and true work ethic. he left my high school and started his own company where i worked for 3 years. i'm not defending the rediculous decision to change the logo and i don't know his stand on firearms, but i'm guessing he had some pressure from the school board due to VT being right down the road.

[Mike.357]

has a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to guns on campus. That sensible policy became ludicrous when school officials disarmed their mascot, a flintlock-wielding pirate lost his weapons in a new logo.

Like my Grandma used to say " common sense ain't common"

Bunch of PC buffoons. There are a couple of schools around Knoxville that have banned the battle flag.