I love the stuff that happens in Kentucky

Let me just open by saying, I've literally travelled around the world and Kentucky is the most beautiful place I've ever been. However, Mark Twain once said that Cincinnati is twenty years behind the times. I like to think Kentucky caused the drag.

So, in Louisville, Kentucky (where students are in school in August in an effort to store up snow days because in Kentucky if a cow pees on the road and it freezes the kids will get the day off of school) a history teacher burned two american flags, one in each of two history classes. He did it as an excercise to get kids to think about free speech. The more interesting thing is how it's being reported in the news. Check out story 1, story 2, and story 3. There's also a story with video at CNN available but the link is to a java script command to open a video player and I don't know how to transfer that onto my blog yet maybe one day Kelly will help me.

I'm interested in two things:

1. The first news story was filed before a parent complained. Who told the news?
2. The school board now seems to be all hot and bothered (I wonder if they're up for re-election this year) and is saying the teacher could illustrate his point to students any other way.
   

Now let's just sit for a moment and reflect on the fact that this assigment that was designed to get students to consider free speech and the school board is telling the teacher he shouldn't use a currently legal act of free speech as a teaching tool. Then, for performing said act of free speech, the school board censures the teacher in the news, re-assigns him, starts an investigation, and notifies fire officials who are able to start their own investigation.

If I was a seventh grader in Louisville, Kentucky I would assume that it's really not legal (or smart) to burn an American flag.