"Snotty-nose little brats"

[lord of the mark]

QOTM (more than POTM) was eagerly hoping for closure, and was disappointed it didnt happen. They really do close for stuff like that around here depending.

The interesting issue isnt DC attitudes toward snow, but the attitudes toward calling folks at home.

[Aeson]

Elsewhere...

A parent grounded their kid for staying out too late and a dog was lost, but then found at the neighbors house.

[SlowwHand]

Elsewhere where?

[Theben]

The only thing that even mildly makes it an issue is her insult to the kid. But she's not a public official.

Spoiled teens

[Barnabas]

"may not of called you"

Thats the same as may not have called you, right?

[DinoDoc]

But he told The Washington Post that he thought he had a right to ask a public official for more information about a decision that affected him and other students. He also said his generation viewed privacy differently.

Wouldn't it have been easier for him to say that he was a whiny little ***** and ask for forgiveness?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Guynemer
8 centimeters?

3 inches? And this kid wants school closed?

What a *****.

Uh, in NoVA that's not unusual. We're in the sweet spot where we get a decent amount of snow, but not enough for a good snow-clearing infrastructure to be worth it. Result: lots of snow days every year.

[Xorbon]

It's news because it's mildly amusing, and brings up the greater issues of home privacy and some peoples' over-inflated sense of entitlement.

But he told The Washington Post that he thought he had a right to ask a public official for more information about a decision that affected him and other students. He also said his generation viewed privacy differently.

So, do all people under 20 have a paparazzi's attitude when it comes to privacy for public figures?

[DinoDoc]

Sounds like a question for Ozzy.

[OzzyKP]

Public figures are different than public officials. Thus paparatzi don't really enter into the discussion.

I think he is right that he does have a right to ask a public official for more information about a decision that affected him and other students. The question though is whether the proper channels were properly exhausted first. Typically school closings announcements are posted somewhere or announced somewhere. Did the public official fail in their duty to report the information through proper channels? Or did the student fail to check the proper channels and just wanted to be obnoxious?

[Alinestra Covelia]

As much as I dislike today's "snotty nosed brats", I do think public officials have to expect a certain degree of public intrusion.

I've been a journalist for two years and have been reporting news stories for four years. Oftentimes if there is no response from the official's office, the next step is to call them at home. If they don't like it, we politely remind them that we do need an official comment from them, and that if we didn't call them at home, then the story might run without them ever getting their say in.

Legally speaking, it boils down to public officials having intentionally put themselves into the "marketplace of public discussion". The Supreme Court has said that speech is especially protected when it's about a public official operating in his public service. Here the kid was calling the public official to specifically inquire about an issue (school closure) that the official had jurisdiction over.

It might have been ill-timed or inconvenient, but barring a harassing intent, I think the kid was arguably within his rights to do so.

The negative focus on the age of the caller and the depth of snow forecast strike me as being tangential at best.

It's probably equally newsworthy that the wife of the public official responded in such a negative fashion.

And in the Washington D.C. area and its suburbs it's not uncommon for seemingly low snow depths to force a school closure. Round here the snow doesn't often get very deep but we do get black ice and slippery roads fairly often. I remember hearing at a planning board meeting that the area has much more traffic than most, and traffic closures are more due to skids and collisions than actually due to the snow physically being too deep to drive through.

(Also Maryland is a common law state where contributory negligence is a complete bar to recovery in courts, so people are even more reluctant to chance a slippery road than elsewhere. I've noticed that Md'ers slow right down whenever there's even a bit of rain on the roads; this may be why.)

Just a few other cents in the tipping jar for "Devil's Advocate".

...

Now to thrash some snot nosed ass.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by OzzyKP
Public figures are different than public officials. Thus paparatzi don't really enter into the discussion.

I think he is right that he does have a right to ask a public official for more information about a decision that affected him and other students. The question though is whether the proper channels were properly exhausted first. Typically school closings announcements are posted somewhere or announced somewhere. Did the public official fail in their duty to report the information through proper channels? Or did the student fail to check the proper channels and just wanted to be obnoxious?

Read the article again. The school was open. You know how school closures work -- you watch the closure list and, if your school's not there, you assume it's open. This kid didn't like that fact, so he called the school superintendent at home. That is totally, completely, out of bounds.

Frankly, I'd love it if his parents' home phone and e-mail would start flying around the Internet, so they could experience some of their son's generations "different understanding of privacy." I know I'm up for giving them a parenting lesson or two.

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by OzzyKP
Public figures are different than public officials. Thus paparatzi don't really enter into the discussion.

I think he is right that he does have a right to ask a public official for more information about a decision that affected him and other students. The question though is whether the proper channels were properly exhausted first. Typically school closings announcements are posted somewhere or announced somewhere. Did the public official fail in their duty to report the information through proper channels? Or did the student fail to check the proper channels and just wanted to be obnoxious?

No, they didn't fail(I live in Fairfax). Shocker shocker, the kid was just being a chuckle****.

[Xorbon]

Originally posted by OzzyKP
Public figures are different than public officials. Thus paparatzi don't really enter into the discussion.

I think he is right that he does have a right to ask a public official for more information about a decision that affected him and other students. The question though is whether the proper channels were properly exhausted first. Typically school closings announcements are posted somewhere or announced somewhere. Did the public official fail in their duty to report the information through proper channels? Or did the student fail to check the proper channels and just wanted to be obnoxious?

Public official is a sub-group of public figure. Don't you just love debates over semantics.

My point about paparazzi was to compare their attitude to that of the teenager, where anybody in the public eye is fair game when it comes to invading privacy.

Anyway, in this case, it appears the teenager skipped the "proper channels" by calling the official's home instead of calling his office. However, we don't know that he "just wanted to be obnoxious". I just think he's obnoxious by nature.

[Xorbon]

Originally posted by Lonestar

No, they didn't fail(I live in Fairfax). Shocker shocker, the kid was just being a chuckle****.

Since when is "chucklehead" a bad word?