Melissa Morin, 17, says her high school in New Hampshire rejected her senior photograph because she was holding a red flower. The school doesn’t allow props in the photos.
I was reading this story last night and found it interesting. Sometimes rules just do not make sense and sometimes rules have to be made causing inconvenience for the majority because of a few individuals who misbehaved. The prime example is airport security because of 9/11. Here is the story, you be the judge:
Teen Can’t Hold Flower in Yearbook
AP
Posted: 2007-09-11 18:53:33
(Sept. 11) – Roses are red, violets are blue. If you’re holding one of these, the high school yearbook won’t picture you.
A New Hampshire teenager said her yearbook has rejected her senior photograph because she was holding a red flower, and props aren’t allowed. In the photo, Melissa Morin, 17, who loves acting, is sitting on a costume trunk backstage at the Palace Theatre in Manchester. She wore a black and white sundress and clutched the flower.
The no-prop policy stemmed from a 2005 controversy in another school district where a student was upset because the yearbook wouldn’t print a photo of him posing with a gun. A judge ruled in favor of the school, but Merrimack High School officials said they didn’t want to face similar scuffles and got rid of props.
Here is the full story. You can vote on this issue by clicking here.
This is so true. Same like the USCF forums. The rest of the memberships have to suffer because of a few like Sam Sloan, Brenan Nierman, Brian Lafferty. Very unfortunate. I stopped going there before of people like them.
Rose is allowed on a picture.
Rose is not allowed on a picture.
Life must be good to those, for whom this is the “big problem”
“Zero tolerance” rules like this remove the possibility of common sense being applied to a specific situation. That would appear to be the case here.
That is a funny country. Nobody can prevent you owning a gun, but you can’t show your photo if you are holding one.
A girl can drive a car, but not hold a rose.
Excerpt from THE CRAZY WORLD OF CHESS by GM Larry Evans ($9.95 due in
October from cardozapub.com)
SUSAN POLGAR VS. FIDE
January 24, 2005
Nowadays lawyers seem to be replacing good moves over the board. FIDE, at war with several top players who refuse to submit to vacuous drug testing, is being sued by a Jewish grandmaster who was prevented from competing at the “judenfrei” knockout championship held in Libya last year.
History repeats itself. In 1999 FIDE stripped Anatoly Karpov and Susan Polgar of their men’s and women’s crowns respectively. They both sued FIDE at the International Court of Sports in Switzerland. Karpov was awarded $50,000 and Polgar $25,000, but their crowns were not restored.
In March 2001 the court found that FIDE erred by precluding Susan from defending her title because there was no compelling reason not to accommodate a new date after she had a baby.
Her Website reported:
“Polgar agreed to accept a lesser amount in a spirit of goodwill. In order to lessen the damages, FIDE claimed it’s a non-profit organization without any money at all! Another unfortunate revelation to the court was FIDE’s claim that it had to spend ‘several hundreds of thousands of dollars for its legal defense.’ It is strange that FIDE can plead poverty and ask for mercy in one breath and then justify these pleadings by
explaining the immense costs of its legal defense with its next. One of the main reasons Polgar did not play was because FIDE failed to find a sponsor for her match with Xie Jun. In hindsight, it would have been cheaper for FIDE to sponsor that match to begin with.”
An editorial in Inside Chess noted why FIDE has lost so much credibility:
“All players should be able to make the leap of logic that if women’s world champ Susan Polgar can be treated so callously, anyone’s rights as a player are similarly worthless. The USCF should call for the collective resignation of FIDE’s executive body and work toward the creation of a new governing body
for chess. It has become abundantly clear that men and women of good conscience can no longer support FIDE in the face of its hapless bungling and callous destruction of professional careers.”
The Polgar sisters, who are Jewish, have long been a thorn in the side of FIDE, which is clearly an anti-Semitic organization. For an account of how every woman in the world except Susan Polgar got 100 free rating points, see “Rigging Ratings.” This scandal took place at the Chess Olympiad in the United Arab Emirates in 1986 where a team from Israel was banned.
In 2004 Susan led the USA women’s team to a silver medal. She was the individual high-scorer on board one, and then was singled out for a humiliating “random” dope test, which she dared not refuse on pain of
having her team’s result erased. Thus FIDE made the USCF eat crow for publicly taking a stand against dope testing.
Susan and her sister Judit, who just had a baby (August 2004), are currently the two highest-ranked women in the world.
Winning is the best revenge.
Absurd rule.
None such from the US no longer surprises me. The country is in chaos, no one seems to have a reign on the paranoia anymore. Soon stepping on white, and not to offend anyone, any other colour lines on the street will be prohibited, while carrying concealed weapons will be made mandatory. Yet no one feels any more secure with all this strictures, on the contrary. I will really hate to see where where it all ends, you’re doing worse to yourself than ever the terrorists did.
Yesterday in the news it was announced that soon you’ll have to make a notification, which will cost 20 euros, to US officials 2 days before travelling to the US so it can be determined whether you are a threat to security. I have no wish to travel any place that suspects me to be a criminal.
Without a clear rule (that requires no judgment to enforce), the school administration has to make a perhaps large number of individual judgment calls on appropriate vs. inappropriate picture props.
Each decision is a lawsuit waiting to happen.
Preempting the potential for these lawsuits is the “common sense” the earlier poster greg was searching for.
Anonymous: you are right, and as long as our judges and courts accept ridiculous lawsuits (lack of common sense), and as long as juries award millions of dollars for silly complaints (lack of common sense), these kinds of rules will be rationalized as “needed.”
Chess Freak said…
>>This is so true. Same like the USCF forums. The rest of the memberships have to suffer because of a few like Sam Sloan, Brenan Nierman, Brian Lafferty. Very unfortunate. I stopped going there before of people like them. >>
Wow, that’s just sad how some people see the whole world in terms of their private agendas. Nothing you said has anything to do with a flower in a yearbook picture.
“That is a funny country. Nobody can prevent you owning a gun, but you can’t show your photo if you are holding one. A girl can drive a car, but not hold a rose.”
Um, you can’t take a gun to school either. So your point makes no sense. She also can’t drive a car in the yearbook.
>>”Zero tolerance” rules like this remove the possibility of common sense being applied to a specific situation.>>
You know, in all these years, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a single person say that it was common sense to allow props in yearbook photos. It also has nothing to do with “tolerance”.
You guys are talking in cliches here. People are so anxious to complain that they don’t stop to think if it makes any sense. There’s one obvious question that nobody has thought to ask. Would it be okay if she WORE the flower instead of holding it? (in other words would it be okay if it were a piece of apparel rather than a “prop”?)
I like rules
anarchy? not so much…
It is the nature of US society at this time that nearly any, I mean any thing can form the basis of a lawsuit – this is why the school board/system is taking this action. They didn’t like the idea of someone having a gun in the school photo because of the many bad gun-school incidents (Columbine, Jonesboro among others) but because they are so afraid of litigation, they have to enact a sweeping ban NOT of guns in picture, but did so under the guise of all props. Search the internet and you’ll find where an administrative judge for the city of Washington, DC, the national capitol city sued a dry cleaner over a issue of a single pair of pants of over $60 million dollars – the suit was actually prosecuted and went to court – luckily the judge found it ridiculous but the fact that such a ludicrous case can even make that far should tell the world how screwed the US tort system really is.
When I was at school, if Johnny tried to hold a gun for the photo the principal would say ‘Johnny, leave your gun in the corner’. Johnny would say ‘Yes, Sir’.
If Susie was holding a rose, the principal would say ‘Nice rose, Susie’.
Nobody would sue anybody.
Wow she’s hot! Doesn’t need any props!
I’m from England. If I brought a gun to school I’d be wrestled to the ground, the gun would be forced from my grip and the principal would tie my hands and sit on my chest till the police came! You guys are MAD!
Oh wow. My name is melissa morin too. this is so cool.