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In Maryland, a Soviet-Style Punishment For a Novelist
An anonymous reader writes A 23-year-old teacher at a Cambridge, Md. middle school has been placed on leave and—in the words of a local news report — "taken in for an emergency medical evaluation" for publishing, under a pseudonym, a novel about a school shooting. The novelist, Patrick McLaw, an eighth-grade language-arts teacher at the Mace's Lane Middle School, was placed on leave by the Dorchester County Board of Education, and is being investigated by the Dorchester County Sheriff's Office, according to news reports from Maryland's Eastern Shore. The novel, by the way, is set 900 years in the future."
Wow. Talk about a lawsuit that you are *guaranteed* to win.
This guy is going to make millions.
Book burns you.
He should have made the plot around child molesting instead of shooting! Geeze!
Well after this he'll have plenty of great material for a 900-year prequel that will tackle some different, but still very troubling, social issues.
I know its a bit of a stretch of the mission, but based on what is known as of now, I think the EFF (and maybe even the ACLU) should come to this guys aid. Is this sort of thing exactly why we establish these sorts of organizations - to protect free speech be it online or on paper?
As if the story itself could not be more horrible I can't believe the books were published in 2011 and 2013 and just now they decide to go after him. Either he pissed off someone high up and they just found a reason to go after the guy or some bored cop just got around to discovering fiction...
Unbelievable!
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
I read the opening paragraph of his book on Amazon. The man *is* guilty of a crime. Assault and battery on the world of literature!
Really, his stuff is "dark and stormy night" bad. Toss him in jail. No, wait, that's not a severe enough punishment for what he's done. Something more extreme is required. I know, make him teach middle school!
Instead of 900 years in the future, he should have set it in the past. Or at least included dinosaurs. You'd never get in trouble for writing about Dinosaurs... Oops, sorry. Forget about that.
In all seriousness, though, school shootings are a problem. However, I'm much more afraid of my oldest son (who begins middle school in a couple of days) getting in trouble for someone mistaking something he says/does as being a threat against the school than I am afraid that someone will walk into the building and kill a bunch of people. (My oldest is diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome and anxiety disorder. He can tend to be clueless about "other meanings" to the things he says or how people might take offense to certain phrases that he means in an innocent manner. Not a good combination with overzealous administrators who are jumping at the slightest whiff of trouble.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Check off one more box on the list of Police State attributes we are now experiencing.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
All of the stories I have read about this use the same reference: WBOC. There is, as of yet, no other source. I think there is more to this story than has been reported so far. I am not suggesting the lack of facts is a coverup, just that it is still in the early stages of falling into place.
Only a verifiable head case would write about a school shooting 900 years in the future. I have it on good authority that the last 'chemical/kinetic homicide' was recorded in the waning days of the Transcend Uprising in 2234. By 2914, the most common spree killings, by method, are 'engineered retroviruses', 'covert antimatter decanting', and nanoassembler override.
Also, ever since Heuristic Neural Patterning became economically viable in the mid 24th century, 'school' exists as little more than a footnote in some of the low level neural patterning modules. I'm not sure why you'd expect to find enough people for a mass casualty incident visiting one.
There is a petition at Change.org requiring the county school superintendent to apologize.
https://www.change.org/p/dr-he...
Wow. Talk about a lawsuit that you are *guaranteed* to win.
This guy is going to make millions.
My best friend is an attorney and we've known each other for years. He has taught me a lot about how the law really works in the USA (I live in the US too by the way). Literally anything can happen in court. You may be right in that the odds may be good that he'll be able to sue and win, but it all depends on factors we can't control or predict. The judge the case gets is important. If it's a jury trial, the outcome may have more to do with the abilities of the lawyers involved than the actual merits of the case. Then if you don't like the verdict and appeal it, you go back to square one because some appellate judges tend to favor one side over the other. You get a really conservative appellate male judge in the Scalia mold and you could find that he'll basically allow the government to do anything if they feel that public safety was potentially at risk. Keep in mind too that the author may be greatly exaggerating what happened to him and what really happened may be a lot less sensational than the news report.
It's awesome that his pen name was Voltaer which sounds like a reference to Voltaire who was fighting for civil rights and had his books burned.
It sounds like this guy is brilliant. He was smart enough to use a pen name to hide his writings from his students, and also smart enough to choose a pen name that mocks anyone who uses these writings to defame him. Clearly, Voltaire should now be required reading by Dorchester county students.
I've only read the Amazon precis, but it *seems* like the shooting is a plot device against which the author has characters act and react. Not all that different than Nevil Shute using a nuclear war as the backdrop for "On The Beach."
I am, frankly, of two minds about this. On one hand, possibly support a glory seaking attention hound. On the other, be tracked and branded as someone who "supports violence in schools" by buying the e-book. On the gripping hand, just read the thing myself and make up my own mind...
They aren't comparing his getting fired to Soviet-style punishment. The comparison is to the forcing him, against his will, to "an emergency medical evaluation" in a location that only the police know of and won't release any details about. Making a guy disappear because he's suspected of bad behavior isn't something that's supposed to happen in the US. (That last statement might sound a bit naive. Take it as a goal for how our country should operate instead of the totalitarian method of just letting the authorities do whatever they want for whatever reason.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
(adding)
According to people who claim to 'know more', he was using aliases for real life things like when he applied for the job, not just pseudonyms for writing. People claiming to be parents have also chimed in saying there was 'real fear' around this person, but I would not be surprised if this fear came after the board discovered his books as opposed to before.
There are also claims he sent a 'disturbing letter' to the school board, but 'it was not their place to update with facts', so I am skeptical of the poster.
yea, the only way this could really end up making any sense was that some old lady librarian at the school found his books, got concerned and went to the school-board/police... who had to talk to him for due diligence, and when they did talk to him, they found out completely by accident that the dude was actually nuts. Maybe he threatened suicide or took a swing at a cop? Getting someone committed is NOT easy, I've tried doing it before, it's nearly impossible.
If they really committed him for writing 2 books, no matter how bad they are, this is completely off the rails insane.
I want to read that novel.
Check out the Amazon extract ('But amid all the despair and hopelessness, people were working indefatigably to stabilise the nation and alleviate the prevalent tumult; and on 28 August 2298, the sedulousness of these committed inidividual was recompensed.') and you might change your mind. Still, if the original article is accurate there's no justification for his treatment, and the implications are deeply disturbing. Have we been told the full story?
There should be a Do Everything Wrong Day where students and teachers alike do things like play dodgeball, cops and robbers, offer pats on the back and hugs, bring copies of Mad Magazine and Guns and Ammo to school, call each other names, walk to school, say they look nice today, and so on and so on. Then everyone lodges official complaints against everyone else, so administrators now will either have to either suspend everyone and then crawl through hundreds if not thousands of hearings, or agree that a lot of the rules against these things are ludicrous if not completely anti-American.
The slogan for the day? "If everyone is in trouble, nobody is."
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Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
But amid all the despair and hopelessness, people were working indefatigably to stabilise the nation and alleviate the prevalent tumult; and on 28 August 2298, the sedulousness of these committed inidividual was recompensed.
Zow. This guy was supposed to be a "language-arts" teacher. I think we can clear the Sherifs department of any charges of overreacting, Patrick McLaw is obviously a danger to himself and society.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Stephen King did something very similar to this years and years ago, under virtually the same circumstances. He wrote a book called "Rage", under a pseudonym, which was about a fictional school shooting in a setting that would've amounted to the present when the book was written. Of course, the shooter in Rage was also portrayed sympathetically (he goes insane because all of his classmates are assholes). There were even cases where the shooters in actual school shootings were carrying around copies of Rage, which made him (voluntarily) pull the book from publication.
Yet strangely, I don't recall anything about Stephen King being arrested in the middle of the night and involuntarily committed to a mental hospital.
Keep in mind, many of the regions in the first colonies were not founded due to a distrust of government, but of feeling government was not strict enough. Many of what would become states were chartered by people tired of not being able to oppress people in their own country and having to live with other religions so they created theocratic colonies. England had too much tolerance for their tastes.
It would be useful to know if McLaw is under investigation for behavior other than writing two novels
Yes, it would be very useful to know that before people go writing articles about how this guy has been locked up (if that) for (and only for, seems to be the implication) writing two novels. Oop, too late.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Seriously, where is he now?
How is it possible for a person to simply disappear and have their whereabouts listed as "known to law enforcement".
IANAL, but it seems to me that someone with standing should file a writ of Habeas corpus because people should not just disappear like this in a first world country.
The Digital Sorceress
The reports (the Atlantic article is an opinion piece about the local reports regarding the incident) are too sketchy at this point to decide if there's a good probable cause for the teacher to be arrested (besides his having written a presumably controversial book, which is not a good reason for somebody in a presumably democratic country to get arrested).
What it does reveal is the attitude of the local reporters who appear to be somewhat supportive or at the very least neutral to the police action. I know, a news report is supposed to be objective. But I don't see any mention in the quoted parts of the news reports about the teacher's free speech rights. The "first ammendment" comment is in the Atlantic article not the news reports. Since these are local news reporters they probably also reflect local biases. Possible threats to safety are given more importance than any free speech rights.
The most likely explanation
I don't see why that's the most likely explanation, and also don't see why that would justify this disgusting treatment even if it were true. I really see no reason to give authority figures the benefit of the doubt; it's wasted on them.
But amid all the despair and hopelessness, people were working indefatigably to stabilise the nation and alleviate the prevalent tumult; and on 28 August 2298, the sedulousness of these committed inidividual was recompensed.
Zow. This guy was supposed to be a "language-arts" teacher. I think we can clear the Sherifs department of any charges of overreacting, Patrick McLaw is obviously a danger to himself and society.
"It was a dark and stormy night...."
Sorry, not buying that without any evidence to suggest it.
I think the most likely explanation is that overly paranoid police have detained someone for a trumped up "emergency medical evaluation" because he wrote a book on a controversial topic, and because law enforcement can't accept that you could write a piece of fiction and not have it be a real threat.
There is absolutely nothing in the linked article to suggest any crime (actual, imagined, or planned), or so suggest any link whatsoever with schizophrenia or any other mental illness.
And until such time as they actually do have some evidence, I'm going to take this as a gross over-reaction by the police and school board.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
That's exactly why we must destroy what's left of the unions. As usual they're the last thing standing in the way of a fascist state.
There is this thing called Involuntary Commitment, laws vary state by state. In Maryland they can hold you for up to 10 days as long as doctors sign off that you have a diagnosis. In the old days they could hold you indefinitely, a la One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
They're looking for crazies that go on shooting sprees. What they should be doing is checking EVERYONE... not just people that publish books about school shootings while working at schools.
I frankly don't have a problem with them investigating the guy so long as they do it respectfully. That said, everyone should be checked out. These mass shootings are just crazy people acting out. Nothing more.
OR, and I know this is a long shot, but they could consider accepting that a free nation is an inherently dangerous one, and either accept that individuals have a right to live their lives without constantly being spied upon by a crazy government so paranoid it makes tweekers seem like reasonable people, or find some other, "safer" country to move to.
I know - leaving other people to their business so long as it's not directly and immediately affecting you - crazy idea, right?
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
It is a mistake to think of this from a viewpoint on Unions/No Unions. The school has no power to have this man arrested. The school has no power to have him "medically evaluated". They have no power to prevent him from traveling and in fact cannot ban him from the campus without a court order.
The State of Maryland is the most egregious offender here. THEY are the ones who have violated this man's rights. THEY are the ones who can apparently do this to anyone under the guise of security. The School is merely an excuse, an enabler of the State.
If this issue is not resolved quickly, with the authorities paying lots and lots of money and government employees being punished in some manner, be afraid.
Be Very Afraid. Because the jokes about the Soviet Union will no longer be so funny.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
The problem here is that the press reports are just rehashes of what the cops are putting out. Somebody should find this guy and interview him. He may be in hiding for reasons of his own.
His book is self-published on Amazon. It's been out since 2011, and you can read a sample there. This guy is not the next Steven King. A typical sentence: "As Zea approaches her partner she cannot restrain herself from hyperventilating as she peers at the black embossed letters on the translucent glass sign above the entrance to the central atrium".
Today, the Los Angeles Times quotes cops as saying "Everybody knew about the book in 2012", and that this is more about a four-page letter he recently sent to officials in Dorchester County, containing "complaints of alleged harassment and an alleged possible crime". There may be more clarity over the next few days, now that the story is getting attention.
We still don't have any facts, other than public officials covering their posteriors. We "know" he wrote a letter someone didn't like. Only that. You go to psych lockup for writing one letter these days?
"McLaw's letter was of primary concern to healthcare officials, Maciarello says. It, combined with complaints of alleged harassment and an alleged possible crime from various jurisdictions led to his suspension. Maciarello cautions that these allegations are still being investigated; authorities, he says, "proceeded with great restraint."
Alleged possible crime? As in, we don't know if it happened, and we're not sure it was a crime?