This is Not the Country I Know and Love [reason #3,359]

East Washington teen's sketches attract Secret Service scrutiny

Full story: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2001913678_prosser27m.html

A 15-year-old boy was given an assignment in art class to maintain a sketch notebook. The kid made a couple of anti-Bush drawings, one depicting an effigy (the kid's words) of Bush in the form of a head-on-a-stick. Another depicted Bush as "a devil launching a missle", captioned "End the war-- on terrorism". Pretty cutting edge stuff for a 15-year-old.

Apparently, the Bush administration thought that this boy was a threat to the president, and sent the secret service to investigate. Sigh.

I'm just glad that I'm not growing up in this faux-America of today, and I feel for parents trying to teach their kids that self-expression is a Good Thing, and no, fearing your government is not historically an American value. I'd love to have a talk with the teacher that turned him in and find out just what he/she was trying to accomplish. Did the teacher even consider talking to the boy to determine his intentions before rusing to the authorities? I'll bet that teacher thinks she played the part of a perfect "patriot". Instead, they have perhaps merely created another dissident (welcome to the club, kid).