Why not waterboard them?

A bunch of seniors at a high school in eastern Pennsylvania were suspended for five days by the school district. Were they smoking dope on school grounds? Brawling, maybe? Peeking through a hole into the girls' locker room? No. They climbed over an outer wall at Southern Lehigh High School and camped overnight in an enclosed courtyard. Yeah, they camped out. An Associated Press story gives no indication that the 17 kids caused any trouble. As best as I can tell, there was no drinking, no property damage. But the district saw fit to bar them from a week of classes, and three of the students involved in the harmless prank were stripped of their membership in the National Honor Society. Well, of course we can't have scofflaw campers in the NHS. The next thing you know, these kids might play their car radios too loud. And the next step is anarchy. The district also suspended two students who had the audacity to e-mail The Morning Call newspaper in Allentown to complain about the punishment. The district later thought better of its attempt to trample the two students' free-speech rights, and those suspensions were rescinded. Students were planning a protest outside the school following Friday classes, and I don't blame them. Our entire society seems to be losing what remains of our collective sense of humor and sense of proportion. This is like the district that suspended a grade-schooler for bringing nail clippers to school. In the old days, a janitor would have found the kids camping and told them to clean up their stuff and move on. But, sadly, those days - the ones when people in positions of authority had a little basic common sense - seem to be behind us.