You know I was just talking with my mom about Rat Magazine. She was cleaning out stuff in her house and something reminded her of it. I wish we still had copies. What was Rat Magazine? A friend of mine , Tim, in Elementary School had two parents who were journalists. He often had complaints about the school, and they helped him create and publish his own school newspaper independently. I wrote for him a few times, he even gave me a 20-page training packet. I got the PE teacher in trouble for lying about why he made us do square dancing every year. He claimed the principal forced him to do it, which as it turns out, wasn't true. He didn't realize I was going to put what he said in print. My 5th grade teacher came up to me after it was printed and said "David you know the principal doesn't dictate the PE curriculum right?" I shrugged and said I was just quoting what he said. I was 10, I didn't know anything about lesson plans, I didn't even realize the guy was lying. Funny, we never had to do square dancing again. This isn't about me, though Tim is the hero of the story.

Tim was pretty bold for a fifth-grader not only did he secure advertisers for Rat Magazine from local businesses. He would personally hand out the copies, a standard sheet of paper front and back, on the sidewalk after school. Looking back it is insane how angry the teachers got about being criticized by children and how hard they worked to try and shut down the project. As an adult looking back, it was pretty cool that Tim had the passion to do this all at 11 years old. You would think it might even be encouraged. But no, it also led us to realize how stupid are teachers were. One teacher claimed we couldn't distribute copies because we were in a school zone???? and somehow she had a say over everything that happens in school zones. Others would come and rip the copies out of Tim's hand. Next headline? RAT MAGAZINE SEIZED!!!!!! Not surprising his journalist parents weren't too happy to hear about this crackdown on the freedom of the press and people getting physical with their son. This is where it gets nuts.

Tim and his parents got the ACLU to sue the school district pro bono, AND THEY WON! Tim wasn't doing any of this on school time, he was handing it out after school was over, and on the sidewalk that the school doesn't own. You can't exactly rip it out of his hands either. I remember the get-together we all had to celebrate. Mind you, I was just a tag along, I wrote twice and would mostly hang out with people at the meetings. Again Tim is the hero of the story. The teachers couldn't do shit about it after that. Ha! I don't know how this anecdote from my childhood slipped my memory for so long. I think at 11 years old I didn't realize how cool what Tim was doing was and didn't think a lot about it.

Doesn't sound like this would be able to happen elsewhere in the "free world."

America is in fact, quite exceptional.