In Hudson, Ohio, they'll be having no more of this nonsense about "honor," thank you very much.
On April 30, Amanda Caine asked each of the students in her third-grade class at McDowell Elementary to write fortune-cookie fortunes, which were then placed in a pile for a random drawing. Nine-year-old Karl Bauman, being a purple belt in Tae Kwan Do and a fan of the martial arts, submitted what he thought was a dignified fortune: "You will die with honor. "Bad idea. When a classmate drew the fortune from the pile, she burst into tears. Ms. Caine walked Karl to the principal's office, where he was promptly suspended for "writing a note threatening in nature."
"He meant something positive -- to be a hero and die with honor," Karl's mother told the Cleveland Plain Dealer. But language like this is increasingly anachronistic, in Hudson as elsewhere (What's all this about honor? And who says we're going to die?), so it was probably inevitable that Karl would be misunderstood. His parents are appealing the suspension. At a hearing, Karl declined to explain himself in a sustained manner. His parents say it's because he's shy. But we like to think he's just doing the manly thing.