Outraged folks around world letting Diane Tran know she’s not alone

By David McElroy · May 30, 2012

In most cases, there’s very little we can do to change the bad things we see in the news. But people all over this country and in other countries who were angered at how Texas teen Diane Tran was being treated are reaching out to help her.

Diane is the 11th grader who was sent to jail for 24 hours and fined $100 for missing more than 10 days of school in a six-month period. Judge Lanny Moriarty said at the time that his rough treatment of the 17-year-old was to send a message to others.

“If you let one [truant student] run loose, what are you gonna do with the rest of ’em? Let them go too?” Moriarty said.

Now you can help Diane Tran — as people in 46 U.S. states and 12 other countries have done. The Louisiana Children’s Education Alliance has set up a fundraising site to help the girl, who is already considered an adult under Texas law. As of Tuesday evening, the fund had reached more than $65,000. You can learn more at HelpDianeTran.com.

If you’d like to let the judge know how you feel about his handling of the case, here’s his contact information.

Compulsory schooling is an outrage and this treatment is even more outrageous. At some point, this society has to quit trying to force people to be what politicians and judges want them to be. If Texas law can consider Diane Tran an adult, she’s certainly within her rights decided when or if she wants to go to school.

The legislation that gives a judge the power to send a young women to jail for no actual crime needs to be changed. And even if the Texas legislature refuses to do that, local voters should send a message to Moriarty and judges like him by electing someone else to take his place. I don’t believe in the coercive state, but if you’re a Texas voter in that district who still votes, it might be a good idea to find someone to take this heartless man’s place.

Note: Thanks to reader Daniel M. for bringing this fundraising effort to my attention in comments on the previous story.

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On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

Have you ever had what you thought was a new idea — and then discovered that “old you” had the same idea years ago? I had that experience tonight. And it’s been wonderful. I came up with an idea tonight for a very short satirical film that would be a promotion for a fictitious college. The point is to make the college promote — as good things — everything which is actually terrible about most modern colleges. Then I remembered a fake college that I invented back when I was in college. I had created student recruitment brochures and various newsletters back then, so I decided to call my “new” college by the same name I’d invented years ago: Ochita College. As I searched my computer for any old material I might still have about Ochita from the past, I discovered an email I sent to someone in 2009 — outlining essentially the same idea which I came up with tonight. Since I didn’t remember writing that, it felt like magic. So my next film project just might be this one instead. If all goes well, you might soon see “Ochita College: Your Future Starts Here.” This should be fun.

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