Yeah, Right, Whatever

I'm actually kind of surprised that the mom in the story wasn't arrested for child abuse or something.

At nearly 7 a.m., he (Jamal Wooten) was paying the price for using the "F word."

Wearing a homemade sandwich board of yellow cardboard attached with duct and electrical tape, Wooten stood at the intersection of Willowcreek and Lute roads as a family-induced punishment for being suspended from Portage High School last week.

He was picketing against his own behavior.

Here's the Reader's Digest version of the story. Jamal dropped the F-bomb at school, and received a 5-day suspension. Family was... displeased. Days 1 and 2 of said suspension were spent in a type of boot camp- wearing him out physically with sit-ups and push-ups. Day 3 was spent studying the Bible. Days 4 and 5 were spent as a poster boy against bad behavior.

For about four hours -- split into morning and afternoon shifts to maximize the view for passing traffic -- Wooten stood in front of his townhouse complex. He got a lot of honks and visitors... Wooten himself said that "making a fool out of myself" was a fitting penance. "I hate to say I agree with it, but I do," he said.

On his poster was a Bible verse:

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. (NIV) (I couldn't find the translation that they used for the poster, but you get the point- B)

Wow. I bet this will work. If he gets in trouble at school again, he could be expelled. And I don't even want to think about what his family would discipline him with then.

And I think I'm going to have the boys read this. They don't use "cuss words" (unless you include the word "crap"), but I know some of their friends do. Maybe they'll think twice about starting down that road.