The Word Police expand their reach;
A 23-year-old teacher at a Cambridge, Md. middle school has been placed on leave and — in the words of a local news report — “taken in for an emergency medical evaluation” for publishing, under a pseudonym, a novel about a school shooting. The novelist, Patrick McLaw, an eighth-grade language-arts teacher at the Mace’s Lane Middle School, was placed on leave by the Dorchester County Board of Education, and is being investigated by the Dorchester County Sheriff’s Office, according to news reports from Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The novel, by the way, is set 900 years in the future. . . .
Imagine that–a novelist who didn’t store bombs and guns at the school at which he taught. How improbable! Especially considering that he uses an “alias,” which is apparently the law-enforcement term for “nom de plume.” (Here is the Amazon page for The Insurrectionist, by the way. Please note that the book was published in 2011, before McLaw was hired.)
Be careful what you check out of the library.
h/t
An appalling aspect of this story is the naive take-it-at-face-value reporting. I wouldn’t be surprised to read the statements attributed to the authorities in, say, People’s Daily in China.
The Dorchester Board of Education better be ready to write some big checks. Ditto the Police Department that arrested him, and the shrink if he/she did not release him immediately. If he can keep the “professionals” from gaslighting him, this guy will never have to work for the rest of his life.
Hasn’t anyone of the idiots in the news business ever heard of a pseudonym?
There must be more to this story. Perhaps he has expressed conservative, pro-Second Amendment, Islamophobic, or anti-union sentiments or some other similar heinous nonconformity.
Deja vu, eh. Somebody watched too many reruns of Minority Report.
Better arrest Tom Clancy too as the White House (or was that Congress) was bombed in one or more of his novels.
Question: If it is written under an alias or pen name, the police must have had some urging to do the detective work. What or who set the wheels in motion? Slow enforcement day at the crosswalk? This whole thing might lead to a jail full of Harlequin Romance writers.
So are all the writers in Hollywood creating violent movies and television actually criminals? Apparently so. I think his fortune cookie just said that he is coming into an unexpected windfall. Where do they find these stupid cops?
Does anyone need more evidence that the US is now a police state?
“Does anyone need more evidence that the US is now a police state?”
The dumbest one ever, at least so far as I can tell.
I mean, jeez, if you have to live in one let it at least be semi-competent so you can keep your head down, say “yes, sir” with zeal, and generally play along to get along, and not get accidentally shot/ arrested/ molested.
This sort of crap is just like some invertebrate’s trashing about.
“Does anyone need more evidence that the US is now a police state?”
I suppose one could look at the so called film maker who was hung out to dry over the Benghazi embassy debacle.
When I was younger I heard the US often referred to as the excited snakes. Hmmm that could may well become an apt description.
There are several “Updates” to the original article. More details have been provided. Perhaps this is not what it first seemed. I’m inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to the authorities for the moment based on the updates. Draw your own conclusions……….
said in the pj story that the arrest had nothing to do with his book.
He should get some good book sales out of this.
Yes, there is indeed more to this story. It took a little bit of searching, but not much: apparently the reason that people got alarmed was not the novels, but a 4-page “farewell” letter he had sent to local authorities. And the media had a field day with the idea of “thought police”.