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My Kind of Mom
Nov 27th, 2011 | 11 responses
Julie Sullivan isn’t angry with her daughter, Emma, for tweeting disparaging remarks about Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback during a Youth in Government program last week in Topeka:
“She was talking to 65 friends. And also it’s the speech they use today. It’s more attention grabbing. I raised my kids to be independent, to be strong, to be free thinkers. If she wants to tweet her opinion about Gov. Brownback, I say for her to go for it and I stand totally behind her.”
Brownback’s office, on the other hand, picked up the tweet and contacted the Youth in Government program. Sullivan’s high school principal subsequently demanded a written apology; 18 year-old Emma has refused saying she isn’t sorry so a letter would be insincere.
It was her older sister who blew things up by contacting the media. And now Emma’s up to 3,000 Twitter followers.
11 Responses to “My Kind of Mom”
I don’t have any issue with her disliking anyone and saying so but I do have a question about were to draw the line. If she had been passing notes durring the school event saying the same thing she likely would be in trouble so why not tweeting?
Let me clue you in; This area of east Kansas is where Rush Limbaugh began his hate career from KCMO AM radio. It is an area constantly under attack by rabid republican broadcasting media….and…of course the home of the Westboro Baptist Church is right up the road in Topeka. Just a stones throw away to the east of KCMO, just across the border in Missouri, is where the Mormons are supposed to return too and control the world from. I guess the people there are finally tired of all the bizarre crap and are standing up. It is a place where roofing contractors carry side arms. Brownback don’t like dissenters.
does a teenager also have 1st amendment right? I had thought so. One wonders whether the adults know this.
An 18-year-old is legally an adult. Meanwhile, I had read about this from Cagle’s facebook page. The comments there are about what one would expect (rants about free speech, descriptions of Big Government taking over, and, of course, the obvious question of Who the hell authorized state money to be used to follow a high school student?)
What really shattered my brain concerning this event was that Gov. Brownback made the tweet an issue by having his staff focus on it. That has been shown time over mind to be the BEST way to get something to go viral over the internet. Is Brownback really this clueless? Pursuant to the first question, is he competent to run a state government in the United States of America?
Not really a question if you read the story. The Gov. has people who monitor social media to see what people are saying. While you could equate it with big brother it seems a bit much when those same social medias are designed to spread the “word” not keep it private.
Does that same right extend to during school events? I know I was never allowed to say everything I wanted when I was in school. And where do manners come in to play? Not coming down on the girl but it’s a whole new world with social media and the old rules don’t apply but I wonder if we might want to think about how we move forward.
Epic fail on Brownback’s part. Shaking down high school students for unkind tweets? It’s what high school kids do, for Christ’s sake. Did it disrupt any “proceedings?” No, no one even noticed except for the jack-booted thugs on his staff.
I thought politicians had to have thick skin. No, they’re whiny and will send out their goons to intimidate the young. Real class, Brownback.
LOL Brownback was a candidate for POTUS in 2000. If he can’t handle an 18 year old fefales Twitter, how can he handle Akma Wackjob or Putin? I think Emma has more cajones than the Gov…
Is she destined to be the Joe the Plummer of 2012? An average citizen swept into politics & celebrity because of an off-handed comment, who then inspires change?
Oh how fascinating this new social media is! Take a step back and revel in the evolution of an entirely new form of democracy and public action. Between goofy things like this and major things like the Arab Spring, boy has Twitter, Facebook, data mining, cookie tracking, etc. changed everything! And all in our lifetimes!
So few generations have been able to experience sweeping change first hand. Take a moment to appreciate it.
I appreciate the possibilities, not the current actions. The OWS people, the disenfranchised, etc. need to use Facebook, twitter, et. al. more. It is the only way they are going to be heard. Those venues seem to be the only thing holding back “Big Money” from completely shutting out the common person’s voice (due to the control of media).
While Rush worked in radio in Kansas City, he was not on the air. Back then, the station he was on hadn’t moved to the Kansas side of the state line, either. That started later. The Mormon church had the schism that produced the RLDS, now called the Community of Christ, in Independence, which is now a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri. Yes, Westboro Baptist is in Topeka, which is where she was when she tweeted her message since it’s also the state capitol. BTW, a school event is not the same thing as a trip of a group that is an extracurricular activity.