{"id":1116,"date":"2007-11-07T10:40:52","date_gmt":"2007-11-07T14:40:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shermandorn.com\/wordpress\/?p=1116"},"modified":"2007-11-07T10:40:52","modified_gmt":"2007-11-07T14:40:52","slug":"hug-threat-level-orange","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/?p=1116","title":{"rendered":"Hug Threat Level: Orange"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In Mascoutah, Illinois, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/21661718\/\">Megan Coulter was suspended for hugging a friend<\/a>. In Taiwan, meanwhile, the military quickly <a href=\"http:\/\/news.monstersandcritics.com\/asiapacific\/news\/article_1367712.php\/Taiwan_military_to_abolish_welcome_hug_for_new_recruits\">suspended its new program<\/a> begun October 1 to welcome new soldiers with a hug.&nbsp;Hugging is dangerous stuff, whether in the military or in schools.&nbsp; Apart from the documented threat that teenaged huggers will spread dangerous diseases such as the tendency to say &#8220;like&#8221; repeatedly in sentences or the even more life-threatening Leo Buscaglia Syndrome, there is surprisingly little research on hugging as it pertains to education policy. <\/p>\n<p>Therefore, I hereby announce my policy recommendations on hugging:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Hugging should be a matter of choice. I don&#8217;t particularly care whether this is a public or private choice, but as long as there is no money attached to hugging, I don&#8217;t think anyone would care. <\/li>\n<li>Performance pay for hugging is <strong>right out<\/strong>. Don&#8217;t even think about it. <\/li>\n<li>The ordinary rules of expression in schools should apply to hugging: schools may put time, place, and manner restrictions on hugging, but in general, as long as it is nondisruptive, it is absurd to ban hugging. <\/li>\n<li>Hugging is not the same as freak dancing. Anyone who confuses the two (whether student or educator) needs to get a life or take a cold shower (depending on the circumstances). <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Somewhat more seriously, stories about students being suspended for hugging friends&nbsp;or bringing ibuprofen to school illustrate a level of rigid regulation that can easily rise to absurdity. Schools should be able to ban necking without banning hugs, and schools should be able to create a drug-free environment without banning students from bringing tylenol or ibuprofen to school. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Mascoutah, Illinois, Megan Coulter was suspended for hugging a friend. In Taiwan, meanwhile, the military quickly suspended its new program begun October 1 to welcome new soldiers with a hug.&nbsp;Hugging is dangerous stuff, whether in the military or in schools.&nbsp; Apart from the documented threat that teenaged huggers will spread dangerous diseases such as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-random-comments"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pag0MB-i0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}