PARANOIA

Greg Ingber of the Traitor Recycling Studio writes, "Here's a quality PARANOIA situation. A local high school [William Byrd High School in Roanoke, Virginia] has a bunch of students coming down with strange symptoms: dizziness, head rushes, headaches -- oh, AND uncontrollable twitching. So they send out a letter to parents. But they aren't actually allowed to tell the parents what the symptoms are. Obviously, they're trying to avoid copycat sufferers, kids twitching in front of Mom to get out of school. So the teachers just tell the parents to 'look out for mysterious symptoms' -- causing precisely the sort of mass hysteria they were trying to avoid.

"The most bizarre aspect: At a school board meeting, the head of the school board actually asked one of the parents at the meeting to specify the symptoms, because everyone on the board had been expressly forbidden from doing so."

Why this moratorium? Quoted in a news story by David Harrison in the Roanoke Times, Roanoke County Public Schools Superintendent Lorraine Lange offers a compelling explanation, worthy of The Computer's diligent micromanagers in the Central Processing Unit service group:

"If we were more specific about the symptoms these individuals are experiencing, we would identify who those individuals are. We have to respect their privacy," Lange said.

"They won't close the school down," Greg continues. "Mind you, if three snowflakes hit the ground, they'd close it in a heartbeat. But uncontrollably twitching kids? Well, that could just be from the video games and the energy drinks. I swear, you could have a third of the kids staggering around the halls with their faces rotting off, moaning 'brains, braaaains,' and the school's solution would be to tell parents, 'Please keep an eye out for any change in your children's eating habits.'"