"Mommy, Will You Sign My MySpace Permission Slip?"

By Chris Karr in Miscellaneous on Sep 21, 2006 7:30PM

Quite a few little Johnnies and Susies around the city will be asking this question soon.

According to CBS2, the West Chicago High School has started requiring that students have a permission slip signed that pledges that they won't be jackasses nor will they reveal personally-identifiable data online. This comes as a result of the MySpace child predator stories that were so popular last year and the instances of cyberbullying that have been reported from time to time.

We feel like old farts posting this, but we remember a time when one got harassed and bullied not on the computer, but just for using it. We guess it's a sign of the times that the bullies have moved online. (We're likewise pissed at how the jocks have taken over videogames with the evil, evil Madden franchises.) However, we're not so old that we didn't have to sign acceptable usage policies to do things like play Sim City or Oregon Trail. (After we finished our typing homework - honest!)

On one hand, we guess the MySpace angle gives this story legs, but we're still scratching our heads why this merited a page on the CBS website. We're at least using this as an opportunity to think back on all the people who died fording the river and to take our digs at all those damn Xbox football games. It must have been a slow news day in Naperville for Mike Puccinelli. (It's always a slow news day here.)

Image credit: Newport High School