Goodbye, Mr. Chips

Cute education story of the week comes from Clarín, reporting on an incident in a school in the city of Rosario Argentina. Here's an excerpt (translated):

"The unusual episode occurred yesterday, at the 'Luis Laporte 468 Middle School', Rosario. During the 8pm break, a group of students at the school, located at 1059 1er de Mayo Street, decided to stay in the classroom and listen to music.

At the end of the break, the metalwork teacher came back into the classroom to continue with the metal turning class. It was then that was told that a 20 year old student still had his earphones in (listening to music).

According to the police spokesperson, the annoyed teacher asked him to stop listening to music but the student refused. It was at that point when the teacher reacted badly by taking a gun out from under his clothing and threatening the student with it."

The report goes on to tell us the gun was loaded with seven live rounds at the time. The teacher has been suspended, apparently. Gotta love Argentina.

Judge Dredd, Peru version

Any time a journalist gets a gun pulled on them during the course of their work, it's a serious situation. But in Peru the gunslinging isn't confined to the guys carrying sacks labelled "swag" on their backs. In Peru high court judges bully journalists with guns.

Meet Justice Raul Rosales, who decided to threaten photographer for Peru's Caretas magazine Carlos Saavedra with a gun last week (Feb 12th at 11:36am, to be exact) and also had the following conversation with the snapper (translated):

CS: Don't you realize what you're doing, pointing a gun at me?"
RR: "And you should also be careful with what you're doing."

There are other reasons why Judge Raul Rosales is a polemic character in Peru at the moment, as he recently overturned a suspension order on one of his fellow judges that allowed him to go back to work, even though the whole episode that led to the suspension reeks of the normal corrupt stench that hangs around Peru's judiciary.

Just so you know how the legal system is working in this model democracy.