“You Can’t Do Anything in the Real Newspaper”
“It has to be tastefully done.”, says Mrs. Giroux, the teacher of BMHS’s Journalism I and II classes. She is referring to the fact that printing controversial material in The Beat, Billerica’s School News paper could cause the school administration and superintendent to review the paper before each printing and pull selected articles.
We don’t have any advertisers to kiss up to, we don’t have any paying readers to scare away, so we let the writers do whatever they want, and it shows. This issue got more than just a “little” out of hand. We have people badmouthing school administrators and doing other nasty stuff. If you don’t like it, you can contact them and let them know -- see the information on the back of this page.
This publication is not endorsed, funded by, or associated with Billerica Public Schools, Billerica Memorial High School, or the BMHS administration. Articles and advertisements do not represent the views of the editorial staff. Questionable articles were made to be resubmitted as paid advertisements. Direct comments and letters to the editor to our BBS at (508) 667-8274. Copyright © 1994 AIP. Unauthorized duplication is encouraged.
Fire Brings Out Character of School is a quick recap of the fire here at BMHS for those who missed it. It’s also our attempt at proving that we can get news out in a more timely fashion that the Billerica Beat. (We won.)
F*ck Cen***ship is a paid advertisement proving that we will print just about everything. This kid was just fascinated by the fact that he could use the “F” word. He kind of actually got away with it too.
Garden of Grass is a paid advertisement aimed at Marijuana users. You can tell by the profound grammar and spelling errors that the authors actually use the drug. (Not a fact.)
PLUG-IN was written by Chris Eastman, Mike Rogers found it lying around and gave it to me the day after. It is presented here in its entirety. Every effort has been made to preserve the formatting and spelling -- however, the text has been wrapped to fit the width of the columns.
Opinions on Gun Control is a collection of thoughts and opinions concerning the regulation and banning of certain types of guns.
We apologize in advance to anyone who might be offended or defamed by the material found here.
Fire Brings Out Character of School
By: SRG1 (Jamaica Joe)
Hell of field trip we had on Monday, huh? It’s funny how an unsuspected, almost insignificant event like a storage-room fire can bring out so many parts of so many personalities in just one school system. So many different people saw this as an opportunity to do so many different things. Many people laughed off the event, others failed to see any humor in anything. Still, there were others who had no clue what the hell was going on (including about 60% of the BMHS faculty).
Temperatures in the sixties, blue skies, and an early spring breeze eased the tensions of many of our classmates, as well as numerous teachers. Some flirted, some played Frisbee, some lit up fatties. Others chose to ditch school altogether. But the most peculiar subjects perhaps, were those wallflowers who just failed to crack a grin entirely. You know who you are, students and administrators, both. Anybody who couldn’t just relax and shoot the breeze in such a situation needs to get the pole out of their rear end and learn to live life. This is major part of your high school education, it is just as important as learning to solve equations, writing with correct syntax, and peddling narcotics.
A special shot out goes to the administrator who let the word out that we could go home, freeing so many of our automobile-equipped friends. A special shot in the head goes to those administrators who dragged so many of our friends back on to school grounds to complete their six-hour sentence. And a dope slap as well as a thank you to whoever lit up the cigarette that caused the fire that set off the alarm that scared the hell out of the principal and let the whole school blow off half a day!
F*ck Cen***ship
By: BAMF (B.A.M.F.)
F*ck Censorship, that’s what I say. Censorship is so un-American that it should be illegal to do. The awful thought of it makes me want to puke. What’s the deal with record labels censoring their albums, they know we are going to buy them no matter what. And MTV claims that they are totally against it, but they do it anyway.
Another thing that pisses me off is our school systems, I mean people getting suspended for wearing a Co-Ed Naked shirt but only getting a slip on the wrist for smoking and cutting class. Our whole school system is f*cked-up, yeah that’s right I said F*ck. F*ck, F*ck, F*ck, F*ck. I can do whatever I want and it won’t be edited or bleeped out, because someone finally decided to do something; They went independent!
I think people should stop worrying about what we say and listen to, but instead keep an eye on us to make sure we’re within the law. Censorship is unconstitutional and should be dealt with in a different manner.
To all the people mentioned in this article I would like to say “F*ck Off and Die!!!”
Garden of Grass
By: SMT1 and SDF1 (Cheech and Chung)
With the recent crackdown on grass in the high school, many students have been randomly searched. Is this a violation of our rights? No, but the question is, how are they choosing which kids to search? My theory is that there are several rats in this high school that are giving Mr. Walsh hints on who to search. How can you protect yourself from the recent crackdown? Here are a few tips:
1. Don’t bring any pot or paraphenalia to school. Papers, bowls, etc.
2. Be very careful who you talk to.
3. Don’t get into trouble, that way they have no reason to search you.
4. Try not to come in stoned to [sic] often.
Here is what some students have to say about the BMHS new crackdown [sic] on pot: “The school system is going about it totally wrong, I think instead of suspending students for smoking pot they should wait until they have proof because they are just going to go home and smoke anyway” -- “Walsh is being a cock about the whole thing, harassing kids he suspects are dealing grass and their parrents”
The past statements are opinions shared by many of our proud dealers & pot heads at BMHS.
We potheads have to deal with harassment & sh*t from parents & teachers everyday about smoking pot. They say it will impair our judgement & make us stupid. Personally, I do most things better when I’m stones, and who are they to tell us how to live our lofe [sic] ? I say, “spark that bone & pass to the right.”
PLUG IN
By: Befuddle (Chris Eastman) 1/28/94
Benjamin Johnson
Journal Entry #8219
Date: 09/21/23
Took a look around reality today. Not much to see. Alot of leaves lying around. Boring, as usual. Frankly, I don’t see the point of all the Senior Citizens staying here... Those without THE JACK. I still remember back in my late teens, being one of the first with a jack. It opened up a whole new world to me. People used to travel back then. Ah yes, I remember that inefficient, what did they call it?.... Oh yes, automobile. Heh. Sally has been plugged in constantly for the past few weeks. Sign of the times. Who wants to go back to reality, when there is so much to see in the Neural Network? There, we can fly. We can see everything from everywhere. The NetSight is 1000 times clearer than the sharpest eyes. Protien tubes link us nutritionally, while that annoying jack in the back of our heads connects us mentally.
I even went as far as eating some solid food... That was tricky. Those old cans I saved from before the “NEW AGE”, as some liked to call it, really are a change from the normal supplements... It tasted kinda soggy and imperfect... Makes me wonder how anybody could live with it. What was it called... Um “Chef Boyarday” or something like that. Oh well. Who cares.
I went to Adult World on the Net today... Caught Sally on it. Isn’t that something that a son would do? I wouldn’t have expected my only daughter to be like that... I wonder how she passed the age limit? She probably has friends in high places, not unlike most of the underaged deviants. What’s next? Hacker Conferencing? The Mafia Newsgroup?
Hm. I think I’m gunna get today’s Sleep.. An hour seems like way too long to be resting... If it wern’t for dream-control, It would be hopeless.
Benjamin Johnson
Journal Entry #8220
Date: 09/24/23
I caught Sally on Adult World again. Doesn’t that girl EVER learn? She’s persistent, just like her mother was. I miss Diane so much. Ever since the accident during her JACK installation, It’s been all I can do to keep Sally out of trouble. Maybe I’ll force her into the Psychiatric Conferencing World tomorrow with me. Get some family counseling, if you can call this a family.
Benjamin Johnson
Journal Entry #8221
Date: 09/30/23
I got EMAIL today from the Education World stating that Sally wasn’t connected today. Why wasn’t she in forced connect? I doubt that it’s a network glitch.. They havn’t found any of those since 2015. I think that the only possible solution, is that she is in tight with one of the OFFICIALS... God, I hope that she is smart about this. All I can do is pray.
Benjamin Johnson
Journal Entry #8222
Date: 10/9/23
Bad mass mail on the network today. REAL bad. Apparently a rebel group named “The Liberation” has formed and is treatening a hostile takeover of the net. That could mean trouble for everyone if it was even remotely possible. If somebody gained superuser access, They could instate a world-wide, imperialistic, and iron-fisted control over the entire populace. They could instate half-hourly pain sequences set out to every man, woman, and child plugged-in. Ouch.
For some reason Sally is in an extremely good mood. I must look into this.
Benjamin Johnson
Journal Entry #8222
Date: 10/15/23
Well.. The threats made by “The Liberation” have grown from bad to worse. It has begun to sicken me. I spend more and more time in reality. Sally thinks I’m an old Fuddle-Dudd for it. How do I expect her to understand? She doesn’t understand what it was like before the “NEW AGE”. I’m probably just as bad as the Seniors.. Couped up in Homes attended to by robots which they would never understand. So what if I like to think back to what my parents would have called “the good ‘ol days”? I spent 3 hours offline today. A new record. I thought back to a time of Television and Radio, a time of Telephones and Commercialism, a time of “Cold War” and “Nuclear Threat”.. I thought back to sports like football, and wished another man on this planet was here and cared enough to play with me. I thought back to wrestling with my younger brother at the dawn of my adolescence, and then making the varsity high school wrestling team.. I also, however, remember quitting wrestling to spend more time on the neural
network. My parents thought I was a lunatic for being so addicted... Now my daughter thinks I’m a lunatic for spending time off of the net.
My, how everything has changed.
Benjamin Johnson
Journal Entry #8223
Date: 10/19/23
A terrible discovery has been made today. I found that Sally had some tight connections with the ringleader of The Liberation, a fiend going by the handle of “SADIST”. That explains the access she has been given. What am I going to do? What CAN I do? If this organazation has the power to raise and lower one’s access, what else can they do? This is getting scary. What would her mother think of how I brought up our daughter after she was gone?
“My, what a twisted web we weave”.. Shakespear I think.
Benjamin Johnson
Journal Entry #8224
Date: 10/26/23
I tried to impose a parental overide to Sally’s access today. It was removed about 5 minutes after I imposed it. This is pointless! What is a father to do? Forced disconnection from the network has been known to cause awful withdrawrl symptoms, even to the point of death! I could just destroy her connection, but she would never forgive me if she lived! I wouldn’t take that chance, anyways.
I took the sensible approach. I tried to talk it out with her. She persisted, just like her mother would have. She says she loves him, but I think she just loves what he does for her.
Benjamin Johnson
10/30/23
Dear Journal:
I’m sorry, but I have to do this the old-fashioned way with Pen and Paper. You see, the network has been fried. The Liberation disconnected and went to the Network Mainframes, which take up a large domed portion of Nevada. They proceeded to run a few thousand Mega-Volts of power throughout all of the network connections. The little robots which manned the dome could do nothing but warn the intruders that they were trespassing, and that they would be denied network access.. Some security. Anyways, the result of this power fed through the network was the Charring of every brain connected, including Sally. I, by sheer luck, was disconnected at the time. I looked through the few remaining memory logs left on Sally’s hookup. I found that she and SADIST had broken up only a few hours prior to the mass-death. I figure, that the only survivors are myself, a few others who by chance, were disconnected at the time of powerage, and of course the senior citizens. They were right all along to avoid hooking i
nto the network. It shouldn’t matter to me now, though. I have nobody left in this living world. I can only hope that the bible, another nearly-extinct remnant of the past, was right.
While I was cutting firewood for warmth with that ancient chainsaw I saved, the saw jumped, startled me, I fell back, and dropped the saw which lopped off my left arm.
I’ve had a bad day.
Benjamin Johnson
11/4/23
Dear Journal:
I finally found the antique shotgun. Even though I have only one arm, I should have absolutely no trouble placing the end in my mouth and pulling the trigger.
Goodbye.
Submissions, Feedback
The AIP Publishing group has set up a Bulitain Board System (BBS) for use in contacting the authors and submitting material. This system can be reached at (508) 667-8274, 24 hours a day. If it is busy, keep trying. The system runs on donated equipent and supports only 2400 baud or below. Log on as “new” to establish an account if you do not already have one.
Opinions on Gun Control
By: Hades (Hades of Erebos)
“But if I can’t buy a semi-automatic weapon, and they can’t buy a semi-automatic weapon (lets just ‘assume’ they can get them just as easily as we can if not easier from ‘legal’ means...) then no semi-automatic weapon. Do we really need something to kill multiple people? Maybe we can just bash the living sh*t out of them instead?”
Ug.
Suppose that the government bans the legal sale of all guns except revolvers and one-shot rifles (this is what you seem to be asking for).
It is impossible for the government to stop the illegal sale of things. We have seen this with drugs. If the government cannot stop the illegal sale of drugs, they cannot stop the illegal sale of weapons.
So it is, in this situation, impossible to buy semi-automatic and automatic weapons (it is, by the way, illegal to own ANY automatic weapon -NOW-) legally. People who abide by the laws, therefore, will not have access to these weapons. Thieves, who by definition do not abide by the laws, will. A thief will buy a weapon which is significantly superior to the one I can buy, and then will rob my house. His gun is so much better than mine (he can shoot me multiple times, whereas I can shoot him only once with my bolt-action rifle) that it is impossible for me to defend myself because if I try to shoot this thief I will end up being killed.
I have difficulty understanding how you find a world such as this to be more desirable. I certainly wouldn’t want anything to do with it. ť
By: turtle (The Turtle)
“People are always going to be killed, guns make it too easy. Although I don’t support it, I do believe if guns were illegal, deaths due to guns would go down within 5 years.”
Yes, but you see, if the common man has no means to defend himself, the government can then impose any sort of outrageous law and virtually become a dictatorship, without the common man standing a chance of rebellion. That was why the writers of the constitution added the “right to bear arms." They put it there cause they know governments get corrupt and they know that the common man needs to have an easy way to overthrow the dictatorship. Now when the government puts a ban on arms, it looks to me like they are ourightly saying “look at us, we are going to become a dictatorship and we’re making sure you insignificant f*cks can’t do shit about it!” Just a little thing to keep in mind.
About This Issue
By: Bob (Bob Barry)
The following went into the publication of this newsletter:
Physical Resources:
· Ream of 8˝ x 11 paper
· 12 2 liter bottles of Diet Coke
· 3 Jumbo size bags Doritos® tortilla chips.
· Box of “borrowed” 3˝ in. disks.
· 4 Very good NiN albums and bootlegs.
Hardware Resources:
· Very bad 386/25 computer.
· Super cheap 286/12 computer with 2400 modem. (it was free)
· HP Laserjet™ printer
Software Resources:
· Microsoft Word 6.0
· Waffle BBS software
· THEDRAW™ ANSI editor
This whole thing cost us like $12 to put together, including the food. I’m convinced now that anyone can publish. I just wonder why the “real” school paper can’t put out anything half decent with their “real” printing press, “real” computers, and “real” staff.
Look at what we have to work with.
(You’re so ka-wee-ah!)