Nice post oneellama! I mentioned it on a thread awhile ago. There is a lot of useless banter on this board which has grown over time making it difficult to discuss recent posts or quotes or issues that have stemmed from the original September tapes. I've never publicly posted my view on the situation, but have tried to ask for clarification and guidance from both sides of this issue to understand the processes and thinking used by the respective parties.
From my observations each party involved could, should, may have done things differently as everything unfolded. For example: Perhaps Mr. Somma would have insisted to have the parents involved in the first meeting, perhaps there could have been handshaking and apologies at that meeting, perhaps the BOE could have reacted quicker, perhaps the tapes could have had the students name stripped out, perhaps the teacher could have "buried the hatchet" and asked that the student body stop any retaliation efforts, perhaps the mayor could have not only dictated how the BOE should act, but also mention the actions the BOE took to address the issues with the teacher, perhaps the family could have been less verbal about each of the points and continually posting dialogue from publicly available tapes, perhaps the KOTW admin could force only registered users to post....the list can go on and on depending on your stance on this issue, but it is easy to play this game almost 6 months after its started.
My hope is that this whole situation will be resolved in the near future. I am sure that many of the folks involved would like to have a resolution and begin to focus on how their lives were "pre-September" taking the lessons learned and applying them to their "post" life. I am sure Paul would rather be doing things other than responding to "guest" posts, I'm sure the student would rather be doing homework, reading a book and hanging out (or whatever kids do these days) instead of being alienated or threatened, I am sure that the teacher would like to focus on his family and the current crew season instead of dealing with the constant media pressure and public scrutiny.
I do enjoy reading the debating, but its getting harder and harder to find that on KOTW at the moment with all of the guests chiming in. As I mentioned above, I hope all parties involved can reach a resolution in the future and begin to move forward.