After reading My Clay Sun's story about the hazing incident with the Fleming Island High School wrestling team, I felt strangely as if I was being hazed myself.  Instead of being a freshman grappler being held down while an upperclassman's naked posterior was presented for close-order inspection, it was more like the usual Clay County taxpayer hazing.

I'm being held down by government and expected to accept another half-assed investigation being shoved in my face.

Granted, a little horseplay in the locker room certainly isn't exactly the worst incident deserving of local government investigation.  But its conclusion just reminds me of other "investigations."

The My Clay Sun story:

"(School Superintendent David) Owens announced the planned lifting of the program suspension on Thursday, after a school district investigation concluded.

"Four team members who were initially named as participants in the hazing were given 10-day suspensions; three members who came forward later in the investigation will be suspended for at least three days, Owens said. The length of their punishment has not been determined because he did not yet know the extent their involvement, he said."

What bothers me is that last sentence.  If Owens hasn't acquired enough information to know whether three wrestlers are suspended for three days or longer, then how the heck can the School Board have concluded its investigation?

That's the kind of investigation we're used to, I guess.  Look at just enough to say the situation's been investigated, then just move on with the status quo.

Michael S. Mann