A 9-year-old boy in Kermit, Texas, was suspended from school after he told a classmate he could make him disappear with a ring from Mount Doom, a fictional location in J.R.R. Tolkein's The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings series.

Jason Steward, a fourth-grader, told The New York Daily News his son Aiden had recently watched the film, "The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies" and that it inspired his imagination.

"I assure you my son lacks the magical powers necessary to threaten his friend's existence," Stewart wrote, "If he did, I'm sure he'd bring him right back."

School officials at Kermit Elementary School took swift action and reportedly suspended the boy for making a terroristic threat.

The boy reportedly faced disciplinary actions in the past. The school would not comment on the allegations.

I've seen this article a few times over the last few days, and each time I see it, I struggle to figure out how using the Ring of Power(TM) to make someone invisible can be seen as a threat. Unless the administration is interpreting "disappear" as a euphemism.

Because it makes them a target for Sauron? Why is this so hard to understand?

Yay Texas.

My favorite article about the idiocy: http://www.avclub.com/article/fourth-gr ... dar-214678

Pretty sure one particular example of total idiocy is not related to it being in Texas. We see school ridiculousness pretty much everywhere.

Yay Texas.

My favorite article about the idiocy: http://www.avclub.com/article/fourth-gr ... dar-214678

You're completely right. I missed where Kermit Elementary School'sl rules bar Ainur-crafted tools of power and control from the premises. My mistake.

So, by your sarcasm you must be assuming then that they did not have any policy reason at all to suspend the child? That this is blatant abuse rather than simply idiotic application of an existing policy? If so, do you have any evidence for this?

So, by your sarcasm you must be assuming then that they did not have any policy reason at all to suspend the child? That this is blatant abuse rather than simply idiotic application of an existing policy? If so, do you have any evidence for this?

I am not quite sure how "idiotic application of existing policy" differs from "blatant abuse" when the action banned by the policy is something which can't even be attempted in the first place. It should be obvious that it is not a terroristic threat to threaten to do something which is..., well, completely impossible- and if the argument is made that the other student is too young to understand that and therefore was in fear anyhow, then obviously the other child is too young to understand the concept of a "terroristic threat" and why not to make them.

Normally, we should not assume malice when incompetence will suffice, but at a certain point the incompetence is so outlandish that it essentially becomes malice when committed by a person of normal intelligence - and I am fairly certain that these school administrators are fully functional by any accepted measure.