As it turns out, I have the weekend of September 12-14 free: I will once again be in attendance at Wildwood! But wait, there's more.

This year is the year that the JMU Dukes travel to Virginia Tech for a game against the Hokies. Mark your calendars, folks: the slaughter is set for September 6. Yeah, our band is totally going to kick their band's collective asses.

Even more exciting is that there is also no football game scheduled for the weekend of September 26-28, as I'll be travelling home with Amanda to attend the Bloomsburg Fair. w00t!

NO BAND TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ENJOY A LONG WEEKEND!!!!

Thank you, Dr. Rooney. I most definitely will.

I will continue to run this blog with my beliefs in mind and my principles in place. I cannot allow myself to be swayed or pressured by a position that I do not feel in my heart. To do so would be the ultimate cowardice.

As I have made abundantly clear in the past few days, all comments posted to this site are owned by whomever wrote them. I have no control over what people write here. With this in mind, and as a sign of respect for and show of good faith toward the band staff, I will accept and honor requests from anyone who posted a comment on the Sheep thread to delete their comment. If you posted a comment that you wish removed, please post your request as a comment attached to this article. I will not accept private emails; call it a request for public responsiblity for your words.

If you posted to the Sheep thread, this is not an encouragement or a discouragement to request that your comment be deleted. I hold true to my stance that people need to be responsible for themselves and their words, and I do not seek to sway you either way. I do ask that, if you choose to request that your post is deleted, you use the same computer to post the request as you did to post the comment. IP addresses are logged when each comment is posted, and comparing the IP address associated with the comment with the IP address associated with the deletion request is the only (admittedly imperfect) way I can be sure that it is the author that has requested a deletion.

In the future, I do not expect to afford this luxury to my readers and commenters. It's a fair amount of work for me, and it's simply not what I want this blog to be about. In the future, simply think twice before posting.

Some ignore their mistakes, or hope that they'll fix themselves. Those people bury evidence of mistakes and pray that it never happens again. I do not want to be this person.

I want to acknowledge my mistakes, and make my acknowledgement as public as possible. For this to have any weight, the original mistake must also be visible: how can I apologize if what I am apologizing for does not exist?

With this in mind, I respectfully apologize to the clarinet section in general and the section leaders who perpetrated the prank in particular. My attacks in this space were written in haste, with much passion. I also apologize to the Marching Royal Dukes as a whole, because I am told that what I wrote has been interpreted as a reflection of the group as a whole, when in fact it is not.

I cannot change what happened. Instead, I look toward the future, and hope that I might choose words with more care.

Thanks for your understanding.

In the future, I would rather not weed out posts at the requests of authors. If you posted something here that you regret having said, apologize; better yet, think twice before posting in anger (a lesson we can all learn from). What is done cannot be undone. Let it go.

Hopefully this will be the last statement made about the events of the last 48 hours. DUKES!

The "sheep issue" is at an end. I am reposting here a comment made by Ben, our section leader, to make it as clear as possible to all involved (on both sides).

Ok. This is enough. This issue needs to be over. I have talked with clarinet section leaders and this has been blown out of proportion. Their intent was a joke....we lost the intent....we overreacted to a joke with personal attacks.

I personally apologize to Iesha and any others who were attacked personally. We overreacted.

Let's move on....

I, too, would like to issue an apology. To all those that I attacked personally in my initial post, I am sorry. Additionally, I apologize for having attacked the clarinet section as a whole; the 'prank' was played by individuals, not the entire section, and had nothing to do with what instruments certain people played. Thanks for your understanding.

Here ends the 'sheep incident.' Florence will be back at the next game. Fun will be had by all. And we're a stronger band because of it (I'm so proud!).

Now onto other pressing matters.

As this silliness was winding down, I received an email:

Hello,
My name is Garth Gourley, and I find my name laced throughout the comments of your Sheep! Sheep! Sheep! section. I am writing to ask that my name be edited out of all materials on your website. What is said on the website can be considered slander, and I can and will take legal action against it should it remain posted.

Please remove the comments concerning my name, Garth Gourley, and refferences to myself (i.e. Saxophone Section Leader, G.G., Garth, etc.) from the website.

Thank you,
Garth

--
Garth Gourley
Saxophone Student
James Madison University

Here is my reply as sent to Garth.

Garth-
I cannot and will not delete any such comments, nor will I make any effort to censor what is said.

First and foremost, what is written on the website cannot, by definition, be considered slander[ http://www.shlawyers.com/Practice/Labor%20and%20employment%20law/Slander%20Libel.htm ]. To quote the immortal JJJ in Spider-Man, "Slander is spoken. Libel is written."

So let's presume you were speaking of libel, which consists of three parts [ http://www.gigalaw.com/articles/2000-all/morris-2000-01-all.html ]:

First, the writer must publish an untruth about another person in a manner that is meant to be believed by others.

By my count, there are fourteen references to your name on the site as of 1 AM. Several are referring to acual events as they occurred on Saturday afternoon. A few more are random spleen-ventings which are obviously opinion, and three actually refer to you in a positive manner. Because there are no untruths and, as posts on an essentially anonymous forum, they are unlikely to be construed as gospel truth, the first criterion for libel fails to be met.

Second, the object of the author's words must be damaged in some fashion.

I can't speak for you here, but I can't see how a few posts to my forum could possible damage you, I'll go ahead and say that this condition is also not met.

Third, to distinguish libel from slander, the publication must be in some form of permanent impression.

This is the only one that applies in this case. One out of three ain't bad, but it also ain't enough to define libel.

Now let's assume that what is posted on this forum could be, in any way, shape, or form, construed as libel. Regardless, it was established as far back as 1993, in Cubby vs. CompuServe [ http://www.eff.org/Legal/net_libel_godwin.article ] that the owners and operators of an open forum on the Internet are not responsible for the postings of their users.

I do not screen, edit, or modify posts to my website that do not directly impact its ability to operate. The comments posted by readers on my website are akin to the books of a bookstore; just as a bookseller is not liable for writings in a book that they carry, I make no effort to censor the comments of largely anonymous individuals. As the US District Court, District of Columbia ruled in Blumenthal v. Drudge, [ http://216.239.39.100/search?q=cache:ORz0DsfSVB4C:www.curie.org/downloads/nl200012.pdf+defamation+law+internet+forum+responsible&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 ]

[A] service provider [can] not be held liable ... in the absence of evidence that the service provider had some role in writing or editing the material or creating the information.

I believe strongly in the right of an individual to express himself. Deleting random posts from my personal website goes against everything I believe. In light of this, I hope you reconsider your intent to pursue legal action in this matter.

Sincerely,
AJ Schuster
http://www.maximumaardvark.com/

After returning to JMU, we hung out at the football game, performing Thunder and Blazes and March Finale for the 12th and 13th times today. Sadly, the Dukes put up a valiant effort against the Villanova Wildcats, but ultimately lost 30-26.

Following the game was Dr. Rooney's big announcement that was hinted at last week.

Over the winter break of 2003, the Marching Royal Dukes will be taking a trip to Ireland and Germany. The only two places in Europe I really want to see before I die.

I need to start saving US$2000 now. And how can I go about picking up German again?

I am so psyched.