Cows can blog, but those students better not write for the school paper

I could not make this up, even if I tried. The Blog Herald points to an MSNBC report about the Maryland Lottery's "Bovines Unite" campaign that uses a fictional cow with her own blog. I know it is all about marketing and making business, but you do have to wonder how low can they go? Amusing, if nothing else.

Also, through Jeff Jarvis's Buzz Machine, a report that a school in Georgia shut down a high school's newspaper because the content of it put the school in a less than favorable light. While the principal claims he did due to issues of quality, he also states, "I did have some issues with the paper. . . ." While I understand that a school newspaper is controlled by a school, I don't think this sends the right message about training and educating students to exercise their First Amendment rights and learn to be better citizens. However, the students went on to create their own blog, which includes links to the newspaper they published. If nothing else, readers can read it all and decide for themselves. And maybe in the process, they are also learning about the power of the internet and how to use other resources to express their views.