Kids are stupid.  I was a stupid kid, my friends were pretty stupid, and we all did pretty retarded things when we were young.  But that’s what kids do.  It’s not like kids don’t have any common sense (well, most do), it’s just that they have the innate ability to completely ignore it.

So when kids do stupidly retarded things, the best adults can do is shake our heads, remind the kids to try using that little thing known as common sense, and move on.

Or not.

That kid up in the picture is Dustin Reader, an eighth-grader at Garfield Middle School, and if you haven’t figured out by now, a big fan of the 6-2 Bengals.  Why?  I really have no idea, but hey, at least he’s not a Raiders fan.

And you probably noticed that Dustin is sporting a rather unusual haircut–and by unusual, I mean he had his barber shave stripes and a large capital ‘B’ into his melon.

Ugly…yes.

Stupid…of course.

A big deal…not really.

Try telling that to Dustin’s school officials.  Dustin received an in-school suspension for violating the school’s code of conduct.  The code prohibits “unnaturally colored hair, extreme/distracting makeup, haircuts and hairstyles.”

Of course Dustin’s parents are upset about this, pointing out that the kid has had other stuff shaved into his head without getting into trouble for it, most notably a spiral, a rose, and the word “Lost.”  I have no idea what those three things have in common, but having a rose shaved into the side of your head isn’t the best way to go about scoring chicks.  Just saying kiddo.

Once again though, this all boils down to a freedom of speech issue.  And I’m on the kids side on this one.  Looking at the picture, it’s not distracting at all.  Stupid…yes.  But not distracting.  It’s not like he had a cuss word shaved in to the side of his head–or a giant dong.  It was a few stripes and the letter ‘B’ for his beloved Bengals.

Hey, the kid’s got a lot of team pride.  Little common sense, but a ton of team pride.

And I can dig that. [Dayton Daily News via Sports By Brooks]