Have At You! Gesundheit!

Patrick Agin's photograph that reflects his extracurricular activities will be published in his high school yearbook after all. It only took a lawsuit to get the Rhode Island education commissioner himself to intervene. So Agin will get to pose in full chain mail while carrying a sword.

Portsmouth High School authorities can regulate editorial content in the yearbook, but they acted unreasonably by rejecting Patrick Agin's photo, hearing officer Paul Pontarelli wrote in a ruling approved by Education Commissioner Peter McWalters.

Agin, a 17-year-old fan of the Middle Ages, wore chain mail and slung a prop sword over his shoulder for his senior portrait at Portsmouth High School. School officials said the picture violated a zero-tolerance policy on weapons and rejected the picture for the yearbook.

What was missing from the original reporting on this controversy was this little tidbit: the school offered to let Agin publish the picture if he did so in a paid advertisement.

In the ruling, state education officials wrote that school officials offered to publish Agin's photo if it was part of a paid yearbook advertisement.

"Tolerance for weapons can be purchased," Pontarelli wrote. "This is illogical."

Illogical to the point of bringing the competence of the high school's administration into question. This is an extreme case of PC gone completely mad.