That's so freakin retar---oh, wait, can't say that, anymore. Sorry.

__________________
Walgreens has basic financial calculators for sale for $1.79. Send one to your Congressional representative for Xmas, this year!

Thats one of the things I really like about you. You pull a good laugh out of me quite a bit. I would rep you if I could.

__________________
May your paradise always be green, you liberties always be full, and may the ignorance of you enemies not drive you to be pro-nuke.

"We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself
into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and
trying to lift himself up by the handle."-Winston Churchill

Now, now, there's no need to go around insulting the mentally retarded by equating them with these school officials.

__________________
A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

idiotic

__________________

I agree - it's metal and it's sharp - too very good reasons to keep it for a 10 yr old. I am so glad I work at charter schools and district schools, because we don't have this crap. I would have had him put it on my desk - then checked with the parent to see if it was okay with them when he took it home.

I've had kids take home all sorts of strange parts of things - they just like to find ways to use them.

__________________
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.
Ernest Benn

It is a simplistic, one-size-fits-all approach to anything that might (theoretically) be usable as a weapon; and, as such, it makes just about as much sense as it would to arrest a major-league baseball player for the possession of a baseball bat--which, after all, could easily be used as a rather effective weapon.

The same "zero-tolerance" policies equate the possession of Tylenol or Pamprin with the possession of cocaine or heroin. It shouldn't require a great deal of nuance to be able to see the difference.

Zero-tolerance policies are not typically about a get-tough attitude toward weapons or drugs, as they are advertised. Instead, they are the product of those who are either too intellectually lazy to make the necessary distinctions, or (more frequently, I think), are afraid of their being accused of inconsistencies in the application of their policies--inconsistencies based upon race, ethnicity, class, or some other standard--so a consistent absurdity is their way of protecting themselves.

Exactly, Jojo.

When my younger daughter was in eighth grade, I was summoned to the school. She and a friend where in the stairwell, and from the second floor landing each kid spit one time to the bottom floor to see who made the loudest splat. Yes, I'm a bad mother apparently since I hadn't informed my child that every communicable disease known to mankind could spread through the school if she dared to spit inside. Her punishment was a mandatory three-day suspension. Like she cared? My idea for punishing her was to have her mop the entire stairwell, a consequence related to the behavior, since I did want her to know that she had to follow the school rules, but I didn't want her to miss school. The school wouldn't budge, no matter what I came up with, so I left angry at the principal not at my daughter. Then the school failed to round up her school work as promised so I could keep her busy at home. She had a great three days off. What a joke.

Obviously the stupidity of it all is still with me. Thanks for reading. ;)

Cindy

__________________
What do I think of Western civilization? I think it would be a very good idea. --Gandhi