our latest snag

I heard the key to a quality journal is to use good stock photography lacking much creativity

It's no secret that the Panic of 1896 has really taken a toll on tax revenues.  While robber barons created a Wall Street oligopoly leading to our economic collapse, somehow it is public education that faces the huge pay cuts.  Where were the increases during the economic growth? Non-existent.  Yet, we are supposed to sit on our hands while education money is stripped away.

Off my soapbox.  I didn't mean to get political on my small band of readers.  I opened a letter today with an explanation that, while I will have pencils and paper next year, we will not have anything to put them in. It doesn't matter that my students are low-income and cannot afford their own pencil box.

My wife was outraged.  "What are they going to do, put the pencils in a pocket?  That will puncture a scrotum."

"Please dear, these are Victorian times.  We don't talk about such parts."

"This isn't England.  This is America and I can say scrotum whenever I choose," she explains.

"I guarantee that parents will not let their children take pencils home.  Lead will break.  Pencils will snap.  Paper will be crinkled.  Then there is the issue of potential stabbing.  This may very well ruin the entire initiative."

"Can they just put the pencil in a different kind of box?" she asks.

"The district won't allow it.  The only accepted protocol is a pencil box."

"Why's that?"

"They say that it has to do with weight distribution.  It's science, pure science, as infallible as phrenology and using leeches."

photo credit