Sometimes they really are out to get you--and your kids

If anyone thinks I'm unreasonably paranoid about the attack on public education, check out this site, on which appears the (public) middle school my son will attend next year, by the way:

http://everyschool.com/

This one's good too: Scriptures in Schools

Don't wait around for divine intervention!

How many grilled cheese sandwiches have you examined, hoping for Christ's divine image to appear? Who has that much time or cheese? Now you can create your own Jesus food images with the Jesus Pan!

Pole This

I wanted to shriek, "I've got your pole right HERE!" except...I don't. Have one. Damn penis envy strikes again!

Yes, I got the yearly "See You at the Pole" email at my school this morning.

You know what my problem really is? It's the aggressive nature of the enterprise. The stated purpose of the pole meeting activity, essentially, is to protest church/state separation. It is also, as a colleague pointed out this morning, exclusionary and ripe for abuse, as one's absence from the event could be noted and used against you. I in no way believe that someone at my institution would do that, but the potential is there, and I hate everything about the entire business anyway. Gah.

Besides, don't they know they're participating in a pagan ritual by hopping around a pole? Don't they realize the phallocentric eroticism they're perpetuating?

Like you need another Britney post...

Go here to read the Entertainment Weekly review of Britney's VMA "performance."

You can watch the video there as well, if you're brave enough.

Here's my issue: Do I feel sorry for her? Because I kind of do, but then I think, but she's totally rich and fucking it all up and, like, at what point does that become her fault? I watched the video and holy shit what a total phone-in. I mean, she wasn't even trying to look interested, and her hair looked like hammered poo and she was even missing a FINGERNAIL for chrissake and she could barely walk in the stupid boots she was wearing. Who the hell let her go out there like that, seriously? I just want to know. Oh--and then she left the scene of the crime later in a mini-dress and flashed her freakishly stripped bare cootch for the photographers AGAIN some MORE and I just can't even...how sorry for her am I required to feel at this point?

I'm asking seriously.

By the by, if you're wondering where the hell I've been, I started a new job professing the English at a wonderful 4-year liberal arts university, and I love it like I love that the new season of Judge Judy started today, but I'm wicked busy and just haven't had time to do much else.