I wonder how the school security guards found the girl's eyebrow trimmer? Do all the children have to empty their purses and pockets when they come into school?

I'm trying to picture the chain of events in my mind. How many layers of non-thinking bureaucracy were required to decide the girl should be expelled?

By the way, do they only use nubby-nose scissors in the home economics class? How about the wood shop? Those nails can be pretty nasty, you know. And they should get rid of band class, too, before somebody gets hurt in a trombone fight. This is for the safety or our children, you know.

And just because I'm still seething. Lemme tell you about my daughter's high school. She is supposed to be graduating tonight at 7:00 p.m. However, yesterday, the administration asked the kids to vote what they wanted to do if it rains tonight. Apparently, the kids voted to put the graduation off until Saturday at 10:00 a.m. So the school sends out an automated message to all parents telling them of the decision. I have about ten relatives coming into town for this graduation tonight. We have all planned to trail each other tomorrow for my nephew's graduation three hours away. Obviously, if the time of my daughter's graduation changes, all the plans are completely fucked.

Here's the great part. So, I call the school and talk to the principal. My only question was: YOU DIDN'T PLAN FOR INCLEMENT WEATHER? Of which he answers: WE LET THE KIDS VOTE. So I say: THAT'S THE MOST UNPROFESSION COP-OUT I HAVE EVER HEARD. So, he says: THAT'S YOUR OPINION. And I say, YEAH, MY OPINION AND ANYONE ELSE'S WHO HAS SUCCESSFULLY PLANNED AN EVENT WITH AN OUNCE OF INTELLIGENCE.

As soon as I hang up, I email the superintendent and CC all the board members, plus the principal I had just spoken to. That was yesterday around 10:00 a.m. No one has responded to my emails or returned my calls.

fucking idiots.

Idiotic. Can we sue for paper cuts now?

Nurse anesthesiologists make major bank. Good for her on an intelligent career plan! She's obviously smarter than anyone working in her school district.

I remember reading the county school board's "rules and guidelines" once while waiting to talk to a teacher during a beginning of the year orientation night. Started reading the part on weapons. Leaving aside the question of guns on campus (or knives, etc... having grown up in areas where rifle racks were common), the standard was based on "can cause bodily harm..." etc.


I asked the teacher why they had such a ridiculous and vague standard, because I could easily hospitalize, even kill a grown adult with any of dozens of items near at hand in the classroom. Rulers, pens, pencils, scissors, chairs, nevermind gym equipment like baseball bats.


I also walked into city hall once on a consulting visit. They made me take my pocket knife (standard victorinox "swiss army") but allowed my folio of nice, long, flathead and phillips screwdrivers.


*shakes head*


Security theater... made to make people FEEL like they're safe....

Can we ban Stupid? Stupid is very dangerous and is the leading cause of accidents in the home.

Stupid is also widely available over the counter without a prescription.

Ban Stupid now!
For the children!

zero brains policy? Check.
militant imposition of same? Check.

I second ORD's wondering how security even knew (or was able) to search her purse.

It's debatable whether this is really dangerous. I guess she could break it apart and take the razor blade out and fashion some sort of shiv from it. But if she needs to do that, this school has way more problems than kids hiding over-hyped beauty implements in their purses.

I'll admit we never though of box cutters as dangerous until 9/11 (in high school, we used to make fun of a friend mine who called the box cutter from his grocery store job a "knife").

But this is hardly the same thing.

I once saw a zombie movie in which a character removed the blade arm from a paper cutter in order to use it as a weapon. But I've never seen one in which a character killed a zombie with a tweezee.

I second ORD's wondering how security even knew (or was able) to search her purse.

I'm sure that they searched her purse upon entering the school. Many schools have been known to do this. When I was in school (close to 20 years ago) they brought in the drug dogs on a regular basis. Locally (Houston) they are bringing in dogs that not only search for drugs but also firearms (smell the gun powder) and that includes sniffing down student vehicles. All of the redneck kids always get a hit because they go hunting on the weekends. If the dog hits, then they do a full search of your vehicle, locker, purse, everything.

The other possibility is that she was grooming in the bathroom and a teacher caught her.

[sarcasm]This annoying side issue draws attention away from the real threat to our children: paper clips. Of children injured at school, most possessed paper clips.

How many children must be maimed or even die before the schools act?[/sarcasm]

But I've never seen one in which a character killed a zombie with a tweezee. (Conan)

Heh. There's a fortune in screenplay royalties in that. Got Final Draft?

(teeth grinding...)

We used to regularly bring X-Acto knives to school after 4th grade for our crafts and model making. It was a status thing who had the best kits. During pinewood derby days we had full sized knives to carve the wood blocks with. The only weapon ever used against me was a pecil that the girl next to me stabbed me with in 1st grade.

You're turning me into a curmudegeon Amy!

Well, I have the TOPPER story for you all.

Every spring, my area at Savannah River Site puts on a Spring Fling, which is sort of a low-rent circus midway with games and cheap food; the idea is to get you to attend and view the many competitors vying for your attention in the area of Safety and its promotion.

Now, just to be sure I'm understood: we have the industrial safety records locked up. We routinely go for millions of man-hours without a lost-time injury. Construction (Bechtel) just went for 20+ million a few months ago, despite several major projects running at the same time and the average age of the workforce being in the high 40s.

Anyway. One of the exhibits was set up so that you were to be shown a sort of flashcard with a quote on it about safety, and you were to shoot a NERF arrow at the four-foot-high image of the supervisor who said it. You had four choices as to target, and there was a cutout where the supervisor's mouth would be in the color print.

The safety rep for the area forbade the use of the NERF gun "because it shoots projectiles".

(We are set up for this next to a radioactive waste tank farm, each group of tanks surrounded by a field of 2-to-4-pound granite stones, set there to control erosion. What next? Outlaw rocks?)

The next step in the absurdity came when the individual who brought the NERF gun on-site was escorted off it by armed guards.

So that's where the moniker comes from!