HEADLINES IN MASSACHUSETTS ARE PUNCHLINES IN AMERICA

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/18/AR2006101800450.html

Teacher: "Mrs. Smith, Johnny was very bad today, and I have recommended that he be suspended."

Mrs. Smith: "What did he do? Pray before his spelling test? Mention 'one nation under God' when he said the Pledge of Allegiance? Make fun of Heather for having two mommies?"

Teacher: "Worse. He was playing tag at recess."

I have three words in response to this story: What the fuck?!?

Tag is being banned because someone might get hurt when they are being chased? Some child might feel bad when he is "it"? Because tag is exclusionary?

Well, I have news for you, sunshine. You just might get hurt in this great big world in which we live. And if you think that you aren't going to be chased every single day of your life, you are, my friend, sadly mistaken.

We are all "it" at some point in our lives, and society, in the main, is exclusionary.

Get over it. In fact, tag should probably be a requirement in school. It teaches valuable life skills, like the need to be physically fit, to be clever, to be smart, and to be competitive. More to the point, these idiots in Attleboro should take a look at history.

Wellington was said to have remarked that "...the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton and Harrow." If these clowns were around in Wellington's day, we would all be speaking German now. [Ed. Note: Please don't tell me that Napolean was French and that we'd be speaking French now. No, Napolean was from Corsica, and was born one year after its transfer from Genoa to France. Oh, and my point was this: The French would have won at Waterloo, perhaps, but would have eventually surrendered to the Germans in 1914 because there would have been no British Empire to oppose the Huns' onslaught.]

Hell, the next thing you'll tell me is that they want to ban touch football. Wait, they did.

This is the thing: we complain, on one hand about kids being fat and sedentary, then discourage the very activities that would make them svelte and athletic.

Someone needs to sue the Attleboro School Department. Some lawyer will take the case. Maybe the guy who represented the fellow with the bad hairpiece. Or, maybe if there were a rape and an allegation of racial bias, Deval Patrick might just get involved on behalf of the kids.

In fact, where is the phone. I want to know what Healy and Patrick have to say about this nonsense.