Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!

Maine State Education Commissioner Duke Albanese has sent a letter to schools across the state advising educators to be sensitive to all children during these troubled times, to provide balanced information about how the nation is responding to Iraq, and to acknowledge the special needs of Maine's Army children.

Why is this news?

Well, as reported in a story from the same source that I can't find a link to, it turns out that some "educators" in the Pine Tree State have taken it upon themselves to tell children of people serving in the military that their mother or father is a bad person for taking part in the confrontation with Iraq.

The very notion repels me. I don't think I could ever generate enough animosity toward someone to say something that hurtful to child of another person. I mean, we're talking about kids under 10 years old, here.

Yet according to officers with the National Guard’s Family Assistance Program who’ve been traveling throughout the state this week, such comments come from teachers, principals, and guidance counselors. One Major Andrew Gibson is quoted as saying:

"Some kids have even reported that... ah... teachers have said things to them, specifically, about the ah unethical nature of their parent going off to fight."

As I sit here and imagine some scrofulous amphibian from the shallow end of the gene pool taking human form and saying something like that to my kid or grandchild, I can feel my blood pressure building. I also cannot help but wonder: What did these revolting specimens of humanity have in mind in saying something like that to a kid? What point were they trying to make?

I mean, this is like something out of a best-forgotten yesteryear, when children were stigmatized for being born out of wedlock, or for being the offspring of alcolohics, or of a mixed marriage, or merely the issue of persons "from the other side of the tracks."

Basically, I think it boils down to this: being nasty, mean-hearted, and cruel toward the helpless for the sake of the vicarious pleasure of having told someone off.

This transcends the relatively innocuous contempt in which soldiers have been held in many places and times, and which prompted Kiplling to write:

Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;

In Kipling's poem, the butt of society's disdain is at least an adult. Here, we're talking about kids who are being victimized by people that have been entrusted to act in loco parentis.

I think it's unconscionable, and whoever does such things - especially considering the trust that has been placed in them - is beneath contempt.

Cheers...

Paying the piper, and paying...

Coming up on some hard deadlines, I finally got the lead out and addressed a number of nagging issues. The two most prominent were:

(a) Renewing my ATA membership. Without thinking, I typed in "www.ata.org" and ended up staring at the home screen of the American Tinnitus Association! I eventually remembered the proper URL (it's "atanet" instead of "ata") and renewed my membership, so I'm good for another year.

(b) Renewing my Florida professional engineering license. This time, however, I decided to save $50 and renew as an "inactive" engineer, since I don't actually do engineering, nor do I anticipate needing an active license in the near future. (I mean, it's only good in Florida.) Should I decide to activate my ticket, I'll also have to do 8 hours of "continuing education," a new requirement that has about doubled my volume of dead-tree junk mail, with the excess coming from outfits that promote fast and easy ways to rack up the CE hours.

* * *It snowed during the night, so upon awakening, there was about 6 inches on the ground. The snow is heavy with moisture, but it's sticking. It did not snow during the morning, to any appreciable extent, and although I've seen a flurry or two during the afternoon, a look at the front stoop shows the total accumulation since noon has been a fraction of an inch.

I am afraid that I may have ruined the transmission on the Nissan. I can't accelerate worth a flip on a level, dry road, and driving uphill on any kind of snow is painfully slow, with a tendency for the back of the truck to fishtail. Either my truck is exceedingly light (and with 210 pounds of sand in the payload bay, I find that hard to believe), or the tires don't grip at all (also hard to believe, considering the tread on them), or the connection between the engine and the transmission is nearly shot.

Another opportunity to pay the piper, I guess...

Cheers...