Seen on the street in Kyiv.

Words of Advice:

"If Something Seems To Be Too Good To Be True, It's Best To Shoot It, Just In Case." -- Fiona Glenanne

“The Mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” -- The TOFF *

"Foreign Relations Boil Down to Two Things: Talking With People or Killing Them." -- Unknown

“Speed is a poor substitute for accuracy.” -- Real, no-shit, fortune from a fortune cookie

"If you believe that you are talking to G-d, you can justify anything.” — my Dad

"Colt .45s; putting bad guys in the ground since 1873." -- Unknown

"Stay Strapped or Get Clapped." -- probably not Mr. Rogers

"The Dildo of Karma rarely comes lubed." -- Unknown

"Eck!" -- George the Cat

* "TOFF" = Treasonous Orange Fat Fuck, A/K/A Dolt-45,
A/K/A Commandante (or Cadet) Bone Spurs,
A/K/A El Caudillo de Mar-a-Lago, A/K/A the Asset., A/K/A P01135809

Monday, October 19, 2009

Zero Tolerance, Zero Discretion, Zero Brains; Part Duh

An Eagle Scout was suspended for 20 days for having a 2" pocketknife locked in his car:
Matthew Whalen, a senior at Lansingburgh Senior High School, says he follows the Boy Scout motto and is always prepared, stocking his car with a sleeping bag, water, a ready-to-eat meal — and the knife, which was given to him by his grandfather, a police chief in a nearby town.

But Lansingburgh High has a zero-tolerance policy, and when school officials discovered that Whalen kept his knife locked in his car, he says, they suspended him for five days — and then tacked on an additional 15 after a hearing.
I do not understand why we don't just program a bunch of old Commodore 64s and set them up in the school administrative offices to make these decisions. You could even do it with a series of flow-charts and save over a hundred grand per school by shit-canning the principals.

Zero tolerance policies exist only to protect lazy-ass bureaucrats (like school administrators), who are afraid of having to make a decision and then defend it. Any third-grader can tell the difference between a gang-banger carrying a switchblade into class and a scout ho has a knife in his car as part of an emergency kit and that 3rd grader would be able to coherently explain the difference.

But school administrators are not smarter than third graders. I'm by no means confident that the average principal could outwit a bag of hammers.

(H/T)

4 comments:

BadTux said...

I'm by no means confident that the average principal could outwit a bag of hammers.

I'm betting on the hammers, myself.

-- Badtux the Seen-too-many-principals Penguin

Cujo359 said...

Home schooling becomes a more attractive option all the time.

Zdogk9 said...

Zero tolerance
" responsibility
" thought

Oscar said...

I live in the area, and I've and have been screamin' at the local on air talent and the newspaper, that zero tolerance is the new term for zero judgment. Ranks up there with mandatory criminal sentences.