This is a picture of a rock formation I called "The Scream" from my vacation this summer. I have now subtitled it, "Oh No! Another Unfunded Mandate! AAAAIIIIEEEE!!!"
Well, a lot people seem to have their thongs in a twist over Constitution Day. Vanderbilt University apparently assigned the question of whether it was constitutional to force universities to observe Constitution Day (Read about it
here and
here). Hee Hee! Amusing.
I say, have some irreverent fun with it, since the begininng of the year giddiness has now given way to the occasional pangs of the ol' familiar weltschmerz. Just start off your presentation next year with this:
"Once upon a time, children, there was a man who liked to keep a copy of the Constitution in his shirt pocket, near his heart... right under his white sheet when he was going out to nightride with the Klan, possibly so he could explain to his victims how the Constitution didn't apply to THEM. This man later became a senator, repented his youthful racist ways, but he still likes to force people to do things, like most senators do. So he decided that American schoolchildren were woefully ignorant about the Constitution-- of course that might just be because, due to No Child Left Behind, which this man also sponsored, we spend all our time and money emphasizing writing and mathematics, which are tested, while classes that build citizenship become the red-headed step-children of the school day, because they aren't tested. This senator decided to make the lazy good-for-nothings in America's public schools teach the Constitution on one day each year, since obviously if students don't know something, it's because teachers haven't taught it. And thus was born Constitution Day."
Have fun now.
Labels: law, unfunded mandates
