1. They are the most popular. That pretty much says it all right there.
2. They are named “Microsoft.” How much more of an unimaginative, watered-down, committee-speak name could you give company? None.

(CNN) — There was no profanity, no hate. Just the words, “I love my friends Abby and Faith. Lex was here 2/1/10 ” scrawled on the classroom desk with a green marker.

Alexa Gonzalez, an outgoing 12-year-old who likes to dance and draw, expected a lecture or maybe detention for her doodles earlier this month. Instead, the principal of the Junior High School in Forest Hills, New York, called police, and the seventh-grader was taken across the street to the police precinct. Read the entire story here.

So what is this? It is a classic example of why zero tolerance is idiotic, and dangerous. I’ve known this for years, but zero tolerance policies continue to be in place around the country, for one reason: administrators, teachers, coaches, and the courts are all relieved of the duty of actually making decisions. Instead of considering appropriate measures and acting on them, they call, literally or figuratively, 911, and instantly it becomes someone else’s problem. It is not the way a healthy, mature society functions, but the structure of a culture that values obedience above all else.

Ironically, when I read about jackasses like the administrators who took these actions, I fantasize about ultra-draconian retaliation. Viscerally, I want to have everyone fired, and I want them to know I think they are a bunch of f*cking assholes, which they probably are. Deep inside, I hope this girl’s parents sue that school system into the stone age. However, I know in my intellect that such drama wouldn’t help anyone, least of all the children who live under this peculiar form of tyranny.

Use the archive drag-down to directly access the Poem Every Day project

In 2005, David Martin decided to write a poem every day for 100 days. I told him that I would put an image with his poem each day, whether it was one I shot, or simply one on which I was working. 100 days later, we were done, and I originally posted it to web pages. Recently I wanted to revive this project, so I moved it to this blog. The dates of each post correctly correspond to the dates on which the poems were written. The image attached to each of David’s poems is a chronological coincidence.

To view this project, go to the archive drag-down menu and select February 2005. These entries start with February 7, 2005.

The only diets that work are the ones you can stay on for the rest of your life.

Masonic boom.

“How do you feel on an emotional level?” -TV show

Plathismograph = scrotum of evil. (“Scrotum weevil?” -T)

Real sign at restaurant, Amarillo, Texas: “We Eat the Dead.”

“Buttholes just open sometimes.” -T

“I don’t fear the reaper, I fear the smell of the reaper.” -W

“If you don’t poke it, it won’t break – it’ll just get soft and go down. I need to use a different tool for each one.” -M

Pavda in Spring
by Sluicegate

It’s a dish best served cold.
So don’t put it on the stove.
Bury it outside in the snow
Guisseppe wore his green
velvet cape gracefully
It hid his stiletto
of flesh
so that the sisters
wouldn’t get frightened.

A 30-mile radius around Dalhart, Texas smells like cow poop.

“Ah, Texas feedlot, who can frame your fearful symmetry?” -D

“My greatest fear when hiking is falling and biting my tongue off.” -D

Ski trip: the first sight of snow was 23 miles southeast of Dalhart.
“Is that snow?” -T
“No, that’s cocaine. These are cocaine fields.” -R

Peanut butter on cracker
Automatic fudge packer

The Ignorant Must Be Broasted
by Rectal Infectant

There is a competition
of values afoot.
This is a competition which
we must win
at all costs
The fate of the world is at stake.

I throw the first grenade
into the battered bed of
the pickup of the first hick who is
simultaneously smoking, drinking
beer from a can, backhanding his wife
and changing lanes without signaling.
He hears a metallic clatter
but, really, it’s too late.
I also need an RPG.

me just kidding, joe
me ruv hick

Rectal Infectant’s blues.
I tire of this formula.
I am a stupid f*cking
replicant and every real
person should hate me.
I am an engineer of my
own doom.
As I descend into the bowels
of the factory I have to
extend my eye stalks farther
and farther ahead of me.

Eventually
I am moving by feel

I glide down the slime slickened
stairway until I finally reach
the lowest level

I probe the floor with my
tentacles until I locate the lever.
With great effort, I pull it
back.
Gentle at first is the deep
bowel-earth sound of a final
winding down.
Somewhere in this factory
the revolution stops.
-end-

“One massive,  unsymbolic Universe, moving toward nothing. Strangely, such a concept makes me happy.” -D

“It’s nothing I haven’t seen in your mouth before.” -M

Swollen, bitter walnut grandpa farting vs grandma’s nightgown fart.

“GLIM – the perfect combination between GLIB and GRIM – which sums me up perfectly.

–> although, I guess GRIB would be okay too.” -D

“So, I’ll alternately be GLIM and GRIB.” -D

“Are we not all assmasters?”-D

“Ancient, dripping, smelly meat
hanging on a calcified structure,
a living structure, a substructure
which only serves to undermine the
eventual and ultimate flexibility which
every entity loves and deserves?” -D

“86 year old grandpa retires for the
evening. He lays his hairless head down
next to his dead wife’s pillow. He
prays joylessly, aloud, that the LORD
take him if it is HIS WILL. Nine hours
later, he is awake, smearing the most generic
grape jelly that money can buy on the
store brand white bread his
daughter-in-law got at the grocery store.
He chews mechanically and waits
to join his wife.” -D

The movie Starship Troopers is a fun, exciting albeit excessively violent flick. The special effects are satisfying, and the plot, while predictable, mostly makes sense.

The movie stumbles awkwardly and incompletely into a concept that I found particularly compelling, one of meritocracy. The people of this future world must earn their place in society, determining whether they will remain mere “civilians” or become “citizens.” I have a deep admiration and respect for meritocracy, and if I were planning a future for the United States or the world, I would definitely set one in motion.

The trouble often surfaces when such a system is corrupted by blind indoctrination, by those who would manipulate any situation for their personal gain. Much of the time, an unhappy population is the easiest to manipulate, and bringing a major change in social structure is usually only possible through revolution, which is usually made possible by an unhappy population. (The rise of nazism and fascism, or the indoctrination of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge leap to mind as examples.)

So the notion of  “civilian vs citizen” may be an idealistic concept, but I still believe it has some validity.