The story in today's NY Times about how Secretary Paulsen has finally noticed that it might be a good idea to keep an eye on the three card monty dealers who are running America's investment houses puts me in the mind of one of my favorite guilty pleasures--Action Movies--and when I think action movies I think Die Hard!
In the event that the reader has not yet enjoyed the experience of a Die Hard movie, let me fill you in on the basic plot. There are bad guys intent on at least taking and at most destroying something or everything important to huge numbers of Americans. Somewhere down in the midst of the endangered hoi polloi is an individual--a spouse, a child, a best friend--who stands to suffer the same fate as the unwashed masses unless our plucky hero saves the day. In the first movie, it was our plucky hero's wife. In the second, our PH's wife and the statistical nonentities lucky enough to be flying on the same plane as the woebegotten Mrs. PH. I don't remember much about Die Hard 3 except that Samuel L. Jackson was in it--which doesn't narrow it down. In Die Hard 4 it was the Dell Dude; the audience didn't get to vote.
The point is that a key element of the Die Hard franchise is the extremely high body count among collateral innocent victims. A lot of people die so that the Dell dude might live.
To whit, the mortgage crisis.
In Die Hard 5: Live Hard, Send Your Money to Anguilla, a ring of unscrupulous corporate bigwigs generate a Ponzi scheme to trick people into staggering debt, then scatter that debt all over the landscape so that when the chickens come home to roost the Colonel and his group will be chick shit free. Cut to the blood crazed zombie chickens. All of a sudden there is carnage ! On Main street! On Wall Street! On Sesame Street, Oscar is served notice that there is a $3,ooo balloon payment due on his garbage can.
Meanwhile, our hero John McClane--that's MCLANE, not the other one--is resting comfortably in his easy chair watching ultimate boxing deep in the loving arms of a 5% thirty year fixed rate. He gets a call from his old war buddy Hank Paulsen.
"Hey, Johnny, how ya doin'?"
"Hank! Long time no! Whatcha been up to?"
"Listen, John. I'd love to shoot the shit, but something serious has come up."
"Hey, Hank, I'd love to help, but I'm retired."
"I know, John, and I wouldn't ask except . . . ."
"Spill it."
"It's Bear."
"Bear? Bear Sterns? What's that ol' SOB up to?
"You know bear."
"Yeah, I remember '88--"
"This isn't '88, Johnny. He's in deep this time, and we need you to get him out."
"Boy! Just when you think . . . ."
So now all bets are off. John McClane has a war buddy to save, and that war buddy WILL BE SAVED. Of course, there will be the ancillary and unavoidable collateral damage. Bear has put at risk a lot of people who will have to be stepped over or on should the day be saved. Nothing to be done; it's how the story goes.
On the upside, Bear will come out okay, and at least some of the bad guys will die operatically. On the down side, the extras--huge numbers of extras will be sacrificed to the service of a loud and public car chase. But hey, isn't that why we have so many extras? If they die, they die. If they don't die just pay them their $600 per diem and send them to the catering tent. Die Hard 6: Hell and High Water is in pre-production, and we're gonna need some stiffs.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Hooker Futures
In this turbulent marketplace, I feel as though I have no choice. I am advising my students to sell short on the Liberal Arts in favor of a firm position in prostitutes.
Young women traditionally come to me in the early days of the Spring Semester and say "Bigshotprof, I have three and one half semesters of higher education under my belt, but I don't feel as though I am ready to contribute to the global economy. How can I stand out? How can I most effectively display my assets?"
In years past, I would have counseled these women to develop a resume--crisp and clean--highlighting their achievements in academics, activities and work experience. I would have told them to not to lie around waiting for important businessmen or influential politicians to knock on their doors . . . or at least arrange a meeting in a neutral location.
That was before Client #9. That was before a young lady named (variously) Kristen Ashley Alexandra Rae Maika Youmans Dupre showed young women everywhere how to make it in the big city. Now I give them different advice--well not completely different. I leave in the parts about "display my assets" and "under my belt." And why not? Why waste neuron paths on "We hold these truths to be self-evident." and "A sum doesn’t depend on the grouping of its addends." when "It's the way you ride it girl makes the fellaz go ooh" can gross you two hundred grand in the time it takes to get the results back from your chlamydia screen. And no points off for spelling!
With her "can do" "will do for a price" and "ain't much I haven't done" spirit, Ms. Dupre has become the very model of the modern urban feminine success story. Ms. Dupre has shown young women everywhere that it isn't who you know or what you know; it's how you "know" who you know. She has shown young, and spirited women everywhere how to come out on top (and to be sure and charge extra for that).
So to the young women of the class of 2008 I say "Give 'em your all, and use you head!"
Wait . . . I think I accidentally switched those nouns.
Young women traditionally come to me in the early days of the Spring Semester and say "Bigshotprof, I have three and one half semesters of higher education under my belt, but I don't feel as though I am ready to contribute to the global economy. How can I stand out? How can I most effectively display my assets?"
In years past, I would have counseled these women to develop a resume--crisp and clean--highlighting their achievements in academics, activities and work experience. I would have told them to not to lie around waiting for important businessmen or influential politicians to knock on their doors . . . or at least arrange a meeting in a neutral location.
That was before Client #9. That was before a young lady named (variously) Kristen Ashley Alexandra Rae Maika Youmans Dupre showed young women everywhere how to make it in the big city. Now I give them different advice--well not completely different. I leave in the parts about "display my assets" and "under my belt." And why not? Why waste neuron paths on "We hold these truths to be self-evident." and "A sum doesn’t depend on the grouping of its addends." when "It's the way you ride it girl makes the fellaz go ooh" can gross you two hundred grand in the time it takes to get the results back from your chlamydia screen. And no points off for spelling!
With her "can do" "will do for a price" and "ain't much I haven't done" spirit, Ms. Dupre has become the very model of the modern urban feminine success story. Ms. Dupre has shown young women everywhere that it isn't who you know or what you know; it's how you "know" who you know. She has shown young, and spirited women everywhere how to come out on top (and to be sure and charge extra for that).
So to the young women of the class of 2008 I say "Give 'em your all, and use you head!"
Wait . . . I think I accidentally switched those nouns.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Foreign Immigrants and College Emigrants
Originally published 9.2007
President "Childrens" is becoming test-obsessed! In the same issue of the New York Times, September 28 to be precise, I read about a new test for those who wish to become citizens and those who wish to eschew their residency in the hallowed halls--and no, childrens, these are not "deathly hallowed" halls . . . that's completely different. On the subject of the former, I have to admit my stunning lack of suitability to contribute. My experience as a world traveler is limited to one hop from Detroit into Windsor for lunch at the age of ten. The trip did not go well. My sister created an international incident when she broke a catsup bottle at Le Cuiller Cheveux, and my father coughed up our contraband fireworks at the first icy stare from the Border Patrol. Since then, I've remained nestled in the loving arms of the contiguous forty eight.
On the other hand, why should that disqualify me? I got farther into Canada than The Cheney Gang had gotten into war. And hey, if the male Conservative bloc in Congress can rail against homosexuality without ever having kissed a man . . . okay, bad example. So here is my question: What is the point of giving a test to determine whether the person understands what it means to be an American? I have labored under the opinion that the reason we consider ourselves special is that we let people decide for themselves what it means to be an American. To that end I suggest scrapping the present test and replacing it with one that would serve more as an engine of day-to-day operational competency--like the written exam at the DMV. To Whit: here are a few sample questions:
Question 1:
The guy standing next to you in the field is:
a. Su Hermano.
b. More dangerous than all of the hundreds of uninspected cargo crates in the entire port of Los Angeles.
c. Wearing a wire.
d. Money in the Bank for Lou Dobbs.
Question 2:
Which of the following would make a person unfit to serve as Commander-in-Chief of the United States of America?
a. A combat veteran who won multiple Purple Hearts but did not properly appreciate them.
b. A combat veteran who came home from war with only one of his original four limbs and used the remaining one to wave a white flag of surrender in the faces of our enemies.
c. A combat veteran who came home and secretly produced then tried to hide a non-existent illegitimate non-white baby.
d. A guy whose daddy got him out of combat by getting him into the National Guard, then got him out of the National Guard because having to do all of those drills and take all of those tests was interfering with his short game, passed off a DUI that he got when he was thirty as a youthful indiscretion, and probably passed more coke at Yale than the entire New Haven Local of the Affiliated Brotherhood of Soda Jerks.
e. All of the above.
f. all of he above except d.
Question 3:
Who of the following is the most dangerous man in America?
a. Osama bin Laden.
b. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
c. Speedy Gonzalez.
d. Hillary Clinton.
I have some thoughts on the No-debt-burdened-college-student-left-behind exam as well, but they will have to wait until tomorrow. I need to go quiz my housekeeper on where in the federal organization chart she should put the Vice President.
President "Childrens" is becoming test-obsessed! In the same issue of the New York Times, September 28 to be precise, I read about a new test for those who wish to become citizens and those who wish to eschew their residency in the hallowed halls--and no, childrens, these are not "deathly hallowed" halls . . . that's completely different. On the subject of the former, I have to admit my stunning lack of suitability to contribute. My experience as a world traveler is limited to one hop from Detroit into Windsor for lunch at the age of ten. The trip did not go well. My sister created an international incident when she broke a catsup bottle at Le Cuiller Cheveux, and my father coughed up our contraband fireworks at the first icy stare from the Border Patrol. Since then, I've remained nestled in the loving arms of the contiguous forty eight.
On the other hand, why should that disqualify me? I got farther into Canada than The Cheney Gang had gotten into war. And hey, if the male Conservative bloc in Congress can rail against homosexuality without ever having kissed a man . . . okay, bad example. So here is my question: What is the point of giving a test to determine whether the person understands what it means to be an American? I have labored under the opinion that the reason we consider ourselves special is that we let people decide for themselves what it means to be an American. To that end I suggest scrapping the present test and replacing it with one that would serve more as an engine of day-to-day operational competency--like the written exam at the DMV. To Whit: here are a few sample questions:
Question 1:
The guy standing next to you in the field is:
a. Su Hermano.
b. More dangerous than all of the hundreds of uninspected cargo crates in the entire port of Los Angeles.
c. Wearing a wire.
d. Money in the Bank for Lou Dobbs.
Question 2:
Which of the following would make a person unfit to serve as Commander-in-Chief of the United States of America?
a. A combat veteran who won multiple Purple Hearts but did not properly appreciate them.
b. A combat veteran who came home from war with only one of his original four limbs and used the remaining one to wave a white flag of surrender in the faces of our enemies.
c. A combat veteran who came home and secretly produced then tried to hide a non-existent illegitimate non-white baby.
d. A guy whose daddy got him out of combat by getting him into the National Guard, then got him out of the National Guard because having to do all of those drills and take all of those tests was interfering with his short game, passed off a DUI that he got when he was thirty as a youthful indiscretion, and probably passed more coke at Yale than the entire New Haven Local of the Affiliated Brotherhood of Soda Jerks.
e. All of the above.
f. all of he above except d.
Question 3:
Who of the following is the most dangerous man in America?
a. Osama bin Laden.
b. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
c. Speedy Gonzalez.
d. Hillary Clinton.
I have some thoughts on the No-debt-burdened-college-student-left-behind exam as well, but they will have to wait until tomorrow. I need to go quiz my housekeeper on where in the federal organization chart she should put the Vice President.
Condi Goes NIMSBY! Invests in Flubber Futures.
Originally published 9.2007
That is: Not in My Sunken Backyard!
During her September 27th pep rally with the Climate Change conference, our lame duckienne Secretary of State let us know that she and her President finally agree that climate change is real and not all the fault of those pesky forest fires. She then went on to say in so many words . . . "and somebody really ought to do something about it." Her solution is to have somebody invent something really cool that would make CO2 emissions disappear in a poof of fairy dust. Any day now we should expect The President to shift funds from the already trimmed budget of the National Science Foundation to a Flubber Initiative. If we all huddle around this project like we did the moon landing, we can have a sky full of flying jalopies and some REALLY exciting boys basketball games (Sorry girls, Title Nine has a pretty air tight ductile polymers exemption, and putting Flubber on the end of a field hockey stick would just be stupid.). Experts at the Creation Museum, in Petersburg, KY estimate that by shifting just half of the nation's remaining Model-Ts to Professor Brainard's miracle compound we could put off the flooding of lower Manhattan until 2050 . . . well after the rapture and the destruction of the modern Sodom in a pillar of flames--carbon safe flames, thank you very much--will have taken care of it anyway.
If something goes wrong with Plan A--say Alonzo P. Hawk comes out of cryostasis and succeeds in swiping the prototype--Condi is willing to go with her fail safe. The government would use a Presidential signing statement--which rumor has it has already been written and is presently folded up under the short leg of the Blue Room fregere--to draft Wayne Szalinski, the guy who shrunk his kids, and lock him in the basement of the NSA building until he cobbles together a coal emissions scrubber out of the leftover parts of the Acme Warhead Catapult that the folks at the Strategic Defense Initiative could never get to work and Lynn Cheney's copper colander.
I don't know about you, but I am relieved that the executive branch is finally out there hugging trees with the rest of us. Soon the climate will be safe, the skies will be filled with flying flivers, and Condi, at least in the privacy of the State Department gym, will be able to dunk like Michael Jordan. Compassionate Conservatism is a wonderful thing.
That is: Not in My Sunken Backyard!
During her September 27th pep rally with the Climate Change conference, our lame duckienne Secretary of State let us know that she and her President finally agree that climate change is real and not all the fault of those pesky forest fires. She then went on to say in so many words . . . "and somebody really ought to do something about it." Her solution is to have somebody invent something really cool that would make CO2 emissions disappear in a poof of fairy dust. Any day now we should expect The President to shift funds from the already trimmed budget of the National Science Foundation to a Flubber Initiative. If we all huddle around this project like we did the moon landing, we can have a sky full of flying jalopies and some REALLY exciting boys basketball games (Sorry girls, Title Nine has a pretty air tight ductile polymers exemption, and putting Flubber on the end of a field hockey stick would just be stupid.). Experts at the Creation Museum, in Petersburg, KY estimate that by shifting just half of the nation's remaining Model-Ts to Professor Brainard's miracle compound we could put off the flooding of lower Manhattan until 2050 . . . well after the rapture and the destruction of the modern Sodom in a pillar of flames--carbon safe flames, thank you very much--will have taken care of it anyway.
If something goes wrong with Plan A--say Alonzo P. Hawk comes out of cryostasis and succeeds in swiping the prototype--Condi is willing to go with her fail safe. The government would use a Presidential signing statement--which rumor has it has already been written and is presently folded up under the short leg of the Blue Room fregere--to draft Wayne Szalinski, the guy who shrunk his kids, and lock him in the basement of the NSA building until he cobbles together a coal emissions scrubber out of the leftover parts of the Acme Warhead Catapult that the folks at the Strategic Defense Initiative could never get to work and Lynn Cheney's copper colander.
I don't know about you, but I am relieved that the executive branch is finally out there hugging trees with the rest of us. Soon the climate will be safe, the skies will be filled with flying flivers, and Condi, at least in the privacy of the State Department gym, will be able to dunk like Michael Jordan. Compassionate Conservatism is a wonderful thing.
En Pissant
Originally published 10.2007
It isn't bad enough that the only thing Republicans and Democrats can agree on is that they are the only ones who deserve guaranteed federally funded health care. Now the chess folks are at it. According to a lawsuit filed at the beginning of October, two officers of the nation's most influential chess organization posted thousands of inflammatory messages on bulletin boards, over two thousand in the guise of one of their opponents, in order to swing an election.
I know what you are thinking. America has more than one influential chess organization? Indeed. And the United States Chess Federation (or Us Chafe) has been shaken by this scandal to its very ranks and files. Imagine the implications. We don't know for sure how much "thousands" is, but let's say conservatively that for every nasty post attributed to arch rival Sam Sloan, churlish chess chumps Susan Polger and Paul Truong posted only one other message. Four thousand posts over seven hundred and thirty days means that for two years someone was actually able to find five and one half things a day to say about chess! And many were obscene!
Okay, who among us in the throes of rutting sexual passion hasn't shouted "Rook to queen seven! Mate! Mate!" But five times a day?
Please understand, I have nothing against Chess. From the moment Marco Polo brought it back from the Orient and pawned it off on the frail kids while he and his friends hogged the tobacco, right up to the invention of Electronic Hand Held Battleship, Chess has been the western world's premier strategy game. No. My antagonism is not toward chess, but rather what these fanatical Fischers of Men would turn chess into. You see, the Truongs are from Texas.
Ring any bells? Rigging elections? Salacious gossip? Texas? I see Karl Rove's hand in this. Clearly the chess board has become the next great battlefield in the war on terror. Once neo-con puppets Truong and Polger have control over Us Chafe, the game will begin to change. First, White will build a fence along its southern border. Next, Black's pieces won't have to be attacked at all. The random rook will just disappear from the game and turn up in an Afghan prison. The king won't just rely on his own pieces; he will outsource various sets of squares to a bunch of privately contracted Parchesi pieces. Before long, Us Chafe will refuse to allow any other country's chess set to have more than six pieces. They will threaten to bomb Candyland, because they have evidence that Lord Licorice is funneling IEDs through Lollipop Woods to the insurgents. The Game of Life will lose federal funding, because it refuses to designate a space for abstinence training. Sorry and Boggle will be declared an Axis of Evil. Lou Dobbs will go on a five day rant, because Uno is taking jobs away from good American card games. Then one day, Israel will bomb Chutes and Ladders, because its system of secret conveyence threatens to destabilize the balance of power in the region.
It is time for the Democrats in Congress to act! Let's drag these spurious Spasskys into the light of day. Have Waxman get to the root of their actual intentions in time for the majority in Congress to pass a binding resolution of deep deep concern. If that doesn't work--and it won't--all I can suggest is that we move King's Knight to Minneapolis Men's Room and hope for the best.
It isn't bad enough that the only thing Republicans and Democrats can agree on is that they are the only ones who deserve guaranteed federally funded health care. Now the chess folks are at it. According to a lawsuit filed at the beginning of October, two officers of the nation's most influential chess organization posted thousands of inflammatory messages on bulletin boards, over two thousand in the guise of one of their opponents, in order to swing an election.
I know what you are thinking. America has more than one influential chess organization? Indeed. And the United States Chess Federation (or Us Chafe) has been shaken by this scandal to its very ranks and files. Imagine the implications. We don't know for sure how much "thousands" is, but let's say conservatively that for every nasty post attributed to arch rival Sam Sloan, churlish chess chumps Susan Polger and Paul Truong posted only one other message. Four thousand posts over seven hundred and thirty days means that for two years someone was actually able to find five and one half things a day to say about chess! And many were obscene!
Okay, who among us in the throes of rutting sexual passion hasn't shouted "Rook to queen seven! Mate! Mate!" But five times a day?
Please understand, I have nothing against Chess. From the moment Marco Polo brought it back from the Orient and pawned it off on the frail kids while he and his friends hogged the tobacco, right up to the invention of Electronic Hand Held Battleship, Chess has been the western world's premier strategy game. No. My antagonism is not toward chess, but rather what these fanatical Fischers of Men would turn chess into. You see, the Truongs are from Texas.
Ring any bells? Rigging elections? Salacious gossip? Texas? I see Karl Rove's hand in this. Clearly the chess board has become the next great battlefield in the war on terror. Once neo-con puppets Truong and Polger have control over Us Chafe, the game will begin to change. First, White will build a fence along its southern border. Next, Black's pieces won't have to be attacked at all. The random rook will just disappear from the game and turn up in an Afghan prison. The king won't just rely on his own pieces; he will outsource various sets of squares to a bunch of privately contracted Parchesi pieces. Before long, Us Chafe will refuse to allow any other country's chess set to have more than six pieces. They will threaten to bomb Candyland, because they have evidence that Lord Licorice is funneling IEDs through Lollipop Woods to the insurgents. The Game of Life will lose federal funding, because it refuses to designate a space for abstinence training. Sorry and Boggle will be declared an Axis of Evil. Lou Dobbs will go on a five day rant, because Uno is taking jobs away from good American card games. Then one day, Israel will bomb Chutes and Ladders, because its system of secret conveyence threatens to destabilize the balance of power in the region.
It is time for the Democrats in Congress to act! Let's drag these spurious Spasskys into the light of day. Have Waxman get to the root of their actual intentions in time for the majority in Congress to pass a binding resolution of deep deep concern. If that doesn't work--and it won't--all I can suggest is that we move King's Knight to Minneapolis Men's Room and hope for the best.
Gunfight at the H.S. Corral!
Originally published at Doc Sweet's Office Hour 10.2007
Early this month Representative David Agema of Michigan introduced a bill in Congress that would allow teachers to carry guns in schools. I am trying to find one good reason to not just love this idea, but nothing is coming to me. Why? Law of the jungle baby! Our schools are beset by rogues, and any animal husband . . . husbander? . . . worth his orange vest will tell you that the best way to discourage rogues is to thin the herd before they arise.
Representative Agema will tell us that his bill is intended to allow schools to be safer during and/or after a school shooter starts blasting. He is probably just doing that so as not to spook the namby pamby majority of people—already co-opted by big health and safety—who believe that the more guns we have in schools the more likely we are to suffer gun-related injuries. Okay. They kind of have a point. While school shootings get a lot of coverage, they comprise a relatively insignificant fraction of the 2,000 or so 6-18 year olds who die from gun violence every year. In fact, you would have to lose roughly thirty kids in a school shooting every eight-hour day of the school year for that figure to match the national trend.
Fine, let’s submit for the sake of discussion that population management isn’t the best use of the gats our local faculty will be packin.’ I still wanna be there on that fateful day when the stress of being all-everything finally gets to Troy and Chad. They blaze through the main hall doors a few minutes after morning final bell, their leather trench coats blowing in the breeze and their mail order Kalashnikovs cocked and ready. The hall monitor thinks it’s just a prank. “Hey, Troy!” She says. “Is that an intermediate-power, comparative range semi-automatic rifle in your pants or are you just glad to see me?” Troy let’s off a light burst as the hall monitor dives behind the sign-in table.
That short burst is all it takes for Shane Crunkle, Civics teacher to spring into action. Crunkle—or "The Crunk" as the kids call him at Lazer Tag—whips out his Heckler and Koch Combat .45, says “Get under your seats and prepare to discuss manifest destiny when I get back!” then charges in serpentine formation down the hall.
And Crunkle’s not alone. Lon Floyd, custodian, tears open his mop closet and yanks out his trusty M-16—the same M-16 he would have used in Nam had he not had that crazy wandering eye thing the day he went in to enlist. He pulls down the Rigel 3250 Compact Night Vision goggles he knew he would need to neutralize the cigarette smoke as he cuts through the Teachers’ Lounge, and meets up with Crunkle by the Snapple machine. Troy and Chad round the corner and never know what hits them. Another blow for character education and another triumph for responsible gun play.
Mission Accomplished. A total win for the good guys. Heck, they didn’t even have to cancel classes; there was already a janitor on the scene. All because one gutsy Congressman from Michigan—home of Harbor Country and the Sovereign Citizen Movement—stood tall.
As the press and police go away, little Joey Starrett yells down the hall “Shane! Shane! Will we ever see you again?”
To which his valiant replies, “That’s Mr. Crunkle, kid! And I’ll see you again . . . in detention.
Early this month Representative David Agema of Michigan introduced a bill in Congress that would allow teachers to carry guns in schools. I am trying to find one good reason to not just love this idea, but nothing is coming to me. Why? Law of the jungle baby! Our schools are beset by rogues, and any animal husband . . . husbander? . . . worth his orange vest will tell you that the best way to discourage rogues is to thin the herd before they arise.
Representative Agema will tell us that his bill is intended to allow schools to be safer during and/or after a school shooter starts blasting. He is probably just doing that so as not to spook the namby pamby majority of people—already co-opted by big health and safety—who believe that the more guns we have in schools the more likely we are to suffer gun-related injuries. Okay. They kind of have a point. While school shootings get a lot of coverage, they comprise a relatively insignificant fraction of the 2,000 or so 6-18 year olds who die from gun violence every year. In fact, you would have to lose roughly thirty kids in a school shooting every eight-hour day of the school year for that figure to match the national trend.
Fine, let’s submit for the sake of discussion that population management isn’t the best use of the gats our local faculty will be packin.’ I still wanna be there on that fateful day when the stress of being all-everything finally gets to Troy and Chad. They blaze through the main hall doors a few minutes after morning final bell, their leather trench coats blowing in the breeze and their mail order Kalashnikovs cocked and ready. The hall monitor thinks it’s just a prank. “Hey, Troy!” She says. “Is that an intermediate-power, comparative range semi-automatic rifle in your pants or are you just glad to see me?” Troy let’s off a light burst as the hall monitor dives behind the sign-in table.
That short burst is all it takes for Shane Crunkle, Civics teacher to spring into action. Crunkle—or "The Crunk" as the kids call him at Lazer Tag—whips out his Heckler and Koch Combat .45, says “Get under your seats and prepare to discuss manifest destiny when I get back!” then charges in serpentine formation down the hall.
And Crunkle’s not alone. Lon Floyd, custodian, tears open his mop closet and yanks out his trusty M-16—the same M-16 he would have used in Nam had he not had that crazy wandering eye thing the day he went in to enlist. He pulls down the Rigel 3250 Compact Night Vision goggles he knew he would need to neutralize the cigarette smoke as he cuts through the Teachers’ Lounge, and meets up with Crunkle by the Snapple machine. Troy and Chad round the corner and never know what hits them. Another blow for character education and another triumph for responsible gun play.
Mission Accomplished. A total win for the good guys. Heck, they didn’t even have to cancel classes; there was already a janitor on the scene. All because one gutsy Congressman from Michigan—home of Harbor Country and the Sovereign Citizen Movement—stood tall.
As the press and police go away, little Joey Starrett yells down the hall “Shane! Shane! Will we ever see you again?”
To which his valiant replies, “That’s Mr. Crunkle, kid! And I’ll see you again . . . in detention.
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