http://www.tehachapinews.com/home/Blog/LABrown/11284 Wonderland? I will be joining you in this game of croquet just as soon as I can glom on to this damn Flamingos legs.   Welcome to the brave new world where competition does not exist, rape and murder will bring you an average of 5 -7, a $20,000,000 fence, 7 miles long, can be built at the G8 conference in just a few days, and USA can't build one in as many years,    ..... and NOW ...     "TOUCHING" ANOTHER STUDENT in any manner will get you thrown out of a West Virginia public School!   So California has a monopoly on eccentricity?  I don't think so.   Congratulations goes out to West Virginia's psychological community on this latest revelation.  You are succeeding in raising a polarized generation in which there will be two camps, rebellious hoodlums and basket cases.   In addition to the egregious offenses of "possessing aspirin",  possession of "squirt guns", and the dreaded "thinking you out scored the other team in baseball", .... NOW,  "shaking hands", "patting on the back", "giving another student a high five", or worst of all, the lurid and lascivious act of "holding hands" and/or any other form of salutation or affection in which your skin comes into contact with the skin of another, brings swift retribution West Virginia public school style.         And what is the punishment for the heinous crime of "touching" you ask?  Well of course, immediate detention and thus, the forfeiture of education.  Such a penalty will surely serve society well, won't it?   In an era when our public schools are turning out dysfunctional dunderheads who are more akin to "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" then Bill Gates or Teddy Roosevelt, surely, "detention" will benefit an already de-evolving student body.   This is reminiscent and the living embodiment of the old joke about the couple who were inhibited so the shrink told them they required to approach love with more spontaneity. At the next visit to his office he asked "how did it go" and the husband answered "over dinner, we both reached for the salt shaker at the same time and when our hands touched, it was magic, ...  "I threw her across the table and we made mad love".  The shrink replies "that's great" and the husband says "the only drawback is we can never go back to our favorite restaurant".   As a young man, I thought my first intimate encounter with the opposite sex came and went just a little faster than it should have.     After a life time of total tactile depravation, when these kids grow up and get married, they may not be able to reproduce.   As I see it, the lesson here is two fold.   1)  An idiot with a PHD is just an idiot.   2) Young parents in West Virginia seeking a real education for their children might do better to send them to East Virginia!   Academia strikes again ...... God help us!   Wonderland? I will be joining you in this game of croquet just as soon as I can glom on to this damn Flamingos legs.   Welcome to the brave new world where competition does not exist, rape and murder will bring you an average of 5 -7, a $20,000,000 fence, 7 miles long, can be built at the G8 conference in just a few days, and USA can't build one in as many years,    ..... and NOW ...     "TOUCHING" ANOTHER STUDENT in any manner will get you thrown out of a West Virginia public School!   So California has a monopoly on eccentricity?  I don't think so.   Congratulations goes out to West Virginia's psychological community on this latest revelation.  You are succeeding in raising a polarized generation in which there will be two camps, rebellious hoodlums and basket cases.   In addition to the egregious offenses of "possessing aspirin",  possession of "squirt guns", and the dreaded "thinking you out scored the other team in baseball", .... NOW,  "shaking hands", "patting on the back", "giving another student a high five", or worst of all, the lurid and lascivious act of "holding hands" and/or any other form of salutation or affection in which your skin comes into contact with the skin of another, brings swift retribution West Virginia public school style.         And what is the punishment for the heinous crime of "touching" you ask?  Well of course, immediate detention and thus, the forfeiture of education.  Such a penalty will surely serve society well, won't it?   In an era when our public schools are turning out dysfunctional dunderheads who are more akin to "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" then Bill Gates or Teddy Roosevelt, surely, "detention" will benefit an already de-evolving student body.   This is reminiscent and the living embodiment of the old joke about the couple who were inhibited so the shrink told them they required to approach love with more spontaneity. At the next visit to his office he asked "how did it go" and the husband answered "over dinner, we both reached for the salt shaker at the same time and when our hands touched, it was magic, ...  "I threw her across the table and we made mad love".  The shrink replies "that's great" and the husband says "the only drawback is we can never go back to our favorite restaurant".   As a young man, I thought my first intimate encounter with the opposite sex came and went just a little faster than it should have.     After a life time of total tactile depravation, when these kids grow up and get married, they may not be able to reproduce.   As I see it, the lesson here is two fold.   1)  An idiot with a PHD is just an idiot.   2) Young parents in West Virginia seeking a real education for their children might do better to send them to East Virginia!   Academia strikes again ...... God help us!   en-us