Roy Exum
It gives me no pleasure –none at all – to announce that the school board of Wake County, N.C., has lost its compass. Understand, it is the 17th largest public school system in the county, 155,000 children, which feed the county’s eight colleges -- Meredith College, North Carolina State University, Campbell University's Norman Adrian Wiggins School of Law, Peace College, Saint Augustine's College, Shaw University, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and Wake Technical Community College.
It is also the home of the world-famed Research Triangle, the largest industrial park and a primary center in the United States for high-tech and biotech, as well as textile development. The park is home to more than 160 companies employing over 50,000 people, including IBM (11,000 employees), GlaxoSmithKline (6,400 employees), and Cisco Systems (3,400 employees).
Candidly, I can think of few counties in the United States where a primary and secondary education means as much so … please … somebody please tell me why an inexcusable school board has just ordered its high schools to stop naming valedictorians and salutatorians after this year.
It is a direct slap in the face of every American when you remove the highest bar. “We have heard from many, many schools that the competition has become very unhealthy,” said Board Chairman Tom Benton, who apparently needs to be grabbed and shaken very hard because life, and the glory of finishing top in your class, is also very, very hard.
In an age where we foster losers with “participation trophies,” classes that have no pass or fail, and worry more about non-achievers than we do about the gutsy kids who’ll fight to stand on the tallest pedestal, the board’s unanimous decision, which will come up for final vote on June 7, is simply nauseating.
The next thing you’ll hear from these people is that all of the county’s athletic teams will no longer keep score. You see, when you publicly admit “the competition is very unhealthy,” they’ll say if you don’t keep a tally on runs, touchdowns, three-pointers and stolen bases, there can never be a loser, right?
Wake County’s new plan is to give everybody with a 3.75 grade-point average a sticker that says “cum laude,” students who finish in the 4.0 to 4.249 range a sticker that reads “magna cum laude” and students with 4.25 the ultimate – a sticker that reads “summa cum laude.”
Actually, they could take the number of the graduating class and honor more students; give the top 10 percent a "summa” sticker, the next 15 percent a “magna” sticker, and the next 25 percent a “cum laude” sticker, which would throw so, so many more in the mix for high-tech and biotech jobs in the research triangle. Best of all, we could give the other 50 percent a sticker on each diploma that reads, “I voted.”
And, to think, you’ve been worried about people in North Carolina finding the right restroom. Now we are getting closer to the bozos.
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THE PORTLAND (OR) SCHOOL BOARD has just banned all scientific and intellectual sources that counter global warming. In short, there will be no “other side of the issue” in Portland and that's how kids will be taught. So there.
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BUMPER STICKER OF THE WEEK: “I was a man trapped inside a female body … until I was born”
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GOTTA’ LOVE LOUISIANA – Senate Bill 468 in the legislature was designed to ban strip clubs from hiring any lovely who is under 21, but Rep. Kenneth E. Havard added some hot sauce when he added an amendment that included age parameters, from starting at 21 to retirement at 28, “and shall be no more than 160 pounds in weight.” He explained, "I offer up this amendment as part of, I guess, keeping the spirit alive of trimming the weight.”
Fellow representative Nancy Landry demanded, “Are you saying that women over 28 or over a certain weight are not fit to be dancers or strippers?”
Havard’s comeback: “No, ma’am, I am just worried about their health and wouldn’t want them to hurt one another,” he grinned and after Landry called the action “offensive,” Rep. Havard pulled the amendment but said he didn’t regret the joke. “It was meant as a poke that we are over-regulating everything around here …”
Rep. Robby Carter (D-Amite) didn’t think it was funny. “We need to do something to get these people (strippers) to realize there’s another way of living. I wish there was something we could do to make them go to church.”
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AND THEN THERE IS JESSICA DUNBAR – She’s a waitress at the Red Robin Restaurant in Columbus, Ohio, and not long ago about 10 cops came in just as most of the lunch crowd had left. She pushed tables together so they could eat with one another, sensed they were very quiet, and noticed some red eyes among some. They had just come from the funeral of fallen SWAT Team officer Steven Smith.
She took extra care to get the orders right, kept the tea glasses and coffee cups full, and couldn’t help hear one talk about a young wife and kids who are left behind.
Finally one of the department’s lieutenants called for the bill and she handed him the folder. Inside was a receipt with $123 scratched out and the words: “Officers, your bill is on me today. I can’t imagine the day you all have had, let alone what you go through every day. I hope your days get better. #WeSeeYou, #PoliceLivesMatter, #RIPOfficerSmith … Thank you, Jessica.”
I’m betting Jessica Dunbar doesn’t make $123 during lunch. #PoliceLivesMatter, #AllLivesMatter, #JesiccaReallyMattered.
royexum@aol.com