Just Another Manic Monday

We're coming to you today from the caffeine free department here in the marbled halls of IM Central. It seems the coffee maker picked this particular weekend to turn its solid state innards into a mass of silicon goop and now the little electrons that used to fly through its transistors and bring us that magic elixir are trapped somewhere in a dry dimension.

Plus, it's raining.

Even so, never let it be said that we shirked our responsibilities to you our readers, or reader as the case may be (Hi Mom...send instant) so onward we go, casting our rather desultory eye across the landscape.

Hmmm...Pervs in Congress. Nothing new there. Iraq a mess. Same o same o. Rice didn't pay attention to warnings about bin Laden. Well, who can blame her? Everyone knows there was no way to stop the Clinton's plan. Oh look, George Michael arrested on drug charges. Why is that news?

Seems the news is as dreary and predictable as the weather. Wait a minute. This is interesting.

An award-winning Texas art teacher who was reprimanded after one of her fifth-grade students saw a nude sculpture during a trip to a museum has lost her job. "Museum, porno shop, what's the difference. We ain't into none of that nakedidity here in Texas," said a parent who lead the group demanding the teacher's ouster. "And it don't make no never mind that we signed them permission slips neither. You think we can read that stuff?" he added.

Art teacher Sydney McGee said the principal at Fisher Elementary School had urged her to take the students to the museum. McGee's lawyer said the principal admonished her after a parent complained that a student had seen nude art. Reached at her home for comment, Principal Ernestine Strickly said she wasn't aware that there was going to be art in the museum. "I thought it was a water park," she told reporters.

McGee, who was honored with a Star Teacher Award two years ago, is on paid administrative leave until her contract with the school district expires in March. "I'm sorry she lost her job," one parent said. "But if the good lord had meant us to be necked he'd a borned us thataway."

Other parents are worried about the future of the art program at the school, which they cite as a reason for moving into the neighborhood."Our main concern right now is what's going to happen to the children and what's going to happen to the art program at Fisher Elementary. It is the best art program. That's the reason we moved to this neighborhood. It's because of the teachers," said Shannon Allen, organizer of a McGee support group called "Parents With All Their Teeth."