it's the same old song

but with different chords since the guitar player has been gone.

on friday, e had a meeting with her teacher and her dean. e was told that since she was not graduating this june that she would not be excused from school on tuesday and wednesday, even though the prom was on tuesday. e did not show up for either day, but her absences were excused by this very same dean. today, e showed up and claimed to be suffering from an asthma attack, which mysteriously went away shortly after senior day started. senior day is a day where many of the seniors come back, buy their year books, sit in the park, eat pizza, and eventually, do graduation practice. e wanted to be outside all day for senior day. her teacher told her that she was free until 12:50, which would have given her close to two hours to be outside. this didn't satisfy e, so she went upstairs to her dean to see if she could be excused from classes for the day. the dean said yes!!! is this dean a secret mandatory schooling abolitionist? what's the deal here? my guess is that e is being written off as a special ed latina. "she isn't ivy league anyway, so let her have her fun." weird whatever the cause.

let's contrast this with a guy who busted his butt, a 5th year senior who went to summer school last year, signed an attendance contract, and made up work from up to 4years ago. he had lived through civil war and famine in somalia, and coming to a new country where he was constantly mocked. he had to learn a new language and culture, and saw most of his friends drop out. in any case, a dean (a different dean, rca victor who does not live in motown) contested the fact that his english grade from 2004 had been changed because of a paper the student rewrote this year. dean martin claimed this was fradulent, and called into question the integrity of the english class. martin lawrence disallowed this credit, and then forced the teacher to count up his other credits to see if he had enough to graduate. luckily, he did.

the dean said other things too. he said that "the past can not be rewritten." fellow must not have remembered his courses in u.s history. pompous, arrogant, prick. the past is constantly being rewritten! but of course, it is safer and more profitable to confine our outrage to chicken shit crap like this, instead of questioning the real crimes of revision. there is likely not a more hateful type than the administrator, who lords over his petty domain and ignores the relevant issues that surround him. he invests his profession with a mock solemnity, all the while keeping quiet on any matter of importance. this type routinely disrespects those he believes to be his social and economic inferiors, but is all too polite to those above him. he saves his outrage, confines his anger, lords over those he believes to be peasants, yearns to return to some imaginary past when people had to earn things and some imaginary concept known as "integrity" was in abundance.

in the end, it gets back to two major disappointments; humanity and education. humanity is in charge of education, which is the essential problem. more to the point, a particular type of humanity is in charge, often the worst kind; specializers and egotists, petty dictators and irrelevant academics, bureaucratic administrators and mediocre "career" men, who went to college and had no idea how they would make a buck, so they decided to get an ed. degree. the school and university is filled with humanity. hence, the results; patriotism, narrow mindedness, racism, competition, larger than life expenses, actions that are nothing if not arbitrary and hypocritical.

e? sure, you can miss that day and this day and that day again.

a? count those credits, boy. i remember black hawk down.

the thing is, you can't get away from the nightmare.

while we are at it, can i be excused for friday's classes? my mind is hurting.

and my conscience.

thanks dean, and have a jerry good day.