Mousetown Schools

Illustration by Bob AulIt's this community's misfortune that one of its school administrators can't handle diversity. You fired me because I played Ice Cube singing about a good day in a fifth-grade classroom on a school-issued radio just before recess. It's a great song—uplifting, positive, powerful. But you couldn't hear any of that. Power has deafened you. You are close-minded, self-righteous, incapable of seeing the Big Picture—and (terrifyingly) in a position to influence children. The Right's got the lock on OC. Y'all old harridans and cronies can really start to chap a nice girl's hide. And there are so many of you roaming the halls of our schools and homes. Mediocrity reigns. What are y'all afraid of? That I'll teach children to think for themselves? To be creative and enjoy learning and expression? To Live Free or Die (the New Hampshire state motto). We gotta fight for our right to have differing points of view. I Gotta Be Me (the Sammy Davis Jr. version, please). Thank goddesses for places where people don't think the way they do in this conservative backwater. You've got Big Brother, but we've got the ghost of Tom Joad, Johnny Cash, Pennywise, et al. Shame on you for depriving the local schoolchildren the opportunity to learn from a conscientious—and conscious—member of complete society.