The Age brings us some news that is some fucked-up concoction of funny, stupid, and sad. Seems like some Americans, fed up with the rising price of gasoline have begun prayer circles around the ol’ gas pump.

“Lord, come down in a mighty way and strengthen us so that we can bring down these high gas prices,” Twyman said to a chorus of “amens”.

“Prayer is the answer to every problem in life. We call on God to intervene in the lives of the selfish, greedy people who are keeping these prices high,” Twyman said on the forecourt of the petrol station in a neighbourhood of Washington that, like many of its residents, has seen better days.

“Lord, the prices at this pump have gone up since last week. We know that you are able, that you have all the power in the world,” he prayed, before former beauty queen Rashida Jolley led the group in a modified version of the spiritual, We Shall Overcome.

“We’ll have lower gas prices, we’ll have lower gas prices,” they sang.

In a time where there are wars going on, massacres in Darfur, tsunamis and earthquakes killing thousands, poverty, hunger, and disease, do these people really think that their god is going to prioritize their wallets while millions suffer needlessly? Isn’t this just the most arrogant and thoughtless thing you’ve ever heard?

I would like to hear some commentary on why this may not be supremely ignorant behavior, because for the life of me, I can’t get past it.

Provincial Russians gave me my first chuckle of the day when I read that residents of Bogolyubovo refuse to use new passports because the barcodes may contain satanic symbols. Bogolyubovoians have also stopped collecting pensions because the checks may also contain the mark of the beast.

It’s comforting that the superstitious villagers won’t be able to spread their insanity since they will apparently be too poor to travel, and won’t have valid passports anyways.

We’ve heard the stories about teachers preaching and school-boards trying to vote Intelligent Design into the curriculum. Personally, I’m glad those teachers were released and ID was denied. A public school should never promote the ideas of any religion. However, it’s apparently tough for the Willow Hill elementary school in Glenside, PA to find a happy balance, and thus avoid a lawsuit.

It seems that a 4th grade boy wanted to dress up as Jesus last year for a school-sponsored Halloween party and parade, but was made to take off his costume because they didn’t want to promote a religion. The reason that the unnamed boy wanted to dress as Jesus was a simple protest against the pagan parts of Halloween, which last I looked, is ALL OF IT.

I love Halloween. I love everything about it: candy, costumes, bobbing for apples, parties, parades, tricks, teats, egging houses, and burning inner-city Detroit to the ground. I can’t relate to the protest of the boy and mom, but I can understand. However, if you really think, the protest has nothing to do with the issue at hand. I’ll repeat it; the protest has nothing to do with the issue at hand. What ever the motives of the parent and child are, this can be broken down into one thing: the school discriminated against a boy that chose a costume they didn’t like.

The principle contacted the mother with the reason for their action:

The legal suit declares that the boy’s mother was informed by the Willow Hill Principal Patricia Whitmore that he was violating a policy forbidding the promotion of religion. (link)

How does a child wearing a costume constitute the school promoting a religion? Does dressing up as a witch promote Wicca? A devil promote Satanism? A ghost promote… Ghostbuster worship? I killed the metaphor, but you get me. The boy was not preaching during class, he wasn’t handing out pamphlets, he was complying with the mandated school activity as best he could in order to not be singled out and smuggled away into the computer room with the other no-costume losers.

Of course, his plan failed, he got singled out worse than he could have imagined, left the school, and now his parents are suing. See where a lack of balance can get you?

Sidenote: The suit is being levied by the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal group based in Scottsdale, Arizona. One wonders why the ACLU is not all over this.

ALSO SEE: Mike Mahaffie has a few interesting things to say about this issue. Check it out!

Like there’s any other way for it to go.

Hey folks, sorry about the lack of updates, but that’s going to be the case until the holidays pass. While you deal with that bad news with wailing and gnashing of teeth, read this wonderful article compliments of AP via kutv.com:

Maryland 5-Year-Old Accused Of Pinching Buttocks

(AP) HAGERSTOWN, Md. A father in Maryland says his 5-year-old son knows nothing about sex, but the boy was written up for sexually harassing a kindergarten classmate.

Washington County school officials told Charles Vallance that his son pinched a girl’s buttocks earlier this month in a hallway at Lincolnshire Elementary School. The school says that meets the state’s definition of sexual harassment. Vallance says his son was only playing around and had no sexual intent.

School officials say the incident will remain in the boys file until he goes to middle school.

Citing state data, the (Hagerstown) Herald-Mail reports that 28 kindergarten students in Maryland were suspended for sex offenses in the last school year - 15 of those suspensions for sexual harassment.

So, 15 kindergarteners have gotten suspended this school year in MD for sexual harassment. Why don’t we just round up these perverts and have them arrested? I feel repressed memories of this one kid in my kindergarten who ran around licking the other kids coming on. That fucker’s going down!

In all seriousness, this is the kind of thing that happens when the schools, throwing reason out the window, adopt zero-tolerance policies for offenses. I understand the desire to simplify the process of mediation and punishment, but pegging a five-year-old as a sex offender for goosing some girl is ridiculous beyond the scope of even my well-developed powers of mockery.

I guess as a parent, I now get to worry not only about real sexual predators, but the draconian policies of lackwit administration that may one day peg my daughter as an offender.