Random Notes from a Crank

Last Thursday we went to a typical parent orientation night for our daughter's third grade class. It went well, but it was hard not to notice one parent who showed up a little late to the orientation. It was hot and humid out, so she was wearing a shirt that didn't have sleeves. On her left upper arm was one of the most disgusting and stupid tattoos I've ever seen. The image was of a swastika, but the darkly humorous aspect of the symbol was that it was poorly done. In particular, one of the prongs of the symbol looked bent like the tattoo artist had gotten through three prongs, and on the fourth one, the booze finally took effect. The one prong wasn't comparable to the other three. It looked like someone had come along and taken a hammer to the one prong and pounded it in. Oh, but the tattoo wasn't complete just with a highly compromised design of the Nazi symbol. The artist tried to complement the image with words. Above the symbol there was in script "White," and below the symbol was written "Pride" to create the message of "White Pride." Disgusting. 

On a more positive note, my daughter found out today that she was one of the "top three" people in her grade who read the most over the summer. During the summer, we were encouraged to keep a log of how many minutes she read each day. Because she's one of the top three summer readers, she got some serious prizes: a fancy notebook, a crazy yellow pen that has rubber dreads atop it, a colorful pencil, a booklight, and two free books--Judy Moody: Girl Detective & Geronimo Stilton: A Cheese-Colored Camper. That's quite a haul -- some nice educational loot.