Peaeater

So here's Rachelle, Taking A Stand on the picket line. She's actually taking a sit, but I cropped the photo until you couldn't see the chair. She looks slightly vacant. Each day out there sucks about 10 IQ points, I think. Slack-jawed droolies they'll be, the lot of them. Proof-positive: betting on which car will run over the grape and crush it, or whether the crows will get it, or both.

Teaching is a thankless job. It seems you're constantly caught between the hammer of government cutbacks and the anvil of high community expectations. And most teachers I've met (not you, Mr. Cruze) have high expectations of themselves and feel guilty for not being able to meet expectations with what little they've been given.

But that's the teaching personality. It requires a certain amount of earnest belief in the value of education, but more than that, it means they hold themselves personally liable for another person's success or failure. Which is, in my personal code of ethics, nuts. But admirable.

Here's one of the grapes, in mortal danger.