The job description should read “Must be able to hand out papers, sit bored out of your skull, make sure the lunatics don’t take over the asylum with no authority, no hope for respect from the inmates, and no real idea if they are lying to you when they tell you that their regular class work involves smartphones and flaming hot covered salt lick snacks.”

For three generations the benefits of completing a high school education became less obvious. The best and most well-paying jobs required a college diploma and the halcyon days of graduating with solid grades in high school decayed year after year.

Ignorance isn’t stupidity. Ignorance is the absence of knowledge. The remedy to ignorance is the opposite of certainty.

The Truth is a complicated thing and anyone claiming that their truth is more valid than another's without factual information and another take on it is highly likely full of shit.

I've been arrested twice in my life. Both times were for public nudity.

So, when one of the pieces of advice my mother gave me as I packed up my truck to move to...somewhere...after college was "Don't get naked on television.  Keep your clothes on!" it made perfect sense.

A Parent/Teacher Conference. Mom stands next to Dad, looking slightly annoyed. Dad, on the other hand, looks pissed. And the eighth grade turd who frequently stirs up trouble in class and is thereby the target of some of my more creative punitive measures, is looking so pleased that Mr. Hall is finally going to get it.

And then I saw her. Standing casually next to a guy in a T-shirt, looking around for a customer to lap dance for ten dollars in the room. It was Nora. “Holy shit!” I thought. “What is she... fifteen? Did she see me? How do I get outta here?”

Before I got fired from my second teaching job, my administrator asked me a series of questions which, in essence, involved asking me to justify my work over the preceding year.

It probably isn't any big surprise that, despite his strident hatred of Islam, I remain an enthusiastic fan of Bill Maher.

So, when I sat down at my iMac and watched his interview of two of the rich, white kids at the forefront of the #NeverAgain movement, I had to go back and look through his archive to see if he had any of the poor, black kids behind the #BlackLivesMatter movement.

He didn't.

This is likewise not to indicate innocence of predatory behaviors or to suggest that we should not give accusations of sexual misconduct and criminal behavior a full hearing. For most of recorded history, women and those in the minority have been systematically been disbelieved for no other reason than to protect a false hierarchy and thus demonize those accusers. Disbelief for reasons outside of the facts is just as erroneous and damaging as belief for the same reasons. Making the mistake of over-correction is still making the same mistake.