Learning Lunacy in Pensacola

Sunday's Pensacola News Journal predictably gives the heaviest headline ink today to local crazies who are objecting to President Obama's inspirational speech to school children. Not a word is mentioned by the reporter, or the censorious lunatics Rebekah Allen quotes, about George H. W. Bush's 1991 address to school children, or whether local school superintendents similarly embargoed that inspirational address to school students.

To her credit, Allen's report does quote a number of local citizens who strongly object to the lunacy of closeting an encouraging educational message for students from the President of the United States. And, her report advances the story a bit by illuminating the extreme contortions Escambia County school superintendent Malcolm Thomas is going through to explain why encouraging remarks to "study hard" and "stay in school" will not be shown to students who are enrolled in one of the nation's worst school systems, where too few students study and too many drop out.

Superintendent Malcolm Thomas -- who is, after all, required by the county's demented educational system to be just another politician -- told the PNJ reporter, as she paraphrases it, "Logistically, it does not make sense to stop students who may be at lunch, recess, or in an unrelated class to watch a video that is not time-sensitive."

Lunch! Recess! Of course! Eat first, drop out later.