Central Park: How about people’s art?

Artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude have created a work of art consisting of metallic frames from which fabric is draped. Called "The Gates", they line paths in New York’s Central Park. Some people have marked up the “gates” with notes such as “ART?”, which have been promptly scrubbed away by City employees.

But why else line pathways in the people’s park in New York, if not to invite the people of New York City to actively participate in the nature of the art?

Grades for sale in Brick Township, NJ schools

According to a February 5th 2005 article in the Asbury Park Press, a student in a Brick Township, NJ high school had his grade lowered from an “A” to a “C” because of absences due to sickness and excused by a doctor’s note. But that’s not the real shocker in the article.

The article states that the syllabus outlines ways to get extra credit which would have made up the deficiency:

"…students could earn extra credit points by doing activities such as submitting stories to the school’s literary magazine or donating food to the Interact Club’s Thanksgiving Food Drive."

Donating food??? You can get a higher grade in Brick Township by going out to the store and buying food, then dropping it off??? Truly a unique grading system – people who get sick get lower grades for it, people with more money can buy food, donate it, and get higher grades for it.

Amtrak operating subsidies – get real!

CNN quotes a “senior administration official” as saying:

"Amtrak should be treated like any other form of transportation and funded like any other form of transportation. The other forms don’t get operating subsidies."

Just give Amtrak an equivalent budget to the Federal Aviation Administration and the Transportation Security Agency combined and I’m sure they’ll do fine. Even 10% of it should do.