The Stupids

When I was growing up what always pissed me off more than anything was when my sense of justice was violated. I'm not claiming that my sense of such things was perfect, and I imagine that such outrages often involved me personally, but nonetheless violations of my sense of justice always drove my crazy. Fortunately zero tolerance policies became commonplace about the time I left high school.

When a Fairfax County mother got an urgent call from school last month reporting that her teenage daughter was caught popping a pill at lunchtime, she did not panic. "It was probably her birth-control pill," she thought. She was right.

Her heart dropped that afternoon in the assistant principal's office at Oakton High School when she and her daughter heard the mandatory punishment: A two-week suspension and recommendation for expulsion.

I don't know how anyone gets through adolescence these days.