Thursday, November 18
Dress for success
You've probably seen this news item by now: The Spurger, Texas, school district cancelled a long-standing tradition where boys and girls reverse social roles for one day during homecoming week. It lets the older girls invite boys on dates, open doors and pay for sodas. (Remember Sadie Hawkins day?) It also calls for guys to dress like girls -- and girls like guys.
It's cancelled because a parent -- one parent -- complained about a dress-like-the-opposite-sex day has homosexual overtones. Instead, the district will hold "Camo Day" instead. Camo Day? Camo Day. Yeah, let's encourage our children to go kill stuff instead.
Now, Texas for the most part is Somewhere, although Spurger itself sounds like it may be on the edge of nowhere(OK, I can't even find it in the index of my road atlas, so it's quite likely on the edge of nowhere too, or judging by this story, it is actually nowhere). This story is a classic example of American's love of violence and fear of sex and reliance on lawsuits (or threats thereof). And of red state vs. blue state. Culture clash. And of other things that I can't quite express right now.
My initial, natural response (to my friends who want us to move to Austin, which, clearly isn't Spurger) is "things like this make me want to stay away from Texas."
