Mayberry has been bulldozed

It's over 1050 miles from Cazenovia, Wisconsin to Everman, Texas* .. but I couldn't help but draw a parallel between them today.

* about 50 miles from my home in Dallas

Yesterday, a high school principal - John Klang - was shot & killed in Wisconsin after a 15 year old (Eric Hainstock), who felt he'd been teased by other students, decided he had to kill someone.

Coincidentally, the New York Times published an article today about Everman, Texas principal Anthony Price, who has decided that "corporal punishment" (spanking) is a proper way to instill discipline in his middle school.

One of the problems with corporal punishment in 2006 versus 1972 (when I was the age of the Wisconsin shooter) is that it's now (apparently) socially acceptable to bring guns to school, with the intent of killing as many of your classmates/teachers as possible. I can imagine one of principal Price's students, after receiving a spanking, going home to collect her parent's gun and returning to end the life of the man who humilated her.

I don't have an answer to this problem, but those who think they can turn the clock back to The Days of Mayberry are simply delusional.