Some random thoughts on a Thursday night at the office.
Save tax dollars, part one: someone stuck a new 35 mph speed limit sign on a street not far from my home the other day and it got me to thinking.
Since few folks if any bothered to obey the old 45 mph speed limit sign, what makes anyone think people will obey the new one?
I'm all for slowing down, by the way. It's safer, good for the environment and saves money. But speed limit signs are a waste of tax dollars unless the numbers on them are either obeyed or enforced.
That too rarely happens, these days.
Save tax dollars, part two: raise your hand you've ever spotted someone clearly speeding behind the wheel of a non-emergency government vehicle.
I see it often - in fact, rarely do I see a government vehicle that it isn't heading somewhere in a hurry.
My guess is not only were these vehicles probably purchased with tax dollars (there may be some instances where they weren't, I suppose), but the gas in those vehicles is also paid for by you, the taxpayer.
So, the faster they go, the more of your gas they're burning - at $3.89 a gallon and climbing.
Of course, one might also argue that government employees should be first in line to follow those pesky little government rules and regulations.
Why I could never be teacher: Clayton County schools have been under all sorts of fire over the past several months because of the system's apparently crazy school board.
Now, a teacher has reportedly gone crazy as well - at least, if you believe the allegations in a Thursday story on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution website:
"A Clayton County high school science teacher was arrested Wednesday for allegedly telling an unruly student he would "rip his eyeballs out" during a tirade days before school ended for the year," said the first paragraph. .
Read on, however, and you learn the teacher was afraid of the student, who had a history of discipline issues and had made threats, etc.
Not that it matters. This guy's career as a teacher is probably over. And maybe it should be, though you can't tell me there aren't some youngsters who - lacking any kind of social guidance at home - need some good old fashioned attention.
Of course, that's not how we do things now.
Which is probably why a detective I know once told me that way back 25 years ago if he brought in a kid for questioning in front of his parents, he made sure he had deputies in the room to keep the parents from killing the kid.
Now, he said, if he brings a kid in for questioning, he'll have deputies in the room to keep the parents from attacking him.