We haven’t heard much about the D.A.R.E. program in many a year, and a quick trip to the Google guru shows why…the program was declared a ‘big, fat, failure’ to use the words of one citation.
We won’t go off on that bit of history, but we would like to encourage the Brunswick School Department to dare to say no to advertisements on their web site. We refer specifically to online drug purveyors of questionable character.
Especially advertising for drugs designed to make one ‘ready when the moment is right,’ and whose use has been known to increase employment for plumbers and bath fixture manufacturers. Reportedly, this drug has a known side effect: a compulsion to install dual bathtubs in idyllic settings.
We wistfully remember the Superintendent’s proposal a few years back to place change receptacles in local establishments, so patrons could drop coins they got in change from a cash transaction (something used nowadays mostly by those who could use the medicinal boost we’re talking about) into the jar. The proceeds would be used to supplement the $30 million plus provided by taxpayers each year.
Unseemly as such a proposal was, it sounds quaint compared to the new attempt to monetize the School Department web site. But we shouldn’t be surprised by what we discovered. After all, the Department, and the schoolies who provide it’s loyal and forgiving fan base, are brimming with imagination these days, especially when it comes to generating more dollars to invest in the schools. Which as we’ve argued repeatedly, really means more dollars for the teachers.
To our point, the following content appeared on the Brunswick School Department web site earlier this week:
WEEKLY CALENDAR
October 3, 2012: Facilities & Maintenance Committee, 3:30 p.m., Hawthorne Conference Room.
Buy Kamagra online from trusted online pharmacy
Agenda: update Facilities Master Plan Phase 2/Discussion of Jordan Acres Expenses and Timeline/Other Business-Discussion of Request from Brunswick Alumni Association
October 3, 2012: Agenda Building, 4:15 p.m., Superintendent’s Office
Etc., etc., etc.
The “buy Kamagra” link takes you to a site called “TRUSTED TABLETS”, where you can buy the “new medicine manufactured by Ajanta Pharma (India) for treating erectile disorders in men.”
We get that here in Brunswick, where perfection is the norm, there is no such thing as going too far when it comes to doing things ‘for the children.’ Before we know it, we suppose we could have young students knocking on our doors asking if we’d like to buy Kamagra Candy Bars to support the schools. Pharmaceutical sales can be a lucrative career choice, and getting kids interested at an early age can’t do any harm.
As a final thought, we hope the advertisement didn’t migrate un-noticed to the School Department web site from a school official’s computer. The two-tub imagery is bad enough; picturing an administrator or board member in one of them is more than even we can abide. Even if they are on a grassy knoll, gazing at the splendor of the Harriet Beecher Stowe architectural statement.
We’re biting our tongue extra hard not to follow up on that image with some zingers. Doing so would be like throwing the baby out with the bath water. This isn’t ‘the right moment’ for that, and besides, it would be too bitter a pill for readers to swallow.
No comments:
Post a Comment