Speaking of things involving genitalia, my high school made the news for 'nappropriate reasons. Relative to the other high schools in the area, the one I went to wasn't that great. These high schools had simple, supposedly inspirational mottos like, "Strive towards excellence." Some really hellish ones have mottos like, "You were born a Spartan, improve on it." Of course, I went to a high school that couldn't muster anything better than "Rise above mediocracy" and "That's the South Park way." It was extremely appropriate up until graduation, as a good deal of people (including myself) seemed to take the attitude of getting out of high school with the least amount of effort. Whatever we lacked in motivation we made up in our senior prank. Supposedly, a group of kids had snuck onto the football field and sprayed grass killer overnight. On the last day of school, lo and behold, there was a giant bleached outline of a penis on the field. One of my local news stations, KDKA, had covered the story but was too chicken to actually show any skin. The administration obviously needed to fix this, so they decided to spray paint over it. What's beyond me, however, is why they decided to spray paint it blue and not green. For your amusement, I've posted the picture of the prank in our school colors:
http://home.comcast.net/~baker10/prank.jpg
Fortunatley, they re-sodded the lawn before the ceremony and everything went well after that. I did the seemingly usual thing that night and I haven't stopped looking forward to college since I found out that I'm probably going to have no morning classes my freshman year (although I'm still worried as hell for some reason).
http://home.comcast.net/~baker10/tree.jpg
I'm starting to become somewhat happy with my photography skills ever since I got my precious. That picture is one of the first photographs I've ever taken and that tree has kept my fascination for quite a while now. The tree's twisty and convoluted trunk sticks out in the middle of the path leading to my woods. It's old enough to have lichen and moss growing on its flimsy little trunk. By some miracle of chance, it stays there and blooms every year, despite looking as if it's about to topple over. Disappointingly enough, I can't identify the damned thing or find another one like it that might be more typical of the species.
Information becomes distorted when money or ideology is on the line. Reading over the writeups at milk, one gets the impression that milk is something to never be touched again. I was curious, so I googled to find out more. I found lots of nasty stuff -- milk has been linked to everything from diabetes to cancer. However, it amazed me to learn that PETA is in bed with a seemingly innocent group -- "Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine" or PCRM. Looking further into the research, they seem to have distorted a good deal of the facts. On the other hand, I was also amazed at how far the dairy industry has it's hands down Uncle Sam's pants. The most obvious manifestation of this is the Food Pyramid inclusion of a food group that a majority of the world's population can't digest. Looking at the scientific evidence, it seems like you probably shouldn't be drinking milk anyway. Unfortunately, I don't like too many other foods that contain enough calcium. Le sigh.