Here are two pictures that I took. The first one is using an auto setting on the camera. When you use an auto setting the camera looks at all the colors and averages all of them to a gray setting. This picture is very gray. The next picture was taken with the camera on the snow setting. This allows more light into the camera and basically overexposes the picture but in doing so, the snow is actually now a white not gray in color. Brenda

So I went and read the article... then I read the comments that the editor had received both against and in favor of the no 0 policy. The people who commented in favor of the policy had a good reason, up to a point. Basically, they said that giving the 0 says ok, you got a 0 so you don't have to do the work. They said that instead of giving a 0 the student should be required to complete the work. I'm not a teacher, but I do know that the authority of teachers any more is way to limited and much of the time they do not receive the support they need from the school or from the parents. Here's my question. How in the world is the teacher to 'require' the student complete the work? Apparently they can't use loss of grades (getting the 0) as incentive. They certainly can't physically force the student (potential child abuse issue - and I do agree that teachers shouldn't use physical force on students). Many of the parents aren't going to back them up. How is the school going to back them up? I'm seriously interested in some thoughts on this. Can they make the students stay in the school enough extra hours that the student does the work just to get out of the building? Can they refuse diplomas (might work on Seniors, but I doubt underclassmen are thinking far enough ahead to consider this a real thread)? What are the options to require the students to do the work?

Couldn't believe I read somewhere that it was considered "edible". Damn, how hungry could you be, unless you are a blowfly or a dung beetle??!! Just for hell of it, here's another stink horn that popped up in the same freshly-mulched bed..... Phallus impudicus (disclaimer: I did NOT assign the name to this creature!)

I've got 2 for you, road travel extremes: The first, heading east on the 46 toward the 5: This is east of the James Dean crash site. Lots of nothing. And LA traffic, homeward bound after an out of town assignment: