20/20 Gonzo 19: Cartoon Convention

"Listen, if you can't keep your seat, of you can't quit name calling, if you can't quit throwing fits, I will march all of you right back to the 1st grade!"  The teacher eyed each one of them, a serious glare.  The cliques were already formed, they snickered and whispered despite the lecture, they simply did not care.  They started making bodily noises and laughing, they threw things at each other, they made faces, they slouched, they interrupted, they pointed.  Calmly, the teacher sat back down at her desk, guess it just comes with the territory, the way it goes in the 2nd grade.

All the calculators broke in Iowa.  The phones were whacked, the tabulators didn't know what to do, the guy who developed the caucus counting application wasn't around, something about being arrested at a cartoon convention in Seoul, South Korea.  According to the police report, he was in a jail cell after attacking two convention attendees dressed up as Tom and Jerry.  Witnesses saw the crazed man, dressed as Spartacus, pull a sword and swing it around and around above his head while running towards the victims.  Luckily, in self defense, Jerry caught him with a roundhouse kick to the jaw, knocking him out cold.

On the D.C. streets the hecklers are relentless, the order is gone, the rules about talking, formality and dignity.  Where the actual clowns work, where the bums get their dimes, where tailpipes smoke.  News conferences to declare crooks and creeps, interviews to express outrage, fire pits to burn copies of speeches.  Headed to New Hampshire, time is up here, need a recess, need a snack, need to work on my multiplication tables, division is next, then fractions, then decimals.  Like all elementary skills, math is developed by guidance, repetition, and reinforcement.