What's Wrong With This Picture?

That's Melissa Morin. She wants this to be her senior photo in the High School yearbook. But it's been banned. That's because the grownups running her school have decreed that the flower she's holding is like a gun, and we can't have that sort of thing, now, can we? No, really. From the Nashua Telegraph.

This is part of the disheartening trend of rules replacing good judgment. Adults don't want to explain why some drugs are ok, while others aren't. So a kid gets busted for possession with intent to distribute aspirin. The principal can't quite decide what the difference is between a t-shirt with a swastika on it, and one sporting a cross, so both must go. The lesson learned, of course, is that there are no standards, only rules. Which, in turn, means it's very important to grow up to be one of the grownups who get to make the rules. Wisdom? Not so much.