No Shortage of Stupidity

Just in case you were thinking that all the stupidity in New Jersey was being monopolized by politicians, I'd like to call your attention to this story:

A STUDY IN CONFLICT

A girl in Monroe spent 4 months of her senior year painting a mural based on Dante's "Inferno". She had to read it for a class, and found the ultimate message of the poem to inspire hope, so she based her art work on it. Some people in the school found it too "dark", and complained to the point where she actually agreed to change it.

Note - if I conceived a vision for a mural in a school, got it approved, and then spent the time to actually paint it, the odds of *me* changing it after it's done are ZERO.

Back to my story - OK, so she changes it, tries to make it a bit "brighter" and more inspiring than scary, and in doing so, she created something that was over the principal's head.

The new look, however, was mistaken as vandalism by school officials, and the mural was whitewashed.

"There was paint thrown on it. It was a mess, so we decided to paint over it," said Goodall, who is now principal.

That's right, they whitewashed over her work. She went back to the high school she had just graduated from, went to look at the mural she spent much of her Senior year on, and it was g-o-n-e. Gone, and no one told her. She wants written apology and to be reimbursed the $400 she spent on art supplies. The new principal didn't comment.

So there you go. Some people are so thick-headed that they can't even be bothered to imagine that someone else's vision of art might not match their own.

Debra Sundstrom, Houle's former Language Arts 4 Senior Honors teacher, said it sounds like school administrators weren't counting on Houle to come back to the school.

Don't mess with art, people, it makes the world better. Even art you don't like, I swear.

So there you have it, my pick for "NJ Stupid Person of the Week". Congratulations, "now principal" Goodall.