Benny & Sid Presents Chapter 6 of the Serialized Graphic Novel The Truant Officer

What's the lesson to be learned about kids who won't stay in school and when they do attend continually disrupt the education of those who do want to learn?

(YOUR CITY, USA) - Why is our culture so violent? Why do men spit in the street and why are so many women attracted to guys who are going to make their lives miserable? Why are so many people happy to watch, but not play sports? These are subtle clues as to who we are. These are revelations which we are blind to. They might only seem significant to an outsider, obvious to someone who doesn't share them.

America if nothing else is a paradox, a self-contradiction. While we aspire to be angels, we settle for far less than angelic and too often less than human. While our fictional villains may chortle in melodramatic delight over the prospects of torturing their captives, it's not acceptable for Americans or political parties within our country to excuse much less applaud our inhumanities to each other.

There's little point in debating with irrational people. You don't speak your mind to sway their thinking because their thinking mechanism is damaged. If you speak your mind at all it's to be heard for the sake of standing up for the right thing. If you don't do it, and enough of us don't do it, then history and other peoples will get the wrong idea about us--which they inevitably will anyway. What kind of country elects George Bush and then turns around and elects Barack Obama in the following election. A country which can't make up its mind. Or maybe a country which has learned a lesson.

What's the lesson to be learned about kids who won't stay in school and when they do attend continually disrupt the education of those who do want to learn? This is an issue which will raise to the top if the political forces behind education continue as they have pressed since the passage of No Child Left Behind.

These heady issues don't concern truant officers or hand-sanitizers. They're bottom-feeders on the food chain of education. Their only mindless task is herd the kids into buildings and make sure their hands are clean. That's it. If it were only so simple for the rest of us.

Leonardo (Glen L. Bledsoe), Salem-News.com cartoonist, was born and raised in Indiana. He graduated from Indiana University with a Bachelors of Art in Fine Arts and was a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for several years. Glen made his home in Oregon in the early 80's where he continues to enjoy the mild climate and lack of sales tax.

He and his wife Karen have published seventeen books together for the school library market. Glen has written extensively on the issues of technology and education for the National Education Association and other publications. When he is not creating this unique cartoon series, Glen is either teaching, writing a novel, composing music, or reading.