ENABLING DYSFUNCTION. Yesterday, I caught snippets of the story of the runaway balloon in Colorado that, at the time it was flying around, attracted national news attention in fears that a small boy was in the passenger compartment. Local newscasters held out hopes that he had gone into hiding for fear of being disciplined, rather than being in, or having fallen off, the balloon.

When the balloon landed, with no passenger, and the boy later turned up in the garage attic, my first reaction was a short post on the nature of O Scale as an extreme hobby.

Developments this morning provoke a different reaction. A reality show called Wife Swap? As if Jackass isn't foolish enough? With higher education enabling the failures of K-12 by offering remediation and making self-congratulatory statements about it, and with K-12 enabling failure by offering mainstreaming and making self-congratulatory statements about it, don't I have enough by way of what-people-get-rewarded-for-they-do-more-of to gripe about already?