Incoherent, Enraged Ranting

I have been full of rage all day today: my idiot-tolerance seems to be at an all-time low. Many things have set me off since nine o'clock this morning, but I choose to vent about the most recent. I was listening to the radio as I drove home from second-job, when on comes this woman who wants "America to decide" who is right in the argument she is having with her husband. Leaving aside my feelings about people who air their marital problems in a national forum, let us consider the disagreement:

The woman home-schools their children (a lifestyle choice I am theoretically supportive of). But this woman also gives her children all A's, whether they earn them or not. Her position? That she's helping them out, "because in this economy you need any edge you can get", and she's "helping them get into good colleges so they can get good jobs and make good money". Her husband, unsurprisingly, thinks this is a bad idea.

Um, you think?

For the second time today I found myself choking with rage over a lack of basic logic. Who is this woman?! Why doesn't her brain work? Does she earnestly believe she's helping her children by giving them A's rather than making them learn the material? Seriously?! I wanted to scream at the radio- more than that, I wanted to take this woman's children away from her before she screws them over for life. Does she not understand that you don't get into college based on GPA alone? Does she not realize that even if they did manage to get into college after she fakes their grades, they'll never be able to stay there, because they never learned the proper study habits and discipline necessary to actually carry a 4.0? ARGH!

I swear, if I could make one class required teaching in every school in the world, it would be logic. If A, then B; if B then C; therefore if A then C damn it it's not that hard. Logic, and moral responsibility, damn it. My favorite Heinlein quote is, "I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do." I truly believe that if more people were taught this from an impressionable age, the world would be a lot better off. But oh no- instead our society teaches them nothing is their fault, because of their crappy childhoods, and everything should be given to them because they "deserve" it. I hate that word so much. Soooo much. I wish I could take it right out of common vernacular, because of the way it gets so utterly abused.

("Bad credit? It's not your fault! Come see us and get the car you deserve!" This is literally the wording of a commercial around here and it makes me want to vomit and bitch-slap people every time I hear it. I hate the world sometimes, I really do.)

I ought to be in a better mood- I worked out this evening, so where are my friggin' endorphins? I just don't know.

In more cheerful news, I read the book Zahrah the Windseeker today, and I liked it a great deal. So at least there are talented authors in the world, which is something. ::sigh:: And actually, I've started Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix again (my mom and I are going through all the HP books for our re-Reading Club) so possibly my surly mood will make me more sympathetic to Harry this time around...

(PS because of today I've had to change my position on home-schooling to, "It's a great idea to home-school your kids if you're actually smarter than a goldfish. Which you are probably not.")