Labor Of Love

What results when 30 enthusiastic volunteers spend 18 years and some £3 million working in a shed in Britain?

A brand, spanking, new steam locomotive.

It's a project which makes no sense on paper  -  but it has created 90 tons of polished, gleaming, shining nostalgia. Above all, it means the world to the small team behind it.

Their aim? It's ambitious, to say the least. To build, by hand, the first new full-sized mainline steam express locomotive in Britain for half a century.

Since 1990, a team of around 30 enthusiasts, contractors, volunteers and staff  -  under the banner of the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust  -  have turned up every day to an old shed and happily milled and turned, cast, drilled, bored, welded and torqued mountains of gleaming brass, copper and nickel-silver steel to create a machine that belongs in another age.

In a few weeks, all being well, the boiler will be fired and their locomotive, christened Tornado, will turn its wheels for the first time.

The whole project is delightfully bonkers, so utterly British that just stepping through the doors of the workshop and getting a whiff of oil and acetylene, hot brass and stove enamel is enough to blow away the cynicism that comes from living in the 21st century.

It is completely mad to build a brand new, coal-burning steam engine today. Which is why I hope it works out for the builders! They are planning to run passenger trips with the new engine, possibly even running over to Europe via the Chunnel. More about the extremely eccentric project can be seen over at their website.

The Perfect Roommate?

Ever had someone ask to move in with you for awhile with the promise, "You won't even know I'm there"?  Well, there is a guy in Japan with a different perspective on that sort of thing.  Japan woman lived in man's closet

A woman has been arrested in Japan for sneaking into a man's house and living in his closet without him knowing.

Police found 58-year-old Tatsuko Horikawa living in a small storage space in the house in the southern city of Fukuoka.

The house belonged to a 57-year-old man, who had become suspicious after food disappeared from his fridge.

So he installed a surveillance system, which filmed the woman as she walked around in his absence.

"She told police that she had nowhere to live," the French news agency AFP quoted a local police spokesman as saying.

"She seems to have lived there for about a year, but not all the time."

Hmm…I've had worse roommates.

“That’s Hedley”

Harvey Korman has passed away. He was 81 years old.

Korman died at UCLA Medical Center after suffering complications from the rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm four months ago, his family said in a statement released by the hospital.

His daughter, Kate Korman, said in the statement that it was a "miracle" that her father had survived the aneurysm at all, and that he had several major operations.

"Tragically, after such a hard fought battle he passed away," she said.

A natural second banana, Korman gained attention on "The Danny Kaye Show," appearing in skits with the star. He joined the show in its second season in 1964 and continued until it was canceled in 1967. That same year he became a cast member in the first season of "The Carol Burnett Show."

Burnett and Korman developed into the perfect pair with their burlesques of classic movies such as "Gone With the Wind" and soap operas like "As the World Turns" (their version was called "As the Stomach Turns").

I always loved Harvey Korman. His timing was impeccable and he could deliver a straight line that would kill a lesser actor. And, of course, he played Hedley Lamarr in Blazing Saddles.

Crossed In Space

Legs crossed, actually. The only toilet on the International Space Station has stopped working.

The international space station's lone toilet is broken, leaving the crew with almost nowhere to go.

So Nasa may order an in-orbit plumbing service call when space shuttle Discovery visits next week. Until then, the three-man crew will have to make do with a jury-rigged system when they need to urinate.

While one of the crew was using the Russian-made toilet last week, the toilet motor fan stopped working, according to Nasa.

Since then, the liquid waste gathering part of the toilet has been working on-and-off. Fortunately, the solid waste collecting part is functioning normally.

Frankly, I'm a bit surprised that they only put a single toilet on board. This is a single failure mode that is rather ridiculous. Hopefully, the next shuttle brings a plumber up.

Obama As Millennialist Aspiration

We live in an age of Millennial aspirations. 

Everywhere you look you can see signs of widely disparate groups of people who believe they are living in an age where established norms will be destroyed by this or that newly arisen force.  This can take the usual religious overtone, as witnessed by the Left Behind devotees, but we are increasingly seeing non-religious forms of Millennialism play out even in the main stream press.

In my local paper today I was treated to a dead serious take by the AP on survivalists up in the mountains:

On the PeakOil.com Web site, where upward of 800 people gathered on recent evenings, believers engage in a debate about what kind of world awaits.

Some members argue there will be no financial crash, but a slow slide into harder times. Some believe the federal government will respond to the loss of energy security with a clampdown on personal freedoms. Others simply don't trust that the government can maintain basic services in the face of an energy crisis.

The powers that be, they've determined, will be largely powerless to stop what is to come.

Determined to guard themselves from potentially harsh times ahead, Lynn-Marie and her husband have already planted an orchard of about 40 trees and built a greenhouse on their 7 1/2 acres. They have built their own irrigation system. They've begun to raise chickens and pigs, and they've learned to slaughter them.

The couple have gotten rid of their TV and instead have been reading dusty old books published in their grandparents' era, books that explain the simpler lifestyle they are trying to revive. Lynn-Marie has been teaching herself how to make soap. Her husband, concerned about one day being unable to get medications, has been training to become an herbalist.

By 2012, they expect to power their property with solar panels, and produce their own meat, milk and vegetables. When things start to fall apart, they expect their children and grandchildren will come back home and help them work the land. She envisions a day when the family may have to decide whether to turn needy people away from their door.

"People will be unprepared," she said. "And we can imagine marauding hordes."

So can Peter Laskowski. Living in a woodsy area outside of Montpelier, Vt., the 57-year-old retiree has become the local constable and a deputy sheriff for his county, as well as an emergency medical technician.

"I decided there was nothing like getting the training myself to deal with insurrections, if that's a possibility," said the former executive recruiter.  

While you are contemplating who would win the iron cage death-match between "marauding hordes" and "executive recruiters," notice how this type of thing has come a long way from the "raving loon" territory it would have been consigned to just a few years ago.  As a society we seem to be more willing to entertain such Millennial fantasies, whether it be the belief in "peak oil" or in some "anthropogenic global warming tipping point," that will in effect destroy the Western world as we know it.

Now, part of this might be baby boomer nostalgia for the days when the nuclear holocaust was always due "any day now, so you'd better learn to Duck & Cover," and while it is certainly a horrible prospect it did assign a level of importance to the generation(s) destined to live through it.  Sure, they actually lived lives of suburban contentment, but Jimmy's dad down the street was building a bomb shelter in the basement which was something the boring schmucks growing up in the 1910's or 1920's never got to witness.  So, the baby boomers considered themselves to be the first (and only) generation living in a state of near perpetual existential angst.  As such they created a mythology of their own "specialness" that seems destined to govern the broadcasting decisions of PBS for decades to come. 

So, it shouldn't come as a great surprise that such folk view damn near everything that effects them as being "unprecedented" in some important way.  For that reason, history has no lessons to teach them.  "Those are the old rules!" they protest, "Everything is different now."  And how exactly do they know that?  Well, it seems to be taken as axiomatic.

It also seems to be a belief the boomers have successfully transfered to the present college age generation who seem similarly convinced of their own "specialness."  Take the efforts of E. J. Dionne:

Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. predicted in his commencement address to Wake Forest University’s 2008 graduating class that they are part of a group that will become the next “greatest generation.”

Dionne’s comments garnered an enthusiastic response from the crowd of about 15,000 people

They were willing to applaud praise of themselves for their soon to be revealed greatness?  How noble and selfless of them!

Dionne is at least up front about his Millennialism, and he enlists that great prophet, uh…I mean president, FDR for support:

Dionne explained that he drew the title of his address, “The Reform Generation and History’s Mysterious Cycle,” from a speech Franklin D. Roosevelt gave at the 1936 Democratic National Convention, at which Roosevelt said “There is a mysterious cycle in human events.  To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.”

“I believe those words apply more truly to your generation than to any other since FDR addressed them to what came to be known as the greatest generation,” Dionne said.

Yes, the generation that was forced to live through the horrors of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl is the perfect analogy for this generation which was forced to live through the horrors of Paris Hilton and Brittany Spears. 

One is left with the impression that much of the baby boomer "specialness" is little more than a defensive reflex to hearing their parents drone on about how rough they had it during the depression or WWII.  The historical truth is moments like the Great Depression or World War II are unique in their import and their impact.  Not every generation is going to see the like.  (I wonder if the generation that came immediately after the 30 Years War in Europe reacted the same way.) 

So you are left with a group of people whose very self worth is bound up with an overwhelming need for a heroic quality.  Thus, their wants and desires are not just the expression of their ego, it is the spirit of the age!  And, it isn't just any chronological age. It marks, so the good little Hegelians tell us, the beginning of a new epoch in humanity, for good or ill.  Its a psychology tailor made for Millennial thought.

Such thinking dominates not only in the desire for catastrophism of various kinds, but also in more mundane political considerations.  Historian Sean Wilentz picks up a good deal of this in the current beliefs infusing Obama supporters:

With her overwhelming victory in Kentucky on May 20, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has completed her sweep of the crucial primary states adjoining the Ohio River — and the fight for the Democratic nomination has entered its final phases. Having picked up a net gain of nearly 140,000 votes between Kentucky and Oregon, Clinton is now well poised to win the Puerto Rico primary on June 1 – and clinch a majority in this year's popular vote, even if the disputed returns from Michigan are discounted. Under those pressures, the Barack Obama campaign and its sympathizers have begun to articulate much more clearly what they mean by their vague slogan of "change" – nothing less than usurping the historic Democratic Party, dating back to the age of Andrew Jackson, by rejecting its historic electoral core: white workers and rural dwellers in the Middle Atlantic and border states.

Without a majority of those voters, the Democrats have, since the party's inception in the 1820s, been incapable of winning the presidency. The Obama advocates declare, though, that we have entered an entirely new political era. It is not only possible but also desirable, they say, for Democrats to win by turning away from those whom "progressive" pundits and bloggers disdain variously as "Nascar man," "uneducated," "low information" whites, "rubes, fools, and hate-mongers" who live in the nation's "shitholes." [emphasis added]

It is this fervent belief that the rules of the political game will change for them merely because of the force of their generational personality that is driving the Obama moment.  It is essentially the same idea that enabled the boomers to walk blindly into the Democratic electoral disasters of 1968 and 1972.  It is also the same force which precludes Obama supporters from learning from that history in the first place. 

Wilentz sums it up nicely:

In every presidential election they have won, the Democrats have solidified their historic link to white workers, not dismissed them. Obama and the champions of a new party coalition appear to think that everything has suddenly changed, simply because of the force of their own desires. In any event, Obama had shown no ability thus far to attract the one constituency that has always spelled the difference between victory and defeat for the Democratic Party. The party must now decide whether to go along with Obama and renounce its own heritage — and tempt the political fates.

The fact is Millennialism is about embracing opposites.  Just like their Chistian analogues, they not only accept a positive view of their destiny (the "Reformist Future" as "Second Coming"), but they also embrace a negative one akin to Armageddon.  For many of these zealots, they would rather walk with righteous fervor into an electoral buzz-saw than bow to the practical necessities of political reality.  Ordinary people would take such repudiation as a signal that their beliefs were misplaced, but we are not dealing with ordinary people.

They will tell you so themselves.   

“Look For The Union Label!”

More people are having problem with the Jones boy:

Members of Russia's Communist Party are calling for a nationwide boycott of the new Indiana Jones movie, saying it aims to undermine communist ideology and distort history.

…

Communist Party members in St. Petersburg said on a web site this week that the Soviet Union in 1957 "did not send terrorists to the States," but launched a satellite, "which evoked the admiration of the whole world."

Party members added: "What is this place 'Hungary' that people keep talking about.  We've never heard of it."

Land Shark

The Telegraph has a picture of a crocodile eating a shark. No really.

It is being heralded as the clash of the titans – the moment when a crocodile and a shark went head to head in the wilds of Australia, and the shark came off second best.

The nine foot long saltwater croc attacked the shark in a river and then hauled it onto the bank in order make a meal of it.

An amateur fisherman captured the extraordinary clash between Australia's two most feared predators while on a barramundi fishing trip in the Northern Territory.

Frankly, if that's a nine foot croc, it's a pretty small shark. But the odd thing is that the croc essentially reversed normal behavior to get its jaws around Jaws, so to speak. It dragged the shark out of the water, not into the water.

The really interesting thing about the article, however, is the fact that there are now an estimated 85,000 of these reptilian predators in Australia, up from some 5,000 in the 1970s. The sharks should be afraid.

Bring Out Your Dead

The Washington Post notes the ethical problems that a pilot program in New York City faces. The city is going to begin using a special ambulance to "save" the organs of people who die suddenly for transplant. Some medical ethicists are outraged.

In the hope of saving the lives of more people waiting for transplants, New York City is working on a plan to deploy a special ambulance to collect the bodies of people who have died suddenly from heart attacks, accidents and other emergencies and try to preserve their organs.

If the "rapid-organ-recovery ambulance" succeeds, officials would like to expand the unique pilot program citywide with a fleet of ambulances and eventually duplicate it in other cities……..

….."I think it's disgusting," said Michael A. Grodin, director of bioethics at Boston University. "People are going to worry when the ambulance comes out to their house whether they are there to care for them or to take their organs."

The plan comes as transplant advocates have come under criticism for increasingly aggressive efforts to boost the organ supply, including advocating the removal of organs before patients are brain-dead. "This is another example of overzealous transplant people trying to retrieve organs any way they can," Grodin said.

The concern that the city of New York may not do quite as much to save a patient if the magic bus is standing by may be misplaced, but it is quite real. Sure, the professional paramedics who man the regular ambulances are going to continue to do their jobs. But the presence of the organ wagon will make people question whether they are really doing enough. There is also the problem of when are people really dead. Even doctors get that wrong in hospital settings.

The other concern is that procedures may be performed – no make that will be performed – on people without their next of kin's consent. Personally, I would be furious if anything were done to my loved ones without my consent. (My wife and I have long had medical power of attorney for one another). Sorry, New York. This is an ethical morass and I predict some serious problems with it.

Besides, there are other things to worry about, aren't there?

Obama’s “Ohio River Valley” Problem

If you have given any attention to the punditry regarding the Democratic primary contests you have probably heard about Obama's so-called "Appalachia Problem."  The premise is simple: Obama does not do well with hill people, particularly in places like West Virginia and Kentucky.  As a result dire election results from such areas can be safely discounted.  Move along…nothing to see here.

The (mostly) unspoken subtext is less subtle.  "These are nothing but toothless, racist hillbillies.  Can't you hear the banjos?"

The "Appalachia" meme is being pushed by those who want to hide the extent of Obama's difficulties in rural America.  By calling it an "Appalachia problem" you can attempt to inoculate against the idea of a more general rural problem for Obama.  If one, for example, were to discover an "Ohio River Valley Problem," well it becomes harder to demonize such voters.  Whatever images come to mind when you think of the Ohio River Valley and its people, it isn't scary inbred white trash.  In fact, most rural Americans would think of these folks as being like themselves in most important ways. 

When you look at primary results across that part of the country it becomes clear that Obama does indeed have an "Ohio River Valley" problem.

Here are the results by county in those places bordering the Ohio river:

Ohio

Clinton win by 30% or more: Brown, Adams, Scioto, Lawrence, Gallia, Meigs, Washington, Monroe, Belmont, Jefferson, Carroll, Harrison, Guernsey, Noble, Morgan, Vinton, Jackson, Pike, Highland

Clinton win by 10%-29%: Clinton, Warren, Butler

Clinton win by less that 10%: Athens

Obama win: Hamilton

Indiana

Clinton win by 30% or more: Dearborn, Ohio, Switzerland, Franklin, Ripley, Jefferson, Jennings, Clark, Scott, Floyd, Harrison, Washington, Crawford, Perry, Orange, Pike, Gibson

Clinton win by 10%-29%: Spencer, Dubois, Warrick, Posey

Clinton win by less than 10%: Vanderburgh

Obama win: None

Illinois

Clinton win by 10%-29%: Gallatin, Hardin, Pope, Johnson, Union

Clinton win by less than 10% White, Hamilton, Saline, Massac

Obama win: Alexander, Pulaski

Kentucky

Clinton win by 30% or more: Carlisle, Graves, Ballard, McCracken, Marshall, Livingston, Crittenden, Lyon, Caldwell, Webster, Union, Henderson, McLean, Daviess, Ohio, Hancock, Breckinridge, Grayson, Meade, Bullitt, Spencer, Henry, Trimble, Carroll, Gallatin, Owen, Grant, Boone, Kenton, Campbell, Pendleton, Bracken, Robertson, Mason, Fleming, Lewis, Rowan, Greenup, Boyd, Carter, Lawrence

Clinton win by 10%-29%: Hardin, Shelby, Oldham

Obama win: Jefferson

West Virginia

Clinton win by 30% or more: Wayne, Mingo, Lincoln, Cabell, Putnam, Mason, Jackson, Roane, Wirt, Wood, Ritchie, Pleasants, Tyler, Doddridge, Wetzel, Marshall, Brooke, Hancock, Marion, Harrison

Clinton win by 10%-29%: Kanawha, Ohio, Monongalia

Obama win: None

Pennsylvania

Clinton win by 30% or more: Greene, Washington, Beaver, Lawrence, Armstrong, Westmoreland

Clinton win by 10%-29%: Butler

Clinton win by  less than 10%: Allegheny

Obama win: None

So, of the 133 counties in the Ohio River Valley, Obama managed to win 4 (or 3%.)  Obama lost 103 (77%) counties by more than 30 percentage points.  Obama lost by at least 10 percentage points in 122 (92%) counties.

So the next time someone tries to sell you on the "Appalachia" meme, feel free to laugh in their face.

John Stuart Mill Reaches 500 RPM

"Turning over in his grave" somehow didn't seem strong enough: Teenager faces prosecution for calling Scientology 'cult'

A teenager is facing prosecution for using the word "cult" to describe the Church of Scientology.

The unnamed 15-year-old was served the summons by City of London police when he took part in a peaceful demonstration opposite the London headquarters of the controversial religion.

Officers confiscated a placard with the word "cult" on it from the youth, who is under 18, and a case file has been sent to the Crown Prosecution Service.

A date has not yet been set for him to appear in court.

The decision to issue the summons has angered human rights activists and support groups for the victims of cults.

The incident happened during a protest against the Church of Scientology on May 10. Demonstrators from the anti-Scientology group, Anonymous, who were outside the church's £23m headquarters near St Paul's cathedral, were banned by police from describing Scientology as a cult by police because it was "abusive and insulting".

Writing on an anti-Scientology website, the teenager facing court said: "I brought a sign to the May 10th protest that said: 'Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult.'

"'Within five minutes of arriving I was told by a member of the police that I was not allowed to use that word, and that the final decision would be made by the inspector."

A policewoman later read him section five of the Public Order Act and "strongly advised" him to remove the sign. The section prohibits signs which have representations or words which are threatening, abusive or insulting.

The teenager refused to back down, quoting a 1984 high court ruling from Mr Justice Latey, in which he described the Church of Scientology as a "cult" which was "corrupt, sinister and dangerous".

After the exchange, a policewoman handed him a court summons and removed his sign.

So when exactly was the flame of human liberty extinguished in Britain? It seems ludicrous that I feel the need to quote John Stuart Mill in this day and age, but it seems we as a civilization have forgotten the important truths he categorized and catalogued:

This, then, is the appropriate region of human liberty. It comprises, first, the inward domain of consciousness; demanding liberty of conscience, in the most comprehensive sense; liberty of thought and feeling; absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects, practical or speculative, scientific, moral, or theological. The liberty of expressing and publishing opinions may seem to fall under a different principle, since it belongs to that part of the conduct of an individual which concerns other people; but, being almost of as much importance as the liberty of thought itself, and resting in great part on the same reasons, is practically inseparable from it. Secondly, the principle requires liberty of tastes and pursuits; of framing the plan of our life to suit our own character; of doing as we like, subject to such consequences as may follow; without impediment from our fellow-creatures, so long as what we do does not harm them even though they should think our conduct foolish, perverse, or wrong. Thirdly, from this liberty of each individual, follows the liberty, within the same limits, of combination among individuals; freedom to unite, for any purpose not involving harm to others: the persons combining being supposed to be of full age, and not forced or deceived.

No society in which these liberties are not, on the whole, respected, is free, whatever may be its form of government; and none is completely free in which they do not exist absolute and unqualified. The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental or spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.

That today in Great Britain peaceful political protest is being criminalized speaks to how far society can creep away from human rights. It's as if they believe what Britain really needs is a kinder and gentler KGB, Gestapo or Stasi, enforcing "proper" political belief because allowing people to think for themselves is "dangerous to the state."

When Mill says, "No society in which these liberties are not, on the whole, respected, is free, whatever may be its form of government; and none is completely free in which they do not exist absolute and unqualified," he actually means it. Mill could only look at Great Britain today and declare is not a free country.

Is the country that gave the world Locke, Sidney, Bentham, Adam Smith, Wollstonecraft, Burke and Mill really alright with that?

Gleaned from DBKP.

Call It A Counter-Factual

Imagine an America where the Democrats got their fondest wish (namely, a one party state where Republicans and conservatives are completely disenfranchised) what do you think would happen if Hillary Clinton were to run against Barrack Obama in a general election for the presidency?  It seems clear to me that were Obama placed under the rules laid out by the Electoral College he would lose to Clinton by 100 to 150 EV's.  Easy.  And that is before you had in the scorched earth campaign he has been running the last three months or so, the effects of which are only now being felt.

Now, I know according to the Obamaniacs all Kentuckians are toothless hillbillies (especially the Democratic Kentuckians it seems), but the exit poll data is damning.

Did Obama Attack Unfairly?  Yes 49&, No 48% 

This number continues to grow.

Does Obama share Rev. Wright's views?  Yes 53%, No 45%

Remember, these are Democrats.

Satisfied if Obama is nominee?  Yes 43%, No 55%

Vote for President in November?  Obama 50%, McCain 32%, Would Not Vote 15%

Vote for President in November?  Clinton 77%, McCain 16%, Would Not Vote 5%

Is Obama honest? Yes 47%, No 51%

Is Clinton honest? Yes 64%, No 34%

Obama didn't just lose this election, he was rejected.  It's a beautiful thing that Democrats don't understand the difference.

I’m Sorry, But This Is Stupid

Talk about the "Blind leading the blind": Court rules paper money unfair to blind

The U.S. discriminates against blind people by printing paper money that makes it impossible for them to distinguish the bills' value, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

The ruling upholds a decision by a lower court in 2006. It could force the Treasury Department to redesign its money. Suggested changes have ranged from making bills different sizes to printing them with raised markings.

If this is "discrimination" than the word no longer has a meaning.  It has simply become a term the courts can use to usurp the power the Constitution reserves for legislatures. 

The Silence Of The Crabs

Sorry for the light to nonexistent posting of late. My schedule has me working as much as 14 hours a day (including two-hour commute) and blogging time is very short, indeed.

Track Meet The Press

Those of us in the Blogosphere have long sparred with the press over its reporting. A Utah teenager has found a novel way to deal with reporters, though.

He spears them.

PROVO, Utah – A newspaper photographer got a little too close to the action at the state high school track championships — and was speared through the leg by a javelin.
 
Ryan McGeeney of the Standard-Examiner was spared serious injury in Saturday's mishap, and even managed to snap a photo of his speared leg while others worked to help him.

"If I didn't, it would probably be my editor's first question when I got back," McGeeney said later.

The 33-year-old McGeeney, an ex-Marine who spent six months in Afghanistan, was taking pictures of the discus event and apparently wandered into off-limits area set aside for the javelin throw.

Anthony Miles, from Provo High threw the javelin that bagged McGeeney. We foresee a great future for Mr. Miles. As a White House Press Secretary. The hunting is good in Washington!

(Miles actually felt awful about having speared the photographer, but managed to pull himself together and take the state title. Good for him.)

Top Of His Class

A Montana high school student has managed to graduate at the top of his class. Simultaneously, he also managed to graduate at the bottom of his class. This is no real feat, however, since he IS his graduating class.

GREAT FALLS, Mont. – Jeff Greenwood is in a class by himself.
 
He was the only student to graduate from Opheim High School this year, but the small event Friday drew a big name. Gov. Brian Schweitzer gave the commencement address.

Greenwood, who plans to attend Dickinson State University in North Dakota, said the high school is the "hub of activity" for rural Opheim, a town about 10 miles south of the Canadian border.

"The student-to-teacher ratio is pretty good," said Greenwood, who is the student body president and, of course, the senior class president.

The good news: arranging class reunions will be a snap. Personally, my graduating class was ten times the size of Greenwood's. Literally. And here I thought I graduated from a small school.