“Germans testing a Messerschmitt BF 109.” 

Steel yourselves, readers, for a shocking report of psychological brutality inflicted on wee ones during a terrifying rampage:

If your children express that they are troubled by today’s incident, please talk with them and help them share their feelings. Our school counsellor is available to meet with any students who have the need to do so next week.

So reads the letter sent to parents in the aftermath of the incident by Myrna Phillips, assistant principal of Park Elementary School, Baltimore. Clearly, the school’s second-grade 7-year-olds were at risk of being emotionally scarred by the incident, which was classified as a “level 3” violation of the school’s code of conduct. 

Oh, yes. The incident: 

Josh was munching on a strawberry Pop-Tart, when his creativity got the better of him, and he decided to reshape his breakfast by nibbling on its edges. “It was already a rectangle and I just kept on biting it and biting it and tore off the top and it kinda looked like a gun but it wasn’t,” he said. But his teacher thought it definitely looked like a gun, and, what’s more, she claims she saw Josh hold on to his food and utter the words “bang bang.” 

Of course such evil must be punished and bleached from tiny minds.

His Pop-Tart was confiscated and he was immediately suspended for two days.

Regarding Ms Phillips’ letter to parents, Reason’s Jesse Walker adds this:

To be fair, the phrasing leaves open the possibility that the students would be “troubled” not by the imaginary gun but by the suspension, and by the ensuing realisation that they’re powerless pawns in a vast, incomprehensible game run by madmen.

Any readers distressed by these events and who find themselves in need of mental correction should report to our in-house nurse.

Via Brain Terminal. 

Will no-one help Professor Brian Cox? // 15,000 Volts. // Ladies, now you can charge your phone with your clutch-bag. // I can see your heartbeat. (h/t, Dr Westerhaus) // A happening beat combo. (h/t, EBD) // “I’ve been working on this for months.” (h/t, Julia) // Magnifying the Universe. // Man make fire. // This young man is just showing off. // Unfortunate magazine cover. // Dining table of note. (h/t, AC1) // Old New York. // Far left fashion. (h/t, TDK) // Fluid dynamics. // A vortex tied in knots. // How Google works. // Which House of Cards is better? // Drift. // An actual 3D desktop. // Two lips, one camera and one trombone. 

As the much-missed blog Burning Our Money is back with us, and with a book to sell no less, readers may wish to reacquaint themselves with some items from the BOM archive. There are hundreds of illustrations of how our betters set fire to money someone else had to earn. For instance, this innovative scheme: 

A thousand colourful bubble blowers are to be handed out to revellers in Bolton centre. The aim is to encourage drinkers leaving pubs and clubs to focus on playfully blowing bubbles on their way home, instead of getting into scuffles. It is the latest initiative to curb alcohol-related anti-social behaviour. The blue and orange bubble blowers, which double as pens, will be handed out by Police Community Support Officers and town centre ambassadors on Saturday nights in December.

Another subject close to many readers’ hearts is the presumption of our publicly funded arts establishment. On which, this: 

According to Michael Lynch, the departing head of London’s expensively refurbished Southbank Centre, the private sector hasn’t donated nearly enough to fund his arts empire: “Corporate Britain had in my view let down the side. They need a sense of values.” Apparently, none of those gazillionaire Goldmans’ bankers has given “anything meaningful,” and he describes them as a “bunch of bastards.” Arts, you see, are A Public Good, and rich bastards have a civic duty to dig deep in their support. Everyone knows that. Just like they know that art is what the artist says it is, not what the customer says. Philistinism – aka customer choice – is no excuse… How then did the Southbank manage to fund its costly refurbishment? According to Lynch, “the Government, to their credit, got behind us in a big way.” Well, that was awfully sweet of them, but – and this may be news to Mr L – the government doesn't actually have any money. In reality, once again, it was we poor schmucks who paid. How much? Precise details are sketchy, but we know the refurb cost £111m. And the vast bulk of that came from taxpayers… In addition to that, the Centre is receiving a £20m a year tax-funded subsidy towards its running costs. There are certainly some bastards involved in this, but I fancy they’re not working at Goldmans.

And there’s this item, on the remarkably unpopular West Bromwich arts centre, boldly named The Public, which two years after opening had failed to attract a single paying customer. The venue, which promised to “make the arts more accessible,” had nonetheless managed to consume almost £60 million of public money and suffered three insolvencies. Among the aesthetic wonders sadly neglected by locals was a piece by the artist Michael Pinchbeck, a “five year live art project” called The Long and Winding Road. For his mammoth and challenging installation, Mr Pinchbeck “packed a car with the belongings of his brother and drove to Liverpool where his brother died in 1998.” After touring the nation and presenting his car full of rammle to any passers-by who wandered too close and paused fractionally too long, Mr Pinchbeck announced that he would conclude his mighty artistic work by “driving the car into the River Mersey.” The car was subsequently crushed and its fragments displayed for further enrichment of the public. Not to be outdone, the West Bromwich arts centre had its own, no less ambitious announcement regarding the project: “Admission will be on a first-come-first-served basis.”

Another of Mr Pinchbecks’s colossal works, “a deconstruction of Shakespearean stage directions,” can be savoured here. 

Seen from Saturn. By Cassini. January 4th, 2013.

Related: Depth Perception, Planetary Bling, Titan Obscured, What Cassini Sees.