A brutal one-two punch of American high school headlines came across the wires today. If you’re looking for a pick-me-up, you should probably keep scrolling:

1. Kansas City Closing Half Its Schools
2. Miss. School Nixes Prom Over Student’s Lesbian Date

KC is dealing with a $50 million budget shortfall, so the school board voted to close lower performing schools and reallocate students and teachers to the remaining 32 schools. As one school board member (whose grasp of metaphor seems tenuous at best) put it:

My analogy is we took a meat ax to the district. Now we have to figure out how to sandpaper it into place.

The Mississippi story, while not impacting nearly as many kids, is just as tragic: Itawamba Country School District was pressured by the ACLU to let a lesbian student attend the prom in a tuxedo with a female date – so they decided to call the whole thing off. Which seems really fair to everyone involved. All the seniors miss their final prom, and a girl who dared to stand up for her own civil rights (something they don’t take kindly to in MS) will become the most hated person in Mississippi not named Obama.

Viva America!! (Fires off gun, gnaws on some jerky)