It's the wonderful month of May when kids and teachers alike just want to be done with each other. For the last nine months, the babies and their sitters have had to deal with one another and pretend that everyone is learning something. Last week in Albuquerque, we had two gun scares on Monday on high school campuses. One turned out to be a 9mm found at the poor brown school in the South Valley, and the other turned out to be a cardboard gun for a class project at the rich white school in the Northeast Heights. Guess which one got more news, police and controversy?

That's right, it's those rich white kids. While the actual gun at Rio Grande High School was a one day and done story, the cardboard gun at La Cueva High has been an issue all week. This is mainly because of the reaction. A boy was caught on a surveillance camera at the school, walking down the hall with a gun in his hand. He had the gun for an English project as a modern reenactment of Hamlet.

The police response was more than immense. Lockdown, evacuation, 100 police officers in response, a SWAT team, armored car & helicopter. Oh yeah, they were ready.

When the student got back to class, he told the teacher he might have caused the lockdown, but the teacher dismissed his claim. The police eventually stormed the classroom, using flash-bang grenades. I'm not exactly sure what those are, but I imagine the name says it all.

Who's to blame? The finger pointing began. It was the boy! He was banned from graduation. It was the teacher! A judge ruled the boy he could attend graduation. It was the system! It's amazing what can happen in one week for one silly screw up.

It has made me wonder if this new world we live in is really for the best. Airline travel has gone in the toilet since 9-11. We are so secure that we don't even enjoy flying any more. We have cops & security cameras at schools. There are cameras at stop lights and stores and ATM machines. We are never alone. Not even with a cardboard gun in our hand.

But is this better? Do we feel safer? Is all the effort to prevent a tragedy worth avoiding an actual tragedy? The boy was doing a reenactment of Hamlet, one of the greatest tragedies ever written. Instead of learning from a tragedy and becoming better, stronger, more resilient people, we have more surveillance. We have more violations, more penalties, more punishments.

I have noticed in the past few years that we don't joke around as much anymore. I think this is mainly because of the airports. You are NOT allowed to joke about security. If you do, you will be taken to a little room and asked what's so funny about terrorism. If you tell them a few things that are funny about terrorism, life becomes worse for you.

I went to school with no cops or cameras, and kids brought drugs and who knows what to school, committed suicide and vandalized the property. These things still happen today, no matter how much you watch them. Now, we have cardboard guns to deal with, and we're not even allowed to laugh our freaking heads off about it after the fact.

Instead of Hamlet, this is more like Much Ado About Nothing. We're trying to save the kids from the horrors of humanity. We're trying to prevent another 9-11, another Columbine, another Waco. Everybody freeze! Everybody get down on the ground!

Well, which one is it?

I think I'm going to start laughing again. I'm going to laugh at the unnecessary police siege at La Cueva. Ha! I'm going to laugh at the Democrats for not being able to pick a candidate. Ha ha! I'm going to laugh at the Middle East, sky rocketing gas prices, and everyone's stupid ideas of how to fix it. Ha ha ha! I'm going to laugh at the Iraq War. I don't support it or the troops and I never did. Ha ha ha ha! I'm going to laugh at the economy and whether it's doing well or not. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

You know, the more I laugh, the more stupid everything we do seems to be. Hee hee!

Chris Jungle thinks you're funny.