I have a number of very close friends in North Carolina whom I love dearly, so I ask this in all Christian charity.

WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE LIVING, BREATHING, TATTOOED GOD IS GOING ON DOWN THERE?

Whom did you people elect? The people with the brightest bulbs for a nose? The people with the biggest, floppiest shoes? Does every member of the Republican majority in your legislature all arrive at work every morning in the same tiny car? First, we had the We-Can-Establish-A-State-Religion bill, and then we had the Tax-Yo-Mama-If-You-Vote-Obama bill. Caligula would be ashamed to bring his horse before these people for a vote. And now, because everybody went back to the big steaming bowl of stupid for seconds — and thirds — they have decided to put the force of law and the power of the state behind The Palmer Method.

The "Back to Basics" bill would once again make cursive handwriting a part of the curriculum for the state's public elementary schools. The State Board of Education would be expected to make sure that public schools provide instruction so that students create readable documents in cursive by the end of fifth grade and have memorized multiplication tables.

Wonderful. Why not buy a whole bunch of coal stoves and make every elementary school in the state operate with one room? Wait, forget I said that.

With legislators fearing that cursive handwriting is becoming a lost skill and that students are relying too much on calculators, the bill drew no opposition. The normally combative arguments on the House floor were replaced with laughter Thursday about whether anyone would vote no.

Putting aside my bedazzlement at the ability of North Carolina legislators to break new ground in the field of completely wasting time, I'd have to say my experience leads me to a mixed view of this whole thing. I loved memorizing multiplication tables. In fact, it was the only form of math I ever really was good at. But cursive? Cursive can blow me. The only C's I ever got in grammar school were in what was then called "penmanship," and, in frustration, my father once made me stay in on the first really nice Saturday of spring and copy out by hand an entire chapter of Wuthering Heights. Which is about when I developed my hatred for both cursive and the Brontes, and I'm afraid Jane Austen got tossed into the mix there, too, although I thought Clueless was funny.

But this school year, cursive supporters became more upset when North Carolina became one of 45 states to implement the "Common Core" standards in language arts and mathematics. Common Core - aimed at providing uniformity in what's being taught in classrooms nationally - doesn't mention cursive. Individual school districts decide whether to teach cursive. The backlash over the lack of cursive in Common Core has resulted in California, Georgia, Idaho and Massachusetts reinstituting cursive as a requirement.

Wait. What? Where?

Never mind. But Caligula would be proud to bring his horse to the Massachusetts House, by god. We'd make it Speaker.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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