Here's mine... It looks like Vietnam.

Sorry to drop a bad pun on you, but I read this earlier, and it had me seeing red. Seriously, any parent getting upset over this needs to have some red pens shoved in their goddamn eyes. HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT RED INK, FUCKER?!

Should I be using color more in this 'blog? I think that could get annoying, and I'm not sure if that's a pro or a con.

Anyway, back to dumbass parents. Look, if your kid is getting all depressed because there's always a bunch of red ink all over their schoolwork after their teacher hands it back to them, maybe it's time to tell them to stop being so stupid. I mean, honestly. Can't we do anything any more that makes people feel bad? Even if the intentions are good? Which, of course, isn't as much fun as when the intentions are bad, but that's a discussion for another time.

"It's taken a turn from 'Here's what you need to improve on' to 'Here's what you've done right.'"

That right there is everything that's wrong with America. Or, at least, everything that's wrong with "optimism." By focusing on nothing but positives, you're never going to get anyone to work on the negatives. And then they'll just fester and explode on you someday. It's not pleasant having to deal with something you screwed up, but it has to be done if there's ever to be any growth. If you can't handle being told "you done fucked up" when you're young, then you will never survive in the adult world.

Am I saying that we should always focus on only the negatives because I'm a cynical bastard who likes that shit? No, of course not. It's just that focusing on the good stuff is easy, so it comes naturally. But you don't really improve on anything or learn anything by only looking at the silver lining.

You've been to Despair, Inc. before, haven't you? Their Demotivators collection is pretty much one of the best things ever,

"I don't think changing to purple or green will make a huge difference if the teaching doesn't go along with it."

Thank you... Even focusing on red ink is just -- again, sorry -- a red herring that's avoiding the real issues (like the issue that your kid is dumb). That there actually is one of the biggest problems with this country -- we never want to get to tackling the really hard issues, so we find something peripheral (like video games with violence or pornography with rape) and focus entirely on that. Meanwhile, we fail to get to the root cause of what we're discussing, and nothing ever gets better.