Shares my values? Check! Got my vote!

Whaddaya know, the New York Times was worth reading for once. Turns out I have something in common with both members of the Democratic ticket: our children attend(ed) private schools. Of course, their children's schools were a lot more expensive than mine. I couldn't afford $18,000-$20,000 per year. Holy crap.* I wonder if Biden received the "Catholic family discount" common at most Catholic schools. (I don't. Long story.)

Despite that high tuition, Biden's children's school uses public school buses to transport their students to and from school. My son's private school can't afford running a school bus every morning either, but he can't ride the public school bus (it doesn't come out this way) so he takes public transit with me. When I mention this to my colleagues, their eyes widen and they ask, "We have public transit? Here? in Hattiesburg?"** Why yes, we do. Apparently they don't have public transit wherever the Bidens live. Who'd'a thunk Mississippi had a leg up on Delaware?

All is not lost for the Republican ticket: McCain sent his kids to private school, too. Also boffo expensive. I could think about voting for him, but Palin sent her children to—sniff—public school. Lost my vote there.

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*My university doesn't charge half that much even from out-of-state students. Then again, it's a public institution that depends on the taxpayers. My former institution's tuition ran along those lines, but it was a college, for crying out loud, and with financial aid no one paid that much. (The former president compared it to the sticker price on a car.)

**At least two colleagues have asked me this. I will not disclose names, in order to protect the guilty.