In Florida, to appease the elderly people who can't go a day without wasting their money on some sort of gambling, we have a state lottery. It's been here since I lived here (at least 1989), and the jackpots get pretty big now, but of course my grandmother's odds of winning are still infinitesimal and getting worse every day as the population grows.

To justify this great bilking of America's aged, the state donates all proceeds to public education. Every year they come out with stats about how many billions of dollars the public school system is getting from the lottery (read: gullible old people), but at the same time the public school system here is atrocious. Test scores are some of the lowest, and I worked with many of the students at one of the better schools during my tenure at the movie theater during one summer and let's just say they weren't exactly the brightest pennies in the tray.

And then there is the Rocky Point Crew. As an example of the fine young people we have around here, there was a group of 12-14 year olds in my area (called Rocky Point because it is surrounded by water on 3 sides) who fancied themselves a gang. To mark their turf, they would spray paint "RPC" (for Rocky Point Crew) on local Stop signs. I actually witnessed them in action one night on my way back from the movie theater, and one of them was actually standing on the seat of his bike in order to reach the sign to spray paint it. I haven't seen their mark recently, I guess without a rival faction to have turf wars with they just kind of dissolved when they went to high school. This, in a nutshell, is Stuart, Florida. Even the gangs here are half-assed.