Worse and more basic: Adults are idiots . . . especially when they are in charge of me. And how does a parent in this situation--I.e., where the adults in charge of his children at school ARE such manifest idiots, take the part of authority and teach the child respect for it. It is one thing to excuse and forgive a teacher for laying blame on the wrong child in the ordinary confusion of a school day (and my theory is that if you are unjustly blamed for something you didn't do at school, chances are that you're just getting it for the other times when you escaped blame) . . . but how to respond to this kind of indefensible lunacy? There is no good answer.

I do not understand this at all. Why are Easter eggs politically incorrect? This was a controversy in a nearby township and I have read no cogent explanation for it in local publications.

I have been hearing Christians complain for the last thirty years that the eggs are references to Persian traditions that have nothing to do with Christianity and ought not to be produced at Easter on that account. My not caring marked me as a heretic in their eyes in a minor way. I was persuasive in arguing that I did not worship the egg, much less the bunnies and chicks, nor Ishtar.

America is a half-baked ragout of cultural traditions at holidays already. Please, someone explain how the eggs came to be an affront to civic sensibilities.

The adjective is the problem for these folks, Kate . . .whether or not it is devoid of meaning. I am not sure what the problem with the noun was unless there was some objection to the concept of fertility at work. After all, even a "holiday tree" or a "holiday party" leaves the noun intact . . .

Well holiday nuts to them all! I am going to to pick my daffodils before someone tells the earth to stop such springtime productions because they smack of the Resurrection.

What planet do these school officials live on?? Are they not aware that the biggest family film right now is "Hop", which is about the EASTER Bunny???? The kids are going to think these "spring sphere" pushers are morons!
Like Christmas, St. Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day, Easter has long ago ceded it's religious conotations in media and marketing, leaving true followers struggling to preserve a spark of what the holiday is really about, to pass on to their children. Can't government just leave well enough alone?

One must understand the political demographics of the West and Pacific Northwest Coast. In the 80's and 90's a lot of native Californians migrated out of California to the states of Oregon and Washington. Most of these people left because of high taxes and high cost of living in The Stupid State. Of course most of these people who migrated were the very same people who voted the Democrats into office who caused the high taxes and high cost of living in the Stupid State. Obviously these morons did not understand that they were part of the problem and not part of the solution. They took their moronic progressive/liberal/socialist views along with them. Hence, cities like Portland, Oregon and Seattle Washington are full of red diaper doper babies from California. Funny, if you go to the rural parts of California, Oregon and Washington, people are pretty normal. I am sure that whoever pushed this moronic progressive/liberal/socialist name on EASTER EGGS was the daughter/son or granddaughter/grandson of some creepy California native who used to live in the Stupid City San Francisco or the Super Stupid City of Berkeley, California.

Nanny state progressives simply can't leave well enough alone. There's always something more than needs correcting or restricting.

Eventually this devolves to the absurd.

And that's what we have here.

Those of such a mind to see it as absurd do. And of late the number that are of such a mind is very large indeed.

Do not fear the sphere.

Where ever you are on the sphere, there is no one else who is closer than you to the center of things.

There are really no valleys, no mountains, and no steeples, either. All is all and ever so shall be.

Of course, there must be a spatial center-point to this cosmos, but if you can imagine when and where you and your cosmos are (and are not) in the streams of warm impermanence, you will see that it cannot matter, that it is no more pointless than today's up-to-date historians still referring to a certain point in time as the beginning of the "common era," so that this year is C.E. 2011, and so that we think such-and-such a man was born in, say, the year B.C.E. 541. Some "day" they will see how uncommon, undemocratic, and un-sphere-like even this language is. And as they become more advanced, they will see how arbitrary a measurement a "day" or a "year" is, and why it is even wrong to date things from the big bang.

And actually, every single "word" "here" ought to be in scare quotes. "You" especially.

Relax. There is no sting.

I am less intelligent for having read this. But I dissent.

It would seem to me that the indefensible lunacy rests in being "outraged" by what someone decides to call plastic shells stuffed with candy, especially given that the school itself wasn't mentioned. A lot of elementary schools in Seattle, I would guess, a lot of elementary schools in the U.S. That an elementary teacher somewhere would rename "easter eggs", "spring spheres" seems unremarkable, and foreseeable enough that it should hardly shock the conscious.

In terms of leaving the noun intact, I should suppose that the egg shape is also a sphere. I also suppose that easter occurs in the spring, that it occured on the 4th of April, and that the school sponsored hunt occured at the "end of the week" probably on friday, the 1st of April. Since the 1st of April is not easter, but does belong to the spring, a rule of catagorical construction as old as Aristotle applies, since easter refers to a specific day and the spring refers to a broader set of days from March, April and May, Spring should win out.

As a side the article does give us every reason to suppose that the hunt which occured at the end of the school week occured on April 1st. Given that traditionally April 1st is April Fools, I have reasonable grounds for questioning the genesis of this story. An un-named 16 year old around the time of April Fools, tells a radio station of "proggressive political" correctness? Just as unremarkably foreseeable as calling them "spring spheres".

On Aristotelian logic "spring spheres" seems defensible. Did the hunt occur during the spring or during easter? Spring. Where the objects hunted eggs or spheres? If kids eat the product are they liable to get higher cholestorol or cavities? Is this a school sponsored subsidy for cardiologists or dentists?

It would be Willy Wonka weird to pack the "eggs" or "spheres" with fluoride.

Note: I think eating eggs is healthy, the cholesterol scare might be overdone. I like coloring real eggs, I have no problem with easter in any of its religious or secular components. I have no marketing position in "plastic eggs". If folks can't manage to sit down to eat together as a familly, or color real eggs, or wake up early for easter sunday, then that is obviously a difference in tradition.

Also Note: If I was more of an enterprising capitalist and took this story seriously I would consider getting a trademark on "spring spheres". Personally I like real eggs and the process and tradition of coloring them as opposed to plastic ones. If I walked into Wal-Mart, and saw a bunch of plastic eggs, and some were called easter eggs and some were called spring spheres, this would not influence my buying decision. I might give a 5 or 10 cent premium to a made in america sticker, but in all likelyhood the various ways Wal-Mart marketing nudges me into making the purchase decision, and my general indifference would lead me to grab the best assortment of colors without too much sensitivity to price, unless my inner forensic economist was running strong, then I might glance at the price per unit, and do due dilligence just for the heck of it(I have found math errors.)

I can't take this seriously, but if I did I would consider this a ploy to "starbucks" a commodity (plastic eggs) by injecting an ethical/ideological backdrop. Consumerism for the soul.(sorta like organic eggs:) notice if you do due dilligence on the story, the link takes you to an oregon website that does not strike mention of easter, but is plugged by organic eggs(they also claim a lab tested lower cholesterol number, and some claim that the stress of the chicken during life affects the amount of cholesterol in the egg, I don't know if this is true, but it seems conviniently coherent for Karma Capitalism.) If I did trademark "spring spheres" I would probably not sell them at Wal-Mart, I probably would make them in the U.S, from recycled plastic water bottles, and market them in NEA and Above the Law.

Actually since plastic eggs lack the process and tradition of coloring real eggs, the ideal "Spring Spheres" TM would be a sort of kit to be sold to shop teachers. A kit that involves a process for recycling plastic bottles into "spring spheres". High schoolers could make these in shop class.

Also technically until there is a product with an acertainable market that can uncommoditize/capture a financial premium by marketing along a moral split, you guys are just tilting at 16 year old April Fools hersay. (note to self: Market "Spring Spheres"TM at Chipotle and Starbucks(coincidence that it is based in Seattle?)

Technically howhever the market and the outrage is all on the right blogosphere. How do I get the liberals to buy into the promise of "spring spheres" to feed into this new moral/political/trademark/copyright west coast capitalism?

You crazy West Coasters, you are begging to be offended by "Spring Spheres"TM. I just have to decide if it is worth $149.

Didn't the Jacobins rename Notre Dame the "Temple of Reason?"

Pretty standard totalitarian fare. Why are we surprised by this anymore?

Exactly right.

Wait until the Winter Solstice Wiccans get wind of this. They'll smite the infernal Equinoxers for their imposition of religion!

Then when the Cubists Against Smooth Edges (CASE) hears of that. They'll rise up and demand the abolition of not just the seasonal reference, but the spheres as well!

All hell will break loose when the Quantum Uncertainters rail against the audacity of the Cubists for suggesting there is such a thing as a finite line! Oh my!

I tremble!

Oh mercy!! First we got The War on Christmas, now they've begun a War on Easter, too??!!?

Oh but of course! It's much harder to wage war on a cute bunny with chocolate than it is a fat elf with a mutant reindeer.

"They" almost match you in pettiness.

My favorite Bible quote, from Minervans, 4:17:

"4 days later, Jesus emerged from his Arizona tomb (just down the road from Don's place), could not see his shadow, and announced that winter would soon end. He proceeded to distribute chocolate Easter eggs and marshmallow bunnies in baskets to the truly deserving boys and girls - not the lazy kids who felt entitled."

And I counter with John 14:2:

"My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?"

You see, Craig, God loves even you. Yes he does.