It's a weird day in America when Massachusetts could learn a thing or two from Arkansas. But such is the case today. And it all has to do with what kids are allowed to wear at school. Oof.

First we turn to The Natural State. A school board in Marion, AR found it acceptable, after some hubbub and controversy, to allow a lesbian student to wear a tuxedo in her high school yearbook photo. People were concerned that this would be, of course, a slipp'ruh slope! toward kids wearing all kindsa nonsense and weird stuff in their extremely important, life-defining high school yearbook photos. But in the end common sense prevailed in Arkansas where it didn't in Mississippi, and the board saw fit to allow young Sarah Lloyd, who typically dresses in "boys clothes", to wear her tux on picture day.

[There was a video here]

Good for you, Arkansas!

Bad for you, Massachusetts. Well, bad for you despite good intentions. The principal of Whitman Hanson Regional High School in Whitman, MA has ended a tradition of freshmen wearing pink shirts at the Thanksgiving pep rally, because he fears it leads to unnecessary teasing and bullying. Bullying being such a buzzword these days, and people being overly cautious, etc.

[There was a video here]

So this is dumb for sure, but at least his heart was in the right place?

Basically, restricting what color T-shirts kids can wear seems silly (unless they're gang colors maybe? is that still a thing?), as does worrying that a girl wearing a tuxedo in a yearbook photo will destroy treasured tradition. (If you buy that excuse for why they blocked her in the first place, which I don't, really.) It's just silly guys, very very silly.

You know what is not silly? The AWESOME besties in the Massachusetts video, at about 58 seconds in. You see them? The boy in the sunglasses and hat, the girl in the nerdy regular glasses and hat? You know they are like the really cool artsy loner kids and he's gay and smokes fancy cigarettes and she writes short stories and plays sweet guitar music and they both want to go to Reed or NYU or somewhere fabulous like that. Oh man. I love them so much! I hope you're reading this guys. Let's be friends!

Ahem. Please excuse that. And, please, wear what you want, huh?