They saw him as the class clown. He was tall and scrawny and always playing practical jokes on teachers. The girls laughed at him but never fancied him.

I was a class clown. At 12, I was definitely clowning. I was making all the jokes. But I was smart, so the teachers didn't know what to do with me.

If they can't hire teachers, that affects class size and class availability. The budget cuts have been tough on everybody.

If you keep making jokes like that, somebody is going to shoot you, father.

There are more jokes about losers than there are books about losers. The most common volumes you see written about them are the bumper stickers during the next administration: Don't blame me; I voted for the loser.

In the state of Wisconsin it's mandated that teachers in the social sciences and hard sciences have to start giving environmental education by the first grade, through high school.