Albus Dumbledore, and presumably none less than Harry Potter, too, could certainly stir up a real full-sized tempest in a teapot, but I’m not at all sure they could have succeeded better than the Pasco County, Florida, bureaucrats who have sent substitute teacher Jim Piculas packing because he performed an innocuous little magic trick in class.

Daniel Ruth of the Tampa Tribune has a great summary and take on the story here. The bureaucratic powers-that-be who are responsible for this embarrassing example of what gives bureaucrats a bad name are taking a well-deserved thrumming in the media. There’s one aspect, though, that perhaps hasn’t been pointed out yet.

If Piculas really posed any serious wizardly threat to Pasco County children, certainly those very same bureaucrats would have been turned into toads, or perhaps jellyfish cast into Tampa Bay. The fact that they haven’t been is proof enough of Piculas’ innocence.

Dumbledore certainly would have sent them all thither had they treated him that way.

Peace.

Deborah Alicen