I hope I'm not revealing too much about myself when I admit that I'm a fan of The Simpsons. I am and I'm proud--it's one of the few really imaginative shows on the tube (the openings are priceless, from the things Bart is writing on the board at school to what happens when the family sits down together on the sofa). The show of course heaps ridicule on stupidity, cupidity, duplicity, and anything else in sight. When it first came out, kids started showing up in Bart t-shirts--"Underachiever and Proud of It." I'd like to believe that most of them appreciated the irony of it, but after thirty-odd (sometimes very odd) years of teaching, I doubt it. I have my beginning photography students make pinhole cameras from mounting board that's white on one side, black on the other. The cameras are simple boxes that hold one 5x7 sheet of photographic paper. The inner box is 5x7 inches, but the outer box, in order to fit over it, is 5 1/8 x 7 1/8 inches. I was appalled by the number of students who approached me, ruler in hand, and asked me how to identify an eighth of an inch. These are high school students, freshmen through seniors. --seed