I opened up the new Offbeat magazine today, and I saw Jan Ramsey's endorsement of legalizing marijuana in New Orleans to help save it in these trying financial times. I was a bit saddened to see Antoinette K-Doe featured in an ongoing recipe series that's been running for a while - looks like she had a good one for cornbread, and a little perspective on food coming from her background: I just love to cook. When I'm cooking, my mother and grandmother are inside of me, so that means a lot. And that's all I know, is to cook and feed people.

Flipped through the pages a little more and was stunned to see an ad for local public TV station WLAE touting a one-day, four-hour-long Tuition Auction. The participating schools? 45 private and parochial greater New Orleans area institutions, Loyola and Xavier Universities, and Lafayette Academy Charter School.

I don't even know where to start on this one. Too, too many one-liners come to mind:

• I give the phone lines two minutes before the whole system crashes.
• Guess this is what school vouchers are really about.
• Couldn't they have just contracted with Priceline on this?
  
• Ebay, anybody?
  
• I need somebody to start handicapping this race, but I don't think Vegas bookies would touch it with a ten-foot pole.
• Edwards is in prison right now kicking himself for not thinking of it first - the kickbacks he could have gotten from parents wanting a better education for their kids!
• I'm sure our goober-natorial representative is rubbing his hands with glee, and his handlers are wondering how they can spin this one to further show how impressive Jindal's record is.
  
• Stop Louisiana, I wanna get off...and I'm taking New Orleans with me.

I'm not sure if this is the first tuition auction or what, but it's pretty damn sad when you are reduced to a one-shot Sotheby's-type ordeal to ensure your children get the good education they deserve, no matter what financial, racial, or class bracket they are in.

Why don't they just throw all the applications down a flight of stairs, and whichever ones reach the bottom are the ones that get first pick? Makes about as much sense.