My cousin's wedding was on the 8th of June, 2008, and my aunt still insists that date is the reason the marriage didn't last, @taylor_fox. Numbers take on a life of their own once people start attaching stories to them.

Is it possible that sometimes people just don't want their classroom or workplace turned into a debate zone though?

and you know what, Skyler, your kid might be onto something with the green blob thing. I went through a similar phase where I thought I was being smart by avoiding pure black because it felt too harsh or unnatural. But what the old painter was really getting at is that you need those really dark spots to make the lighter areas feel bright. Without them, everything just sits in this middle zone that reads as flat no matter how much detail you add. It's not about turning your whole painting into a black hole, it's about giving the eye somewhere to rest and something to measure the rest of the values against.

A dean actually walking over in person just to shut down a pamphlet table? That is some heavy handed stuff right there. It makes me wonder if someone higher up complained or if they were just that scared of what the pamphlet said. Like you said, what were they afraid of, people learning something? I remember back at my school they tried to pull something similar with a student group handing out copies of the Constitution on campus and it caused this huge uproar.

Claire's right on the money. I once spent a week insisting to my landlord the weird smell wasn't "just the cat" until the pipe burst and I looked like a total idiot.