A Wizard Did It!

You can’t make this sort of thing up.  A substitute teacher in Land ‘O Lakes Florida has been sacked for wizardry.  The exact brand of wizardry?  He made a toothpick disappear for about half a minute and then made it magically reappear.  For this he is fired.

Now I’ll be the first to admit that there are circumstances under which it would be acceptable to fire a teacher for wizardry.  Maybe if he was trying to entice one of his students to enlist as a thief with a group of dwarves on a quest to reclaim their lost treasure from an ancient and fearsome dragon.  That’s the sort of dangerous thing that middle school students probably aren’t ready to handle.  Firing would be justified if if he was trying to kill one of the students to create a seventh horcrux that would make him an all-powerful immortal evil overlord.  I’d even say firing was justified if he was using his magical powers to banish students to the magical land of Oz.

But for making a toothpick disappear?  That’s just plain stupid.  I’d be willing to bet that there is a fundamentalist Christian child at the bottom of this who complained about the magic trick in the first place because everyone knows sleight of hand is an abomination before the Lord their God, but for a school system to actually fire someone over a magic trick is just further proof of the downfall of reasonable civilization.