Gadfly was repulsed, horrified, stunned to learn that several of his cousins, crickets to be precise, were recently consumed by a Florida middle-school principal in celebration/lamentation of his students' academic success. Bob Vicari promised pupils at Seminole's Osceola Middle School that were they to increase their numbers on the principal's list, honor role, and all-star behavior team, he would theatrically ingest live crickets (12.9 grams of protein per) in the school cafeteria. They did, and so did he. "He is such a proactive, kid-oriented principal," said sixth-grade administrator Susan Alvaro. "He'll do anything for the kids." Gadfly's disgust is tempered only by the fact that Vicari's stunt appears to have worked; Osceola's principal's list and honor roll numbers reached record highs this year, in no small part because of 12-year-olds eager to inflict pain upon authority. If youthful rebellion can be harnessed for positive purposes, such as studying harder, so much the better. But Vicari--why crickets? Dining on spiders is a fine middle-school motivator, and most of those eight-legged demons deserve to be eaten!
"Principal eats a bug lunch," by Thomas C. Tobin, St. Petersburg Times, February 7, 2008