In Line For Art

La Louvre in Paris, perhaps the most famous museum in the world.

Thousands of people in the lobby under the glass pyramid, those on the right standing in line for over an hour to get in, to look at art. Art!

And the huge halls (and every nook and cranny) are packed with works by the most famous artists in history.

The piece that draws the most people is the Mona Lisa by DaVinci. Check out the crowd! You'ld think Favre was signing autographs.

Because of a recent attack, she's now behind ropes, keeping the crowds back 15 feet. The protective glass takes a bit of the focus away.

Later in our trip, we saw a teacher with her class of 4 and 5 year olds checking out the works of Monet. Too bad our teachers get such a bad rap, especially from right wing talk radio. At least once a week they break out the teacher pinata for a few wacks. "Those greedy teacher salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 months a year! They're just babysitters."

You can get babysitters for less than minimum wage. Let's give them $3 and hour, and only the hours they work, none of that silly planning time. That's $19.50 a day (7AM to 3:30PM with 25 minutes for lunch.)

Now, how many do they teach in a class, 30? $19.50 x 30 = $585 a day. They only work 180 days, so $585 x 180 = $105,300 per year.

What about those special teachers (Art, Music, Phys-Ed) and the ones with master's degrees? We could pay them minimum wage, say $7 and hour x 6 1/2 hours x 30 kids x 180 days = $245,700 per year.

Back to reality, average teacher salary is $50,000, which comes out to $1.42 an hour per student. What a deal! Plus they'll even try to EDUCATE the kids, and they won't raid your fridge for pizza.