Q: What is so rare as a day in June?

A: February 29.

(That’s not my gag. Walt Kelly used it in Pogo about eight or nine leap years ago.)

Today, a parable.

Once upon a time there was a land where only children lived. It was a happy land of flowers and sunshine and gentle, playful animals.

The only problem in all of the happy land was the Mean Boys. There weren’t a lot of mean boys, but everybody was afraid of them. The teased. They pushed ahead in line. If they got really mad, sometimes they beat up the smaller kids.

Some of the children went to Maddy, the Smartest Girl. “What are we going to do about the Mean Boys?” the asked, crying.

Maddy said, “This isn’t as big a problem as you think. The Mean Boys aren’t all that powerful.”

“But they’re big!” said one little boy. “And when you try to stand up for yourself, they just laugh at you and take your stuff.”

“Yes, they’re big,” said Maddy. “But you know what? They may be bigger than you are, but they’re not bigger than all of us are.”

“What does that mean?” asked a girl.

“It means that if we all work together, we can beat them. They aren’t strong enough to fight all of us.”

“You mean we gang up on them?”

“Yes,” said Maddy. “When they get mean, we all have to fight them together. Soon they’ll learn that they can’t beat the power of all of us working together.”

“But we can’t be together all the time,” said the little boy. “What if they catch one of us alone?”

“We have to make sure we’re never alone,” said Maddy. “From now on we all stay in groups all the time. I’ll organize the groups, and you’ll have to stay with your group all day and all night. Never leave the group.”

“Sometimes I like to be alone,” said a Smart Boy (not smarter than Maddy, but pretty smart).

“You want to get beat up?” asked Maddy.

The Smart Boy was about to say something, but then decided not to.

And so it was done. All the children organized into groups, and they stayed together all the time, and whenever the Mean Boys picked on someone, the whole group gathered around them and beat them up.

And after the Mean Boys had stopped beating kids up, Maddy announced that the Mean Boys wouldn’t be allowed to tease anyone anymore either. And the Mean Boys had to go along with it.

And everyone agreed that Maddy should be the queen, because she’d figured out how to make life perfect for everyone. And everybody did what Maddy said.

And Maddy got to have the nicest room, and the nicest toys, and nobody disagreed with her, because all the others would beat them up.

And sometimes Maddy teased the Mean Boys, or even kids who weren’t actually mean or boys, if she didn’t like them. And everybody agreed that that was OK, because Maddy had done so much for all of them.

And sometimes, when Maddy got really angry with somebody, she’d tell the group to beat them up. And of course they did that, too.

But all in all things went very well in the happy land.

Until one day some cars came over the hill.

Teenagers got out of the cars.

And they had guns.

(Now that I’ve written this out, it isn’t as profound as I thought it was. But it’s written, and I’m not going to find another subject tonight. Have a good weekend.)