IT'LL BE A GREAT DAY WHEN THE SCHOOLS HAVE ALL THE FUNDS THEY NEED AND THE PENTAGON HAS TO SELL NUDE PICTURES OF DONALD RUMSFELD TO BUY OMBERS

How much do we care about our kids in this country? So much that local school districts have to do stuff like this:

JUNCTION CITY, Oregon (AP) -- Cleve Dumdi -- a 70-year-old respected sheep rancher, husband of a former county commissioner -- was walking in this small Oregon town one day when a longtime acquaintance hailed him from across the street.

"Hey Dumdi!," the man hollered. "Didn't recognize you with your clothes on!"

It's the kind of ribbing Dumdi has had to bear ever since he disrobed and perched on his tractor for a 2004 nudie calendar featuring the men of Junction City's Long Tom Grange.

All proceeds from calendar sales go to the Junction City school district, which has had to give up at least three classroom teachers, art, music, gym class and field trips after recent severe state cutbacks in education budgets.

The calendar, which is being sold online for $17, is the latest gambit to raise money for local schools in a state where teachers already have lined up to sell their blood plasma and ranchers have auctioned off the rights to hunt for buffalo and antelope on their property....

Look, I don't want to be totally humorless about this -- the calendar is done in good fun, in the manner of England's Ladies of Rylstone calendar, which raised money for leukemia research. But come on, people. These are our schools. These are our kids. Pay some damn taxes. The sight of slightly embarrassed middle-aged naked people is entertaining for a year or two, but for school funding it's not a long-term plan.