Did I say "ever"? I suppose I did. I suppose it is because this news combines such a sense of bean counting, superiority, triviality and, frankly, sheer sadness so as to define a point which we may have reached. I quote in reasonable fullness:

...West Linn-Wilsonville School District teachers and administrators may have spent as much as $12 on alcohol during a 2007 trip to Mexico and possibly more, according to public records. Crucially, the article, posted here, states that at least some of this money was reimbursed to employees by the district as a paid expense in violation of district policy. Superintendent Roger Woehl is quoted in the story as saying that district policy is for employees to "pay for any alcohol drinks on a separate tab or to not include them in their reimbursement." Woehl goes on to say in the article, however, that $11.60 was recovered by the district from employees for improper reimbursements.

It's a clash of parody, irony and reporting. One can read it as one watches a building burn. Or as one carefully scans the pages of long ignored Old Testament passages seeking some lost meaning in the complexity and earnestness from high. Net effect? Forty cents over three years. Yet it is news. Where have we found ourselves?