Columnist Susan Snyder: Time for us to play cleanup

Tuesday, March 4, 2003 | 8:17 a.m.

Remember the kid in grade school who mixed up his lunch just to see what he'd get?

A mess, most times. And the lunchroom teacher usually made him eat it.

So consider:

Clark County School Board officials are bickering over a federal mandate to prohibit invocations and benedictions from graduation ceremonies. At risk is $70 million in federal education money the district could lose if school board members hold fast in their stance against the prohibition.

The state is facing a $700 million budget deficit, and Gov. Kenny Guinn wants to raise property taxes, among other levies.

Studies have shown about a quarter of Nevada's students drop out of high school, never making it to graduation ceremonies to hear any prayers.

Sunday's Parade magazine's annual roundup of what people earn says a Las Vegas dancer reportedly earns $125,000 a year, while a university professor in Kentucky earns $58,000.

Talk about a mess that's not very appetizing.

Local school board members last week said they were weary of being told what to do by the federal government. But this time, the grandstanding we are so fond of doing out here west of the Mississippi River could affect our abilities to offer a good education to the generation on which we will foist our budget messes, environmental messes and global political messes.

They can pray all they want to for cleanup solutions. But they may lack the skills they need to find tangible answers to those prayers if we shortchange their education funding.

A dancer in Las Vegas earns $43,000 more annually than than a policy advisor to Congress. Our young people already are getting a pretty good idea of how much we value education. Do we honestly have to make this messier than it already is?

Swallow hard.

The other mess we need to consider is the one strewn about my kitchen.

It's Mardi Gras, which means I stayed up most of Monday night creating an authentic king cake.

This Fat Tuesday tradition has undergone a few modern alterations from being served to family and friends on "Kings' Day," or the Feast of Epiphany Jan. 6, to being the centerpiece of the bacchanal that is Mardi Gras.

In New Orleans tradition, a tiny baby figure representing the Christ child is baked inside the cake. Whoever receives the piece of cake with the baby is responsible for baking the king cake for the next social gathering or ball.

Woe to the fool who thinks complication ends with the historical explanation. And Lord gaze down upon the one who gets the baby.

Washing a cat is easier than baking a king cake.

For after the mixing, rising and punching of dough is finished, the fun is just beginning. Nothing quite compares to rolling out onto your kitchen counter a sticky slab of butter brioche dough that is three feet wide and four feet long -- and then braiding it.

Note to fellow culinary train wrecks: Wax paper makes a frightfully bad rolling surface. Ditto for tile-and-grout counter-tops.

It is a horrendous mess. But at least it's one we don't mind eating.