Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Grading on a Curve


We have completed the endless summer of endless campaigning in time to begin the endless fall of endless campaigning.  The leaves may change but politics does not.  Through the oppressive summer heat which was either caused by man’s activities or a vengeful God, we endured political wars on success, woman, religion, chicken sandwiches, and Rep. Todd Akin.  The arrival of September never felt so good. 

We the victims of these conflicts have a short few weeks remaining before these wars are replaced by shiny new wars on freedom, the poor, transparency, or a vulnerable nation state in the Middle East, take your pick.  If you thought war was hell, you haven’t been through many Presidential campaigns.  It’s getting hot out there. 

There is one Big War that we know is about to be fought in America, and the first shots in my area will be fired on Tuesday, September 4th: the War on Classes, and in this war, our school age children are the victims.  It’s Back to School Day in most of Real America and our kids will fight to stay home in bed.  It is the day that our children will be bused off for their 9 month indoctrination in such radical philosophies as the Pythagorean Theorem, Newton’s Laws, and Maslow’s Hierarchy.  When I went to school, studying this stuff was considered intelligent design.  Today, we know that two of those guys were from Europe and one from New Jersey, so we know they are closet socialists.   
  
Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, aka Thing One and Thing Two, would be well served to follow our children into the classrooms this fall, and take a few courses from our wealthy elitist union thug educators.  If the candidates can’t pass rudimentary elementary subjects, how can they expect to be accepted into the Electoral College of their choice, let alone graduate?  The Electoral College is highly selective, but I hear that it’s worth it for the gourmet campus dining halls and the unsupervised co-ed dormitories.

Here is the class schedule I recommend for the party standard bearers: 

Math:  Romney and Obama should both enroll in Arithmetic 101.  If Romney believes that $4 trillion more in tax cuts plus increased defense spending minus funding for the National Endowment for the Arts equals a balanced budget, I would recommend some remedial tutoring or prescription medication.  The President for his part has struggled with job numbers, but according to Fox News is reportedly pretty good with division.

Science:  Science could be a struggle for the former governor of Massachusetts.  There is an entire chapter on global climate change, and he has been taught that Fahrenheit was a liberal and Celsius was a Communist.  I’ll bet you $10,000 Romney would pay Paul Ryan to take the final for him.  The President could conduct a lab experiment for the Science Fair that demonstrates that oil interests are not soluble in the environmental lobby no matter how hard you stir, particularly in an election year.

History:  A good semester of history would benefit both candidates.  I am not sure that Mitt Romney is aware that George W. Bush was President from January 2001 to January 2009, or that Bush represented the same political party as he does.  Barack Obama needs an education about all of the radical 20th century philosophers and villains that he is accused of mimicking.  If he is going to be accused of being a modern day Neville Chamberlain or Saul Alinsky acolyte, he should at least know who those guys were.

English:  We know that Romney can order dinner in 6 different languages, but he has not proven that he can be understood by non-NASCAR team owners in his native tongue.  Obama for his part could brush up on his elocution and lose that telltale Kenyan accent he uses when talking down to people.  This semester’s required reading for both students:  Catch 22, which could describe their feeling the day after being elected.

Foreign Language:  Both should be cramming for weekly quizzes in conversational Spanish.  If demographic trends continue, they’re going to need it. 

Physical Education:  Neither candidate needs to enroll in PE.  The entire enterprise is called “running” for office after all.  Romney could sign on to his running mate Paul Ryan’s P90X plan and Obama could take up running alongside his Vice President’s mouth.  Both regimens should provide plenty of exercise without the risk of being picked last for the class dodgeball game. 
 
I know it may seem odd for grown men to enroll in elementary school again (although Donald Trump has not personally witnessed Obama’s primary school transcript, so perhaps he never graduated), but it could be educational.  When the most common retort to a political adversary this season is “Oh yeah? Well so are you!”, it does not seem all that far-fetched that Romney and Obama head back to school.  I think we agree that it is time to raise educational standards, so let’s start at the top.

Of course, come November 6th, we will be grading on a curve.
  

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