Good morning, students! Welcome to Hell. Here, I’ll be telling you about random historical events from a first-hand point of view. Yes, I was there. Lola was there. After every history class session, I’ll expect you to not only know the material, but to become one with the material; to understand it and breathe it. Maybe eat it with raspberry jam and Earl Grey tea. Not that I’m promoting Britishism (I’m going to copyright that word right now) or anything, but trust me, my little Americans, it’s delicious. Although, I can't say that I love Brits... They created the Spice Girls. ...Without further ado, let’s begin with something exciting!
George Washington’s Farewell Address, 1797. You’re probably wondering why the hell I’m starting here when lots of stuff happened before 1797. Well, to be honest, all you really need to know is that we kicked some posh British ass in the Revolution and then Washington became our first president. We also had a group of early trick-or-treaters party it up in Boston Harbor and throw tea into the ocean, which pissed them Brits off (they do like their tea), and eventually led to the Revolution. Sorry, it was backwards in my mind, so it’s backwards here too. My mind works in weird ways. So anyway, after all that fun and non-tea drinking, the new United States of America were finally recognized as a world nation. In Washington’s Farewell Address, he warned us not to get involved in foreign conflicts (we sure are great with following directions) and to watch out for political parties fucking up our lovely country. To rewind a little bit, during Washington’s second term as President, the British were still pretty pissed off that they lost the war, and they refused to move their pansy, red-coat-wearing asses out of our northwest territory. I mean, really, red uniforms? How did they even have an inkling that we wouldn’t notice them wearing red in a forest. Forest=green. Red=green? No, that is incorrect, sir. Besides the obvious fashion faux-pas, they were also bitching that we hadn’t paid any of our debt from before the Revolution, which was a violation of the Treaty of Paris. So in 1794, Washington hired Chief Justice John Jay (what a unique name) to make yet another treaty, which forced our crooked-toothed ex-brethren to leave our frontier the fuck alone and that our debt/boundary issues would be handled in a friendly, cooperative manner. That sent the French into super freak-out mode and they quivered in their little designer boots. They were a little uncomfortable with us being friends with Britain and sent the devil to our shores- a diplomat by the name of Edmond Charles Genet. That weird little Frenchie went behind Washington’s back and talked our pirates (they were privateers, but pirates sound much more badass) into attacking British ships that were in our territory. Washington told the French government, and I quote, “Put a fucking leash on that man!” and tried to kick his unbathed ass back where he belonged, but Genet ended up becoming a citizen. What was his nickname? Any guesses? “Citizen Genet”.
Well, that’s it for this lecture. I’ll be testing you on this material next session, and if I catch any of you little ones cheating, I swear to god I will paper cut you to death. Alright, kids, study up!
[Lola.]
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
ten reasons why we should be proud to be american.
1. We are unique. We’re the only country that hasn’t succumbed to using the metric system. I don’t even know what we use, but hey, the important part is that we say “inches” and “pounds”. Fuck kilometers; we don’t need them. Kilometers are for pussies. We’re not pussies, we’re Americans.
2. We can smile in our passport photos. I have dual citizenship, and I hate showing off my German passport. That passport is so ugly that I’d only show it in a life or death situation, and only German passport holders won’t be tortured--- excuse me, “enhanced interrogated”. In that picture, I couldn’t smile, my hair was pulled back, and the flash on that camera made me look even more dead that I thought possible. I reserve my right as an American citizen to take my passport photo at Walgreens with a Polaroid, my hair covering my face and a pretty grin.
3. We have a longer compulsory education. Including pre-school and kindergarten, we have a whole fourteen years for slacking off, crying and bribing our way out of detention. Within those fourteen years, many of us drop out, go to rehab, go to rehab and drop out, or drop out and get a job pushing carts at Smith’s after rehab. The rest of us become skilled in forging absent notes from the Counselor’s Office. I swear this is not a personal story.
4. We have a shorter history to learn. All American history books begin in 1492 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue. European history starts… well, who cares when it starts? And let’s not talk about Chinese history. It’s too much to remember, so screw everything else. American history is where all the good stuff happens. We’re the revolutionaries. We’re the ones who shoved our democratic boot so far up King George’s ass that his crooked British teeth flew out.
5. We win the important battles. So what if we’ve helped fuck up parts of Asia and are currently shoving democracy down throats through turkey basters in the Middle East. Forget about ‘Nam and whatever war went on in M*A*S*H. We won the wars that matter- the American Revolution and two, going on three, World Wars. Without us, all Europeans would be blonde and speaking German.
6. Our 4th and 8th graders can read. Thanks to President Bush with his second best decision, the No Child Left Behind Act, 4th and 8th graders have been receiving high scores on their reading tests. Literacy doesn’t matter for the rest of us. As long as the ten and thirteen-year-olds can read, I’m confident that our society will be safe and they can read everything to us.
7. Our driving age is 16, we can buy tobacco at 18, and drink at 21. We can get our cars totaled in high school, develop lung cancer after graduation, and become alcoholics in college. I’m down with that.
8. Beer Pong. Ah, good old beer pong. It’s what all American college students pay thousands of dollars a semester for. Who else would play a game that involved Bud Light in Dixie cups and ping-pong balls? Drunkenly chucking balls into tiny cups and forcing the other team to drink something vomit-worthy is what being an American is all about.
9. Panda Express. Need I say more?
10. Illegal Immigrants. Lots of white people say they’re a nuisance for taking our jobs, but I’m on the illegals’ side. I mean, honestly, who in their right mind chooses a career in dishwashing, fruit-picking, or cleaning toilets for minimum wage? They do. Those nice, illegal immigrants do. Pedro would gladly wash dishes at Applebee’s for $6, but John wouldn’t even fold shirts for less than $10. Thank you, Pedro, the Chinese-manufactured cutlery is clean enough for me to eat my all-American steak and potatoes.
[Lola.]
2. We can smile in our passport photos. I have dual citizenship, and I hate showing off my German passport. That passport is so ugly that I’d only show it in a life or death situation, and only German passport holders won’t be tortured--- excuse me, “enhanced interrogated”. In that picture, I couldn’t smile, my hair was pulled back, and the flash on that camera made me look even more dead that I thought possible. I reserve my right as an American citizen to take my passport photo at Walgreens with a Polaroid, my hair covering my face and a pretty grin.
3. We have a longer compulsory education. Including pre-school and kindergarten, we have a whole fourteen years for slacking off, crying and bribing our way out of detention. Within those fourteen years, many of us drop out, go to rehab, go to rehab and drop out, or drop out and get a job pushing carts at Smith’s after rehab. The rest of us become skilled in forging absent notes from the Counselor’s Office. I swear this is not a personal story.
4. We have a shorter history to learn. All American history books begin in 1492 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue. European history starts… well, who cares when it starts? And let’s not talk about Chinese history. It’s too much to remember, so screw everything else. American history is where all the good stuff happens. We’re the revolutionaries. We’re the ones who shoved our democratic boot so far up King George’s ass that his crooked British teeth flew out.
5. We win the important battles. So what if we’ve helped fuck up parts of Asia and are currently shoving democracy down throats through turkey basters in the Middle East. Forget about ‘Nam and whatever war went on in M*A*S*H. We won the wars that matter- the American Revolution and two, going on three, World Wars. Without us, all Europeans would be blonde and speaking German.
6. Our 4th and 8th graders can read. Thanks to President Bush with his second best decision, the No Child Left Behind Act, 4th and 8th graders have been receiving high scores on their reading tests. Literacy doesn’t matter for the rest of us. As long as the ten and thirteen-year-olds can read, I’m confident that our society will be safe and they can read everything to us.
7. Our driving age is 16, we can buy tobacco at 18, and drink at 21. We can get our cars totaled in high school, develop lung cancer after graduation, and become alcoholics in college. I’m down with that.
8. Beer Pong. Ah, good old beer pong. It’s what all American college students pay thousands of dollars a semester for. Who else would play a game that involved Bud Light in Dixie cups and ping-pong balls? Drunkenly chucking balls into tiny cups and forcing the other team to drink something vomit-worthy is what being an American is all about.
9. Panda Express. Need I say more?
10. Illegal Immigrants. Lots of white people say they’re a nuisance for taking our jobs, but I’m on the illegals’ side. I mean, honestly, who in their right mind chooses a career in dishwashing, fruit-picking, or cleaning toilets for minimum wage? They do. Those nice, illegal immigrants do. Pedro would gladly wash dishes at Applebee’s for $6, but John wouldn’t even fold shirts for less than $10. Thank you, Pedro, the Chinese-manufactured cutlery is clean enough for me to eat my all-American steak and potatoes.
[Lola.]
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
what a happy union.
I know what you’re about to think. “Oh dear lord, NO!! Not a rant about the State of the Union Address!!” But I’ll have you know that I’m going to think right back at you, “Yes! Oh, yes it is! Yes. It. IS.” And, yes, it is.
I’ll admit to you now that I never actually sat through more than a few minutes of Bush’s final Address about how strong our Union is. But I can’t really sit still for more than twenty minutes anyway, and I do doubt that everyone in that room was actually paying much attention. So I’m guilt-free. Plus, I read the entire damn thing on MSN and I watched snippets on TV, so I’m like triple guilt-free. Really, we just need to get the gist of it all in order to crack lame jokes in poor southern accents. And by ‘we’, I mean ‘me’. Jane is much better at making lame jokes laughable.
Basically, dear Mr. President babbled for a good hour or so about… um… well… Oh, sorry, I was spacing out just thinking about it. Well, he did mention that No Child Left Behind Act from six years ago. That was his main accomplishment. From six years ago. Hot damn. I had completely forgotten about that. Did it do any good? Did anything actually happen? I mean, it has been six years - which felt more like sixteen - and back then I was still watching Sailor Moon religiously, so it would’ve felt rather unimportant at the time. Oh wait, I just read that it did accomplish something. Bush said that “Last year, fourth and eighth graders achieved the highest math scores on record.” My question is, ‘What about the rest of them?’ I guess only fourth and eighth graders really need to be able to read. I was in eighth grade six years ago… Dammit, I need to stay on track with this!! But now he wants to keep more high schoolers from dropping out. What’s the government going to do, take hostages or tempt us with candy? Please, everyone’s a rebel without a cause in high school, and we all sold candy from briefcases for cheap once they outlawed junk food in public schools.
We trust everyone. If we should trust all Americans, then it must be out of pure trust that AT&T phone wires are tapped and people are spied on. Makes sense, doesn’t it? Every other paragraph included the phrases “We must trust” and “Empower”, such as “We must trust people with their own money and empower them to grow our economy.” So… economies grow from trees, and other people are entrusted with our money. Okay, so far so good. “We must trust patients and doctors to make medical decisions and empower them with better information and better options.” … Who makes the decisions now? And are our options and information just semi-decent? Half-assed, even? I’m… I’m a little lost now. But I have to add one of my own that we all know he was thinking: We must trust the dudes who work at Dunkin Donuts and empower them to make the best damn éclairs possible.
Also, did Bush even mention anything seriously bad? Like Katrina? … No? I didn’t think so. We wouldn’t want to hear anything that’s not happy when the state of our Union is strong. Here’s a math problem for you fourth and eighth graders: If strong=happy, and Katrina=not so happy, then strong - not so happy=happy State of the Union Address=happy people! Yay! That makes us happy people!
… If I had a post-it note right now, this is what it would say:
Mr. Cheney -
You smiled at the State of the Union Address!!! You should do that more often; it made me not want to hide my face while yours was on TV. Thank you! :)
- Lola.
Bush didn’t use charts or anything for visual stimulation to keep our attention. I mean, come on, come the fuck on, even former President Clinton used graphs and stuff! So what if they were bullshit because he didn’t get much done other than Lewinsky (Yeah, it’s a lame, over-used joke. You like it.). But at least the guy knew how to keep not only a room, but an entire country awake during a boring speech. Not preparing any charts or even abstract doodles made it seem like Bush didn’t care about our amusement or low attention spans. Lots of people suffer from ADD, you know. If he had someone like Demetri Martin (a contributor from the Daily Show) come in and do some sort of presentation, we’d have all paid attention. At least Demetri takes time and puts effort into things as difficult as procrastination pie charts. He could also keep us entertained by playing an instrument, maybe strumming on the guitar to help break bad news. It would go something like this:
Demetri (playing 'Ziggy Stardust on the guitar'): Our economy’s going down in the shits.
Entire country: That sucks. But I really like this song. Can you play some AC/DC?
See? Once again, happy people!! Not that I’m making an assumption that all happy people/Americans like AC/DC, but still, who wouldn’t want to be told horrible news while listening to 'Big Balls'?
I also propose that the next President should make a show out of this boring event with Guitar Hero 3 ready to play, Cirque du Soleil acrobats, Speed Racer dubbed over with the President’s speech, and maybe some interpretive dance. That sounds like a smorgasbord of fun and it makes it easier to tell us something as scary as if we don’t act by Friday, we’re in danger. That particular Friday was a while ago, actually… I went to work… but it was a good day. I wonder what was supposed to happen on Friday. I got my paycheck, my dad tanked up the car for me, I’m pretty sure I looked good… huh.
Bush is planning on cutting federal spending by spending more federal money on a bunch of little Acts that I’d never heard of before. He said that this week he’d cut over one-hundred basically useless programs so that we’d have lots of money in 2012. Doesn’t he know that the world is supposed to end that year? What good will that do if the world ends right when we finally have a surplus? Bush wants to increase budgets to help out poor schools, send more kids to school, and fund research to find an efficient energy to use instead of oil. And he wants to reduce greenhouse gases. … Didn’t he shit on the Kyoto Treaty?
Although, my favourite quote of his is, “We also must find a sensible and humane way to deal with people here illegally.” That worries me. It’s considered “humane” to put stray animals to sleep when nobody picks them up from the pound.
Chew on that thought for a moment, kids.
[Lola.]
I’ll admit to you now that I never actually sat through more than a few minutes of Bush’s final Address about how strong our Union is. But I can’t really sit still for more than twenty minutes anyway, and I do doubt that everyone in that room was actually paying much attention. So I’m guilt-free. Plus, I read the entire damn thing on MSN and I watched snippets on TV, so I’m like triple guilt-free. Really, we just need to get the gist of it all in order to crack lame jokes in poor southern accents. And by ‘we’, I mean ‘me’. Jane is much better at making lame jokes laughable.
Basically, dear Mr. President babbled for a good hour or so about… um… well… Oh, sorry, I was spacing out just thinking about it. Well, he did mention that No Child Left Behind Act from six years ago. That was his main accomplishment. From six years ago. Hot damn. I had completely forgotten about that. Did it do any good? Did anything actually happen? I mean, it has been six years - which felt more like sixteen - and back then I was still watching Sailor Moon religiously, so it would’ve felt rather unimportant at the time. Oh wait, I just read that it did accomplish something. Bush said that “Last year, fourth and eighth graders achieved the highest math scores on record.” My question is, ‘What about the rest of them?’ I guess only fourth and eighth graders really need to be able to read. I was in eighth grade six years ago… Dammit, I need to stay on track with this!! But now he wants to keep more high schoolers from dropping out. What’s the government going to do, take hostages or tempt us with candy? Please, everyone’s a rebel without a cause in high school, and we all sold candy from briefcases for cheap once they outlawed junk food in public schools.
We trust everyone. If we should trust all Americans, then it must be out of pure trust that AT&T phone wires are tapped and people are spied on. Makes sense, doesn’t it? Every other paragraph included the phrases “We must trust” and “Empower”, such as “We must trust people with their own money and empower them to grow our economy.” So… economies grow from trees, and other people are entrusted with our money. Okay, so far so good. “We must trust patients and doctors to make medical decisions and empower them with better information and better options.” … Who makes the decisions now? And are our options and information just semi-decent? Half-assed, even? I’m… I’m a little lost now. But I have to add one of my own that we all know he was thinking: We must trust the dudes who work at Dunkin Donuts and empower them to make the best damn éclairs possible.
Also, did Bush even mention anything seriously bad? Like Katrina? … No? I didn’t think so. We wouldn’t want to hear anything that’s not happy when the state of our Union is strong. Here’s a math problem for you fourth and eighth graders: If strong=happy, and Katrina=not so happy, then strong - not so happy=happy State of the Union Address=happy people! Yay! That makes us happy people!
… If I had a post-it note right now, this is what it would say:
Mr. Cheney -
You smiled at the State of the Union Address!!! You should do that more often; it made me not want to hide my face while yours was on TV. Thank you! :)
- Lola.
Bush didn’t use charts or anything for visual stimulation to keep our attention. I mean, come on, come the fuck on, even former President Clinton used graphs and stuff! So what if they were bullshit because he didn’t get much done other than Lewinsky (Yeah, it’s a lame, over-used joke. You like it.). But at least the guy knew how to keep not only a room, but an entire country awake during a boring speech. Not preparing any charts or even abstract doodles made it seem like Bush didn’t care about our amusement or low attention spans. Lots of people suffer from ADD, you know. If he had someone like Demetri Martin (a contributor from the Daily Show) come in and do some sort of presentation, we’d have all paid attention. At least Demetri takes time and puts effort into things as difficult as procrastination pie charts. He could also keep us entertained by playing an instrument, maybe strumming on the guitar to help break bad news. It would go something like this:
Demetri (playing 'Ziggy Stardust on the guitar'): Our economy’s going down in the shits.
Entire country: That sucks. But I really like this song. Can you play some AC/DC?
See? Once again, happy people!! Not that I’m making an assumption that all happy people/Americans like AC/DC, but still, who wouldn’t want to be told horrible news while listening to 'Big Balls'?
I also propose that the next President should make a show out of this boring event with Guitar Hero 3 ready to play, Cirque du Soleil acrobats, Speed Racer dubbed over with the President’s speech, and maybe some interpretive dance. That sounds like a smorgasbord of fun and it makes it easier to tell us something as scary as if we don’t act by Friday, we’re in danger. That particular Friday was a while ago, actually… I went to work… but it was a good day. I wonder what was supposed to happen on Friday. I got my paycheck, my dad tanked up the car for me, I’m pretty sure I looked good… huh.
Bush is planning on cutting federal spending by spending more federal money on a bunch of little Acts that I’d never heard of before. He said that this week he’d cut over one-hundred basically useless programs so that we’d have lots of money in 2012. Doesn’t he know that the world is supposed to end that year? What good will that do if the world ends right when we finally have a surplus? Bush wants to increase budgets to help out poor schools, send more kids to school, and fund research to find an efficient energy to use instead of oil. And he wants to reduce greenhouse gases. … Didn’t he shit on the Kyoto Treaty?
Although, my favourite quote of his is, “We also must find a sensible and humane way to deal with people here illegally.” That worries me. It’s considered “humane” to put stray animals to sleep when nobody picks them up from the pound.
Chew on that thought for a moment, kids.
[Lola.]
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