While these are thrilling and heart wrenching tales, the mood that is required for me to write them (self pity) has temporarily fled. So in the meantime one will have to make do with a torrent of non- sequiturs and essays that only I find funny.
So in that vein, I've been digging through stuff from school and came across a literary gem.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that this is the finest humorous essay since Swift's "A Modest Proposal." It is that good.
To set the scene. Imagine that I am in an AP Government class (I made a 3), and I am forced to write a 1 page summary of every chapter. Now keep in mind that this is in lieu of any actual learning or teaching. (I would later learn that the book has 1 page summaries at the end of each chapter entitled "Summary") So I decided to make lemonade out of lemons, and the result was comedy sangria.
I am aware that some jokes fall flat and the writing isn't terribly awesome, but please ignore that and you might even learn something about our nation's history.
The History of American Beauracracy (A Primer) or, Whigging Out!
The following is a half attempted execution of an unnecessary assignment. Chapter 2 is basically all of last year condensed into one chapter, roughly the equivalent of 40,000 quizzes. It begins with the Articles of Confederation, a document almost as lame as this assignment.
The Articles failed because the government couldn’t really do anything at all. So we (we being the continental congress) met again to write something better. This time, the Constitution burst forth from the wombs of the founding fathers, proceeded to eat its embryonic sac, then scream loudly as the suspiciously giddy Ben Franklin spanked it hard, ensuring life. Apparently the book also covers stuff before this, the important things to know are, French and Indian War, Stamp Act, 1776, Boston Tea Party, Whigs, Torys, Faggys (not a popular party, but very dramatic), and the Declaration of Independence (sometime later Nicholas Cage would steal this document to find a buried treasure).
John Locke greatly influenced the Constitution; the Constitution would later blame John Locke for its subsequent dabbling in psychedelic drugs. Jefferson usurped Locke’s ideas and Americanized them, making them better, much the way Steve Carrell took over The Office. Important Phrase! Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, Will Smith also would steal from Jefferson, usurping this famous phrase and adding a glaring typo to keep the ghost of Jefferson from stealing his first born in exchange (Jefferson was notoriously bad at defending copyright law, preferring a more barbaric method). Whoever wrote the notes at this point was kind of a dick, calling the Articles of Confederation “The Government that Failed,” sounds like someone is projecting their own issues on 18th century colonial America. The Articles just made the colonies states and now they had to pretend to like each other, like your mom’s new boyfriend’s kids.
There was basically no money at this point, so the government printed fake stuff and had Uncle Moneybags distribute it via a shoe, a thimble, and a pewter car, which was odd seeing as Henry Ford was far from inventing the automobile at this time. People had to accept the money; this was called force acts, which seems kind of graphic and crude for a history book. This era of American government was so weak that a bunch of hillbillies made them change the entire system of government, this was called Shay’s Rebellion. Shay’s Rebellion led to the birth of the Constitution.
The Constitution was not brought by a stork, but in fact made in a steamy, passionate night at the Philadelphia Convention. They were supposed to just revise the Articles but, Alexander Hamilton had been keeping his quill in his wallet “just in case” and wouldn’t you know it broke right in the middle of some heavy delegating and the Constitution was conceived. The founding fathers are described here as Urbanites, which I believe are a special breed of termites that feed on the shackles of the monarchy. Here the Virginia Plan and New Jersey plan duked it out, basically one side wanted representation by number of citizens and the other wanted equal representation. The two sides were pacified by Connecticut, who swung both ways, proposing the Connecticut Compromise, which combined the two plans, creating what we know as hot bicameral action. Also Black people weren’t people at this time, just 3/5 people.
HOT BUTTON ISSUE! Who should vote? White males or rich white males? They let the states decide. The Constitution goes on to talk about finances, which was just as boring 200 years ago. Individual rights were also popular, but the Constitution did not address them, creating quite the sticky wicket. It’s not in the notes but they made the Bill of Rights to fix that. James Madison was pretty ticked that no one wanted him to be president so he fought back the only way he knew how, legislation. He proposed the separation of powers and the system of checks and balances. Sumner would later prove that caning your opponent produces much better results.
These systems basically had the Executive, Judicial, and Legislative branches split their power, so that they all required the consent of the others to pass laws. The Federalists and the Anti-Federalists got into fierce arguments over the correctness of the constitution. John Jay wrote a particularly scathing treatise entitled, Ratification Must be Stopped In Order to Ensure the Freedom of Our Great Land These United States of America, or Patrick Henry’s Mother is a Whore. It was very popular. The Federalists didn’t want anyone tainting their beloved constitution, but the Anti-Feds claimed that it did little to protect individual rights. To rectify this, a compromise was reached, amendments were allowed and the Bill of Rights was born. There are formal and informal ways of changing the constitution and if you’d like to learn more you can read the free response questions we all wrote. The notes then tell you why the Constitution is important, and it truly is, so read the last point.
The following is a half attempted execution of an unnecessary assignment. Chapter 2 is basically all of last year condensed into one chapter, roughly the equivalent of 40,000 quizzes. It begins with the Articles of Confederation, a document almost as lame as this assignment.
The Articles failed because the government couldn’t really do anything at all. So we (we being the continental congress) met again to write something better. This time, the Constitution burst forth from the wombs of the founding fathers, proceeded to eat its embryonic sac, then scream loudly as the suspiciously giddy Ben Franklin spanked it hard, ensuring life. Apparently the book also covers stuff before this, the important things to know are, French and Indian War, Stamp Act, 1776, Boston Tea Party, Whigs, Torys, Faggys (not a popular party, but very dramatic), and the Declaration of Independence (sometime later Nicholas Cage would steal this document to find a buried treasure).
John Locke greatly influenced the Constitution; the Constitution would later blame John Locke for its subsequent dabbling in psychedelic drugs. Jefferson usurped Locke’s ideas and Americanized them, making them better, much the way Steve Carrell took over The Office. Important Phrase! Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, Will Smith also would steal from Jefferson, usurping this famous phrase and adding a glaring typo to keep the ghost of Jefferson from stealing his first born in exchange (Jefferson was notoriously bad at defending copyright law, preferring a more barbaric method). Whoever wrote the notes at this point was kind of a dick, calling the Articles of Confederation “The Government that Failed,” sounds like someone is projecting their own issues on 18th century colonial America. The Articles just made the colonies states and now they had to pretend to like each other, like your mom’s new boyfriend’s kids.
There was basically no money at this point, so the government printed fake stuff and had Uncle Moneybags distribute it via a shoe, a thimble, and a pewter car, which was odd seeing as Henry Ford was far from inventing the automobile at this time. People had to accept the money; this was called force acts, which seems kind of graphic and crude for a history book. This era of American government was so weak that a bunch of hillbillies made them change the entire system of government, this was called Shay’s Rebellion. Shay’s Rebellion led to the birth of the Constitution.
The Constitution was not brought by a stork, but in fact made in a steamy, passionate night at the Philadelphia Convention. They were supposed to just revise the Articles but, Alexander Hamilton had been keeping his quill in his wallet “just in case” and wouldn’t you know it broke right in the middle of some heavy delegating and the Constitution was conceived. The founding fathers are described here as Urbanites, which I believe are a special breed of termites that feed on the shackles of the monarchy. Here the Virginia Plan and New Jersey plan duked it out, basically one side wanted representation by number of citizens and the other wanted equal representation. The two sides were pacified by Connecticut, who swung both ways, proposing the Connecticut Compromise, which combined the two plans, creating what we know as hot bicameral action. Also Black people weren’t people at this time, just 3/5 people.
HOT BUTTON ISSUE! Who should vote? White males or rich white males? They let the states decide. The Constitution goes on to talk about finances, which was just as boring 200 years ago. Individual rights were also popular, but the Constitution did not address them, creating quite the sticky wicket. It’s not in the notes but they made the Bill of Rights to fix that. James Madison was pretty ticked that no one wanted him to be president so he fought back the only way he knew how, legislation. He proposed the separation of powers and the system of checks and balances. Sumner would later prove that caning your opponent produces much better results.
These systems basically had the Executive, Judicial, and Legislative branches split their power, so that they all required the consent of the others to pass laws. The Federalists and the Anti-Federalists got into fierce arguments over the correctness of the constitution. John Jay wrote a particularly scathing treatise entitled, Ratification Must be Stopped In Order to Ensure the Freedom of Our Great Land These United States of America, or Patrick Henry’s Mother is a Whore. It was very popular. The Federalists didn’t want anyone tainting their beloved constitution, but the Anti-Feds claimed that it did little to protect individual rights. To rectify this, a compromise was reached, amendments were allowed and the Bill of Rights was born. There are formal and informal ways of changing the constitution and if you’d like to learn more you can read the free response questions we all wrote. The notes then tell you why the Constitution is important, and it truly is, so read the last point.
I got a 100.
4 comments:
November 14, 2007:
I recieved an e-mail from you. The e-mail was cleverly titled: "read this fag"
It was your cute little essay.
I save everything.
not to burst your bubble, but i think everyone made a 100 on whatever essay that was. i mean, look at who our teacher was.
anyways, back to the part where i tell you how much i love you:
this made me laugh.
and again, i still want you to write a shit ton of books for me.
and i love you.
I'm really glad you used the word "dick".
I thought this essay was funny as well.
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