Political Bunk 101

I took a political science class at school one time and received a grade of 17/100 in the class. I think some of the things I wrote about in the essay questions weren't that bad and I probably deserved at least a 30% grade if not a passing grade. The only question I remember getting right on the exam was the one that wasn't a flexible answer, the question was "what do the acronyms WMD and MAD stand for" (answer: Weapons of Mass Destruction and Mutually Assured Destruction). Every other question I got a smooth zero (0) on.

Words...on a line. Ok. There's a "Left" and a "Right" side...ok I see....I think?

The main point of contention that I had with the teacher was that Communism was not the opposite of Fascism. People seem to think in "political science" that these are polarized opposites but they are not. Here, let us count some of the ways that they are "different":

-In a communist society the government comes before the people while in a fascist society the government comes before the people.

-In a communist society the government owns all property and the citizens own nothing while in a fascist society the government owns everything and the people own nothing.
 
-In a communist society the head of state has total control while in a fascist society the head of state has total control.

Sarcasm aside, they are not very different at all. In fact to reduce it to it's simplest terms, I'd put it like this: "Communism" and "Fascism" are just fancy words to dress up your dictatorship to make it seem like it's some hip shit that's gonna be good for your and my future.

The two main historic examples that we can draw from are Stalin's USSR and Hitler's Nazi Germany...two of the worst dictatorships in history.

Nazi Germany is the one the stupidest things that ever happened in human history. Through extensive propaganda and nationalistic fervor, one of the most dangerous governments formed into existence. You really have to wonder how a whole society of people put up with this, not only put up with it mind you...but thought it was in their best wishes. Hitler convinced the people with very very little too. If you read his "work" Mein Kampf, right off the bat you can see how ridiculous it is...none of his proof for eugenics or any other bullshit he's trying to prove makes any sense at all.

Basically, Hitler read two books in his life I think (judging from the lameness of his shtick)...he read a book about the history and folklore of India and then he read the philosophy writings of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. I know he read about India because half of his shtick is ripped off from Indian culture, his dream of the "Aryan Race" is directly taken from theories of that era of how a group named the "Aryans" supposedly conquered Ancient Harappa India and ushered in a new period,

"The Aryans, or Vedic civilization were a new start in Indian culture. Harappa was more or less a dead end (at least as far as we know); the Aryans adopted almost nothing of Harappan culture. They built no cities, no states, no granaries, and used no writing. Instead they were a warlike people that organized themselves in individual tribal, kinship units, the jana. The jana was ruled over by a war-chief. These tribes spread quickly over northern India and the Deccan. In a process that we do not understand, the basic social unit of Aryan culture, the jana, slowly developed from an organization based on kinship to one based on geography. The jana became a janapada, or nation and the jana-rajya , or tribal kingdom, became the jana-rajyapada, or national kingdom. So powerfully ingrained into Indian culture is the jana-pada , that Indians still define themselves mainly by their territorial origins. All the major territories of modern India, with their separate cultures and separate languages, can be dated back to the early jana-padas of Vedic India."

-http://public.wsu.edu/~dee/ANCINDIA/ARYANS.HTM

So that fucking guy read about some lizard-brained mongoloid bullies who turned India into a wartorn dictatorship and thought it would be a good idea to try that in Europe. He stole the name "Aryan" and also the Four Sevens symbol (or swastika as the nazis called it) from Vedic India. Then he read Nietzsche's theory of Ubërmensche, completely missed the point, and used it to fuel a pseudo-scientific eugenic fervor...and that's all it took to win over the German people. Fuck. That's sad. You gotta keep your mind awake.

Stalin's USSR is one of the stupidest things that ever happened in human history. Through extensive propaganda and nationalistic fervor, one of the most dangerous governments formed into existence. You really have to wonder how a whole society of people put up with this, not only put up with it mind you...but thought it was in their best wishes. Stalin convinced the people of Russia with very little too. He simply took credit for a mass workers revolt (the real credit lies with the millions who took up arms against their oppressors), changed his name to "Iron" and then proclaimed himself leader. He only read one book, Karl Marx's "Das Kapital", totally missed the point of what Marx was trying to say, and used it to build his propaganda template. Oh, and he ordered the deaths of an estimated 20 million good folks too...which is not very polite.

Pretty similar I must say.

So what should be the "opposites" that we think about when it comes to politics? A good one proposed is Free Society vs. Totalitarian Society. A free society is where information is free to all people, and they are encouraged to think, invent, and create. While on the other end, the opposite of a free society would be a lizard brained mongoloid totalitarian dictatorship.

So if you are thinking that you should be "left wing" because it is the opposite of being "right wing" then please consider that communism and fascism are just words...and so are "left" and "right" for that matter.


After Thought (Jan. 19, 2012): I mentioned that Hitler likely learned of the "Aryan Race" from Indian History books, yet it appears he more likely found out about that silliness from the writings of the horrible woman, Madame Blavatsky, who wrote in her stupid books about this. She also used the 4-sevens symbol in her logo. The Nazi party in general were really into every kind of stupid and childish ways of thinking.

True, brother, true...

"You know, sometimes I get the feeling that, that, uh, accountants and lawyers are in cahoots with the devil, yee-ah, they're in cahoots with the devil to cover the Earth...cover the earth with this wretched swill. A swill of gutless, mediocre, middle of the road, sleep-inducin', homogenized pablum, background music for the slavery of daily drudgery. 


Sometimes I get that feeling...but I KNOW IT'S A LIE! I KNOW IT'S NOT TRUE! I know it's not true, and I'm talking to Arthur Conley now! Arthur Conley I'm talking to ya! I'm saying Arthur where are ya!? We need you to help us Arthur! We need ya to help us sing!!!!!!


Ya! We gotta-gotta-gotta-gotta-gotta-gotta-gotta HAVE MORE SOUL!"

-Mojo Nixon

I love this song. I keep it my phone and when I'm doing jobs that can be considered as slave-like, boring, even described as literal daily drudgery...I love it when this song pops into my ears. He sets it up so well...you're standing there doing some boring shit and Moj is all like "homogenized pablum! Sleep inducin'!" and I'm like "Ya! I know what you fucking mean brotha!!" and at that moment you are totally one hundred percent down with the notion that a person knows exactly how you feel. Then he switches gears and bursts right through the boring shittiness and tells you that "It's not TRUE!" that it's a fucking "LIE!" and you start feeling your shit brewing up in your soul and your soul is your friend...you gotta take care of your friends! Your soul is a cool guy/lady who digs sweet Soul Music...that good soul music! Your soul can really turn it out and turn it loose, and switch mic-holdin' hands with the greatest of human ease and with such seemless lateral movement! Then you heed his advice and look into to your heart and summon up the spirit of Arthur Conley and feel your heart and brain fill with adrenaline and then friday comes along and you punch out and you get a 12 pack of beers and call up all your fucking friends and go downtown and get down and feel alive and come home with two black eyes and you don't even remember or care how you got'em cause you know it was probably pretty fucking cool anyhow......YEAH! Life is a sweet fruit and life is an oyster! You know!?

......then monday comes.

Help me Moj! Help me Please!

Thinking about my brain...

I got to thinking about my brain today and I think that...

All visual memories are from how light hit your eyes at different shades/photon levels and then that light(s) are encoded by color and saved in very specific cells spread throughout varying areas of the brain (not one specific portion of the brain). These visual memories of varied light experiences then meld with your audio and tactile memories to form whole memories or "scenes" of your past.

I think there's a big part of your brain which is used to invision the world inside your own head, so you can draw up mental maps to recall locations or directions...but also to create situational circumstances to play out possible outcomes of everyday occurrences. This "invisioning" part is also where your imagination stems from...you can mix your memories with things that do not exist to invision strange and unreal locations/situations. The brain is constantly creating memories and plugging those memories into the "invisioning" portion in order to compare, contrast, and figure things out. You need to draw from all your experiences and memories to invision situations properly in order to know how to react when they become apparent in everyday life.

Unfortunately, the fact that your memories and imagination are so closely intertwined means that many people convulute and lie to themselves about the past, present and future.

I think a part of your brain releases endorphins as your personal painkiller and remembering stimulating scenes from your life is a very easy way to trigger these endorphins. For me the whole invisioning/re-creating/endorphin sector of the brain seems to be near the scalp at the back right portion of my head...I don't know if this is the same for everyone and I would think that since everyone is saving their incoming input data in the first available cell at the given time, then theoretically every brain could have been encoded differently over the rearing stages of life.

Probably not true...

I don't think there is any evidence for people who talk about being "Left" or "Right" brained...that is a really common theory but I don't think it's true...that noodle in yer skull is more complex then that. I'm not sure that neuroscientists who mapped out the brain using prods and "burned toast" sensations may have made conclusive findings.

Just some thoughts on the brain...you know. That's all. I don't know if I'm right or anything...just that's how mine feels I guess.

Free Education...get it while it's hot and while it's still on the internet.

Many universities are uploading their lectures online nowadays. It might be a good idea to take some of your spare time and absorb some of this data because I'm not sure the internet is always going to be a free flow of information like it is right now.

You don't really need to dish out thousands of dollars to gain a university level education anymore, nor do you have to get up early in the morning, or lose out on working and earning money to attend classes, or sit in a room with spoiled trust-fund-having greasy little self-righteous hipster scumbags who do not even appreciate the education they are recieving.

The following are some good ones, you can put out a search for more though...there's a lot out there.

UC Berkeley
http://webcast.berkeley.edu/ 

Current and archived courses.


Gutenberg free books
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search.html/?format=html&default_prefix=all&sort_order=&query=sun+tzu

This isn't a university but just Database of 33,000 free books for you to read and shit. I used to use Online Books (http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/) but it has only 10,000 books and has been surpassed by Gutenberg.


National Programme on Technical and Advanced Learning
http://www.youtube.com/user/nptelhrd

These videos are good and they're fun because everyone is Indian and has an Indian Accent. It gives the simulated experience of attending an Indian University. I really like this one.


Khan Academy
http://www.khanacademy.org/

This is not a university, and doesn't come across 100% professional but the guy presents a lot of topics and a lot of them are pretty good.


TED
http://www.ted.com/


Assorted lectures an a wide range of topics.


FORA
http://fora.tv/

Various topics, similar to TED.

Turning the Horribly Mundane into something in which the Badness is of As Can...

(Or how they took something Boring and made it Awesome)

Let's be honest, life itself gets pretty boring sometimes...you get up in the morning each day and go to work or school and pass the time, talk to your coworkers or classmates, daydream, hum to yourself, then go to bed at night (cycle reversed for night shift workers obviously). Turning something very boring into something fun is a co essential art within itself, you gotta drain the boring out of a situation, just like draining sap from a tree, where some inventive individual can then boil it and add sugar to make that sap palatable for human consumption. Similarly, inventive individuals can drain the boring out of situational day-to-day activities and dress it up using the most elaborate of shticks to create something that will in essence rock your trousers or drawers (or socks) off.

Let's take two television shows in particular that excel in this boredom draining method....


Iron Chef (the good one not the crappy one)

Ryōri no Tetsujin was a cooking show which tore the place down from 1992 until 2002.

A monster truck rally or a rock and roll concert are inherently awesome and hard to be boring...but a cooking show? To make a cooking show awesome takes absolute and resolute human ingenuity. I don't even know how to describe what makes it so awesome, take the intro for example, it's mythical and legendary. It's a legend but it's not happening thousands of years ago but right in front of your eyes.

animated if clicked

That guy in the end of the intro from the link above is the heart and soul of the show...he is Chairman Kaga, he takes the ham and cheese sandwich acting style of William Shatner yet multiplies said ham by somewhere over 9000% and the resulting product is without any doubt...too hot to handle. Whether the Chairman is entering the arena on a snow-white steed or crushing wine glasses and bleeding all over the place in disappointment over his Iron Chefs, Kaga is always without peer. If a global planetary governor is ever elected to govern all peoples of the world, Chairman Kaga is the only person who could possibly be considered.

animated if clicked

The Americans made two attempts at recreating this awesomery...the first time they used Kaga's Western counterpart himself, William Shatner, but the show did not catch on. They made a horrible second attempt which sadly did catch on. The show featured jobbers and fools and was hosted by a moron. They purported that Rachel Ray was an Iron Chef, Rachel Ray was an insult to the Iron Chefs and has ruined the glorious name of Iron Chef and spoiled the monicker for future generations.




Defi Mini Putt (RDS)

Expert advice from the Legend...

Défi Mini Putt was the greatest show on TV for a brief stretch in time back in the early nineteen nineties (1990's) which aired on Quebec's sports network.

Taking a cooking show and making it awesome is hard...but mini-putt? That doesn't take absolute/resolute human ingenuity...no no no...to make mini-putt awesome takes a deep concentration of pure human awesomeness in itself. Thankfully two men involved with the show, announcer Serge Vleminckx and puttsman extraordinaire Carl Carmoni had the inner-shutzpah in their respective souls to turn the sucker out.

Serge's narration of the transpired actions of the putters is what makes it what it is, from his trademark "Birdie!" exclamation to his unheard of excitement over mini-putt, this man is the real deal and should have been given better jobs at RDS (i.e. doing Montreal Canadiens games). Please watch the following video to get a taste of his technique and also live the unbridled intensity of the Legend Carl Carmoni...

Conclusion

An ancient Chinese proverb says that "Loneliness is a slow acting but deadly poison," I would venture to say that boringness is also a poison in its own right, but not one that can kill you, but one that simply drains the life out of you slowly, rendering your blood into heavy gray-matter and reducing you to a zombie-esque state of mind.

Yet one must ask, how could we ever know true awesomeness if true boringness never existed? Awesome is only awesome in comparison to its mortal enemy. Do they not go hand-in-hand? Could we ever know what was awesome if nothing was boring? Your mind must begin to travel when contemplating these concepts. Would there be happy...without sad? Would there be a concept of light...without darkness? Would there be rich...if there was no poor? Would there be heaven...if there was no earth? How could we live Life, if we didn't know Death was inevitable? Right with no Wrong? Come on.

The Ying Yang symbol in Taoism tries to represent this concept of negation in it's simplest terms. In our current topic, Boringness is the plain white dot in the midst of all that awesome black matter which is trying to counter act it, while Awesomeness is the black dot in the midst of that boring white matter trying to counter act it. Together they counter act each other so effectively in such a pleasant unison that they achieve total harmony and balance. Wow.

It's like something dark against something light...something movin' in the pale moon light...something dark against something light...something movin' in the pale moon light...

Canadian Election Super Power Rankings Mark II

The Incumbent Champion: Prime Minister Stephen Harper

Harp is the first Prime Minister who has ever hailed from the West and is the first Prime Minister who really gave more to the West than the East...and thusly he gets a lot of votes from the West.

Eastern Prime Minsters have messed with the West for many years. For instance, that jabroni Trudeau had a great chance with the Alberta oil sands in the early eighties when an American firm was going to come up and pay for all incurred expenses. This would have created the same job boom that occurred in the West under the Harper administration yet with a HUGE difference...all the jobs and economy boost but NONE of the expenses. To process that shitty oil from the sands has exceeded expected costs astronomically...the boom is already over out there and it was a very costly operation. Think about it though, if we got the boom, the jobs, and the work, but the Yankees covered ALL the costs and how great it would have been (not only for the West but all of Canada)....if only that little fucker Trudeau didn't pretend Canada was a glorious nation that didn't need help from anyone. Trudeau and the National Energy Program placed a ban on all foreign companies from developing oil fields in the "Crown Land." The worst thing about it is that a lot of Canadians knew this was a sure thing and put their life savings into the American firm, and when that shitty Trudeau pulled the plug at the last second he flushed the stock down to pennies in a matter of seconds and many peoples savings along with it. ("Developing Alberta's oil sands: from Karl Clark to Kyoto" By Paul Anthony Chastko is a good read on this era, specifically the "Lost Decade" portion of the book if you are interested in further reading on the matter).

Shit....cool lake bro!

I can see why Western Canada embraces Harper after having to put up with years and years of Easterners fucking with them but I don't think that gives them the right to keep this guy in office for another term. There are hundreds of sites out there devoted to his sins and failings so I don't think I need to get into them. I will bring up my favorite though which is the Fake Lake scandal which is so stupid it's funny. He wasn't thinking of the thousands of people who were going to riot in the streets but was more concerned over giving foreign press a nice backdrop (in a nation with enough lakes as is)...the press got a nice backdrop alright...cops beating kids in the streets. Haha.

Overall Score: 0/10


Michael Ignatieff

Whatchu thinkin' 'bout?

This is a fine young academic ninny and fiction writer from Harvard who thinks he has the chutzpah to be Prime. I feel he preformed the worst in the debates...just repeating his campaign ad over and over and answering softball pre-recorded questions from "concerned citizens" where he got to repeat his ad a few more times. I have the least to say about him because he is the blandest by all means (even more so than Harper).

He reminds me of class elections in school where we got to vote for one kid to be "president," I have a feeling this guy was voted as such as a youth for some reason and I bet it was on a "chocolate milk in the cafeteria" type of platform.

Overall Score: 0/10


Jackie Layton

take it RIGHT as I sign it!

The champion of the youth! Yay! All the university kids love this baldy with all their hearts. He's the "Left" guy, which means he's not "Right"...so that means he's the best. I guess.

I remember being at a David Suzuki talk at a university once and another man was on the docket that evening...a nice man named Albert Gore. The university kids went absolutely batshit buck nuts insane for Al Gore. Why?

Albert Gore is the wife of Tipper Gore (who put some rock and rollers on trial for anti-Christian activities in the eighties), and then he gained notoriety for attempting to become president of America this one time, and at some point he apparently took the initiative to invent the fucking internet. He faded into obscurity after losing the election but resurfaced years later when he felt compelled to make a slide show about pollution which not only won the hearts of some ninnies in Finland who awarded him the Nobel Piece Prize but also idealists around the world who fell in love with him.

These Gore-Groupies are the same ones who think they are saving the world by voting for Jackie Layton. Let's be serious for a minute though, okay? Jack Layton's main shtick is to further "socialize" the country, and make us pay more taxes. We pay a lot of taxes in Canada...we pay taxes on every single dollar we earn, we pay taxes on every single good or service we purchase, and then in April we pay some more taxes, and then we have some armed soldiers running around with a ticket quota taxing us for small infractions we make...and so on...and so on. Then the bureaucracy takes this money and builds fake lakes with it, or uses a few billion of it to hold an Olympiad during a worldwide depression, or pay some crooked mobsters ludicrous amounts of money to do small construction projects, or in the case of the Quebec's Caisse de dépôt in 2009...flat out lose 40 billion of it. The Canadian bureaucracy also features a cute little branch called the Senate, where super smooth rich guys who lived a sweet life or coached hockey for a few years are given large sums of tax payer money to chill out and continue being rich. This is one of the world's biggest and corrupted bureaucracies and anyone suggesting that they need more tax collectors to vacuum up more funds into this bureaucracy is 100% out of his/her mind. For those who insist that Layton is "different" should get real, a bureaucracy of this size has no chance of not being corrupt for it far too large in nature.

Overall Score: 0/10

Gilles Duceppe


For those who insist that he has no place in a federal election because he only represents a geopolitical/linguistic region of Canada must consider that Harper also represents only a small geopolitical/linguistic region of Canada as well. In fact other than Layton who has cute little idealists spread out on all 4 corners of the Nation, every guy in this election represents a balkanized geopolitical region of Canada (Duceppe = Quebec, Ignatieff = Ontario, Harper = Alberta/Saskatchewan) and thusly that argument is false. He has every right to be in this election and similarly he has every right to be as bad as the rest.


Overall Score: 0/10


Conclusion


People always get mad at me when I say I'm not gonna vote, or I'm gonna vote on the back of the ballot for someone more better, but hey...what can you do? They say vote for the lesser of all evils but what if all candidates are equally awful....then what the hell do you do? Who should you vote for?

Honestly, it's a big joke these things but at least in the American ones they got groundbreaking fun stuff going on like getting a black dude or a chick to be president. Look at these bums in Canada, why are they all white men in a nation that is one of the most mosaic in the world? Where are the black dudes, the chicks, the Native Canadians, the Chinese people, can't we get a more inclusive election going one year? Seriously, why is it only these rotten old honky-zombies who get a chance to be Prime Minister?

You wanna know how to get a better voter turnout next year? Do what the Americans did, get a pretty milfy woman who makes the men interested and the women all jealous...and run her against a charismatic black man. The Conservatives have one in stock already, that saucy little Rona Ambrose, and the Liberals can continue their act of recruiting old retired athletes and get in contact with baseball Hall of Famer and Canadian...Ferguson Jenkins. I guarantee a Jenkins vs. Ambrose election will raise voter turnout by upwards of 20 percent.

 *** Election 2012 ***
(that Rona looks like such a bad girl sometimes...)

Three Good Sarcastic Essays from Somewhat Different Eras.

Sarcasm is a tricky little human device, in speech and human-to-human conversational relations it is really annoying for the most part, but in writing (if done with subtlety) it can produce interesting results.

Example 1: A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift (circa 1729)

Swift is trying to address the problem of poverty in Ireland and how it should be solved. He opens by explaining how difficult life is for many children who were born into poverty, and comes to the conclusion that the best thing for everyone involved is for the rich to eat these poor children...

"I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled ...”

"I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children."

This obviously created quite a stir when released, he's recommending that the best way for rich landlords to get rid of 120,000 children is to eat them. The reaction of people who read it was to hate on him and say he's a maniac but the important thing is that they read it to begin with. He provides very important data in the piece on poverty and on how landlords and tax collectors are "feeding" off of the impoverished population. The baby-eating part is just to sensationalize it and gain readership to what is essentially an eye-opener on how the very rich take advantage of the poor. He gained a lot of negative attention surely, yet it remains relevant all the way to today and has it's place in history.

Not 100% true but food for thought...

Example 2: Kill the Poor by Eric Boucher (circa 1980)

Efficiency and progress is ours once more, 

Now that we have the Neutron bomb 

It's nice and quick and clean and gets things done
Away with excess enemy
But no less value to property
No sense in war but perfect sense at home

The sun beams down on a brand new day
No more welfare tax to pay
Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light
Jobless millions whisked away
At last we have more room to play
All systems go to kill the poor tonight

Behold the sparkle of champagne
The crime rate's gone
Feel free again
O' life's a dream with you, Miss Lily White
Jane Fonda on the screen today
Convinced the liberals it's okay
So let's get dressed and dance away the night

While they...Kill kill kill kill Kill the poor...Tonight!

The template for this piece was obviously Swift's A Modest Proposal yet it is interesting that it was met with the same reaction almost three hundred years later. The piece is 100% identical but just revamped for a new era it seems. No one said, "oh wow this is a sarcastic eye opener on the current political system much very similar to an essay written in 1729," in fact the reaction was even worse than 1729, Boucher at one point was even put on trial by his government for this and other material for the crime of "distributing obscenity" and accused of poisoning the minds of the youth. It's strange that 300 years later this re-issue of Swift's sarcastic critique was met with more hostility than it was in 1729.

Media: Boucher on British TV.....Boucher on Oprah w/ Tipper Gore (this is really good).

Example 3: Various Essays by High School Student Peter Nguyen (circa 1999)

This Nguyen character is far less known than the previous two but I think his writing deserves to be remembered as well. His essays took the internet by storm a few years ago (or by gale maybe...not storm), and they are something (see the rest here).

Now, before I make my point let's reduce some obvious error bars and state some obvious counter points. First, these can very possibly be fake, and someone just put red pen on it to look like it was submitted in a classroom. Also, this can be just a form of "self sabotage" and these essays are not important at all. Self sabotage is basically when you purposely don't try so you can not feel the effects of failure ever (i.e. "I know I didn't get X but it's just because I wasn't really trying..."). These essays may be subject to both and that could discredit my following point, but let's hypothetically say that they were neither fake nor self-sabotaged in order to argue my following points in safety.

The environment of the school system Nguyen was in was a very odd one for two reasons. Since the mid 1990's students all have access to the internet, and teachers in the US are given bell curve incentives.

What do kids do with the net? They "research" and then they switch some words around so it doesn't look too "researched" to their teacher.

What are bell curve incentives? Everyone goes on the curve and their grades are dished out by what piece of the curve you hit. The teachers themselves are evaluated for job performance how good their curves are, meaning they get raises and benefits for good curves. That is a conflict of interest as teachers pass everyone and edit marks to even out or fancy-up their respective bell curve to achieve higher pay and climb the pay scale.

So let's put two and two together why don't we? Thirty students go on Wiki or some other site and "research" their essay and then thirty students turn in basically the same essay to the teacher (some with better grammar than others being the biggest difference)...the teacher then assigns them to the bell curve...the ones with the worst grammar go into 60-65, then with bad grammar they go into 70-80, and the ones with excellent grammar get the 85-95 slot. Everyone passes and the teacher looks good for his/her evaluation...and everyone is happy.

Then a Peter Nguyen comes along and throws everything out of whack, where does this fucking shit fit on the bell curve? Nowhere! Getting his essay on that fucking curve is like throwing a brick into a washing machine The teacher doesn't want to fail him because it'll fuck up the curve and he/she can't pass him because he'll have proof that anyone can pass. This crazy guy is daring the teacher to fail him. Why? 

The interesting thing about Nguyen is you can tell from his writing that he is creative, original, and intelligent...so why is he daring his teachers to fail him? Is it in itself a sarcastic critique on the bell curve system in American schools? Could be...

On the Duality of Individuality and Harmony...as explored by the final episode of "The Prisoner"

On one side you want to be a good little worker bee and produce for your society and live in complete harmony with the human race...yet on the other side you want to live free and at ease and do whatever you feel like doing. Part of you wants to work hard and play your role yet the other part of you wants to yell, dance, go bunjee jumping and have fun. We live with this duality everyday and it is pretty interesting.

How shaky is this balance? Can we be too stingy and adhere to rules too much at times, and similarly can we be too selfish and just do what pleases our own selves at times? Both statements are true, and it's not hard to lose the precious balance at all.

One of the best shows ever made, that great show "The Prisoner" takes this into account in its final episode "Fallout." The Prisoner starred Patrick McGoohan as a former James Bond-esque spy who every morning wakes up on a beautiful prison colony island yet doesn't know how he got there or why. The island has no names, it only has numbers, and you are referred to by your number (The Prisoner was assigned the number 6 for instance). He spends his days attempting to escape the island and trying to figure out who's in charge of it. All he knows is the leader's name is Number 1 but no one has ever seen this person.

The Island frowns upon individuality and exists only for harmony. They preach that "Questions are a burden to others; answers a prison for oneself" and that a "a still tongue makes a happy life.” Do your assigned task and shutup is basically what the motto was there. Yet to the Prisoner this motto is a little too hard to swallow, as he refuses to adopt this lifestyle, letting it be known by stating "I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered! My life is my own."

48: Da Bones is YOURS!!

In the final (and best) episode the big wigs of the Island put 2 individuals on trial for the crime of being an individual and expressing their individuality and a third on trial for failing to do his tasks. The first prisoner on trial Number 48, lives life out loud as he sings and dances and talks back to the authority figure, he is meant according to McGoohan to represent youthful rebellion. A great line from this scene is while 48 is doing his flashy resistance they pan to Number 6 who says, "Don't knock yourself out...young...man." Rebelling and arguing with authority really does wear you down, and 6 is right, there's gotta be a better and more creative way to challenge the status quo.

Number 6 then takes a 180 and completely goes against what he preaches and picks up a machine gun and starts killing the guards while Beatles music plays in the background. This probably represents violent opposition to authority. Why this complete 180 reversal of opinion? Do we think one way one day and another the next?

The show ends with The Prisoner meeting number 1...and (sorry to spoil it) but after #1 takes off all his deceptive masks it's The Prisoner's own face looking back at him. I guess he's trying to say that we live in this delicate duality every day, with our thoughts and opinions taking 180s and going in circles at whim. This whole delicate balance of wanting to do your role for society yet at the same time wanting to be free and at ease... makes you your own worst enemy.