School Dazed
By Mitch Berg
SCENE: Mitch’s kids Bun and Zam are coming home from a day at school.
MITCH (props glasses up on bridge of nose as he reads newspaper at the kitchen table): “How was school?”
BUN: “We learned a lot of stuff today…but…”
MITCH (Looks up): “But…?”
ZAM: “Well, it’s our teacher, Ms. Marty. Some of the stuff she’s teaching us…”
MITCH: “Like what?”
BUN: “Well, for instance…[digs out paper from backpack]…in Literature this morning she taught us that Elizabeth Barrett Browning was the greatest poet of the British Romantic period….”
MITCH: “Well, she was rather prominent…”
BUN: “No, Dad – she said “Byron and Shelley were Browning’s beeyotches“.
MITCH (nonplussed): “Hmmmm…well…”
ZAM: “And she told me that Lord of the Rings was a story Tolkein stole from a collective of Bolivian coffee plantation serfs”
MITCH (Wrinkling brow): “Well, that’s just…”
BUN: “And then in history, she told us that Thomas Jefferson cribbed the entire Declaration of Independence from a female slave’s knitted scarf, and that ‘womyn’ not only planned D-Day, but did all the fighting”.
MITCH: “Er…”
ZAM: “And then in phy ed, she told us that Billie Jean King was the real quarterback of the ’72 Cowboys, and that Roger Staubach was just a fabulist patriarchal conspiracy”
MITCH (takes deep breath): “OK, kids. You know how I’ve explained to you that there are two types of feminists; real feminists, who believe that the goal is to make sure that all opportunities are open to women…”
BUN AND ZAM: “Like you”
MITCH: “Right. And then the other kind, the kind that believes in making up some phony fantabulist history to give ‘womyn’ some kind of phony ‘self-esteem’ boost.
ZAM: “So that makes Ms. Marty…”
BUN: “The other kind?”
MITCH: “Well, I think there’s always a chance for people to change. I mean, even I was a liberal once…”
BUN AND ZAM: “Oh, jeez, here he goes again”.
MITCH (Laughing): “I know, I know…”
ZAM: “OK – then, in journalism class, she told us to write ‘reviews’ of the next season of Scrubs, and a look back at the ’08 Presidential Election”.
MITCH: “But neither of those…has…er, happened yet…”
ZAM: “She says it doesn’t matter!”
BUN: “She also says “Minnesota Monitor” is rigorously independent”.
(Pause).
ALL: “Bwahahahahahahaahahahahahaaaaa!”
MITCH: “OK. Let’s get ready for dinner…”
(And…Scene!)
October 31st, 2007 at 6:28 am
She left out the fact that Neil Armstrong was really a woman in drag.
October 31st, 2007 at 6:38 am
You’re thinking of Rudy Giuliani, Kerm.
October 31st, 2007 at 6:42 am
Your fiction writing skills continue to amaze me dear.
October 31st, 2007 at 6:44 am
Angryclown agrees. Every consider trying your hand at non-fiction, Mitch?
October 31st, 2007 at 7:58 am
she told us to write ‘reviews’ of the next season of Scrubs,
now that wouldn’t be that hard to do, as Scrubs has been a wee bit predictable.
October 31st, 2007 at 8:54 am
“And then in phy ed, she told us that Billie Jean King was the real quarterback of the ‘72 Cowboys, and that Roger Staubach was just a fabulist patriarchal conspiracy”
Mitch, that’s settled science. I think this is something we can all agree on.
October 31st, 2007 at 10:10 am
Glad to see that ‘Non Public’ Charter school is working out for you.
Aside from that, what is your ultimate goal here, to see how pissed off you can make people with your bullshit! Seriously!
Flash
October 31st, 2007 at 11:09 am
Aside from that, what is your ultimate goal here
To answer Robin’s giggly little rejoinder.
to see how pissed off you can make people with your bullshit!
Mommy?
Is that really you, Mommy?
Seriously!
Seriously! !!! !!!!!
October 31st, 2007 at 11:16 am
Aside from that, what is your ultimate goal here
Ok, now, seriously (!), my “ultimate goal” is to write a blog.
Perhaps if this stuff so infuriates you, you could…oh, I dunno, leave comments over at Powerliberal asking why Robin can write nothign but giggly dismissive non-answers to questions? Like “on what basis do you claim that these authors are more vital than those authors?” or “what do you have to say about your star reporter being caught plagiarizing?”
Or is it only conservatives whose “bullshit” pisses you off?
Seriously!
October 31st, 2007 at 11:17 am
Mommy?
Is that really you, Mommy?
==
So what does that mean, cause they didn’t teach it to me in Public school
October 31st, 2007 at 11:43 am
Some lessons you don’t learn in school.
October 31st, 2007 at 12:08 pm
Hell, Mitch, considering some teachers and some schools… there are plenty of leasons you don’t learn in schools!
October 31st, 2007 at 2:30 pm
“”Ok, now, seriously (!), my “ultimate goal” is to write a blog.”
I am looking forward to the day you return to doing that. You used to be one of the best in the business.
“on what basis do you claim that these authors are more vital than those authors?”
You were pissed cause she was right, and you had to prattle on in an attempt to save face. You could have been a man and just said ‘Uncle’ instead of Mommy.
“what do you have to say about your star reporter being caught plagiarizing?”
You are loosing it. Being in the minority is tough, but I can tell you the Left sure handled it a lot better then you are.
October 31st, 2007 at 2:43 pm
I am looking forward to the day you return to doing that.
This blog has changed very, very little over the years.
You were pissed cause she was right…You could have been a man and just said ‘Uncle’ instead of Mommy
Ah, the old “you KNOW I’m right! Admit it! ADMIT IT!” strategy. An oldie but a goodie.
No, Flash. I pointed out Rew was wrong, because…she was.
You are loosing it.
Perhaps, but you’re losing it.
October 31st, 2007 at 2:46 pm
Like PB coming back as jbauer/donkeyman/molly/peevish, I see Doug has come back as “flash”.
October 31st, 2007 at 3:46 pm
Flash: “Being in the minority is tough, but I can tell you the Left sure handled it a lot better then you are.”
Bwahahaha! I’ll believe that when Mitch wanders up to Sen. Klobuchar with red paint on his hands screaming about her having blood on her hands for not outlawing abortion.
Seriously, Flash, gone off some meds recently? You’re the one who’s doing the highly charged attacks. Mitch did gentle needling while you’ve gone attack dog.
October 31st, 2007 at 3:56 pm
Mitch did gentle needling while you’ve gone attack dog.
The nerd’s got a point, ‘mano.
October 31st, 2007 at 3:57 pm
Miyou’ve gone attack dog.
Soros told him to.
(Well, probably not – but I mean, if everything I do is taking orders from the RNC, it probably follows, right?)
October 31st, 2007 at 4:20 pm
He’s just “pretending” to be an attack dog. Nothing flash does is genuine.
November 1st, 2007 at 5:54 am
Nerdbert:
Both sides have their fringers, the Left throws paint, the Right throws bombs.
Mitch: “”This blog has changed very, very little over the years.””
Like ones own children, it is difficult to notice the change yourself. Lets just say SitD has gone from a reasonable debate of ideology, debate that has moved me Right on both the war and the 2nd amendment, to a hate fiilled attack of individuals, feeble attempts at satire, intermixed with an occasional return to your roots be it through the 20 years series, or other screeds on modern culture.
You don’t see it because you were part of the transition. I sincerely miss the old SitD. when you didn’t seem beholden to someone or something. Unlike other sites, that are clearly used as dumping grounds for oppo research, I do believe you are truly independent, just caught up in the whirlwind that is the Right Wing Blogosphere.
MoN: “He’s just “pretending” to be an attack dog. Nothing flash does is genuine.”
That is funny coming from someone who has to hide behind a mask. You don’t seem to understand that as a friend, it is incredibly frustrating to see someone go from being the best, unique, and original, and crumble into just another Right Wing attack site. Sad really!
Flash
November 1st, 2007 at 8:37 am
Flash: yes, but — there is a difference between the fringe on the mainstream right, that occasionally dips into rhetorical excess without obvious satiric purpose, and that on the left, which more than occasionally commits far greater wrongs (e.g.: the Code Pink attempted assaults on various and sundry, the Minnie Mon and company attempting to keep its shadowy funders in the shadows, and blatantly violating its own standards, the nutso assaults [that’s a metaphor] on Bachmann [as compared to the legitimate criticism of her; for the nutso stuff, see the Dump Bachmann blog]).
In looking over Mitch’s blog over the years, I think you come close to having a point — there is, more often than there used to be, a hard edge to some of his criticism of individuals behaving badly. That said, that’s not an ideological change, but a stylistic one. (Me, I think that, given the at best feckless behavior of some of his targets, he’s too often too restrained, but …)
Consider the possibility that what’s changed on SitD from where you sit is not so much SitD as where you sit. (Alternately, you can dismiss my observation as merely somebody who has moved to the right over the past few years, but since I haven’t . . . )
As long as I’m criticizing, though, I’ll take umbrage at the notion that you’re not genuine. That’s bullshit. I think you, like Mitch, can be wrong at times (from my POV, you far more frequently than he), but it’s real error, not, err, party favors.
Looping back to his perhaps not totally ungentle criticism of Robin’s politics — a criticism that I think is too gentle largely because of the exaggerations, rather than in spite of them — that isn’t personal, but political.
Mitch can speak for himself, but as somebody who has been more than occasionally critical of Robin’s politics and even more of the professional and ethical chops of the Minnie Mon, on a personal level, I wish her nothing but well, and hope that the baby arrives soon, and is a blessing for and of his or her parents.
But I’ll still say that her politics are pretty lame.
November 1st, 2007 at 9:03 am
So “flash” is your real name? Sad really!
November 1st, 2007 at 9:11 am
Thanks, Joel. That is a pretty reasoned observation on all fronts. Not that I agree with it all, but there is always a higher level of respect for reason, regardless of whether I agree totally with it or not. Which was part of my point regarding SitD.
Mitch seemed to use a much higher level of ‘reason’ when I first started reading, but like you mention, it could have been my green eyes at the time and only as I have evolved by reading and participating in the Blogosphere, my perception may be different. However, I always looked up to SitD as successfully avoiding the brutality of the Right WingnuttoSphere, and it just seems that over that last year and change, he has embraced it. But it could be me, something I readily admit, and something that ‘mitch’ never will!
Flash
November 1st, 2007 at 9:21 am
MoN:
Flash is a monicker/nickame I have gone by since 1978. Funny story, actually. But at no time have I ever attempted to conceal my real identity, like others have/do.
I have always respected the right of anonymous free speech, specifically when debating ideology. However, I believe it is incredibly poor form to attack individuals while hiding behind a mask.
Kurt ‘Flash’ Schiebel
Your turn!
November 1st, 2007 at 9:31 am
Bill Krause
MON is from 1976, an off-handed comment from a young lady that just seemed to fit. I’ve used it on-line for over ten years.
Anyway, you’re still disingenuous, and I’ll continue to point that out whenever I see evidence of it. Hell, half the time you admit to it.
November 1st, 2007 at 9:52 am
Well, considering that rew was claiming that contemporary popularity of the artist should have been a determining factor in the quality of the artist, all the present day “artistes” seem to be arguing the opposite.
So Mitch has a completely valid point about pointing out some interesting contradictions in a moderately humorous way. Especially claiming that the MinnieMouseteer is independent!
By the way, go and look which side has been more violent. More bombs have been coming from the left than the right for almost any period you can consider for the last half century or so. Heck, the ALF and ELF have been pretty active in just the last few years.
November 1st, 2007 at 10:01 am
Oh, flash, if you want my email address too, ask the Secretary of State, he seems to be giving them out.