438: School

Late yesterday, I walked into the living room at our East Little Rock condo and found a character I call “Ronald Charles, the National Merit Scholar,” sprawled on the couch studying the view of Little Rock’s skyline. Of course, it was C.W., and I usually enjoy him in this shape.

Today he seemed a bit down.

“What’s up?” I said.

“Oh, nothing,” he said, using the most common response a teenager uses when something is truly bugging him.

“Share,” I said.

“Can I have a beer?”

“It’s ‘may I have a beer’ and, no, you’re too young.”

“I’m 647 years old in your time,” he said.

“Then choose another form. What’s bugging you?”

“The schools,” he said. “Those things called ‘charter schools.’ I visited one yesterday.”

“How did you do that?”

He looked at me as if I had just asked how he managed to tie his shoes this morning.

I changed tactics. “What did you find out?”

“It was weird,” he said.

“How so?”

“For one thing, the entire first hour of class was devoted to what they called ‘dialogue training’ and it was most odd.”

“How so?”

The kids were divided into groups and were being made to memorize and deliver standard bits of dialogue.”

“Like what?”

“One group was being made to stand as the teacher walked up and say, ‘Good morning. Welcome to ‘Betsy DeVoss High School.’ Each student had to practice it until the teacher was satisfied.”

“Anything else?”

“Another group was doing the same thing, only with a different dialogue.”

“Which was?”

“How are you folks doing today?”

“I see. Any others?”

“Some were practicing giving directions, like ‘yes sir, or ma’am, it’s right down on Aisle Five’ over and over.”

“I see. Then they held classes?”

“Not until they assembled in the auditorium and did a few school cheers. This included a final arm salute to someone named Saint Sam.”

“And then?”

“They went to their classes, but they weren’t classes like any I’ve ever seen.”

“Oh really?”

“No. I snitched a schedule that one student left lying on a bench.” He produced a sheet of wrinkled paper, smoothed it and said. “Listen to these.” He took a breath and read, “Proving Science Wrong 108.”

“What?”

“You heard me. I stood outside the door and heard the teacher say, ‘It is a well-known historical fact that Charles Darwin accepted Christ as his personal savior on his deathbed and recanted his entire body of work. Now that’s false science for you.’ She then told them the assignment for the next day was to read the chapter called ‘Paul’s Travels as the Basis of Modern Geographic Systems.’”

“That’s not true about Darwin. I can’t believe you actually heard that.”

My Falloonian Elders don't
understand your concept
of flexible truth. - C. W.

“I don’t think ‘true’ was a measurement of accuracy in that class,” he said. “There’s more. You should have listened in on the one called ‘Flexible Mathematics: The Limitations of Numbers 107.’”

“You’re not serious.”

“Seems one no longer needs to learn things that the machines will do for you anyway.”

“You’re making me nauseated.”

“It gets worse.”

“How?”

He read from the list. “Obsolete Teachings 101: History.”

“No.”

He ignored me and continued. “Obsolete Teachings 102: Public Administration.”

I waited. He read, “Obsolete Teachings 103: Moral Imperatives in Modern America.”

“I think I’ve heard enough.”

He said, “No, it gets better. Standing outside the class on business administration, I heard a lecture called, ‘The Use of Tag-Team Matches in Conflict Resolution.’ It was the most interesting of call.”

“I can imagine. What did you do next?”

“I stood outside the Religion 104 class and heard a lecture called, ‘The Beatitudes as False Doctrine.’ It required the students to rise on cue and give a salute to that Saint Sam person.”

“I think I’ve heard enough.”

“Wait,” he said, “I haven’t even told you about the classes they were holding in the Athletic Wing. Well,” he said, “they called them classes anyway.”

“I think,” I said, “that you can have that beer now if I can join you.” 

See also:

Delta Dreaming

All Hat No Cattle

Enjoy these at all? If so, order Big Dope's Book at Wattensaw Press, Amazon, or other book sellers. It will make him so happy. Also, click on an ad. It earns him a little and costs the advertiser, sort of a win-win.

Morning Thoughts: Marriage

 C.W. and I were talking …

Left Head—the data-gathering one—said, “We’ve all been talking.”

“You’ve been talking. We’ve been listening, goof-round-object used for play,” Right Head—the frivolous one—said.

“You mean ‘goof-ball’ the middle—or evaluative one—said.

“Anyway,” Left Head said, turning to them and flashing what I’m told is the equivalent of a frown in Falloonia, “anyway, we are amazed at how much you seem to dote on Mrs. Big Dope, especially when she’s not around.”

“Yeah,” Middle Head said, “Explain.”

“I, uh … uh,” I searched for the right word, since they are not above recording every word I say (yes, they can do that), and playing whole conversations back to her.

“Is she easy?” Left Head asked.

“What?”

“Not easy that way,” Right Head said, giggling. “Easy like in, ‘easy to get along with.’”

“Oh yes.”

“Example,” Left Head said.

“Let’s see,” I said. “Oh yes. I knew this man one time whose wife wouldn’t let him crumble his crackers into his bowl of chili. Chewed him out if he tried.”

“Say what?” This got Middle Head’s attention.

“I think it was a Junior League thing,” I said.

“So, she's flexible. What else?” Left Head asked.

“Well, she's kind. Once when she taught elementary school, she caught the kids making fun of a little girl’s ragged, hand-me-down shoes.”

“She punished them?” Middle Head said. “Beat them? Walloped them good?”

“No. She guessed the girl’s size and bought her a pair of new shoes with her own money.”

“I’ll bet they wouldn’t do that in one of these new chartless schools.” Middle Head said.

“It is ‘charter school’ and no, they wouldn’t,” Left Head said. “They would never allow a child in one of those if their parents couldn’t afford new shoes for them.”

“She’s damned funny, too,” Right Head said. “She taught English to the kids.” He looked at me. “That’s when she made up that expression she uses when you offer some complicated excuse for screwing up.”

I was nonplussed.

Right Head continued, “When she accuses you of trying to ‘diagram a f…’”

“Shut up,” I said. “Where did you hear that?”

“She used it on me,” Right Head said.

“I think she sort of likes you, too, at least a little bit,” Middle Head said, re-directing the conversation thread.

“Oh?”

“Quite so. I asked her why. We couldn’t understand it at all.”

“What did she say?”

“She borrowed a line from a movie she saw once,” Right Head said.

“And that was?”

“He always ate everything I cooked for him, and he never hit me.”

“And oh,” Middle Head said, “I take it she allows this cracker-crumbling thing?”

“Not in bed. Not anymore.” 

I think the reputation from her past
 helps keep Big Dope in line. - C.W.

A Parable

Dear Friends and Admirers:
I'm developing my writing skills now and Big Dope said I could post a parable I wrote. So ...

Cotton pickers in Pulaski County, AR. There is a legend there of a champion cotton picker named Charterene, who could pick more pounds per day than even the strongest man. People spoke of her in awe and newspaper writers lauded her as “The Spirit of America.”

Weighing in after a long, hard day's work. 

The daughter of a northern industrialist millionaire—she herself having never seen a cotton field—promised to take a year off from her international travels and revolutionize the cotton picking industry by forcing Charterene’s methods nation-wide.

As fate would have it though, when the crowds gathered to watch the champion in action, facts emerged. First, Charterene selected the best row in the field to pick. Further, it had been prepared ahead of time by young boys who removed the inferior and rotten bolls. Then the farmer gave Charterene a head start.

Sure enough though, she picked a quarter of a pound more cotton than the nearest competitor. “Proof,” cried the writers. “Out,” said the owner to the manager who had doubted Charterne’s methods. “I’m on it,” said the industrialist’s daughter, instructing the Governor to proclaim in “Charterene Day” in the state.

The industry changed. Cotton fields weren’t picked clean like before, only enough to maximize profits. Bolls not meeting minimum standards remained in the heat-soaked fields to rot. Soon, America had to import high-quality cotton from India.

268. Places

C.W. is being punished. As best as I can manage, he is confined to quarters, meaning the spare bedroom we keep. Of course he can escape anytime he wants, but I’m locking the computer away when I’m not using it so he won’t go far.

What did he do this time?

Hitchhiking.

Yes. Hitchhiking. It all began when he started asking me about the GPS navigational systems that people are increasingly relying upon to get around.

“Can’t they read a diagrammatic representation of an area of land or sea showing physical features, cities, roads, etc.” he asked.

“No,” I said. “Reading a map has pretty much disappeared as skill.”

“That’s what I feared,” he said, “when I read that more than 20 percent of your population can’t locate the Pacific Ocean on a map of the world.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“It’s not as though it is not prominent,” he said.

“Pretty prominent,” I said.

“And 11 percent can’t locate the United States?”

“Sad to say.”

“So people use those little boxes with the obnoxious voices emanating from them to get around?”

“Many do.”

“They go exactly where the boxes tell them?”

“Without question.”

“Don’t they know that a superior mental force …,” he paused. “Say a visitor from the Wobeenanis Galaxy, could scramble the directions?”

“You don’t think highly of those folks, now do you?”

A vicious place producing creatures of low expectations,” he said. Then he brightened. “Wait one,” he said, and then he disappeared.

When he returned, he was in the form of that actor, Brad Pitt. He said he was going for a walk. Actually, I found out later, he was going hitchhiking. After deputies had returned him several times, I deduced that he had been hitching rides with strangers willing to assist him because of his appearance. Using some Falloonian powers of which I was unaware, he had used his ability to re-direct automobile GPS systems so that he had, on different occasions,

- Led a Bluegrass Band to a Hip Hop concert.

- Led a mine operator to a Sierra Club meeting

- Led a “Tea Party” activist into a public housing complex

- Led a pro-wrestling fan to a ballet recital

- Led an ardent vegetarian to a pig farm

- Led a “creationist” to the public library … and … was finally caught, wouldn’t you know it … leading a prominent Baptist minister to a barn dance.

Don’t contact me asking for clemency. He is confined indefinitely.

 

Why do so many of your species
live in the constant fear that
at some place, somewhere, someone
may be having fun? - C.W.

 

Click some ads. I need to buy my way out.

Oh, and see www.wattensawpress.com

And ... www.allhatnocattle.com

Finally, buy Big Dope's book so he'll shut up about it.
- C.W.

W
Available at major on-line retailers, or
www.wattensawpress.com

237. Idioms

 Oh dear. I can always tell when C.W. is in what he calls his “thoughtful in character or manner mode,” i.e. his serious one. He takes on the form of a monk of the Dark Ages, complete with robe and hood. That is how I found him today. He also had what he says is his Galactic Universal Translator manual spread out before him.

Of course I couldn’t read it as it was in a form only understandable by Falloonians, but I was glad to see him at work. His GUT has been volatile of late.

“What’s up?” I said.

“Idioms, my child.”

“Idioms are up?”

“Please, Big Dope, don’t be showing a lack of common sense or judgment; absurd and foolish.”

“I’m not being silly,” I said. “Besides, I’m glad you have been listening to your GUT and helping it to digest our language.” I giggled.

“For your information, I’m adding idioms to the language base,” he said, “and the flow through my GUT is fine. There are no blockages.”

I giggled again and he frowned at me most seriously. I decided to play along. “So, can I help you?”

“These are informal terms,” he said, “that seem to be related.”

“Such as?”

He looked at a note. “Cherry picking. What does that mean?”

“That is the practice,” I said, “of selectively choosing the most beneficial items from what is easily available.”

“What about those remaining items.”

“Tough sh…,” I started, but his robe caught my eye, “too bad about them.”

“I see,” he said, making a note.

“Anymore?”

“Yes,” he said, and checked his notes again. “Low hanging fruit.”

“Hmm,” I said. “that is a thing that can be obtained with little effort, that is to say you don’t have to reach very high or strain yourself to collect it.”

“Fascinating,” he said, and I’ll swear one eyebrow raised independently. He made another note.

“Is that all?” I said. “Mrs Big Do…, uh, my wife and I are going to rake leaves and I want to beat her to the places where there isn’t any junk to sweep around.”

“Two more,” he said.

“Give me the easy one first,” I said.

“Pretty bolling.”

“Ah,” I said, “you are in luck. That is an old, rural term and might be unknown to anyone who didn’t grow up in cotton country.”

“Cotton country?”

“Areas where they grow cotton, or used to. Back in the day, they picked it by hand and it was a serious offense—a beatable one during slavery—to quickly pick the largest and easiest bolls of cotton, the pretty ones in other words. This increased your daily production but left money in the field, i.e. the bolls of poorer quality or smaller size, problem ones of one sort or another.”

“Really?” he said. “That is interesting.” He made notes for several minutes.

“You said you had another.”

Fascinating. Unlike Latin, in English the
terms "rat pack" and "pack rat" don't mean
the same thing. Hmm. I wonder about the
term "house cat." C.W.

“Yes,” he said, turning over a sheet. “Ah, here it is.” He looked up at me. “Charter schools.”

That stumped me for a second or two. Then it dawned on me. “Well sir,“ I said. “Charter schools are private schools operated with public funds but permitted to cherry pick, pretty boll, or otherwise select students that are statistically likely to succeed without much effort, in other words,  the low hanging fruit of the student population.”

“Get out of the city,” he said.

“No, really,” I said.

“What about the other students, the ones that present difficulties?”

“Xin Loi,” I said. That’s a Vietnamese term roughly meaning tough sh…”

“I know what it means,” he said. Then, believe it or not, a tear fell from his eye. “So the good kids get educated and the others get lost?” He said.

“Pretty much so.”

 

Another tear fell. “Are your people really that cruel, my son?

 

Please click an ad. I need to educate Big Dope.

And see also:

www.wattensawpress.com

www.deltadreaming.blogspot.com

- C.W.