I Swear This Is Satire.

When I saw the prompt for this essay in my AP European History class senior year, I knew instantly that I would never be able to write anything on the topic that would get me a good grade. It was something like, "The place for women in the latter half of the nineteenth century seemed to be the home," and something about social, economic, and religious stuff. Knowing that I was going to get a bad grade on the essay, I decided to write something that I knew would enrage the feminist girl sitting in front of me. I received 18 points out of 35, and a number of comments, summarized by "more history, less editorial stuff please." It was worth it.

At the risk of overkill, I want to mention again that this is clearly satire. In fact, this is not funny at all. There is nothing funny about misogyny. All women are unique and capable individuals whose contributions to society are underappreciated and often ignored by the phallocentric elite. Please don't hate me.


The place for women in the latter half of the nineteenth century seemed to be the home, and rightfully so. Men are so vastly superior to women that the woman's place is that which is left by the men. Men understood it to be their sworn duty to care and provide for their women, and therefore set out into the world of employment. Women, being naturally feeble and unable to carry out any real responsibility, were left with nothing to do all day. Oprah wasn't around yet, so the women became housewives, whose "duties" were to keep the house clean and educate the children, while the men worked hard in the real world to put food on the table, although that phrase is misleading. It is actually the "duty" of the woman to purchase, prepare, and serve the food, as the man has been working all day and deserves to come home to a hot meal.

Theoretically, European women had other options, although they weren't really choices. The ugly females, who sadly could not find any man to take care of her, could become some sort of servant or professional assistant of some sort for really rich men who felt sorry for the ugly ladies and their ugliness. Any of these women would gladly marry, and rightfully so. If only they weren't so ugly. And the really attractive and/or promiscuous women could become prostitutes. This is an excellent example of the civility of men. It was an unspoken agreement between the men to not marry the prostitutes, so that they could share them. Marrying one would only create jealously amongst the men, and men are better than that. In theory, a woman could get a real job, but only if they could handle the enormous responsibility. Logically, if they could handle the responsibility of having a job, they should have no problem finding a husband. It is a vicious Catch-22.

Economic considerations may have affected women's career decisions. This is unlikely, as there has never been a single case of a woman understanding the complex world of economics and mathematics. Women only understood enough maths to correctly prepare a meal. Any additional learning was unnecessary, and unsafe. It has been well documented that a woman's head will explode if it is attempted to teach her enough knowledge to understand the world. And this is the overall reasoning behind keeping the women from the outside world. We love them far too much to see their heads explode. After all, who would clean up the mess?

FDR Was a Dirty Socialist Gangster.

I wrote this essay as part of an exam my junior year in AP US History. It received 37 points out of 40, and the teacher wrote "Nice job overall." I believe the question was "Had you lived at the time, would you have been for or against FDR?" or something like that.



Had I lived at the time, I would have been anti-Roosevelt. It's very easy to criticize rather than to take action. It's also much more fun. I would have most enjoyed attacking Roosevelt's New Deal policies. I would have quoted for newspapers feelings of disgust toward his dammed Tennessee Valley Authority. I'd discuss with anyone who had to listen the pitiful efforts of the Works Progress Administration. I'd also declare Roosevelt's wanting to tamper with the Supreme Court an outrage. I believe that in a debate, the winner is the one who uses the most adjectives.

President Roosevelt was a dirty Socialist gangster. We are lucky that he died when he did, or else we'd be singing our praises towards Mother Russia by now. Roosevelt's attempts to steer America down the road to Communism were never more evident than in his Tennessee Valley Authority. This was the worst dam project ever. For the government to harness natural resources in an attempt to control private enterprise is an idea so terrible that it makes Santa Claus vomit with rage.

Had I lived in the period, I hope that I'd be poor enough to take advantage of the Works Progress Administration and its handouts. I'd gladly stand around with a shovel in one hand and a paycheck in the other. As a nation, the United States can be proud of its sudden transformation into a gigantic state of welfare. Alas, morals and integrity would prevent me from taking part in such schemes as being paid to perform needless tasks (i.e., Greendale)

Anyone who truly believes in the glory of our nation must surely wish to throw themselves into a pit of alligators when they think about how Roosevelt attempted to nullify the Supreme Court. Surely, mass suicide would be the only option when any real American considers how Roosevelt's evil plan nearly cost us our checks and balances. It's enough to make a person want to run their car into a school bus, or even move to Canada.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt nearly dammed our nation to the Russians. He tried to burn the Constitution on the steps on the Supreme Court, and he paid vagabonds to perform tasks that any well trained monkey could have performed. Perhaps it is best that trained monkeys were not assembled, for then we would be subject to the hideous events portrayed by Roddy McDowell and Ricardo Montalbon in the classic science fiction masterpiece "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes." Would cheap actors wearing ape masks and make-up really take over the world? Thankfully, we should never know.

Please Don't Go to Trial Tonight.

My favorite band, The XYZ Affair, released their new EP, Trials, today. It's sounds a bit more synthesized than their first album, but the harmonies and the riffs and the lyrics are all there, so I'm rather enjoying it. The band's website says I can "stream the entire EP on our music page and our MySpace." But here's the thing: sure, you can stream the songs at their website, but if you have a look at the page source, the code being used to stream the songs contains direct links to download the songs. I've seen this same code used on a ton of sites to stream music, and the mp3s are always there to be downloaded if you know where to look.

So, yeah, I downloaded the songs for free. To be blunt, I consider files like this to be fair game. There are tons of widgets that can be used to stream songs while making their download impossible. I don't know why so many sites use this code instead. For what it's worth, the band is releasing one of the three songs as a free download at Stereogum.com, a site I visit a lot, and I wouldn't be shocked to see the other two pop up eventually at some of the other legitimate mp3 blogs and online music stores I get all of my free music from.

The only reason I've even heard of The XYZ Affair is because four of the ten songs from their last album are free downloads at different sites. When the band came to town last winter, I went to their concert and bought their album. When I go to another concert coming up I'll probably buy a T-shirt or something. Heck, maybe the songs are intentionally downloadable; the band's losing the three dollars I'd have spent on the CD, but gaining my presence at a concert and a T-shirt purchase. Because, to be honest, I already have way too many T-shirts.

Bloody Apathetic Facebook Users, I've No Sympathy At All

Facebook just launched a rather large update to its user interface. I've actually been awaiting this for a while now, since I've became a "fan" of the "Facebook Profiles Preview" page a few months ago. Unfortunately, I'm one of only 132,978 users to do so, meaning most users will be completely shocked by this startling change in one of the more important parts of their social and online life.

I'm sure that many users will complain about how little warning they received about these startling changes. They'll be wrong, of course. This update was originally going to be unleashed in spring, and kept being pushed back. You'd know that if you paid attention or became a fan of the page that was created to warn users about these startling changes. And remember when Facebook disabled the ability to hide the Mini-Feed from your profile? They said it was so you'd get used to it being a bigger part of your profile permanently? Gee, maybe they were trying to tell you something, like maybe the Mini-Feed was about to become a bigger part of your profile? And gosh, this isn't even the first version of Facebook to use tabs on profile pages either.

I haven't seen any yet, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time before a bunch of Facebook groups pop up in protest. Remember when the News Feed was added? It was like the world ended. How dare Facebook invade my privacy by telling the people I've chosen as friends that I've chosen to post information for them to see? Surprisingly, the group "I'll terminate my account if Facebook doesnt terminate MiniFeed on 09/26/06" still has 20 members. Heh, how about that.

Change happens, and everyone gets a little panicky when changes happen to important parts of their daily life. Most of us deal with it fine, and realize quickly enough that the changes are for the better, or at least not for the worse. The rest join protest groups and listen to their Fall Out Boy while crying themselves to sleep.

Not that there's anything wrong with listening to Fall Out Boy and crying yourself to sleep.

I gather this is a blog of some sort.

I'm not sure why this blog exists yet. Maybe later there will be some content? We'll see.