Popular Culture Explained

In accordance with federal legislation prohibiting discrimination, after a lengthy & expensive legal battle to prevent me from contributing a monthly column presenting views contrary to all antiMusic represents, I am pleased to announce the launch of your new favorite feature on the antiMusic: a lone voice of sanity in the insanity that's antiMusic, the place where you can come for reliable advice on what to think, the Veridical Polemic a.k.a. "I'm Always Right" column with Dolly Doppelganger! Read my words and obey them if you want to be right all the time, just like me!

The most confusing event in the world was the phone call I got from some Democrat after the 2000 Florida Election results made the Sunshine state the laughingstock of the known universe. He called me up minutes after I'd voted in Broward County, insisting that I had been disenfranchised. Huh? I'd been what? Then why am I not bleeding? I demanded in response. Instead of answering my question, he told me that he'd been busy calling up every voter registered as a Dem to tell them this astonishing news. I was too busy pondering that big funny word he'd hurled at me like a water balloon to consider if what he was doing was legal & useful, or simply a well orchestrated maneuver by the left to do what they could to hand the election to internet inventor Al Gore before any votes had even been counted.

If "disenfranchised" was an actual word I was going to need in real life, why on earth didn't my school ever mention it? I don't recall that word ever appearing in any literature I was forced to read in any grade of school. Hey, wait a minute, I wasn't forced to read anything at all, come to think about it! I remember they gave us a list of potential books we could read if we felt like it, Let me see if I can find it really quick. Yeah, here it is. It's called, "Ways You Could Spend Your Time, if You're Not Too Busy". Since it was so nice of them to provide me with a list of what to read, rather than forcing me to flounder around trying to compose my own list, I think I may have read one or two on there, I don't know. It didn't really seem to matter. My parents didn't care, they were too busy giving us a humongous roof over our head, a new vehicle every other year, and a very comfortable way of life. Who has time to check homework when there's credit card debt, vacation homes & fun family vacations to pay for?

Wait!! I am forgetting something even funnier & more relevant today! What does the title of my series mean? I sent Keavin an email telling him that just because his name is spelled wrong doesn't give him the right to go through life misspelling everything! Doesn't that guy have spell checker? Well, to be fair to him, my spell checker doesn't show that vertical spelled his way is spelled wrong, either. It's so frustrating being smarter than not only spell checker, but everyone! So "up & down" is the first part of my series name. Polemic? What is he saying, that I don't have enough lead in my blood? That I need to take supplements?? Just because some rock star was in the news a while back for eating kitty litter or clay or paint chips or whatever it was doesn't mean every one has a medical condition, Mr. Obsessed with the Inane! So from that, we get my series name as "Misspelled Up & Down Ramblings of a Sick Girl".

Whatever.

Everyone complains about the dumbing down of America, well I say life isn't dumb enough. When people invade my home through the media or by phone, it needs to be kept simple. I am extremely busy! I don't want to think for myself, I want a sound bite! The media has all the answers, and they look so nice, they have earned their positions of trust to deliver the news to me, so obviously their opinions are correct, and theirs the only ideas worth embracing. This is what I learned in school- I got a smiley face sticker every time I was right. Being right was a simple matter of my every thought being in conformity with the peoples' clearly in charge. Since I have been conditioned to seek out & believe & parrot back whatever the current logic is, why deviate from the route that we've all been living since Kindergarten? Some reward surely follows swallowing & accepting what's fed to you. antiMusic people, believe that! Whatever the popular trend in thinking is, join in! Be one of the enlightened, ban guns while you defend terrorists rights, stand up for the lives of condemned killers as you demand the 'right' to abort innocent babies, rescue animals and protest wars that free people from despots! If CNN & MTV espouse it, it's a pretty safe way to think, I bet. Don't you dare look at both sides of the issue, or you'll be an idiot! Everyone knows that's what's mainstream is what's best & I'm always right!

I read something really incredible this morning: an actual test from an 1895 8th grade final exam. It is WAY too hard! One question said, write down all the countries in Europe & give their capitals! Now gimme a break, who cares?!? "Find Europe on a map" is more like it! Another question deals with getting the kid to find the answer to a how much a loan costs with interest over a certain period of time. DUH! That's the bank's job! A history question demands that the poor, helpless kid come up with events for a series of obscure dates, like 1607, 1800 and other such non famous years like that. Now what would the purpose of this question be? This is an 8th grade, not a teacher's final!

That's something that improved the quality of education, now that I'm on the subject of teachers. Hiring someone to teach math that has a degree in teaching, rather than a degree in math was a huge, giant leap in the right direction for all educational disciplines. People that actually majored in the subject they want to teach just don't know enough about how kids think to simplify their subject matter, I bet. That's the only way to get everyone heading in the same direction academically. Somewhere I read that schools are best off educating kids as though they were consumers. Yup, they might drop out if it's not snappy & entertaining enough, so cater to them! Sesame Street taught me that learning was fun & full of songs & dances & puppets, what a brutal reality to find out that's not what school is like. So since they can't teach me everything in an hour, with lots of zippy colors and action, the least they could do is make it easy!

Bill Cosby got in heaps of trouble a while back for his deranged rant against Ebonics and other important institutions. According to him, "You can't be a doctor with that crap coming out of your mouth!" Sorry, Mr. C, you forgot about Dr. Dre! Today's urbanophiles have the same basic need we all do: to be understood. Ebonics instruction was an excellent way to help linguistically impoverished kids from the suburbs understand this new language their musical idols were speaking. Following the rules of grammar is so onerous, but how can dozens of centuries of enslavement to these rules be overcome by the slaves? We need Ebonics to set us free! We should all get in line for reparations, since the grammatical slavery of today is one and the same as physical slavery of yesterday. MTV has done so much to advance this noble, worthy & important cause of helping us understand those uttering a different language, yet when was the last time you saw an "MTV Initiative" on the ballot in the local school board race? I think I will run for school board out here next election so I can push some important agendas to help the kids of the next few generations. Although I can waste time wishing I were in school today, hiding under my desk pretending I was on a desert island having to figure out which one of my family I'd eat if I were in danger of starvation, concrete action is better. I am so pleased that my grandkids at least will get a better education than me. Hopefully by then the words 'disenfranchised' & 'veridical' will be nothing but a faint memory from a much more arcane time.

Helpful links provided by the editor.
Websters.com definition for Veridical
Websters.com definition for Polemic
Websters.com definition for Disenfranchised
Websters.com definition for Orwellian
Websters.com definition for Indoctrinate