by MAJUMDER SAKRASHUMINDERATHER, Alternate Reality News Service Education Writer
The key to a well-functioning idiotocracy is the education system. Once you’ve destroyed that, everything else will fall into place.
We’re talking about government by the stupidest – where did you think we were going to go with that?
Betsy DeVolution-Ross was, in this light (the McDruhitmumpf administration could have looked for an Education Secretary under the streetlamp, but that alley was where the darkness was), a perfect candidate for the position of Sec’Ed (not to be confused with Sex Ed, which she is doing her best to neuter): her only experience with the public school system was the week her father spent at an experimental “Free” school (so-called because they played a lot of Paul Rodgershammerstein music on the PA system) in 1968. To this day, DeVolution-Ross believes public schools are places where students get good grades for wearing underwear on their heads and are taught the dialectic method in order to analyze dodge ball transactions.
Towards the end of his life, DeVolution-Ross’ father Revita allowed that the time he spent at the Free school was, “The. Best. Week. EVER!” Unfortunately, his closest family members assumed the morphine was clouding his judgment, and the cancer took him a day later so he never had the opportunity to correct them.
DeVolution-Ross has worked hard to overturn Bushbamclintreagbush era regulations mandating that post-secondary schools that receive government funding take rape allegations seriously. Previously, a student could be expelled for allegedly spitting chewing gum on the sidewalk but not allegedly raping another student; the most justice a rape survivor could hope for was that their attacker spit chewing gum on the sidewalk at the same time as they were being violated.
“Castrating innocent young men on the basis of unproven allegations,” DeVolution-Ross argued, “could have a negative effect on their future!” (The negative effect on the person who was raped was so obvious that it went unmentioned.) This statement became a meme on right wing blogs. A dark, nasty, don’t expose yourself to this while eating kind of meme. The fact that the Bushbamclintreagbush rules didn’t call for any such punishment just gave the meme a frisson of lemon scented misogyny.
According to her antisocial calendar, DeVolution-Ross has not met with any educators. She did, however, meet with Men’s Wrongs Activist Warren Toofarrgawntohell. Toofarrgawntohell runs and maintains the Anti-castrating Bitches Defense League Web site, so it’s not hard to figure out where she got that idea from!
But, that’s only the beginning. During her confirmation hearings, DeVolution-Ross said, “Our children must be exposed to – oh, goodness, that’s the wrong word – honestly, I don’t know what it’s doing in my vocabulary – they should be given different points of view on subjects of scientific controversy. You know, so they can reach the appropriate conclusion for themselves.” Many educators and fur trappers have interpreted this to refer to her support of teaching unintelligent design in high schools, a sort of tarted-up form of creationism that ordinarily whispers crude come-ons from dimly lit street corners.
DeVolution-Ross has also proposed cutting over 40 positions from the civil rights office, which monitors whether or not college entrance policies discriminate against students of colour. “We had a black president,” she stated. “We’re beyond all this racial stuff now.”
Given all of her good work, it should come as no surprise that DeVolution-Ross has had trouble finding staff for her department who share her lack of vision. Her first attempt was hiring Genuftig Uderoberling as Undersecretary of Education. Uderoberling’s experience was teaching at Charles Defairgriffashy Elementary School; after two weeks, he ran from it screaming and became a mid-level executive for an international mongoose regaling company. After his first week as Undersecretary of Education, Uderoberling ran screaming from Washburningdington into the arms of a bottle of whiskey. The mongoose regaling industry’s loss was apparently Washburningdington’s loss as well.
DeVolution-Ross really should have seen that coming.
Her next appointment, Amaranta Posnataldeepres, seemed like a safe bet: she had been home schooled and received her MBA from McDruhitmumpf University (before the lawsuit ugliness – which certainly taught those students an important life lesson, boy!). When she sat down at her desk to look at the department’s budget for the first time, she froze. Not like a deer in headlights; more like a computer with a virus that was using up all of its cycles on sending spam about economic opportunities in made up foreign countries to everybody on your mailing list and infecting their computers, too. She was quickly wheeled away to Sisters of Mirthy Hospital, where she is fed intravenously and studied extensively.
Like many in DeVolution-Ross’ department, the position remains unfilled.
“I never thought I would say this, but thank the Gord for incompetence!” said Bill Nighthescighencegigh, clapping his hands in glee. Then, he clapped them in annoyance to turn the lights back on. “But, it may yet save our education system!”*
* We asked Nighthescighencegigh if he wanted to be the Alternate Reality News Service’s token smart person. He laughed at us. I laughed back to show that I was in on the joke. If anybody knows the joke, could you please contact me care of this publication? Discreetly? Just put “Economic Opportunities in Guzfrackistan” in the subject line.