U.S. Students Dumber than Ever

ourth and eighth-graders tested nationwide really screwed the pooch on a recent history exam, while 12th-graders were about as dumb as expected, the Education Department announced Thursday. The Bush administration was not impressed, calling the results "a shocking wake-up call of historicalistical proportions." More than 29,000 students took the history test that's part of the National Assessment of Educational Ineptitude, known informally as "Operation: Dumbo Drop."

Among fourth-graders, 67 percent had at least a basic understanding of the concept of history itself, though few could name any specific events. 13 percent showed no sense of events happening in the past at all, beyond a vague concept of everything happening "yesterday." That was three percentage points higher than in 1994, the last time the test was given.

Some 29,600 students, 87 percent of them apparently high on drugs at the time, took the test in 2001. The randomly selected test-takers answered multiple-choice, short-answer and essay questions with only a slightly higher success rate than a control group of lab mice trying to play "Axel-F" on a small Casio keyboard during the exam. Students were alarmingly befuddled by questions like these for fourth-graders:

Pilgrims came to North American in the 1700's fleeing what in Europe?
(a) the bubonic plague.
(b) religious persecution.
(c) Napoleon's army.
(d) Godzilla.


Only 45 percent answered correctly with (b).

What was a major cause of the Civil War?
(a) East Coast rap calling out West Coast rap.
(b) People in the North and in the South disagreed over slavery.
(c) Montel Williams.
(d) The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand.


Correct answer: (b); 57 percent answered correctly.

The answers to the multiple-choice questions, however, looked like the minutes from a meeting of MENSA when compared to the short-answer section of the test. Asked to write in their own answer to the question "Who led Germany during World War II?" 57 percent of the students wrote "Arnold Schwarzenegger." The second and third most-frequent responses were no less alarming: "Tupac!" and "banana."

Deanna Norvich, an education historian and NAEI board member, called the students' answers "fuckin' hilarious" and said the seniors' scores were "about what you'd expect from a bunch of Taco Bell trainees."

"Since the seniors are very close to voting age or already have reached it, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see more professional wrestlers elected to public office in the near future. I'd be frightened if I weren't looking at the bright side: No way in hell someone younger than me is going to come and take my job in the next millennia. These kids couldn't operate a salad shooter."

She added: "Clearly, our high schools are failing to teach U.S. history well to these paste-eating morons. And by the time they're seniors there's no way you're going to get them to stop fucking and doing blow long enough to learn about Benjamin Franklin. It's just not happening."

According to the National Assessment Governing Board, the independent group that develops the NAEI for the Education Department, only 17 percent of fourth-graders scored above the "vegetable" level. Of those, 11 percent scored at the "head injury" level and another 3 percent fell into the higher "slow country cousin" grouping. Alarmingly, only 2 percent scored in the "can handle plastic silverware" group, the highest level attained in the test this year.

To be sure, many questions were tough, especially those asked of older students. An example:

There were many significant factors that led American colonists to form the First Continental Congress in 1774. Among them were colonial frustrations with laws passed by the British Parliament. What is your name?

Thirty-nine percent got that one right.

The NAEI is given in different subjects periodically, though always to predictably pathetic results that make adults feel smart again after their bank account has been drained by a ten year-old hacker. The 2001 national history test was the first given since 1994, when it was designed to test the effects of crop dusting on the nation's youth.

NAEI scores in geography are scheduled to be released this summer, with Vermont crossing its fingers that the state will be recognized for the first time ever on an NAEI exam.

Several Newscasters Fired for Reporting Death of Don Ho

5 Million White House E-Mails Missing, All About Low-Cost Cialis

Sanjaya Unites Indian Fans, People Who Hate American Idol

IRS: Excessively Needy Girlfriends Can’t Be Declared “Dependents”

There's nothing I love more than entertaining—and there's nothing more entertaining than rap music. Not that modern nonsense with the f-word used over and over again, and calling ladies female dogs. I'm talking about true rap.

Old school rap.

So let's break it down now, shall we? Get this place all funky.

The important thing to remember is that rap is all about confidence and style. And I've got truckloads of style, folks. And confidence? Nobody's got more! I'm glad to be here and to break it down, old school! I can do it all—adaption of much-loved rhymes you're all familiar with, some of my own self-penned raps to beats pumped out by my rap collaborator DJ John Waterhouse, or even some freestyling. Just give me a subject matter, say, my friends in high school, and I will bust a rap so grand you all will have to pick up your jaws off the floor. That's how amazed you'll be.

Like all rappers, I truly slay. Everybody has certain subjects where they mine rap gold, and mine is my shoes and my superior rap abilities. Check out these fly shoes—real old school Addidas, and they rock. There was a time when shoes weren't about extra flaps, lights, and Velcro straps. That's my shoes, just there for keeping my feet comfortable—and, of course, styling. My shoes are more than shoes. They're friends. And I have a number of raps dedicated to my friends.

It's not easy being a dope rhyme-ologist. Despite having lyrical superiority over everyone I meet, and putting down the wanna-bes, it doesn't mean I'm always successful with the ladies. That's right: I've been played. And I'm not ashamed to rap about it.

One time there was a honey that strung me, drew me in like a master of gravity, acting all shy when I tried to kiss her, then said I was making time with her sister. I denied it, decried it, but it was no use fightin'; she was treating me like a tool, played me for a straight-up fool. Peace out.

That's just one of my rhymes. They sound better than they read, trust that. When I submitted my proposal for a rap act at the Taj Mahal Casino in Vegas they were doubtful as well, but once I broke it all out they were convinced I was not a perpetrator. As I said, some of the Vegas audiences don't want a tired old Lawrence Welk or Andy Williams or anything. They need something a little spicier, and I have it with my classic old school rap.

Some people say when you rap you have to "dress down," but I say that's hooey. I dress the way I feel—and I feel good! People like to see a show where the entertainer's dressed up a little bit for them, and I give the people what they want. All I ask is to cut loose and have a little fun, and maybe wave their hands in the air.

Nobody is a one man band in the world of rap, unless you do it acapella. But I'm afraid I have a lot of help to make my beats, and I would like to take a moment to thank my number one beatmaster, my scientist of bass, the one and only DJ John Waterhouse. Much love to you, old chum.

This is not only my declaration of my love for rap, of course; it's an invitation to a night out on the town for some of the best old school rap your ears have ever been blessed with. If you're going to be in the beautiful city of Las Vegas anytime all during the month of January, please come out and treat yourself at the Taj Mahal Casino. Three shows a night and all-you-can eat shrimp, and that's the personal MC Vic Daniels guarantee. Thanks, I love every one of you!

º Last Column: Everyone's Half-Assing the Christmas Spirit
º more columns

Pansies everywhere agree: Feminism is important. At least that's what I hear every time my TV gets stuck on the women's channel, OBG or whatever it is. The Bricks TV does that sometimes, flips randomly through channels, which I guess is to be expected since the nerve center of the Bricks Manor entertainment center is a 1957 Tesla from Eastern Europe, which "came with the house" since it's too heavy to move out the front door. It's not even supposed to get cable, but I fixed that quick with a hand-hatchet and some wire I dug up out of the yard. Now the TV works fine, except Foghat barks at the thing like crazy whenever it's raining, and no plants will grow in that room.

But regardless, Omar Bricks has always had a great respect for women's issues. Seriously. It might surprise some to be informed that Omar Bricks is considered by many to be one of the great feminist thinkers of the 21st century. By whom? There's got to be somebody out there. Prove me wrong.

Now that that death-threat dodge is out of the way, we can get to the meat and beans of the column. I was sitting out on the roof the other day, engaging in the hallowed spring ritual of throwing Easter eggs at Mitch's dogs when I had my stroke of genius: What was stopping me from setting up my own mobile mammography business?

I'm not sure where the idea came from, but I didn't want to question that too deeply in case it turned out to be voodoo or something I saw on M.A.S.H. last week. Instead I launched into action, borrowing my neighbor Hamms' Winnebago and hitting the road with a coat-hanger still sticking out of the door lock. Thinking smart from the start, I figured that a traveling cross-country mobile mammography business stood a better chance for success than one that was just parked in the parking lot of a Circle K.

That's a lesson I learned when I was driving a bookmobile before coming to work at the commune. Before you get your chinos in a bunch, let me clarify that I wasn't working for the library or whatever pack of nerds it is that unleashes the bookmobile from deep in the bowels of the Book Cave early every morning. No, I was just driving one, because they left it running and I needed a ride to the commune. But that day I learned just how valuable location can be. That bookmobile was parked outside the commune offices for three days and only two people took out books: Rok Finger checked out The Small Man's Guide to Talking Big and Bagel snaked Charlotte's Web because he thought it was about a Byzantine international conspiracy. That thing needed to be parked in front of a book store or something, not right outside this idiot-hole. Location, location, location.

For the first few states things were taking off pretty slow, I admit, and it occurred to me that the "NO FATTIES" bumpersticker I had put on the door was probably driving away business. But in this business, that's business Omar Bricks can afford to lose.

Business continued to puff a dong until I got to Pennsylvania, when I ran into a dude who wanted a boob job, which meant I had to alter the "BOOB JOBS: $5" sign I had mounted on the Winnebago's windshield. This dude was an especially impressive knob since I had written the sign backwards, so I could read it from inside the Winni, but I guess this guy was really determined to get his boobs jobbed.

So I had to make a new sign that said "WOMEN'S BOOBS JOBBED" instead. I wasn't sure about the technical terminology for mammography, or even exactly what it entailed beyond a feel-up, but either way "mammography" was way too long a word to fit on my sign without buying a smaller sharpie. And my business expenses were already way into the red from buying two slurpies and the posterboard back in Jersey. But there was no way around those basic expenses, otherwise I never would have been able to make that life-saving "TEST YOUR GAS FOR PHLOBYNOL" sign with the arrow pointing to the Winni's gas tank. Do you have any idea how expensive gas is nowadays? And do you have any idea how gullible people can be when you make up a word like Phlobynol?

Anyway, according to commune head chunk Gay Bagel I can't take seventeen pages to tell my column stories any more, no matter how badly this compromises the truth or the juicy details. Suffice it to say that Winnebagos can't float, even if they do look exactly like house boats, and a good mobile mammographer has to be able to get a bra off faster than it takes a mobile home to sink to the bottom of the Potomac. On the bright side, I'm already way ahead of last year's pace for losing other people's vehicles in large bodies of water, with over seven full months still to go. That's the other key to successful mobile mammography: Staying positive. Bricks out.

º Last Column: Cordially Requesting Your Restraint
º more columns