I Don't Know Why He Swallowed The Fly

You know, the most effective way to complete your high school course work and earn decent grades is to a) study, and b) to actually do the course work. Using some sort of entymological ingestion procedure as a way of getting an 'A' on your Algebra II test is probably not a really good way to go about things.

Dateline: El Dorado Hills, California. Sub-dateline: Oak Ridge High School, Algebra II class, test day. From CBS-13 KOVR News, the story plays out as follows. The Algebra II teacher killed a fly in class with his hands and then dared any of his students to eat the dead fly, allegedly enticing them by saying, "If anybody eats this fly then I will give them an A on this test." Go on. Guess what happened next. Guess! You got it. Some paste eater ate it. (Maybe he was branching out.) Now guess what happened after that! Go on. Guess! That's right. No A.

Steven Zeldag is the lad in question and judging from his score on his Algebra II test, he's not just dumb, he's fly-eatin' dumb. The lad scored 9 out of 46. That's just a hair under twenty percent correct. He claims that his teacher said that "...I told you I'd give you an A on your test, so here's your A, but it's not going in the gradebook." "The teacher even wrote, "Here is your A on your test," when he returned the paper to the student." Behold!

The story continues by explaining Steven's revelation, saying that "...he realized what he thought was a deal was really just a joke at his expense." Dun-dun-DUNNNNNNNN!! Ya think? What a moron.

"I didn't think he was joking at all," said the fly eater.

You know, I should probably take that back. The moron part, that is. The kid might really be a good kid. Maybe he's good with his hands. (Well, if he's not, he'd better get good with his hands, because I don't know how well that book learnin' is going to be turning out for him.) But judging from his ability to discern whether or not a teacher is jerking you around by saying "I'll give anyone an A who eats this fly", I don't know that he was ever going to pass that Algebra II test in the first place.

See, he seems to have overlooked a real key piece to this ordeal. Son, your math teacher can't give you a grade that is contingent upon your ingesting any insects. Hell, or mammal for that matter. Insect. Mammal. Egg layer. Unless you are enrolled in a course that specifically requires the ingesting of animals, eating any sort of animal isn't going to help you. If you gobble down a field mouse, you're not going to get an A on your biology exam. If you consume an entire raccoon, it's not going to get you an A on your term paper. That's not the way that it works...at all!

Mind you, this is an algebra class. Algebra consists of solving for the unknown. There are not a lot of unknowns in this story. There's an awful lot of "known"s though. The way that scholastic achievement grades are doled out. The general area of the kid's overall IQ. Things like that. Things like your future if you keep thinking that the eating of a freshly squashed insect is going to propel you to the top of the class. Your future won't be unknown. Your future will be dim. Your future will be counting change out for people. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But when you're a high school student, don't you want something more than that to look forward to? My point.

Those are the knowns. Here are a few of the unknowns:

One: The article said that this fly-for-grades debacle took place last month. What does that mean? Today is the 4th of November, so "last month" could have been just last week, but we don't know that. I have no idea why that wasn't clarified. (I take that back. I have some idea. It's called "The media is crap".)

Two: When the principal was contacted to comment on this story, he said that "...it was the first time he heard about it." OK. Since the principal hadn't heard about it that means that neither the boy, nor the teacher went to him. I'm guessing that, out of the two of them, the only one that I would foresee going to the media with it would be the boy. Now, that makes little to no sense to me because "Stephen said he was afraid to tell his principal because his teacher would punish him." Um, so you go to Channel 13? That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Oh, wait. This is the same kid who ate the fly, right? Never mind. It all makes perfect sense.

Three: I don't think the kid is being totally honest about why he didn't study for the test. He made it sound like the deal was made (an A for a fly snack) in advance of the test being given and because he was under his self inflicted delusion that he would be getting an A, he didn't study. I'm thinking it was more like he didn't study and saw the chance to weasel out of possibly (likely) getting a bad grade and when the fly opportunity buzzed in (pun totally intended) and presented itself, he took it. No way he ate the fly a week in advance or something and just didn't bother to study for the test because he had a tummy chock full o'fly. No way. I'm not buyin' it. But from the news report, it's hard to tell. That's right, because the media sucks. How'd you guess?

We're so doomed. Let me just tell you, if I had pulled this stunt in high school, it would not have ended up on the news. If I was dumb enough to eat the fly and expect an A and then I was dumb enough to tell my family about it, I probably would have been slapped upside the head by one or both parents before they laughed me out of the house for being such a moron. Oh, and if I even thought about bringing up the subject of "Hey, so, the local news wants to do a story on me being an idiot and eating a bug", do you know what would have happened then? It would have been loud, I'll tell you that! I'm guessing something to the effect of my needing to think about how important the roof over my head and the food in my stomach and the clothes on my back actually were to me because if they weren't that important, I'd be doing that story on the news and my parents would have stopped providing all of those things to me. No WAY would they let that happen. THEY don't want to be known far and wide as the two people that raised the fly-eating, test-failing dumbass. But now? Sure! Go on the news! Tell everyone how dumb you are. Enjoy! Oh, and when you come around to cut my grass, don't cut it too short, all right? Thanks.

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It's Now News, But It's All They've Got

I am aware that there is turmoil swirling about the planet at the moment, but you might want to (I can't believe I'm saying this) turn to Twitter or something equally as unthinkable if you're looking for news updates on just about anything. And when I say "news updates" I mean just that. Updates on the news. Hence the term! It was bad enough that CNN was leading with the story about how some people were caught off guard by the transition from analog TV signals to digital TV signals. And the story was not about what you'd expect it to be about and that would be that anyone who did NOT know that change over was occurring (even though it's been shouted to the general public for SEVEN years) is such a complete moron they really shouldn't even attempt to get themselves upright each day. That's what that story should have been about. But no, CNN went with the "they're unable to watch TV" with the general tone being that of general grief and sorrow. You know, the 'something horrible has just happened' voice/tone which gets used most often when something horrible has not happened. But the media is taking it to a whole new level now.

"Now" being the time in which President Barry is our President. First of all, am I the only one that has noticed that as soon as it was clear that he had won the election, suddenly he is our "first black President". The half of him that is white? Gone! Vanished! Disappeared faster than John McCain! (Too bad it didn't pattern itself after Sarah Palin, otherwise President Barry's whiteness would still be in the news...for some inexplicable reason.) He's half white! And yes, that's still how I refer to him. Our first half white President. It doesn't go over well, but I find it hil-arious every time I get to throw it into an appropriate conversation.

Phil Bronstein, the ex-Mr. Sharon Stone and Executive VP and Editor-

at-Large (whatever the heck that is) of the San Francisco Chronicle, wrote a piece titled "Love or Lust, Obama and the Fawning Press Need to Get a Room" which basically states that the press is acting more like President Barry's fan club than the neutral reporters that they are supposed to be. This is coming from a guy who is the VP of the SF Chronicle. The Chronicle doesn't report with what I would consider to be a conservative point of view. No, they're skewed just "a bit liberal", but in the same way that San Francisco is "a bit gay", which is to say very. So if the media guys on the left are noticing (and complaining!) that the press is just a little bit too chummy with President Barry, it really must be over the top (and San Francisco folks in general have a pretty high tolerance in a lot of cases for what qualifies as 'over the top'.).

You can read his article over yonder there at The Huffington Post. Whilst I was perusing it, I ran across the clip below from what Bronstein called "Living Large With the Top Dog" (and he wasn't referring to Bo). In the clip, President Barry is having a little sit down with Brian Williams from NBC. Let's just think about all of the things in an exclusive interview that a reporter/interviewer or Brian Williams could ask the President of the United States. The economy. Unemployment. Foreclosures. Oil prices. The environment. North Korea. Hurricane Katrina. (I just threw that one in there to get ya all good and steamy! I'm so sick of hearing about Katrina. It was four years ago! Pipe down and move on!!) And I didn't see the whole thing, so maybe he did cover some of those topics, but that's not shown in the clip.

The clip has Brian Williams asking the President of the United States the following:

"I couldn't help but notice your trip this week coincides with Conan O'Brien's first week on the air. Is it because of that or...were there considerations, perhaps, that you almost cancelled to stay and watch his first week of hosting 'The Tonight Show'?"

Three. Two. One. You may now bash your head against the nearest solid surface. But don't pass out ! There's more! President Barry had to respond!

"Well, I think that, uh (pause), um (pause), Conan will do an outstanding job. Look, this is something that we've discussed several times in the Oval Office. How to manage this transition between uh, Leno and, uh, and Conan. And, uh, I think he's up to the task. But, uh, um, I just want him to know that there's not going to be any bailout coming out from Washington (pause) if he screws it up."

Are you effing

kidding me? Look, I'm all for laid back. I want the President of the United States to be relaxed. But doing a bit that plugs the new host of The Tonight Show? Don't we have actors for that sort of thing? Borat? Carrot Top? Why would you agree to that if you are Brian Williams? You're supposed to be a reporter/journalist. Would you rather work for Entertainment Tonight or The Insider? Maybe next time Pat O'Brien ends up in rehab you can snag a guest hosting gig until he sobers up. What is wrong with you, sir?

Could it get worse? It DID. President Barry did an interview yesterday with John Harwood of CNBC. What was the headline the AP ran with? That's right. "Obama Kills Fly During Interview." Oh, for cryin' out loud. WHAT?!

He's the President of the United States!! What is wrong with people?! He killed a fly?? Are you actually telling me that he killed a fly?? Why are you telling me that?? Is that what the AP actually considers "news"? They must! They have it filed under "National News" and "Political News". What? Not "Entomology News"? Not "Pesky Pest News"? Not "Fly-o-cide"?? Come on! Cover all of the bases! Make yourselves look like complete jackasses!

"President Barack Obama, nettled by a fly during a TV interview at the White House, took matters into his own hands Tuesday." Oh, God. Make it stop.

"Said Obama to the persistent fly: "Get out of here."
But it didn't." Seriously. Is this an opening for a children's book?

"So Obama waited for the fly to settle, put his hand up and then smacked the fly dead in one try.Without missing a beat, the president said to CNBC correspondent John Harwood: "Now, where were we?"

Hold on! Not so fast! We need more explanation as to exactly how it was that he swatted that fly. After all, I don't think hardly anyone in America has ever had to swat their own fly like that. OH, we've tried! Believe me! But we're not President Barry "The Messiah" Obama.

"Well, maybe one more second to gloat. Said Obama: "That was pretty impressive, wasn't it? I got the sucker." No wonder the press thinks he's so freaking great. HE thinks he's pretty great himself. It was a FLY! What? Do you want a cookie?!

"The camera crew was still rolling in the East Room. Obama didn't mind. He pointed to the vanquished insect on the ground and said, "You want to film that?"

CNBC did. That fly is history." And so are we. Goodbye, sweet America. Goodbye.

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