"At times like this, it is important that we look back at the people and the events that got us to where we are today, for, in the words of a very wise dead person, 'A nation that does not know its history is doomed to do poorly on the Scholastic Aptitude Test.'" -- Dave Barry Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of The United States
"But then, obsessives have no choice: they have to lie on occasions like this. If we told the truth every time, then we would be unable to maintain relationships with anyone from the real world. We would be left to rot with our Arsenal programmes or our collection of original blue-label Stax records or our King Charles spaniels, and out two-minutes daydreams would become longer and longer and longer until we lost our jobs and stopped bathing and shaving and eating, and we would lie on the floor in our own filth rewinding the video again and again in an attempt to memorise by heart the whole of the commentary, including David Pleat's expert analysis, for the night of 26th May 1989. (You think I had to look the date up? Ha!) The truth is this: for alarmingly large chunks of an average day, I am a moron." -- Nick Hornby Fever Pitch
The Best Way to Describe Me
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2 comments:
great second passage.
I thought the first passage was quite funny. It really does seem the only time we ever learn anything is simply for standardized tests, then it is quickly forgotten... US History? I knew most of the presidents, basically what they did, took the APUSH exam, next day- BAM! All gone. But that is how school is taught. Bush thought Nelson Mandala was dead, I have friends who don't know who fought on the Axis side, it's all rather sad, but in the real world, no one's going to pull you in an alley, put a gun to your head and say "Tell me what a hyperbola is or you're dead." Ignorance is a cultural, and sadly, if it is not an every day thing (Unless of course you watch Jeopardy everynight) it is very easy to fall into the trend.
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