During a class discussion the other day the subject of alcoholism came up. I asked my 2nd period class, “How many people have, in their opinion, an alcoholic relative in their family?”

75% of the kids raised their hands.

“How many people in this room have seen a beer commercial?” (They are 9th graders, kids that are 14 for the most part.)

All hands went up.

“How many people in this room have seen over 10 beer commercials?”

75% of the hands went up.

“How many people in this room have seen over 50 beer commercials?”

A heck of a lot of hands went up. More boys at this juncture. (Watching sports on TV I am presume.) Remember, these are 14 year olds.

So we outlaw tobacco ads on tv and make the tobacco companies pay for their own “Don’t smoke” campaigns yet booze gets a complete and total pass when it comes to direct marketing to our kids? A marketing they do, mind you, with the highest hopes of turning our young people into future, lifelong customers.

Otherwise known as addicts. I mean, alcoholics. I mean, er, responsible drinkers.

Look, I find beer commercials funny and entertaining and even kinda innovative. But the damage that alcoholics do to themselves, their family and society? Not quite so Ha-Ha.

And why do I have a feeling that my kids could name more brands of beer than they could members of the Supreme Court, Congress and so on? Matter of fact, I bet Joe Biden would get pummeled by the suave Dos Equis guy in a face recognition contest.

Bottoms up.

As the holiday approaches, I wanted to pass on a favorite family recipe of mine… Jose Cuervo Christmas Cookies!

Make sure you follow the directions precisely for similar results. (And laughs. This is just too funny!)

Jose Cuervo Christmas Cookies

1 cup of water
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup of sugar
1 tsp salt
1 cup of brown sugar
4 large eggs
1 cup nuts
2 cups of dried fruit
1 bottle Jose Cuervo Tequila

Cherry Mistmas !

I have become a “dealer” to my kids. A pusher. A peddler of ill repute. I serve up scandalous interactions, tortuous emotional dealings, torrid affairs, dangerous lies, inspirational heartbreakers and flat-out back-stabbing.

The worse it gets, the better [sometimes].

Yep, I am The Campus Dope Man. And the drug I push: books.

Indeed, once the cherubic naifs are hooked, I do all I can to serve the needs of these little fiends until they blossom into full blown addicts.

Addicts for a lifetime! (Or so I hope.)

The funny thing is, the younger I get them started, the better I feel about matters. Middle school playgrounds? I have no shame. Elementary school classrooms? Even better. Pre-school… don’t even get me going on how much I love to weave an entrancing spell over these unsuspecting youngsters, seeking to instill deep in their minds the idea that they need stories.

That they need literature.

That they need books even more than they need oxygen itself!

Hhhmmrraahh! Hhhmmrraahh! Hhhmmrraahh! I say, twisting my mustache. I am molding minds.

And my scheme, it is working! Kids each year come in my room at the oddest of hours – during lunch, before school, when they ought to be in goodness-knows-whose class asking me, pleading with me, begging me to feed their little habits.

“You started this,” they’ll say. And like any proud kingpin, I keep a face full of stone but on the inside, I just kinda laugh.

“Yeah, I did, baybee. Yeah, I did.”

See, around my campus, my students know “Mr. Alan’s got the hook-up on books.” Part of it is because I get free books sent to me all the time. (Perks of being a writer, folks. I mean butchers get meat and bankers get free money so why should my line of business be any different?) Of course, I buy books as well. Loads of them.

Matter of fact, I am the type of person that currently has 11 books by my bedside, 3 more at school, 2 in the car in case I am ever stuck waiting somewhere and still, if I see something I even think I might want to read at some point, I buy it.

Essentially, I can’t read all the books I possess. But, in a weird way (the kind of weird way I oughtta talk to my therapist about — item number 673 on the list for 2010) I very much find emotional comfort in being surrounded by books.

However, I do love to share.

Today, I shared 13 Reasons Why and I shared The Hunger Games. No extra credit. No bonus at the end of the quarter. No reprieve from the other work we are doing in English class. I just shared.

Sometimes I share the books I have written. Othertimes, I share the ARC’s that other publishers send to me for early preview before titles even get released. Essentially, I share and I share and I share.

Yet, no matter what, it keeps ‘em coming back for more. That’s the rule of being a good dealer, right? First you give ‘em a taste. A free sample of the good stuff. And then you tell them, “Don’t worry, this won’t hurt you. Go ‘head, I think you’ll like it.”

Soon enough, they even find themselves spending their own money on the product.

Indeed, I am the Campus Dealer. Hhhmmrraahh! Hhhmmrraahh! Hhhmmrraahh!

Twist mustache. Twist mustache. Twist mustache.

I couldn’t be more fired up to say that I just got a bid for a new book of YA fiction of mine from a HUGE publisher — one of the biggest — and to say that I am tickled would be a gigantic understatement.

So how did it happen? Here’s a backstage look at the process. (Maybe it’ll be of some benefit to you on your own quest to do the same thing if that’s your aspiration.)

1) I wrote a book.

I can’t tell you how many people I meet that tell me they have a great idea for a book. I can’t tell you how many people I meet that tell me they want to write a book. I can’t tell you how many people I meet that never write that book.

Put your butt in a chair for hundreds and hundreds of hours. Without that, there is no need to even read on.

2) I wrote the book that I genuinely wanted to write.

If you are going to be a writer, you have to stretch. You have to reach. You have demand as much from yourself and your abilities and your character and your stories as you possibly can each and every outing.

Otherwise, it’s gonna stink.

That ultimately means, you have to write the book that YOU want to write. Trying to write vampire stuff right now because vampire stuff is hot doesn’t seem like a great recipe (to me) for success — which is why my new book is NOT a vampire book. Of course, if writing about vamps is your thing, then by all means, go for it. But if you have a deep itch to write, let’s say, a little book about apostrophes and comma placement, you gotta go for it. Why? Cause there is just no way to truly predict what will be successful in the world of books, a la’ Eats, Shoots and Leaves.

Like I said, write the book that you genuinely want to write and don’t guess the market… it moves too fast and is entirely unpredictable.

3) For this book, I took a chance.

Right now I am at the stage of my publishing career where I can write a chapter or two, briefly give an overview outline of the rest of the book and take it out to my agent to submit. Why? Because I have a track record that proves if you pay me to write a book, I will write that book and meet the deadline to which I agree.

But for this book, I spec’d out the whole thing. The whole darn thing. (NOTE: To spec means to write on speculation, speculating that someone is going to want to buy your novel, so you complete an entire draft as opposed to a mere proposal.)

So why is this a “chance” for me? Because if nobody liked my book, it means it would sit in a drawer and all the many, many, many hours I spent writing it will have — well, I won’t say “gone to waste” cause there is no such thing as wasted writing, IMHO, but still… if I can sell a book based on 3,000 words why on earth would I want to write 52,384 words to see if it was going to sell?

My answer was (to myself) because I REALLY wanted to write this book and I REALLY believed in this book and I REALLY felt it was worthy of publication. That made it a REALLY fulfilling experience for me. After all, the joy is in the work, right?

(Also, I REALLY think it’s going to do quite well. At least, I hope.)

But still, I wrote it on spec putting all of my own chips on the line, betting on myself to deliver a something that multiple people would want to publish. And being that it was a complete novel, it makes it all the more attractive to potential buyers because they get to see exactly what they are getting. (Instead of me selling an action adventure book about teens who take over the CIA and then switch the novel 8 months after the contracts have been signed to a love story about a dying geriatric couple in Montana who hope to build a strong fence for their cattle before they pass.)

Don’t laugh, shit like this happens all the time to book editors.

Anyway, in order to try and take my writing career to the next level, I bet on myself to deliver, the upside of which is that it has opened a lot more possibilities.

4) The process was long and slow and hard… and then really quick.

I’ve been thinking about this book off and on for a few years. I’ve played with different stuff for a few years. I finally sat down to write it and despite whatever fantasties anyone might have about writing a novel, at some point, it becomes, tough, hard, long arduous work.

However, this book might have been my easiest in a way because it’s a YA comedy — and like a total doof, I spent many hours all by myself laughing my butt off with no one else in the room. (My feeling is, if I don’t laugh, then why is a reader going to laugh? I mean, if I don’t “feel it” who will?)

That also means that the long, hard work was also tempered by a heck of a lot of fun for me.

But like I said, the process was QUICK as well.

I showed my agent a draft. (After having a bunch of kids read it all over the country, that is. See I have a whole host of fans that I give “sneak peeks” to in order for me to make sure the novel is working the way I want it to, assimilate feedback, and so on. I rarely care what the adults think. But the teens for whom I write, their opinion means everything!)

My agent got it on a Friday, read it over the weekend (he’s GREAT!) and then gave me feedback on a Monday. Essentially, he thought it was terrific, knew right away he was going to be able to place it with a good publishing house, but also told me that it needed a re-write at the Chapter 18/19 mark because a little bit of the character’s motivations seemed muddled and in need of a bit more thought and attention in order to make sure we could drive the plot home with both the requisite force and deft touch.

I set right to work the next evening. (BTW, he was right. You gotta trust the pros with which you work and while I am free to disagree with his insights and opinions — after all, it is my book at the end of the day — I don’t want to let my own ego get in the way of ever making my books better projects — and when I heard his thoughts I knew he was right — I could do better… and so I did.)

Took me a few weeks to get it absolutely right but when I re-submitted it to him, POOF! he gave it the stamp of approval and made a plan to take it out to a variety of publishers.

That’s when the real excitement starts.

About 2 weeks ago a host of editors got the submission from him. 2 days later I heard from one of my previous editors — just a gem of a person — that she loved the book and would be “taking it to the acquisition committee” on Wednesday to float it up their flag pole because she was on board 100%.

At this juncture, a bunch of people have to read the book at her publishing house. (Book publishing is a team game.) Next move for my agent was to then notify other publishing houses that we already have great interest.

Next thing you know, we are “getting reads” all over New York because it’s in the air that this book is going to sell and if you want to buy it, you better hurry.

That was last Friday. Wednesday we got the first offer and by this Friday, the deal will be sealed just in time for a hopefully Happy Thanksgiving.

(My goal was to sell this book by Feb 2010 — so it came in months early.

Anyway, that’s the tale behind this book.

NOTE: I know I haven’t spilled the beans on any details at all yet about the book. Just waiting to have a deal in hand and the such. With the internet the way it is, goodness only knows what can happen. But I promise to reveal all the details when the time is right, maybe float the first chapter to everyone for a sneak peek and tell a few more tales about the publishing process as well as the writing and re-writing process as it unfolds.

Sorry for the long post today, but there was a lot going on. And all of this is happening right at the start of NCTE. Exciting stuff!

Is there such a thing as an English class that doesn’t read a single, real, whole book over the course of the year? I mean I know there is. Some places — WAY TOO MANY in fact — have the The Lords of District Oversight that Ban the Reading of Novels in English Class

That’s right, they mandate that NO NOVELS be taught.

It’s all excerpts, pieces taken from anthologies, worksheets, scripted programming and… biggest of all, practice tests to prepare for the real tests.

Am I the only one who thinks this is nuts?

Every good English teacher I know uses real books in the classroom. From Crime and Punishment to The Outsiders to The Skin I’m In to Old Yeller to Hatchet to The Great Gatsby to The Pearl to The Lord of the Flies to Animal Farm to To Kill a Mockingbird and on and on and on, real books are part of the fabric of what makes for, in my estimation, the essential, core constitution of a real and effective and meaningful ELA class.

When exactly did that stop? (Don’t worry, I know. It’s rhetorical.)

So the question is, forgetting even my own prejudice towards the use of real books (prejudice because 1) I love them and 2) years and years of experience tell me that they work as my BEST tool for accomplishing all the literacy goals both I and my school district have for our students) am I the only one who believes we need to re-double our efforts to start fighting for primary source authentic literature (i.e. real books) in the classroom?

Because real books are under assault from the bean/bubble counters.

Could you teach an entire year as an ELA educator without being able to use one real novel? And if so, do you think that by doing so this would be a methodology that best serve the needs of your kids?

The Lords of District Oversight that Ban the Reading of Novels in English Class are a menace to the very fabric of our discipline… and isn’t it time that someone stood up to them and explained how the emperor has no clothes?

And a tiny wanker, too.

Sorry, just had to get that last “little one” in. Get it? Little one?

For the first time ever, I got me some hate mail. It was in response to my blog post the other day about Alabama on October 12th and re-segregation.

I’d copy and paste the message here but I think protocol would dictate that I remove all the profanity — and if I remove all the profanity from the email, there really would be any message left to copy and paste.

Let’s just say it was elegant, simple, direct and remarkably blunt. Truth be told, it was a model of concise writing. Though only 7 words, the message about who I was and what I should go do with myself was unmistakably clear.

(Good to see that in the land of the almost hyper-politically correct America in which we now reside, this gentleman from Alabama didn’t seem too worried about being nuanced or opinionated. Bravo, I say. Though I must admit, I don’t think I am limber enough to actually perform the act he instructed me to perform on myself.)

I can’t say I am all-together shocked by getting a bit of push-back from a few folks in Alabama based on what I wrote. However, when I see that some new NAEP test scores have just come out and point to an obvious and troubling racial achievement gap I realize that even if I was a bit harsh on the folks down South, it’s not just me who finds some of the by-products of racial disparity troubling.

As this article says…

While 4th grade scores among the nation’s white, black, Hispanic, and Asian students all have improved since 1990, they remained flat from 2007 to 2009. The gap separating black and white students’ scores, and that between Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites, also stayed the same—a discrepancy that has not narrowed in recent testing cycles.

• Is gerry-mandering the school district zones going to help?
• Is America as a country better when certain racial groups out-perform other racial groups?
• Am I some sort of turncoat for raising the issue?

Students are apparently making some progress on the NAEP tests but, according to the folks who study this data, it’s not enough and the racial disparity is a troubling element which needs to be eradicated in order for our country to climb to the next level of scholastic achievement.

Yep, I got me some hate mail. All I can say is, though I tried to be fair, “Don’t shoot the messenger.”

It’s SAT season and if there is one thing about working in a Title 1 school, it’s that you get to witness a HUGE disparity when it comes to college test prep.

The fact is, those who can afford to take SAT test prep classes are wise to do so. And the parents of kids in upper-socio-economic communities understand the value of this which is why these test prep programs absolutely thrive. As for the parents in communities such as mine, well… they’d love to be able to offer their kids the best (I never doubt their desires to do so) but quite frankly, it’s exceedingly rare that they have the $1,000 (or even more; these classes cost big bucks) needed to spend on stuff like Kaplan, Princeton Review and what not.

I mean, check it out. Kaplan offers “Premier Tutoring for $3,999″. You think a kid with parents who can afford this kind of test prep for their child isn’t at a distinct and very real advantage over a kid who can’t even afford to sign up for the faceless, online test prep Kaplan offers for around $300 bucks?

If you know anything about the SAT, you know that before it’s a test of brains, it’s a test of strategy. Knowing when to guess. Knowing when to move on. Knowing how the test will be scored, knowing the “tricks” and “tips” and so on. To walk in cold without this knowledge is to set yourself up for having your clock cleaned. Parents with money can buy this “How to crack the test” knowledge for their kids (cracking the test is a big slogan in the test prep industry) while parents without cash are often left scrambling to even pay for the SAT registration fees.

It absolutely feeds into the conversation about social justice, iniquity in education and the Achievement Gap. Kids at my school simply cannot afford top quality test preparation and that puts them at a tremendous disadvantage when it comes to test time.

Like I said, and this is no secret, before the SAT is a test of one’s intellectual aptitude, it’s a test of one’s ability to know how to navigate the test in order to manipulate the scoring methodology to the test-taker’s best advantage.

This is also why I offer over 50 FREE pages of SAT prep on my website. Because I don’t believe money should be the reason that a kid can’t fare well on the SAT if they are willing to put in the elbow grease. Now, do I compete with a $4,000.00 price tag? Of course not. But I do empower people to have the ability to use some good ol’ fashioned “roll up their shirt sleeves and get to work” self-empowerment to even the playing field… and I do it at absolutely no charge.

That’s right…

• No fee.
• No sign up with your email and I’ll spam you to death for the next 1,000 years. (Trust me, I don’t have time.)
• Just free as in free. All I am trying to do is level the playing field a bit.

Again, here’s the resource — click on the link on the left under Free Resources and pass it on.

Below are some tips for all test takers. (You can owe me the 4,000 smackers… LOL! But it is amazing how folks are just being absolutely FLEECED isn’t it? I mean why don’t our public schools, if the SAT is so important — and it certainly is for college bound kids — offer free SAT courses instead of allowing the corporate behemoths to drink from the wallets of the rich parents while the poor kids get shortchanged? Geesh!)

Tips ALL Students Must Know for Success on the SAT

• Do NOT answer every question.
  • There is a PENALTY for guessing – if a question is too difficult, the best strategy is to move on and use your time to solve questions that are more within your reach.
  • NOTE: The #1 biggest pitfall of ALL students on the SAT is that they attempt to answer too many questions. Skipping super difficult problems is a very critical strategy for success.
• Use the process of elimination.
  • Get rid of wrong answers. 80% of the answers are wrong on the test – wrong answers are much easier to identify because they are much more abundant.
• Read the questions carefully.
• Do not make assumptions. Answer what is being asked of you.
• Identify “key” words.
  • Key words clue you in to correct answers. Context is critical to unlocking answers on the SAT.
  • Underline “key” information in the reading passages.
  • Studies show that one common theme of students who score well on the SAT is that they mark up their test with notes.
• Refer back to the reading passages as needed.
  • Flipping back and forth on the critical reading section is a strategy.
• Read each answer choice completely.
  • Don’t be afraid to re-read information (and test questions) to aid comprehension.
• Do not be afraid of unfamiliar words.
  • Strive to get a feeling for unknown words and see if they have a sense of being positive, negative or neutral in tone. Use this knowledge to help “crack” the answer.
• Know your grammar!

For those of us with students who don’t think they’d ever want to consider a career in writing, this article might be an arrow in your quiver to help inflate a student’s sense of why knowing how to properly punctuate a sentence is a skill that they might want to have in their professional, job hunting arsenal.

After all, who’s going to want to read reviews about sensie bud from a person that doesn’t even know how to correctly incorporate a lucid and illuminating appositive phrase?

That’s right, a new day is here with new, 21rst century jobs out there for the taking and as marijuana clinics boom all over the country we now find ourselves in need of weed connoisseurs.

The day of the critic has arrived. Don’t laugh, because just as cars need reviewing, restaurants need reviewing and wine needs reviewing so do the multitude of different styles and offerings of the wacky tabacky!

Wanted: Pot Critic

Experience Required:

• lots of smoking
• lots of toking
• having visited lots of laser light shows while blazing out of your mind on Thai Stick a plus.

Skills Required:

• joint rolling
• bong loading
• pipe stuffing
• able to self-edit manuscripts because your bosses will probably be too high to actually read what you write.

Hours:

• whenever, dude

Okay, I jest. But the thing is, the city of Los Angeles has seen an explosion in “medical dispensaries” this year and they have become so popular that there is a very real job out there to be a Bud Critic. (Read this article and be amazed: 966 clinics are now open in L.A.) I mean from what I have heard some of this pot will hit you like an elephant gun and some will simply give you a “mild, light buzz, you can still remain semi-coherent” buzz. Users want to know what’s what and what to expect.

Imagine not knowing the difference between having two beers and having two shots of Arkansas moonshine. This is where the erudite dope folk come in. They will have sampled the goods, smoked the various strains, and done their “get high as a friggin’ kite homework” in order to be a guide, a judge and a navigator for other users journeying through this very green forest.

Do we turn our noses up at wine critics? Will weed experts be welcomed into society with the same open arms? Will there be a stigma to be a stoner or is this just a new brand of cultural connoisseur?

Either way, the job requires a person to be able to write… and do it well.

And really, look at those hours.

As Joseph Campbell once famously said, “Follow your passion!”
As the military once famously said,” “It’s not just a job, it’s an adventure.”
Or, as Cheech and Chong once famously said, “Hey man, how am I drivin?… I think we’re parked man.”

(BTW, that pic above shows a map — as identified by little red marijuana leafs — where all the pot clinics in L.A. currently are open. The explosion is so large that there are now two of them within walking distance of my house… each open less than a year. Can’t say I’m the biggest fan at all of the ubiquity but then again, I never even bother to count the bars. Fodder for another post, I guess.)

David Letterman has made a fantastic living ruthlessly roasting people over their foibles. Their issues. Their own personal “affairs”.

And now the chickens are coming home to roost for him, aren’t they?

Now I am a fan of Dave. Or was. And I don’t want to be smarmy or display schadenfreude. I started watching him in 1985 when he was on from 12:30 – 1:30 and used to do bits like “Network Time Killers” which were literally designed to simply kill network time (cause the writers were on strike). The man has often been, imho, really funny.

Yet now the “hurt to his own family” caused by him sleeping with his staffers is the punch line of all punch lines and all his fellow comedians are… taking it easy on him?

I mean Leno dined on Bill Clinton’s affair for Clinton’s entire presidency… and he still does it. And Conan and all the rest of the comedigensia… they are practically giving Dave a free pass right now.

And why?

Cronyism.

If this were a Congressman, forget about it. Remember when Dave made all those sex jokes about Palin’s teenage daughter? Borderline out of bounds — maybe entirely out of bounds. I mean look, I’m no Palin fan but the sense of arrogance and entitlement shown by Dave to do sex jokes about other people’s kids while thinking he’s above the law, will never be discovered, is “of rank” to do material while simultaneously “behaving like” the people he is ridiculing is shocking.

If Dave were the CBS Network President who’d been schtupping staffers he’d be gone.

But Dave’s above the law, isn’t he? I mean he’s media savvy so he knows the mea culpa route works, he pokes a wee bit of non-scalding fun at himself as if to play, the “since I give it out, I gotta show I can take it, too” card, but does he ravage himself? Does he go for the jugular?

Do the other comedians show any teeth?

John Edwards, Bill Cosby, all those Congressmen in Florida, and countless others have literally been the butt of Dave’s jokes, his bread and butter, for years. Really, think about how many side-splitters Dave has made about all the extra-marital affairs.

Now think about being on the receiving end of those jokes and think about all the people who Dave has has made squirm, cry, weep, hurt, writhe and so on.

At least now we know why his fellow comedians don’t roast Dave the way they do other folks in the limelight. It’s cause they know he’s a real person with real feelings who is in real pain as a result of his own real shortcomings — and the women in this guy’s life are hurting bad as a result right now.

Great time to show a heart, huh comedy folks? (NOTE: A few folks did do some lukewarm Dave stuff but no one has really taken off the gloves on-air.)

For example, here’s Dave on Elliot Spitzer. Just on Elliot:

“Spitzer’s going be out of office, he’s going to be looking for a job, and I’m thinking, ‘Whoa, isn’t that what got him in trouble in the first place?’” –David Letterman

“Don’t kid yourself, ladies and gentlemen, this is serious. We’re having a lot fun here now, but it’s really serious. Eliot Spitzer could go to jail, he could go to prison, think about that. The former governor of New York could go to prison. And, well, that’ll be sex he won’t have to pay for.” –David Letterman

Here’s Dave on Palin’s teen daughter:
“There was one awkward moment during the seventh inning stretch. Her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.”

There are so many jokes Dave has made about other people having “illicit sex” that if someone were to post all of them, it would require a really thick, thick book to reprint all his little funnies.

Now maybe I am getting old but the humor of Dave from this point forward seems kinda as if it is going to live under a shadow of such immense hypocrisy that it’s not worth it to tune in for the “all is forgotten” laughs. As a teacher, as a parent, as a person living in a world of shrinking values, giving another pass to Dave simply because he knows how to crack a good joke, gets paid a lot of cash, or whatever really feels like just simple enabling.

He thought he was above the rules, he acted as if he was above the rules, his spineless peers give him a free pass on the whole matter and to let him just roll on as if life is normal proves that Dave knew best all along — he really is above the rules.

It’s good to be the King, right?

We all have our shortcomings and no one wants them held up to a microscope. But when you making a living doing it to other people, you gotta expect the tables being turned is fair play.

So the Marxists didn’t take over, the commies didn’t infiltrate, the youth of this nation weren’t indoctrinated unwittingly into an irreversible cult of personality and North Korea’s heinous government regime didn’t supplant our own now that Obama has addressed the kids of this nation with a “you should to do well in school” speech.

But ooh, we were so close to imperialistic calamity, were we not?

Obama talked about hard work. Obama talked about personal responsibility. Obama celebrated the benefits of being well-educated. Matter of fact, with all the hoopla from the far, far right, I am surprised they didn’t send out Sarah Palin or Bobby Jindal to offer a rebuttal to El Presidente’ from the minority party.

Could you imagine…

Fair people of this fair country, while on one hand your Marxist Chief believes you should devotedly apply yourselves in school, we in the “real America” know that attentiveness to your own education is a right… and you have the right to refuse to apply that right because it is your right to do so! You do not have to become learned. You do not have to become skilled. You do not have to become part of the well-educated, “elitist” crowd. (Pause for big gasp from audience.) Why let them take away your constitutionally guaranteed ability to be ill-equipped to succeed? Who are they to brainwash you into believing that school is going to help? Who are they to cast aspersions against things like dropping out? Come, be one, unite and fight against this liberal tyranny!

(Right?)