Morgan Freeman was the voice of God in some movie and played the President of the United States in some other movie. Image via Wikipedia
I deleted this blog post because it was kind of stupid, and it doesn’t fit this blog’s purpose. At the time, I was experimenting with search engine algorithms (that’s a whole different topic), and I learned what I needed to learn (and I can write about that another time), but I ended up with dozens of stupid blog posts that aren’t appropriate for my blog’s purpose anymore. I’ve kept other stupid blog posts that actually are appropriate content for Dysfunctional Literacy.
I deleted this blog post because it was kind of stupid, and it doesn’t fit this blog’s purpose. At the time, I was experimenting with search engine algorithms (that’s a whole different topic), and I learned what I needed to learn (and I can write about that another time), but I ended up with dozens of stupid blog posts that aren’t appropriate for my blog’s purpose anymore. I’ve kept other stupid blog posts that actually are appropriate content for Dysfunctional Literacy.
This photo may not picture ALL of the U.S. presidents, but there’s a good chance that it pictures the best U.S. president in the last 50 years. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Ranking U.S. presidents might be fun on a slow news day, but the problem is that the rater’s biases always kick in. One group with biases may call Ronald Reagan the best president ever while another group with biases believes his policies hurt the poor. One group thinks Abraham Lincoln saved the country while another group holds him responsible for the War of Northern Aggression. One group loves Teddy Roosevelt because he saved football, while another group, usually wives and girlfriends, hates Teddy Roosevelt because he saved football.
WHY BOTHER RANKING PRESIDENTS?
With an election coming up, the American people will decide who their/our next president will be. When making that decision, we should look back on our recent presidents, determine which ones were most successful, then see which current candidate is most similar to our most successful former leaders.
Plus, it gives us an excuse to take cheap shots at politicians.
WHY NOT RATE THE BEST PRESIDENT EVER OF ALL TIME?
Are you delusional? Rating all the presidents would mean researching presidents like Taft, Harding, and Fillmore. Let the presidential historians do the research.
In fact, presidential historians have devoted pages and pages (and even more pages) to presidential analysis when most people have already made up their minds and will never be persuaded to reconsider no matter what the overwhelming evidence may be. To save you lots of time (and save us from writing a lot of stuff that nobody will read), we have our PRESIDENTIAL ANALYSIS AT A GLANCE!
PRESIDENTIAL ANALYSIS AT A GLANCE- THE LAST 50 YEARS
JFK- He might have turned out to have been a great president, but we’ll never know, so we can’t say that he was the best (unless you absolutely hate every other president… which would be understandable).
LBJ- He chose not to run for a 2nd and ½ term because things were so bad, and his Democratic replacement got landslided, and nobody looks back at his presidency fondly.
RHM (Richard Millhouse Nixon)- Yeah, he had to resign, but if he hadn’t begun normalizing our relations with China, who would be holding our debt right now?
Gerald Ford- Too short a presidency to rate, and he lost to Jimmy Carter.
Jimmy Carter- A killer rabbit and “national malaise.” If you’re going to create a negative catchphrase like “national malaise,” make sure your opponent gets stuck with it, not you.
Ronald Reagan- Any president would be proud to have a “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” moment. On the other hand, Iran/Contra was a mess, but the American public has a high tolerance for scandals that involve protecting the U.S. and destroying its enemies.
George H.W. Bush- The American public looks back kindly on this former president, but he lost re-election, and you can’t be the best in the last fifty years if you lost your re-election bid.
Bill Clinton- Yeah, the impeachment proceedings were a mess, but the U.S. public has a high tolerance for scandals that involve getting some extra-marital action and lying to federal grand juries about it. Wait! No, we don’t! How did he manage to get away with that?
George W. Bush- Maybe the American public will look on him more favorably twenty years from now, but when your approval ratings are in single digits, then you can’t be the best in the last fifty years.
Barack Obama- Once again, maybe twenty years from now we’ll look back more favorably… okay, probably not. Let’s see if he gets re-elected first.
WHO WAS THE BEST PRESIDENT IN THE LAST 50 YEARS?
As stated earlier, political biases affect the decisions of whoever is rating the presidents. To negate this, we need a president who can appeal somehow to both sides of the political aisle.
Therefore, the best president of the last 50 years was the one who made monolithic debt-driven government spending possible (liberal appeal) while at the same time promoting self-accountability in government (conservative appeal). And that president is…
Richard Millhouse Nixon!!!
President Nixon began the process of normalizing relations with China and bringing them out of communism-induced backwardness. Without this outreach, no other country would have been able to handle all the debt that the U.S. has accumulated over the last 30 years. So on one side of the political spectrum, President Nixon should be seen as great because he made huge, out-of-control federal spending possible.
Also, President Nixon is the only president to resign in mid-term, thus sparing the country from an ugly impeachment battle. No, he did not exit gracefully. And maybe he did not resign for the purpose of promoting accountability in government, but he resigned, and the country (after a rough spell) recovered and has done better than ever (at times), proving that that no single person is so important that the country can’t function without him.
A president that promotes self-accountability in government while also setting up the nation for out-of control federal spending? This makes President Richard Nixon THE BEST U.S. PRESIDENT IN THE LAST 50 YEARS!
The best part of this is that we can say “Tricky Dick! Tricky Dick! Tricky Dick!” and pretend we’re engaging in historical analysis.
I deleted this blog post because it was kind of stupid, and it doesn’t fit this blog’s purpose. At the time, I was experimenting with search engine algorithms (that’s a whole different topic), and I learned what I needed to learn (and I can write about that another time), but I ended up with dozens of stupid blog posts that aren’t appropriate for my blog’s purpose anymore. I’ve kept other stupid blog posts that actually are appropriate content for Dysfunctional Literacy.
Do you really want to tell or hear a racist joke that badly? Well, then, here you go... Image via Wikipedia
The problem with telling a racist joke is that no matter how you tell it, somebody is probably going to be offended. Vocal inflection, word choice, and nonverbal delivery are all important when telling a racist joke because one misstep can mean irreparable damage to your reputation or physical well-being. Racist jokes are usually very dangerous to tell, but what if there were a racist joke you could tell without getting punched out, fired, or sued? That would be the BEST RACIST JOKE EVER!
***
A racist was driving down the street, marveling at the inferiority of all the drivers around him.
“Look at that stupid (colorful, racist expletive),” the racist said. “Driving with the bass turned up so high the pavement shakes. What a dumb (colorful, racist expletive).”
“And look at that stupid (colorful, racist expletive),” the racist said, staring at another car. “The hood and trunk of his car are moving up and down so much it looks like the car is humping the street. What a dumb (colorful, racist expletive).”
“Now look at that stupid (colorful, racist expletive),” the racist said. “Driving so slow that he’s causing a traffic jam. What a dumb (colorful, racist expletive).”
Then the racist noticed a police car behind him with its siren on.
“Of course, I’m the one that gets pulled over,” the racist muttered.
“Sir,” the police officer said after the racist rolled down his window. “Are you aware that you just ran a red light?”
“I’m sorry, officer,” the racist said. “I don’t see color.”
Charles Dickens. Is he the greatest writer of all time? Perhaps! Image via Wikipedia
Or maybe it was Mark Twain! Image also via Wikipedia
HOW DID WE DETERMINE THE TOP 2?
There is no perfect method to figuring out who is the greatest writer of all time. I didn’t want to put it to a vote because it would have taken too long, and there are far too many of those 64 option brackets going around nowadays; it’s become trite. Putting together a bracket where the winner of Jules Verne vs. H.G. Wells meets up against the winner of Leo Tolstoy vs. Fyodor Dostoyevsky would have been a disaster on so many levels. To avoid that, I found a scientific method to narrow the choices.
I counted author titles in Classics Illustrated comic books. A book can’t be considered a classic if Classics Illustrated never made its own version, so I gathered my collection (please don’t ask why I just happened to have a collection lying around) and counted books per author. That narrowed the selection to five prolific authors. Below I list the honorable mentions and why they didn’t make the FINAL CUT.
HONORABLE MENTION
- God- The Bible– Yeah, Classics Illustrated never made a version of The Bible (at least it’s not in our collection). We feel kind of funny giving God “Honorable Mention,” but he does have an unfair advantage over the other more mortal authors. We want to at least acknowledge God and hope God understands… please.
- William Shakespeare- Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Othello, Taming of the Shrew– Are you kidding me? The only reason Shakespeare didn’t make the final cut was because he wrote plays. Yeah, if he had written Spider-Man the musical, it would have been awesome, but playwriting (as difficult as it is) leaves out narration, a crucial component when being considered a candidate for BEST WRITER EVER! If he had written a few novels, perhaps he’d win. Maybe his estate can magically find a few lying around.
- Alexandre Dumas- The Three Musketeers, The Man in the Iron Mask, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Corsican Brothers– It’s too bad he was French. Unfortunately, the books were written in French and had to be translated, so we cannot judge the quality of wordsmanship. Yeah, that’s unfair to foreign books, but other countries can make their own lists.
- Jules Verne- Twenty Leagues Under the Sea, Around the World in 80 Days, A Journey To the Center of the Earth, From the Earth to the Moon, The Mysterious Island– Great science fiction, but science fiction is too small a niche (and then there’s that translation thing again).
- H.G. Wells- The War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, Food of the Gods, Island of Dr. Moreau, The First Men in the Moon, In the Days of the Comet, and a bunch of really intellectual stuff- Again, science fiction is a small niche, and his books (by today’s standards) are incredibly boring.
WHY AREN’T ANY RECENT AUTHORS BEING CONSIDERED?
First of all, no recent authors have Classics Illustrated comic books based on their novels. Second of all, I don’t know if any modern authors will still be read 50 years from now. Will readers three generations from now say, “Heeeeere’s Johnny,” and automatically associate it with The Shining?
Yeah, I know it’s from the movie, not the book.
MARK TWAIN vs. CHARLES DICKENS
The title of this article kind of spoiled the suspense, so let’s rate our two of the finest authors of all time.
A CHRISTMAS CAROL- BEST STORY EVER!
A Christmas Carol is probably the best story ever written. Not only is it a great story, but it was one of the most influential stories of all time. However, it has Christmas in the title, and that cannot be overlooked when determining the GREATEST WRITER OF ALL TIME! At a time when we must be sensitive to everybody’s religion, or lack thereof, we must hesitate to reward someone who wrote a story with such overtly religious overtones. No, the story is not really about Christmas. Yes, the themes in the story are deep. Yes, this is probably the most referenced/parodied/borrowed from story of all time. But Dickens put the word Christmas in it, and an author with his foresight should have recognized that you must not offend anybody’s religious belief when writing the most influential narrative of all time.
THE MUSICALS
Oliver (based on a Charles Dickens novel) is a waaaayyyy better musical than Tom Sawyer (based on a Mark Twain novel), but judging a novel by its musical is like judging a college football player’s career by what he did in the NFL, and that is not allowed. Dickens’ status as a writer would be upgraded because of the Oliver musical, but I don’t know about musicals, so Dickens might actually be downgraded here except it wasn’t his fault that his book was made into a popular musical.
MARK TWAIN vs. SAMUEL CLEMENS
Mark Twain had a cool pen name… or Samuel Clemens had a cool pen name. Pen names are cool. Charles Dickens didn’t have a pen name, and with a last name like Dickens, he should have. Dickens. Ha ha.
WHOSE BOOKS ARE EASIER TO READ?
Um, well, I can finish Mark Twain books way more easily than I can finish most Charles Dickens books. Great Expectations, I’m sure it’s great (it’s in the title), but I have never been able to… uh… The worst part is that I can’t blame it on a poor translation.
THE SECOND BEST OPENING LINE EVER!!
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”
Only “Call me Ishmael” stands out as a better first sentence in a novel, and that’s (maybe) debatable.
TWAIN’S GREATEST ACHIEVEMENTS
Tom Sawyer– The scene where Tom Sawyer convinces everybody else to paint the fence for him is one of the BEST SCENES EVER! And the trick can actually work.
Huckleberry Finn– Yes, the novel has n-words, but at least that makes it relevant today (see Dysfunctional Literacy’s article “Huckleberry Finn, An Old Book with N-Words” https://dysfunctionalliteracy.com/2011/05/08/an-old-book-with-n-words/ ).
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court– A premise that gets ripped off almost as much as A Christmas Carol.
The Prince and the Pauper– When Disney makes a Mickey Mouse version, you know you’ve arrived.
DICKENS’S GREATEST ACHIEVEMENTS
A Christmas Carol– Scrooge Duck, Bill Murray, Patrick Stewart, and a bunch of old actors whose names I can’t remember. BEST STORY OF ALL TIME!!
Great Expectations– At over 600 pages, the only expectation I have is that I will never finish it.
Oliver Twist– “May I please have some more?” It’s not as enduring as “Thank you, sir. May I have another?” but for a musical, it’s remarkably memorable.
A Tale of Two Cities– If this book had been about 150 pages longer, I probably never would have finished it.
Hard Times– It’s supposed to be great, but I know I’ll never read it.
FINAL VERDICT
When you have an awesome responsibility like choosing the best writer ever, you have to put your own biases aside. Yes, Mark Twain is an American writer. Yes, Mark Twain is easier for me to read. But even I have to recognize that Charles Dickens wrote the BEST STORY EVER! And that Charles Dickens also wrote the SECOND BEST OPENING LINE EVER! And that Charles Dickens also wrote a book that became one of the most popular musicals ever! And that Charles Dickens wrote a bunch of books that are highly regarded even though I’ve never read them.
Therefore, as much as it may dismay me because I really like Mark Twain, I must declare that Charles Dickens is the GREATEST WRITER OF ALL TIME!
Sarah Palin was on a bus tour in a Republican primary state, and journalists who kept insisting she had no chance of becoming president kept on following her. After a rousing speech, she took questions from the press, who kept asking her if she was going to run for president. When she refused to give a yes-or-no answer, they badgered her by telling her the polls had her in single digits.
“Polls are for strippers to dance around and Russians to conquer,” Sarah Palin said. “My decision will not be based on polls.”
After much bantering back and forth, a family at the back of the crowd finally started chanting, “Four, three, two, one! Tell us if you’re going to run!”
“Wow!” one journalist said to another. “Palin should know things are getting bad when even Tea Partiers are getting impatient with her.”
“Tea Partiers?” the other journalist said. “That’s Sarah Palin’s family.”
I deleted this blog post because it was kind of stupid, and it doesn’t fit this blog’s purpose. At the time, I was experimenting with search engine algorithms (that’s a whole different topic), and I learned what I needed to learn (and I can write about that another time), but I ended up with dozens of stupid blog posts that aren’t appropriate for my blog’s purpose anymore. I’ve kept other stupid blog posts that actually are appropriate content for Dysfunctional Literacy.
I deleted this blog post because it was kind of stupid, and it doesn’t fit this blog’s purpose. At the time, I was experimenting with search engine algorithms (that’s a whole different topic), and I learned what I needed to learn (and I can write about that another time), but I ended up with dozens of stupid blog posts that aren’t appropriate for my blog’s purpose anymore. I’ve kept other stupid blog posts that actually are appropriate content for Dysfunctional Literacy.
Image via Wikipedia
Presidents Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama were hanging out at Martha’s Vineyard for a vacation/summit. The presidents were initially polite, but after a few drinks, a few of the presidents started picking on Jimmy Carter.
“When you talk to Playboy, you never admit to lust in your heart,” Bill Clinton advised. “You offer the young ladies counseling like I did, lots and lots of counseling.”
“I’ve been called the worst president in recent history,” George W. Bush said, “but I still managed to get reelected.”
“Let me be clear, I killed Osama Bin Laden,” Barack Obama bragged, “but that is nothing when compared to the… uh, killer rabbit you fought off in your boat.”
After a few minutes of this, Jimmy Carter left the room without defending himself.
George H.W. Bush was appalled by the behavior of the other presidents. “That is an imprudent way to treat one our peers, even if he had a failed presidency.”
“Aw, c’mon, Pa, I’m not gonna make fun of somebody else’s failed presidency,” George W. Bush said. “We’re making fun of him because he’s not Ivy League.”
*****
WHAT DOES THE IVY LEAGUE HAVE TO DO WITH THE FINANCIAL, ECONOMIC, AND DEBT (and anything else you want to add) CRISIS?
One problem with the United States financial crisis is that there hasn’t been a really good scapegoat that everybody can agree on yet. Government officials blame the banks and big business. Banks and big business blame the government. Republicans blame Democrats. Democrats blame Republicans. Libertarians blame both Republicans and Democrats. Communists wonder what the fuss is all about.
When we engage in this typical partisan blame game, we miss the obvious culprit.
WHY BLAME IVY LEAGUERS?
Since most experts agree that the financial/economic/debt crisis has been decades in the making, it makes sense to blame the Presidents of the United States of the last two decades. And all of them (you guessed it!) are from Ivy League schools.
President Obama went to Columbia and Harvard. President George W. Bush went to both Harvard and Yale. President Clinton went to Yale and then Oxford (which isn’t Ivy League but is kind of a foreign equivalent, so he gets double blame; if you’re going to go to an Ivy League type school, at least stay in the United States), and George H.W. Bush went to Yale . If you’re the type that blames U.S. presidents for the country’s troubles, then you can blame all four, and all four are from Ivy League schools.
HOW BLAMING IVY LEAGUERS CAN UNITE THE COUNTRY
The country needs to be unified during times of crisis, and right now conservatives and liberals are at each others’ throats casting blame for this financial crisis. But this bitter partisanship is unnecessary. Of the last four presidents, two of them were Ivy League Republicans serving a total of three terms, and two of them were Ivy League Democrats serving a total of three terms (so far). This is perfect balance, making labels of Republican and Democrat irrelevant, and shifting all of the blame squarely on the Ivy League.
HOW TO BLAME THE IVY LEAGUE
Discussing politics can be dangerous. It destroys friendships and ruins family get-togethers. Instead of alienating friends and family by blaming liberals/conservatives or Republicans/Democrats, simply say what you need to say and blame the Ivy League.
Here are a couple examples:
- Those *$%@ Ivy Leaguers deregulated the banks in the 1990s, and then those Ivy League bankers went crazy with those bad loans!
- Yeah, and those *&*#@ Ivy Leaguers in government also spent too much money on wasteful programs, and now we’re up to our ears in debt.
See? If you blame the Ivy League, you can have a rational discussion, agreeing or disagreeing with the substance of the argument without raising your blood pressure over the conservative/liberal, Republican/Democrat thing.
Blaming the Ivy League means we can honestly talk about what has caused this country’s problems, and nobody has to get defensive about it, except the Ivy Leaguers. And face it, it’s about time those Ivy Leaguers got defensive!
STATISTICAL BREAKDOWN OF IVY LEAGUERS IN GOVERNMENT, BANKING, AND BUSINESS, AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON POLICY
Are you serious?
We don’t do statistical breakdowns at Dysfunctional Literacy. We gave you a list of the last four presidents. Our job here is done.
IF THE IVY LEAGUE WON’T RUN THINGS, THEN WHO WILL?
Since Ivy Leaguers have messed things up so much, let State School run things for a while. If that doesn’t work, let Community College give it a try. If they mess it up, then it’s High School Diploma’s turn. If they can’t handle it, then it’s GED’s turn. If GED can’t get the job done, then we can always go back to Jimmy Carter.
At least he’s not Ivy League.
Dysfunctional Literacy 