Republican lawmakers are rightly outraged by social science research coming from state universities. They cite the latest example, meant according to them, to undermine not only the integrity of American exceptionalism, but also many very fine and upstanding Republican capitalist luminaries.
Their example, “Your 8th Grade Personality Follows you Around Like Your Butt,” goes too far, according to them, inasmuch as ‘children’ are being exploited, albeit years later, when they’re old. Called “the poster-child of misspent dollars” the study purports to show that your 8th grade personality can function as a roadmap, so to speak, for elderly ways and means. It violates the second amendment, mewed Newton Gingrich, who is featured in the study. In a rare point of near alignment, Willard Mitt Romney called Gingrich and raised him an amendment. While Ron Paul, when pressed, admitted that state universities were free to do what they like with their own research dollars, he added that the whole idea of state education made him nauseous. In his day, he claims, parents educated their own children or didn’t have them in the first place, they weren’t dependent wussies who relied on pubic universities!!!
The researchers spent countless hours interviewing elderly former 8th graders who attended school with Newtie, Mitt-Mitt, Ronnie and Ricky (then called).
“I remember Newtie, yes I do indeedy what,” said an old 8th grade schoolmate Minthy Watchit, who is the retired hometown historian. “Why Newtie was very clever. Of course the athletic boys tormented him, he was so roly-poly and he had that funny mincing way of walking on his tippy toes that made him so easy to trip. But he would hide out during recess in the office, helping the secretary record grades, and we all knew he was ‘dating’ the assistant principle. I remember when the geometry teacher and the assistant principle had a ‘cat fight’ over him. Fur was flying. And somehow those naughty boys ended up failing, while Newtie won ‘most likely to succeed’ even though no one claimed to have voted for him. He was a clever one, that. Why I’d not like to be on his wrong side.”
Another classmate recalled he had a non-speaking role in the arctic winter festival and “we all thought he was quite a perfect penguin.” “Of course that was the only time any of us had seen him not speaking,” she added. Good friend of Newtie, Cattie Sachs, recalls that one year he sent used paperback copies of “A Stone for Danny Fisher” to every girl on Valentines Day, which, she thought, was thrilling.
It seems Ricky, at first glance, was an exception, as his classmates recall he had a crush on Joe Montana, “gosh, Joe’s pictures were all over Ricky’s locker, and of course we all thought he was gay, that and the way he’d stare at guys’ bums. He said he had some kind of gastrointestinal difficulty, he spent more time in the boy’s room than you’d believe.” But another recalled that in 8th grade he ran for class president and lost by the biggest margin ever recorded, while in 7th he’d been elected sergeant at arms, running against a popular girl. “I guess that’s when we all turned against him,” recalls one classmate, “he took that job very seriously, roustingly you could say, although in his defense he didn’t ‘roust’ the popular kids.”
“Ronny was very popular in 8th grade, he was upbeat and we all liked him” recalls one classmate, “even though he didn’t share his homework and never brought cupcakes on his birthday.” “When he was class valedictorian, recalled another, “he gave an impromptu speech on masturbation that was quite informative.”
It seems that Mitt-Mitt was an exceptionally clean 8th grader, who would go home at lunchtime to shower, and spend time with his mother. “I think he never wore the same shirt twice,” recalls his 8th grade best friend David O. Macaroni. “Where other boys had slide rules, Mitt-Mitt had a spare tooth brush and he was positively phobic of dogs, claimed they carried mites and fleas, while I am pretty sure they don’t carry mites.” David recalled “Mitt-Mitt was adamant that he’d never let one of those filthy fur-beasts near him, even if he had kids someday and one of them wanted to touch one.”
Newtie was the first to put out a press release, calling the research “the most bombastic and hateful misuse of so-called research in the last four and three quarter centuries.” Mitt-Mitt claimed to have never heard of this Macaroni, which he considers a rather obviously made-up name, possibly by someone who had never had an original idea and was simply passing by a pasta shop. Ricky said he plans to pray for the researchers who have been misguided and can be saved through the power of prayer, particularly if he wins the nomination. Only Ronnie used this occasion to reiterate that everyone should ‘take care of’ himself or herself.
(This is entirely made up and not meant to deceive anyone into thinking I know anything at all about any previous 8th grader.)