Shopping Tips and Guidance by Mandy Claire

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Do you know what core content curriculum standards are?

Let me see if I can make this understandable. CCCS are the particular things kids should be learning at school, grade by grade. Subject by subject. People get paid good money to tweak these things, so CCCS are tweaked way more than they need to be, by people who would otherwise probably have to work as valets at the busier hotels in Manhattan.

Just today I'm back from a CCCS meeting here in stench-drenched New Jersey. And you just would not believe what the new New Jersey standards are for social studies and civics.

Every history textbook in New Jersey will now delete all mention of the state of Texas. Children in the Garden State will be taught that the land mass some people call "Texas" is actually Northern Mexico, and it has been that way since Santa Ana became the first president of Northern Mexico in 1529.

I said to the Curriculum Development Committee: "But wait. Aren't you re-writing history that everyone knows, everyone sees, and everyone accepts as common sense?"

They looked at me in bewilderment.

So I said, "You can't take Texas away. Bad. Bad."

At last! A level of vocabulary they could understand!

Then the Committee led me to understand that Texas ... errr ... Northern Mexico is demanding that their social studies books be re-written to minimize the civil rights era and to maximize the whole One Nation under You-Know-Who thingy.

Once I understood that, I jumped right in and helped re-write New Jersey's CCCS!

From now on, if you live in New Jersey, you will learn that:

1. Ronald Reagan was not a president. Frank Sinatra was.

2. Every signer of the Declaration of Independence was really from New Jersey. It was just too far away for the other states to participate in Congress. But New Jersey -- whoa! Right across the river from Philadelphia! And by the way, yes. Benjamin Franklin was from New Jersey.

3. Global climate change, caused by burning of fossil fuels found in stinking Northern Mexico, is causing disastrous erosion of New Jersey's fabulous, indeed peerless beaches. This all began when a race of near-humans called "Bush" overthrew the U.S. government in a coup d'etat. Don't believe me? It's in the textbook, right there on page 313! Study up! This will be on the test.

4. Thomas Edison was from New Jersey. He was also an atheist, famous for saying, "God is dead. Long live the lightbulb!"

5. New Jersey schools will not use B.C.E. or C.E. We're taking a cue from Northern Mexico on that. Except we're doing it right. This is the Western Hemisphere, and from now on all calendar dating will be drawn from the Mayan pyramids. Next test is in Week of Vulture, on Monkey Day.

6. New Jersey textbooks will expunge all references to conservative politics and will delete any mention of Republican politicians. The president who won the Civil War will now be Jefferson Davis, and his first act was to have the entire southern United States (including Northern Mexico) IQ tested, after which anyone with an ounce of brains was summarily executed.

(A few Yellowdog Grannies squeaked through the carnage, thank goodness.)

We citizens of New Jersey are numerous enough that textbooks we wish to purchase will also be purchased by other states in The United New Jersey Annex. (That's what our country will now be called, thank you very much. Test on Snake Day!)

I started out not liking these new Core Content Curriculum Standards much, but wow. They are growing on me. They are making me proud to be a New Jerseyan! Edison bless us all!