Indignant Desert Birds

The approach of the 4th of July seems like an ideal time to delve into an obscure part of American history. The founding fathers were rabid video game players. Fittingly, they didn’t generally have the same tastes.

Benjamin Franklin: Ben had lived most of his life with nothing but casual contempt for video games. Instead, in the age of dueling, he preferred the most dangerous game, sleeping with married women. One day, a charming lady on Facebook asked for help raising a barn in farmville. From there, he became branched out to the Bioware oeuvre, exploring every romance option available. Franklin died impoverished, the first victim of the microtransaction payment model. Gamer Tag: EarlyRiser69

George Washington: First in War, First in Peace, first in line for the new Total War games. An indifferent-at-best player, he was mainly hobbled by an ability to manage troop morale. Gamer Tag: HisExcellency

John Adams: Noted forum troll John Adams was under the mistaken impression that he enjoyed cooperative games. He was actually VAC banned from Left 4 Dead after screaming “All the perplexities, confusion and distress on this team arise, not from defects in us, but from [player's name]‘s INABILITY TO CR0WN THE f***ing WITCH!” Adams went on to have a successful League of Legends career. Gamer tag: FirePaladin1030

Thomas Jefferson: When asked, this laconic founder said only “The Sims. Words with Friends.” Gamer Tag: LoverNotPatriot

John Jay: Most historians will claim that Europa Universalis was his game of choice while Jay unwound from a long day of founding the Federalist party. In fact, this is exactly backwards. Modern evidence indicates that Federalist number 2 was intended as an After Action Report of a particularly heinous outing. Gamer tag: PUBLIUSdipLOmat

James Madison: The British Admiral Cockburn was so incensed at the constant tea-bagging done by James Madison after every Halo kill that he burned the White House specifically to destroy Madison’s XBOX. Dolly handed the console over in exchange for allowing her to save other valuables. Gamer tag: PUBLIUSrighter

Alexander Hamilton: Apologists for this founder claim that he simply held himself to a higher standard of sportsmanship than the average online FPS gamer. Others claim that he was simply a lousy shot. Either way, Hamilton was always a welcome sight on an opponent’s roster, or good for free kills in a free for all. Eventually, he moved over to StarCraft 2, where he climbed to the 1V1 Diamond League (Protoss). The famous duel with Burr was sparked when Burr claimed that he had “totally typed GG, my connection must have dropped before you saw it”, and Hamilton “called bullshit”. Gamer tag: PUBLIUSking

Tags: Games, politics by Punning Pundit
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Ladies and Gentleman: the Will.i.am remix, featuring John Boehner

If anyone asks, this is why I’m a yellow dog.

Tags: Uncategorized by Punning Pundit
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This quiz has been making the rounds. I found the test almost insultingly easy– then again, I majored in Poli-sci, and minored in History (and also Religion).

I found many of the questions poorly worded and in many cases a bit silly.

For instance “16) In his “I Have a Dream” speech, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. :” The answer they want is so watered down from the truth that it’s almost a lie.

Or “29) A flood-control levee (or National Defense) is considered a public good because:”

Again, poorly worded question. The parenthetical aside seems to indicate that Levees are part of the National Defense, rather than indicating that they are both types of what economists call “public goods”.

A “public good” is one which it is impossible to prevent an individual from taking advantage of. You can’t have a flood which takes out _just_ one house. At least, not on purpose. Asking an opposing military to attack the one house on the block which failed to pay it’s military bill would be.. well, amusing.

“31) International trade and specialization most often lead to which of the following?” The concept they’re looking for is “comparative advantage”, and they’re asking in a _very_ clumsy way.

Does it really matter if we remember whether it was 1962 or 1963 that the Cuban Missile Crisis or the Berlin Wall went up?

Also: why is are key economic terms more important to civil society than, say, Labor history? Or science terms? I think that, in order to be a productive member of our Democracy, you need to have basic knowledge of geography. Why aren’t there any geography questions? The 21st century requires basic technical knowledge. Can we get some questions on automotive maintenance?

This test seems almost designed to fail most people. I wonder what this group is selling…

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When confronted with a difficult question, I often ask myself “what would Orwell do?” The answer is usually “fight against tyranny and for the dignity of the human spirit”. Which isn’t a lot of help when you want to know what’s for dinner…

It turns out that Orwell kept a diary. And why not? Most everyone did in the pre-LJ era. Well, it seems that his Diary is being turned into a blog. Which I must say– that’s an awesome concept.

There are already projects to do online catalogs of famous people, so I hope that Orwell is but the first of many famous people who have their diaries turned into blogs. Can you imagine how cool it would be to read Jefferson or Franklin’s Diary updated daily? Modern technology being used to present history to modern lives: I love that.

Tags: Books by Punning Pundit
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