HANDS UP

In this episode of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart uses satire to express his opinion of the “hands up” movement all around America. Members of the football team,the St. Louis Rams, ran out before a game holding their hands up in respect of the Ferguson case. The St. Louis Police Association complained, saying that they are deeply offended and expect an apology and punishment for the players. They stated the action to be “tasteless, offensive, and inflammatory” (1).   Jeff Roorda states, “To us, it seems like rather than allowing wounds to heal, that they are picking at the scabs”. To this comment, Jon Stewart states very sarcastically that the police think that punishment and apology is the only way to get past this ‘outraging’ incident. The players and coach refused to apologize, but according to the police and media, they had apologized. The Rams official and players, however, denied they ever apologized at all. The police department tweeted the definition of apology and one of the responses from the Rams players.

“Apology: “Expression of regret for not being able to do something”

@KDEMOFF: “I regretted any offense their officers may have taken” “

What the officers did not realize is that this response was merely passive-aggressive and not at all sincere. Stewart’s satirical response to this was creating various tweets between the St. Louis County PD and the St. Louis Rams. He also states that the Rams released a ‘non-apology’ and that instead of rejecting this ‘non-apology’ like a group of normal people, they accepted, making it a “he said, she said” type of situation. 

Standardized Testing

“New Education Initiative Replaces K-12 Curriculum With Single Standardized Test”

By: Unknown

Source: theOnion

http://tinyurl.com/k7qqhrr

On February 19, 2015, the United States Department of Education came up with a better education system for all children grades K-12. All children five to eighteen will take a four hour long standardized test. Only, every student will have identical copies of the test, no matter what age group they belong to. This will ensure that each student is evaluated equally and that there is no discrimination towards anything; not even age. So basically, 5 year olds will have to take tests on things they did not even know existed! The topics of the standardized tests are; World War I, cursive penmanship, state capitals, pre-algebra, Newtonian mechanics, and biology. According to Education Secretary Arne Duncan, there is no better way to ensure consistency in America’s schools! This test will completely replace the normal curriculum for grades K-12, including classwork and homework. Ten year old Jeff Escudero says it has been very stressful studying, but that he is glad he will not have to go to school after he takes his test. This article is something every high school student can relate to. It makes fun of the very high importance and relevance that is placed on ACT/SAT tests. The unnecessary significance that is placed on these standardized tests puts too much pressure on students, making it seem as if these tests are their only tickets to a good college/university. So this parody is very relatable by students in school; high school especially, since they are getting ready to go to college. The article also gives the ten year old boy as an example to show the ridiculousness when stated that he will stop going to school after the test due to its high importance.