Poetry Archive, Part 1: Enigma

Here's a little bit of culture for you: this poem was published in the school's literary magazine, and is the first of a series of poems I will be posting. "Enigma" plumbs the depths of...something, and perhaps I ought not analyze too closely, lest I find "I'm in way / too deep." Suffice it to highlight such choice couplets as "My heart is ripped in opposite directions, and / stretched like that rope people talk about / in migraine commercials." Or better yet, "I could let one of you go, let you drown in the sea / of my grief, but I don't think I could handle / the emotional stress that would cause." God save her mental health! Read on, reader...

Presidency Quiz

The student who completed this government & politics quiz seems to have been cooking with turpentine; how he could have answered in the way he did was as befuddling to his teacher then as it is to the modern reader today. The teacher claims "You've lost me here, Andrew" for the first question, but it's no clearer in the light of history why he would aver, on a graded quiz, that the pyramidal system of government power appears to stick up the president's...well, he doesn't quite get that far. And after defining the Eastern Establishment as "the establishments of the east", he goes Rain-Man on paper, asking the question back as an answer.

Only questions 1 and 4 are transliterated below; the others are not particularly humorous. Teacher's comments in green.

1.) What is the name given to the White House employee who sits atop a White House staff organized according to a "pyramid" structure?

-cheif of staff (who refers, then to the president, isn't it sort of like the pyramid is sticking up the president's...)
--> You've lost me here, Andrew

4.)  What does the term "Eastern Establishment" mean? Is this a negative or a positive term, according to your personal opinion.

-The establishments of the east, governmental control in east, negative term, definately, definately negative. Don't you think?
--> You can't define term by using that term.

Fuzzy Math

I'm a little busy these days, so here's one that doesn't require much explanation: just a math quiz gone horrendously wrong. I do love the assertion, in question 1, that (A/B) x (B/C) x (C/D) = AD.