In The News
Oxford Biology Department Is Raided by a Covert Agent
(PD) James Tissot - Going to Business - In The News
Copyright ©2015-2021 - updated June 11, 2021
Having an afternoon off work, I stuck a MP3 disc of Henry Mancini's The Boss into the CD player of my lime green Reva G-Wiz, and when the bongo music overwhelmed me with a Mission Impossible mood I decided to take a quick drive out of the Texas panhandle to a little suburb called England. While there I thought "What the heck!" and so I mischievously stopped at Oxford University.
Luck was on my side that day, all the children were out on the playground during recess, and the teachers were huddled in the teacher's lounge gulping tea and hot-boxing cigars. With my body and palms pressed firmly on the walls of the halls so no one would see me, I raced with short jumps to the biology department. Looking in the door I eyed the six desk-chairs and the biology teacher's desk located next to the chalkboard. Excited that no one was in the biology department, "Yes! Yes!" I exclaimed to myself as I quickly sprinted to the teacher's desk, opened his cigar box, and rummaged through the crayons and Elmer's® glue until I found the prize I was looking for.
Squealing with delight, I snatched the word "function" and turned to leave, but then I thought to myself "What the hey!", and so I chose to also snatch the phrase "natural selection". I was highly tempted to grab a few more words, but nah, what I had was already plenty, and besides, I might not be able to carry much more anyway, especially not the word "moral", so again I turned to leave, but I froze in my steps when the recess bell rang.
Unsure of what to do, I leaped to sit on the back row of the desk-chairs, hoping no one would notice. Within seconds the students began filing-in, all of them marching side-by-side in two columns like stiff-armed and stiff-legged robots while repeatedly chanting "We's a smart, we's a robot." One, two, three, four, five, six students! Wow! It was a packed class! Panicked, I quickly improvised by getting out of the desk-chair and marching out of the room with the same stiff-limbed walk while I chanted "I's a smart, I's a robot." It worked! No one noticed me being different than any other robot student! Biology teaches that all humans are identical, so even if a student were brighter than the others, the student would know to not let-on that he knew someone was different because if he did he would then be expelled for not being politically correct. Whew! I was in the clear!
As I waited across the hall for the biology teacher to arrive, I peeked into the psychology department's door. I eyed the two desk-chairs and the teacher's desk while thinking to myself "On my next lunch break I think I'll come grab a few nouns from their cigar box too." The jocularity! I made me laugh!
And then I heard his footsteps echoing down the hall! Of all the dozens of biology teachers in the world, Witchered Walkins was the best. After he had entered the classroom I took one tiny Texas-sized step to stand back next to the biology department door so I could watch inside.
Witchered Walkins had begun his lecture by reciting the same words he had been reciting for decades: "Morals are genetically inherited. Morality is a brain … created by … for the survival of the species." I giggled mischievously, my knowing that he could not finish the sentence without the word "function" and the phrase "natural selection".
The students' jaws dropped! The teacher's pet boy sitting in a front desk-chair raised his hand and asked: "Why didn't you say all of the words?" The boy continued with a humored Kent Hovind voice like what Hovind excellently used when he lectured about evolution in the theology department: "You've been saying them every day for, what, millions and millions of years."
Witchered Walkins' face expressed a terrified appearance because now he had no noun to use. "It doesn't matter, we can use a synonym or a word that means the same thing. Morality is a brain utility created by the spaghetti utility for the survival of the species. There, that works just as well."
The boy student asked another question: "But how does morality work? What are the verbs?"
Witchered Walkins had obviously rehearsed his responses many times because he replied immediately: "It's a spontaneous utility, like quantum physics, it just pops into existence all by itself."
As the boy asked another question I grew gravely concerned that he might get expelled for too much intelligence. "But isn't the synonym for spontaneous "magic"?" Ben Stein would have been proud!
Witchered Walkins did not bat an eye. "Yes. We can say magic; close enough."
I thought to myself "Drats!" On my next trip I would have to bring a wheelbarrow and collect all nouns out of the cigar box.
As I prepared to leave, I heard the identical twin blonde pig-tailed girl students in the psychology department giggle more mischievously than my own. Each time the girls yelled "DELUSION" Witchered Walkins changed his beliefs. I was stunned! It was as if Witchered Walkins did indeed have ghostly walk-ins because he would be saying that he believed that there was no spaghetti monster, then he would say there might be a spaghetti monster, and then he would say that he is a secular spaghetti monster believer. I laughed! The psychology department girls had hypnotized and bewitched Witchered Walkins to believe whatever the girls wanted!
I felt bad for Witchered Walkins because I then realized that he himself had been tricked into believing silly things, but oh well, you know, it is public education after all, you know, and haven't we all been tricked at least once by public education?
Feeling that my afternoon had been used productively, I got back home in time to watch the six o'clock news. On all channels the news anchors were excitedly talking about how the science of biology had proven the spaghetti monster to be real, but before the news anchors could finish their stories, the cue cards were changed to say that the spaghetti monster was not real, and then again the cue cards were changed to say that the spaghetti monster might be real. For the full half-hour the news stations streamed video from the Oxford biology department as Witchered Walkins' beliefs switched back and forth. No one gave attention to the girls across the hall giggling and yelling "DELUSION".
My plan for next Wednesday afternoon is to visit the philosophy departments of Oxford, California Community College, and all seven other English-speaking colleges where I will snatch from their cigar boxes the word "ethic". Oh the mayhem! Oh the mayhem!