2. Make all months 28 days. Then everyone could keep calendars in their heads. Everyone would know that the 27th is a Friday and the 1st is a Sunday, etc. (And we would make sure that the 13th happened on a Thursday or something, which would prevent any more "Friday the 13th" movies from ever being made.) Then for all the leftover days get stuck at the end in a new month called Rocktober! (The exclamation point is part of the word.) At Rocktober!, all we do is rock. I think that part will sell this idea.
3. No more time zones. Fuck it. It's too complicated and annoying. I spend half my time trying to figure out if people are a few hours ahead of me or a few hours behind. (This might be my own mental block, but I didn't say these things would make things simpler for everyone -- I'm more concerned with making life simpler for me.) Everybody will have the same time simultaneously. For people in some countries, that means eating lunch at midday, which is 3 a.m. For others, it means "Lost" comes on at 12 noon, after they've finished a hard day's work. They're just arbitrary numbers anyway. Again, people will get used to it.
4. Along the same lines, we have to rename either "east" or "west." I always get them confused. I'm always on the highway unsure if I need 94 East and 94 West. I'm sure it's just my mental block, but all the more reason to change it for everyone. I think the words are too similar. Let's call "west" something that's easier to separate from "east," like "flibadeefloo." It would also entertain the kids, because it's a silly word. And it would never, ever get old.
5. No more kitchen cupboards. Everyone gets two dishwashers. When one dishwasher is full of clean dishes, you take the dishes directly from that and use them. When they're dirty you put them in the other dishwasher. When the other dishwasher is full, you run it, and then it becomes the dishwasher that stores clean dishes. Saves time and effort by cutting out the middleman of cupboards. Oh, and dishwashers will probably need big readouts saying "CLEAN" or "DIRTY" that come up automatically so you don't get confused. And some people may need more than two dishwashers, I guess, if they have big families. Most people could use fewer dishes though, in my opinion. At our house, we have different, specialized cups for juice, coffee, water, beer, wine, champagne, and martinis. That's too many glasses. Maybe we keep coffee mugs (it's really gross to drink coffee out of a glass -- I've tried) and standard glasses. That's plenty.
6. Greetings will be simplified. "Hello" and then down to business. "Good-bye" and then I'm gone. No more "How are things," "Good to see you," "How's the cat," etc. on the front end and then "Thanks for having us," "Have a good weekend," "Good luck with the disposable enema," etc. on the back end. Takes too damn long. Especially when leaving a place after a small get-together -- you're stuck in limbo for a few minutes, because you're likely standing there with everyone else, who were all waiting for someone to be the first to think of a good excuse to leave, and you all have to get your coats on, and stand for a while as everyone does their various good-bye rituals, and oh, someone forgot their scarf, and ... bah.
7. No more subjects in sentences. Only short, declarative sentences. "Like pizza." "Type silly crap." No more articles, either. Went to car. Drove to store. Picked up disposable enema. Used it. Fun.
8. We need a supreme ruler. A benevolent dictator, like Peter the Great. Someone who always has the best interests of the most people at heart and gets things done quickly. It's agonizing to elect a great, smart guy (Barack Obama) and then watch his plans slandered by Republicans who are just trying to confuse voters and score points, and then watching Congress dicker endlessly about this and that. I say, whatever the supreme ruler says, goes. Why has no one tried this before? It seems foolproof to me.
9. While we're on the subject of politics, since when does everything have to have 60 votes to pass through Congress? It is supposed to be a simple majority, right? But then the people in the minority can say the word "filibuster" and we're supposed to let that shut everything down? I say, call them on their bluff. Make Mitch McConnell actually filibuster. I'd love to see him read the phone book 24/7. Put that on the news and see how many people get angry at McConnell for wasting everyone's time. Unless that would make everyone sympathetic, like he's making some kind of bold "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington"-esque stand or something. Hm, maybe I should pass this idea through committee first. Then I could build grass-roots support, go across the country promoting it, build alliances in the Senate, promise to support subsidies for whiskey-drinking racehorses to get McConnell's vote (joke explanation: He's the senator from Kentucky), make compromises that water it down to a proposal to maybe think about possibly making any filibuster-er read the phone book to themselves on their own time with a nice glass of scotch ... eh, never mind.
10. No more facial hair allowed on men. I'm sorry, but men have proven they can't handle it. I'm seeing more and more soul patches every day. We will have to get rid of some cool full beards in the process, but you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs. What we do is, we make all men go through electrolysis or whatever it's called to zap all those follicles to death. We could do it when they're young and make it sort of a rite of passage to manhood. You can get away with lots of horrible things if you call it a rite of passage to manhood.
11. We need more rites of passage to manhood. Not sure what exactly, but something that turns men into soulful, quiet, strong types instead of allowing to go through the late teen and early-20s period of douchebaggery, in which they wear fitted baseball caps backwards and drink lots of Budweiser and go "woo!" and think Dane Cook is hilarious. Maybe we could just outlaw Dane Cook. But that would only attack the symptom instead of the problem.
12. Only one child per family. And everyone has to wear the exact same clothes, drive the exact same cars, and say the exact same things at the exact same times. And then Rod Serling has to pop out of nowhere and say "Man, this is the worst episode we ever did. We're not even trying any more ... in the Twilight Zone."
6 comments:
Okay - a couple things.
2. Under your plan, Ed, Rocktober! would have 29 days, and 30 in leap year. That's a whole lotta rocking in a row. What about 13 regular 28-day months, with a special Rocktober! day at some point (two days in leap year)? Otherwise I have no problem with it. Except you keep killing off my mnemonic stuff! (28 days hath September, April, June, and November. And August. And December. Oh, and February, January, March, and May. And October and July. And the new 13th month. They all have 28 days, dumbo.)
3. They already do the one time zone thing in China. Suggesting a worldwide time zone thus makes you a communist.
5. I like this idea, but what happens when the timing's off? Say you've transferred all the plates from the clean dishwasher to the dirty one, but you didn't eat as much cereal this week, so there are still clean bowls left. And now you need a plate. So you run the dirty dishwasher (turning it into the clean one), and use a newly cleaned plate. Where do you put it when you're done - in with the still clean bowls (which are in the dirty dishwasher)? Or do you move the clean bowls into the new clean dishwasher? Seems either inefficient or a waste of water.
7. No subjects in sentences seems highly unworkable. Unless the people in Edtopia only talk about themselves, subject-free sentences become a random collection of actions. Take the following Ed-sentence: "Went to store and bought coat and chased to park and founded Scientology." The intended subjects are: my mother, Adolf Hitler, a walrus, and L. Ron Hubbard. Not knowing which subject goes with which verb is confusing, isn't it? Also, they don't use articles in Russian. Suggesting this for English makes you a communist.
8. Let's do it.
9. Let's scrap the filibuster. Not to let a word go to waste, though, let's reuse it to mean "East". "Take 94 Filibuster to Exit 32."
2. I guess I didn't actually do the math on this one. I like your revision. So moved. I, as benevolent dictator, decree it, therefore it is.
3. Well, now I love communism then. Except that communism is a complete disaster for everything except time zones. Still, that alone would make it worth it. America is now communist -- I decree it. And in so doing, I cede all my own power to a harmonious collective. Dammit! OK, forget that idea. Let's do a bastardized version of communism that's really just an oppressive oligarchy. Done and done.
5. Hm. OK, everyone gets 43 dishwashers.
7. Hm. OK, forget the no subjects thing. But I do still think we could do without articles. And since Russia is no longer communist, it's not a communist idea -- it's a repressive oligarchy idea. Which fits well with my whole outlook here. QED.
8. Done. I forget which one this is, but it's done.
9. I actually would like to retain the filibuster as a sort of "nuclear option" if Mitch McConnell really wants to read the phone book 24/7 for a couple of weeks. Otherwise, it's just making for a de facto 60 votes necessary to pass any bill. And we should also rename "east" "filibuster." It's a silly word, and would amuse the kids.
8. This one was the benevolent dictating, which you already addressed in the previous reply.
9. Alison and I were actually talking about the reasons and pros and cons behind supermajorities. She was generally not a fan, since democracy usually means 50% plus one reflecting the will of the people. I like supermajorities, though. If 60 or 67% need to agree on something, then that's even better consensus than 51%. Besides, using supermajorties makes us a superdemocracy, doesn't it? Which is super.
I suppose that's true. But I don't think that's how it is in the Constitution is it? I haven't read it in a while. Or ever, at least not all the way through. It's vital and wonderful and everything, but it's kind of a dull read. They should have spiced it up with some jokes or pictures or something.
You know, I'm not an expert on the Constitution either, but I just took a look at the Wikipedia entry on it, and I didn't see anything about majority voting in Congress. They talk about how things have to pass the House, or pass the Senate, and they talk about supermajorities to override a veto, but otherwise, it says that Congress can make their own rules on how to conduct their business.
And I agree, reading the Constitution can be boring. But you learn stuff. For example, did you know that they can't make us quarter soldiers on our property? I think I'm going to tell that platoon to move out of my backyard today.
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