Billy, “lout, class clown” has last laugh

We’ve all had that teacher who warned us we would never amount to anything unless we applied ourselves, but Billy Edwards - once a young, boisterous underachiever in high school - has broken free of that curse.

Billy – who was told by that bitch Mrs McKinsal in the 5th grade that unless he quietened down and stopped disrupting classes or getting into trouble with the wrong crowd he would live a “meaningless existence from paycheck to paycheck – has had the last laugh.

“She said I would never amount to anything. She used big and misleading phrases like ‘if only you applied yourself more, Billy’ and ‘if you just focused a little more you could be the first in your family to go to college and make something of yourself’,” he scoffed. “Shows what that stuck up slag knows.”

And a failure Billy is not.

“Look at me now,” he explained, spreading his arms out wide and pointing out the glory all around him. “Assistant Manager at McDonalds on the Southside in just five-and-a-half years, in charge of my own team of five 17-year-olds on minimum wage! I’m living the dream.”

He explained further.

“It hasn’t been easy: despite all Mrs McKinslut that warned, I’ve made it. It’s been a long journey: from toilet cleaner, to cookboy, to cashier, to off-duty overseer, to vice-vice-assistant-manager, to sub-assistant manager, and now finally: I’m rolling with the big dogs.”

“I pull in hundreds of dollars a month. I was employee of the month in January and June of last year. I roll around the streets in a barely used second-hand Nissan. I’ve got my own one-bedroom apartment that I rent from my mom. Shows you what Mrs McBitchface knows.”

And Billy’s is a position that comes with enormous responsibility.

“When it comes to this tiny corner of this town with less than 4000 inhabitants, I’ve got my work cut out for me. Whose job is it to ensure – several times per meal – that customers are, in fact, enjoying their meal and that everything is fine? Me. I have to ask them. I’ve got to deal with customer complaints. I’ve got to walk around looking like I contribute to the running of this tight ship. And most importantly of all, I’ve got to make sure the cashier and fry cook don’t have sex on the food preparation surfaces.”

But the path to success is not without self-discovery, as Billy has learnt.

“Sometimes I shudder to think where I would be now if I had followed her advice. Imagine if I had refocused my efforts on math, or gone to the extra lessons she offered to pay for? Can you envision what kind of slum I would be living in if I hadn’t bought an ounce of weed with all those textbooks and study guides she bought me on her paycheck, which I make at least twice over ever month?”

“Some people scoff that I could have ended up like Jessica (Grady, 26, PhD Biochemical Nano-engineering) or Tom [Thomas Henderson, 27, orthopaedic surgeon specialising in spinal reconstruction], but without me, where would the people get their combo meal and large soda? Wendy’s down the road? Fuck that.”

“It just goes to show you what teachers know. All their nonsensical try-hard bullshit about self-improvement and hard work – schools don’t even teach you anything important these days,” he said, grabbing a mop and bucket. “Now if you’ll excuse me: some hobo just puked in booth 3 and we’re short staffed today.”

Schools to introduce McDonalds courses in program

Citing the rich potential of future employees contained within high schools' halls, fast food chain McDonald’s has today announced that the introduction of school classes aimed at preparing children for their inevitable careers in the below-living-wage service industry.

”When you look at the majority of kids in our secondary schools who are just coming to the age where they can seek employment in any number of dead-end jobs with limited wage and upward mobility, you can see this move, much like these kids, is a no-brainer,” said CEO of McDonalds, Lex Ploytew.

“Little to no effort in class, unfocused or apathetic attitudes towards their own enlightenment and self-betterment, no special interests or passions outside of TV and social media, the inability to converse beyond basic Neanderthalic grunts? We need to develop all of this amazing cashier, fry-boy potential to its fullest extent!”

Since the introduction, other Fast Food outlets and service industry competitors have praised the move and voiced support for it.

“Who knows, we could even find the next CEO of KFC among these kids,” said CEO of KFC May Kewfatta. “They all show a natural aptitude for not giving the tiniest shit about other people or the work they do, and are utterly self-absorbed, so they seem to have all the makings of upper-level company management. Hell, half of these entitled little shits might even be able to compete with my son for the position.”

According to the course creators, the program will cover basic skills required for this line of work.

“We will of course, include basic language skills and mathematical literacy as a part of their preparation,” they said. “I mean, without a sound knowledge of the founding principles of arithmetic and linguistics, how will you be able to know how much a Quarter Pounder, Fries, Large Soda and a Number Seven Combo Meal costs, or how to ask if they’d like it Supersized?”

This is not the first time McDonald’s has taken an interest in education, after they introduced a series of libraries and art galleries in 2012.

Teachers have wholeheartedly welcomed the move, saying there is a great number of pupils it appears perfectly suited to.

“Just take a look at Billy. He’s super popular in class. Talkative and a natural joker – obviously the class clown – he always has a knee-slapper tucked away to shout out when I'm trying to teach something, no matter what the class is doing, be it written work or reading comprehension exercises. In many ways, he’s the perfect applicant for the restaurant. In fact, I’ll probably visit McDonalds every single day just so I can watch him fulfill his purpose in life."

"The little gap-toothed fuck," she added.

And parents couldn't be more pleased.

"Little Johnny is such a self-entitled, mean-spirited, selfish little bastard," said parents Jake and Amy Henderson. "We're glad someone is willing to sacrifice their time and energy to make sure he gets a job befitting his talents. I mean, for a moment there, we were worried he'd become a Member of Parliament."

School shooting not nearly serious enough to change law, society

The nation is underwhelmed this morning, after a minor mass shooting at a primary school – which left only a meagre 24 children and a mere 6 teachers dead – failed to be grave or shocking enough to inspire legislative and constitutional changes in the nation’s legal structure.

According to eyewitnesses, the shooting only lasted 43 minutes, and failed to claim the lives of anyone younger than the age of 12.

“When we think about the kinds of terror-inspiring, numbing horrors that we’ve encountered and seen plastered bloodily across our TV screens on an almost monthly basis, then clearly this tiny blimp on the mass murder radar just simply isn’t enough to inspire our politicians and countrymen to take the huge selfless leap necessary to create a better, safer society,” said political analyst and school shooting expert Loki Nlode. “If we want to have our country changed for the better, then I just hope the nation’s unstable psychopaths start upping their game, for example by at least taking out a preschool or something.”

Experts now believe that the shooting came in at just number 12 in the Top Shooting Spree Rankings of Q4 2015.

“This shooting, well, it might as well not even have been reported,” said chief investigator Chuu Tsukyl. “I mean, they didn’t even use a calibre bigger than .303, and the killer didn’t even have a racist or misogynistic manifesto that motivated his hate crime. Honestly, I’m not surprised that it was only front-page breaking news on just 34 international news services.”

And editors say it’s a justified choice.

“Right now, with the Syrian bombings and awful political situations unfolding in the Ukraine and Greece, we need something else that’s lighter and less serious on our screens to calm down anxious parents and voters - something like this comparative yawn-fest that utterly fails to shock or horrify our nation's leaders into action” said CNN senior news editor Thysys Justin. “So we’ll keep it blaring on the 24/7 breaking news or developing stories roll for a short while, at least until we run out of frightening stock footage of blaring sirens, flashing blue and red lights, armed policemen and weeping, shell-shocked parents.”

However, other news services don’t believe this will happen anytime soon.

“Seriously, we have thousands of hours of that kind of disturbing, bloodcurling imagery from just the last six months alone,” said political editor at the BBC, Gunther Kiddsdown. “We’ll probably just cut it off after 6 days of terrifying, around-the-clock bulletins.”

Hero teen saves school from disaster

Courageous jock prevents massive mass-shooting by befriending that fucking weird fedora-wearing dipstick Eugene Falentes.

Mourning and heaped praise echo across the halls of Metro bay High school today, after 17-year-old sports star, cafeteria jokester and all-round-beloved senior Chad Chaddings saved his peers from ‘unfathomable tragedy’ by befriending “that weirdo who would probably have slaughtered us all sometime in the next six months”.

Chaddings, who is being hailed as a “true icon of heroism”, bravely averted a mass shooting or serial knifings and suicide at the very least by making friends with the gigantic loser and showing him basic human decency.

Teachers and peers recalled Chaddings’s last moments with tears in their eyes.

“We all knew it had to happen, but we never knew he’d be so brave about it,” said the guy who gives Chad his Maths homework to copy after football practice. “He just walked right up to that mouth-breathing, bespectacled, braces-wearing creep and was like, ‘Hey, Eugene, you wanna hang out after school?’.”

Pictured: that fucking weird kid Eugene.
Goddamn nerd.

Chaddings’s friends say that he was staunch and unflinching in his sacrifice, even when Eugene said yes and excitedly started explaining the rules of that fucking weird boardgame he and those other friendless losers from Grade 11 like to play in their ‘Secret Clubhouse’ in his mom’s basement.

However, learners at the medium-sized high school say they knew this day was coming – that it was only a matter of time until someone had to befriend him.

“This day was inevitable, ever since he first asked Billy Erikson in first grade to trade Pokemon cards, and then asked him if he’d like some of this packed vegan soy-bean lunch, his place low, low down on the social ladder was cemented,” said the school’s History teacher Miss Evensen. “We all knew that, thanks to the rigourous social hierarchy of our school, one day someone would have to bite the bullet and treat him with kindness and compassion so that he didn’t crack and blow us all away with his father’s automatic rifle collection. I just can’t believe this day has come so soon.”

“You know, sometimes I still see Chad’s ghost roaming the schoolhalls,” said long-time friend Huhg Jassohl. “He still wanders these halls, reading - eugh - books and expressing an interest in things like learning.”

After taking a moment to compose himself, Jassohl continued.

“I mean, I know the shadow of his former self says stuff like ‘Eugene is just misunderstood’ and ‘Once you get to know someone, you realise how judging a book by its cover is so wrong’ – but hey, that's exactly the kind of thing that kind of a Naruto-watching weeboo piece of uncool scum would say.”

However, with mounting ostracism and public shunning of Chaddings, the school board has now expressed worries that soon it’ll be time to put another student on the altar of offerings.

“Now that Chad is a shunned, tormented dipshit that no one likes because of his obvious rejection of the status quo – you know, basically another Eugene - what’s to stop him shooting up the school?” said Principal Davids.

“I mean, someone’s gonna have to befriend that massive weirdo.”

Shocking new study finds “you’re not even my real dad”

The scientific community is agog today, after breath-taking new research showed undeniable evidence that “you’re not even my real father”.

The commissioned research, which was headed by 17-year-old Rebecca Evansfield and looked deep into the scientific field of Yourdaughterology, found many disturbing correlations and links between data previously thought impossible.

“The research really has swept at least one scientist off his feet,” said Evansfield. “I mean, we found a 75% probability that you’re not the boss of me, which gives rise to the disturbing revelation that it is highly, highly likely that I can do whatever I want”.

And that’s just the beginning, says Evansfield.

“Our findings are as bold as they are startling,” she explained. “Just a few years ago, who would have thought it possible that you can’t tell me what to do anymore, or that there exist a set of very particular theoretical physical models that showed that my being a proper grown up now who doesn't have to listen to you could potentially be more than just a random statistical glitch?”

The findings, however, are fraught with controversy, and are already being contested and criticised by at least one scientist, who - the study suggests - doesn’t deserve to be married to such an amazing woman.

The findings have already been criticised by once-divorced scientist Dr Bardensen.

“Yes, we can agree that there may be an element of truth to the findings,” said 49-year-old senior lab manager at the Centre for Chemical Studies, Michael Bardensen. “Sure, scientists now speculate that this shocking possibility could extend as far as, say, you getting a tattoo on your back, or that it even may have as far-reaching ramifications as your going out whenever you want to, but its whole premise is premature.”

Bardensen stresses that the findings are rash at best.

“The data might suggest that you should be allowed to date that Senior in the football team, or be able go to Tessa’s big house party next Saturday, but I guarantee you that these discoveries are all just a part of the ups and downs of scientific enquiry,” he said. “Already I have found contradictory data that suggests that, actually, you live in my house and don’t pay rent; and previous studies published by I. M. Hyorfahtha et al stress that just wait until your mother hears about this.”

Already Bardensen’s theory has been confirmed by eminent researchers, such as senior researcher for the Home Foundation, Jessica Bardensen nee Evansfield.

“Just wait a few years,” said the counter study in a joint statement this afternoon. “You’ll see that we were right all along.”

Gun debate sees massive changes to US schooling

As the gun debate heats up in the United States of America, teachers, principals and students are seeing a huge set of sweeping changes aimed at securing their educational spaces and lessening the chance of future tragedies.

“It’s been a while since the last mass shooting,” said principal of Bay High in Utah, Luke Hanlode. “Really, when you look at the historical statistical data, we’re about three months overdue for the next senseless slaughter of preschool, highschool or university students and their teachers. We must act now.”

And while principals and gun lobbyists agree that banning the sale of fully-automatic firearms and increasing the depth, number and frequency of background checks and firearm safety and proficiency tests would do “absolutely nothing” to lower the likelihood of an incident, they say there is much that schools can do to prevent being the next iteration of World-wide breaking news.

“We already care about our children’s safety, which is why we have things like drug awareness campaigns, road safety classes and self defense courses like Karate and Judo,” said one teacher, “but we need to step it up. We need gun classes in school. Our kids don’t need a blackbelt. They need a bandolier and holster. We could make it fun: just think, Trigger-nometry.”

Publishers and book houses are already hard at work 'remastering' much-beloved classics to teach kids the necessary skills every school-going American child needs.

This is not all, they said.

“The answer is counterintuitive but simple: more guns,” said a spokesperson for the National Rifle Association. “Armed guards in the hallways. Teachers with concealed carry permits. Snipers in the football lights. Automated sentry guns on the CCTV cameras. We need to think of our children’s safety. If we weren’t wasting money on unnecessary Public Health and Obamacare, we would be able to reallocate funds into our always-cut Military Defense budget and arm every child.”

Though teachers have commented on the possible risk of actually being the one who blows all their students away because that little shit Billy in Grade 6 Maths won’t Shut The Fuck Up for ten seconds and never hands in any homework, they agree that it’s a risk they’re willing to take.

“We need to put their interests first,” said Maths teacher. “Even if teaching sometimes makes me think, ‘these psychopaths may have had a point.’”

Companies across the country have jumped on the bandwagon, and are now offering protection aimed at young Jane or Jimmy.

“With our new line of bulletproof children’s clothing and Kevlar-lined sunhats, as well as fun and exciting rebranding on our most popular lines of firearms, not only will you be protecting little Timmy from brain-destroying high-velocity fragmentation, low-caliber projectiles and the deadly Ultra-violet rays of the sun,” said a company statement by military supplier Arma Inc, "but you'll also be bringing yourself just that little bit more peace and comfort."

"Machine-washable and stain resistant, the fibre is a breeze to clean, and its breathable material means your child won’t feel hot and bothered any time, whether he is kicking a ball around with his friends or running for his life through the blood-soaked halls of his once innocent schoolgrounds.”

Only one thing remains certain, however: this debate is not one that has any easy fixes.

“Some people think that just banning guns will sort out the problem, but guns don’t kill people. People do," said one resident, who said that that argument doesn't equally apply to poison or Class 5 illegal narcotics or Biological and Chemical weapons. "You want to ban guns? Well, just look at godless hellholes like Australia and Britain. Do we want to go down that same, socialist road?"

He shook his head and pumped another depleted-uranium pyrophoric armour-piercing high-velocity explosive-tipped thermobaric anti-tank round into his fully automatic shotgun. "I'd rather die. Or, in this particular case, that my children die."

Pic (my edit) composed of Public Domain images and Ak47 by Burnyburnout and Rebel (inserted) from Al Jazeera Creative Commons

Government begins campaign to improve graffiti

Bad graffiti and the defacement of public property has long been a stain on our society, but finally the Department of Education is striking back. Today, the Minister of Education has announced a much-needed injection of almost 3 billion Rand into South African schools, aimed at improving students’ grammar and punctuation so that, “at the very least, our schools will be vandalised and defaced in an educated and correctly-spelled manner.”

“Have you seen some of our students’ tags and ‘art’?” asked the Minister at a press conference in Pretoria. “I mean, Jake waz heer? Blu Klan Gang 4 lyf? Have we so failed our children that they can’t even deface public property in a respectable, grammatically sound way? They say ‘fuk da police’, but why? We hope that this new boost will enable our children to at least have an empirically-based and nuanced critique of our problematic police force and why, exactly, we should ‘fuk’ them.”

The cash boost follows on the heels of a damning study commissioned by the Institute of Public Art, which recently found that a “made-up but very high” percentage of gang-affiliated graffiti contained innumerable spelling, grammar and punctuation errors.

“While this widespread creativity and love of art is a sign of promise in the next generation,” said the sixty-page report, “their inability to differentiate between ‘to’, ‘too’ and ‘two’, or ‘your’ and ‘you’re’, or even ‘were’, ‘we’re’ and ‘where’, is something that needs to be immediately addressed.”

This isn't the first time South African education has been drastically altered to suit contemporary trends, and despite government officials remaining obstinate that "a Matric isn't easy", teachers have embraced the new introductions.

“The system of basic education is failing many thousands of little obnoxious shits I’m legally obliged to call ‘students’,” said a High School maths teacher in Kwazulu-Natal. “If we don’t do something now, we’ll forever be doomed to see ‘fuck’ spelt without the ‘c’ on our trains, buildings and public spaces.”

The new educational fund is also aimed at improving students’ limited or incorrect knowledge of human anatomy as depicted in erroneous and crude tags.

“Most graffiti pictures of genitalia are not anatomically correct,” said one biology teacher. “For example, most crudely sprayed penises on industrial buildings disregard the usual kinks, bends and demographically relevant size proportions of the average male; the same can be said for roughly painted breasts or hastily tagged vaginas. They are just in no way indicative of real breasts, and don’t convey even half the complexity or sophisticated anatomical structures of the female reproductive organs.”

Government opinion remains divided on the matter, with some claiming that "education is not in a crisis in South Africa" and others admitting that education in South Africa would be "a terrible idea", but at the end of the day, the decision has excited great number of school kids.

“I’ve already been working on a new series of tags,” said a grade-ten learner. “I think it’s gonna blow people away.”

Artists depiction: before education program.

Artist's depiction: after education program.

Pics: Grafitti, Matthew de Klerk. Wall (both edits): Creative Commons.

Asian schoolchild drops out to complete maths doctorate

Citing his inability to grasp basic concepts that his classmates have already mastered for months now, School Administrators at the Xin-Xu Juan Middle School in Beijung, China, have today announced their reluctant decision to temporarily expel eight-year-old Xiang Luan and send him on a remedial catch-up maths camp at Harvard University’s Department of Advanced Theoretical Mathematics.

“He’s been falling behind his classmates for some time now,” said class teacher Lu Shao. “It’s all that Grade 8 Master’s violin and Grandmaster Chess that he’s been spending his idle time on. If he’d focussed more, it wouldn’t have had to come to this repeating a year.

The Headmaster now hopes that the course at Harvard will help young Xiang to revise basic concepts covered in their lower grades so that he can one day re-join his classmates.

“It shouldn’t take him too long I hope,” said seven-year-old classmate Jiang Xu-bai (BSC, MA, PhD). “Hopefully we’ll see him for the start of the new year in January.”

This is just the latest in a string of controversies in the Chinese education sector. Earlier in May of this year, a scathing educational report found that over 70% of Chinese school children aged six and below had the mathematical abilities of only a 25-year-old American graduate.

“Our school system has taken a huge knock in the past couple of years,” said Chinese Minister of Education Byang Bai-Li. “Some of our middle-school entrants can’t even compete against their 28-year-old American counterparts.”

In any case, Luan’s parents say that young Xiang should graduate summa cum laude by November at least, making him eligible to go into grade 10 next year.

“We just hope that this minor setback and waste of a year redoing his childhood tutoring won’t knock his self-confidence too much.”

Local teens “literally just cannot even”

Following what Tiffany said to Jessica this morning at the Bayside High School cafeteria, 17-year-old Britney Wilson has reportedly told the media that she “can't, [she] just literally cannot even right now”.

Friends and peers at the teen girl's school have echoed her sentiments, saying that, they too, right now, could also literally just not even.

“I mean, I can’t,” said her lab partner Amber. “I can’t. I try, but I just cannot, I literally just can’t right now. I’m done.”

This shocking report comes just days after an in-depth study of High Schools, in which it was discovered that, on a scale from Literally to Right Now, the average seventeen-year-old girl Just Can’t Even.

Experts have however, defended the reaction of these students, saying that such an inability to be able to right now was “perfectly justified” considering what that hoe-bitch said to Jess.

“It makes total sense that they would not be able to right now. What she [Tiff-Tiff] said to her [Jess] was just… wow, right?” said Socioanthropologist John Henderson of the Institute for Social Studies. “As the day goes by, many students who formerly could will find that they can’t, and perhaps a small percentage of these learners will then go on to literally be unable to just now. I heard what she said, and even I, a grown man, literally cannot.”

However, some students at the high school have defended Tiffany’s actions, saying that quote, “that skank Jess totally got what was coming to her”

“The bitch deserved it,” said in a text to us that contained far fewer vowels, grammar and comprehensible English than we’re putting across. “I mean, have you seen the way she wears her hair all up and messy […] god, and her glasses, what’s up with those?”

Some have even gone a step further, saying that although they totally think it was so frikken bitchy what Tiff said, they had to admit that “come on, we were all thinking it, Tiff just said it.”

Most wizards “horribly underprepared” for normal society

A new study co-released by the Ministry of Magic’s Departments of Education and Statistics has shocked the wand-wielding world this morning, after it unleashed a scathing indictment of Schooling for Witchcraft and Wizardry, saying that the mostly magic-focussed schooling system leaves almost 90% of young wizards “horribly unprepared” for normal and everyday society.

According to the study, many famous institutions, such as Hogwarts School, focus too much on “arcane and not-that-useful subjects such as Potions, Alchemy and Defense Against the Dark Arts” and entirely leave out vital fields of study such as languages, mathematics, statistics, geography, politics, and sexual education.

“It’s ridiculous,” said Minister of Magic Neville Shortbottom. “Our schools teach skills that you might use once or twice in your life, like Alohamora or Expecto Patronum and yet they teach you nothing about basic addition or subtraction, calculus, grammar or spelling. Many say, ‘oh, but we have magic for that,’ but what if you’re out in the Muggle world or don’t have your wand?”

This isn't the first criticism of the Wizarding world's governance, legislation, social bounds and norms and general normalised societal conventions. In early 2011, the Wizard world was accused of being a "racist, almost Apartheid-like separation of races, magic and non-magic, which revels in secrecy, discrimination, technophobia and incredibly dangerous and unnecessary inventions", such as the ridiculous risky game of Quidditch, and prisons full of dangerous sorcerers guarded by horrific soul-sucking demons (which are then posted to guard schools).

However, this is just the beginning of scandalous findings against the Magic world’s schooling system, after a seven-book report, published by Rowling, J et al exposed the horrific dangers that school-going wizards face on a daily basis.

This report, which focused mostly on Hogwarts School, showed how schools have declined under the headmastership of noted wizards, such as maybe-homosexual-maybe-not Albus Dumbledore.

“Hogwarts in particular was a real shock to all parents,” said Head of The Association for Schooling Safety, Mandy Castmoore. “We found that in many cases, there had been no rigorous HR-approved hiring policy or system of controls, background scrutiny or checks and balances for employing new teachers, often hiring dangerous and entirely unqualified madmen and servants of the Dark Lord himself as educational instructors and professors. The school grounds and classrooms are filled with deadly poisons and vicious animals, and there were no Emergency Medical Services available during any of the Quidditch Matches, which were often played in lightning and rain. Add to this the fact that some idiot thought it would be a good idea to let walking undead Soul-Vacuum-cleaners prowl around the campus on the flimsy basis of ‘security’, and you have yourself a ticking timebomb.”

Wizards who have been through the schooling system are reportedly already feeling the brunt of this ruinous education system.

“This guy walked into my shop the other day and bought a chocolate frog for 32 Knuts, a bag of unicorn hair and serpent’s venom for 53 Sickles, and a new wand for 6 Galleons 82 Sickles. When he asked me how much I owed him, I had no clue,”said shop owner Eric Mandelson. “When I admitted it to him and asked him if he knew, he said no, and we just stood there awkwardly. I don’t even have a calculator spell. I know Muggles have machines and 'apps' to prevent this problem, but even if I had one I wouldn’t know how to use it.”

The Ministry is reportedly now looking at improving wizards' and witches' education by replacing "arcane and outdated subjects", such as Divinity and Levitation, with more modern fields of study such as Maths, Physics and Language studies.

"We're excited," said Minister Shortbottom. "This will be a Patronus of knowledge right up the arse of the Dementor of ignorance."

Schools ban "racist, classist" Chess

It has been a fantastic day for equal rights, after schools around the world announced their decision to finally ban the overtly racist and classist piece of offensive intolerance disguised as a board game, Chess.

“Just look at the game,” said Headmaster of Checkerton High School, Chek Mayt, “It’s all about kings and queens forcing the poor proletariat pawns around a board, and about whites fighting blacks to control a limited bit of territory. We’re just glad we can finally throw this Nazi-esque piece of crude pro-supremacy propaganda in the bin.”

Chess, as we all know, was invented by 1623 by Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, who came up with the concept after realising how charred or polished bones of innocent men and women could each be carved into different little figurines for use in board games aimed at whiling away the quiet moments between public executions. Chess was preceded by the far more bigoted Backgammon (a word which derives from the Old Latin, Bacchus Gammonius, meaning “slaughter of innocents”) which involved impaling white and black pieces on different colour spikes, with the winner being the one who can get rid of their particular ethic group the fastest.

Mayt is just one of many Education professionals who stand by the new ban. He added that what made the game even more like a mini Apartheid was how some pieces, like the Bishop, are forced to always remain on their specific coloured area.

“What are we trying to teach our kids? That we are all just expendable, exploited pieces on the board of life, divided up by the colour of our skin and never allowed by society to leave our predefined roles or change our lot in life? What if a rook wants to move in an ‘L’ shape? What if a pawn wants to take a step to the side? What if a king doesn’t want to sacrifice his subjects in a pointless war that has no real purpose or reason except racial hatred and territorial disputes?”

Schools have for a number of years now been trying to slowly marginalise chess out of their hallways through covert operations, but they say that it has not yet proven successful, and that there was finally no other choice than drastic action.

“We used to pay kids to beat up the smaller kids who played this game between AP Maths and Advance Chemistry, calling them ‘nerds’ and ‘dorks’ in the hopes that they would bow to peer pressure and social norms and give up the game, but it’s still played today,” said Mayt. “Extreme measures are necessary. If we want to teach our kids tolerance and acceptance, we have to ban this game and condemn anyone who plays it.”

Some theorists are now trying to work on a “more tolerant, less ethnically charged version” of the game, but say they have encountered some difficulties.

“We first tried to fix it by changing the colours of the pieces, but even this has proven not enough. We tried yellow and red, but now it just looks like we’re trying to portray Asian and Indian ethnic cleansing.” In spite of these difficulties, these hard-working men and women say they are optimistic that they are on the verge of a “much better game”.

“We’re making a new version in which every piece is a mutli-coloured rainbow pawn – so that we’re all equal and racially sensitive – and a new bunch of rules in which your pieces democratically elect a King, and then you spend the rest of the game exercising passive measures instead of violence, equipping your pieces with placards, marijuana, flowers and an iconic soundtrack to stop the pointless violence of war. Sure, there isn’t a winner or loser, and it’s not at all fun – but isn’t that the best way to teach kids the basic lessons of life?”

The game goes on sale next week, alongside the new anti-capitalist version of a popular board game, Marx-nopoly, in which players equally distribute land and spread their Pass-Go-Collect-200-Dollars income evenly among the masses.