60 Minutes

Tonight's 60 Minutes represented the culmination of my political career in fifth grade. While my teacher, who still manages to have employment, was busy harassing me (see below), I was blazing the trails of some of the most significant issues of our time.

First, along with my best friend, I organized a verbal protest in our dining hall against Chiquita bananas for environmental damage. Little did I know the company was allegedly in bed with bloodthirsty, drug-dealing warlords, too. According to tonight's 60 Minutes report, Chiquita paid Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia $2 million for "protection." As it turns out, we were not only eating bananas grown on land that might have once held a tropical rainforest; we were also eating bananas grown under the watchful eye of a barbarian horde. But no, I was being "too loud" in the dining hall, and had to "quiet down."

Second, I delivered an award-winning speech on the necessity of defending sharks, particularly from the shark fin soup industry. For this I received due consideration, but only because I crafted the words outside the classroom, away from the clutches of my teacher - a real Gradgrind, or Nurse Ratched. My speech's opening lines* continue to strike a nerve among those fortunate enough to listen, and I plan someday to recreate the speech in its entirety. This evening's 60 Minutes, however, will do for now, since it concluded the report with my overall argument: sharks deserve legal protection from violent fishermen. I should add that, in light of the want of a statute governing such barbaric behavior in international waters, one should be written post-haste.

If you want to see what a brilliant mind I was in the fifth grade, as opposed to today, then take a look at this evening's 60 Minutes.

Perhaps you will judge me better than did my teacher, who rather than rewarding me, threw me out of the classroom multiple times, discouraged outside reading, arranged a meeting between my parents and the lower school principal, and encouraged other students to ridicule me with impunity. Shame. SHAME!

* "Shark: nightmare of the deep, savage of the sea, maneater - these words ... "