Wednesday, October 04, 2006

News Article (satire)

In a newly leaked memo obtained by this news agency, we've learned of a conspiracy of silence around keeping young children from understanding spatial geometry.

"If they're that smart, that young, we'll never be able to control them later" one official is quoted as saying.

Apparently, this conspiracy stretches over several decades. The memo is on Department of Education letterhead, although it is unsigned and we're assured untracable to any particular cubicle within the building. However, forensic analysis reveals it's been in circulation since approximately the mid 1970s [editor's note: Ed.gov isn't that old, please factcheck].

Agreeing to speak off the record, an additional source in the White House provided further details about just what is being suppressed. "There's this really easy way to teach the kind of thing the Greeks were into, like polyhedrons 'n stuff, which in the current political climate are deemed just too subversive for impressionable young minds to be exposed to."

"Some even speculate over exposure to polyhedra can make you gay" he continued, "and how much is too much? -- better to err on the side of caution."

This "really easy way" another source revealed, involves dividing a regular tetrahedron (a kind of three sided pyramid with a triangular base) into various other proportional shapes with similarly greek names, and organizing everything "concentrically" (mathematical jargon for "around the same center").

Our news agency is so far unable to obtain any pictures of the geometry in question, which are apparently still deeply classified. Until further details are learned, this obscure conspiracy may continue for some time.

There's just no easy way to decipher just what these anonymous officials are really talking about. We'd really need to see something.

Oh wait, this just in: an anonymous fax from North Korea. The picture is somewhat blurry, given that nation's backwardly Stalinist phone system, but for what it's worth, here it is: