The
Magellan’s Log
Reality-perception
Test (MLRT)
by Staff of Magellan's Log
"When
I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful
tone. "It means just what I
choose it to mean, neither more
nor less."
—Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-glass (1871).
Everyone noticed that the number of the year changed, bigtime, in 2000. Many of us
failed to notice that reality itself changed. Objects and ideas that used to mean one
thing, suddenly meant something else.
Survival—not to mention success—in this new reality demands that we all get with
the program. To that end, we have gathered 20 examples in the "Magellan’s
Log Reality-perception Test" (affectionately referred to by those in the
mental-therapy trade as "the Mlurt").
Now, in the comfort of your own home or office, you can check up on your own grasp
of what’s really what in this exciting new era.
Look at each example and then decide which of the two meanings given is, in your mind,
correct.
As you will quickly perceive, the "a" answer in each case is the old-fashioned,
outmoded, 20th-century-reality answer, while the "b" answer is the correct one
for all financially successful, freedom-loving, unquestioningly obedient inhabitants of
the 21st century.
Note: This is a private, self-grading test, so if you cheat,
you are cheating only yourself.
1.
 a. Dog.
b. Efficient carrier of surgically implanted drugs or improvised explosive devices.
2.
 a. American flag.
b. Outward and visible sign of the American Empire, the only hope for the spread of
freedom and justice throughout the world; symbol of the inerrancy of the American
president and all his annointed spokespersons..
3.
 a. Ronald Reagan.
b. Savior of the old 20th-century world and foundation-layer for the wonderful new
21st-century world of liberty, justice, and free markets..
4.
 a. Wal-Mart.
b. Outward and visible proof that the only way to a world of freedom and justice is
through free-market enterprise.
5.
 a. Bible.
b. God’s word, inerrant and perfect no matter how many times it has been translated
and re-translated, and on whose literal meaning all successful lives are built.
6.
 a. Rush Limbaugh.
b. Latter-day prophet and truth-seeker, unafraid to follow his ideas to their logical,
freedom-promoting end.
7.
 a.
Welch’s Grape Juice.
b. When served in Holy Communion in a Southern Baptist church on Sunday, the blood of
Jesus Christ.
8.
 a.
Caravaggio’s "Love Conquers All."
b. Filthy perversion.
9.
 a. Human
female breast.
b. When shown at half-time of the Super Bowl (and generally in any other public place),
filthy perversion.
10.
 a. Jim Beam.
b. God’s gift to hard-working, right-thinking Americans of the masculine persuasion
(though it may, when appropriate, be shared with others) to strengthen them nightly in
their ceaseless fight again the dope-smoking hordes.
11.
 a. Enron.
b. An object lesson in what can happen when the God-fearing, red-blooded,
free-market-loving leadership of a hugely successful free-market corporation lets itself
be misled by a couple of evil accountants.
12.
 a. Rio Grande.
b. The only natural barrier protecting Americans from a flood of non-English-speaking,
poor, Catholic, brown-skinned hordes.
13.
 a. The New
York Times.
b. The Devil’s workshop of liberalism.
14.
 a. Eiffel Tower.
b. Symbol of vicious, left-wing, wine-sipping, big-word-using anti-Americanism.
15.
 a. Torture.
b. Extraction of information vital to the safe-guarding of the United States of America.
16.
 a. U.S. Capitol.
b. Seat of the two houses of the U.S. Congress whose sole function is implementation and
approval of legislation created by the White House.
17.
 a. Massachusetts.
b. Small, uppity New England state which, if it doesn’t get its act together, is
liable to find itself de-annexed and sent off to become part of the decadent EU.
18.
 a. Hollywood.
b. Hotbed of homosexual sheep-wranglers, Marx-loving actresses, and non-Christian seducers
of our nation’s youth.
19.
 a. Boy
Scouts of America.
b. Bastion of right-thinking sexuality and self-confident masculinity.
20.
 a.
West Texas village idiot.
b. The 43rd president of the United States.
SCORING:
Give yourself five points for each correct answer.
90-100: Congratulations! You are a well-adjusted
citizen of the new reality and either are, or will soon be, rolling in money!
75-85: You are headed in the right direction but
you need to clarify your thinking. Forbid all members of your household to watch any news
channel other than Fox, starting now!
70 or below: You are an unpatriotic,
Bill-of-Rights-fixated, ACLU-promoting (sorry, there’s no other way to put this)
traitor to the New American Reality. Beyond redemption, you should give serious thought to
moving to Paris.
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