Essay Questions

Fafnir asks:

Is Super Mario Brothers responsible for the recent escalation of plumber-on-turtle violence in America? Plumber-on-mushroom violence? Discuss.

Questions like this makes me nervous, like when when I took History 101 as a junior instead of a freshman, and the teacher made us read something St. Benedict wrote about how to organize a monastery, and the teacher asked what the reading revealed about the political structure of the Roman Empire, and as far as I could tell, St. Benedict said nothing about the Roman Empire, just what the monks should eat and where they should go, and so I hoped it was a trick question, and I answered that St. Benedict didn't even mention the Roman Empire, and he was mostly just worried about the monks, and the teacher gave me a "D" and I was labelled everlastingly as just an engineering blockhead, and of course St. Benedict didn't actually come right out and say that he was writing about the Roman Empire, he was hoping I could read between the lines, like all the "A" students could, and why did I wait till junior year to take History 101 anyway?