Saturday, April 19, 2008
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
QUESTIONS IN THE PENSIONERS MAGAZINE
Q: Where can men over the age of 60 find younger, sexy women who are interested in them?
A: Try a bookstore---under fiction.
Q: What can a man do while his wife is going through menopause?
A: Keep busy. If you're handy with tools, you can finish the basement.
A: Yes. Matthew 14:92: "And Mary rode Joseph's ass all the way toEgypt
Q: How can you increase the heart rate of your 60+ year old husband?
A: Tell him you're pregnant.
Q: How can you avoid that terrible curse of the elderly---wrinkles?
A: Take off your glasses
Q: Seriously! What can I do for these crow's feet and all those wrinkles on my face?
A: Go braless. It will usually pull them out.
Q: Why should 60+ year old people use valet parking?
A: Valets don't forget where they park your car.
Q: Is it common for 60+ year olds to have problems with short term memory storage?
A: Storing memory is not a problem, retrieving it is a problem.
Q: As people age, do they sleep more soundly?
A: Yes, but usually in the afternoon.
Q: Where should 60+ year olds look for eye glasses?
A: On their foreheads.
Q: What is the most common remark made by 60+ year olds when they enter antique stores?
A: "Gosh, I remember these."
A: Try a bookstore---under fiction.
Q: What can a man do while his wife is going through menopause?
A: Keep busy. If you're handy with tools, you can finish the basement.
When you are done you will have a place to live.
Q: Someone has told me that menopause is mentioned in the Bible.
A: Yes. Matthew 14:92: "And Mary rode Joseph's ass all the way to
Q: How can you increase the heart rate of your 60+ year old husband?
A: Tell him you're pregnant.
Q: How can you avoid that terrible curse of the elderly---wrinkles?
A: Take off your glasses
Q: Seriously! What can I do for these crow's feet and all those wrinkles on my face?
A: Go braless. It will usually pull them out.
Q: Why should 60+ year old people use valet parking?
A: Valets don't forget where they park your car.
Q: Is it common for 60+ year olds to have problems with short term memory storage?
A: Storing memory is not a problem, retrieving it is a problem.
Q: As people age, do they sleep more soundly?
A: Yes, but usually in the afternoon.
Q: Where should 60+ year olds look for eye glasses?
A: On their foreheads.
Q: What is the most common remark made by 60+ year olds when they enter antique stores?
A: "Gosh, I remember these."
MUSLIMS CAN'T DANCE....
So this guy asks, "We realize it's a tradition in Islam for men to dance with men, and women to dance with women. But, at our wedding reception, my fiance and I would like your permission for us to dance together."
"Absolutely not," says the Mullah. "It's immoral. Men and women always dance separately."
"So," the guy says, "after the ceremony I can't even dance with my own wife?"
"No," says the Mullah. "It's forbidden in Islam."
"Well, okay," says the young man. "What about sex? Can we have sex?"
"Of course!" replies the Mullah. Sex is OK within marriage to have children."
"What about different positions?" asks the man.
"No problem," says the Mullah.
"Woman on top?" the man asks.
"Sure," says the Mullah. "Go for it."
"Doggy style?"
"Sure!"
"On the kitchen table?"
"Yes, yes!"
"Can we do it with all my four wives together, on rubber sheets, with a bottle of hot oil, a couple of vibrators, leather harness, a bucket of honey and a porn video?"
"You may indeed!" enthuses the Mullah.
"Can we do it standing up?"
"No," says the Mullah.
"Why not?" asks the man.
"It could lead to dancing."
"Absolutely not," says the Mullah. "It's immoral. Men and women always dance separately."
"So," the guy says, "after the ceremony I can't even dance with my own wife?"
"No," says the Mullah. "It's forbidden in Islam."
"Well, okay," says the young man. "What about sex? Can we have sex?"
"Of course!" replies the Mullah. Sex is OK within marriage to have children."
"What about different positions?" asks the man.
"No problem," says the Mullah.
"Woman on top?" the man asks.
"Sure," says the Mullah. "Go for it."
"Doggy style?"
"Sure!"
"On the kitchen table?"
"Yes, yes!"
"Can we do it with all my four wives together, on rubber sheets, with a bottle of hot oil, a couple of vibrators, leather harness, a bucket of honey and a porn video?"
"You may indeed!" enthuses the Mullah.
"Can we do it standing up?"
"No," says the Mullah.
"Why not?" asks the man.
"It could lead to dancing."
CHELSEA CLINTON AND THE SOLDIER
Chelsea Clinton recently discussed current events with a U.S. soldier
She asked if, as an American fighting man, anything scared him. He told her there were only three things that he feared:
1) Osama
2) Obama
3) And Yo Momma
THANKS TO oldhorsetailsnake.blogspot.com
She asked if, as an American fighting man, anything scared him. He told her there were only three things that he feared:
1) Osama
2) Obama
3) And Yo Momma
THANKS TO oldhorsetailsnake.blogspot.com
WHY WE HAVE AN OIL CRISIS
A lot of people can't understand how we have an oil shortage in this country.
There's a very simple answer: Nobody bothered to check the oil.
We just didn't know we were getting low.
The reason for that is purely geographical.
Our oil is located in MELBOURNE, SYDNEY, PERTH , BRISBANE, ADELAIDE
and a few bitty other places.
But, Our DIPSTICKS are located in Canberra.
Any questions? I didn't think so.
There's a very simple answer: Nobody bothered to check the oil.
We just didn't know we were getting low.
The reason for that is purely geographical.
Our oil is located in MELBOURNE, SYDNEY, PERTH , BRISBANE, ADELAIDE
and a few bitty other places.
But, Our DIPSTICKS are located in Canberra.
Any questions? I didn't think so.
OLD ...... BUT NOT STUPID
I had to replace a light bulb in the kitchen today, but Mrs. Norty told me I was too old and clumsy to be standing on a ladder.
So, I asked a neighbour.
Then I held the ladder while the light bulb was being replaced.
I may be old, but I am not stupid.
So, I asked a neighbour.
Then I held the ladder while the light bulb was being replaced.
I may be old, but I am not stupid.
Thanks to http://oldhorsetailsnake.blogspot.com/
ICE FISHING
CLICK ON THE ARROW ABOVE
A Irishman wanted to go ice fishing. He'd seen many books on the subject and, finally, after getting all the necessary tools he made for the nearest frozen lake. After positioning his comfy footstool, he started to make a circular cut in the ice.
Suddenly -- from the sky -- a voice boomed,
"THERE ARE NO FISH UNDER THE ICE!"
Startled, the Irishman moved further down the ice, poured a Thermo of cappuccino, and began to cut yet another hole. Again, from the heavens, the voice boomed,
"THERE ARE NO FISH UNDER THE ICE!"
He stopped, looked skyward, and said, "Bejasus, Is dat you, Lord?"
The voice replied, "No, I'm the Ice-Rink Manager."
WHERE'S THE RAKE???
WHERE'S THE RAKE???
Turn the sound on and click here:
http://www.smwa.net/downloads/funny/rake_bush4.swf
Thanks to Shazza
Turn the sound on and click here:
http://www.smwa.net/downloads/funny/rake_bush4.swf
Thanks to Shazza
HOW TO START A CONVERSATION
20 Excellent Conversation Questions Everyone Loves
Once you have experimented asking questions for a while, you will realize just how great questions are for starting conversations, helping them flow and for getting to know someone better. Now it is time to have some fun with it!
What makes an excellent conversation question?
1. It is easy to answer
2. It does not cause offence
3. It includes everyone
4. People will not be judged on their responses!
This last point is particularly important, as people will be reluctant to talk if they feel they will be judged. So you can see a good conversation question is also about tone and circumstances.
Below is a list of excellent conversation questions to delve deeper into the personalities of people you feel comfortable with and find out a few more things about them. These are great for social gatherings and parties or anywhere where you want to have fun and get to know someone in the process.
It is a great spin on the old party game "Twenty Questions" but see where each question leads you when you get the answers. Do not turn your questioning into an interrogation and listen to the answers you get.
Pick up on these answers and as subsidiary questions, add your own answers: ask whatever seems appropriate and whatever the other person seems to want you to do. Just go with the flow and enjoy it!
1. If you were God for a day, what would you do?
2. If you could be the parent of one famous person, who would you want it to be and why?
3. What was the last thing you regret buying?
4. If you had a chance to bring one person back from the dead, who would it be and why?
5. What three things you regret not learning to do?
6. If you had a crystal ball that could tell you the truth about any one thing you wished to know about yourself, life, the future, or anything else, what would you want to know?
7. What's worse... having expectations that are too high, or having no expectations at all?
8. How do you know when you're in love?
9. What is the most important invention or innovation that has happened during your life-time?
10. How would you spend your ideal day?
11. What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?
12. What three adjectives might other people use to describe your personality?
13. Who would you choose to be shipwrecked on a desert island with?
14. What is your idea of a perfect romantic evening?
15. If you were to be remembered for one thing, what would you like it to be?
16. If you were guaranteed honest responses to any three questions, whom would you question, and what would you ask them?
17. If you saw someone shoplifting, what would you do?
18. Is there anything you would willingly give your life for?
19. If you could re-live a day of your life again, which would it be and why?
20. If you could be invisible for a day, what would you do?
These are all light-hearted questions that should cause no-one offence, but they also touch on philosophical issues and allow you to really get to know a person - if they are honest with their answers. You make it a lot more likely that they will tell the truth if you set the scene and provide a relaxed atmosphere and if you are prepared to chip in with your own answers.
Under those circumstances, these provide excellent conversation questions to enable you to know more about your friends than you might ever have found out in any other way.
What makes an excellent conversation question?
1. It is easy to answer
2. It does not cause offence
3. It includes everyone
4. People will not be judged on their responses!
This last point is particularly important, as people will be reluctant to talk if they feel they will be judged. So you can see a good conversation question is also about tone and circumstances.
Below is a list of excellent conversation questions to delve deeper into the personalities of people you feel comfortable with and find out a few more things about them. These are great for social gatherings and parties or anywhere where you want to have fun and get to know someone in the process.
It is a great spin on the old party game "Twenty Questions" but see where each question leads you when you get the answers. Do not turn your questioning into an interrogation and listen to the answers you get.
Pick up on these answers and as subsidiary questions, add your own answers: ask whatever seems appropriate and whatever the other person seems to want you to do. Just go with the flow and enjoy it!
1. If you were God for a day, what would you do?
2. If you could be the parent of one famous person, who would you want it to be and why?
3. What was the last thing you regret buying?
4. If you had a chance to bring one person back from the dead, who would it be and why?
5. What three things you regret not learning to do?
6. If you had a crystal ball that could tell you the truth about any one thing you wished to know about yourself, life, the future, or anything else, what would you want to know?
7. What's worse... having expectations that are too high, or having no expectations at all?
8. How do you know when you're in love?
9. What is the most important invention or innovation that has happened during your life-time?
10. How would you spend your ideal day?
11. What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?
12. What three adjectives might other people use to describe your personality?
13. Who would you choose to be shipwrecked on a desert island with?
14. What is your idea of a perfect romantic evening?
15. If you were to be remembered for one thing, what would you like it to be?
16. If you were guaranteed honest responses to any three questions, whom would you question, and what would you ask them?
17. If you saw someone shoplifting, what would you do?
18. Is there anything you would willingly give your life for?
19. If you could re-live a day of your life again, which would it be and why?
20. If you could be invisible for a day, what would you do?
These are all light-hearted questions that should cause no-one offence, but they also touch on philosophical issues and allow you to really get to know a person - if they are honest with their answers. You make it a lot more likely that they will tell the truth if you set the scene and provide a relaxed atmosphere and if you are prepared to chip in with your own answers.
Under those circumstances, these provide excellent conversation questions to enable you to know more about your friends than you might ever have found out in any other way.
Peter Murphy is a peak performance expert. He recently produced a very popular free report: 10 Simple Steps to Developing Communication Confidence. Apply now because it is available only at: conversation starters
HERE IS A CLEVER IDEA
Don't you hate it when the spoon handle falls into your food? This clever landing pad prevents such accidents and keeps used spoons off counters and tabletops. Multi-functional and stackable. Includes spoon. Designed by Elan Falvai and handmade at Flavour Design in Southern California.
There are more great ideas here www.uncommongoods.com/
RINGO DOESN'T COME CHEAP
RINGO STARR’S appearance at Liverpool’s Capital of Culture opening weekend cost the city more than £50,000, the Daily Post can reveal. Although he charged no fee for the event, the former Beatle and his entourage, which included Dave Stewart, racked up costs of £53,655 getting to the city and staying in the exclusive Hope Street Hotel.
Starr used the high-profile start to Liverpool’s showcase year to promote his new single Liverpool 8, which eventually charted at 99.
He played from the top of St George’s Hall, and a day later also appeared at the Liverpool Echo Arena for the opening concert in a well-received homecoming.
But within days the drummer had angered Liverpudlians with an interview with the BBC’s Jonathan Ross when he was asked if there was anything he missed about the city and said “no”.
Last week, his life-size topiary figure at Liverpool South Parkway station was vandalised only weeks after being unveiled. All the other Beatles were left untouched, prompting speculation his head may have been chopped off in revenge for his TV comments.
Liverpool Culture Company initially refused to say how much it had cost to get Starr to appear at the opening weekend, citing commercial confidentiality.
But the expenses were released following a Freedom of Informa- tion request from the Daily Post.
The £29,550 for flights included two first-class tickets from the US.
Starr and his entourage used a total of 48 nights at the Hope Street Hotel in across 14 rooms, costing £8,980. And while in the city Starr had his own personal car and there were four others for use by members of his crew. Ground transportation cost a total of £13,375. Hospitality and catering cost £1,750, bringing Starr’s expenses to £53,655.
10 BEST HITMEN
10 best hitmen: why the screen loves a deadly assassin
From The Jackal to Nikita, the screen loves a deadly assassin. Kevin Maher gets the Top Ten movie hitmen in his sights:
Click on the name for video
Warning: some video clips may feature strong violence
It’s not the most obvious profession. Yet when the heroes of the new comedy thriller In Bruges – Ray (Colin Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson) – are introduced as hitmen we accept this completely. They go about their business, hiding out in the titular Belgian town after a botched kill. They drink beer, joke and meet women. And then, eventually, Ralph Fiennes arrives as Harry, the hitman-in-chief. And still, we never once say, ‘Hang on! How many hitmen are there in the world?’ This is because movies are so en-amoured by hitmen that, somehow, we are too. We love their deadly authority and their glamour, In short, we love the thrill of power.
PHILIP RAVEN
ALAN LADD
THIS GUN FOR HIRE (1942)
Ladd went from uncredited roles in studio pabulum to Alist stardom thanks to this one movie. The reason? He played a hitman, and with complete ferocity. His Raven is an unregenerate toughie who, in the midst of a Graham Greene adaptation about selling wartime poison gas secrets, has no compunction about shooting women (or beating them) as well as men, and casually murdering any witnesses to his hits, including cops.
However, studio morality of the time insisted that Raven be humanised, so he was given a fondness for cats and a back story that involved childhood beatings from his aunt. So, he’s fine then.
LEON
JEAN RENO
LEON (1994)
The years of murder and mysterious solitude have clearly taken their toll on Leon (Reno), a troubled assassin in New York. His best friend is a rubber plant and his pastimes include being bullied by 12-year-old orphan Matilda (Natalie Portman). He does, however, dispatch his victims with lethal efficiency and has been known to hang upside-down from the ceiling and let rip with an automatic weapon in each hand.
JEF COSTELLO
ALAIN DELON
LE SAMOURAI (1967)
Delon’s suave Costello set the standard. He lived alone with a pet songbird, was devoted to the teachings of The Book of Bushido (see Ghost Dog), and treated each contract with a seemingly blank passivity. His kill ratio, nonetheless, was pretty poor, and after a lone opening murder, he spent most of the movie on the run. The fedora and the trench-coat, however, screamed Parisian chic noir.
THE JACKAL
EDWARD FOX
THE DAY OF THE JACKAL In 1973
Fox brought some gentlemanly gravitas to the genre thanks to his aristocratic portrayal of the mastermind assassin with French President de Gaulle in his sights. Fox’s Jackal survives on fake passports, raffish charm and a specialised rifle that can explode a watermelon at 200 yards. That we know he fails from the start doesn’t matter. That we want him to succeed is more telling.
NIKITA
ANNE PARILLAUD
NIKITA (1990)
The totemic mother of all gun-toting distaff assassins to come, Parillaud’s Nikita was a post-punk revelation when she first hit our screens in Besson’s brilliantly preposterous Pygmalion redux. She began as a crazy-eyed heroin addict who was eventually transformed by Tcheky Karyo’s black ops Henry Higgins into a slinkily sexy killing machine. Her less dynamic boyfriend Marco (Jean-Hugues Anglade), typically, spent a lot of time whining outside bathrooms while she topped visiting dignitaries with a high-powered sniper rifle. She gave birth, figuratively speaking, to the latterday femme fatales of Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, The Long Kiss Goodnight, Underworld, Aeon Flux and TV’s Alias.
THE BRIDE
UMA THURMAN
KILL BILL From 2003
Thurman’s “The Bride” cut a bloody swath through the Kill Bill films, mostly clad in a yellow tracksuit once worn by Bruce Lee. She’s a jilted member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad and, courtesy of the director Quentin Tarantino, a walking, high-kicking movie reference. Still, she demolishes 88 crazed mobsters, not to mention divesting Darryl Hannah’s rival of her remaining eye.
GHOST DOG
FOREST WHITAKER
GHOST DOG: THE WAY OF THE SAMURAI (1999)
Entering and exiting buildings unseen seems to be the greatest skill that Ghost Dog (Whitaker) can claim. Otherwise, the hero of Jim Jarmusch’s downbeat thriller is more comfortable hanging out with pigeons in his rooftop haven, reading from The Book of the Samurai, or talking nonsense with his best friend, a French-speaking ice-cream vendor.
ANTON CHIGURH
JAVIER BARDEM
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (2007)
OK, so the hair is bad and the face implacable, and it’s not much of a boast to have introduced the word “Friendo” to the language. But Bardem’s killer, lifted by the Coen brothers from the pages of a Cormac McCarthy novel, is undoubtedly the genre’s most intimidating. A psychopath where other hitmen are conflicted, Chigurh has no internal processing, no angst and no regret. At most, he teases, asking, “What’s the most you ever lost on a coin toss?”
VINCENT
TOM CRUISE
COLLATERAL
Despite the greying hair, the shiny suit and the impromptu pop philosophy (“Improvise, adapt to the environment, Darwin, shit happens, I Ching, whatever man!”), there is something perfectly Cruise-like about the hitman Vincent in Michael Mann’s 2004 thriller. As he’s ferried around LA by a luckless cabbie, Max (Jamie Foxx), Vincent reveals a focus, and an intensity of purpose that, though very Cruise, is also, well, terrifying.
JEFFREY
CHOW YUN-FAT
THE KILLER (1989)
A soulful murder-poet with a penchant for double-gunned mid-air, slow-mo, ballistic mayhem, Chow’s Jeffrey is a hitman with style to spare. He accidentally blinded his girlfriend on his last job (she wandered into his line of fire – typical!), and now all he needs to do to earn enough money for a cornea transplant (I know, me neither) is take down the entire Hong Kong mafia without getting arrested by the dogged detective inspector Lee (Danny Lee). He uses a lot of bullets.
Monday, April 14, 2008
WENGER REFUSES TO BRAND REFEREES A BUNCH OF MAN UTD LOVING BASTARDS
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ARSENAL manager Arsene Wenger last night refused to condemn premier league referees as a collection of bastards who would do anything to help Manchester United win.
As his team's title hopes came to an end, Wenger remained tight-lipped on the penalty and free kick decisions made by a man who probably has Ronaldo posters on his wall and dreams of tender, post-coital snuggling with Ryan Giggs.
The Arsenal manager said: "I do not want to say anything about the way they cheat and what bastards they are.
"There is also no way I'm going to accuse them of giving away penalties like they were romantic gifts for their Old Trafford lover boys."
He added: "I would never claim that referees hold secret meetings to plot how they can thwart me, before praying to a giant, golden statue of that miserable, Glaswegian halfwit.
"Nor will I speculate that more than half of all premier league referees lie awake at night thinking about rubbing their excited hands all over Wayne Rooney's lightly oiled buttocks."
A spokesman for the Referee's Association said: "As Mr Wenger points out, all premier league referees are completely impartial and would never favour one team of towering, Cheshire-based superheroes over another consisting largely of sweaty, malodourous Frenchmen."
He added: "Do you ever just lose yourself in Rio Ferdinand's eyes?"
REALLY BAD NEWS
A British Scientist is giving a lecture, and and announces his findings - " Well, after a long and careful study of Earth movements in the next 6 months, we have some rather shocking findings. there is some bad news and some good news. "
The scientist continues- " Well, we have looked at this in great detail, and it appears that these plate movements will cause massive Earthquakes, which will greatly affect Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the Middle East. In 6 months time over 50 000 000 Mulsims might be left homeless, starving and even dead. The situation will make it impossible for many people in affected areas to leave the country, too, meaning that individuals won't be able to find refuge in other nations. "
The scientist looks at the crowd- they look horrified-
he then says
" And the Bad news is,
it looks like this years FA cup final might have to be cancelled. "
.
The scientist continues- " Well, we have looked at this in great detail, and it appears that these plate movements will cause massive Earthquakes, which will greatly affect Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the Middle East. In 6 months time over 50 000 000 Mulsims might be left homeless, starving and even dead. The situation will make it impossible for many people in affected areas to leave the country, too, meaning that individuals won't be able to find refuge in other nations. "
The scientist looks at the crowd- they look horrified-
he then says
" And the Bad news is,
it looks like this years FA cup final might have to be cancelled. "
.
MORE BAD NEWS
A man's wife is giving birth to his son. After the birth, the doctor takes the man on one side and says- " Well, your son has been born, but we have some good news and some bad news." The man says " Ok, tell it me straight. "
The doctor looks at him and says " Well, your baby is going to be totally disabled. He is unable to feed himself, will never be able to walk or see, and will require constant care throughtout his life. The fact is, this isn't covered by your insurance, so its going to cost you a fortune- you will need to sell your car to pay for it. "
The man says- " Well, thats awful. But please, tell me the good news."
The doctor looks at him and says- " Mate, that WAS the good news. The bad news is that your baby is ginger. "
.
The doctor looks at him and says " Well, your baby is going to be totally disabled. He is unable to feed himself, will never be able to walk or see, and will require constant care throughtout his life. The fact is, this isn't covered by your insurance, so its going to cost you a fortune- you will need to sell your car to pay for it. "
The man says- " Well, thats awful. But please, tell me the good news."
The doctor looks at him and says- " Mate, that WAS the good news. The bad news is that your baby is ginger. "
.
LONDON OLYMPICS
The 2012 Olympics in London are going to be an amazing cultural experience. Imagine the hordes of international fans- Poles, Czechs, Russians, Hungarians, Latvians, Africans, Jamaicans, Indians, Pakistanis, Iraqis, Turks, Greeks, Thais, Australians, South Africans- who will have travelled as many as 10 miles to watch these games.
.
.
FRENCH MILITARY VICTORIES
Try this.... Go to Google.... Type in " French Military Victories" and then hit search..... See what comes up as the first item.
The 5 Most Ridiculous Lies You Were Taught In History Class
#5.
Columbus Discovered the Earth is Round
The story we heard:
In 1492, a Spanish ponce by the name of Christopher Columbus won his long-standing feud with the monarchy and the Catholic church to get funding for a voyage to East Asia. They were afraid that he would fail spectacularly, because everybody knew that the Earth was a flat disc, and the direction Columbus was sailing in would cause him to fall off the edge and into the mouth of the giant turtle that supported it.
Columbus, as we were told, did fail to reach his destination, but not because the world was flat--it was because he crashed into the future greatest nation on Earth, baby! Thus, Columbus proved the world was round, discovered America, and a national holiday was born.
The truth:
In the 1400s, the flat-earth theory was taken about as seriously as the Time Cube theory is today, if not less so. The shape of the world has been pretty much settled since the orb theory was first proposed by the ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras, around 2,000 years before the existence of Spain.
In fact, the navigational techniques of Columbus' time were actually based on the fact that the Earth was a sphere. Trying to navigate the globe as if it was a flat plane would have fucked up the trip even more than it was.
The Spanish government's reluctance to pay for Columbus' expeditions didn't have anything to do with their misconceptions about the shape of the world. Ironically, it was because Columbus himself severely underestimated the size of the Earth and everybody knew it. The distance he planned to travel wouldn't have taken him anywhere near Asia. Nevertheless, he eventually scraped together enough funds to embark on his ridiculous adventure, and the clusterfuck that was the Columbus voyage has been celebrated annually in the Americas and in Spain ever since.
So where did the myth come from? It began with author and historical charlatan Washington Irving, who wrote a novel about Columbus in 1838. The novel was fiction, but some elements managed to creep into our history textbooks anyway, probably by some editors who wanted to spice it up a bit. Who's going to read a history book that's just filled with a bunch of boring shit anyway?
#4.
Einstein Flunked Math
The story we heard:
Motivational speakers love to tell this tale, inspiring underachievers with the story of this German kid who was just like you! Despite his sincerest efforts he could never manage to do well in his math exams, and struggled desperately with physics while working as a lowly patent clerk.
That muddled kid grew up to be Albert Fucking Einstein! And if he can do it, then so can you!
The truth:
Well, no you can't. As it turns out, Einstein was a mathematical prodigy, and before he was 12, he was already better at arithmetic and calculus than you are now. Einstein was in fact so fucking smart that he believed school was holding him back, and his parents purchased advanced textbooks for him to study from. Not only did he pass math with flying colors, it's entirely possible that he was actually teaching the class by the end of semester.
The idea that Einstein did badly at school is thought to have originated with a a 1935 Ripley's Believe it or Not! trivia column.
There's actually a good reason why it's a bad idea to include Robert Ripley among the references in your advanced university thesis. The famous bizarre trivia "expert" never cited his sources, and the various "facts" he presented throughout his career were an amalgamation of things he thought he read somewhere, heard from somebody, or pulled out of his ass. The feature's title probably should have been: Believe it or Not! I Get Paid Either Way, Assholes.
When he was first shown this supposed expose of his early life, Einstein allegedly just laughed, and probably went on to solve another 12 mysteries of quantum physics before dinner. By the time he finally kicked the bucket in 1955, it's entirely possible that "failure" was the one concept that Albert Einstein had never managed to master.
Of course, this just reaffirms what we have always suspected, deep down: success really is decided at birth, and your life will never be better than it is right now. Sorry about that.
#3.
Newton and the Apple
The story we heard:
You've probably heard of Isaac Newton. He's pretty much the Jesus of physics. In the late 17th century, Newton practically fucking invented science. The discoveries we can thank him for include the laws of motion, the visible spectrum, the speed of sound, the law of cooling, and calculus. Yes, all of goddamn calculus. One wonders if anybody in history ever had a thought before Newton.
Probably his most famous discovery, however, is the law of gravity. The story goes that Newton, a modest mathematician and professor of physics, was sitting under the shade of an apple tree one sunny day, when an apple dropped from a branch and bopped him right on the head.
While most people would merely think "Ouch! Son of a bitch!" and stare warily upward for 10 minutes, Newton's first instinct was to formulate the entire set of universal laws governing the motion of gravitating bodies, a theory so sound that it went unchallenged and unmodified for over 200 years.
The truth:
Newton never mentioned the thing with the apple, and in fact it was another guy named John Conduitt who first told the story some 60 years after it supposedly happened. Even then, he was decisively vague about whether Newton actually saw an apple, or whether the apple is a metaphor that he used to illustrate the idea of gravity for people less intelligent than he was (read: everybody):
"Whilst he was musing in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from the tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from the earth but that this power must extend much further."
You'll notice that even then we don't get the thing with the apple actually hitting Newton in the head, it got added somewhere along the line to add the element of cartoonish slapstick to his genius life.
We like to think complex discoveries happen this way, with a sudden light bulb popping on over our head. Kind of makes it seem like it could happen to us one day, the next great idea will just occur to us while we're wasting the afternoon on a park bench. In reality, Newton spent the best part of his life formulating and perfecting his theories.
When we have kids, we're going to tell them the truth, dammit. Just Newton, hunched over his piles of papers covered with clouds of tiny numbers. Just months and years of tedious, grinding, silent, lonely work, until he had a nervous breakdown and finally died years later, insane from Mercury poisoning. Welcome to the real world,
#2.
Washington and the Cherry Tree
The story:
It's a parable that resonates through every primary school student's retelling of the life and times of the man who was both America's first president, and the only president to also have been a superhero.
As a child, we were told, George Washington came into possession of a hatchet, and went about his days chopping the shit out of everything he saw. One day he came upon his father's prize cherry tree, and without so much as a second thought he chopped that sucker down, presumably because it was a Monarchist. Upon being quizzed by his father about the event, Washington proudly admitted that he had been the culprit, due to his inability to lie. The story was later loosely adapted to film with Jim Carrey in the leading role.
The truth:
In a fairly cynical culture, George Washington has still been elevated to the status of some kind of deity, thanks in part to a man named Mason Locke Weems. He was the author of the unfortunately titled biography "The Life of George Washington, with Curious Anecdotes Laudable to Himself and Exemplary to his Countrymen." This was the shortest title his editors could persuade him to agree to.
Weems recalled many fantastic stories about Washington, with particular emphasis on his overwhelming moral fortitude and infallibility. The cherry tree story is of particular importance, because it demonstrates that Washington can easily destroy things, and just chooses not to.
According to Weems, "at the sight of him, even those blessed spirits seem[ed] to feel new raptures." That's right, when the angels learned of the existence of George Washington, they began to second-think their allegiance to their much less powerful leader, God. Curiously, Weems waited until Washington was dead before publishing his anecdotes.
As it turns out, if Washington was indeed incapable of lying, then Mason Weems was surely his exact nemesis, seeing as his recounting of Washington's exploits were about as historically accurate as the 1999 Civil War documentary Wild Wild West.
Nevertheless, Weems' pack of lies were taught as fact in American school textbooks for over a century, probably because they are much more enthralling than the true story of a man who, by more reliable accounts, was actually a bland, boring and uncharismatic everyman who just happened to be taller than average, and pretty good at warring. The story still resonates today, delivered to your children's impressionable minds through such reliable media as Sesame Street.
Why does this bullshit story survive? Perhaps because the central message still resonates: "It's much easier to tell the truth when you're the one holding the ax."
#1.
Benjamin Franklin, the Kite and the Thunderstorm
The story:
Another great American hero to whom many seem to attribute mutant superpowers is Ben Franklin, the scientist and statesman whose inventions included bifocal spectacles, the urinary catheter and freedom. He was particularly interested in electricity, and faced with intense skepticism from his colleagues about his theory that lightning is electricity, legend has it that he conducted an experiment to prove them wrong.
Franklin, with a knowing wink, went out into a raging thunderstorm and released a kite with a lightning rod affixed to the top and a metal key attached to the string. When the kite had annoyed the face of God to the point that he threw a bolt of lightning at it, the charge passed down the string and into the key, and when Franklin touched the key, it let off a spark of static, which somehow allowed him to discover electricity.
The truth:
It's certainly true that Franklin at least proposed a kite experiment. Less certain, however, is whether or not he ever actually got around to performing it, and some sources suggest he did not. What is certain is that the experiment had nothing to do with lightning. If someone flew a kite into a storm, and it was struck by lightning, there's a good chance that person would be utterly destroyed. In fact, everyone in the vicinity would at the least suffer from hairless-scalp syndrome.
Many people today who believe the amended story of Franklin's kite experiment grew up immersed in the revisionist history of Walt Disney, whose classic cartoon Ben and Me portrayed Franklin not only as having flown the kite in a thunderstorm, but also having been a complete fucking jerk.
While few people still believe that all of Franklin's innovations are actually attributable to his pet mouse, the kite story is still widely accepted despite the unfortunate testimonies of anyone who's ever been stupid enough to replicate it.
The reality of Franklin's experiment is that it simply involved flying a kite into some clouds to collect a few harmless ions, in order to prove that the atmosphere carries a charge. It is through Franklin's discoveries that science was able to infer, later on, that lightning probably has something to do with electricity.
The idea that his kite was actually directly struck by a bolt of lightning is a rather dramatic exaggeration perpetuated by some school textbooks, which also helpfully serves to convince generations of children that getting hit by lightning is not only totally harmless, but scientific fun!
It also, like the Newton apple thing, takes one of history's great geniuses and portrays them experiencing childlike wonder at some now-common idea, as if everyone who lived before the 20th century was a childlike simpleton.
Why can't there be some other legend about him, one closer to his real personality? Like the time he pleasured six women at once. Sure, we made that up. But if you go out and repeat it enough, it'll be in the textbooks by 2050. Let's try it.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
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