Mozart was fairly unknown at the time of his death. How does the writer of all those operas become unknown? Yes, I know he wrote a lot of other beautiful music, but common people knew the operas. Only rich bastards who could afford the private concerts really knew the other stuff. How does the person who wrote “The Marriage of Figaro” become unknown? People today hold onto their fame better, I think, thanks to television. Even people who were only marginally famous for a short time hold onto fame better nowadays. How else could you explain Joey Buttafucco and Loraine Bobbit? But, for example, how does a guy like Nikola Tesla, possibly the greatest scientist of this or any other time, end up dying broke and unknown?

Tesla was born in 1856 in what is now Croatia. He is one of the most important inventors (if not the most important inventor) in history. His influence can be seen anywhere in modern civilization wherever electricity is used. He contributed to the fields of robotics, ballistics, physics, electromagnetism, and nuclear physics. He became famous in 1893 after his demonstration of wireless communication. In other words, forget Marconi; it was Tesla who invented the radio, the credit for which he did not receive until 1947.

When Tesla came to the United States in 1884, he had nothing except a letter of recommendation to Thomas Edison. Tesla went to work for Edison for the princely sum of $18 week. Tesla quickly proved his worth to the Edison company by solving some of Tom’s more difficult design problems. Edison offered Tesla the sum of $50,000 (worth a million today, adjusted for inflation) to redesign the company’s direct current generators. After finishing the task he went to Tom for the cash and Edison told him in true capitalistic fashion that Nick just didn’t understand the American sense of humor. Tesla quit after being refused a raise to $25 a week.

He formed his own company, Tesla Electrical Light and Manufacturing Company, based on using Alternating Current (AC) in contrast to Edison’s Direct Current (DC). Tesla’s investors were so dubious of his ideas that they relieved him of his responsibilities in essence firing him from his own company. Nikola worked as a common laborer for the next few years to raise money until he went to work for George Westinghouse. Westinghouse liked his ideas on Alternating Current. It is interesting to note that this battle between Direct Current and Alternating Current would lead to the electric chair.

When the electric chair was invented, Thomas Edison pushed for it to be run by Alternating Current, which may be surprising since Edison’s electricity ran on Direct Current. Edison felt that the chair, being an instrument of death, would make the public afraid of Alternating Current and lead to the eventual preeminence of Edison’s Direct Current. Edison’s move backfired on him and the public became enthralled with the new lethal furniture and Alternating Current eventually won out, which is what we use today in our homes.

In 1887 Tesla began working on x-ray technology and discovered that the rays could be harmful to humans, although he did not see that the harm was caused by radiation believing it was due to ozone. In 1891, at the World’s Fair, he was able to ignite Vacuum tubes wirelessly, thus proving the possibility of wireless energy transmission. He invented the fluorescent light. He invented the spark plug. In 1897 he demonstrated the first radio controlled robotic boat, believing that there could be a demand for such devices. He set up a laboratory in Colorado where he would prove that the earth was an electrical conductor. He would produce artificial lightning. There, he worked on wireless telecommunication. He would also claim to receive radio messages from both Mars and Jupiter, which came as a series of “clicks”. In 1900, the lab would be torn down and sold in order to pay debts.

This was just the beginning of his money problems. In 1904, the patent for the radio would go to Marconi in a reversal of an earlier decision, so Tessa would receive no more income from that invention. World War One would cause him to lose money for all his European patents. He had a difficult time finding investors because many of his ideas were just to far ahead of his time. Indeed, later in his life, Tessa would come to be seen as a mad scientist by many, and respected scientists largely disregarded his views.

In general, Tessa was opposed to war, and developed a weapon, which he believed would put an end to all war because of its destructive capability. It was a death ray (although he called it a peace ray) or sorts. According to Tessa, it could bring down 10,000 enemy aircraft at a distance of 200 miles or kill an enemy army in its tracks. It was based on taking electrical energy out of the air and using it as a repelling force. He tried to interest the United States War Department in the device and several European countries as well. None of the governments purchased a contract to build the device.

When he was 81, he developed his theory of gravity. He also claimed that Einstein’s theory of relativity was fraught with errors. He did not hold that space was curved. But we will never know about Tesla’s “Dynamic Theory of Gravity”, because he never published it. And his beliefs were considered laughable by serious researchers and scientists. And yet, upon his death at the age of 86 in 1943, all of his papers were seized by the United States government and declared top secret. I find it ironic that before his death the American Institute of Electrical Engineers awarded him the Edison Medal, considering their life-long feud.

Tesla’s personal life was a trifle odd. He developed an obsessive compulsion about the number three. He would walk around the block three times before entering a building and demand three napkins at his place setting. His friends were mostly artists, as opposed to other scientists. He was a very close friend of the American writer, Mark Twain. A life-long bachelor, he believed in genetic engineering and that women would one day become the dominant sex in America. In the future, he said, humanity would be run by “Queen Bees”. He was fluent in Serbian, English, Latin, Italian, Czech, Hungarian, and German. He held bachelor’s degrees in mathematics, physics, mechanical engineering, and electrical engineering.

There are many conspiracy theorists who suggest that Tesla also invented technology that is in use today by the government. This technology consists of an “earthquake machine” which, using the electrical current generated by the rotating earth, can cause an earthquake by the touch of a button. Tesla is also credited with creating technology in the area of weather control which conspiracy theorists claim the government is using now. Others claim that he was able to create ways to gain free energy by using the power of gravity and the earth’s rotation thus making fossil fuels unnecessary. This knowledge, according to all theorists, is being suppressed to protect the oil companies. There are even some who claim he experimented with time travel and invisibility and claim he was involved with the infamous Philadelphia Experiment.

It certainly wouldn’t surprise me if he had invented some free form of energy, and that form of energy was somehow squashed by the government. I do find it very interesting that the government seized his papers and materials, although he was a United States citizen. They wouldn’t have done that if there wasn’t something there, I’m sure.

Today, he is quite famous. He has been a character in any number of films. There is a rock band named after him. There is a crater on the far side (appropriately) of the moon named after him. His face use to grace the former Yugoslavia’s currency. Today, in Serbia, there is an airport named after him. And the Tesla Award is the most prestigious award given by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He has his own Manga comic book in Japan. But on January 5^th, (my birthday, by the way) in 1943, he died of heart failure in a small, cheap hotel room, and his death wasn’t even noticed for three days, until the 8^th.

I guess Nikola Tesla is like all those other amazing people who change the world and then die penniless and forgotten. I wonder what his theory of gravity entailed. I wonder if that was amongst the papers seized by the government and declared “top secret” by J. Edgar Hoover. I don’t know. You would think if there were anything there the government would be using it. But then, who knows, maybe they are.

I had practiced kung fu for a good many years before, but an injury has forced me to stop for a time.  I started to focus my attention in other pursuits, such as music and writing, and gotten very, very fat.  I won’t say exactly how fat I was, but the post office was considering giving me my own zip code.  Marlon Brando would have said, “Dude, you need to lose a few pounds!”  I was that kind of fat.

Anyway, I started the Weightwatchers “ TEE-EMM” program, dropped about a hundred pounds, and then, as I say, I started thinking about working out again.  So when I saw the guy giving away free karate lessons, I jumped at it.  Besides, I got a free gi (karate suit), and who couldn’t use a good karate gi?  So I went to my four free private classes.  The guy said that I moved perfectly.  He said my stances were spot on.  On the second lesson, he had me spar with him.  He could not hit me.  I hit him.  He asked if I always blocked and hit at the same time.  I said that was the way I had been trained.  I did okay, in other words.

I had wanted to return to my kung fu club, but I was embarrassed.  I had forgotten all my forms, even the beginner’s forms.  It would be kind of humiliating to go back, having to learn everything all over, and seeing the same guys who were my junior while I was there before.  But the karate lessons gave me courage.  I hadn’t lost everything.  So I called an old friend and he worked with me and helped me relearn my forms.  After a few months, I knew enough to  not be so embarrassed coming to the regular classes.

So here is my one year progress report.  I’m doing great.  I’ve lost a little more weight, for a total of 130 pounds from my heaviest.  To be honest, I haven’t tried that hard to lose more weight because I feel good and I don’t want to have to replace my wardrobe.  We can’t afford to be buying a bunch of new clothes right now.  And since I’m uproariously happily married, I don’t need to be attracting any cute women other than my wife, so I’m good about where I am.  I could drop another thirty pounds or so, but then, who couldn’t?  I mean, other than Keira Knightly?

I have managed to re-learn all the empty-hand forms (and that’s a bunch—about 11).  I have finished the form I had only just started before, the most advanced form.  I have re-learned all the weapons forms but two.  And I’m working on those two.  I’m not so motivated by the weapons forms anymore.  I’m here for different reasons.

Before, when I first joined the club, I was enthralled with the idea of learning kung fu.  I fell into that trap that a lot of martial arts enthusiasts fall into.  I became Chinese.  My house was full of Asian pottery and scrolls.  I put on my uniform (patterned after typical street garb of 17^th century China) when I practiced at home…in private.  I put on kung fu like a jacket.  I was play-acting.  I may as well have been at a renaissance faire.

But now, kung fu is part of who I am.  Now I practice to be healthy, and whole.  I am strong again, and I mean to stay that way, at least, as long as I can.  I have learned to breathe again.  I’m not a westerner doing kung fu.  I’m just a guy doing kung fu.  I’m not Chinese.  I never could be.  I’m not trying to be a master; I’m just trying to be healthy.  I work out in sweats now.  I don’t care so much about the weapons anymore, because you don’t always have room to be swinging a spear around, but I can do an empty-hand form anywhere I have about nine square feet.

I know I’m strong again.  I see guys at the kung fu club who are twenty years my junior and they don’t have the stamina that I have.  They’re always having to stop and rest and I just keep on going.  This is not meant to be boastful.  I practice kung fu for a very long time, and in those years I wasn’t practicing, I didn’t lose the benefits.

I found, once I had returned, that my arms got very hard again very quickly.  I was a little nervous about that.  But it wasn’t very long at all before the newer students complained about how hard my arms were.  I found that I hadn’t forgotten how to breathe.  I found that, as that karate teacher had said, I did still have all my stances.  I could still move well.  I just needed to practice.

More important than being strong, however, is the other benefit from my return to kung fu.  I am more at peace.  I tend to be an anxious kind of guy.  I guess I get that from my mother.  Of course, the world is sort of an anxious place, and with all the talk about how teachers are the reason for our broken kids, and the downturn in the economy, and the destruction of our environment, and, and and…well, you get the idea.  The world pretty much sucks a lot of the time.  But when I practice kung fu, it calms my mind.  I focus on my forms and the world sort of melts away, at least for a time.  And when you spar (playing, we call it), you have to be right there.  Your mind can’t be a thousand miles away.  You have to be there.  When you play, you are there, right there, alive, totally, in that moment.  There is no feeling quite like it.

Of kung fu isn’t about working out.  It is a way of life.  I never lost that.  Kung fu is a way of living your life.  It’s about being there.  It’s about doing what you’re doing, paying attention to every detail, being aware of everything, seeing everything.  Kung fu involves you in life.  Practice kung fu and you are no longer a spectator, you are a participant.

So that’s where we are, one year later.  I’m stronger.  I’m more at peace.  I still have aches and pains, but that just means I’m still alive.  I don’t move they way I did when I was thirty, but I don’t expect to.  I’m glad to be back.  I still have a couple of forms to re-learn before I have everything back, but I’m in no hurry.  I’ll learn them as I learn them.  They are very advanced forms and I’m not likely to be asked about them by anybody any time soon.  Some folks think martial arts is about achieving goals, such as a black belt or something.  But I think that kung fu isn’t about the destination, it is about the journey.

I don’t know what I’d do without my EZ Grader 2.0. It’s just a wonderful thing. I even got one for my wife, Becky. One day she mentioned to me that EZ Grader 2.0 would also print out a progress report (in English or in Spanish) that can be sent home to parents. Wow! I didn’t even know that, not having read the manual, of course. I had used that program for more than ten years and never stumbled on that little feature before. It was sort of like having a totally new program. I liken it to finding money in a pair of pants that have been hanging in the closet or something. I mean, it’s not really new. You had it all along. You just didn’t know it.

Today is Pentecost Sunday. You don’t have to know anything about the church or religion to know that anytime a Sunday is given a special name it must be pretty significant and it is. Pentecost Sunday is the official birthday of the Christian church, although nobody was calling the church Christian, nor were they calling it a church. Nevertheless, we ascribe Pentecost as the day it officially began.

The word Pentecost is simply the Greek for “the fiftieth day.” Moreover, Pentecost was a feast long before the Christians. It is one of the three Mosaic feasts (meaning coming from Moses, not celebrating little tiles). On the fourteenth day of the first Jewish month, Abib, begins Passover. On the next day begins the Feast of Unleavened Bread (meaning bread without yeast-translate as matzos). This lasts for seven days, at the end of which, a sacrifice of “first fruits”, the first and best yield of the harvest is offered to God. Fifty days from this comes the “new meat offering”, otherwise known as Pentecost, consisting of two loaves made from new wheat, and a whole lot of farm animals, seven lambs, a young bull, one goat, and two more lambs.

So it was the Pentecost, fifty days from the feast of first fruits, and Jesus’ pals were all together in one place. Most scholars figure it was the upper room where they had that Last Supper together and where Jesus had come to see them after his resurrection, but it may well not have been. The Book of Acts just says they were all together in one place, when they heard this really loud noise that sounded something like a large wind. Then they saw this light anomaly, which to them looked like little “tongues of fire”. Who knows exactly what caused that, but they reported that the little “tongues” came to rest on each one of them. And then the account says they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in tongues.

Now this being a rather holy time of the year, there were a lot of Jewish pilgrims in Jerusalem from all over the world, and upon hearing this sound, they went to where the disciples were and were kind of freaked out because they could understand what the disciples were saying. In other words, the tongues in which the disciples were speaking were not some bizarre mumbo-jumbo heavenly language, they were supposed to be just plain old human languages. And all these pilgrims were able to understand what the disciples, and Peter in particular, were saying.

Peter tells them all about Jesus, his death, and his resurrection. Then he tells them all about the ancient prophecies regarding the messiah and how Jesus fulfilled these prophecies. He calls upon them all to be baptized, and the people respond. According to the account, some three thousand people were baptized that day. And so was born the Christian church. According to the story, all these people sold their possessions and distributed the money to those in need, lived communally and devoted themselves to learning the teachings of the apostles.

Every important event in the life of Jesus can be related to one of the traditional Jewish feasts. The Last Supper occurred during the Passover Seder, the meal which commemorates the Exodus out of Egypt. He rose from the dead on the Beginning of the Feast of First Fruits. He visits his pals a few times during that week, and then leaves. Then, fifty days from Easter Sunday, comes the Pentecost, the Feast of New Meat.

Those who are fundamentalists, who claim that everything in the Bible is fact, will point to this to show that Jesus is divine and the ultimate fulfillment of the law given to Moses on Sinai. One could also, just as easily, use the same references to show that the story of Jesus has been amended in order to more clearly point out the symbolic nature of the Christ, in order to show how the teachings of Jesus fulfill the Mosaic Laws. And of course, an atheist can use these references to show that the whole thing is just a well crafter myth. But then, there seems little doubt that Jesus existed, although the Bible is the only source we have for any of the particulars regarding his life here on earth. Regardless, Jesus is the first fruits. He was the sacrifice. And we, the church, are the end of the harvest. We are now called upon to carry out the teachings of Jesus.

It would be a mistake to think that Pentecost marks the gift of the Holy Spirit upon the church. Clearly, if the stories about the earlier prophets, Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, Daniel, are true, then the Holy Spirit has been around a long time. Pentecost is certainly not the first time the Holy Spirit moved upon the face of the earth. It is merely the first time that the apostles acted in faith and quit being scared, hiding out in the upper room, and proclaimed what Jesus taught to the people. Pentecost is about when they finally got off their asses and started to practice what Jesus taught.

And what Jesus taught is that we are all bound together, all of us. We are bound together by that Holy Divine Spirit. As the Apostle Paul puts it in the letter to the Corinthians, “As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.” I would hate to have to diagram that sentence. Paul is soooo wordy. Suffice it to say that we are all one, one body, one spirit, one people. What you do to me, you do to yourself. We are one. As John Lennon put it, “I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together (goo goo ka joob)!” And when each one of us comes to that realization, we experience our own Pentecost.

Jesus told us that we are all a holy people. So often we look to people like Jesus, Ghandi, Gautama, Saint Francis, and Mother Theresa, and we admire them. Often we wish we could be like them. I so want to be like Jesus. And Jesus is here to say to me, “You can.” All those people were no holier than I am. They were not endowed by God with any special powers or perception. They were just people who lived their faith. They did more than listen to the teachings. They practiced the teachings.

Jesus, the church, did not just call upon us to believe any certain something about God, or the nature of the divine. He called upon us to go out and put that Holy Spirit that dwells in each one of us to work, serving one another. He called upon us to feed the hungry, to comfort the sorrowful, to visit the lost and lonely, to save one another. Yes, Jesus saves. So do you. So do we all. Being a Christian doesn’t mean that you go to church and sing your hymns and take communion and get all holy. It means that you go out and do the work of Jesus, because we are Jesus. The Holy Spirit makes us all part of the body of Christ and calls upon us all to do the work of Christ, to be the Christ to one another. We are called upon to love one another and serve one another. That’s why Jesus made the point of washing his students’ feet while he was here. Some may look upon Jesus as master, but even Jesus reminded his students that no student is greater than the master. If the master serves, than shall not the student also serve?

This day, Pentecost, is the day we should all stop being afraid, and go out into the world to serve each other in a spirit of love. That is why Pentecost is the birthday of the church, because isn’t that what a church is supposed to be? It isn’t a building with a lot of pews and an altar. The church is a people, bound together by the Holy Spirit, the spirit of the divine, the all pervasive creative spirit of the universe if you prefer (we shouldn’t get hung up on titles or words), the Tao, the Prajna. We are the church, each one of us. And whether the story in The Book of Acts happened the way it is written or not, it doesn’t change the truth of the meaning behind the events. We are all one. We are one body. We are all part of one spirit of love. Jesus didn’t give us anything we didn’t already have. He just showed us that we had it, just like that EZ Grade program. We had that Holy Spirit in us all along. And that makes me holy and you holy and all of us holy. As I have so often said before, you are so important. You are so powerful, more than you can possibly imagine. You are the hands of God. That’s what Pentecost Sunday means to me.

Let us take, for example, the popular expression—butt naked, as in, “We went swimming in the Jacuzzi butt naked.” This is incorrect, and will cause the citizens of Grammaria to laugh at you. The correct term is “buck naked”. This refers back to a time when a “buck” was considered to be a dandy, a pretentious, overdressed show-off of a man. The term was applied to black slaves as an insult. Thus, the term conjures forth images of African slaves, nude, on the auction block, being sold to the highest bidder. It would probably be better to use the term “stark naked” instead.

While we’re speaking of Jacuzzis, by the way, you should know that the correct term is whirlpool bath. Jacuzzi is a brand name. There are many brand names that we use for generic items. We ask for Kleenex, instead of for a facial tissue. We ask for Jello, instead of gelatin. Once upon a time, people said they wore Levis—not jeans. Some brand names even became verbs. People used to Xerox important papers. In England, the still Hoover the floor.

One of my pet peeves is “irregardless”. There is no such word. That would indicate a double negative, which creates a positive. The word is “regardless”. I am also annoyed by the phrase “at this point in time”. It is totally unnecessary. To what other point in time might you be referring, if not this point in time?

Another commonly abused word is the word “lay”. Most people are using the word “lay” when they really should be using the word “lie”. Verbs come in two flavors, transitive and intransitive (there’s that prefix in- again.) Think of the work “transfer”. A verb is transitive when it requires a direct object. Take, for example, the word, “hit” (in the clobbering sense, not the highly successful sense). You have to hit something. You say, “Joe hit the ball”, not “Joe hit”. The verb hit requires an object, something that was hit. Lay is a transitive verb. It requires a direct object. So you don’t “lay down”, you have to “lay YOURSELF down.” This verb requires a direct object. You can lay down your books. You can lay down your sword and shield down by the riverside. The other type of verb is called intransitive. These verbs don’t require a direct object. Take the verb “sleep” for example. You don’t sleep things. The verb “lie” is the intransitive verb. So you say, “I’m going to lie down.” You cannot “lie” things.

Another prime example is the oft mis-used phrase, “I could care less!” If you say this, you are indicating that it is very possible that you could care less about the issue-in other words, you care. What you want to say is, “I couldn’t care less”, which would indicate that it is not possible for you to be more apathetic about the issue.

According to the AP (Associated Press) stylebook for writers, people often believe the word “homicide” a synonym for murder. The word homicide simply means death of a human. It could be by foul play, or by natural causes. All human deaths are homicides. But this doesn’t come up too much for most folk. You can, however, now tell people you think the death of Anna Nicole Smith was a homicide, and you’d be right. She was human (I assume, although her brief reality show did cast some doubt on the issue), and she died. Bingo! Homicide.

The word hopefully is also abused frequently. Hopefully is an adverb. It must be used to modify a verb. It is NOT a conditional phrase. So, in other words, it would be incorrect to say, “Hopefully, we can bring our troops home from Iraq.” (See I can make ANYTHING political). It would be more correct to say, “We hope we can bring our troops home from Iraq.” The correct usage of hopefully would be, “Bob opened the envelope hopefully.” So, hopefully, you understood that.

People also abuse the word “verbal”. I wish I had a dime for everytime I heard someone say, “But we had a verbal agreement!” in order to indicate that there was a spoken understanding between two parties. The word “verbal” means “using words”. ALL agreements, spoken, or otherwise are verbal agreements. That is, I assume the agreement required some words, unless it was all done with eye contact. What they mean to say is, “We had an ORAL agreement.” meaning a spoken understanding.

But these are just small annoyances for the people of Grammaria. They’ve come to grow used to Americans mangling the English tongue. What’s really beginning to piss them off is the misuse of the word “Irony”. According to the dictionary, the word “irony” means, “The use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning.”

Alanis Morisette had a huge hit song, “Isn’t it Ironic.” What is really ironic about Alanis’ song, is that none of the examples in the song are actually ironic, based on the definition of the word. In the song she mentions being stuck in a traffic jam when you’re already late. That is not ironic. That is a coincidence. It might be ironic if the guy in charge of improving traffic was caught in a traffic jam. Alanis also mentions a person afraid to fly who dies in a plane crash. That isn’t ironic; it’s just tragic (and again, a coincidence). Another example from her song is a person who wins the lottery and dies the same day. That is also a tragedy and a coincidence; but it isn’t ironic. It would be ironic if you bought a lottery ticket every week, and the one week you DIDN’T buy a ticket, your numbers were chosen.

Now I want to make it clear that I am not the first to criticize Ms. Morisette’s song. I have noticed a couple of newspaper articles about this. Her song is just the easiest example of the misuse of this word, and the Grammarians specifically asked me to bring this to your attention. They say the key thing to remember about this word is the concept of opposites. For example, on the news tonight it was mentioned that the head of security for Iraq in Baghdad was giving a speech about how the government had made the streets safer when two bombs killing hundreds of people exploded nearby. Now THAT’S ironic.

In the 1959 Twilight Zone episode, “Time Enough at Last”, a hen-pecked bookworm by the name of Beemis is the sole survivor of world war III. As he walks through the devastation he comes upon a library full of books. Now he finally has the time to read all he wants with nobody left alive to bother or abuse him. And as he ponders his good fortune, his glasses slip off his face and are shattered on the ground, and he is doomed to a blurry world, unable to read the books he loves so much. That is irony. He finally has time to read, and he can’t because of his poor vision. Here are some other examples of irony for you:

Adolph Coors III, heir to the Coors Beer Company, is allergic to beer.

U.S. Border Patrol uniforms are manufactured in México.

A 17 year-old Amish boy was electrocuted by a downed power line that became tangled in the wheels of his horse-drawn buggy.

ESPN used the song “How Sweet it is to be Loved by You”, sung by Marvin Gaye in a tribute to Father’s Day. Marvin Gaye was shot and killed by his own father in 1984.

The president of Zimbabwe gave a speech in which he promised to remedy the country’s chronic electricity shortages. Nobody saw it. There was a power failure.

So, it’s ironic that the great composer Beethoven was deaf. But the fact that Brad Pitt tore his Achilles tendon while playing Achilles in the film, “Troy”, is just coincidental. So, it would be ironic if this blog about the correct use of certain words were to include words that were used incorrectly. And I’m sure it does. I’m sure because I misused some on purpose to see if you were paying attention.

And now I have once again fulfilled my obligation to the people of Grammaria. I will be able to renew my linguistic license and pay my syntax. And I even used less words than I thought I would. So remember-Irony means opposites, like George W. Bush being made the president of Harvard. However, George Bush being president of the United States wasn’t ironic. It was just a tragedy.

It is a common misconception that Lincoln came from a poor family. This is somewhat true; however, the reality is that everyone in that part of Kentucky was poor by today’s standards and Lincoln’s family was better off than most. In fact, his family was in the top 15% of the county as far as wealth goes. He was born in a log cabin; however, it was a very nice log cabin…more like the Ponderosa than something you’d make with Lincoln Logs.

Most people know that Lincoln was a lawyer and have an image of him defending the rights of the people. The reality is that he was a corporate lawyer who often as not defended the rights of large corporations against little people like you and me. He was admitted to the bar, but was never terribly good at his craft. His partner complained of Lincoln’s lack of organization, noting that he had a stack of papers labeled, “If you can’t find it anywhere else, look here.”

Many folks see old honest Abe as the great emancipator. Lincoln, however, was no abolitionist. As he wrote to Horace Greeley in 1862, “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it” The truth is that he freed the slaves only to encourage insurrection in the south of the slaves there. The Emancipation Proclamation makes no mention of freeing any slave except in those states which had left the union. He didn’t even have any belief in equality or equity. “I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races,” he announced in his Aug. 21, 1858, debate with Stephen Douglas. “I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position.” And, “Free them [ the slaves] and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this. We cannot, then, make them equals.”

Well, he did hold the union together, after all, didn’t he? Well, yes, you could say he held the union together…geographically. But the type of government we had after the war was far different than the government we had before the war. Prior to the war our country was a voluntary union of sovereign states. After the war, there would be the strong central government we have now which holds little resemblance to the type of government our founders envisioned. Of course, that doesn’t mean it isn’t better. Still, many of Lincoln’s actions during his administration have led to the abuses of power we see in our government today. Lincoln also suspended the right of habeas corpus imprisoning hundreds of Americans without due process, without trial, for an indefinite period.

And I doubt the Native American/ Indians are celebrating much today. There is little to laud Lincoln’s policies (like my alliteration?) regarding the indigenous peoples. He was the author of the Homestead Act of 1862, which gave one square quarter mile free to any homesteader who could prove that the land had been improved and occupied for a period of five years. Unfortunately, that land already belonged to some other people who happened to be living there at the time, namely, the Sioux, who had been granted that land in perpetuity. The Sioux, as a matter of fact, had written to Lincoln to request that they be paid the 1.2 million dollars the government owed them for lands taken back in 1851. Lincoln informed them that he had no intention of paying them the money owed and sent General Pope to quell the insurrection there. Pope once said, “It is my purpose to utterly exterminate the Sioux. They are to be treated as maniacs or wild beasts, and by no means as people with whom treaties or compromise can be made.” Lincoln certainly did not challenge this statement.

The Indians were defeated. 303 male Indians were arrested and given trials which lasted an average of ten minutes each. All 303 were sentenced to death, although most were only guilty of inhabiting the land where the insurrection took place. In order to keep Europe from entering the Civil War on the part of the South, Lincoln pared the number to be executed down to 39. It was still the largest mass execution in American history. Lincoln promised to kill or remove every Indian from the state and provide Minnesota with 2 million dollars in federal funds. Remember, he only owed the Sioux 1.4 million for the land. So he would rather pay more money and kill the Indians, than pay the money owed them in order to avoid an insurrection.

Lincoln used much the same tactics against the Navajo. In 1863-64, General Carleton and his subordinate, Colonel Kit Carson, invaded the Navajo land, especially those concentrated in the Canyon de Chelly area. Crops were burned, innocents were murdered, women were raped and general chaos was rained upon these noble people simply because, like the Santee Sioux, they demanded from Lincoln what they had been promised; their land and to be left alone. General Carleton, believing there was gold to be found in the area, stated: “This war, will be pursued against you if it takes years until you cease to exist or move.” Again, there was no protest of this policy from Lincoln, his Commander in Chief.

The Navajo were forced to march over 300 miles to Bosque Redondo in eastern New Mexico. Over 200 Navajos died on this march and, eventually, over 2,000 perished before a treaty was signed in 1868. While at Bosque Redondo, the Navajo suffered under horrible conditions; bitter water, no firewood and poor growing conditions for crops. The soldiers and the Mexican guards subjected the women to rape and humiliating treatment. Children born at this “concentration camp” were lucky to survive their first few months of life.

Well, he was at least honest, wasn’t he? Well actually, he most likely stole the election of 1864. He sent federal troops to areas where he was unpopular in order to intimidate votes to vote “correctly”. Even the Homestead Act of 1862, which was so bad for the Indians and supposedly so good for the little guy gave all the best land to the wealthy railroads.

But we like the fantasy. It is hard to imagine standing at the Lincoln Memorial and NOT being moved. I so want to believe that all those things he said in the Gettysburg address were real, and perhaps they were, but not in Lincoln’s heart. They are real in the hearts of Americans everywhere who want our country to be all it promised to be, because it is such a good promise. And just because the fantasy isn’t real doesn’t mean that we can’t MAKE it real. But that part is up to us. It is our job to make this country what its founders told us it could be. Maybe they were lying. Maybe they didn’t mean a word of it. But that doesn’t make the fantasy impossible. And when we finally get that through our thick skulls, then maybe we, the people, can build a government that is by the people and for the people. And when we do, we must continue to be vigilant so that government does not perish from the earth.

During medieval times, it was against ecclesiastical law (the only law that mattered) for one Christian to loan money to another Christian at interest. John the Baptist had said so. Actually, he said that loaning money at interest was bad in general; he didn’t mean just Christians to Christians (since Christians hadn’t been invented yet), but I digress (as usual). Later on, after the Romans got tired of killing the Christians and made the church of Jesus into the official law of the land, it was decided that those little things Jesus told us to do for one another only applied to other Christians.

So anyway, Christians couldn’t loan other Christians money for interest. They could, however, loan money at interest to Jews. Nobody cared what you did to the Jews; just ask Mel Gibson. Anyway, there was also no law that made it illegal for Jews to loan money to Christians at interest. Of course, the Jews had no money, considering the Christians wouldn’t let them buy or sell anything, so what a Christian in need did was to go to a wealthy friend and ask to borrow money. The friend would then loan the money to some poor Jew at interest, who in turn, would then turn around and loan the same money at even more interest to the Christian. That is how pawnshops got the reputation of charging such high interest on their loans. Moreover, if the Christian defaulted on the loan, he (since women didn’t matter in those days) would be home free, really. If the Christian failed to repay the loan, then the Jew would fail to repay the loan as well, and then HE would be in big trouble. This is another reason the Jews charged such a high interest rate, since the risk was so great.

But this isn’t about how Christians fuck people over. This is about how Christians are SUPPOSED to act. One of the best sources we have for how the early Christians were expected to behave back in the first century comes from the letters of Paul. Remember that back in those days there was no Christian bible. The gospels had not been written yet. The apostles, those twelve guys…well, eleven, anyway, went about passing on the teachings of Jesus. And very soon, Paul, who was Saul of Tarsus, would also go about teaching the message of Jesus. These guys went about converting people and setting up little communities (nobody called them churches yet), And they kept in touch with these communities by writing letters to them. Paul wrote a bunch of letters, probably because he was the only one of the twelve to be highly educated, being a member of the Sanhedrin, that learned council of temple priests and scribes.

Paul wrote most of his letters from prison. It all started in Jerusalem when Paul brought a gentile (non-Jew) into the temple. He was mobbed by the people there, because people get pissed when you fuck with their traditions (just ask a civil rights worker in Mississippi back in 1963). Some Roman soldiers came to Paul’s rescue by placing him under arrest. They took Paul to the governor of Caesarea, Felix. Felix threw Paul in jail for a couple of years hoping to get a bribe out of him, but died before he ever saw a dime. The new governor sent Paul back to Jerusalem, and you might have figured Paul was well screwed then, but he pulled the trump card and claimed his Roman citizenship. Paul’s father had been a Roman. This entitled him to a hearing in Rome. So the Romans had to schlep Paul across Asia Minor to Rome and he was put under house arrest there. And from his cell, he wrote many letters to the various churches which had been established. In his letter to the Colossians, he mentions, “I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand. Remember my chains. Grace be with you.” In other words, “Hi, this is Paul. Excuse my bad handwriting, but it’s a little hard to write with these freaking chains on my wrists, you know.”

It is in this letter that Paul outlines how Christians ought to comport themselves. It should be remembered that these guys never expected their letters to be considered some kind of Holy Scripture. There were just letters, and often said the same kind of crap that any letter might say. In the case of the letter to the Colossians, Paul had two reasons to write to them. For one thing, he had heard that the people in that community had started some practices which he considered contrary to the teachings of Jesus. They had started placing ritual above charity and faith, and had started to practice a certain asceticism, denying themselves things in order to suffer deliberately. For another, Paul had met a runaway slave by the name of Onesimus. Onesimus came to Paul to become a Christian. Why he would do this, I don’t know, because his owner-master, Philemon, was also a Christian, but for some reason he came to Paul. Paul found Onesimus very handy for running various errands and just useful in general, so he wanted to ask Philemon if he might keep him around for awhile. So, Paul wrote one letter to the church at Collosse, and another to Philemon, and had them both delivered by a guy named Tychicus, who would deliver yet another letter to the church at Ephesus, another important community of believers. So, this is what he said.

“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if one has a grievance against another; as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do. And over all these put on love, that is, the bond of perfection. And let the peace of Christ control your hearts, the peace into which you were also called in one body. And be thankful.” So let’s get the message straight. You can tell a Christian because they are compassionate, kind, humble, gentle, patient, and forgiving. And above all else, they are loving and peaceful. Okay. Well, it’s awfully hard to find those qualities abounding in people, especially at this time of year. Those wonderful folks who pride themselves so on being  born again Christians would do well to give this letter another read.  But of course, that’s the reason why being forgiving is so important, because none of us can be like that all the time. We’re bound to fuck up from time to time, like…all the time. And that was Jesus’ message, too. You want to be like God? Well this is what being like God takes. Think you can do it? No? Good thing God’s forgiving, too. Just do the best you can. Love God, and love one another, and try to have a little faith. Think you can remember that? Good.

But then, it becomes difficult to tell how much of the letter is the teaching of Jesus (which Paul got second hand to begin with), and how much is just the opinion of Paul in general. You know, you start giving people advice, and it’s hard to shut up. Paul also says, “Wives, be subordinate to your husbands, as is proper in the Lord.” Whenever we hear this reading in church, I always smile at my wife, Becky, and then she hits me. And as much as I would wish that I could find some alternate translation from the Greek, it pretty much says that. But then, that was the custom of the day. Paul could have imagined nothing else, I suppose. Although, in the communities in Jerusalem, the women and men were treated equally. But to be fair to Paul, he also says, “Husbands, love your wives, and avoid any bitterness toward them.” And in the Greek there, Paul uses the word, agapao, which means to love unconditionally, without counting the cost. He also tells children to obey their parents, but then he also reminds parents not to constantly anger their children, as it will eventually discourage them. It seems like general good advice, but not necessarily the specific teachings of Jesus.

It seems to me, that if a person calls himself or herself a Christian, then it would do well for that person to act like it. That was the real message of Jesus. We are all the children of God. We are all a part of one big Christ. Paul was right. Following the teachings of Christ isn’t about following any certain rituals or denying yourself things, it’s about living the message.

When Jesus was about twelve years old, according to the story in Luke’s gospel, Jesus became separated from Mary and Joseph, and after a long search, they eventually found him in the temple talking to the learned men there. And when they complained about his running off, he said, “Didn’t you know I had to be about my father’s business?” Of course, after that they grounded him for eighteen years. But that’s really all of us.

We are all about our father’s business everyday. And people know us by the way we treat one another, Christian or not. So if you are gonna put a peace symbol on your car, act peacefully, or else you give all us bleeding heart liberals a bad name. And if you’re gonna put a fish on your car, well…ask yourself, how would Jesus drive (HWJD)? You know a tree by its fruit. I never met anybody who ever had a problem with what Jesus taught. I have met a lot of people who have problems with his followers. But you know, you don’t judge a church by its followers, or at least you shouldn’t. Sometimes they cut you off in traffic. After all, you don’t quit your job because some of your coworkers are jerks. If we did that we’d all be unemployed. No, we are all part of the same big family of humankind. It’s time we treated each other like family. And like members of a family, we don’t have to like each other, but we have to be nice to each other, at least in front of dad.

Where?  Maritime Research Center and Nautical Shop

301 West Seventh Street

San Pedro, California, 90731

310. 521.0175

When:  Saturday, November 7th, 2009

2 pm – 4 pm

Plenty of free parking!

The Jaguar (Incompetent/Unintelligent)This is your basic Psycho Boss. This is the boss who is incompetent and too stupid to realize it. This boss believes in having total power. They want to control every little thing that happens in the workplace. If you try to explain why one of their half-baked ideas won’t work their eyes sort of glaze over. They are frequently into nit-picking and will totally not notice the forty extra hours you put in per week and criticize you for arriving a minute and a half late. They will tell you that they must follow company policy in all things and be willing to break any rule when it is in their benefit. Often, they will go after and persecute their best employees for no other reason than they are smarter than they are. They will attempt to crush anyone who dares to stand up for their rights. A good example of this boss is PHB (pointy haired boss) in the popular Dilbert strips. This boss is invariably very ambitious and is always looking for the next promotion. Their only saving grace is that they are likely to be promoted in spite of their stupidity and you won’t have to deal with them for that long. The Jaguar is a perfect name because anyone knows that car knows it looks good and has a lot of power, but breaks down constantly and is not dependable at all. It is pretending to be something it isn’t. All looks, no substance. Keep the faith; you will survive.

The Yugo(Incompetent/Unintelligent)This is very much like the Jaguar, but it is not ambitious at all. Just stupid and ineffective. Unlike the Jaguar, they don’t often go after their good employees. They wouldn’t know a good employee if they came up and bit them on the ass. The worst thing about this boss is that, since they have no ambition, they are likely to be stuck somewhere a long, long time. Because they have good people working under them, things still flow smoothly, but only because the employees keep them flowing that way. The Yugo, however, never notices this and usually believes things work because of their exceptional leadership. Sadly enough, they also usually get the credit. The Yugo is aptly named because because –well–the Yugo is a piece of shit. Except it’s that piece of shit that won’t flush. Cut and run.

The Edsel(Incompetent/Intelligent) I honestly feel sorry for this boss. This boss means well. They are often ineffective because they are indecisive. They are indecisive because they always want to do the right thing. Often, this boss gets by because they are smart enough to recognize their incompetence and put competent people in key positions. The best thing about this boss is that they often leave you alone and let you do your job. This boss is not so bad. The worst thing about them is that they often get demoted or fired. They’re usually nice people. Like the Edsel, which was a good, reliable, serviceable car, that just couldn’t live up to expectations, everyone has high hopes for this boss. They just don’t manage to pull it off. Jimmy Carter is a good example of this type of boss.

The Taurus(Competent/Unintelligent)This boss is the good manager. They are also have virtually no imagination. They are incapable of creative thought. They are good at keeping things going, once started. They often do things the hard way because they don’t see an easier way, but they get the job done. Whether their decisions will be good are bad are often left to mere chance. They are the Ford Taurus, dependable, but boring. You could do worse.

The Ferrari (Competent/Intelligent)This boss is very dangerous. They are so dangerous because of their extreme ambition and because of their intelligence. This is the Machiavelli of bosses. Like their incompetent cousin the Jaguar, they insist on total power. They scheme and lay traps. They don’t go after their good people because they know they depend on them, they just overwork them. They will do whatever they have to do to get their way and cover their tracks doing it. Their desk is always clean. Their desk is always clean because they delegate all their work to other people. And they like that their desk is clean. That is because all they care about is that they look good on paper. The good thing about them is that they don’t generally hang around for long. They usually get promoted so that they may inflict their evil on a greater number of people. They constantly need their ego stroked. Like the Ferrari, they are powerful and well-engineered–but expensive and high maintenance.

The Volvo(Competent/Intelligent)This is your dream boss. This is the best boss you could have. This is the boss for whom you would work for free, if you didn’t have to pay rent and buy groceries. You put in extra hours because you like them. They treat you like a human being. They keep their good people happy because they know they are good people and they want to hang on to them. Like the Edsel, they will leave you alone to do your job unless you need help. They will bend the rules when it is to your benefit, because they are human. They are not at all ambitious. And yet, they get things done, and without pissing people off. Sometimes they seem disorganized but they always know what’s going on. They will stand behind their staff through thick and thin. If you have this boss, enjoy them, because in spite of their lack of ambition, they often get promoted because they are so damn good. Youre lucky if you get one or two of these in your entire life. They are Volvos because they are not showy, but very dependable. They will keep you safe. Cherish them.

As you can see, two of the bosses are okay, three are downright bad, and only one is any good. So you have a 17% chance of getting a good one, and a 50% chance of getting a lemon. Lao Tzu said that being a good boss is like boiling a small fish. The more you stir things up, the more they fall apart. The best bosses look like they do nothing and yet things get done. I hope you all have good bosses.