Holy Shit, Mister Rogers!

If you read this blog regularly, you may have noticed my propensity to point out a hidden side of famous people and events that may forever change your perception of them. This entry is not an example of that. This entry is about Fred "Mister" Rogers, the kindest, gentlest, and most worthy person to have walked the Earth in recent (if not all of) history.

Mister Rogers was a teacher, a minister, a songwriter, an author, and most famously the host of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, where he more or less single-handedly bestowed self-esteem upon millions of children over the show's 33-year run. He's the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Peabody Award, and honorary degrees from over 40 institutions. He did this all while remaining humble and down-to-earth, not because he made an effort but because he was always genuinely more interested in everyone else's stories.

But that's not even the impressive part.

Other people have earned honorary degrees and Peabodys and Medals of Freedom, and many of them maintained a healthy humility. What makes Fred Rogers unique is that as much as you dig, as far back into his history as you look, no matter how much you scrutinize, the man proved to be utterly incorrubtible. Every rumor to the contrary has proven to be categorically false.

Fred Rogers never served in the military and thus never racked up a large confirmed kill count. He  had no tattoos covering his arms - he simply liked wearing sweaters on television because his mother knitted them all for him. He was never accused or convicted of any crimes, and certainly not anything related to pedophilia. Even the famous image of him allegedly flipping off his audience was taken out of context. He was simply singing "Where is Thumbkin" with a group of kids.

I've got your Thumbkin right here.

You know what he did do, though? He saved public television. His testimony to a Senate committee on funding public television is widely regarded as the reason said committee decided to more than double PBS's share of the budget pie.

In case you think that was a fluke, The U.S. Supreme Court also cited his testimony on home video recording in their decision that ensured such things would always remain legal. So you have him to thank for your self-esteem, PBS, and your DVR.

So...you're welcome?

Outside of his political influence, he made a personal impact on just about everyone he ever met. That includes ivy-league educated gorillas. Well, at least one of them, but I'm not sure how many gorillas have gone to Stanford on a full ride scholarship. Koko the gorilla was a dyed-in-the-wool fan of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, and when he brought the show out to visit her she excitedly hugged him then started taking off his shoes like he did every day on the air.

I can't really convey how happy this makes me in words

Gorillas weren't the only ones starstruck by his presence. When his car was stolen and he filed a police report, the story made headlines and within 48 hours, he found it returned to exactly the spot he had left it. In the dashboard was an apology note saying the thieves would never have taken the car if they'd known it belonged to him.

Finally (and maybe a bit less objectively), one of the most impressive ways Fred Rogers lived his life was how he handled his faith. He was a Presbyterian minister and was extraordinarily devout. He lived his life the way he believed he was meant to. An unfortunate side effect often found in that type of life is an intolerance for anyone who doesn't do likewise.

To this vice, as to all others, Mr. Rogers was immune. Fundamentalist ministers asked him to speak out against homosexuality, and his response was to say to both the ministers with rustled jimmies and the people who were the subjects of their ire, "God loves you just the way you are."

Fred Rogers was a man of enormous moral conviction, strength, and fathomless cultural power, and he used all of it not for personal gain, but to tell the world that no matter who they were, no matter what they've been through, no matter what they've done with their lives, someone out there loved them.

Holy shit.

Holy Shit, Phossy Jaw!

Did you know that lighters were invented before matches?

It's true! It makes sense when you think about it. Lighters are really no more than an advanced form of flint and tinder with a bit of flammable liquid added to the mix. Matches, on the other hand, are a fairly novel idea. They use a phosphorous coating and frictional heat to create a reaction that produces fire. Pretty neat, huh?

Nowadays, matches are usually tipped with either phosphorus sesquisulfide or red phosphorous. Back in the 19th Century, they used something else. Something called White Phosphorous. Does that name sound familiar? Well, brace your stomach, because here's why:

(I'M NOT JOKING, TURN BACK NOW IF YOU'RE SQUEAMISH)

Oh, so it's like a bomb or...

Oh, that does look pretty terrifying, but...

HOLY JESUS GOD, WHY?

White Phosphorous is known for it's use as a smoke-producing and incendiary weapon. Meaning it burns shit like hellfire. And it has a nasty tendency to cling stubbornly to human flesh. It can catch just about anything on fire, and being anywhere near it when it burns is guaranteed to ruin your whole goddamn day. It is nasty, it is violent, and it is a clear message from the gods to run in the opposite direction whenever you see it.

Jesus. Okay, Here's a couple of pictures to take our minds off of that gruesome display above:

Happy thoughts.

Happy Thoughts!

HAPPY THOUGHTS!

That feels better. Okay, so back to matches. White Phosphorus, in addition to being a key ingredient in the hellfire of Satan's own arsenal, produces a nasty vapor that you really shouldn't breathe in over a long period of time. When you do, as people in matchmaking factories were wont to do in the latter half of the 19th Century, you develop a condition known as Phossy Jaw.

[I considered putting another picture here, but I decided that I've put you through enough gore this week.]

Phossy jaw is also known as "Phosphorus necrosis of the jaw," and is pretty much exactly what it says on the package. For their service in the factories, Victorian-era matchmakers were rewarded with their very own glow-in-the-dark jaw bones! Pretty cool, sure, but said jaw bones were also malformed, abscessed, and smelled very literally like death. 

Loyal employees were also granted unending anguish as their jaws slowly decomposed on their living faces. Finally, they were given the option of either paying a fee they usually couldn't afford to have a Victorian-era doctor (yikes) remove parts of their jaw (double yikes), or they just plain died of organ failure.

In 1888, a big group of matchgirls collectively bargained their way into saying, "Fuck this shit," and went on strike. For their trouble, they got some awareness. That's it. Nothing concrete, people just started to openly acknowledge the fact that they were willfully imposing a horrifying disease upon thousands of people because they wanted a stick that could light itself on fire.

Which, admittedly, is a little bit neat.

Three years later, the Salvation Army, to their credit, became the first match company to use the slightly less efficient (but infinitely safer) red phosphorous in their matchmaking process, and they paid better wages to boot.

The next few decades saw various countries banning the use of white phosphorus in match production and, in the case of the United States, placing a punitive tax on it that made it impractical. An international ban was put in place by Berne Convention in 1906. 

In 1898, Albright and Wilson patented a method of safely producing phosphorus sesquisulfide for the manufacture of matches. They sold the patent to the Diamond Match Company, to whom President William Howard Taft personally wrote a public letter begging them, for the good of humanity, to release the patent. They did, and match production became relatively safe for workers from that point on.

No, really. That happened.

Next time you light a match, consider all the abscessed, necrotic, excruciatingly painful jaws that litter the history of that flammable little wooden stick you hold.

Holy shit.

Holy Shit, Independence Day!

July 4th is the day when Americans come together and, according to The Simpsons, "Celebrate the independence of your nation by blowing up a small part of it." We celebrate it on the 4th of July because we apparently don't really know what independence means.

Is it the moment the treaty is signed that ends the Revolution in our favor?

You can almost smell their haughty reluctance as they sign away the colonies.

Certainly not! That's September 3rd, 1783. That's a good seven years after we claim our country was born, and as far as we're concerned, September 3rd this year is just another Tuesday

Of course, we all know that July 4th, 1776 was when America voted for Independence. That's the moment, right? That's when we decided that this whole Revolutionary War was for keepsies, and screw the British. Because before that, many of the founding fathers actually wanted representation rather than full independence.

Well, not quite. I mean, that's all true, except that the Continental Congress voted in favor of independence on July 2nd (which is the date John Adams wanted as Independence Day). Thomas Jefferson was chosen to write the document that would officially announce the decision, and on July 4th, he presented one of several drafts to the Congress, who chose it for its florid prose and its proclamation that all men were created equal.

Then everyone signed it and had a beer and shot fireworks.

HA! Right. First of all, they didn't finish signing it until November. Second, remember that thing called slavery? That was still around in America back then, and some people were mighty uncomfortable about that "equality" bit in the draft. So why did they unanimously vote to adopt it?

Because it was fucking hot outside, and there were so many goddamned flies and mosquitoes that everyone wanted to get this freedom thing over with and go home. So after much bickering about who gets what kind of freedom, the less progressive delegates finally just gave up and saved their racism for the Articles of Confederation and Constitution, where they would find a way to both legally define human beings as sub-human and count them as population for the purposes of representation.

Which was just...super uncool.

But still. There it was.

This is a big deal.

 "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." One of the most important written phrases in the history of language, and certainly one of the defining phrases of the past 250 years. It's been used as a rallying cry for social progress by everyone from freedom fighters to the civil rights and gay rights movements.

It's an immortal declaration, and at it's core it means that nothing, not even the majority rule of a democracy, can take away your inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It means that no form of government has the right to take those things away from you, and if they try, "it is [your] right, it is [your] duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for [your] future security."

And but for the heat and some flies, it may have ended up in an abandoned draft.

Holy shit.

Holy Shit, Yoko Ono!

Remember The Beatles? They were this band back in the day. They had one or two songs that topped the charts. Or twenty-seven. They were a pretty big deal. Why'd they break up again?

I went ahead and answered for you.

Yoko Ono, you say? Well, you're only kind of right. She was part of it, but I wouldn't say she wanted to be. Sure, she followed John Lennon around everywhere he went. She even went to band practices with him, an unprecedented breach of Beatles policy. That was crossing the Rubicon. But do we blame Vercingetorix for Caesar's actions?

Look it up. History is important.

Of course we don't. And don't worry about not knowing who Vercingetorix is. The important thing to know is that John Lennon was an asshole, and both Yoko Ono and The Beatles were victims of the circumstances.

Now, I'm not going to say John Lennon was the only reason the band broke up. They were growing apart creatively, and they all started wanting different things for their careers. The group had an expiration date, and given how much strain fame places on relationships such as theirs, it's a miracle they lasted as long as they did.

But people blame Yoko Ono, and that doesn't really sit well with me. Because Yoko Ono didn't want to cross the Rubicon and sit in on band practice. She wanted to stick with her own avant-garde and admittedly kind of weird brand of performance and art. But John Lennon wouldn't let her.

The handcuffs are probably under the sheets. And not in the fun way.

Evidence came about in the last few years that Yoko Ono didn't follow John Lennon around everywhere, he practically dragged her around on a leash because his jealousy came dangerously close to psychotic levels. She was there, but not by choice. She was Vercingetorix in chains, awaiting Caesar's Triumph. I'll steer clear of that metaphor in the future, I swear.

My point is, just because John Lennon asked everyone to give peace a chance doesn't necessarily mean he practiced it at home. And when you really pay attention, doesn't "I used to be cruel to my woman. I beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved. Man, I was mean, but I'm changing my scene and I'm doing the best that I can" kind of sound like something a Lifetime Movie villain would say?

I want to sincerely apologize to fans of The Beatles, but it has to be said. John Lennon was a Lifetime Movie villain, and Yoko Ono was maybe not so bad after all.

Holy shit.

Holy Shit, The Tet Offensive!

This one time, America got involved in a bit of a kerfuffle over in Vietnam. You may have heard of it. You may have also heard of the Tet Offensive, possibly the most important engagement of the entire conflict. You might not know that, while it ended up being the first step toward a North Vietnamese victory in the war, it was actually a massive tactical victory for America. Here's how it went down.

At the end of 1967, the Johnson administration saw with growing alarm that people were no longer all that keen on sending kids overseas to die needlessly. In response, they announced that the war was going absolutely swimmingly. In fact, one of the top Field Commanders, General Bruce Palmer, Jr., went on record to say, "The Viet Cong has been defeated."

Here he is sitting in a completely non-symbolic armchair.

About a month after he waved a proverbial red flag at the hulking behemoth of fate, the Viet Cong shouted a collective "NUH UH!" But with guns. And bombs. And they did this on the first day of the Tet Lunar New Year, a two-day celebration that had been informally set aside as a ceasefire period.

North Vietnam and the Viet Cong guerrillas attacked just about everywhere in the country, sparking the major battles of Hue, Khe Sanh, and Saigon. The goal was to surprise and utterly incapacitate the Allied forces long enough to incite a general uprising among the South Vietnamese, who were not completely thrilled with the country's leadership.

But seriously, everywhere.

What North Vietnam failed to take into consideration was that most of the people who would rise up had already done so. That, and the fact that the Allies were extraordinarily talented at mobility and redeployment, which meant that they could counter just about any attack the Viet Cong could surprise them with.

People still died, though. A lot.

By the time the offensive was called off, the Viet Cong were utterly depleted and North Vietnam was looking at an existential crisis. Their casualty rate was somewhere around 50 freaking percent. Party leaders started eyeing each other nervously and waiting for the other shoe to drop. Then they started hearing what the South Vietnamese and Americans were saying.

In the South, people were faced with the stark reality that their government couldn't guarantee any kind of safety, even with the massive weight of the United States behind them. In the U.S., the political blow that North Vietnam dealt cost Johnson his career. When Nixon eventually took the reins, his policy toward the war was "Vietnamization," which basically meant "Y'all are on your own."

No other policy in history will ever be so perfectly illustrated.

Ultimately, North Vietnam's ruinous defeat ended up being their greatest victory. Not only did they kick over the first domino that would lead to the U.S. getting out of their hair, but they removed any potential contention with the Viet Cong after reunification by depleting them and replacing them with North Vietnamese regulars.

You'd think it's what they meant to do all along, but you'd be wrong. Despite the opportunistic propaganda they shouted at the time, North Vietnamese leadership maintains today that the Tet Offensive failed to achieve any of its major objectives. That failure turned the tide of the war to their favor.

Holy shit.

Holy Shit, Earth is Round!

You may have observed in the picture of Earth above that our planet is round and portly. In fact, I'd wager that you've known that for quite some time. If you didn't, you're either obstinately ignorant or certifiably insane. "Silly blog," you're no doubt saying with a hint of derision, "Everyone knows that Christopher Columbus proved the Earth was round when he sailed to America in 1492!" To which I say, "Hah! That asshole?"

Seriously, what an asshole.

No, reader, Christopher Columbus was full of many things, but intelligence was not one of them. When he set sail on his voyage to what he assumed to be India, he wasn't trying to prove that the Earth was round. He was trying to prove that India was way the fuck closer to Europe than it actually is. And he was wrong.

The naysayers that you made fun of in your elementary school play on Columbus day were actually completely right to doubt him. If, by sheer luck, there hadn't been an entire North and South America halfway between Europe and Asia, Columbus and his men would have surely died adrift at sea.

I've given some thought to what his memorial would look like.

"Now I remember," I hear you backtracking, "It was Copernicus and Galileo who proved the Earth was flat! They went against the church based on astronomy and stuff!"

Nope! I'm afraid that's just as wrong. First of all, the disagreements both men had with the church came well after 1492, and even well after Ferdinand Magellan (or more accurately, his crew) successfully circumnavigated the globe. Second, the disagreement centered on whether the Earth revolved around the sun or vice-versa. It's a pretty interesting debate in itself, but all parties pretty much agreed already that the Earth was round.

Rounder than my luscious curls, even.

So when did the Flat Earth myth die?

Sometime around the 6th Century.

B.C.



While the idea of a flat Earth may have persisted among the lower classes, most educated people in Western Civilization (and most other civilizations) have been aware of the general shape of the Earth for much, much longer than we collectively imagine.

See, when you pay attention to where the stars are, how shadows work, and how ships seem to sink below the horizon when they get far enough away, it becomes pretty clear to the discerning mind that there's no way in hell this place is flat. As a matter of fact, the Greeks had pretty much figured out the Earth's circumference by 240 B.C, a good 1700 years before Columbus got it drastically wrong.


Holy shit.

Holy Shit, Hospitality!

No, but seriously. Hospitality. I know it doesn't sound like the kind of thing that could dazzle you into swearing, but there's a long and storied history behind hospitality that makes it one of the most important concepts in Western Civilization. The best place to learn about it is in Greek mythology.

Among the high concepts associated with Zeus was that of Hospitality, or Xenia. If someone in a Greek Myth disrespects hospitality, the King of the Gods considers it a personal affront. Personal affronts to the mightiest of the gods was something the Greeks generally wanted to avoid, since anyone who managed to insult him was guaranteed an exceptionally and creatively severe punishment.

You may have heard of some of the poor suckers who thought it would be no big deal to disrespect a tradition associated with the guy who casually tosses lightning down from Mount Olympus in his spare time.

I don't know if you were aware, but not a lot of people can do that. Also, horse penis.

Take Sisyphus. Sisyphus was sent to Tartarus (which is basically Hell) to push a massive boulder up a hill with a rounded top. Every time he crests the hill, the rock rolls down the other side and he's forced to start all over again. Forever. His crime? As a king of Ephyra, he murdered guests and travelers in his home. That's a pretty flagrant violation of Xenia.

Cheer up, little fella. Someday, Camus will make you a metaphor for the human condition.

Tantalus killed his own son. On it's own, filicide was not bad enough to warrant the full brunt of Zeus-style justice. But he also disrespected Xenia by bringing a His-Son Pie to the table of his hosts. And his hosts were the gods.

What the hell is wrong with you?!

Jesus Christ. I mean...why on Earth would he think that was a good idea? You don't just pull a fast one on Zeus. Tantalus was sent to Tartarus for his trouble, where he was placed in an inescapable pool of water next to a low branch full of fruit. Cursed with everlasting hunger and thirst, Tantalus soon learned that every time he reached for the fruit, the branches would rise just above his grasp. When he leaned down to drink, the water level would recede to just below his lips. That's where we get the word "tantalizing."

According to the myths, when Ixion murdered his father-in-law it was the first kinslaying in history. Zeus's response? He invited Ixion to dinner. He figured, "What the Hell Tartarus, right? Everyone makes mistakes." When Ixion arrived, he started making googly eyes at Hera and caressing her under the table.

"I can't see how this could end poorly."

Here we have a double whammy. Not only did Ixion dishonor Zeus's favorite virtue, he made Zeus the victim of his crime. For that, he was tied to a winged wheel of fire that will continue spinning ceaselessly until the end of time, causing him thousands of lifetimes of horrible, searing pain. Not because of the murder, because of the hospitality.

Of course, the Greeks didn't have a monopoly on hospitality. Most cultures have similar feelings on the matter. In fact, a compelling argument has been made that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed not so much because of all the butt sex, but because citizens were planning to perform said butt sex forcibly upon angels of the Lord who had just been explicitly granted hospitality by citizens of the two cities. Old Testament God responded with his typical remedy for disrespect.

I love the smell of brimstone in the morning. Smells like...piousness.

The shared moral of these stories is that disrespecting hospitality, historically speaking, is about the same as slapping a god in the face. So...maybe don't kill your guests or anything.

Holy shit.