The Story of Early America

[adrotate banner=”1″]It was a nice day as we strolled into the Goodwill store. It isn’t a real Goodwill store, but some other charity whose name I cannot recall. In the window is a sign about how everything is 50% off today, the sign is up 365 days a year. After rummaging though the toy bins for anything eBayable (scored a Transformer from 2001) I went over to the books like I always do on the lookout for goofy crap. Best in Children’s Books caught my eye, because there were several volumes and it looked old enough that my mom used it in school. I was right, the copyright date inside was from the 1950s, and it reprinted stuff from even earlier. One such story is our focus today, because it is always fun to see how things were like in the olden days. I’ve scanned in some of the paragraphs of The Story of Early America that would not make it into classes in this day and age, for good reason.

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This is one of those books you had in school that was made up of other, smaller books. Sort of like the Bible! These rest of the stories are not entertaining, we are only concerned about The Story of Early America.

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Copyright 1937! We’ll find out what grandpa learned about America just before he had to go kill Hitler!

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Stupid people are stupid. What of it?

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Europeans will conquer anything, and check out those naked red men run!

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The story of savages

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The book waxes philosophical about civilization all of a sudden!

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Let’s get us some jungle Negroes!

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Don’t blame the English for killing the Indians, they were just homesick

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Jungle Negroes need to go to college to work in factories

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Washington and Jefferson did not approve of slavery (yet the book fails to mention they owned them…)
And didn’t anyone tell the writer the the civil war wasn’t about slavery, it was about “State’s rights”? (the right to own slaves, that is!)

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He was out of his, going out of his mind, how could he ever be so blind?

That’s it as the Story of Early America ends at Lincoln’s death. The rest of the book is not interesting, except for this interesting picture in the Kipling story:
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Yes, that is a mandrill spanking a short-nosed Elephant.
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That’s if for now, unless I find another crazy ancient book for $1 at the thrift store! With today’s economy, it might just happen.

It's Asphalt-lickin' Good!

[adrotate banner=”1″]Sign of the times…

cleveland.com

The folks at KFC recently cooked up an appetizing offer for cash-strapped cities: The restaurant chain will fix crater-ridden streets for free if they’re allowed to brand repairs with a chalked-on message saying that the road has been “Re-Freshed by KFC.”

Company president Roger Eaton put the deal on the table last week in an open letter to America’s mayors. KFC intends to select four towns to receive “a smooth drive that is fit for a colonel.”

KFC started the project in its hometown of Louisville, Ky., to market its “Fresh Tastes Best” campaign.

Just wait until the McGarbage Trucks appear!

They have also approached Chicago about this

Syfy????? Has SciFi Channel lost their Frakkin' minds???

[adrotate banner=”1″]SciFi Channel will soon cease to exist, and be replaced by Syfy, the channel for people who use Y’s for I’s. They are seriously changing their name to “Syfy”. Seriously. I am not joking. This is actually happening! I will have to use the term “Syfy Original” later this year. I don’t want to use that term, I will probably refuse to use that term for months, but it will happen eventually. We are doomed.

Sci Fi Channel Has a New Name: Now, It’s Syfy
By STUART ELLIOTT
Published: March 15, 2009

FOR years, television viewers, journalists who write about TV and services that compile listings have wondered how to refer to a certain cable network: Sci Fi Channel? Sci-Fi Channel? SciFi Channel? SCI FI Channel?

Soon, to paraphrase Rod Serling — whose vintage series, “The Twilight Zone,” is a mainstay of the Sci Fi Channel — executives will submit for public approval another name, not only of sight and sound but of mind, meant to signal a channel whose boundaries are that of imagination. That’s the signpost up ahead — your next stop, Syfy.

Plans call for Sci Fi and its companion Web site (scifi.com) to morph into the oddly spelled Syfy — pronounced the same as “Sci Fi” — on July 7. The new name will be accompanied by the slogan “Imagine Greater,” which replaces a logo featuring a stylized version of Saturn.

The tweaking of the Sci Fi name, introduced in 1992, is part of a rebranding campaign that seeks to distinguish the channel and its programming from cable competitors — 75 of which are also measured by the Nielsen ratings service.

I wonder if this could have anything to do with money…

“We couldn’t own Sci Fi; it’s a genre,” said Bonnie Hammer, the former president of Sci Fi who became the president of NBC Universal Cable Entertainment and Universal Cable Productions. “But we can own Syfy.”

Bingo! SciFi Channel was tired of everyone talking about SciFi and it not being their network! Their Google Alerts must have been filled with fluff that they couldn’t put in powerpoint presentations to get more advertiser cash, so out comes a name change. And if it fails, they can just blame the recession and not the dumb name.