Too Bad It's Monday Humor

The teacher stood at the front of the room. “Does anybody know what this Monday is?” 

About half of the students raised their hands. The teacher pointed to one of them. “It’s Columbus Day!” he crowed. 

The teacher smiled. “It is. Does anybody know why we celebrate it?” 

This time, only one student raised her hand. “It’s the day the Indians discovered Columbus!” 

Much too true!

This Columbus Day, let’s berate the man who made the Washington Redskins possible.

A husband and wife attend a small service at the local church one Sunday morning. The man was very moved by the preacher's sermon, so he stopped to shake the preacher's hand. "Reverend, that was the best damn sermon I ever did hear!" 

The Reverend replied, "Oh! Why, thank you sir, but please, I'd appreciate it if you didn't use profanity in the Lord's house." 

"I'm sorry Reverend, but I can't help myself... it was such a damn good sermon!" 

The Reverend replied, "Sir, please, I cannot have you behaving this way in Church!" 

"Okay Reverend, but I just wanted you to know that I thought it was so damn good, that I put $5,000 in the collection plate." 

The Reverend's eyes opened wide as he remarked, "No Shit!" 

An Irish drunk staggered down the main street of the town. Somehow he managed to make it up the stairs to a cathedral and into the entrance, where he crashed from pew to pew, finally making his way to a side aisle and into a confessional. 

A priest had observed all this, and figured the fellow needed some help, so he entered his side of the confessional. After the priest sat there in deathly silence, he finally asked, "May I help you, my son?" 

"I dunno," came the drunk's voice from behind the partition. "You got any toilet paper on your side?"

There's a brunette walking down a set of railroad tracks saying,"34, 34, 34..." Then a blonde pulls up, gets out of her car, and says,"What are you doing?" 

The brunette replies,"Just counting." 

The blonde says,"May I join you?" 

"Yes," replies the giggling brunette. 

So the blonde and the brunette are now both walking down the railroad tracks saying,"34, 34, 34..." A train comes and the brunette jumps off the tracks as the blonde gets hit. 

After the train passes, the brunette gets back on the tracks and says,"35, 35, 35..." 

LATE NIGHT FUNNIES

Jimmy Fallon: "Today President Obama gave a speech in California to motivate young voters by discussing his commitment to new technology. Ironically, nobody heard him because they were all staring at their phones."

Jimmy Kimmel: "President Obama's in Los Angeles tonight for a night of fundraising and traffic jamming. Traffic is so bad here to start with, and when the president comes in it just gets so much worse. Here's the thing: Obama has no understanding of commuting because he works from home. He has a home office."

Seth Meyers: "Bookmakers have listed Pope Francis as the odds-on favorite to win the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize. So if you’re placing a bet on the results of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize . . . you have a gambling problem."

KATZ

In Fourteen Hundred Ninety-Two…

Christopher Columbus made a big boo-boo.

Columbus, who was as confused as anybody who has been seen for a long time, called the first people he saw “Indians.” It is not known what they call Columbus.

~ It All Started with Columbus by Richard Willard Armour 

About 50 years ago or so I read a marvelous little book entitled It All Started with Columbus. The author, Richard Willard Armour (July 15, 1906 – February 28, 1989) was an American poet and author who wrote over sixty-five books. Armour’s history is unlike any other history I had ever read—except, perhaps, William Gilkerson’s From Rocks to Rockets: Gilkerson on War Arms and Armies Through the Ages (about which I shall write in some future blog post). It is a tongue-in-cheek satire of American history: a delightful read for anyone knowledgeable enough about the subject not take take his words seriously.

Although I may be putting myself at risk of retribution from the Italian-American Anti-defamation League or perhaps the Mafia, I want to make it plain that I do not subscribe to the notion that Christopher Columbus discovered America or even that he was a "good" human being.

To begin with, what we call North and South America were never lost. Nor was the New World new. The Americas (also, misnamed) were inhabited by many peoples with advanced and divergent cultures, including for a short period visitors from Northern Europe who came to North America at least 400 years before Columbus is arrival in the Caribbean.

Second, there is much about Columbus and Columbus Day that is not known to most Americans. For example:

• Most educated Europeans in 1492 were aware that the world was round, but did not know that the Pacific Ocean existed. Thus Columbus and his contemporaries assumed that only the Atlantic lay between Europe and the riches of the East Indies
• The first Columbus Day was celebrated in 1792, when New York's Tammany Hall sponsored a celebration of the 300th Anniversary of Columbus' landing in the Bahamas.
• It was not until 1937 that President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed Columbus Day a national holiday, primarily due to intense lobbying by the Knights of Columbus.
• Prior to that, Italian and Catholic communities in various parts of the country held annual religious ceremonies and parades in the honor of Columbus.
• The first major Opposition to Columbus Day began in 19th century by anti-immigrant groups who rejected the Columbus Day celebrations due to their association with Italians and especially Roman Catholicism.
• In recent years, Native Americans and other groups have protested the celebration of Columbus Day as an event that indirectly resulted in the colonization of the Americas and the death of millions of indigenous peoples. 

Today I am not celebrating Columbus Day. Not necessarily because of any of the above; rather, because I do not picture old Chris as a likable or moral historical figure.

• Endless testimonies...prove the mild and pacific temperament of the natives... But our work was to exasperate, ravage, kill, mangle and destroy; small wonder, then, if they tried to kill one of us now and then... The admiral (Columbus), it is true, was blind as those who came after him, and he was so anxious to please the King that he committed irreparable crimes against the Indians. ~  de las Casas, Bartolome (1971). History of the Indies. New York: Harper & Row.
• ...husbands and wives were together only once every eight or ten months and when they met they were so exhausted and depressed on both sides. . . they ceased to procreate. As for the newly born, they died early because their mothers, overworked and famished, had no milk to nurse them, and for this reason, while I was in Cuba, 7000 children died in three months. Some mothers even drowned their babies from sheer desperation.... In this way, husbands died in the mines, wives died at work, and children died from lack of milk . . . and in a short time this land which was so great, so powerful and fertile ... was depopulated.... My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I tremble as I write. ~ de las Casas, Bartolome (1971). History of the Indies. New York: Harper & Row.
• October 12, 1492, Columbus discovered that the islands were inhabited by friendly, peaceful people called the Lucayans, Taínos and Arawaks...Columbus was so impressed with the hard work of these gentle islanders, that he immediately seized their land for Spain and enslaved them to work in his brutal gold mines. Within only two years, 125,000 (half of the population) of the original natives on the island were dead. ~ Eric Kasum

In fourteen hundred ninety-two,

Columbus sailed the oceans blue.

In fourteen and hundred and ninety-three, 

Columbus stole all that he could see.

A few of many Internet references:

• Christopher Columbus (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
• Columbus Day? True Legacy: Cruelty and Slavery
• Christopher Columbus Day Is a Crock
• Christopher Columbus & His Crimes Against Humanity
• Columbus and Columbus Day

For further reading:

If every reader of Nick's Bytes donated to Sometimes Saintly Nick and his kitty kids just $1.00 a month to supplement their small pastor's pension and Social Security, we would finally be able to make our financial ends meet. Thank you.

The Wisdom of Black Elk Redux

re•dux (rɪˈdʌks)

adj.(used postpositively) brought back; resurgent: the Victorian morality redux.[1650–60; < Latin: returning (as from war or exile), n. derivative (with pass. sense) of redūcere to bring backre•dux (rɪˈdʌks)

About thirty or so years ago, I first read Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux. I was so impressed with the wisdom found in the book that I then purchased an abridged audio cassette and played it as I was driving from appointment to appointment. Through the years I forgot about Black and his wisdom until about ten days ago when I rediscovered my old, worn copy of the book.

I gleaned much wisdom in the words of Black Elk, just a bit of which I share below:

"The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us." ~ Black Elk, Oglala Sioux


"My friend, I am going to tell you the story of my life, as you wish; and if it were only the story of my life I think I would not tell it; for what is one man that he should make much of his winters, even when they bend him like a heavy snow?" ~ Black Elk, Oglala Sioux

"Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking." ~ Black Elk, Oglala Sioux

"...while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being." ~ Black Elk, Oglala Sioux

“The Holy Land is everywhere” ~ Black Elk, Oglala Sioux

“You have noticed that the truth comes into this world with two faces. One is sad with suffering, and the other laughs; but it is the same face, laughing or weeping. When people are already in despair, maybe the laughing face is better for them; and when they feel too good and are too sure of being safe, maybe the weeping face is better for them to see.” ~ Black Elk, Oglala Sioux  

“Crazy Horse dreamed and went into the world where there is nothing but the spirits of all things. That is the real world that is behind this one, and everything we see here is something like a shadow from that one.” ~ Black Elk, Oglala Sioux  

"Grown men can learn from very little children for the hearts of little children are pure. Therefore, the Great Spirit may show to them many things which older people miss." ~ Black Elk, Oglala Sioux

"I think I have told you, but if I have not, you must have understood, that a man who has a vision is not able to use the power of it until after he has performed the vision on earth for the people to see." ~ Black Elk, Oglala Sioux

“Know the Power that is Peace.” ~ Black Elk, Oglala Sioux

"There can never be peace between nations until there is first known that true peace which is within the souls of men." ~ Black Elk, Oglala Sioux

“Peace will come to the hearts of men when they realize their oneness with the universe, It is every where.” ~ Black Elk, Oglala Sioux

“Behold this day. It is yours to make.” ~ Black Elk, Oglala Sioux

Oglala Sioux shaman

Black Elk Speaks, book and play:

Related books:

136 Year Ago Tomorrow, Sioux and Cheyenne Did Their Thing to Custer and the 7th Cavalry

The Battle of Little Bighorn

  The Last Command - Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn (Kirk Stirnweis)

When I was a small child I would spend weekends with my Aunt Abba (Alma) and Uncle Frank Bossmeyer. During my visits, I would sometimes stretch out on the living room sofa while Abba read to me from a favorite book. One of the books I really enjoyed (and had memorized word for word) was about the Battle of the Little Big Horn.  

Back then, I saw General George Armstrong Custer as  a hero; now I view him as an arrogant fool, who sacrificed himself and the men of his command in a vainglorious attack that need never have been launched.

In June of 1971 I was an officer of the Rogue battalion stationed in (then) West Germany. One of the units stationed with us was the 3rd Squadron of the Seven Cavalry, Custer's command. As I entered the Officers' Club on 25th June that year, a large banner was hanging from the balcony in the dining room that read:

95 Years Ago Today Sitting Bull Did His Thing to Custer and the 7th Cavalry

On this 136th anniversary of Custer's folly, I am reading a more realist history of the event at the Little Big Horn and reflecting on the oppression of Native American peoples by those of my own European ancestry.

Sitting Bull.

1831 - 1890

Crazy Horse (?),

1849 - 1877

Gary Owen, 7th Cavalry Regimental March