From: MCHENRY 15-FEB-1985 02:19 To: @[LANLDB]MOSAICGRP Subj: a little levity HOW NOT TO WRITE, courtesy of John Dolan. Here's the collage of unconscionably bad, but hilariously funny writing on history I told you about: Editor's note: Those of us who have taught English composition, or history, or subjects in which students have regularly produced written work, can appreciate the humor of this version of European history from the Middle Ages to the present. The author, a veteran of the university classroom, has assem- bled fragments of student papers--papers collected in his history classes over a five-year period--into this chronological narrative. A History of the Past: Life Reeked With Joy History, as we know, is always bias, because human beings have to be studied by other human beings, not by independent observers of another species. During the Middle Ages, everybody was middle aged. Church and state were co-operatic. Middle Evil society was made up of monks, lords, and surfs. It is unfortunate that we do not have a medivel European laid out on a table be- fore us, ready for dissection. After a revival of infantile commerce slowly creeped into Europe, merchants appeared. Some were sitters and some were drif- ters. They roamed from town to town exposing themselves and organized big fairies in the countryside. Mideval people were violent. Murder during this period was nothing. Everybody killed someone. England fought numerously for land in France and ended up wining and losing. the Crusades were a series of military expeditions made by Christians seeking to free the holy land (the "Home Town" of Christ) from the Islams. I think I'll send the rest in installments. Feel free to distribute it to the rest of the MOSAIC group--I think they'd get a kick out of it. John In the 14 hundreds most Englishmen were perpendicular. A class of yeowls arose. Finally, Europe caught the Black Death. The bubonic plague is a social disease in the sense that it can be transmitted by intercourse and other etceteras. It was spread from port to port by inflected rats. Victims of the Black Death grew boobs on their necks. The plague also helped the emergence of the English language as the national language of England, France, and Italy. The Middle Ages slimpared to a halt. The renascence bolted in from the blue. Life reeked with joy. Italy became robust, and more individuals felt the value of their human being. Italy, of course, was much closer to the rest of the world, thanks to northern Europe. Man was determined to civilize himself and his brothers, even if heads had to roll! It became sheik to be cated. Art was on a more associated level. Europe was full of incredible church with great art bulging out their doors. Renaissance merchants were beautiful and almost lifelike. The Reformation happened when German nobles resented the idea that tithes were going to Papal France or the Pope thus enriching Catholic coiffures. Traditions had become oppressive so they too were crushed in the wake of man's quest for resurrection above the not-just-social beast he had become. An angry Martin Luther nailed 95 theocrats to a church door. Theologically, Luther was into reorientation mutation. Calvinism was the most convenient re- ligion since the days of the ancients. Anabaptist services tended to be migratory. The Popes, of course, were usually Catholic. Monks went right on seeing themselves as worms. The last Jesuit priest died in the 19th century. After the refirmation were wars both foreign and infernal. If the Spanish could gain the Netherlands they would have a stronghold throughout northern Europe which would include their possessions in Italy, Burgundy, central Europe and India thus surrounding France. The German Emperor's lower passage was blocked by the French for years and years. Louis XIV became King of the Sun. He gave the people food and artillery. If he didn't like someone, he sent them to the gallows to row for the rest of their lives. Vauban was the royal minister of flirtation. In Russia, the 17th century was known as the time of the bounding of the serfs. Russian nobles wore clothes only to humor Peter the Great. Peter filled his government with accidental people and built a new capital near the European boarder. Orthodox priests became government antennae. The enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltare wrote a book called Candy that got him into trouble with Frederick the Great. Philosophers were unknown yet, and the fundamental stake was one of religious toleration slightly con- fused with defeatism. France was in a very serious state. Taxation was a great drain on the state budget. The French revolution was accomplished before it happened. The revolution evolved through monarchial, republican and tolarian phases until it catapulted into Napoleon. Napoleon was ill with bladder prob- lems and was very tense and unrestrained.