Chuck Berry High School

We need to be careful about the heroes that we pass along to the next bunch; the kids, the ones who wait in line to decide what to do with the planet. Seems to me that Jesus, the person, was a nice guy. Sweet and funny, concerned with the plight of the poor. Poor himself and brown, too.

I've had about enough of the Thomas Edison stuff and I believe that it's time that we painted over some of the Thomas Edison High School signs and put the sign painters back to work. We need some Chuck Berry High Schools and some Captain Paul Watson federal courthouses.

Don't get me wrong. I'm thrilled to have light bulbs in the house and I'm partial to my record player, too. I'll give him some credit for some of his work but I want kids to learn the whole story. Not only did Tommy borrow heavily from Nikola Tesla for his technical work on AC but he seems to have cheated in competition with his rival, George Westinghouse, who was the champion for DC.

At any rate, he invented the electric chair as a gimmick to scare the general public into his corner based on fear of direct current. He sent his PR lackeys out into the countryside to demonstrate death by electricity. They would pay the neighborhood toughs to round up stray dogs to be electrocuted on steel sheets for the benefit of the local press. We remain the only first world country to boast of capital punishment.