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.

 

Edison & Jumbo

Don't name any more high schools in the U.S. after Thomas Alva Edison. Let's have some Chuck Berry Junior Highs and maybe some Screamin' Jay Hawkins Elementary Schools. They were real heroes. They changed our culture for the better.

Edison, on the other hand, stole inventions; cheated business competitors; played dirty; had animals mutilated and murdered for publicity; and, worst of all, gave us the electric chair. It was all part of a gigantic campaign to scare the American public and drive them away from George Westinghouse's direct current version of household electrical power which was competing with Edison's alternating current plan.

Mr. Edison's Electric Chair

Edison was a crook, a cheat and a thief. He should be remembered as such. We can thank him for the electric chair.