Smite things

This all started as a comment on Angie's blog...
How awesome would that be. (being able to smite things) It just sounds cool. "The angel of the Lord smites the Assyrians..." "Jephthah smites the Ammonites..." Who says history isn't cool. History is awesome, when it's not being force-fed to you by a school system that can't quite get it's act together. Speaking of which, I'm feeling the need to vent about my high school... so you may just wanna stop reading here, skip ahead and save yourself some time.

The history dept at WFBHS: My freshman year they decide to switch over from 3 semsters of World History and 2 of US and then gov't to 2 semesters of world, 3 of US and still gov't. Great. I'm all for learning more about US History. Except AP US is 2 semesters your junior year. So you have to spend a semester learning Jamestown to the Civil war and then do it all over again the next year. Which in turn means AP US gets through less, for example we barely got through WWII and therefore didn't know whole sections of questions come AP test time. Awesome. No wonder I only got a 4. I rocked at DBQ's. Well not really, but I remember rocking the one that counted. It's not as though they haven't decided who to invite into AP US by the time you're a sophmore. So why don't they find something better to do with that semester? Because it's Whitefish Bay. grrrrrrr...

Not to say that I disliked the history department totally. I mean Tipple was great, who doesn't love D-train Lane and Mr. Sweeney? and I'll even admit to liking Ms. Duncan, if for no other reason then she seemed to like me and it was great watching Jason have to answer all those questions when he, Nick and I would be talking in the back of class instead of paying attention. Sorry Jase. And model UN? Awesome. Yes, in case you some how missed it, I participated in Wisconsin High School Model UN....... twice. The first year arguing fishing laws as the land locked European nation, The Czech Republic. The second year discussing human rights as Iceland. I still have the big table placard I stole senior year that says Iceland on it. It's up in my room. I am that cool. oh man I totally just remembered Codell and his flags. So sophmore year our principal decides to invest in a set of flags of all the countries of the world and hang them in the hall on the first floor. Simple enough. Except after purchasing the first set, he finds another set for half the price and buys those too, not realizing he can't return the first set. So not only did he blow a couple thousand dollars on flags no one really even cared about in the first place, but now we had TWO sets. It definitely became the thing he was known for. Well that and being too friendly in the hallway. No I don't want to shake your hand. Get away from me you crazy man. aaah high school. Too bad he wasn't smote. The whole school would have attended that assembly.

No more WFB stuff I promise. History stuff. Smiting stuff. You know what was awesome? the power of the Catholic Church at their peak. The Holy Roman Empire. You didn't do crap without their approval. Not to say that they were perfect and didn't do some pretty horrible things. The Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, etc etc... But man did they have absolute power or what. Screw democracy. It doesn't work. Let's go back to a time when angels smote people at the whim of God and Kings bowed to the Church. We'll just do it better and not have all the corruption. Wow am I a nerd. Stupid Prostestants. They ruin everything.

This is why I love books like The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson and even Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. The world was so much cooler back then.