Gerien's horror

[MoP]

A nightmare for every librarian: a customer not returning his books.

But if your president gives the example by holding books for over 200 years, the horror is complete.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8627835.stm

[Gerien]

http://www.cracked.com/article_18489_6- ... da_p2.html

The Cult of George Washington

As you may have noticed, we're hard on the founding fathers here at Cracked, and we've even taken our shots at George Washington at times. But he was unquestionably the father of the country and we don't like to think about how things would have played out without him.

That's why they named the nation's capital after him, after all. And put him on the one dollar bill:


And on our stamps:

And our schools:

And on a mountain:

And a state:

And a monument:

And, uh, a fresco of him being leveled-up to a freaking deity? Painted by a dude from the Vatican to be displayed atop the Capitol?


And carved into a statue dressed as Zeus?


What the fuck? That one almost appeared atop the Washington Monument... riding a freaking chariot.

OK, so America may have taken the whole Washington thing a little too far.


Here he is as a pastry chef.

Why it's Pure Propaganda:

While we have already mentioned the liberties taken with George's life and so-so military career, the way he's been worshiped throughout American history extends far beyond Parson Weems' bullshit story about George the lumberjack. In fact, it really extends into full-blown cult of personality status. The new USA spent decades plastering Washington's face and name onto every flat surface they could find.

Why? Well, for several reasons, but mainly because the new nation sort of needed it. The 13 colonies barely tolerated each other and the biggest danger was that the new nation would collapse into a cloud of civil wars and cannon smoke. Since the United States had little history of its own, and thus no legendary heroes to rally around, the public appeal and near-worship of Washington helped establish a single (and largely mythological) figure all of the colonies could get behind.

Keep in mind, George Washington wasn't voted into office--there were no primaries or debates or campaign ads or other candidates. They basically just declared him President, and most people were fine with that because everywhere they looked they found a reminder that the man was a god. Hell, to this day he's worshiped and glorified in classrooms, textbooks, children songs and just about every element of pop culture from commercials to movies.

Of course his own political allies were quick to promote it, but so was everybody who wanted to sell something by jumping on the Washington merchandise gravy train. Washington was the Che of his time.

[Sturm]

I imagine those books made for fine toilet paper on Washington's campaign...

[owly]

No Sturm what really happened was he used them for rolling papers

[Gerien]

No Sturm what really happened was he used them for rolling papers

That's actually more likely, although hemp was a rope/clothing material more than a smoking one.

[owly]

In the early 18 hundreds it was a popular Tea too

[Kethry]

I took American History last semester, and yeah, his military career was mediocre at best. I don't remember the details, but I remember he got his ass handed to him at least once. There was a bunch of other tl;dr stuff, but yeah. Not as awesome as previously advertised.

[Immigrant]

In the early 18 hundreds it was a popular Tea too

was definately born too late

[Gerien]

Just realized this thred got jacked twice in the first 3 posts.

[MoP]

Just realized this thred got jacked twice in the first 3 posts.

Indeed, you savages! Now the only thing I can do is jack all your threads!

[Immigrant]

in the spirit of thread jacking (altho this is remotely on topic since the thread title mention's Gerien, & I if I remember correctly Gerien's a cat lover, no?):

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8658327.stm

[Nagash]

we're hard on the founding fathers here at Cracked

I thought it was a capital crime in the USA to refer to the hard ons and cracks of the founding fathers. And referring to jacking with regards to them as well.

Good to know self mocking is more popular nowadays!

[MoP]

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/1005 ... washington

The book has been returned! Without fine, though. So if you're ever late in returning books, just keep them for over 200 years and you're good.