Collage 222               H u m o u r N e t               22 FEB 96

Check out *this* gem from the Reuters news service:

"Some Kids Addicted to the Internet, Psychologist Says"

LONDON (Reuter) - Some children are becoming addicted to the
Internet and spend up to 14 hours a day on the computerized
information superhighway, a British psychologist said Wednesday.

(Wow, now *there* is a serious problem in the making. Better go put
them back in front of the television....)

Dr. Mark Griffiths of Nottingham Trent University in the English
Midlands said: "As the number of people who have access to the
Internet grows, the number of people addicted to it will grow."

(Wow, Mark -- figure that one out all by yourself? You wouldn't
happen to be a good friend of Dan Quayle, would you?)

</Reuter>

Well, once again, I must thank Jim in L.A. for the news story. And
thanks are also due Andrew in the U.K. for our "substitute" piece,
"The History of the World -- Kids' Version." (A little earlier than
the thematically-first-in-hopefully-first-out filing system would
have normally had it -- but an awesome piece in its own right.)

BTW, I will be making good on my snowboarding promise this weekend
(re: Collage 210), and will be away until Tuesday. See ya then!

- Vince Sabio
  HumourNet Moderator
  HumourNet@telephonet.com
____________________________________________________________________
          Opener (above) Copyright 1996 by Vincent Sabio
  Permission is hereby granted to forward or post this "Collage";
  please observe the guidelines stated at the end of the message.
____________________________________________________________________

SUBJ: The History of the World -- Kids' Version

"56 B.C AND ALL THAT"
Richard Lederer

It is truly astounding what havoc students can wreak upon the
chronicles of the human race. I have pasted together the following
history of the world from genuine student bloopers collected by
teachers throughout the United States, from eighth grade to college
level. Read carefully and you will learn a lot.

-RL

[Editor's Note: Read carefully, and you'll see why the U.S. needs
more funding for education. :-) </vs>]

----------[ H U M O U R N E T ]----------

Ancient Egypt was inhabited by mummies, and they all wrote in
hydraulics. They lived in the Sarah Dessert and traveled by
Camelot. The climate of the Sarah is such that the inhabitants have
to live elsewhere, so certain areas of the dessert are cultivated by
irritation. Early Egyptian women often wore a garment called a
calasiris. It was a sheer dress which started beneath the breasts
which hung to the floor.

The pyramids are a range of mountains between France and Spain. The
Egyptians built the pyramids in the shape of a huge triangular cube.

The Bible is full of interesting caricatures. In the first book of
the Bible, Guinessis, Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree.
One of their children, Cain, asked, "Am I my brother's son?"

God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on Mount Montezuma. Jacob, son
of Isaac, stole his brothers birthmark. Jacob was a patriarch, who
brought up his 12 sons to be patriarchs, but they did not take to
it. One of Jacob's sons, Joseph, gave refuse to the Israelites.

Moses led the Hebrew slaves to the Red Sea, where they made
unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients.
Afterwards, Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten
commandments. He died before he ever reached Canada.

David was a Hebrew king skilled at playing the liar. He fought with
the Finkelsteins, a race of people who lived in Biblical times.
Solomon, one of David's sons, had three hundred wives and seven
hundred porcupines.

Later came Job, who had one trouble after another. Eventually, he
lost all his cattle and all his children and had to live alone with
his wife in the desert.

The Greeks were a highly sculptured people, and without them we
wouldn't have history. The Greeks also had myths. A myth is a
female moth.

One myth says that the mother of Achilles dipped him in the river
Stynx until he became intollerable. Achilles appears in the
"Iliad," by Homer. Homer also wrote the "Oddity," in which Penelope
was the last hardship that Ulysses endured on his journey. Actually,
Homer was not written by Homer but by another man of that name.

Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people
advice. They killed him. Socrates died from an overdose of
wedlock. After his death, his career suffered a dramatic decline.

In the Olympic Games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled the biscuits,
and threw the java. The reward to the victor was a coral wreath.

Eventually, the Romans conquered the Greeks. History calls people
Romans because they never stayed in one place for very long.

Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The
Ides of March murdered him because they thought he was going to be
made king. Dying, he gasped out: "Tee hee, Brutus." Nero was a
cruel tyranny who would torture his poor subjects by playing the
fiddle to them.

Rome came to have too many luxuries and baths. At Roman banquets,
the guests wore garlics in their hair. They took two baths in two
days , and that's the cause of the fall of Rome. Rome was invaded
by ballbearings, and is full of fallen arches today.

Then came the Middle ages, when everyone was middle aged. King
Alfred conquered the Dames. King Arthur lived in the Age of Shivery
with brave knights on prancing horses and beautiful women. King
Harold mustarded his troops before the battle of Hastings. Joan of
Arc was burnt to a steak and was cannonized by Bernard Shaw. And
victims of the blue-bonnet plague grew boobs on their necks.
Finally, Magna Carta provided that no free man should be hanged
twice for the same offense.

In midevil times most people were alliterate. The greatest writer
of the futile ages was Chaucer, who wrote many poems and verses and
also wrote literature. During this time people put on morality
plays about ghosts, goblins, virgins, and other mythical creatures.
Another story was about William Tell, who shot an arrow through an
apple while standing on his son's head.

The Renaissance was an age in which more individuals felt the value
of their human being. Martin Luther was nailed to the church door
at Wittenberg for selling papal indulgences. He died a horrible
death, being excommunicated by a bull. It was the painter
Dontello's interest in the female nude that made him the father of
the Renaissance.

The government of England was a limited mockery. From the womb of
Henry VIII Protestantism was born. He found walking difficult
because he had an abbess on his knee.

Queen Elizabeth was the "Virgin Queen." As a queen she was a
success. When Elizabeth exposed herself before her troops, they all
shouted "hurrah." Then her Navy went out and defeated the Spanish
Armadillo.

It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg
invented removeable type and the Bible. Another important invention
was the circulation of blood. Sir Walter Raleigh is a historic
figure because he invented cigarettes and started smoking. And Sir
Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100-foot clipper.

The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespeare.
Shakespeare was born in the year 1564, supposedly on his birthday.
He never made much money and is famous only because of his plays.
He wrote tragedies, comedies, and hysterectomies, all in Islamic
pentameter.

In one of Shakespeare's famous plays, Hamlet rations out his
situation by relieving himself in a long soliloquy. His mind is
filled with the filth of incestuous sheets which he pours over every
time he sees his mother. In another play, Lady Macbeth tries to
convince Macbeth to kill the King by attacking his manhood. The
clown in "As You Like It" is named Touchdown, and Romeo and Juliet
are an example of a heroic couplet. Romeo's last wish was to be
laid by Juliet.

Writing at the same time as Shakespeare was Miguel Cervantes. He
wrote "Donkey Hote." The next great author was John Milton. Milton
wrote "Paradise Lost." Then his wife died and he wrote "Paradise
Regained."

During the Renaissance America began. Christopher Columbus was a
great navigator who discovered America while cursing about the
Atlantic. His ships were called the Nina, the Pinta, and the Sante
Fe.

Later the Pilgrims crossed the ocean, and this was called Pilgrim's
Progress. The winter of 1620 was a hard one for the settlers. Many
people died and many babies were born. Captain John Smith was
responsible for all this.

One of the causes of the Revolutionary War was the English put tacks
in their tea. Also, the colonists would send their parcels through
the post without stamps. During the War, the Red Coats and Paul
Revere was throwing balls over stone walls. The dogs were barking
and the peacocks crowing. Finally, the colonists won the War and no
longer had to pay for taxis.

Delegates from the original 13 states formed the Contented Congress.
Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two singers
of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin invented electricity
by rubbing two cats backwards and declared, " a horse divided
against itself cannot stand." Franklin died in 1790 and is still
dead.

George Washington married Martha Curtis and in due time became the
Father of Our Country. His farewell address was Mount Vernon.

Soon the Constitution of the United States was adopted to secure
domestic hostility. Under the Constitution the people enjoyed the
right to keep bare arms.

Abraham Lincoln became America's greatest Precedent. Lincoln's
mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he
built with his own hands. Lincoln said, "In onion there is
strength."

Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address while traveling from
Washington to Gettysburg on the back of an envelope. He also freed
the slaves by signing the Emasculation Proclamation.

On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to the theater and got
shot in his seat by one of the actors in a moving picture show. The
believed assinator was John Wilkes Booth, a supposingly insane
actor. This ruined Booth's career.

Meanwhile in Europe, the enlightenment was a reasonable time.
Voltair invented electricity and also wrote a book called "Candy."
Gravity was invented by Isaac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in
the autumn, when the apples are falling off the trees.

Johann Bach wrote a great many musical compositions and had a large
number of children. In between he practiced on an old spinster
which he kept up in his attic. Bach died from 1750 to the present.

Bach was the most famous composer in the world, and so was Handel.
Handel was half German, half Italian, and half English. He was very
large.

Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he
wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when
everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later
died for this.

France was in a very serious state. The French Revolution was
accomplished before it happened and catapulted into Napoleon.
During the Napoleonic Wars, the crowned heads of Europe were
trembling in their shoes. Then the Spanish gorillas came down from
the hills and nipped at Napoleon's flanks. Napoleon wanted an heir
to inherit his power, but since Josephine was a baroness, she
couldn't have any children.

The sun never set on the British Empire because the British Empire
is in the East and the sun sets in the West. Queen Victoria was the
longest queen. She sat on a thorn for 63 years. She was a moral
woman who practiced virtue. Her death was the final event which
ended her reign.

The nineteenth century was a time of a great many thoughts and
inventions. People stopped reproducing by hand and started
reproducing by machine. The invention of the steamboat caused a
network of rivers to spring up. Cyrus McCormick invented the
McCormick raper, which did the work of a hundred men. Louis Pasteur
discovered a cure for rabbis. Charles Darwin was a naturalist who
wrote the "Organ of the Species." Madman Curie discovered radio.
And Karl Marx became one of the Marx brothers.

The First World War, caused by the assignation of the Arch-Duck by
an anahist ushered in a new error in the anals of human history.

********************************************************************
 Anyone Without a Sense of Humor Is At The Mercy of The Rest of Us.
********************************************************************

"HumourNet" is brought to you by Lyris -- an innovative new e-mail
list server from The Walter Shelby Group, Ltd. For more information
on Lyris, see <http://www.lyris.com/>.

To subscribe to the "HumourNet" mailing list, send the following
command to <lyris@lyris.net>:

subscribe HumourNet your_name, your_city, your_state or country

where "your_name" is your real name, etc. If you run into problems,
then either (1) send any message to <HumourNet-info@lyris.net> for
a more detailed set of instructions, (2) subscribe via Lyris's Web
interface at <http://www.lyris.net/>, or (3) send a *detailed*
description of the problem to <Listmom@telephonet.com>.

To unsubscribe, visit our Web interface at <http://www.lyris.net/>
or refer to your Welcome message for detailed instructions.

For instructions on contributing to HumourNet, send any message to
<contribution-guidelines@lyris.net>.

>>> Note: Attributions in Collage openers are to the contributors,
not necessarily the authors. Authors' credits are included in the
text wherever possible. <<<

The HumourNet archives can be accessed via the Web and FTP:

    Web: <http://www.humournet.com/HumourNet/>
    FTP: <ftp://ftp.humournet.com/pub/HumourNet/Collage.Archives/>

Permission is granted to forward or post this Collage, provided that
1) the message is forwarded/posted in its ENTIRETY, from the line
containing the Collage number and date to the end of this trailer,
and 2) no fee is charged.

There are "relaxed" forwarding/posting guidelines available; for a
copy of them, send any message to <posting-guidelines@lyris.net>, or
refer to your Welcome message.

********************************************************************
    "HumourNet" is a trademark of HumourNet Communications, Ltd.
********************************************************************
</collage222>