Reuters, November 14, 2001
Book offers twisted history from college term papers
Los Angeles - Experience history from the Stoned Age to the the
Blintz Krieg! From Middle Evil Times to the Age of Now, from the Land
of Milk and Chocolate to the Iran Hostess Crisis and the fall of the
Berlin Mall!
Welcome to the wonderful world of ''Non Campus Mentis,'' (Workman) a
book of mangled moments of Western Civilization culled from actual
term papers and exams of today's ''brightest'' students by
incredulous college professor Anders Henriksson who, while grading
exams, chose to laugh, rather than cry, at his students' most
egregious mistakes.
History, after all, is nothing more than ''the behind of the
present,'' according to one student, who aptly added: ''This gives
incites from the anals of the past.''
The once-mighty British Empire is in a ''state of recline. Its
colonies have slowly dribbled away leaving only the odd speck on the
map.'' Chairman ''Moo'' has passed away, as has former President
''Franklin Eleanor Roosavelt,'' and civil rights leader ''Martin
Luther Junior'' was slain in the 1960s, shortly after making his
famous ''If I Had A Hammer'' speech.
Hitler, a depressed ''Nazi leader of a Communist Germany'' who
spurred a huge ''anti-semantic'' movement through a terrifying
''Gespacho,'' launched ''Operation Barbarella'' while the English
''vanely hoped for peas.'' The war began turning around, though, when
the ''Allies landed near Italy's toe and gradually advanced up her
leg.
Hitler ultimately ''shot himself in the bonker.''
'CRETINALIA HISTORICA'
At its best, the 150-page book ''illustrates the ingenious and often
comic ways we all attempt to make sense of information we can't
understand because we have no context or frame of reference for it,''
according to Henriksson, chairman of the history department at
Shepherd College in West Virginia. He began compiling samples 20
years ago at the University of Toronto where he also taught.
Shortly after he began his collection, he published an article in the
''Wilson Quarterly'' titled ''College Kids Say the Darndest Things,''
which prompted amused colleagues at more than two dozen universities
in the United States and Canada including West Point, University of
Alberta and McMaster, to regularly send him their own inane prose
collections. Last year, when he realized his office overflowed with
funny samples of ''cretinalia historica'' the idea for a book was
born. While Henriksson declined to identify all the schools involved
he said they ranged from moderately to highly competitive, about half
were in Canada, no Ivy League schools were represented, and that one
of the entries came from Oxford in England.
At its worst, the book may reflect a generation raised in ignorance
by bad schools and disengaged parents.
''This is not the norm,'' Henriksson told Reuters in an interview.
What you have here is almost 30 years of my collecting from students'
(works) at various institutions. This really represents sort of the
creme de la creme of the creatively inane.'' Did he make it up?
''No!'' he said. ''Who could make this stuff up except Mel Brooks.
I'm not Mel Brooks.'' Which prompts the question: Should people sound
the alarms and search for an ''escape goat?'' Maybe. Hundreds of
student contributors received passing grades with such statements as:
''When the Davy Jones Index crashed in 1929 many people were left to
political incineration. Some, like John Paul Sart, retreated into
extraterrestrialism. The New Deal was an idea inspired by Franklin
Eleanor Roosavelt.''
(The Boston Tea Party, by the way, was held at Pearl Harbor.)
Gravity of the misstatements aside, the bloopers make a great
reference whether one seeks information on the Canadian Missile
Crisis, clashes between Israelis and Parisians, or the Gulf War in
which, according to one scholar: ''Satan Husane invaided Kiwi and
Sandy Arabia.'' (No doubt an act of ''premedication.'')
'NEW INCITES'
Henriksson said the errors fall into three major categories. Some are
simply caused by bad spelling or a lack of proofreading, and come out
funny. Some were prompted by a ''profound lack of preparation, while
others, just seem to be ''really out at sea,'' he said.
''You get the ones who don't really even seem to understand there's a
line between past and present and they tell you that the first
airplane was flown by the Marx Brothers. I had this one kid who wrote
that Spartacus led a slave rebellion in ancient Rome and then appered
in a movie about it later.''
The book offers fresh new ''incites'' on history from
''prehistoricle'' times through ''King Toot'' and the birth of
''monolithic'' religion. (''Judyism had one big God named Yahoo'').
The book goes on to ''chronicle'' the birth of Christianity (''Just
another mystery cult until Jesus was born'') and, his pronouncement,
later, that ''The mice shall inherit the earth.''
The book sheds new light on the lives of Martin Luther (he nailed 95
theocrats to a church door), ''Florence of Arabia,'' and General
George ''Custard'' who managed to stand up anyway.
(''Martian Luther King's'' four steps to direct action, by the way,
included ''self purification,'' when you ''allow yourself to be eaten
to a pulp.'')
In its final pages, the book includes students' geographical
misconceptions as represented on several world maps bearing such
labels as ''The Land of Milk and Chocolate'' and ''Home of Golden
Fleas'' (in the Ancient World) to ''Bulemia,'' ''Whales,'' ''Roam,''
the ''Eel of France,'' and the ''Automaton Empire'' (as they were
known in the ''Middle Evil'' Times).
And it notes that, yes, there has indeed been a change in America's
''social seen,'' over the centuries. The last stage, according to the
book, is ''The Age of Now. This concept grinds our critical, seething
minds to a halt.''
Until then, however, we Americans, ''in all humidity'' are nothing
less than ''the people of currant times.''
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