Evil Origins: A Horror & Dark Fantasy Collection

by J. Thorn

  This is not theoretical guesswork or a matter of perspective, like whether or not you favor David Lee Roth or Sammy Hagar. These are the scientific facts. (Roth, of course. Don’t even mention Cherone. Eddie didn’t let him stick around long enough to become part of the Van Halen debate.)

  ***

  Brett Favre will go down in football lore as the greatest quarterback of all time. Yes, Marino put up incredible numbers, but he never won the Super Bowl. Montana did win a ring, but he did not have the ability to single-handedly win the game unless he tossed the ball to Rice, who was a master at gaining yards after the catch. The jury is still out on Peyton.

  As Wikipedia states (Remember Encarta? Me neither. How long will it be before Microsoft or Google swallows Wikipedia?):

  Favre is widely considered to be one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. He is the only player to win the AP Most Valuable Player three consecutive times (1995–97). He led the Packers to seven division championships (1995, 1996, 1997, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2007), four NFC Championship Games (1995, 1996, 1997 and 2007), winning two (1996 and 1997), and two Super Bowl appearances, winning one (Super Bowl XXXI).

  He holds many NFL records including: most career touchdown passes, most career passing yards, most career pass completions, most career pass attempts, most career interceptions thrown, most consecutive starts, and most career victories as a starting quarterback.

  And don’t forget the immortal cameo in There’s Something About Mary. Given the list of records this man holds and the mystique that surrounds him, it’s no surprise that the media, especially the NFL network, has turned its attention to Kiln, Mississippi, every spring for the past few years. Will he retire, or will he come back for another shot at a championship? As sad as it may seem, this is no longer a mystery as Favre has retired for the final time.

  I must apologize to my good friend, Adam, who is now screaming at me while spitting his Dunkin’ Donuts (Endorsement? Free java? C’mon, Dunkin’, hook a brother up) coffee all over the wall. I know you feel betrayed by the legend given that he ditched your beloved Packers. But it’s almost impossible to deny the manlove so many have for Number Four.

  With all of Brett’s records, his Super Bowl rings, and loads of money, why did he continue to pursue the title at the age of forty?

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  Skip Downing runs an organization called On Course. On the home page, he states, “As a college educator myself for more than forty years and a designer/facilitator of professional development workshops for more than twenty, I’ve created this web site as a one-stop resource for educators across the curriculum . . . especially those who want to empower their students to become active, responsible, and successful learners.”

  In “The Impact of Extrinsic Motivation,” Downing cites two studies related to motivation and their correlation to success:

  1) Psychologists M.R. Lepper, D. Green and R.E. Nisbett studied children who spent a high percentage of time drawing during free play. They took children individually and asked them to draw. Expected-award children were shown a good-player certificate and told they could win one by drawing. After they drew, they were told they had done well and were given the certificate. Unexpected-award subjects were not informed about the certificate, but after they drew, they were given the same feedback and certificate. This condition controlled for any effect due to receiving a reward. No-reward children drew with no mention of a certificate and were not given one at the end, which controlled for any effect due to drawing. Two weeks later, children again were observed during free play to determine the percentage of time spent drawing. Expected-award children spent less time drawing during the post-experimental phase compared with the pretest baseline phase; pretest-to-posttest changes of the other groups were nonsignificant. Compared with the other conditions, expected-award subjects spent less time drawing during the post-experimental phase. Similar results have been obtained in several studies using different subject populations (children, adolescents, adults), types of rewards (monetary, social) and target activities. The original study is titled “Undermining Children’s Intrinsic Interest with Extrinsic Reward” and was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

  2) Psychologist Edward Deci did research with two groups to see the effect of extrinsic rewards on learning. Group one received an extrinsic reward (money) for solving a puzzle called SOMA; the second group received no rewards. Afterwards, both groups were left alone and secretly watched. The group that was paid stopped playing; the group not paid kept playing. Deci summarized his findings thusly: “Stop the pay, stop the play.” He concludes, “Monetary rewards undermined people's intrinsic motivation. . . . Rewards seemed to turn the act of playing into something that was controlled from the outside: It turned play into work, and the player into a pawn. . . . Rewards and recognition are important, but as the research has so clearly shown and I have reiterated many times, when rewards or awards are used as a means of motivating people, they are likely to backfire.”—Edward Deci, Why We Do What We Do

  What becomes immediately clear, even to those of us not in educational psychology, is that the results of this research are repeated in study after study. There is virtually nothing that supports rewards or awards as a way to motivate over the long term.

  However, one could argue that rewards and awards are running rampant through our culture. The idea manifests itself in different ways. Whether it’s the idea that every child gets a ribbon for just participating or the use of food awards for mundane tasks, the practice is everywhere.

  In many schools, you would be hard pressed to find an activity or cause that is in some way not related to food, more specifically, junk food or candy. Unfortunately, the carrot at the end of the stick is not the satisfaction of helping others or the accomplishment of working together for a higher cause. The ultimate goal is self-serving. The “winner” of such charity gets a pizza lunch, or a doughnut breakfast, or candy. Even in the regular routine of the classroom, junk food and sweets play a pivotal role in the classroom-management techniques of certain teachers.

  I am most perplexed by hardcore veterans of the chalkboard who subscribe to this practice. Younger teachers and inexperienced administrators see the sugary handouts as a means to bond with kids they do not see on a daily basis. It makes them feel connected when in fact the kids come running like rats in a lab for the treat, not for the sage advice. However, veteran teachers should know better. They began teaching at a time when handing out candy to students would have been unthinkable. They learned to manage the classroom with poise, positioning, questioning techniques, and the ability to read body language. They received degrees and licenses that studied the ways to foster intrinsic motivation in students. And yet these same vets take the low road and attempt to buy attention with Jolly Ranchers and Starbursts.

  In addition, schools lack a respect for parenting styles when sugary treats are made readily available. Kids cannot delay gratification because they are, well, kids. They cannot learn how to do this if candy is made available whenever they want it. It is unfair and unrealistic to expect kids to turn down a treat when it’s handed out by the authority figures in their lives. The very notion condones the action. I have seen children eat ice cream for lunch on consecutive days. That is what they do. If you are trying to raise a healthy child in your house and do so by not making the unhealthy stuff available, good luck. Needy teachers trying to be popular are undermining your best efforts.

  The same educators who use extrinsic rewards like candy will be the first to deemphasize the importance of grades to students. A child has to be nothing but utterly confused by these mixed messages. Teachers say things like, “You should learn for learning’s sake and not worry about grades,” or, “Grades don’t matter.” And at the same time they place a heaping bowl of candy in clear view as a reward for the end of a successful class.

  Some might call my stance on sweets in schools draconian. I would agree that it is. Cupcakes, candy, and soda ha
ve as much place in our schools as weed, cocaine, and crank. Kids cannot regulate their intake or delay their gratification, and the teachers, the ones in control, are pushing this shit. It’s no surprise we are cranking out fat kids at an all-time high. The health concern is frightening but secondary in the greater scheme of turning children into successful adults. Happy people don’t chase the golden ring.

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  “To me, it’s Super Bowl or bust. . . . If we play the way we’re capable of, I think we have a legitimate shot.”

  It’s tough to find meaningful, eloquent quotes from a guy who made a career out of throwing a football. However, the quote about the Super Bowl says a lot about Brett Favre. He comes back year after year for the chance to be the best. Brett’s motivation is another world title and a shot at football immortality. I am sure it’s nice to have the houses and the cars and the lifestyle, all of which would have been guaranteed ten years ago.

  Mario Lemieux, the legendary center for the Pittsburgh Penguins, came out of retirement in 2000. Michael Jordan, arguably the most influential basketball player of all time, came out of retirement in 1995. These athletes did this because they are intrinsically motivated to achieve. Success is addictive, and they were hooked. While there were lucrative sponsorship deals floating under the surface (Lemieux was reportedly offered $500,000 per year to use Nike gear for as long as he continued to be on the ice), neither man needed any more money when he came out of retirement.

  Every year, the incredibly boring Pro Bowl follows the same pattern. The guys show up, do an interview or two, beat up some hookers, and then go out to play for $40,000 each. If you are in the Pro Bowl, chances are you have a multi-million dollar contract, and the prize money for this game is a stack of chips you plan to lose at a table in Vegas. But halfway through the second quarter, the tone of the contest changes. Players get serious as the competitive juices begin to flow. By the fourth quarter, guys are hitting each other like they did the hookers. The best athletes in the world are not motivated by anything but a desire to be the best, to enjoy success at the highest levels.

  ***

  An essay written by Richard Strong, Harvey F. Silver, and Amy Robinson, in 1995, details what it takes to motivate students. Silver Strong & Associates have been running programs in differentiated learning for a long time and have spent time transforming many schools.

  Extrinsic motivation—a motivator that is external to the student or the task at hand—has long been perceived as the bad boy of motivational theory. In Punished by Rewards, Alfie Kohn (1995) lays out the prevailing arguments against extrinsic rewards, such as grades and gold stars. He maintains that reliance on factors external to the task and to the individual consistently fails to produce any deep and long-lasting commitment to learning.

  You would be surprised how much information you can get from a book flap. Usually enough to fool people into thinking you have read it.

  Our basic strategy for raising children, teaching students, and managing workers can be summarized in six words: Do this and you’ll get that. We dangle goodies (from candy bars to sales commissions) in front of people in much the same way that we train the family pet.

  In this groundbreaking book, Alfie Kohn shows that while manipulating people with incentives seems to work in the short run, it is a strategy that ultimately fails and even does lasting harm. Our workplaces and classrooms will continue to decline, he argues, until we begin to question our reliance on a theory of motivation derived from laboratory animals.

  Drawing from hundreds of studies, Kohn demonstrates that people actually do inferior work when they are enticed with money, grades, or other incentives. Programs that use rewards to change people’s behavior are similarly ineffective over the long run. Promising goodies to children for good behavior can never produce anything more than temporary obedience. In fact, the more we use artificial inducements to motivate people, the more they lose interest in what we’re bribing them to do. Rewards turn play into work, and work into drudgery.

  ***

  My parents have lost their fucking mind. When they visit they bring an avalanche of cupcakes, snacks, and candy for my two kids. My mom will say things like, “Now, honey, if you eat all of your breakfast, you get to have dessert.”

  When you are between the ages of three and eight it makes perfect sense to have dessert after every meal. In the 1970s, my parents chained me and my brother to the dining room table and forced us to eat runny, cold sweet potatoes. If the CIA would ditch waterboarding and send the 1977 version of my dad to Afghanistan to “clean their plates,” terrorism would be a thing of the past. And yet these are the same people who now make my children think that icing is on the food pyramid.

  Well-meaning teachers act like sweetly vindictive grandparents bent on buying love by spoiling children with things they know they should not have. Every time I hear a remark about how candy is synonymous with childhood, I want to ask if diabetes is as well. The statistics and the line of fat kids at the mall food court do not lie.

  The research provides nothing conclusive except divergent theories. Grades and extrinsic rewards might motivate certain learners, and that is the best-case outcome. For the majority of us, success comes from achievement and not from grades, endorsement contracts, cupcakes, hot tubs full of supermodels, gold stars, or candy.

  Not that I would turn down a hot tub full of supermodels.

  One Nation

  Which of the following is bullshit?

  A. One Nation Under God

  B. In God We Trust

  C. God Bless America

  D. God and Country

  E. All of the above

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  The notion of America as a Christian nation is one that rears its ugly head periodically. Using the study of history as a means to acquiring truth, it becomes easy to dismiss such nonsense.

  In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own. It is easier to acquire wealth and power by this combination than by deserving them, and to effect this, they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer for their purposes. . . .

  Do you recognize the writer of that quote? No? How about this one?

  And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. . . .

  Try one more on for size.

  There is not one redeeming feature in our superstition of Christianity. It has made one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. . . .

  They are all quotes from the most important Founding Father in our country’s history. The guy who drafted the Declaration of Independence, a product of the Enlightenment, our nation’s third president, and often quoted as our best: Thomas Jefferson. (In 1962, JFK invited forty-nine Nobel Prize winners to the White House and said, “I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent and of human knowledge that has ever been gathered together at the White House—with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”)

  Early in Jefferson’s first term, he wrote a letter to the Connecticut Baptists with the famous “separation of church and state” reference.

  Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and state.

  So maybe Jefferson was the lone nut of the Founding Fathers, the crazy uncle of the crew constantly farting in public and telling saggy boo
b jokes. James Madison wrote the famous “Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments,” in which he outlined over a dozen reasons why the government should not be involved in or support any religion.

  The Reverend Bird Wilson, an Episcopal minister from New York, gave a famous sermon in 1831 regarding the Christian orthodoxy of the Founding Fathers. The sermon appeared in the Albany Daily Advertiser.

  The founders of our nation were nearly all Infidels, and that of the presidents who had thus far been elected (George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson), not a one had professed a belief in Christianity.

  Furthermore, Wilson goes on to state:

  When the war was over and the victory over our enemies won, and the blessings and happiness of liberty and peace were secured, the Constitution was framed and God was neglected. He was not merely forgotten. He was absolutely voted out of the Constitution. The proceedings, as published by Thompson, the secretary, and the history of the day, show that the question was gravely debated whether God should be in the Constitution or not, and after a solemn debate he was deliberately voted out of it. . . . There is not only in the theory of our government no recognition of God’s laws and sovereignty, but its practical operation, its administration, has been conformable to its theory. Those who have been called to administer the government have not been men making any public profession of Christianity . . . Washington was a man of valor and wisdom. He was esteemed by the whole world as a great and good man; but he was not a professing Christian.