The SoapBoxers

I wake up every morning to the Billy Joel song We Didn’t Start the Fire. I’m not a particularly big fan of Billy Joel (although I also like “Piano Man”), but this one particular song is one of my all time favorites. My daughter (18 months old) also likes it a lot.

Not only is the song pleasing to the ear, but it also works as a great jumping off point for a history lesson. History seems to be a forgotten subject these days, so why not use music to create an interest in history? Most of you have heard the song, but do you really know all of the correct lyrics? The first time I saw the written lyrics, my curiosity was piqued and I had to immediately research some of the names and events. I’ll give short explanations of some of the lyrics to get you started. I’ve included the complete lyrics at the end of the post (hopefully I got most of the lyrics correct) – go ahead and research some of the others on your own.

Johnnie Ray – Ray overcame deafness in both ears to become a major music star of the 1950s.

Panmunjom – Panmunjom, Korea, was the site of truce talks during the Korean war. A sticky point was the topic of how to handle prisoners of war. Some had been brainwashed and others who did not want to return to their countries. On July 23, 1953, the United Nations, China, and North Korea (but not South Koreas) signed a truce.

Malenkov – Georgy Malenkov succeeded Joseph Stalin as leader of Russia’s communist party. He was an opponent of nuclear armament. He was forced out of the post after two years, and eventually forced out of the government completely after his involvment in a failed attempt to unseat Krushchev.

Dien Bien Phu falls – The French stronghold of Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam (French Indochina at that time) fell victim to a siege by the Viet Minh during the first Indochina war. The French surrendered at Dien Bien Phu in May, 1954, effectively ending their presence in Vietnam.

Zhou Enlai (alternate spelling Chou En-Lai) was a leader of the Chinese communist party. Zhou was a comrade of Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-Tung) and served as China’s foreign minister and later as chairman of the Chinese communist party. He advocated peaceful coexistence with the west.

Children of thalidomide – Thalidomide was sold to pregnant women as a method to prevent morning sickness and a sleeping aid. Thousands of children were born with birth defects that were linked to thalidomide, and the drug was banned.

Payola – In the 1950s and 1960s, record companies began a practice of paying disc jockeys to play specific songs. This was illegal, and ruined the career of star disc jockey Alan Freed (and others) when he testified that he had accepted payola.

Bernie Goetz – Goetz was attacked by four men on a subway in New York City in 1984. Goetz shot his four attackers, rendering one a paraplegic and seriously wounding the other three. He was arrested and charged with attempted murder, assault, reckless endangerment, and multiple gun law violations. A jury found him not guilty on nearly every charge. He did spend eight months in jail as a result of being found guilty of a firearms violation. The Goetz incident gained national exposure to the topics of crime and self-defense.

** Lyrics for We Didn’t Start the Fire **

We Didn’t Start the Fire

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio

Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe

Rosenbergs, H-bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, The King and I and The Catcher in the Rye

Eisenhower, vaccine, England’s got a new queen
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye

CHORUS
We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it

Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc

Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, dacron
Dien Bien Phu falls, Rock Around the Clock

Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn’s got a winning team
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland

Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Krushchev
Princess Grace, Peyton Place, trouble in the Suez

CHORUS

Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Zhou Enlai, Bridge on the River Kwai

Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball
Starkweather homicide, children of thalidomide

Buddy Holly, Ben Hur, space monkey, Mafia
Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go

U-2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo

CHORUS

Hemingway, Eichmann, Stranger in a Strange Land
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion

Lawrence of Arabia, British Beatlemania
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson

Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex
JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say

CHORUS

Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline
Ayatollah’s in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan

Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide
Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shores, China’s under martial law
Rock and roller cola wars, I can’t take it anymore

CHORUS

We didn’t start the fire
But when we are gone
Will it still burn on, and on, and on, and on

A woman in Ohio is in trouble for breast feeding in public. Well, to be more precise, it’s the fact that she was driving while breast feeding that seems to be the larger issue. Impressively, she was able to do this while still carrying on a conversation on her cell phone. I’m not even sure how this is physically possible. The mother’s reasoning was that her baby was hungry and she didn’t want the kid to starve.

I can’t begin to comprehend the logic that came into play. First of all, children that age are required to be in a child safety seat in the rear seat of the car. Having the child in the front seat, without using a safety device, puts the child in extreme danger in the case of a crash. The possibility of a crash was then greatly increased by the fact that the lady was distracted not only by the nursing baby, but also by the cell phone.

This lady was extremely lucky that her baby made it through this escapade in good health. The mother faces 180 days in jail and a fine of $1800. I would recommend at least some jail time – if only a few days – to drive home the point of how serious this is. I would hope that 99.9% of people would realize that you should pull over to the side of the road (or take an exit) and feed the baby only when the vehicle is at a complete stop.

A big “thank you” to the driver who called to report her to the police. You may have saved a life. You are a hero.

A 15 year old British girl is in trouble after a teacher discovered condoms and lubricants in her school bag. That probably wouldn’t have been such a big deal if the bag hadn’t also contained information about the agency the girl worked for.

The 15 year old girl had made around $30,000 working weekends as a prostitute over a period of two months. If you extrapolate that to a full year, she was on pace to earn $180,000 per year – and she was only working weekends. She was making $3500 a weekend.

Those numbers are just staggering. In order to make this sort of money at a legal job, you have to be a brain surgeon or a member of congress (OK, so perhaps that tests the definition of “legal”). It is easy to see why this lifestyle could be tempting, especially at an age when money seems like the solution to all problems.

What’s the solution? Harsher penalties, I suppose. Maybe a D.A.R.E. style program focusing on the negative aspects of prostitution. Unfortunately, I don’t see a silver bullet to this problem. In this particular case, a man and woman in their 40s (the girl’s parents?) were arrested on charges of inciting child prostitution but were later released. The 15 year old girl faces no charges. I’m not sure what sort of message the authorities are trying to send.

With the magnitude of money that is at stake, it seems rather likely that this girl is going to reappear in another part of the country (were she is not known to the authorities) and go back to work.