Mayday, Mayday!

It's the first of May. This marks the 1/3 point in my current contract. Four months of a year. I have to say it is awesome not worrying about finances! I have a big fridge full of groceries; I have a good computer, (with a really nice, big screen!); I have clothes that fit me and Itaewon just a few hours away in case I need more; and I have some friends close by. People who I can subject to a little of my whinging and then do something fun together to make me forget what I'm whinging about. I have to go to work tomorrow, and, as always, work could be better, but I will be paid for that work and because of that I will be able to claw my way outta this quicksand I'm in. I don't have family but as the man said, "A guy can't have everything."

Now where was I a year ago? I had increasing, instead of decreasing debt; didn't have a place or a fridge of my own; had a little rip-off laptop from Indonesia; I had only summer clothing I had brought to Indonesia, and it was pretty much worn out, but I had some good friends and I had just arrived in Korea with new hope that I could make some dough here like I had before and maybe find a good, long term place to work.

Well I'm making dough!

I am not sure how much I should slag the place I work at or the people who own it and run it, but I had high hopes that this was a different hagwon. This was not going to be a mickey mouse cram school where a good teacher would feel like the walk to work every day was a sentence to Azkaban and the students were all joy-sucking Dementors. I was told all the good things about the place and the people who run it and for the most part they have been true. But, me and my cursed positivity, I didn't shift into skeptic mode and ask all the questions that should have been asked before signing the contract because I didn't want to ruffle any feathers and, frankly, I was desperate to get back to work. So I didn't ask what EXACTLY was meant by 10 vacation days per year. This is what comes from experience. In any business engagement with Koreans I have had, (and I have heard this is quite common even outside of the ESL racket), there are obvious scams. Things they don't tell you about and hope you don't ask about. And despite all the good things the previous worker and the owners were piling onto me during the courting period before the contracts were signed, I knew there were a few areas that I didn't want to ask about.

Through the years I have been ripped off by so many Koreans that it has left a scar on me. I try very hard not to think of all the other soulless scumbags who have taken me for the proverbial ride when I start talking to a new employer about salary or vacation or teaching philosophy because I believe that holding other Koreans' actions against this new employer would be racist. But try as I do, when the new employer starts mealy mouthing about some important, (and bad... always bad), information that was left out of the contract, all the old memories start rising up and Lewis Black's little red character from "Inside Out" mans the controls of my brain. At first it's a snide smile and comments dripping with sarcasm like, "Oh, wonderful! YOU choose the days of my vacation! That's so much better for me! Takes the pressure off me. It's so hard for me to decide my vacation on my own!"

Then it gets a little more smirky and to the point, "Usually taken during April and September when the middle school kids have vacation. Okay, that's good. I want to do what's most convenient for YOU."

Then my mouth gets cottony and every word I say is accompanied by a tongue smacking that makes it plain I am suffering from desert mouth, which adds embarrassment to the anger, thereby increasing the rage, the dry mouth and the smacking noises. "Oh, I see. The two weeks in April are already spoken for by other teachers. And YOU have 10 days vacation in September leaving me with the five days you are showing me on the calendar now hoping I won't notice that two of those days are a weekend. Yes, I can see how you FORGOT to tell me about the previous two times I inquired about it."

I was told not to worry and assured that I will be paid in lieu of vacation time for the 7 of 10 days vacation I won't get. And another thing I have learned, and it's a ceaseless frustration for myself and other's here in Korea is this bullshit myth of "chaemyun." "Face," is the highly inaccurate term used for it amongst English speakers, but I find most people really don't understand how entirely loathsome and obviously upper cast-spawned this crippling tradition really is! It's simply a way for rich and powerful people to maintain their riches and power. I have used the example of "jung," before. It's a mythical "love" that only Koreans can have for one another. Really it's just an excuse for powerful people to treat the less powerful like shit then say, "But I have JUNG for you!" A fellow blogger gave an example from a Korean drama, (ugh), that comes more to bear on my situation. It's from the drama called, "Eun-Hee." It's one of those Korean dramas that they have on TV showing how things were before and after the Korean War in Korea. Well... showing how all Koreans WISH they were.

Eun Hee works at a tofu factory. One day the good-for-nothing nephew of the owner of the tofu factory embezzles money from the company and tries to blame it on Eun-hee, the lead character of the show. Amid rampant rumors among the factory staff, it gradually comes to light who the real perpetrator is and the characters are left figuring out how to deal with the situation.

Several options are considered and attempted. Since the guilty party is the nephew of the president, it would really reflect badly on the good owner to announce the truth to the factory workers, but the president can't let the issue slide either (that would look bad too). Somebody has to take the fall for the crime and Eun-hee is about to get fired. However, before this happens, a friend of Eun-hee borrows money and gives it to the company management saying he'll take responsibility for the crime, and then quit his job. Eventually, another friend of Eun-hee's sells his camera equipment to get some money, which he then takes to the nephew, telling him to return it to his aunt (the owner), explain it was an oversight and apologize for an honest mistake. This is what ends up happening.

So a good person loses his job and another good person loses his camera equipment and the asshole, who, let's face it, doesn't give the money back to president, his uncle or aunt, but keeps it, essentially doubling his reward for embezzlement, gets off Scott free! Come on!!! NObody thinks this is the right way of doing things! I don't care how Korean you are! And honestly, Koreans don't want to, nor do they really do this horseshit. They just tell tales of doing it. And when they achieve positions of power, they require this sort of behaviour from their underlings.

So I just have to pretend like my boss was not TOTALLY busted for scamming me out of the bare minimum 10 days of vacation promised in the contract. In non-Asian countries, where we deal more in honesty and less in mythology, we call this eating shit. But I know if I take even a slightly accusatory tone, the whole thing will be turned around on me and I will be the bad guy for pointing out the sins of the true bad guy. Lesson learned from both situations? In Korea, it's good to be the bad guy. That's why business here will never lose its base of corruption. Not until this chaemyun is exposed for the fraud it actually is. And I doubt I'll see it in my lifetime.

There is a growing list of things the hagwon owners "forgot" to tell me before I signed. The very first was the apartment. Several things, in fact, about this apartment weren't told to me and will be met with, "Well! I never! How can you foreigners be so rude?!" if I point them out. First, it's not the apartment I looked at and agreed upon. It's one that was arranged for me while I was 3 hours away in Seoul. Then on moving day I was told of the sight unseen apartment I'd be given. When I arrived it was mostly okay, but there were a few things. Again, it was my proper place to reply, "No, everything's fine!" when asked if the apartment was okay. And wear my smirky smirk again. But I have a single electric burner. I was promised a double before I moved in but it has yet to materialize. The bathroom sink was clogged and taken apart when I moved in. The landlord put the fixture back together, but never fixed the clog. It gets worse all the time. I have tried plunging, baking soda and vinegar, water and Saran Wrap, but nothing has worked. The sink drains at a trickle and will soon not drain at all. Asking the landlord to fix it might result in another confrontation. The BIG thing, however, was the thoroughly black mold infested bathroom. The landlord wore a mask while he fixed the sink, I assure you. But get it professionally cleaned before the foreigner moves in? That would have been too much. It was just left for me to do. Which I did. And have had 3 "colds" in the first 3 months here.

I've used bleach, vinegar, a dozen different cleaners, and just heavy scrubbing, but from what I've read about black mold, there's no way I'll ever have a mold-free apartment here. And I have the chest congestion to prove it. But to suggest to the landlord or hagwon boss that they were in any way complicit? Bad form! The skeptic in me has to believe that the landlord looked into professional cleaning and just didn't want to pay that much. The last dude who lived here was probably sick. He LOOKED sick the one time I saw him. They probably had a helluva time trying to offload this apartment onto a Korean! But dump it onto a foreigner sight unseen! Genius! I was told by my boss that the landlord doesn't like having foreigners living in his place. But if it's in the moldy death trap, well okay then.

Then there's the boss's position in this. I'm sure this place was a sweetheart of a deal! And he's actually TOLD me I'm paying taxes on 400,000 won a month. That's right, the "FREE" apartment in the contract, that is a government mandated part of the contract by the way, is not really free. Whether he is paying 400,000 a month rent or he's really paying less but claiming 400,000, or maybe he just lied and is claiming 500,000... I don't know. But I am boosted into a higher tax bracket because of this and will take a big hit at tax time. Didn't tell me that until the squabble about the pay.

Oh, yes, the pay. I met several times with the bosses here before signing the contract and was quoted a number several times. It was in the ad and on the contract. Never did anyone remember to tell me that 300,000 won a month would be deducted from that amount. 3.3% is what's in the contract. That's about 75 bucks a month. That's what I expected. Nope. I pay over 300 bucks a month tax. Forgot, I was told. Smirky smirk.

When I started teaching, I found a lot of the things I hate most about teaching in Korea even though they too had been "forgotten" about when the hagwon was explained to me. Team teaching. Never liked it, never will. I am a bit obsessive about planning well in advance. This is one reason why I loved the college and university programs. Everything is planned for the entire 17-week program before it even starts. I mentioned several times that I wanted to do this here so needed texts to get to work. Never occurred to anyone to mention that I won't be able to plan ANYthing in advance because I'll be teaching the same texts as the Korean teachers. And even if you find that elusive method of informing the other teacher what you did, that still gives them a day's notice at best. It wasn't until the middle of my fourth month here that I actually was told who my co-teacher was for every class. Slipped their minds.

Another thing that will hamper my efforts at advanced planning is the bizarre schedule. I STILL haven't really figured it out and get surprise classes showing up. "I thought I had the phonics class at this time," I say smirky smirkily. "No, because of the holiday last week and due to the middle school picnic week, elementary school classes are getting more of the time here so we decided to swap the classes." And, you know it is not my place to say, "Sure! Without telling me!"

The textbooks we were using took me a month and a half to finish. Then I was told the other teachers were going to review before we could move to the next book in the series. So I reviewed too. For ANOTHER month and a half! 4 topics per book! It's pretty hard to pull that many lessons on 4 topics out of my, ahem, bag of tricks. Then, at the three month point, I was told that this is normal. A month or two of review is normal after finishing the texts. The very next day, (I'm not kidding!), I was told I have to use the texts more.

This brings up possibly the most annoying of the things I wasn't told. I heard on several occasions that management will just let me do my own thing. I love that. Full classroom autonomy. But at the three month point I have been told to use the text for 30 minutes, homework check 10 minutes, something else like maybe a game 10 minutes, do three pages of this book per day... and I have to give 10 to 15 minutes of homework to every class at the end of every class by rule. I had heard that one of the owners likes homework so I was giving some, against my educational principals. But I understand how Korean parents like the useless homework so I was assigning it. Some students and some parents started saying David doesn't give homework and that, I think, is what brought on this monumental micromanagement. I have now been handicapped by rules down to the minute of class time and the number of textbook pages. As far from full classroom autonomy as you can get.

The whole time I'm being kimchi-slapped in the face with all of these things, (and more), I am wearing a plastic smile and saying things like, "Well good! Now I know," or, "I'm glad we had this meeting. We should have more communication like this." The reason is, with all of this hardship, I can honestly say, hey, I'm working at a hagwon! These things have to be expected. And when you sit down and think about it, yeah I'm sacrificing many of the educational principals that have nurtured me, lo, these many years, but I'm making money. I'm doing MUCH better than I was at this point last year. Or two years ago. Or three or four or... Things have been much worse. And while I'm working at Azkaban Hagwon, I can always throw resumes around to other places that might, (or, sigh, might not), be better. I'm only sentenced to a year. And there really are some very good kids at this place. They're not all Dementors. In fact the majority are really nice, cute kids.

But people are constantly asking me how things are going. If you are not Korean I will say, "Work is a bit of a bowl of suck at the moment." Or something like that. If you are Korean, I will lie to you and tell you that things are fine and give you a fake smirky smirk. Don't blame me, that is what your culture demands. And that statement in itself demands a show of anger from the Korean who has been totally busted. See? This face thing, or "chaemyun," really isn't so hard to figure out. Just a bit hard to live with sometimes. But at least I'm making dough.

So I got that goin' for me.

Miracle on Yeoreum?

Here's a story I'm following.

It seems the Korean national hockey team, which is allowed to participate in the 2018 Olympic tournament only by virtue of the Korean cities of Pyeongchang and Gangneung being the host cities of said Olympics, has fast tracked some Canadian hockey players' citizenship applications so that they can represent Korea. I've been to a game in Seoul and I have seen some of these guys play for the Anyang Halla team. The hockey is not nearly as exciting as watching NHL or Olympics, but it's fun. And even if these guys and some other North Americans are on the Korean team, I have little doubt that Korea will get pummelled like a rented mule. And I will have a Cass beer and a pretty good laugh while watching it. In fact I can't wait!!!

But what if the unthinkable happened? What if Matt Dalton stands on his head, and Eric Regan blocks as many shots as Matt, and somehow Brock Radunske and Michael Swift combine for a goal assisted by other Canadian defenseman, Bryan Young and American, Mike Testwuide or however you spell that? What if this goal stands up and they beat, I dunno, Uzbekistan? A Korean hockey victory at the Olympic games! That would be outstanding! I sincerely hope it happens! I do! Because THEN Korea would invest more time and money into the hockey program here. Kids would be more likely to understand that hockey is infinitely cooler than the soccer they all think is cool because of the Korean performance in World Cup 2002, which they co-hosted with Japan.

I'd love to see hockey explode here! But having lived for so long in the land of the morning calm, I question whether Koreans would be satisfied with only one win. I wonder if they would even be satisfied with a miracle on ice like the 1980 American team made up of some mediocre hockey players beating the most extraordinary hockey force maybe ever, the Soviet team. Every time I look at the sheer unlikeliness of THAT miracle, I think it wasn't just a little, but a LOT too unlikely to have actually happened. And I really DON'T want to investigate any further lest I lose my faith in the sanctity of Olympic hockey. Because the only plausible way that could have happened was a legitimate, Almighty God assisted miracle or a fix. Money changed hands. It was the cold war era and Russia needed money and America needed victory. I don't want to EVER find out that the Russians took a dive, but come on! Look at the players! Men against boys!

At any rate, it is without a doubt the upset of all time in sports. Even if the Washington Generals beat the Harlem Globetrotters, it wouldn't be as unlikely a victory. Not even close. But if Korea were to win a few games in 2018... How big would this be? The cheerer for the underdog in me dearly hopes it happens and I am here to see it! The skeptic in me thinks, "Does Korea have enough dough to pay off an Olympic hockey team or two? And would it be worth it for them?" The answer to that is most likely, YES! Korea would gain a great deal from being the mouse that roared! Look what the soccer World Cup of 2002 did for the country! It put Korea on the world soccer map, but more than that, it put Korea on the world map in the minds of a lot of its citizens who maintained to that point, a sort of small country humility. I am certainly not saying being as yet the only Asian country to reach the World Cup semis is the only thing that caused this, what, is "haughtiness" too strong a word? And I'm not saying it was good. But I have witnessed Korea develop a swagger since I first came here in 1997, and the World Cup was a HUGE contributor to it.

Again, the skeptic in me must be heard. Guus Hiddink was the coach of that Korean team. He was the first person to be given honourary Korean citizenship for his contribution to the shocking success in World Cup 2002. He's still a hero here. I have seen more than one restaurant/bar named after him! But the minds of all soccer fans, (which I am not, as you can tell by my use of the word, "soccer"), and all skeptics, (which I am), think back to the officiating of the tournament. Again, I'm not saying the refs were bought but, 2 red cards against Portugal and 2 disallowed goals in their match against Spain were bigger reasons than any that Korea did so well. Who's to say that a couple of World Cup officials weren't the second and third people to receive honourary citizenship?

I have already heard some buzzing in the comments posted by the locals when this article was featured on an expat website about how the refs in the Olympic hockey tournament will be bought and the Korean hockey team will benefit. I HATE to think that the purity of my national sport could be sullied like that! Sport is one of the few remaining things that hasn't been ruined yet by money. Well, amateur sport, that is. Which is what the Olympics is supposed to be. Which brings up the question of whether the pros will participate or not. If the pros are disallowed from the Olympic hockey tournament for Pyeongchang then none of the listed players would be allowed to play. And none of the pros on the other teams would be allowed to play. But would the amateur players of Canada, Russia, Finland, Sweden, etc. not make a bigger punching bag of an amateur Korean club? They most certainly would! So I think Korea is counting on the pros remaining. I think they will. And with the pros playing, and the pros officiating, (that is, players and referees who are paid to play hockey and officiate it), they are USED to being paid off! How much easier will it be to fix this tournament? That's what the skeptic in me is thinking.

I also wonder other things. Like if this "miracle" were to happen, what would the general feeling be throughout Korea? Would they feel as proud as they did for their 2002 soccer team, even with all these ringers on the team? I have a feeling they would. Another part of that swagger development in Korea has been the gradual change from grateful thanks to the nations that assisted during the Korean war to "We really kicked some ass in that war didn't we?" And I know that countries like Turkey, the U.K. countries and Australia figured largely and I recall the U.S. having some say in that skirmish, but Canada's contribution to the Korean war is all but forgotten. So eventually the contribution of these Canadian hockey players to any success in 2018 would likely be forgotten as well.

And from the standpoint of an ESL teacher in Korea, imported from the more educationally experienced, refined and forward thinking country of Canada, who has consistently been encouraged, micromanaged, demanded and even forced to abandon the sophisticated teaching philosophy and methodology that took many years of study and experience to acquire and force myself into antiquated but popular 1950's training in Korea, I wonder if this won't happen with the hockey team. Will the Korean team coach, Jimmy Paek, use the sophisticated, well honed, hockey methodology of the hockey playing nations of the world that he was exposed to during his days as an NHL player, or will some Koreans pay HIM off to employ their ingenious KOREAN strategies, which include no forward passing, no curved sticks, line-changes only on whistles, and getting rid of those pussy helmets?

I guess it'll all be part of the colourful tapestry that is the Olympic winter games. Just one more thing to be excited about!

We All Have Our Judiths

Like all good comedy, in my opinion, this made me laugh and then it made me go, "Hmmmm..." By Golly, he's right! What is up with that? Germany! Ya gotta give them props! They're like Lex Luthor. Or Moriarty. Or Reverse Flash. Or Voldemort. Or Hitler. Or Gargamel. Or Dr. Claw. Or Eric Cartman. Or Cancer. Or the Giant Chicken. Or even Satan himself.

They were bad. But they brought it! They had game! And if they hadn't hurt our heroes, made them feel hopeless and forced them to rise above that feeling, their heroism would have suffered. In some cases, been downgraded to ambiguity.

Don't just look at Hitler, look at Max Planck, Einstein, Haber, Benz, Heinrich Goebel, Wilhelm Rontgen, how about Charles M. Schultz? No, he wasn't born in Germany, but his Dad was, and ask yourself this: if not for Peanuts, would you recognize the name Manfred von Richtofen? I wouldn't. The Red Baron. He brought it too! 80 air combat victories! Unheard of! Add to that the countless times he shot Snoopy down. He was and is a national hero in Germany and was widely respected even by his enemies!

Then you look at all the scientific names I dropped. Rontgen, even though Edison never corrected anyone who said HE invented the x-ray, it was Rontgen. The light bulb is the same way. Edison didn't invent it. Not even close. But it's one of many things we don't exactly know who invented. Goebel is one of the inventors who may have. Like 25 years earlier than Edison. This we know because Edison decided to sue a few manufacturers who were making light bulbs like the ones he claimed to invent. The companies contested that Edison's patent was fraudulent because Goebel had invented the incandescent light bulb before him. Edison ended up, (somehow), winning the cases and getting even richer, but many still contend that Goebel legitimately invented the light bulbs Edison stole, then patented. Edison was a dick!

The car is another invention like this. It's hard to say exactly what a car is. There were steam powered automobiles in France before Karl Benz made his car. It certainly wasn't Henry Ford who invented the automobile though. That much is for sure. He didn't invent the production line either. That's just plain silly. But speaking of Germany... Ford was well loved by Germany. Ford motors powered their WWII army. He got a medal from Hitler. The highest honour a non-German could receive. He was the only foreigner mentioned in "Mein Kampf." I've even heard Hitler had a life sized portrait of Ford in his office. See? Zee Germans...

I'm looking forward to the upcoming movie about Nikola Tesla. Perhaps this will knock the falsely respected Thomas Edison down to his proper place as just one of these really bad people who bring out the best in the good people. He told the world direct current was superior and put up 50,000 dollars to anyone who could improve upon it. Tesla gave him alternating current. It was better. Edison basically said, "Aw, shucks, Tessie, old chap, I was just joshin' ya!" And, like so many other inventions he hijacked, went on to make loads of money from it while the REAL genius didn't. He never gave Tesla his 50 grand. And this is back when 50 grand was like a million. There's no telling how many inventions we'd have now if Edison was a man of his word! You know all those chords hanging off everything electric you own? Especially the snarl of them behind your computer table and your living room entertainment center. Tesla said he could eliminate them for everybody and I believe he could have. We will never know. You can thank Edison for THAT. For all we know he may have been a better invention suppressor than inventor.

Every time I think of Edison, I think of that song, "Judith," by A Perfect Circle. The first line is catchy: "You're such an inspiration for the ways that I'll never ever choose to be!" It's a song about someone named Judith who believes she is doing good when she's really doing bad. I suppose we all have our Judiths in this life and we can hate them and give up or we can use them as inspiration and heroically rise above. I believe that along with the arch-enemies, we need some heroes too. The negative inspiration is good, but we need to see people who have succeeded against these formidable foes. Come to think of it, every U.S. presidential campaign needs a theme song. How 'bout "Judith" for Her Strumphmeister, (Donaldo Trump)? I just can't take him seriously enough to write his proper name.

Fritz Haber, a brilliant mind reduced by the war to figuring out a better way to kill people. Haber's chlorine gas was just abominable! Yet his Nobel Prize winning method of producing nitrogen fertilizers is probably used for half the world's food production.

Max Planck, the father of quantum theory, also won a Nobel Prize for a theories on atoms and sub-atomic matter. He was a supporter of Einstein's theories of relativity. And, oh yeah, Einstein. This guy was a SUPERSTAR! Known all over the world. If you find any list of the most famous people in history, behind Jesus, Muhammed, Hitler and maybe Michael Jackson, Buddha or Muhammed Ali, you will find Einstein. Even more well known than Lady Diana, Marilyn Munroe, Ghandi, Elvis, Leonardo da Vinci or Newton, his own hero, Einstein was a regular phenomenon in his time!

But there is an awful lot we don't know about Einstein! Like many men, his public, sort of cleaned up, personna is what we all learn about in school. But did you know he didn't win his Nobel Prize for his general theory of relativity? No, that theory is just what made him a household name. He won it for something that he worked on years before he became famous, wasn't considered for the Nobel Prize, then after he became a superstar, it got the Nobel Prize. It was a paper on the "photoelectric effect" that he had written in 1905, 17 YEARS before he got his Nobel Prize in 1922.

Sort of like Leo winning the Oscar this year for like his ninth best movie role. The BEAR deserved an Oscar more than Leo. But the academy just figured the time had come to give such a famous actor an Oscar. That or it was the beard. Grow a beard, win an Oscar.

How about this: Einstein wasn't even responsible for the theory of relativity at all! It's pretty well accepted that Henri Poincare's work in that area was "borrowed," by Einstein and should have at least been footnoted. Many others can make that claim. But amongst them, science could find none with the package they were looking for, I suppose. Someone who LOOKED smart. Someone who had some character. Someone GERMAN!

There's a story of Nikola Tesla setting up an experiment in which he sent electrical, (of course), pulses over very long distances in opposite directions such that the ones going in the direction of the Earth's rotation should have shown an observable fraction of a second difference in speed from the ones going against it. There was no observable difference, which showed that these pulses were travelling faster than the agreed upon speed of light. Einstein was convinced. He actually gave a speeches in which he admitted his theory of relativity was wrong.

This was back around the turn of the 20th century when I believe the ruination of science began. When science chose the remarkably UN-scientific path it still follows today, in certain aspects of science. Like quantum theory. In fact there was a fellow named Lorentz who had great respect for Einstein's general theory of relativity, but preferred his own ether-based theory of electrons, which had the identical empirical consequences. Difference was it required an experimentally undetectable, "ether," as the carrier of the electromagnetic field. The math was the same, it was the philosophy that differed.

Einstein expressed his views on the emerging quantum theories of his time as "fashion," and even as a JOKE! Very much as the Emperor's new clothes.

"Einstein: A new fashion has arisen in physics, which declares that certain things cannot be observed and therefore should not be ascribed reality.
His friend Philipp Frank: But the fashion you speak of was invented by you in 1905!"
Einstein: A good joke should not be repeated too often."

But rather than admit the validity of Lorentz's (1904) theory as being more plausible, Einstein enjoyed his celebrity and got a huge kick out of Heisenberg and all ensuing scientific minds that contributed to the development of this false quantum theory.

Ha ha ha ha ha! Schwachkopfs!!! (idiots!)

Heisenberg wrote about a conversation with Einstein:

"Einstein: But you don't seriously believe that only observable quantities should be considered in a physical theory?!
Heisenberg: I thought that was the very idea that your relativity theory is based on!
E: Perhaps I used this kind of reasoning, but it is nonsense nevertheless. In reality the opposite is true: only the theory decides what can be observed."

Light, folks, is not made of particles, as Einstein incorrectly theorized and the whole world believes today, it is made of waves in an ether, which is what Lorentz believed and Tesla SHOWED Einstein. But this is contrary to the path of abject secularization science has long-since hacked out, to, I believe, its immeasurable detriment. A "boson" is a particle that has no mass, therefore should not be ascribed reality, yet passes through a field that is everywhere and by definition cannot, therefore, be passed through. Indeed the very idea of movement requires existence, which something without mass does not have, so the boson MOVING through anything is absurd. Then it pops into existence for an immeasurable amount of time, then pops out of existence when it leaves the unleavable field. We know this because we believe this. That is all. Science has even gone so far as to change the meanings of words. For instance, "theory." This stuff about bosons and a Higgs field is not just theory. It's the new and improved "scientifically PROVEN theory." Yes, scientific journals are actually printing this verbatim. Theories can now be proven. This is what I refer to when I speak of the ruination of science.

So this particle with no mass must be said to exist because science desperately needs it to exist or over 100 years of work and many, many Nobel prizes would be total fraud. THIS is what we are left with. It IS hilarious, isn't it? Or maybe, my mind just isn't sophisticated enough to appreciate the finery of Science's new clothes. Now you know why Einstein was always laughing.

The Ether, you see, sounds too much like God. But this weak borscht that Einstein and I find laughable, is, to most, an acceptably scientific sounding alternative, even though it's still all based on belief rather than that old school factual scientific tool called observation. Admittedly the Ether is unobservable, but it might have yielded much more beneficial results upon closer scientific scrutiny than the years and years of science fiction that are all founded upon the false theory of a smiling German scientist.

Is this a world war zee Germans have WON?