The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Archives for June 2008

I’ll Miss You George Carlin

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Updated Monday Morning

Breaking news reports that George Carlin has died of heart failure at age 71.

Here is a link the CNN obituary and an excerpt:

“But he was probably best known for a routine that began, “I was thinking about the curse words and the swear words, the cuss words and the words that you can’t say.” It was a monologue, known as “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” that got Carlin arrested and eventually led to the Supreme Court.

The “Seven Dirty Words” bit, which was initially recorded for 1972’s “Class Clown” album, prompted a landmark indecency case after New York’s WBAI-FM radio aired it in 1973.

The case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, where the justices ruled 5-4 that the sketch was “indecent but not obscene,” giving the FCC broad leeway to determine what constituted indecency on the airwaves.

“So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I’m perversely kind of proud of,” Carlin said. “In the context of that era, it was daring.”

Carlin was one of my favorite comedians. If memory serves the first comedy album I owned was AM/FM.

He had so many outstanding routines. BTW, these are NSFW.

Stuff

Seven Words you Can’t Say on Television

Icebox Man– Used to crack me up. There is a better version of this, but I couldn’t find it.

Rest in Peace George.

The Best Break Up Songs Continued

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Hi folks,

I am still soliciting submissions to The Best Break Up Songs post from earlier this week. Here is a partial list:

On My Own from Les Miserables
Split Screen Sadness by John Mayer
What Was it Like by Mary Chapin Carpenter
Now you see me – Lee Ann Womack
The Grand Tour – George Jones
Who says your can’t have it all – Alan Jackson
Alway something there to remind me – Naked Eyes

Give me some more. What else should be included here.

More Abuse by Teachers

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I saw this story on CNN the other day and frankly it made my blood boil.

(CNN) — School administrators in Ohio voted Friday to begin the process of firing a middle school teacher accused of burning a cross into a student’s arm and refusing to keep his religious beliefs out of the classroom.

The Mount Vernon School Board passed a resolution to terminate the employment of John Freshwater, an eighth-grade science teacher for the past 21 years.

Freshwater, according to an independent report, used an electrostatic device to mark a cross on the arm of one of his students, causing pain to the student the night of the incident and leaving a mark that lasted for approximately three weeks.

According to the Ohio Department of Education, the student’s family has filed a lawsuit.

Freshwater was also reprimanded several times for refusing to move his Bible from his classroom desk and teaching creationism alongside evolution, according to the 15-page independent report. The report also cites evidence that Mr. Freshwater told his students that “science is wrong because the Bible states that homosexuality is a sin and so anyone who is gay chooses to be gay and is therefore a sinner.”

More information can be found here including a signifcant excerpt from the report compiled by the firm that investigated this case.

“The key findings of the report are quoted below.

•Mr. Freshwater did burn a cross onto the complaining family’s child’s arm using an electrostatic device not designed for that purpose. While there did not appear to be any intent by Mr. Freshwater to cause injury to any student, he was not using the device for its intended purpose. Contrary to Mr. Freshwater’s statement he simply made an “X” not a “cross,” all of the students described the marking as a “cross” and the pictures provided depict a “cross.”

•The Ten Commandments together with other posters of a religious nature were posted in Mr. Freshwater’s classroom. Most were removed after Mr. White’s letter of April 14, 2008, but at least one poster remained which Mr. Freshwater was again instructed to remove on April 16, 2008, but did not do so.

•Several Bibles were kept in Mr. Freshwater’s classroom including his personal Bible on his desk and one he checked out of the library placed on the lab table near the desk. Other Bibles that had been maintained in the room were removed by the time the investigators viewed Mr. Freshwater’s room.

•Mr. Freshwater engaged in teaching of a religious nature, teaching creationism and related theories and calling evolution into question. He had other materials in his classroom that could be used for that purpose.”

This just makes me shake my head. Abuse by any one in a position of authority is wrong, but when it involves children…

I Have Stories to Tell

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My mother says that when I was in preschool the teachers would tell her that I had a very active imagination. I think that it is a fair assessment. I have stories to tell. There are a million tales percolating inside the melon that sits on my shoulders.

I think that part of what I love about blogging is that it provides an outlet for that creative portion. It offers a place where I can try to tell my stories and I am quite appreciative of that. I just get off on trying to spin a yarn about this and that.

There is something very intriguing about trying to find a way to use words to paint a picture. I enjoy the challenge of trying to take the story I see inside my head and export it in a fashion that others can appreciate. It is not always easy to do.

If I had the time I think that I really would work on writing a book. I’d like to take my Fragments of Fiction and weave them into something more. I’d like to take them and build a layered tapestry of the tale that is in my heart.

Writing provides a lot of opportunity for doing so, but I’d love to have the opportunity to do so in film as well. There is a project inside me, actually many. I’d love to translate the mental baggage into both print and movie form.

It would be so interesting and exciting to be able to combine the two. Maybe I should play the lottery, because if I won enough I might find the means to do it all.

Every now and then I have this urge to grab my dad’s Super 8 and go to work. Every now and then I think about what story I would tell first and how I would frame it. Where would I film, what would I film, how would I do it. All questions I ask myself.

And of course I’d have a ton of fun coming up with a soundtrack to accompany it.

So there you have a short summary of a big dream of mine. I can’t say what the future hold, but I can say that I chase my dreams. I am patient and determined. Can’t say that I have lived all of them yet, but there is still quite a bit of time. At least I hope there is.

Now that I have jinxed myself I better look twice before crossing the street. It wouldn’t do to be hit by a bus or contract some sort of terminal illness, but it could make a good story. Ok, excuse me for a bit, I need to mull this over.