Saturday, December 22, 2007
Rope a Dope
I grew up in the early fifties on World War 11 movies and it almost cost me my freedom. I could have gotten life in prison when I was 9 years old.
I had seen the trick so many times in movies I just had to try it. A dirt road that connected my new street to the old street of the town and a boy on a bike named Tommy Cathers playing the part of the German Officer on a motor cycle.
Down the road Cathers flew on his J.C. Higgins 24 inch cruiser with knobbed tires and rusted fenders.
I hid in the scrub vegetation and raggedy half dead trees. I was a Boy Scout flunky who cheated to become Second Class. I didn’t know a sheep shank from a clove hitch and still don’t.
Cathers came peddling by and I pulled the rope tight across the road. It caught Cathers chest high and he crashed dramatically, emphatically and instantly. It was slapstick funny and very cruel. A foot higher and it would have taken his head off. I was the Manchurian Candidate of Grade B war movies.
I have never thanked god over my long life for a made basket, home run, touchdown run or new car like some evangelical moron but my entire life I have been a Grateful Fred for not beheading a boy on a bike when I was nine which I believe means no in German.
And if you think Bugs Bunny is not responsible for many serious injuries think again. Even today I don’t walk through an open doorway into a room without sticking my arm out for pan faced protection.
Peace
Captain Freddogg
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Freddogg,
Times were great then, weren't they? We could do stuff like that without the worry of our parents losing their home. I agree that it was stupid, but how is stupid better defined than a 10 to 14 year-old boy with time on his hands?
Do you realize that the PC crowd has taken the fun out of everything? I look for the same "home alone" booby traps, but what do today's kids look out for - drive-by shooters and nerds who play too many video games and try to live them out?
Where is the culture headed? What was wrong with going to the movies to see "Krauts" and "Nips" who started the fight get their butts whipped by us good guys? Right was right, and wrong was wrong.
The problem with today's world is that people can't be prejudiced for any reason, even when they should. We've been turned into a bunch of pathetic, linguine-spined apoplectics who no longer deserve even free air to breath.
I, for one, enjoy your tales of America's greatness, especially when it communicates the innovative (yet sometimes depraved) spirit that encourages men to be men, and women to serve men.
God Bless America, and Merry Christmas!
Big Bigot
Times were great then, weren't they? We could do stuff like that without the worry of our parents losing their home. I agree that it was stupid, but how is stupid better defined than a 10 to 14 year-old boy with time on his hands?
Do you realize that the PC crowd has taken the fun out of everything? I look for the same "home alone" booby traps, but what do today's kids look out for - drive-by shooters and nerds who play too many video games and try to live them out?
Where is the culture headed? What was wrong with going to the movies to see "Krauts" and "Nips" who started the fight get their butts whipped by us good guys? Right was right, and wrong was wrong.
The problem with today's world is that people can't be prejudiced for any reason, even when they should. We've been turned into a bunch of pathetic, linguine-spined apoplectics who no longer deserve even free air to breath.
I, for one, enjoy your tales of America's greatness, especially when it communicates the innovative (yet sometimes depraved) spirit that encourages men to be men, and women to serve men.
God Bless America, and Merry Christmas!
Big Bigot
# posted by 
: 12:34 PM
: 12:34 PM
Big Bigot in the House! There are no role models for my generation because no one admits to ever having done anything.Who is Tom Brokow and why does he get to hijack 1968-dork!
Freddogg,
Brokaw gets to hijack 1968 because our parents allowed a bunch of sissies to wrest control from them through admiration of education. Sadly, they didn't realize that higher education had been hijacked by life's losers who secretly subscribed to socialism because they could never compete.
In control of the future through academia, they mass produced "loser clones" by the thousands, no - tens of thousands to hijack and secure the nation's conscience through media propaganda. But that wasn't their worst crime. They loosed their minions on the public education system, shamelessly manipulating naive teachers into believing collective bargaining would serve them better than their own skills and capabilities.
The net effect? Parents are disenfranchised from a system created to serve them. Remember the first teacher strike? It was the beginning of the end of effective public education in America.
Am I saying we are without blame? Definitely not! We're as bad as those who allowed it happen in the first place because we know it's wrong but doing nothing about it. Shame on us all!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Brokaw gets to hijack 1968 because our parents allowed a bunch of sissies to wrest control from them through admiration of education. Sadly, they didn't realize that higher education had been hijacked by life's losers who secretly subscribed to socialism because they could never compete.
In control of the future through academia, they mass produced "loser clones" by the thousands, no - tens of thousands to hijack and secure the nation's conscience through media propaganda. But that wasn't their worst crime. They loosed their minions on the public education system, shamelessly manipulating naive teachers into believing collective bargaining would serve them better than their own skills and capabilities.
The net effect? Parents are disenfranchised from a system created to serve them. Remember the first teacher strike? It was the beginning of the end of effective public education in America.
Am I saying we are without blame? Definitely not! We're as bad as those who allowed it happen in the first place because we know it's wrong but doing nothing about it. Shame on us all!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
# posted by : 6:31 PM
: 6:31 PM
That's why to bring this up to Iraq 2 coming to a theater near you that the bravest Americans right out of the box were the Dixie Chicks and I know 1970's full gestalt hippies who gave up the moon windowed van and creepy long hair for Rush Limbaugh and actually destroyed Dixie Chicks CD's.
I listened to a Black Panther Speech on the campus of West Chester in 1968 and the speaker said,"We're going to squeeze the white establishment by the neck until her mother fucking eyeballs pop out."
Eye balls popped out around the room and i thought"Great use and language and juxtaposition" you know believe in something-anything.
Collective bargaining can be useful in education when dork administrators run buildings just because the "free thinkers" are the first to get thrown overboard.
FReddoggy
I listened to a Black Panther Speech on the campus of West Chester in 1968 and the speaker said,"We're going to squeeze the white establishment by the neck until her mother fucking eyeballs pop out."
Eye balls popped out around the room and i thought"Great use and language and juxtaposition" you know believe in something-anything.
Collective bargaining can be useful in education when dork administrators run buildings just because the "free thinkers" are the first to get thrown overboard.
FReddoggy
Freddoggy,
I knew I could smoke you out. There is no room for "free thinking" in effective education. The "free thinking" results FROM effective education. "Free thinking" in education is where all the dorks came from.
The world is made up of winners and losers - not so much at everything but at SPECIFIC things. You're a winner at motivating kids, but something less at preparing them for life because you encourage them to break rules. You confuse breaking the rules with deserving to make the rules. You get to make them when you win, and only when you win. Breaking them only results in losing.
We all have to grow up sometime, Beav.
Ward Cleaver
I knew I could smoke you out. There is no room for "free thinking" in effective education. The "free thinking" results FROM effective education. "Free thinking" in education is where all the dorks came from.
The world is made up of winners and losers - not so much at everything but at SPECIFIC things. You're a winner at motivating kids, but something less at preparing them for life because you encourage them to break rules. You confuse breaking the rules with deserving to make the rules. You get to make them when you win, and only when you win. Breaking them only results in losing.
We all have to grow up sometime, Beav.
Ward Cleaver
# posted by : 5:36 PM
: 5:36 PM
A little rough on the beaver last night weren't you Ward?
I really haven't grown up when it comes to blindly following stupid rules and I am prepared to lose every fight I enter. We children of the Sixties don't look for a soft place to land.I have taken many big losses in my life but that doesn't mean I wasn't right. I told my students "Just because you are right doesn't mean you won't lose."
"Kiss my meatloaf Wally" June Cleaver
I really haven't grown up when it comes to blindly following stupid rules and I am prepared to lose every fight I enter. We children of the Sixties don't look for a soft place to land.I have taken many big losses in my life but that doesn't mean I wasn't right. I told my students "Just because you are right doesn't mean you won't lose."
"Kiss my meatloaf Wally" June Cleaver
Freddoggy,
Who are you to determine existing rules are stupid? Don't you think your dog thinks many of your rules are stupid? Stupid rules are a fact of life, and realizing they are reality is a major lesson in itself.
It's the smart guys that realize early on that stupid rules are made by and for stupid people. Smart people don't let them get in their way, especially by stepping anywhere near them. Stupid rules are like the stupid traps stupid bears step in. How many "bears" have you sent to the traps?
It never was about being smarter than others, Freddoggy. It's about having the humility to know that listening and learning is what leads to success. Sadly, a life in the classroom usually does not lead to such brilliance, but who knows, maybe you're the exception.
"and how is the little Theodore today, Mrs. Cleaver?"
Eddie
Who are you to determine existing rules are stupid? Don't you think your dog thinks many of your rules are stupid? Stupid rules are a fact of life, and realizing they are reality is a major lesson in itself.
It's the smart guys that realize early on that stupid rules are made by and for stupid people. Smart people don't let them get in their way, especially by stepping anywhere near them. Stupid rules are like the stupid traps stupid bears step in. How many "bears" have you sent to the traps?
It never was about being smarter than others, Freddoggy. It's about having the humility to know that listening and learning is what leads to success. Sadly, a life in the classroom usually does not lead to such brilliance, but who knows, maybe you're the exception.
"and how is the little Theodore today, Mrs. Cleaver?"
Eddie
# posted by : 7:42 PM
: 7:42 PM
I admit like a retriever with a head cold I am trying to follow your point but I keep losing the scent.
And yes I am the exception like the white spot on the calico cat that used to bite me every day when I was a kid.
My career in the classroom exposed me to a diversity of people and that is something I cherish it is in fact what I am all about.
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And yes I am the exception like the white spot on the calico cat that used to bite me every day when I was a kid.
My career in the classroom exposed me to a diversity of people and that is something I cherish it is in fact what I am all about.
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