Wed 21 Jun 2006
Warning: In this post J uses language, because he is angry about prostelyzing and the amount of fiber in his diet
Posted by Cara under at homeThis morning we were watching a piece on The Today Show while drinking coffee and having a generally relaxing start to our day. J was also reading this month’s issue of Men’s Health magazine, which I got him for Christmas after he’d made a comment that he’d like to “try and be more healthy, maybe I should start reading Men’s Health or something.”
I enjoy reading health magazines as well, the only problem being they often urge one to overload their diet with enough with fiber, vitamin E, essence of toad liver and what have to to mean one suddenly has time for nothing else but ingesting supplements.
J was reading aloud, telling me that people who repeat a personal mantra when in stressful situations tend to be more calm than those who don’t. “What should my personal mantra be?” he asked me. I was suggesting “I love birds” and a few others when a piece came on the news program about a high school valedictorian, Brittany McComb, whose microphone had been cut off when she was giving her speech during graduation, deviated from the approved script she’d submitted, and started talking about God. She claimed she was just exercising her right to free speech, but the school said since she mentioned things like Jesus’s crucifixion, she was clearly speaking about, and to, one religion, and therefore the speech was innapropriate.
J, who was kind of getting unbelievably fired up about liver cancer and preventative measures by this point, stopped reading and glanced up at Brittany, whom he clearly disagreed with, and started talking, rather rapidly and loudly, “Hey. What if someone had thrown a few “fucks” or “shits” in there, huh? How would you feel about “free speech then”? Come on! We need some Fiber Plus! And some Zone Bars!”
June 21st, 2006 at 8:23 am
Amen!
June 21st, 2006 at 12:07 pm
that made me laugh AND I said it
June 21st, 2006 at 3:06 pm
I spoke at graduation immediately following the S.C. case that made it ok for them to do that. It had all started a couple of years earlier at my high school when Matt Frazier was suspended from speaking at graduation because in a speech a few days before, he introduced an ABS candidate as being more “firm in his character than he even is in his pants.” (or to that effect.) Byron White was the big vote on that one. So…just before I got up to speak in front of a couploe thousand people, I turned to the administration and said: “I can say whatever I want.” And I threw the papers I was suppose to “read” from under the podium and began my speech. I had memorized the whole thing! But it was so much fun seeing them scramble to get ready for if I did something crazy — I didn’t. I totally stuck with a (somewhat modified here and there) script.
That’s what made me laugh here. Even I knew just to push things a little a stick to the script. I know that’s something even the most liberal Supreme Court says the schools have the right to do. And J’s point is exactly right on…sorry what extreme you go to, but there’s just stuff you can’t say if the school says so and tells you.
e