Posts Tagged ‘funny’
Given my recent addiction to presidential campaigns of all flavors and recent eras, I tend to see the world around me in terms of national politics. My addiction got crazy enough that I can comfortably postulate that, given a subject, I could tie anything to Election ’08 within three degrees of separation.
Hypocrisy at the highest level of a religious movement? From John McCain to Pastor Hagee to American Evangelicals to homophobe Tom Haggard buying meth off of a gay prostitute.
The only reason I bring up the presidential campaign is that I’m playing Final Fantasy, a Japanese video game series rather successfully imported to the States. Specifically, I was playing with the chocobos of Final Fantasy VII. These chocobos are best described as creatures your characters can ride as if these creatures were magical horses, rather than the magical, monocolored ostriches they look like.
In Final Fantasy VII, you can breed chocobos, eventually coming up with up to five different varieties, with each variety distinguished by a given color.
Today’s anecdote begins with the understanding that I like to name my bred chocobos in such a way that I can easily identify them just by looking at their names. Grace is the green chocobo; Wren is the wonderful chocobo; Blake is the blue chocobo.
Too bad I didn’t think ahead. I forgot about what I’d call the black chocobo who would be the offspring of Blake and Grace. Besides Blake, I couldn’t think of any other boy names that begins with the letter B and includes, somewhere, the letter K. Hurriedly clicking my way to a baby name Web site, I almost immediately found the answer.
I hesitated. I almost didn’t want to give my new chocobo this name, because seen by the wrong person, it could be taken the wrong way. Within two minutes, I gave in to my sick sense of humor, anyway. Within nine minutes, I decided to share my depravity with the world.
Meet Barack, my newly hatched black chocobo. When he grows up, he’s going to be president.
More importantly, there’s no way I could forget his name.
I never jumped on the South Park Canada-haters bandwagon. I thought it was kinda tacky, however satirical it was intended. Suddenly, I’m tempted to, thanks to a story that came my way via Neatorama.
On the claim of a psychic, school officials reported that an autistic child in their school was being molested.
Colleen Leduc’s weird tale began on May 30, when she dropped young Victoria off for class at Terry Fox Elementary and headed in to work, only to receive a frantic phone call from the school telling her it was urgent she come back right away.
The frightened mother rushed back to the campus and was stunned by what she heard – the principal, vice-principal and her daughter’s teacher were all waiting for her in the office, telling her they’d received allegations that Victoria had been the victim of sexual abuse – and that the CAS had been notified.
How did they come by such startling knowledge? Leduc was incredulous as they poured out their story.
“The teacher looked and me and said: ‘We have to tell you something. The educational assistant who works with Victoria went to see a psychic last night, and the psychic asked the educational assistant at that particular time if she works with a little girl by the name of “V.” And she said ‘yes, I do.’ And she said, ‘well, you need to know that that child is being sexually abused by a man between the ages of 23 and 26.’”
Not only is the mother understandably upset that administrators reported her to the Canadian equivalent of Child Protective Services on such specious evidence. She comes complete with dramatic flair.
“They reported me to Children’s Aid,” Leduc declares, still disbelieving. “Based on a psychic!”
Assuming Children’s Aid Services works anything like the CPS, and assuming that teachers up in the Great, White, Barren North are beholden to the same laws, the school staff was required to report that claim. Schools are not allowed to interpret even the silliest, most incongruous rumors from the most ridiculous sources — it might, just might, be true. Instead, schools are required report those rumors to the appropriate government agencies. The job of CPA — I assume it works like the American CPS — is to investigate the claim, either exonerating the accused or reporting them to the district attorney.
I can’t help but feel sorry for the demonized administration here, and I certainly can’t help but feel angry at the overconscientious — at the very least uninformed — psychic. The psychic doesn’t need the attention, because and the very last thing psychics need is greater scrutiny. She probably thought that this was just some simple, white lie. Not so much.
Consequences for not reporting even the barest suspicion of child molestation don’t stop at simple stuff, like losing your job. If you’re a teacher, not reporting directly to CPA directly could mean a hefty fine, or even jail time at a prison.
The way I hear it, if there’s one kind of convict that serial shoplifters, axe murderers and high-profile inside traders don’t like, it’s child molesters. You will be the lowest rung on the smokes-for-favors ladder, and even though you didn’t molest the child yourself, don’t expect other prisoners to make that distinction.
By law, you could be treated as if you were directly party to the offense. That’s what was going through the mind of the school staff, and it would be wrong make fun of them for how they treated the psychic’s suggestion.
Sure, sane psychics are liars and shouldn’t be trusted. By law, even the allegations of liars have to be reported.
I didn’t get it at first. What could he mean by asking:
Does your mother have a black dress?
No other credential program professor would tell this story. No other credential program professor would have this story. But because he’s Dr. Rosy, he’d tell us how he as a school teacher once dealt with a school bully.
This had to have happened in the mid-90s, in the first few weeks he taught 8th grade English in a high school somewhere in the Midwest.
The way he tells it, he came across an all-state athlete picking on some scrawny kid whose feet weren’t touching the ground. The lineman had the kid up by the collar.
Dr. Rosy — then Mr. Rosy, doctoral student — walked up to the bully and told him to put the kid down. The bully complied immediately. This kid must have been pushing iron since the 3rd grade, recalled Rosy.
This athlete was 6 feet 5 inches, with a solid 300 pounds of muscle, and now focused his attention on the upstart teacher.
A girl off to the side of the scene told the football player to just take care of Rosy already. Rosy wasn’t impressed; he asked the girl for her cell phone. She declined.
In that case, you call 911 and get an ambulance here. Well, maybe two. This guy’s so big he won’t fit in one.
Rosy was at least 43 years old and slightly shorter than the bully. A large-framed man even then, he would have been quite a bit smaller than the massive boy defiantly facing him, as if to challenge the teacher’s authority with a show of muscle.
Rosy, unimpressed, asked the kid a question.
Does your mother have a black dress?
The bully didn’t understand, so Rosy repeated the question.
Does your mother have a black dress?
Rosy must have feigned pondering to himself for a moment. Knowing him, for dramatic effect.
Because she’ll need one in about four days. That’s about when the state buries you.
That’s about when the story ends with my class laughing hysterically, some laughing out of horror.
He never advocated using or threatening violence, of course, and made sure to say that.
You have to improvise, overcome and adapt to these situations.
That’s one way to look at it.
These impromptu anecdotes were the best part of my credential program. The most entertaining, the most useful, the most helpful, the most consoling. I always felt like I learned something from every one of his classes.
