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Monday, April 21st, 2008I read somewhere recently that a principal at some midwestern school has outlawed the game of tag. I believe she described it as a “game of intense aggression,” and is therefore unsuitable for the children of her school.
Along with this, dodgeball has been outlawed in many schools. Apparently it’s too violent as well.
In many parts of the country, little leagues have stopped keeping score.
I’m getting sick and tired of hearing this “every kid’s a winner” bullshit. Every kid is not a winner. Every kid should not be treated as a winner. If you want your kid to be a winner, teach him how to win.
You can’t expect children to grow up to be functioning adults if you coddle them until they’re 18. Can you imagine what a skewed sense of the world they’ll have? As soon as they leave their parents home, the world is going to crush them because they haven’t been properly taught how to succeed in it.
We’re being way too easy on children. We walk on eggshells with them because we’re afraid their feeling will get hurt and they’ll grow up with problems. It’s our generation of 30-somethings that’s doing this, too. For some reason we don’t want our children to have the same difficulties in school that we did. We want everything to be easy for them, everything handed to them on a silver platter.
I’m sorry, but the world doesn’t work that way. You’ve got to fail. You’ve got to lose. You’ve got to embarass yourself once in awhile in order to really know how to win. That’s life. You have to expose children to the harsh realities that await them someday so that they can actually handle it.
Let your kid lose once in awhile. It’s good for him.
You Don’t Know Jack…..
Friday, January 18th, 2008….but you should. Jack McLellan is a self-admitted pedophile working his evil in California and Washington state.
Jack was recently featured twice on ‘The Steve Wilkos Show’ admitting to the world that he was sexually attracted to children. Apparently he’s admitted it publicly in other forums as well, not metely on ‘Steve’ because he has his own website which guides peophiles to places where they can easily find children. He even rates these places by how attractive the children are that can be found there.
Yet he claims he’s never done anything illegal. The ‘worst’ he’s done is to lure children away from their parents and give them ‘hugs.’
McLellan is still operating his website. I’ll post the link to it here as soon as I can find it. Never having trolled the internet for sites relating to pedophilia, I really don’t know where to look. Wilkos actually asked the question as to what kind of a person would want to visit his site. I give Steve this answer: Any person who wants to protect children. One way of beating the pedophiles is to know where they operate and how they do it. By knowing which places McLellan is promoting, we can know to be extra careful when in those places.
McLellan also argues that having this website isn’t violating any laws since he’s not directly promoting the molestation of children. Wilkos asked him about this as well, stating that if something illegal was done to a child based on information gotten through his website, he is partly responsible and should be held as an accomplice.
I agree.
I think Jack McLellan should be locked up. He’s already a ‘person of interest’ in the murder of a young girl at one of the locations that his website promotes. He also refused to submit to a DNA test at the Wilkos show to clear his name. What does that tell you? The way he was fidgeting around onstage made him look guilty in my eyes.
Here’s an interview done with McLellan:
Tom Cruisin’
Wednesday, January 16th, 2008Earlier I wrote a little blurb on Scientology frontman Tom Cruise. Well, there’s a video circulating around the net that the Scientologists don’t want you to see, and they’ve pressured YouTube and Gawker.net to remove it in it’s entirety.
Well, I found part of it on You Tube and decided to link it here for your viewing pleasure. Maybe that British Scientologist who was following me around Buffalo after the Beast article will see it and move out here to Chicago to stalk me some more.
And who knows how long this will be allowed to remain on the site, so I apologize if by the time you read this it’s been taken down.
Scientology Revisited
Wednesday, January 16th, 2008Back in 2004, Chuck and I paid a visit to the new Church of Scientology building in Buffalo. It was their grand-opening Gala, and for some reason they invited us. We were at the time, freelance writers working mostly for the Buffalo Beast, and independent newspaper circulating in the city. A lot of talk of Scientology has happened recently, what with Tom Cruise showing his true colors to the world and Katie Holmes turning into a robot, as seen in a recent guest appearance on ‘Regis and Kelly.’ There’s also a new unauthorized biography of Cruise that states that his and Holmes’ daughter, Suri, is the spawn of bad Sci-Fi writer L. Ron Hubbard himself. The author of the book goes so far to compare her birth to ”Rosemary’s Baby.”
A few years back, the boys from South Park did an episode about Scientology that starred Tom Cruise, John Travolta, and Galactic Overlord Xenu. Non-surprisingly it was blocked by Mr. Jerry Maguire himself, and now can only be found in various places around the internet.
With this newfound fascination with Scientology, I’ve decided to re-open my interest in this goofy religion. Following is the article Chuck and I wrote, which appeared originally in The Buffalo Beast. This time, though – the punctuation is there and a spell check has been run so it’ll be a much better read:
The Beast Goes Scientological
By Rob Gerke and Chuck Notaro
It’s been said that there are two sides to every story. I’ve found this to be true in almost everything I’ve experienced or thought about. The case of Scientology is no different. It has its supporters and its detractors. I, myself, have never given much credibility to a religion that was founded by a science fiction writer. I’m not even much of a Sci-Fi reader any longer. But I’ve never been one to openly express an opinion about something unless its an informed one, which is the reason I paid a visit to Buffalo’s new Church of Scientology this past Sunday when it celebrated its grand opening.
I’ll admit, I knew next to nothing about Scientology before I attended the opening ceremony, and honestly, I’m not sure it’s any clearer to me now.
Let’s start with the basic question: What is Scientology? In founder Lafayette Ron Hubbard’s words, Scientology is an “applied religious philosophy.” Does that clear things up for you? If not, Hubbard goes on to say that it is the “study and handling of the spirit in relationship to itself, universes and other life.”
Scientologists believe it to be a path to enlightenment gained through auditing. This is where an upper-level Scientologist evaluates you, and through certain scientific method, helps you gain control of your true self. Your inner spirit. Your “Thetan,” as the Scientologists call it.
Shooter, Elvis and the Jack of Hearts
Wednesday, October 31st, 2007Yeah, I got this blog title from a track off of Bob Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks” album. It’s appropriate, though, because I’ll be talking about Dylan later on.
So, this past weekend I took a road trip to Milwaukee to see Shooter Jennings play a club called The Rave. It looked a hell of a lot like the place Wayne & Garth went to see Alice Cooper in the first movie, so now I have to watch it again to verify that. Anyway, it was a decent venue with a small crowd, but a hell of a show!
The opening act was a gentleman by the name of Eddi Spaghetti, frontman for Texas punk band The Supersuckers. He came out with his guitar player who was dressed like a 70’s porn star, but played like a rock star. Spaghetti did some acoustic versions of Supersuckers songs, and even covered an old Merle Haggard song called “Misery and Gin” which was the highlight of his set.
Then Shooter came out. Shooter may be best known as the spawn of country music legend Waylon Jennings, but is a great musician in his own right. I had listened to his albums “Electric Rodeo” and “The Wolf” before the show, and I can honestly say they’re both damn good country-rock records.
What I wasn’t prepared for was his live performance. I’d expected a toned down guitar rock show, but what I got was pure brilliance. He was good. Damn good. He put on a better show in this club than most bands play in an arena.
And the band – let’s just say that the lead guitar was better than Jimmy Page on a good day. I could have sat there all night listening to him solo. I’d pay to see this performance again.
Monday.
I paid a visit to the Chicago Theater to take in a performance by rock legends Elvis Costello and Bob Dylan. Amos Lee opened, which was ok, but I wasn’t paying much attention to him. Other people at the show informed me that he was fantastic.
Costello took the stage and played an acoustic set for about an hour. I don’t really know a lot of his music, but what I heard has inspired me to check him out further. He played one tune which may have been called “I Want You” which had me riveted.
Then Bob and his Band played. I wasn’t expecting much because Bob is, well, Bob. His voice isn’t what it used to be. He growled though his first two songs, “Cat’s In The Well” and “Lay Lady Lay” – but as he went along, he seemed to come to life and sounded a whole lot better. I was thrilled to hear “You’re A Big Girl Now”and “Highway 61 Revisited” and even more surprised when he closed with “Like A Rolling Stone.”
He, Amos Lee, and Costello came out for the encore and did an excellent rendition of “I Shall Be Released”, then went into “Thunder on the Mountain” and closed the night with “All Along The Watchtower.”
I’m not going to give the performance a good or a bad review. Bob can’t do a bad show, because he’s Bob Dylan. He’s a music legend.
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