not here to help, only to observe and pass judgment

The Hasty Principle

You know when you hear some phrases start a sentence that it won’t, and can’t, end well. Many of these are fine coming out of the mouths of seventh graders but a really bad idea for a fully developed human to be spewing.

I noticed this the other day when one of my seventh graders said, “I don’t mean to be rude, but…” and he really did not mean to be rude but later that day at the grocery someone said another patron in line, “I don’t mean to be rude, but…” I told them that it is amazing that the same behaviors are endearing to seventh graders and annoying in everyone else. Saying something like that is one such example.

Seventh graders are special people. I have named all of my white hair after them. When Yao Ming (one of my seventh graders) pointed out that I had white hair I did not mind. When Coco (my roommate) pointed it out I thought it was really rude.

These are example of what we at the Soviet Socialist Republic of Spritopias (informal: Spritopias or SSRS) call The Hasty Principle developed by Anna Hasty while she was studying art (ostensibly) in Italy in the twenty-first year of the SSRS. The Principle is simple: there are behaviors that are either endured or endearing when displayed by a garden variety middle school student but not in adult males. This has since been has been expanded to adult women as well, who before the advent of Starbucks were less apt to behave like a seventh grade boy but now with the Starbucks you also have Starbucks Deprivation, a very ugly problem well documented at Suburban Island – a problem which is too terrible for me to even describe.

Other phrases that people begin sentences with that fall under the jurisdiction of the Hasty Principle include (but are not limited to):

“I hate to speak ill of someone…”
“I’m not one to gossip, but…” I can never get that one out without a pause for laughter
“I hate to complain but…”
“I know it isn’t my place to say this, but…”
“I know I shouldn’t say this, but…”
“Just so you know…[insert obvious fact no one should articulate]”
and my personal favorite:
“You may not want to know this but…”

Essentially, if it starts with “I know…” and ends in “…but…” the phrase and adjoining comment should stay behind your teeth. There are other examples of the Hasty Principle in your daily life. Phone in with your own examples for the rest of us.

In other news:

Student: How do you spell enormous?
Me: F-A-T

Student: (to no one in particular) I am going to Guam you in the face.

I often wonder, during my teaching day, what my students are thinking and try to discern the motives behind their actions. There was no good way to construct that sentence. There are times I would like to just come right out and ask them and other times I just blurt out, “What are you thinking?” Sometimes I would rather not know; my morbid curiosity about such things only goes so far.

A few weeks ago one of our students wrote his name on the bathroom wall in his own feces.

Yes, his own name

Yes, in his feces.

When Casey told me this I did not believe her. When my students told me I told them not to gossip. When he told me about it I wanted to ask him but did not. I have an active imagination and prefer what I concoct on my own to the truth.


He decided to tell me.

This was difficult for me because I pride myself on listening to the kids and if I cannot care giving them every impression that I do. I wanted to cover my ears and scream, “I CAN’T HEAR YOU.”

Yes, I threw up in my mouth a little.

Maybe, I threw up a lot.

I realize this was a cry for help so I had to listen. It took all of my professionalism not to reach behind me and call Casey so she could hear it, too.

The next day I am relaying this story to Casey because we both have this student and it is important that we all have this information. It transcends my predilection to be a vicious gossip: she has a responsibility to know the children and what is going on in their lives. We have to work together on this because we have too many students to do this alone.

As I am relating this to her, we are on our way to lunch and the kid comes running out of the boy’s room. I am about to say something to her when she points out that his hair is wet. He had given himself a “swirl.” Explain that to yourself. We are opening the phones for suggestions.

Coco does not so much watch television shows as much as she watches television shows about television shows. One of the things that keep popping up on these shows is an altercation that happened on Grey’s Anatomy. Coco and I watched this once when we were watching actual television shows.

Apparently on the set of this show during filming an African American actor called a homosexual actor a faggot. An event witnessed by many of the cast and crew members although the African American actor alternately acknowledges and denies this fact.

My first reaction is: no one should be called hateful names. Sure, no one cares when Robert Byrd uses the “N” word on the floor of the United States Senate but television sets are sacred places in America. Such hallowed ground is no place for Senatorial foul language. Sure, if the white (gay) man had said what Senator Byrd did about the African American actor there would be no end to the condemnation and the offending actor would be out of a job.

My second reaction is: butch up, people are going to call you hateful names. Every group has a hateful name they would prefer not to be called, so as Coco would admonish you, “put on your big girl panties and deal with it.” Actors are not a special breed of humans immune for saying stupid things or having them said about them: in fact in consideration of their egos I would expect them to say more things of this ilk than they do. If you react like a baby every time someone calls you an inappropriate name they will never, ever stop doing it.

Some people argue that actors should be held accountable for their actions but I think, I know, we should stop looking up to celebrities. It’s a really bad idea. They are people just like we are and it’s foolhardy to assume that they are people we should be aspire to be like or to lead us toward moral clarity even if those morals are just civil ones.

On Friday I was listening to the talk radio and this woman asks the host if she is ready to be a parent. She explains that she is not sure that she is emotionally or financially ready to be a parent. The host responded that she was ready to do it if she was mature enough to ask that question. I thought that good advice until I remembered that I was listening to Adam Carolla – formerly of Love Line – because he is a crass retard (not unlike myself) and not because knows what he is talking about. Danny Bonaduci corroborated his sage wisdom.

You can tell that I am an immigrant because I put “the” in funny places.

Chaos Bean and I have two uncles who are young enough to be our brothers. If we need advice we ask Drew and Danny. We do what Drew suggests and do the exact opposite of what Danny tells us to do. Why? Danny is retarded. It may be the name. It may a coincidence. It may be completely random but I am going to stick by our long-standing “Danny is retarded” policy. I am sure there is something to be said for Mr. Bonaduci; he has turned his life around and drives a German car and I respect that. My uncle, however, volunteers at the Special Olympics he is hoping something positive will rub off on him.

I have decided that I should stop with the Internet journals and writing. I should be on the radio. Chaos Bean and I should have a show – we would be on in the afternoon or early evening because the only times we are up and alert at four in the morning is when we have not yet been to bed. Chaos Bean thinks we should be on the television because we are just as fun to watch but then I would have to worry about combing my hair and not picking my nose. Also, people can listen to the radio anywhere. People do that while driving but have no business watching TV while driving. Also, being on television robs us of the chance to piss off the blind. I could care about the deaf and you can tell them I said that.

Chaos Bean and I have all the qualifications to be radio hosts: we have unqualified opinions, sketchy pasts and we are very funny. We also drink too much, can shout someone down O’Reilly Factor style and the Bean knows where to throw down if you want to have fun.

This idea is one of my better ones. I should get the Alex Vance on this right away. This will be genius. If any of you have a radio station you want to be really popular really quickly then you should contact the Alex Vance expeditiously.

I went to lunch today with the cool teachers. During this lunch I had a terrible fear confirmed for me: I do teach the weird kids. It is enough that I am a freak but for them to have the same problem only multiplies the attendant issues of their personalities – and Casey is no better. She might read this so I feel safe in saying that about her. My advisor in college admonished me to use my powers for good now I fear that I have used them to twist these poor children into something strange and horrible.

I would wrap by brain around this more and more but I concurrently feel that it is impossible, really, to claim that a seventh grader is ‘weird’ because in order for you to do that you need a basis for comparison that is ‘normal.’ Since there is no normative standard by which to gauge the students it is impossible to say that one is weird! Perhaps, in fairness, we could say that there is no standard definition for a normal seventh grader but one would be like pornography – not easily definable but you know it when you see it. That Casey, however, is just not right.

I have writer’s block. I cannot seem to get a full paragraph out about one, cohesive topic. I have a lot of false starts and the beginning of one or two self-righteous rants that are so poorly constructed that betray my Lutheran education and thrust aside the excellent training I have had in writing. I have decided then to give you a short series of blurbs about what has been on my mind because I feel behind this logjam, and I can indeed feel my burgeoning ideas in my head before they articulate themselves. Moby Dick This past week the control the Congress changed hands from left to right, with the Democrats taking the majority over the Republicans. This of course is a big switch, like the time we moved from Minneapolis to Saint Paul. The controversy however was over a new member who practices Islam wanting to use the Quran to be ceremonially sworn in and another Congressman had a fit over it. Beyond the basic bigotry of the matter one has to ask the following questions: When a politician puts their hand on a holy book, does it burn them? I know when I wear the clerical collar it does. Why are we taking an oath, made by a politician, seriously? We should know better. Why does it matter what he swears on? It makes no sense for him to swear on the Christian Bible, it would make as much sense to swear on a copy of Moby Dick (supply your own sophomoric humor). If he is not going to take his oath seriously then why have him swear on something you hold sacred? In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This quote that I read on one of my friend Christian’s media outlets has been haunting me. It told me that I needed to do two things: be a better friend and cull the herd. I would hate for that quote to apply to me, that my silence on some matter hurt someone or that I held back when my words could have helped. At the same time my break allowed me time to waste time and that meant unnecessary time spent trolling MySpace. During that activity I ran into a lot people that I had lost touch with, some of them very much on purpose. I was reminded of my time in college when I was, in general, a pretty terrible person. I went to the University of Superficiality, most of the people there were fake, and I am ashamed to admit that I participated in this fakeness myself as a student. There are people that I was ‘friends’ with that I would never have associated with outside of that context and I did things for social approval which is something that I have not done before or since. There were also people I would or should have been friends with and was not because of the social structure of the school and how I fit in. Still today I need to be pickier about who I consider my friend because the quote is a comment that I could probably loose about some of the people I still spend time with and I hate to waste my time with people who are not quality. European Countries I’ve visited:
create your personalized map of europe States I’ve visited:
create your own personalized map of the USA or check out ourCalifornia travel guide States I’ve lived in:
create your own personalized map of the USA