June 23, 2006

IT AIN'T EASY BEING GREAT

The Humble Devildog of Random Firings of Neurons listened to his music collection and contemplated the causes of "greatness".

To me, the most notable aspect of great men is that they possess an insane and fanatical devotion to the pursuit of their goals. The spend what normal people consider "too much" time doing what they love.

In the cases he cites, it's music. They spent too much time reading it, writing it, and playing it. And they created a large body of crappy and forgettable work in the process. Most people wouldn't be able to continue after producing those tons of worthless garbage - they'd think "I can't do any better than this. I might as well give up."

But the greats kept on trying anyway. "Luck", after all, is when hard work meets opportunity.

They probably had a LOT of people tell them "There's more to life than just music. Why don't you get out once in a while? Get a hobby. Learn to play golf or something".

Thankfully, these idiots were ignored.

Of course, producing large quantities of crap does NOT guarantee eventual greatness (see my 6000 or so blog posts for proof), but greatness simply can't be done without it.

Posted by: Harvey at 09:06 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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June 20, 2006

FREEDOM OF SPEECH VS. NOT KNOWING WHEN TO SHUT UP - UPDATED 6-22-06

Blogson Jeff of Ponytailed Conservative considers the story of Brittney McComb, who - while giving her valedictorian speech at her graduation ceremony - had her microphone cut off because she repeatedly referenced her Christian beliefs.

Jeff thinks the school was wrong to cut her off.

I have to politely disagree.

She didn't get her mic cut off for mentioning God, she had it cut off for deviating from the speech which had been previously approved by the school board - as she had been warned beforehand would happen. She agreed to the rules, then broke her agreement. What other recourse did the school have?

I think the essential question here is - did the school have the right to edit her valedictorian speech in the first place? Well, they're paying for the mic, so I think they do, for this particular venue.

Brittney's still perfectly free to praise God on her blog, or in her church, or even on random street corners. Her right to free speech in general is not being threatened here. The democratically elected school board has been granted the authority by their electors to set guidelines on graduation speeches. Given the information in the article, I don't see anything to indicate that they've misused that authority.

And I *do* have to wonder about Brittney's choice to go ahead with the unedited version of her speech. Why did she feel the need to mention Jesus over and over again? Wouldn't a simple, humble, "and I'd like to thank God" have been sufficient?

Perhaps she should re-read Jesus' opinions on the habit of indulging in pious public acts for the purpose of impressing other men.

As for the secular issues involved, the solution when butting heads with a rule you don't like isn't to violate the rule, it's to either complain loudly enough to get the rule changed beforehand, or to find an alternative means to reach your goal WITHOUT violating the rule. She could have printed her original speech out and passed it around as a flyer. She could have posted it on the internet as an MP3. She could have discussed it with her peers, one-on-one.

As it was, her actions were disruptive and uncalled for. She behaved like an undisciplined, spoiled brat, throwing a tantrum because she HAD to have HER way, right NOW.

Hopefully, as she matures, she'll discover that going over, under, or around are sometimes better methods of getting past a brick wall than trying to bulldoze through.

UPDATE 6-22-06: That 1 Guy of Drunken Wisdom provided a link to a story that fills in a LOT of the missing details about the content of the speech (original vs. edited) and some legal reasons why the decision was made as it was.

Posted by: Harvey at 07:00 AM | Comments (17) | Add Comment
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