The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

I had a rather surreal experience over the weekend. Before I delve into what happened, I'll provide some backstory.  In 1996, when I was 15 years old and a sophomore in high school, I was introduced to a musician, via 101.9 The Edge in Omaha, who actually spoke to me. That musician was none other than Marilyn Manson. You can read the more detailed reason(s) why his music and interviews connected with me in a blog I'll provide here in parentheses ( https://thekind-heartedsmartaleck.blogspot.com/2021/01/how-music-saved-my-life.html ), but I'll now give you the condensed version of events. In the summer of '89, when I was just 8 years old, a babysitter, big-brother type, and I thought friend, stopped by to play Ice Hockey with me on the original Nintendo. My mom was away at Vacation Bible School; my brother was at a friend's; and my dad was in the basement, watching television. While my babysitter and I were playing the game, I won't go into details here, but he s...

I'm really not one who likes to brag, which is probably a big reason why I'm continuing to struggle making a lot of money writing. But in any case, I just heard a story the other day I felt the need to share. In the wake of the tragic San Bernardino mass shooting last week, I wrote a blog entitled, "Still too soon to talk about this?" which can be read here: http://thekind-heartedsmartaleck.blogspot.com/2015/12/still-too-soon-to-talk-about-this.html After sharing this writing on my Twitter account, I received notification from a high school teacher in New York that she shared this very writing with two classes of her's (including an AP class), adding that it prompted an interesting discussion, and I won some new fans along the way. So, as The Dude might say, I thought that was pretty cool.

Ever since he announced his run for the Oval Office, I've wondered if Donald Trump partially did it out of boredom, wanting something new and exciting in his life. Now that he's atop Republican polls, I have a feeling he's taking matters a bit more seriously (well, maybe). Given his demeanor, if he doesn't win the election next November and wants to take on a new venture, I suggest he gives one of the following jobs a gander. Next to each job title, I'll write what I picture Mr. Trump saying if he were to go that route in the future. Walmart greeter : "Hey losers, welcome to Walmart. Hey, you over there with the Superman costume and missing teeth, I was specifically talking to you! Both parts, the welcoming and loser bits. Well, hello, how are you, sugar tits? Welcome to Walmart!" Telemarketer:  "Hey, yeah, so what do you want? What the hell do you need that for? Who does that anymore? I mean, read books? Seriously? Here, I'm like a human, lif...

What if other workers treated their jobs like Tea Partiers do? (on pages 11-12 in LOL at the GOP: Volume 5 - You Can't Spell "Forgot To Take Their Crazy Pills" Without "Tea Party" ) It seems that politicians affiliated with the Tea Party think the government is evil, aren't coy about saying this, and do everything in their power to shut down the government. I've always found this to be a tad odd. First off, why would someone seek a position with a group he or she didn't believe in? Secondly, if this person was hired, why would he or she do everything in their power to shut it down? Can you imagine people in other professions holding a similar philosophy? If these individuals were to earn their jobs through a vote, I imagine their ads would go as follows: Position: Teacher "I'm going to be frank - I don't believe in public education. I never did, as a matter of fact. It's actually my goal to get education abolished entirely. We s...

To my surprise yesterday morning, I received an email with the subject title of, "Douche????" from a name I didn't recognize at first - Thomas Ritter. After I read his email, which I'll get to in a minute, I had to backtrack on recent writings of mine, before finally searching my blog for "douche." Low-and-behold, I stumbled across the name Thomas J. Ritter - a fifth-grade schoolteacher in the state of Texas. On December 4th, I read an article about Mr. Ritter which prompted me to write a blog about it. You see, Mr. Ritter sent President Obama a critical letter with regard to the Affordable Care Act, where he said this: "This bill has caused such a divisive, dirisive [sic], and toxic environment ... The reality is that any citizen that disagrees with your administration is targeted and ridiculed. I hesitated to write for fear of some kind of retribution. I watched you make fun of tea baggers and your press secretary make fun of Ms. Palin which wa...

While the letter's authenticity is still in question, it is being reported by many right-wing media outlets and at least one more mainstream one that President Barack Obama has sent a handwritten response letter to Texas fifth-grade schoolteacher Thomas J. Ritter, who had sent the president a letter criticizing the Affordable Care Act. In Ritter's letter he wrote: "This bill has caused such a divisive, dirisive [sic], and toxic environment ... The reality is that any citizen that disagrees with your administration is targeted and ridiculed. I hesitated to write for fear of some kind of retribution . I watched you make fun of tea baggers and your press secretary make fun of Ms. Palin which was especially beneath the dignity of the White House." President Obama allegedly responded with these words: "I believe that health care reform will be the right thing for the country ... It certainly wasn't the smart 'political' thing! And I hope that in th...

People wonder why organized religion and I have parted ways. The story I'm about to report is one of the many reasons for that. Ken Bencomo, 45, had taught at St. Lucy's Priory High School in Glendora, California for 17 years. This was until Bencomo married his partner of 10 years - Christopher Persky, and was fired a few days later. According to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles parish staff handbook, an employee may be suspended or terminated for "behavior counter to the moral teachings and standards of the church." So, according to this, if Bencomo had married two or more women, things would be hunky dory, wouldn't they? Also, as I always say, according to the Bible, aren't we all sinful? So, whether or not one wants to believe homosexuality to be immoral or not is irrelevant. According to this holy book, we're all sinful. Also, no one on this earth wrote anything in the Bible, so we can't be 100% certain of how to interpret the original with the...

An article just came out concerning a second-grade teacher at Holy Trinity School in San Diego - Carie Charlesworth - who was put on indefinite leave due to her ex-husband abusing her, and despite a restraining order, showing up at the school at one point, which resulted in it getting put on lockdown. School director Tom Beecher and human resources director Bobbie Espinoza tried elaborating on their decision by sending the following in a letter to Ms. Charlesworth: "We know from the most recent incident involving you and Mrs. Wright (the principal) while you were still physically at Holy Trinity School, that the temporary restraining order in effect were not a deterrent to him. Although we understand he is current incarcerated, we have no way of knowing how long or short a time he will actually serve and we understand from ocourt files that he may be released as early as next fall. In the interest of the safety of the students, faculty and parents at Holy Trinity School, we si...

This morning, I had the pleasure ::tries not to laugh:: of seeing a post on Facebook with a picture which said, "Obama lecturing us on gun rights is like getting parenting tips from Casey Anthony." I had to read this over several times and I imagine the look on my face was reminiscent of a person who just woke up at 6 am with a hangover, and is not exactly sure where they are. I suppose if we want to look at the comparison from a very vague, simplistic manner, then I suppose one could make the argument that since Casey Anthony was an awful parent, the post is merely trying to suggest that President Obama is an awful lecturer on gun rights. That's the only halfway feasible explanation I can come up with, however. Casey Anthony and her boyfriend appeared to be very careless with their daughter, which factored in to the child's death. They then allegedly attempted to cover up the girl's death out of sheer panic when they discovered she had indeed died. So no, i...

Setting: Monday, May 27th at Mr. John LaPierre's 11th grade math class in Washington, D.C. Mr. LaPierre: "Okay, class. It's getting toward that time of year again - finals week. I think I'm going to go about things a little differently this year, though. What I'm going to do is take a vote. We can either have the final next Monday, June 3rd, and take the rest of this week to get ready for it, or we can have it tomorrow, May 28th, and spend the next few days just watching movies. Just write down your vote on a piece of paper and pass it up to the front - write down either tomorrow or next week. I'll then ask one person from each side of the debate to get up here and make a few points on why we should hold the final on their preferred day, and then I'll have the final say on when we do wind up having the test. Does everyone understand?" ::the class nods in unison, before writing down their votes on a piece of paper, and passing them up to the front o...

A West Virginia newspaper - the Lincoln Journal - just recently published the following comments from a reader in response to the Lincoln County Board of Education firing lesbian teacher Kelli Burns due to her accusation that board officials forced students to write complaints about her trying to "turn them gay": "We were really glad to hear that School Board is getting rid of them queers. The next thing is we need to get rid of all the n****rs, the spics, the kikes and the wops. You know even them Catholics, they are wrong as baby eaters. We need to clear them people out and have good, white, God fearing Christians and everybody else needs to be put to death for their abominations. We'll keep Lincoln County white and right. Thank you." First off, it's quite ignorant to blame a minority of a population for a majority of problems within that population in any context, but that's especially the case here. If Lincoln County is anything, it's white....