7th grade: Mr. Benson
I suddenly felt older that year, no longer one of the little tots who came in to middle school. Although we’d act like small children or fearful pupils in other classes, I found myself in command of a kind of adult respect around Mr. Benson.
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6th Grade: Mr. Yuhas
When I entered 6th grade, Mr. Yuhas was the first male teacher I ever had in public school who wasn’t a gym teacher, the first man to teach me academics. He was a football coach/English teacher, the kind of thing you’d think was rare, and maybe it is. I only know of one other football coach/English teacher.
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Batman has always been famous for his villains almost more than the hero himself. Instead of being based on superpowers, these criminals are based on their own kind of gimmicks, some sort of symbolic costume and modus operandi that makes them more realistic than superpower villains, yet more meaningful than the Dick Tracy gangsters they sometimes resemble. Continue reading
Despising self-help books, I am always skeptical of any non-fiction book advertised to guide me into helping myself make myself feel better, live better, do anything better for my mental and emotional health. Most of them out there are written by jack wagons. Ironically, it is the fixation on the self itself that make such a genre as “self help” complete malarkey.
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Did Donna Tart write a masterpiece or is she a thief piggybacking off of the artful motifs of others? Is The Goldfinch a Dickensian neo-classic or a childish attempt at a Pulitzer prize-winning yarn? Tartt’s novel has caused a lot of polarization, to say the least. Why did it split critics so?
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Room 53: Aggravation, Christ, and Congress [see previous post on the West]
—I saved you for last because you were the only one Thomas saw as a mentor and I think you complete the religious imagery that is there abut would have been more there if Eggers was religious and had a more religious agenda.
—I understand, son.
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Room48: Cannons, The West, and Dream Girls [see previous post on radicalization]
—I can see why you looked like his dream girl.
—Thanks?
—Not hitting on you. Just saying you’re an important character, an embodiment of an ideal.
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Room 60: Conspiracies, Bureucracies, and Hospital Mgt.
[see previous post on illiterate law enforcement]
—I brought you in for a topic that frustrates me as much as it does the protagonist.
—Fair enough.
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Room 57: Illiteracy, Profiling, and Cops [see previous post on morals]
—I know you’re tired of people picking on cops, but we have to interrogate you too.
—Asiomerican lives matter. Carry on.
—There’s a bit from when Thomas is talking to you and he has this theory that the reason you shot his friend was because “you and your buddies can’t read.”
—That’s right. Kind of an unfair charge directed at a cop.
—I think he has a point.
—That we’re a bunch of ignorant redneck bullies?
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Room 54: Morals, Principles, and Pederasts [see the previous post on Promises]
—This is embarrassing. Do I have to do this again?
—Yes. This is your punishment, pederast. Let’s talk about gray areas.
—I know where this is going, and I don’t want to go there.
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CALEB COY 