10 May 2008...2:46 pm
Substitute Teacher IS NOT a Wizard.
A substitute teacher in Florida (of course) was fired for being a wizard. Did he turn a student into a weasel? Did he set the building on fire with his mind? No. He made a toothpick “disappear” and “reappear.”
You have to fucking be kidding me.
I had a history teacher, Mr. Sublett, at Roanoke Catholic School who did a trick where he made his thumbs glow red and transferred the glow from hand to hand. Surrounded by Catholics, Mr. Sublett was not fired, nor was he burned at the stake for wizardry. We merely asked him where he bought the fake thumbs. Hey, Florida, it’s called a fucking illusion!
My friend Nelson Oliver, the bone-daddy of entertainment, can take his lip ring out with his hands and make it disappear just before he drops it in someone else’s hands… only to have it reappear on his face in front of your eyes! He did it last night in front of me and several friends. Figure that one out, Florida! (Hint: Google “Sleight of Hand“)
Any honest illusionist, like Nelson, will tell you honestly: What they are doing is not magic. Those who say they are wizards and “real” magicians are lying scum. Those who believe them are gullible ignoramuses. James Randi and Penn and Teller have exposed countless numbers of these frauds. Why? Because there’s no such goddamn thing as magic! Not only did this man get fired over a simple illusion, but he did an illusion that anyone can do. I can make a fucking toothpick vanish. You weren’t only duped by an illusion but you were duped by one of the most simple ones! Did your uncle ever “remove the top of his thumb” with his other hand and put it back in place? Did your father ever “steal your nose”? Did he ever give it back? Fucktards.
I don’t like to consider myself an illusionist (because I suck at it), but I know a few bar tricks and parlor tricks. If you think making a toothpick vanish is incredible, you should see me conjure smoke from my fingers or bend a real cigarette into a U without breaking it and smoke it. I’m also working on an illusion to draw a cigarette to roll across a table to me. When it’s ready, it will look like telekinesis. If you’ll believe that toothpick thing, Florida, you’ll all shit your adult diapers when you see my finished cigarette telekinesis trick! And that’s all it is. Its’s a trick. It takes me a lot of time and energy to find uncommon tricks and learn them, so I won’t tell you how to do them yourself. But I will tell you it’s 100% illusion. I’m making it look like a cigarette is going in one nostril and out the other and in one ear and out my mouth, but it’s not real. It’s purely a novelty trick. I’m not a wizard, nor did I make a pact with the devil.
The fact that I have to lecture an entire state about this is deeply depressing.
See? This is what happens when you teach creationism in schools.
Rev. Reed Braden
cjdeak
15 Comments
10 May 2008 at 4:10 pm
He turned me into a newt.
..
I got better.
10 May 2008 at 4:52 pm
This is less impressive than the trick I use to do when was 12 where I made a handkerchief disappear…sleeveless! Oh snap! You know what that means? If this guy is a wizard I must be one too! Time to get out my stake burning set…
Oh wait. That’s right. I live in Washington. People actually use reason and common sense around here. Well ok there’s some pretty half-baked hippies that demonstrate that stupidity knows no political bounds but on the whole definitely far better than Florida.
I swear half the southern states are in a pissing contest to be the most crazy and fundie. I think the best decision I ever made: leaving Texas.
10 May 2008 at 5:08 pm
As Homer Simpson says, Florida is America’s wang.
10 May 2008 at 5:53 pm
[...] Fonte: Homosecular Gaytheist [...]
10 May 2008 at 7:14 pm
My roommate happens to be a magician, he was telling me that someone at his regular job asked him if he was spiritual after doing some of his tricks. He was convinced that my roommate had a “helping hand from God”. We laughed as I was told the story, because we started thinking of how one would practise magic if magic actually existed.
“Now let’s see, if I just reach into my pocket and HOLY SHIT THE ACE OF SPADES! How’d that get in there?! This trick is *awesome*.”
11 May 2008 at 10:39 am
Really says something about the mindset in Florida, doesn’t it?
11 May 2008 at 5:22 pm
I don’t buy this story, I think there are some missing facts. It would be interesting to see how it pans out, because I’m really skeptical that they actually did this. Though if it is true, I agree with your comments about it.
12 May 2008 at 11:43 am
It seems a little far-fetched to me, as well. But again I am increasingly less surprised by people’s stupidity and at times their wisdom. This would definitely fall into the first category.
I do think the wrong response is to simply pronounce the whole state of Florida as idiots. I know several intelligent people in Florida, and making big generalizations like that doesn’t really get the discussion any where productive. I would say the same thing regarding blaming creationists for this incident. I am a creationist, and I find the charge of wizardry incredibly stupid. I would wager that the whole of the church I attend would also find that charge ridiculous.
We need to deal in particulars, not generalities. Claims that evolutionists hate morals, democrats hate babies, republicans hate minorities, Christians hate science, etc. are misguided attempts at debate and harmful. Can we not just recognize this as an instance of idiocy and resume the debate on actual issues without using it as fodder for everyone to hate everyone on the other side?
12 May 2008 at 12:43 pm
To those of you doubting Thomases, the sub’s name was Jim Piculas he worked for Pasco County School District in Land O’ Lakes, Florida. He was fired by Pat Sinclair who is in charge of the subs for the county. He was teaching at Rushe Middle School when the toothpick incident occurred.
It seems the school board claims other reasons for dismissing him, but Piculas says he only ever heard the “wizardry” remark, officially, until he went to the press and the school started back-pedalling. Knowing Florida, I’m rather inclined to believe the teacher over the school system.
http://www.tampabays10.com/news/local/article.aspx?storyid=79533
http://www.local6.com/news/16169506/detail.html
12 May 2008 at 12:52 pm
Trey, show me where I called each one of the citizens of Florida an idiot. I loosely referred to the state as a whole, personified as an idiot. The state’s politics and most of the news coming out of Florida seems to justify personifying the state as an idiot child. It can’t even vote right!
I have a very intelligent (and incredibly sexy) friend in Florida who will freely admit that the overwhelming majority of his state is retarded and frequently apologises publicly on behalf of his state’s dumb antics. This message was not directed at him. It might not have been directed at your “smart” (I’ll hold judgement until I meet them) friends as well. It was directed at the majority of the idiots of Florida. To make it read less clumsily, I personified the state and spoke to an image in my head of a state map of Florida with a walker and googly eyes being chased by a hurricane.
12 May 2008 at 1:17 pm
Here’s the comment I was referring to:
“The fact that I have to lecture an entire state about this is deeply depressing.
See? This is what happens when you teach creationism in schools.”
First off, it seemed to me that you felt justified in labeling all of Florida as an idiot. You never called specific individuals stupid, but the implication is that most if not all of Florida is dumb. I just don’t think that that is true. Yes, there are a decent amount of retirees in FL, but I imagine you and I will be pretty out there by the time we are 64. And I just don’t have such a pessimistic view of intelligence south of the Mason Dixon line. I was born and raised in GA, and I would like to think I am decently intelligent, though I wouldn’t have to try too hard to point people that are my intellectual betters. All I am saying is that that rhetoric of generalizations doesn’t help the situation, even if you find it cathartic.
One of Christians greatest faults has been making generalizations about people that differ in beliefs. For my part I can see a great danger in just fashioning every gay stereotype on you and treating you as a generalized person rather than a specific gay man named Reed. For that reason I’m choose not to take the easy route and toss around generalizations. They are often intellectually weak and anti-relational.
Then there is the creationism claim. Creationism doesn’t any more lead “necessarily” to stuff like this, than evolution will “necessarily” lead to eugenics and baby killing. Is there a link? Possibly, but that is a far cry from making it an absolute.
Just trying to keep the dialogue of sides going without allowing it to devolve into name-calling and hate-filled rhetoric.
12 May 2008 at 1:30 pm
As long as we understand that I’m not calling ALL Floridians dumb, I think we can leave this there and agree to disagree. I think that most of them are. You can see it in the way they vote (and fail at voting). You can see it in the massive support for pseudoscience and lack of support for real science. You can see it in the massive amounts of stupid news that come out of Florida, more than most other states combined. I think most of them are downright troglodytes and we can agree to disagree there… but I think you’re being too lenient on them.
13 May 2008 at 6:00 pm
I used to send my cousin in FL links to all the stories about idiocy in her state. After a while, when I was sending her things daily, I started to feel bad and sent her a couple of links to idiocy from the state where she went to college.
27 May 2008 at 7:45 pm
According to the Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe, the guy was actually fired for leaving the kids to use computers pretty much without supervision. The “magic” thing came from someone in the chain of command making an offhand remark about it, but apparently it wasn’t the reason for firing him. First I thought that it was great that people weren’t actually this stupid, then I realized what this said about the media. We’re just fucked coming and going.
27 May 2008 at 10:49 pm
Well, all these pale in comparison to my buddy, Michael. You see, he used to have this trick where, just by pulling his cheeks apart a few times, he was able to make a big black dildo disappear when he sat down!
He said he put a practical demonstration of it somewhere on the Web; he learnt it while in apprenticeship to the great Chinese illusionist, Goa Tse.
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