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.
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.
Comment by Trey — 12 May 2008 @ 1:17 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.
Comment by Rev. Reed Braden — 12 May 2008 @ 1:30 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.
Comment by GDad — 13 May 2008 @ 6:00 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.
Comment by rabbitambulance — 27 May 2008 @ 7:45 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.
Comment by Tom — 27 May 2008 @ 10:49 pm