A Pact By Any Other Name Would Smell As Foul

In the words of that great gaggle of goofs, those corny comedic commentators, Monty Python, "And now for something completely different." Well, perhaps not completely different, as I suppose since everything is politics, even this discussion touches on the topic of the past few posts. but this is not the usual Democrat v. Republican, or Left v. Right, but more a case of freedom of speech v. (commercially motivated?) censorship.

Perhaps that discussion fitting in light of the recent death of one of the country's most outspoken and infamous champions of free speech, comedian George Carlin. Carlin's masterpiece of social satire, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television," was more than just a stand-up riff; it was the launching point for a lawsuit that went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled that in the name of "decency," there were some things that shouldn't be broadcast in case children were listening. In fact, although almost every obituary I've seen so far on Carlin mentions the "Seven Words" routine, none has actually printed them. I'd like to list them here, in his honor: shit, piss, fuck, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits. It's frightening, but I don't even know if I am allowed to use these words on blogger. Will the morality police take away my laptop?

Which brings me to what I really want to talk about: censorship. Recently Time magazine reported that many of the 17 pregnant students at Gloucester (Massachusetts) High School had formed a pact to get pregnant at the same time and raise their babies together. (Normally only about 4 kids get pregnant there each year.) School principal Joseph Sullivan told Time that the girls—none of whom were over 16—confessed to being part of the pact. He also said that many of the girls had visited the school clinic for pregnancy tests, and "seemed more upset when they weren't pregnant then when they were."

Now, it seems, Sullivan's memory of where, when, and from whom he learned about the pact has become conveniently fuzzy. The mayor of Gloucester, Carolyn Kirk, says Sullivan is mistaken. "He was foggy in memory of how he heard the information," she said. "When we pressed for specifics, his memory failed him." She stopped short of saying he made the whole thing up.

Her view differs—sort of: "I am not able to confirm the existence of a pact…any planned blood oath," she said. According to her, the girls may have agreed after the fact to support each other, but that was not the same thing as making a plan to quadruple the typical birth rate at GHS. She had no explanation as to why one of the girls had sex with a homeless man, but I suspect a little bit of Orwellian/Carlinesque double-speak.

George Carlin once said, "I can remember when I was young that poor people lived in slums. Not anymore. These days, the economically disadvantaged occupy substandard housing in the inner cities. It's so much nicer for them."

Yes, and the good girls of Gloucester don't make pacts to get pregnant. They chat about how nice it would be if their children were to all grow up together and be friends with each other, too.