By Red Skelton:

“Getting back to school, I remember a teacher that I had. Now I only went, I went through the seventh grade. I left home when I was 10 years old because I was hungry. (laughter) And .. this is true. I worked in the summer and went to school in the winter. But, I had this one teacher, he was the principal of the Harrison school, in Vincennes, Indiana. To me, this was the greatest teacher, a real sage of..of my time, anyhow.

He had such wisdom. We were all reciting the Pledge of Allegiance one day, and he walked over. This little old teacher … Mr. Lasswell was his name. He said:

“I’ve been listening to you boys and girls recite the Pledge of Allegiance all semester and it seems as though it is becoming monotonous to you. If I may, may I recite it and try to explain to you the meaning of each word?

I: Me, an individual, a committee of one.

PLEDGE: Dedicate all of my worldly goods to give without self pity.

ALLEGIANCE: My love and my devotion.

TO THE FLAG: Our standard, Old Glory, a symbol of freedom. Wherever she waves, there’s respect because your loyalty has given her a dignity that shouts freedom is everybody’s job.

UNITED: That means that we have all come together.

STATES: Individual communities that have united into 48 great states. Forty-eight individual communities with pride and dignity and purpose; all divided with imaginary boundaries yet united to a common purpose, and that’s love for country.

AND TO THE REPUBLIC: A state in which sovereign power is invested in representatives chosen by the people to govern. And government is the people, and it’s from the people to the leaders, not from the leaders to the people.

FOR WHICH IT STANDS, ONE NATION: One nation, meaning “so blessed by God.”

INDIVISIBLE: Incapable of being divided.

WITH LIBERTY: Which is freedom, the right of power to live one’s own life without threats, fear, or some sort of retaliation.

AND JUSTICE: The principle or quality of dealing fairly with others.

FOR ALL: For all, which means, boys and girls, it’s as much your country as it is mine.

And now, boys and girls, let me hear you recite the Pledge of Allegiance:

“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands: one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Since I was a small boy, two states have been added to our country, and two words have been added to the Pledge of Allegiance: “under God.” Wouldn’t it be a pity if someone said that is a prayer, and that would be eliminated from schools too?

Happy 4th of July, everyone.

Palo Alto software is giving away free copies of its Business Plan Pro software to Oregon businesses on Wednesday, July 1st.  You have to physically walk into one of the giveaway locations to get the certificate for the free copy, but I think it’s worth it to any business that wants to write or maintain its business plan.

More details are available at http://www.paloalto.com/boost/ and http://www.paloalto.com/boost/details.cfm.

Giveaway locations in Portland:

• African American Chamber of Commerce of Oregon & SW Washington
  4300 NE Fremont St. 3220, Portland OR 97213-1100
• Oregon Business Network
  City Hall
  1221 SW 4th Ave, Portland, OR 97204
• OEN
  309 SW Sixth Avenue, Suite 212, Portland, OR 97204
  503-222-2270 x13
• PABA (Portland Area Business Association)
  Urban Grind Coffee House
  2214 NE Oregon, Portland, OR
• PCC Small Business Development Center
  2025 Lloyd Center, Portland, OR 97232
  503-978-5088
• Clackamas SBDC
  7736 SE Harmony Rd, Portland, OR 97222
  503-594-0738

H/T Silicon Florist

This morning I was finally able to fit this into my busy schedule:

Made on a budget of only £3,000 (about $4,500 as I am writing this), The Hunt for Gollum shows that you don’t need government subsidies, production company backing or even aggressive merchandise licensing in order to produce a successful film. It also shows that fan films do not have to feature poor acting and even poorer cinematography as their most redeeming features.

I’m particularly impressed with how the fight scenes were handled. The average person tends to hold back a little when staging a fight in order to be sure not to actually hit their partner. Not only did the crew in The Hunt for Gollum put forth an active effort to overcome this shortfall, but any actual punch-pulling was cleverly discussed through creative camera cuts and occasional slow-motion.

The casting is decent, although Adrian Webster doesn’t have the strong features I think the lost King of Gondor should, nor does Rita Ramnani have the angular ethereal beauty that one would expect for Arwen. Gandalf looks spot on, and Patrick O’Connor does his best to imitate Ian McKellen.

I only have two real, though minor gripes: 1)  Gollum doesn’t thrash nearly wildly enough when captured, and 2) some of the night scenes (particularly during the last ten minutes) are too dark — you may want to turn the lights out and the screen brightness up when watching.

Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them. And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre.

And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus. And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments:

And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among dead?

He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee.

One of my favorite lines of dialogue ever in 4komatose (which will update again, someday) is Ariake’s opening line in issue #5, “tie me up and rub me down,” not because of the perverse inference but because of the juxtaposition of the words up and down. It’s that kind of language geekery that makes me really appreciate the most recent podcast of Webcomics Weekly (#58), especially the first 10 minutes:

In addition to the discussion of language and wordcraft, I can also identify with Brad and Dave’s categorization of jokes into slapstick and misdirection. As I once mentioned on 4komatose.com, Scott prefers physical comedy and I prefer textual comedy, and our different approaches create some marked contrasts in our comic. For example, the I would hold up the aforementioned 4komatose #5 as a prime example of Scott’s scripting work, while 4komatose #4, wherein Kyushu imagines himself in the place of Odin hanging from the World Tree only to be revealed as sitting through a particularly boring Calculus class is a good example of my humor.

Cross-posted at 4komatose.com.

Just a quick link roundup I found interesting:

• In honor of the Canadian superhero’s 35th anniversary (and no doubt as a way to promote “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” due out in May) here’s Wolverine Appreciation Month art.
• From the Onion, an Office Worker Suddenly Becomes Sentient.  As a former office drone myself, I can honestly say that an uprising of suddenly intelligent cubicle dwellers is a terrifying prospect.
• How to Succeed in Evil: The Novel went live on Monday the 16th.  Patrick E. McLean’s antihero Edwin brings some welcome common sense the supervillainy business.  McLean will be releasing one chapter each day until completion.
• I’m probably the only webcomic artist who hasn’t read the graphic novel and isn’t planning on seeing the movie, but even I know how enough about the story to see the wonderful satire in Saturday Morning Watchmen.

Update: Cross-posted at 4komatose.com.

I’m working with a team of three other students to perform a financial analysis of McDonald’s Corporation for a Valuation class this term.  We’re getting toward the end of the term, which means that for the next three weeks I’ll have to eat, sleep and breathe McDonald’s (kind of like Morgan Spurlock without the weight gain, or any of his numerous imitators without the weight loss).

It also means that I’m really excited that McDonald’s finally filed it’s 10-K for 2008.  I have a lot of reading to do.

For those of you who don’t know, Mark Cuban is a billionaire, and he has his own idea about how stimulate the economy:

Rather than trying to be a Venture Capitalist, I was looking for an idea that hopefully could inspire people to create businesses that could quickly become self funding. Businesses that just needed a jump start to get the ball rolling and create jobs. I’m a big believer that entrepreneurs will lead us out of this mess. I just needed a way to help.

…I will invest money in businesses presented here on this blog. No minimum, no maximum, but a very specific set of rules.

Mark calls his plan “open source funding,” because in order to seek funding from him, a business owner has to present their business plan on his blog with the intent that others may (and should) copy the plan in establishing their own businesses.

So far, Mark reports that he is considering funding 12 of the businesses that have been submitted on his blog, and appears to be open to more.

Can I just say that I love this idea!  Mark is actually stimulating the economy by helping build business and he’s doing it by investing, which will do much more for the economy, the businesses, and the people involved in both the long and short runs than any multi-billion dollar government boondoggle ever will.

An interesting little time-waster.

H/T Greg Mankiw

I’m sometimes amazed at how creatively some artists can re-interpret an established character.  Thought I’d post some examples while I’m snowed in:

SANTA:SENSEI by =kandoken on deviantART

Barbarian santa by ~NuMioH on deviantART

Steampunk Santa by ~CyborgNecromancer on deviantART

Super Santa? by ~my79spirit on deviantART

Merry Christmas!

Update: Cross-posted at 4komatose.com.