Today I discovered a new magazine. The magazine is not new but my awareness of it is. A few weeks ago in Portland I was roaming around the immense Powell's bookstore and found Radical Teacher. Of course the title had me at hello and as soon as I started flipping through the articles I realized this was something I had to take with me. This morning I went to a nice coffee shop and dove into my new treasure. The articles included ways to use myspace when teaching feminism and perspectives on teaching a documentary about the way television portrays the working class. Pepi Leistyna made the film Class Dismissed and provides a very comprehensive list of alternative media sources. Once again I feel like I have tapped a previously unknown well of information that I need to pursue on a more profound level. As I start looking through this I will leave you with a preview for Class Dismissed.

It is 1:30 in the morning and my eyes are closing on me. I don't know why I am prompted to come here to express this but where else would I go at this hour. George Carlin died. Aside from finding his comedy quite brilliant and insightful I am trying to figure out why this is so disturbing to me.

It could have to do with my skewed relationship with what is called humor. I can watch comedians do stand up on Comedy Central all day and not laugh once. The movies that most people seem to find funny, I find ridiculous and offensive. For a while my line was, "everyone knows I don't have a sense of humor." It isn't that. I have a sense of humor but it needs a little more prodding than Mencia selling out his race. Recently someone sent me a George Carlin dialogue and I couldn't stop laughing. He makes comedy theoretical and takes it a step further. He doesn't have to appeal to the obvious racist, sexist, fall on your face stunts that other mainstream comedy seems to be so fond of. How many male comedians talk about the abortion issue? How many female comedians for that matter? Fearless and brilliant, he will be missed.