Failed Coffee Attempt Part I
The following is a Coffee Talk entry I submitted but failed to get accepted. I reproduce it here for your enjoyment and delectation, and also as a testimony to the type of entry which will not make it in Coffee Talk.
There are few comic strip writers in the world today who are willing to take on the injustices of the world today like Lynn Johnston does in For Better or For Worse. When I opened my paper today, read For Better or For Worse and saw the clear vilification of the woefully inadequate labour and education laws for protecting underage entertainers, I was ready to stand up and cheer for Lynn Johnston. The idea that Becky McGuire was on the road so much, she had to take 3 Grade 11 courses over again, is a strong statement on this subject. Where is the law to make sure these young people have tutors? Where is the law to protect their right to an education? 3 cheers for Lynn Johnston for having the bravery to expose this serious problem on a national scale!
There are few comic strip writers in the world today who are willing to take on the injustices of the world today like Lynn Johnston does in For Better or For Worse. When I opened my paper today, read For Better or For Worse and saw the clear vilification of the woefully inadequate labour and education laws for protecting underage entertainers, I was ready to stand up and cheer for Lynn Johnston. The idea that Becky McGuire was on the road so much, she had to take 3 Grade 11 courses over again, is a strong statement on this subject. Where is the law to make sure these young people have tutors? Where is the law to protect their right to an education? 3 cheers for Lynn Johnston for having the bravery to expose this serious problem on a national scale!
posted by howard at 2:22 PM
6 Comments:
Is the point to try to get the most offbase comment possible published by sucking up to Lynn Johnson in the process? This might sound radical, but why not actually write something that you truly believe in?
Anon, well said - I couldn't have said it better!
Anon II
Is the point to try to get the most offbase comment possible published by sucking up to Lynn Johnson in the process?
Not really. First of all, I don’t think the comment is off base. Becky continues to go to school with April and yet the complaint is that she spent so much time on the road, she failed 3 classes. The obvious interpretation is that Becky’s career is damaging her education. However, if you think about it, this does not make sense.
If the situation is true as April describes it, then the follow-on implication is that Becky's teachers at school and Becky's parents have failed to recognize the situation and the existing labour and education laws which protect underage performers. If Becky really has to miss that much school for her career, then she should not be attending R.P. Boire Senior Secondary and be put under a tutoring education system customary for these kinds of things. April doesn’t mention these things. She is saying that Becky has to retake the courses, as if she were still continuing to attend R.P. Boire Senior Secondary. The implication of this is that the people handling Becky’s education are not only not recognizing the situation, but have no intention of altering their current methods.
Underage kids have a right to an education, and just because they have a performing career doesn’t mean that they are going to miss out on that right. It doesn’t even mean that their education is poorer. It could even be better from getting the individual attention that a tutor may provide, instead of having to compete with 20+ kids for a teacher’s attention, as any home schooling advocate can confirm.
By making the statement about Becky’s education she did, it seems to me Lynn Johnston is stating she believes that underage performers are not adequately protected and their education suffers. Now, how do you say that couched in the flattering language it seems necessary to get something on the Coffee Talk?
However, for the sake of argument, if you are interested, Anons I and II, I can resubmit my premise to the Coffee Talk people, phrased as I have phrased it above, without any praise to Lynn Johnston at all in the comment, and see if it makes it in. Does that seem reasonable?
I don't know. I thought it was pretty funny.
Anon III.
Howard, your letter to Coffee Talk is exaggerated and dripping with sarcasm, and CT is not that type of blog. Many of the points you raise are valid and merit discussion but they get lost in the inflated language.
I do agree that minors who miss school because they are involved in other activities (sports, aid mission to Africa, a family trip to Hawaii) need to have an effective program to insure that they keep up with their school work. We don’t know why Rebecca failed three classes and we don’t know if this is the very first time that this has happened. (It could be that she was lazy and did not complete assignments.) We also don’t know what, if anything, the school administration will be doing in the future to insure that she will not repeat this.
Thousands of high school kids fail classes, go to summer school, graduate and then succeed in college. I would not call this a “clear vilification of the woefully inadequate labour and education laws.”
Anon II
Anon II,
We only know things by inference. In conversations with April, Becky never mentioned failing classes. From this I infer a recent occurrence. All we really know is the classes were taken in the last year, from the Grade 10 designation. We don’t know if it was the most recent semester.
Becky could be lazy, and did not complete assignments. The implication in the fall, 2006 strips was that she was popular enough to get people to do that for her. The implication of the spring, 2007 strips is that Becky is lonely, and no longer has those kinds of people hanging around her. The reason for the difference is not clear, but the Gym / Jam is the separating event, and perhaps those kids don’t want to hang around a girl whose band members use drugs.
There is a lot of guess work involved in understanding this strip.
I did submit the discussion without any inflated language, and we shall see if this makes it Coffee Talk suitable.
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