"Last Words" by George Carlin

Finished reading "Last Words" by George Carlin and found it to be fairly interesting.

Reminded me of Steve Martin's autobiography (which I reviewed here) for a few different reasons. The obvious one would be them both being stand-up comedians, but beyond that, they both knew what they wanted to do from an early age and went through periods of pretty big internal struggle around their careers. Another connection between the two is Carlin's mention of his respect for both the work of Martin and the apparent niceness of the guy himself during their sporadic interactions.

What I really liked about Carlin's book (and I guess the guy by extension) was his focus on and fascination with the power of words (as evidence, he titled one of the chapters "I do love words". What they are, what they mean... all of this fodder for examination given the weight they can hold in the world.

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Two other things from the book...

- I liked his concept of children... basically "leave them alone, they're going to be alright, they're smarter than you are."

- I found interesting his time spent on the children's shows "Shining Time Station" and "Thomas the Tank Engine", both with Britt Allcroft.

After reading his book, I now find myself wanting to see one of Carlin's HBO Specials. In particular, "Jammin' in New York" sounded to be his favorite.

Fort Hood Domestic Terrorist Piece from Time Magazine

Solid cover story in the latest Time Magazine on Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan.



Written by Nancy Gibbs, "Terrified or Terrorist?" investigates the life of Hasan... and both what appeared to lead him to his shooting rampage on the Texas Army base and how the military might have been able to prevent it.

To the question of what brought about his heinous act, signs seem to point to a severe disillusionment with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Hasan (who is a Muslim) viewing the US as waging a war against the religion. The interesting question that Gibbs looks at is whether Hasan's actions following up on his views make him basically a self-contained terrorist... operating outside any terrorist organization.

In terms of how this act could have been prevented, Gibbs details the various red flags about Hasan that were raised by members of the military, but with none of them thoroughly followed up upon. The reasoning put forward was that to voice questions about Hasan as a Muslim could be viewed as act of discrimination. Not good, but understandable.

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Two other pieces from this issue of Time that stood out were a mention of comedian George Carlin's posthumously published autobiography "Last Words" and the "Technology Roundtable with Jay Adelson, Jeff Han, Philip Rosedale and Michael Arrington." Interesting stuff.