june rabble rouser of the month! vote please.

vote please! june rabble rouser nominees. to read more, some links to the stories are included.

ann colagiovanni (shaker heights, oh) – 97 year old high school graduate...

ann dropped out of high school in the early 30s to go to work in her family’s store. well, here it is, 78 years later, and she finally is getting that high school diploma from shaker heights high. haven’t found any stories that say what classes she had to finish, but hopefully a.p. life experience got her the rest of the credits she needed. the more amazing part of the story is that her grandson was also graduating shaker high with the class of 2012. ann only had daughters, so this means, on the average, she and her daughter gave birth at 39 years of age if her grandson is either 18 or 19. I guess it’s possible that he too went back to pick up at age 60 his own high school diploma.
cbs news story

sue warren (elyria, oh) – breaks into houses, cleans, leaves bill...

a woman with obsessive cleaning disorder breaks into houses, cleans them and leaves a bill with her name and address. sounds dumb, but if it gets you jobs i guess go for it. she tells police she does this all the time, but a recent case in which she washed the dishes, took out the trash and vaccummed before leaving a bill for $75 landed her in jail on a burglary charge. the price seems a bit steep to me. i don’t think i’d pay more than $10-$15. but if she can get people to pay without sending them to collections, then it seems like getting a free cleaning coupon with the option to continue. if that’s all it really is, i say she should be able to keep going. i wonder what this will do for her cleaning business?
cbs news story

tyler sullivan (minnesota) – presidential pardon for skipping school...

on june 1, president spoke in minnesota. the 11 year old tyler sullivan skips school to go see him speak. so, he gets up to shake hands with obama and then milks prez for a note to be excused from mr. ackerman’s class? actually it seems like obama offered to write the excuse. besides, that seems like an excessive move. the kid went to the speech with his dad. last time i checked a parent was enough to get an excuse.
people magazine story

larry sapienza (warren twp, new jersey) – fired library director re-hired...

this dude was the victim of typical office crap. as the circulation director, you’d think he’d know how to deal with his employees & volunteers. his boss gave him orders on how to change the volunteer schedules. he didn’t agree with the decision, but did as he was told. then he got fired for not following library policy. after a couple months of confusion, he had a hearing on wheter to re-instate him. since his ex-boss (who also got axed) doesn’t talk & prolly denied what she said, he was lucky enough to have a co-worker that overheard the directive & stood up for him. when the hearing was over, sapienza’s great quote, “does this mean i have my job back?” naturally, listening to that hearing proceding, that was my thought exactly. i guess since the entire episode was clouded in rediculous politics, it only made sense to re-instate him with a bunch of legal-ese hogwash that not even the guy reading the verdict could understand. but thankfully, sapienza did get his job back & a couple months off work.
echoes-sentinel article
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rodney king: rabble rouser hall of fame

rodney king was not an exemplary citizen, but he was a rabble rouser. he became a figurehead for a movement. he didn’t find trouble as much as trouble found him. yeah, he was found several times driving drunk & once even charged for a hit & run on his wife. but he also got a severe beatdown by seven l.a. cops, of which two ended up with short prison sentences only after a white suburban jury had found them not guilty. king later got shot when someone tried to bike-jack him. there were some sweet ironies, such as when he won a celebrity boxing match against a former cop & that he was engaged the last two years to a woman who had been a juror on his civil trial agasint the l.a.p.d. but, for the most part, king’s life could not have been an envious one to live.

what really makes rodney king a great rabble rouser was that he helps us see inside ourselves. how many people can truly say they have never driven under the influence? just because you may not have been caught doing something wrong, doesn’t afford you the right to judge someone who has. and how many people can say they have never thought ill of someone because that person was different from them? it happens all the time, everyday in every town. king famously begged the question “can’t we all just get along?” but 20 years later, trayvon martin still isn’t allowed to live as a black man.

it takes a rabble rouser to stir up politcal tsunamis. pundits won’t allow president obama to market hoodies because it was supposedly capitalizing on the tragedy of trayvon martin (nevermind that obama sold hoodies in 08 as well & every race of people wear them). it scares me to think what would happen if obama were to even mention rodney king’s name.

whether it is rodney king, abner louima, amadou diallo, sean bell, or the countless other victims of police brutality, they allow us to examine our own fears & what society should or shouldn’t think unacceptable. drunk driving may be a bad thing, but it’s not nearly as bad as a police officer ramming a plunger up someone’s anus. yes, that really happened. so, don’t cast stones. don’t hate. make yourself a better person.