A Philly Course in Public Speaking

Two celebrities gave two rather different speeches in Philly at the end of last week. One was former President Bill Clinton speaking on behalf of the National Youth Leadership Council at the National Constitution Center, and the other was filmmaker Morgan Spurlock (whom you may remember from his documentary Super Size Me, in which he ate at McDonalds every day for a month) at Hatboro-Horsham High School in suburban Philadelphia.

Clinton's speech was a rather unremarkable and uncontroversial talk about the importance of civic organizations like the NYLC, and it was very well received - the Daily News says he "bounded like a rock star up the cascading steps of the center's Grand Hall Lobby," that his exit caused the crowd to swoon, and that at least one seventeen-year-old girl, though she says she may have pulled a muscle trying to touch his hand, found the experience well worth it.

Morgan Spurlock, on the other hand, made a quite controversial speech, supposedly cursing throughout, as well as making fun of the teachers, and the Indian and retarded employees of McDonalds (to an audience that included special ed children - who were escorted out before he was done). The students, nonplussed, laughed throughout, and gave him a standing ovation and got autographs afterwards. School officials were not so pleased; they cancelled another speech Spurlock had been scheduled to give at the school. Spurlock said he's never had complaints before, and also mentioned he'd been advised not to speak about McDonalds at the school because a member of the education association board owns a franchise. Well, Phillyist wasn't there, but we do like Spurlock's film (even if it did only keep us away from McDonalds for a week), and rather approve of his politics, so we're kind of leaning towards siding with him on this one, even if his speech does sound like it was a little questionable.

Image Credit: Satya