George Carlin (1937-2008; warning - language in the name of free speech)

I enjoy comedians who are skilled at cutting through bullshit, and George Carlin may well have been the godfather of the bunch. Much will be written and aired about Carlin in the next few days, and I heartily suggest revisiting his books and routines on video-sharing sites.

I did have my very tangential encounter with Carlin, which I am proud of. During my stint with the board of the Philippine Law Journal, I wrote a paper about the state regulation of the broadcast media. Comedy aficionados will know that one of Carlin's best-remembered routines was "Seven Dirty Words", satirizing the on-air censorship in the United States of seven particular Anglo-Saxon words, while law aficionados will know that the censorship of the radio broadcast of this routine was challenged before the U.S. Supreme Court, in the landmark (but wrong) case of FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978). I devoted a few pages of my paper on the Pacifica case, and felt that the discussion should spell out in full what those seven dirty words were; there could be no honest assessment on the value of those words if we were coy about publishing them, and besides, I was arguing in the paper that the censorship of those words ultimately violated the constitutional right to free speech. I remember our EIC, the marvelous Mme. Mona, had a few concerns since it did not appear that the august 75 year-old Philippine Law Journal, the pre-eminent law review in the Philippines, had ever printed those words before, but she agreed that they should be published. And they were published in a footnote (an editorial choice made for the sake of clarity), and nobody raised a fuss about it. A point for emphasis for free speech.

Thusly, Mr. Carlin, shit piss fuck cunt cocksucker motherfucker and tits.

• Comic Pioneer George Carlin Dies at 71 -- New York Daily News