Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,100 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 35 trips to carry that many people.

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I have always said that the end of the world would be televised. But when I said that, I was referring to a huge 2012 kind of apocalyptic ending. Cameras would roll to the last second and some junior reporter would be finishing his or her last live stand-up in front of an earth rending, lava spewing crevasse. I was not prepared, however, for how the world really ended or, for that matter, that end would come and go without anyone really noticing.

The Reality Game

The end of the world was not marked with lava plumes or giant CG inspired tidal waves or even a really big squid from outer-space. Nope. It was marked by a new show on Spike TV, Repo Games. The show is produced by the same group that brought Jersey Shore to our televisions so…at least we know it’s going  be classy. Right? Right?

Repo Games is built on the premise that there are people out there who are so desperate, so down-on-their-luck, that they will

Repo Games on Spike TV

do just about anything to keep their heads above water for just one more day. So, halfway through an auto repossession, they are offered the chance to win their car back, paid in full, by answering three out of five trivia questions while being insulted by a repo man. All for our entertainment. The fact that people actually agree to this is testament to both the power of television and state of our economy. By sinking this low, by turning misfortune into entertainment, we are all diminished.

I watched one episode of Repo Games and it made me feel dirty. As far as game shows go, it just might be the worst ever. It isn’t fun and, unless you’re the kind of person who laughs when someone is hit by a car, it isn’t funny. The “contestants” are a cross-section of society but most are poor and uneducated. They are first hit with a notice of repossession and, during the initial shock, they are asked if they want a chance to win the car back…all while being insulted, put down and treated like a human joke. Answer three out of five trivia questions correctly, and the show pays off your car. Miss three questions and you get to watch your car roll off in the sunset.

The COPS Connection

Producers like to call the show a hybrid of Jeopardy and COPS. They are, of course, wrong on both accounts. We watch Jeopardy to see other people show how smart they are and we play along to see if we are just as smart. It makes us better if even by a little bit. COPS is also different. The people who make it on to COPS have done something to deserve being there. They have broken the law and even though the show states that everyone is assumed innocent, we also know that the producers of COPS aren’t offering Get-Out-of-Jail-Free cards to the good folks who show up on COPS. Jeopardy is a game show, one that has stood the test of time. COPS is, at heart, a documentary look at crime and law enforcement. But Repo Games? It is exploitive and it’s sad.

Don’t Get Me Wrong

I know that everyone who has ever had a car repossessed is having it taken back for missing payments. I understand that by signing a loan contract, the buyer is agreeing to make those payments on time and that after 90 days of missed payments, the car is going back to the bank. I get all of that. What I just don’t get is this…Why do we have to put it on TV for the entertainment of others? Not all repossessions are the result of “deadbeats” are they? The economy went in the toilet three years ago. People all over America lost their jobs and their income. They lost their homes and their cars. All because Wall Street treated American finance like a game and now we want to play out the extreme financial problems of our fellow citizens for laughs. It’s unacceptable and, as I said earlier, it diminishes all of us.

I thought I might share some of the results from my little experiment. One little detail. You need some red/blue glasses to see the 3D effect. The pictures are 2D conversions and are the result of my very first efforts. I intend to refine my skills but these aren’t so terrible…Feel free to offer tips or tricks or to just be critical.

2D to 3D conversion.

Took this picture on the way home one day.

2d to 3d conversion.

2D to 3D conversion.

2D To 3D Conversion

Let me know if they work or don’t work.

But that is behind us and it is time to move forward. I think that I need to pick up the pace in writing new posts. I also need to finish my unintentional series on Fixing Education. And, apparently, I need to quote Ronald Reagan some more. He seems to be very popular for some reason. OK. That’s a bit disingenuous. I know why Ronald Reagan is so popular. It’s because he was such a Liberal. Right?

Anyway…

I want to start posting on a weekly basis, at least. I would also like to narrow the focus here a little bit better. I seem to be all over the place. It kind of mirrors the way I think but I never intended the articles here to be a roadmap to my thought process. I would also like to get more comments from readers. Anything really. Suggest topics, share your likes or dislikes, or even just general comments.

There is a wealth of political topics to discuss also. It seems as if the Republican Party has been infiltrated by a radical cadre of hyper-rightwing, poor-people hating, money loving, union busting post-boomers. They hate the middle class and they hate the working class with such a passion that they seem willing to destroy this way of life as readily as they would swat a mosquito. The Tea Party Republicans hate everyone except those they aspire to be. The wealthy.

The Tea Party Republican Agenda

This is just off the cuff and poorly researched but…the Tea Party is perfectly willing to call teachers a drain on society because of their “thugish” unions and their ridiculous fiscal planning and uppity retirement plans. But GE, the world’s largest corporation, can announce a worldwide yearly profit of $14.2 Billion with just over $5 Billion coming from their American operations while still paying $Zero in taxes and the Tea Party is just fine with that. In fact, GE claimed, and received, a tax benefit of over $3 Billion. If we count just the North American profits of $5 Billion, that means that GE was taxed at a rate of -60%. So, using the new Tea Party math, if I made a very fictional $50K last year, I should expect a tax benefit of $30,000.00. Sounds fair to me. I need to get those union thugs on this right away…

…but these Union Thugs don’t spend $Millions each year on lobbyists and tax lawyers like GE does. They just bargain collectively for teachers, a high crime in the eyes of the new regime. But that brings us back full circle. You know who hated the GE tax dodge? Ronald Reagan. You know who didn’t hate collective bargaining? Ronald Reagan. So I will leave you with a quote from the Rightwing’s favorite pinko commie…

Where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost.

~Ronald Reagan

I believe a case can be made that the decline in the quality of public school eduction began when Federal aid to education became Federal interference in education.

~Ronald Reagan

Kindergarten Is The New First Grade

When I was just starting out in school, Kindergarten was fun. As a child I looked forward to finger-painting, playing with blocks and learning all about numbers and the usefulness of the alphabet. I remember learning to print my name and I remember learning to count to 100. I still have crystal clear memories of the accomplishment of reaching 100 for the first time. That number was such a foreign concept to my 4 year-old mind (yes…4 years old) that I had honestly thought that it would take a week to get there.

So we spent the day coloring, tracing letters, learning numbers and understanding what they represented. The teacher read stories to us and I learned to fall in love with Dr. Seuss and, by extension, reading. She showed us how to draw and paint and I learned to love art. She showed us how to carefully craft our letters so that they could form our names and I learned to love writing. We also played with toys and each other and we took naps and ate graham crackers and milk. I checked with my mother. There was never a day when I refused to go to school. Kindergarten was fun. But it was so much more than that.

Learn By Playing?

It took me a long to time to appreciate the depth of the education I received during that first year of school. I thought we were messing with paint. Turns out we were learning about colors and aesthetics and even cleaning up after ourselves. While we thought we were playing house, we were actually learning how to interact with other human beings, all about gender differences and equalities, and about fair-play. While we were playing with blocks and toy cars and stuffed animals, we were also learning how to share, how to resolve our own problems and how to deal with conflict. Everything we did, learned and experienced had one simple outcome. We learned how to learn. The lessons were simple but lifelong. And they are sorely missing in today’s education.

Getting my son to go to school everyday was a chore. Every day was a battle. Every morning was filled with tears and pleading to stay home. It took me a while to figure out why my son was so against school. His school had taken the Kindergarten lessons and tossed them out and replaced them with a 1st grade curriculum. It might have been my fault he wasn’t totally prepared but an hour of homework a day in Kindergarten is just wrong.         ~Georgia Mother

If we refuse to acknowledge the importance of play-based learning, we may never reach all of our students. And instead of figuring out how to learn and to love learning, we set our kids up for failure at a very early age. Putting five year-old behinds into seats to teach them through traditional lectures flies in the face of everything we know about education. Children at that age just don’t work that way. Children learn by doing and through experience. David Elkind, author and psychologist wrote, “Learning teaches us what we know, play makes it possible for new things to be learned. There are many concepts and skills that can only be learned through play.” Social skills are first on the list.

So, instead of well-rounded eager students, many of us are getting frustrated, burned-out students who lack social skills, impulse control and simple conflict resolution skills. Instead of students who read for the sheer joy of it, who write because writing is fun and who can slog their way through Algebra and Trig simply because they can add, subtract, multiply and divide, we get students who can barely read, can’t form a sentence and can’t do simple two digit multiplication without a calculator. It is not the fault of the students. It is not the fault of the teachers. It is because of a system that has been redesigned over the past decade, not at the hands of educators but at the hands of politicians.

Fitting Into The Plan

In order to save our high schools we must start in Kindergarten. In spite of what politicians want us to believe, kids aren’t failing because their teachers are bad. They are not failing because they have failed the system. They are failing because the system has failed them. The system is flawed and it places too much emphasis on quantitative data and not enough on qualitative data. Sure, a kid could be terrible at math but that same child could grow up to be a great author or songwriter or artist. We will never know if that same child learns, in Kindergarten, that he or she just doesn’t measure up. And that would be the real failure of our education system.

I was a PC guy in the earliest days of computers. Apple? An amusing oddity. But 10 years ago something happened. I got my hands on my first iBook G4 and it was Apple Fever Baby. What once took thousands of dollars in a TV production studio could now be done on a laptop. I jumped in with both feet.

Apple was a great friend to many creative industries. I have no idea why, but Apple computers just worked better when it came to graphic arts, publishing and video production/filmmaking. Apple practically defined an industry with Final Cut Pro by bringing a low cost, professional, non-linear editing suite to a common laptop computer. Independent filmmakers were able to be truly independent while increasing their production values. Apple made this possible without the need for studios or investors. But now? Apple is no longer interested in being a production tool for the creation of art. They are far more interested in being a fashion statement.

It All Begins With The iPod

The iPod is a brilliant machine. The first generation iPod was a game changer. Period. When it was released in 2001 an entire industry shifted and there are not too many companies that can make that claim. Xerox, Polaroid, Microsoft, Google and Netflix should be on everyone’s list of companies that changed the way we work and play. Apple also deserves a place on that list. The iPod has changed not only the way we listen to music, but it also has changed the way we buy our music and, as a result, the entire music industry.

Gone are the days when consumers purchased an entire CD to get one or two really good songs. Now, we boot up iTunes and can cherry pick what we want to listen to and load it into an iPod. Not just a simple MP3 player, the first iPod was a 5-10 gigabyte machine that used a 1.6″ hard drive for storage. The addition of a mechanical menu scroll which included a select button in the center of four navigation buttons. iPod owners soon discovered that they could navigate their way through their music libraries without taking the player out of their pockets. And as game changing as that first generation iPod was, they just got better with the addition of video, photo storage, larger hard drives, cover flow and eventually video cameras and FM radio. This all culminated with what I think is the best iPod ever. The 5th Generation iPod Nano.

The 5th Gen Nano was sleek, sexy and packed full of the features that confirmed that Apple knew what people wanted. Apple had no problem giving it to them either. The 5th Gen Nano came with either 8 or 16 gigabytes of storage, a larger screen, video playback, a built in video camera, FM radio, Cover Flow and even a pedometer to help keep track of workouts. It was, in a word, perfect and any other competitor was merely a pretender.   And for some reason it only lasted a year. It was replaced with the very reason I now question my relationship with Apple.

Less is Not More: The 6th Generation Nano

In September of 2010, exactly one year after the release of the previous Nano, Apple released its successor. The New Nano, referred to from now on as the Nano Touch, was released to the buying public as a breakthrough. Small and functional with a multi-touch display. But they left out the part where they left stuff out. Like the video camera and even the ability to play video at all. So Nano Touch users can no longer sync their players with iTunes and expect to see the videos they’ve downloaded. Apple also developed a new way to navigate subfolders that requires multiple swipes and touches and whatever else. The simple elegance of the original click wheel is gone as is the classic Nano design. This thing is as elegant as a matchbox. It is an iPod Shuffle with an awkward touch screen. I played with it for about 10 minutes at the store and knew that the Nano was dead to me now.

I simply hate this thing and everything it represents.

What this represents to me is the ultimate expression of style over substance.  The Apple that I fell in love with was all about getting the job done. It has been a slow process but, of late, Apple  products seem to be more about being seen at Starbucks with a Mac. Taking away Firewire from the Macbook was the first clue. It came back but it took some consumer pressure. A total lack of Blue-Ray support still mystifies me. Apple CEO Steve Jobs called Blue-Ray “a big bag of hurt” due to licensing  concerns. But licensing got easier and Blue-Ray is still missing. Then there is the famous Blue-Ray e-mail:

Steve,

I, as well as many people I know, have HD camcorders now. The mac has been a wonderful platform for working with HD video of family and friends and special events. However, there doesn’t seem to be a good solution to distribute that HD video to family and friends while retaining high quality. I was wondering if you have any plans for Blu-ray in the mac lineup for those of us who want to be able to share our HD video.

The reply, while short, said so much:

“YouTube now supports HD video.”

Nice. In just 5 words, Steve Jobs told his consumer base that their concerns are meaningless, HD video is better served on YouTube and that he really isn’t interested in discussing it further. It fails to acknowledge that iPhones and iPod Touches don’t support HD video or Flash, necessary to view HD on YouTube. And, this is the big one, it fails to address the needs of those consumers who use their Apples for a living. Can you imagine a wedding videographer who has just finished an HD wedding video for a client and has to tell the bride and groom that if they want to see their High Def masterpiece, they need to go to YouTube? For the video producer it means more work, more equipment and more software.

Hardware products like the Macbook Air and the iPad make no sense to me. Why do they even exist? The Macbook Air is a sleek design

iPad

masterpiece. Of course it doesn’t come with a DVD/CD drive. Apple says that is not really a problem because you can always download programs or, if that isn’t an option, you can buy (from Apple) a portable drive that is almost as big as the computer itself. If you leave it your designer computer bag, you won’t look like a dork at the local Starbucks.

The iPad has an obvious reason to exist. The iTunes Store. The only real way to make an iPad useful is to personalize it through the Apps store. For money. It’s a great way to make free stuff cost money. I realize that the iPad is really in a category all by itself and that the jury is still out, but I had a conversation with an Apple engineer and told him that I was looking for any advantages an iPad could bring to the classroom. Sure, it was early in the iPad’s lifespan but, ultimately, the answer was, “Sorry, can’t help.” But it certainly looks cool.

Switching to Decaf

Apple might not of entirely changed their mission statement. And I might be overreacting. But something about the Nano Touch doesn’t feel right. It feels more like a marketing ploy than an actual, usable product. Perhaps the 5th Gen Nano was too good. Maybe it was taking sales away from the Touch and needed to be “refreshed” in order to boost Touch sales. I don’t know. But my new MP3 player will not be an iPod. Maybe I will go through some boxes in the attic and see if my old Walkman cassette player is still up there…

Yes. The country has been taken back. Back to a time when gentility and civility did not exist. Back to a time when divisiveness was de rigueur. Back to a time when disrespect was common, racism was fun and facts never got in the way of a good story. The so-called Tea Party Movement was able to shift this country even further towards the right with a simple grass-roots movement which, in turn, was backed by a simple corporate news conglomerate and some billionaires who want to keep the conservative agenda alive. The best way to do that is, of course, to keep the huddled masses huddling.

Facts?

Facts just get in the way of a good story. Why bother with finding out of a story is true when it plays so well on the radio and TV? Point in case? The President’s trip to India. Earlier in the week, an unnamed source from an unnamed agency stated that President Obama was on his way to India and that the trip was going to cost $200 million dollars a day and that there were to be 34 warships and an aircraft carrier going as well. Once the story hit the Internet it was picked up by the conservative news services. Suddenly Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck and Sean Hannity even the freshly elected Michele Bachmann were all harping on the President’s big, extravagant, luxury ridden trip to India. Never mind the fact that the Pentagon laughed at the notion of committing 10% of the US Navy on a peacetime visit. Never mind the fact that Factcheck.org did the math and pointed out that $200 million a day is more than the Iraq war cost. Never mind the fact that no one in the White House ever said anything. That the Secret Service doesn’t release this sort of information to anyone. Ever. And why shouldn’t we mind the facts? Because they just get in the way of a good story.

When pressed by Anderson Cooper for some additional information about the numbers, Michele Bachmann stated, “Well these are the numbers that have been coming out in the press…” Well of course they are. And that leads us back to Beck and Limbaugh and Hannity and Fox News and every other member of the corporate conservative news machine. They have stopped reporting the facts and started reporting what each other reports about the facts. To say, “It’s in the press” is tantamount to saying “Fox News is reporting that Fox News has said (insert fake scandal here)…” Fox News is now a self-perpetuating, fake-scandal reporting, fact-ignoring juggernaut. It exists by feeding off of itself to the extent of hiring the very same people they pretend to report on.

It’s On The Internet

Eric Bolling from Fox Business News might actually deserve the credit for getting this ball rolling on his Fox program, “Follow the Money.” He ran a package with numbers quoted from an Indian website. Numbers that were not substantiated, verified or accredited. But hey, it’s just the news…right? And to absolutely prove he was right, Bolling added this little gem:

“I will tell you unequivocably, I am not making this up, this has been reported, go to the Internet, go take a look.”

Go to the Internet and take a look. Does that mean that if it’s on the Internet it’s true? Good. What else is true then? Let’s start with one I found on Drudge. “REPORT: US Military to build kilometer-long bomb-proof tunnel – so Obama can go to the Ghandi Museum…” Really? I thought that I should read the article before commenting on it. Or linking to it on my blog. Drudge should try that once in a while. The article starts out by condemning the American mind-set. The author, Pandurang Mhaske, writes, “It could give a sense of superior American organization, or be an indicator of a deep-set persecution complex. It could also be a manifestation of Uncle Sam’s penchant for a show of strength.” Deeper into the article, Mhaske describes the tunnel. “The tunnel would be a kilometer long and measure 12ft by 12ft — enough to let Obama’s cavalcade pass through. The tunnel would be centrally air-conditioned, fitted with close-circuit television cameras, and will be heavily guarded at every point, including, of course, its entry and exit.” Sweet. But wait! There’s more!

Mhaske wrote, just before describing the tunnel that it would be built by American military engineers IN JUST ONE HOUR! “They came up with a quick solution which left the Indians accompanying them amazed: A bomb-proof over-ground tunnel — to be installed by US military engineers in just an hour.” Amazed indeed. The only amazing part will be if any of this is even remotely true.

Other “True” reports on the internet include:

• The Pentagon was not hit by a jet liner on September 11, 2001. BUT…
• The Pentagon was built on occult symbols that can only be seen from the air but that are hidden and “barely discernible albeit almost complete.” It was done for undisclosed reasons by undisclosed people.
• The moon landings were hoaxed.
• UFOs have been visiting earth for centuries and much of what we are, we owe to our alien pals.
• Atlantis existed.
• George W. Bush was a Mass Murderer.

All on the Internet so, according to Fox News, all true.

Because fanaticism and ignorance is forever busy, and needs feeding. And soon, your Honor, with banners flying and with drums beating we’ll be marching backward, BACKWARD, through the glorious ages of that Sixteenth Century when bigots burned the man who dared bring enlightenment and intelligence to the human mind!

Of course he was talking about evolution in a movie loosely based on the so called Scopes Monkey Trial but he could have been talking about the current state of politics in America. The favored hark and cry of the Tea Party supporters is some variation on “We want to take America back.”

Back To Where?

“We want to take America back.” Back to where? Or is it back from where? Who has it that shouldn’t? Or is it the whole progress thing? Listening to the candidates, it seems that the new conservative movement wants to take us back to a time where women and minorities knew their place. Back to a time where only land owners could vote. Back to a time where the poor were left to die and only the wealthy had health care. Back to a time “when bigots burned the man who dared bring enlightenment and intelligence to the human mind.”

VOTE!

The madness has to stop. Where are we in this country when followers of a candidate are wearing uniforms? When private security guards are arresting reporters? Where political candidates are discussing revolution as a viable option. Armed insurrection against the government of the United States of America as a political option? And why? Because they lost an election two years ago?

Please get out and vote. I really don’t care if you vote Democrat or Republican. Just don’t vote for the lunatic fringe. And don’t vote for anyone these people represent.

Step One: Write Off The High Schools…For Now.

In certain circles, I can offer this bit of advice and people will look at me like I have grown a second, evil head. I am proposing that any plan that seeks to “fix” the educational system of the United States of America should leave out our high schools. Is it harsh to say that by a time a young person has reached his or her teens, the damage is done? And, for that matter, do they require “fixing”? I would have to say no and yes.

Every generation has its “These kids today” moments. When my parents were young, they couldn’t watch Elvis from the waist down. The holders of morality for that generation were afraid that Rock-and-Roll would destroy a generation. Post Elvis, there was the Beatles and their “long” hair. Along the years we experienced the Rolling Stones, Blondie, Grandmaster Flash, Devo, and about a thousand others. “These kids today” of every generation survived the onslaught of Jazz, Rock-and-Roll, Rhythm and Blues,  New Wave, Hair Bands, Grunge, Alternative, Hip Hop, Rap and everything in between. They survived the movies, television shows, comic books, concerts and Playboy and emerged on the other side as fully formed adults who broke the sound barrier, flew to the moon, and invented everything from microchips to Velcro. They became artists and doctors and rebels and politicians as well as plumbers and masons and electricians. They raised families and watched their kids do better than they did.  And we look at today’s “These kids today” (TKT) and weep for the future. Why? What has changed?

The Blame Game

It is easy to blame the media but it is unfair to blame any one medium for the ruination of this year’s graduating class. But when a child is walking, talking, media showcase, how can his teachers compete for his attention? I have six students in here with me now. They have an assignment and they know what to do and when the deadline is. All six are either on a computer or sharing one. From here I can see two screens are on Facebook and the other two are playing games. (Might sound like bad classroom management but part of the assignment is to meet deadlines and then, if the deadlines aren’t met, to analyze and problem solve the breakdown of the group dynamic.) I see two cell phones out and texting and I can hear another one vibrating in a pocket. All six kids have headphones on and are listening to their MP3 players. It’s not one medium that is making it hard, it’s all of them.

Yes. I understand that my kids are breaking the rules and wasting their time. Yes. I know that I should march up and down and gently reinforce the importance of education and cajole them into getting back on task. I should know each and every one of them by name, understand their home situation, know what each one wants to be when grown and make damned sure they have the tools they need to get there. But I’m tired. I am tired because I know that after the bell rings and I return from a half-hour of bus duty, I have another hour’s worth of work to do, a long commute home, a family of my own to engage, dogs to walk, papers to grade, lesson plans to rework, bills to pay and errands to run. I can’t get my own kid to decide what she wants to be when she grows up and she is already in her first year of college. College that she is only able to attend because of scholarships and grants. All of this and I am still expected to care more about the education of these six kids than they do or their parents do.

But I can’t compete with iPods and TV shows and Facebook and Video Games, all of which are now available in portable form. When I was one of “these kids today”, my music was on 12″ vinyl records or eight-tracks that required a player the size of a cinder block. My phone was attached to the wall with a 12 foot cord. The school’s computer required punch cards and Video Games were as exciting as…uhm…Pong. But they did require more of a commitment because I had to drive to the mall to play them, a quarter at a time.

But I Digress

I am not suggesting that we actually write these kids off. They are, for the most part, good kids who did not get our best collective effort. There were too many boutique math options, too many feel-good moments and too many politicians involved in their education along the way. All of these chefs worked this stew and no one ever questioned if they knew how to cook.  The result is a generation of kids who were sent mixed signals, alternating curricula and tested to the brink of distraction. They were told to succeed by people who no idea what success should look like. They have been trained to memorize but not to think and, as a result, they require their education to come in concise, easy to memorize facts and figures and they become flustered and uncomfortable when asked to reason or infer. It’s not their fault but we have to help them graduate the very best that they can, fill out their FAFSA Scholarship forms and hope that their colleges and universities and employers can sort things out.

But in my solution, the fix begins in Kindergarten. Not high school.