‘Words mean things’ advertising claim of the month
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Great story last night on “60 Minutes” about inner-city kids making great strides at school and in their lives through participation in the debate team. I was never on the debate team at school, but as a frequent participant (combatant?) in weblog conversations, I sort of feel like I’m on one now. 🙂 What struck me most was one kid saying, paraphrased, “It’s hard to get people to listen to kids our age. But when you’re on the debate team, people *have* to listen.”
Is that great or what? Kids get to feel powerful, and feel the power of words, and it makes a huge difference. Plus, they also have to do tons of their own research, and master all aspects of a complex topic, something no standardized test will ever measure.
Of course, the team also has a dedicated coach, a police officer who teaches criminal justice in the classroom and coaches debate after class. And far from being the dispassionate automaton that people like Mrs. du Toit seem to favor, he’s a guy who gives the kids unconditional support, in and out of class.
This is what public education is about: integrating society and school, and teaching kids not what to think, but how to learn. If we lose that, we’ve lost ourselves.
Need a laugh? I know I do. Here you go. Never let it be said that I ignore the humor needs of my audience.
This, and then this. (via This Modern World) The lies are getting pretty desperate.
I was fully intending to watch “Risky Business” on cable tonight. Fun movie, 80s nostalgia, Tom Cruise in his underwear back when he was attractive – what could be better?
I should have known, of course. But five minutes into the picture comes Curtis Armstrong’s famous line, “Sometimes you just gotta say ‘What the fuck.'” And the horrible dubbing changed it to “What the hell.” Which basically ruined the movie for me – the whole point of the story is knowing the difference between “what the fuck” and “what the hell.”
As if this wasn’t obvious, two lines in the movie make the point clearly. In that same speech early on, Joel’s friend continues, “If you can’t say it, you can’t do it.” And they even have Joel’s father say at the end, “Sometimes you just gotta say ‘what the heck.'”
If that isn’t enough of an argument for keeping a swear word in a movie (even on cable, where delicate ears might be listening), I don’t know what is. Reminds me of #73 on my “100 Things” list.
So I turned off the movie. After the underwear scene.
Beautiful sad stuff from Liberal Slant, another one of those “I wish I wrote this” pieces. And true.
1984 Part Deux
Now that I’ve started with the “calling something the opposite of what it is” meme, I keep seeing more examples of it. I’m watching the Ivins-O’Reilly-Franken dustup on RealPlayer right now, and meanwhile I was looking up some Molly Ivins stuff.
I came upon an article she wrote for Working for Change, talking about how the House is now considering repealing the Fair Labor Standards Act by eliminating the 40-hour work week. They would do this by eliminating the requirement for employers to pay time-and-a-half for overtime. Employers could compensate workers with hour-for-hour comp time past 40 hours, rather than time-and-a-half pay.
The name of this initiative? The Family Time Flexibility Act. Nice.
Words mean things – or maybe not
Did you hear the latest 1984-esque, war-is-peace salvo from the Bush administration? New government rules that make it easier for logging companies to cut down trees without environmental studies are part of the adminstration’s “Healthy Forests Initiative.” It’s a plan that has been roundly criticized by not only environmentalists, but also firefighters. But say to the American public, “We’re passing a ‘Healthy Forests Initiative,” and they think, hey, maybe those Republicans aren’t so bad after all. They love trees!
Words have tremendous power, and this administration has been scarily talented in wielding that power, despite the borderline autism of The Prez.
They really have no shame, do they?
Grinding Nemo
I found this story (via MetaFilter) to be hilariously funny. But then, I’m a sick bastard.
Is it just me, or does this headline remind anyone else of “O.J. Vows to Find Real Killer”?