P.S. A Column On Things

Land of the Lost

2 stars out of 5

What a waste of $100 million. For those of you who think I never see a movie I don't like, change that to seldom. It cost me $9.00 to see this film, which means the laughs were $2.25 each, and came at the rate of about 1 every 25 minutes. At least the film wasn't too long. Part of my problem was that I arrived late (as I often do) and missed most of the Matt Lauer/Will Ferrell interview that begins the movie. When I say the money was a waste, I mean that the only funny things in this movie were Ferrell bits that could have been done in front of a black curtain. The rest was moderately interesting to see eye candy. I'd have been more interested if some of it had exploded. Blah.

Neal Vitale Reviews: The Girlfriend Experience

2.5 stars of of 5

Director Steven Soderbergh, after great success with big studio films like Ocean's Eleven, Twelve, and Thirteen, returns to the cinema-verite style of his earlier work (Sex, Lies, and Videotapes; Traffic) for this portrait of a high-priced Manhattan escort in the days just before the 2008 elections. The Girlfriend Experience is initially captivating, with a sleek, dark visual allure combined with the unaffected style of real-life porn star Sasha Grey (I Wanna Bang Your Sister, Asstravaganza 3, et al.) in the lead role. But the intimate details of her life - her relationships, her hopes and disappointments, her fantasies and the realities of her career - quickly become repetitive and tedious. With no real insight to be offered, the film stalls and goes nowhere. Even at a mere 78 minutes, The Girlfriend Experience feels much too long.

Neal Vitale Reviews (on DVD): Taken

4 stars out of 5

Action film screenwriter Luc Besson (La Femme Nikita, the Transporter series, Leon [aka The Professional]) teamed with fellow veteran writer Robert Mark Kamen (Taps, A Walk In The Clouds) and cinematographer-cum-director Pierre Morel to create a surprisingly exciting and gripping thriller. Taken is the story of the Paris kidnapping of the teenage daughter of a recently-divorced and recently-retired spy (Liam Neeson) by a gang of Alabanian human traffickers. Despite a plotline, characters, and dialogue that are completely predictable, Taken succeeds thanks to a tight, relentless pace and Neeson's cold-blooded and single-minded resolve. Well worth adding to the Netflix queue.

Dern Finds Meme's Timeline, Dan Grobstein File

From Daniel Dern: Internet Memes Timeline

 

Dan Grobstein File

• Who ruined California? Hint: he went on to ruin the U.S.
• BUSINESS / ECONOMY | June 17, 2009
  Economic Scene: Health Care Rationing Rhetoric Overlooks Reality
  By DAVID LEONHARDT
  The process of allocating resources already happens in health care. It just needs to be made more effective.
• U.S. / POLITICS | June 18, 2009
  Hillary Clinton Fractures Elbow in Fall
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
  Clinton was on her way to the White House when she fell and injured her elbow, chief of staff Cheryl Mills said in a statement released late Wednesday.
• HOME GARDEN | June 18, 2009
  The Unfortunate Location
  By SARAH MASLIN NIR
  Real estate agents warn against buying a great house in a bad location, but it is a way for buyers to get some of what they want without spending a fortune.

• American Politics Pop Quiz: Health Care Edition
  Posted by Jonathan Zasloff
  
  Attention, class. Here is the quiz.
  
  1) When the Congressional Budget Office scores proposed health care reform at $1.6 trillion over ten years, the Senate Finance Committee and all official Washington goes into a panic, drastically cuts back the package, and puts health care reform in danger.
  
  2) When George W. Bush proposes more than $1.9 trillion of tax cuts skewed heavily toward the wealthy, these packages are enacted within a matter of weeks.
  
  Discuss.

• Roger Ebert calls Bill O'Reilly a bully

• US | June 20, 2009
  A Literary Legend Fights for a Library
  By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
  The new passion of the science fiction writer Ray Bradbury is raising money for California's libraries.

• Comparing state by state educational achievement to foreign countries

End of June 22 Column

Another Year of Teaching

I've just completed my sixth year of teaching 8th grade U.S. history at a middle school. This is, as most of you will recall, my second career, after 30 years in journalism. I was just listening to the CBS Weekend Roundup Podcast (which I recommend). The author of the book "You Majored In What?" was repeating something I observed during my career transition: you go from being an expert in your work to being an amateur in your work, and that can be depressing. It was hard for me. In fact, readers of Tales of Teaching (see the link in the right-hand column) will know I came close to quitting in November of the year I student taught because of my frustration at what a poor teacher I was.

If you live in California, and you're thinking of making the switch to teaching, you can dip in your toe by signing up to take the CBEST test, a general knowledge test required of all teachers. Once you have passed that, you can sign up to be a substitute teacher and put some time in at the classroom level of your choice to see if you like it (you'll need classroom hours for your teaching certificate anyway).

If you do want to teach, you face the daunting task of earning your credential. You can do it slow and cheap at a Cal State campus, or fast and very expensive at any of a number of private colleges; I earned my credential at the Concord campus of Chapman University.

You'll have many chances to wash out--during student teaching, or during the three years it takes to earn tenure. And if you have an honorable bone in your body, you'll get out if you find you're not doing a good job. It isn't always easy to see, but I've vowed that if I was observed by the administration doing a bad job, I'd leave teaching. We have enough mediocre teachers; I only want to each if I'm a good teacher.

A few words about the school year just past. All six of the years I have taught consisted of 180 classroom days. The first one lasted 20 years. The most recent one lasted 20 weeks. It is breathtaking how fast it went by. During my first year, I woke in a flop sweat every day at 3:30 in the morning. I panicked in class. I panicked during planning. I panicked while correcting papers. Now, I am relaxed, and can finally begin enjoying the jobs.

The odds of this being read by any of my students or fellow teachers are somewhere near zero. Still, I will exercise discretion but will say a few things that must be obvious; I enjoyed some students more than others, but only found a small handful of my 87 pupils to be totally beyond the pale in behavior terms. That number has gone down every year. One possible reason is that students are getting better every year. Another possible reason is that I am getting better at what I do. I am lucky to enjoy the company of the small handful of fellow faculty with whom I interact on a regular basis (I don't get out much). And, my mother was right--the weather at your school is made by your principal. My first principal was a god, my second principal was a principal, and my current principal has achieved beatification, if not sainthood.

Alas, my district lost some teachers through layoffs, some good teachers through retirement, and at least one teacher who wasn't invited back after their first year. There's a teacher shortage coming, mark my words, even in this economy.

Now, it's eight weeks off to recharge the batteries before I slip into the harness again (to mix my metaphors...)

Thinking about Dehydration

A friend of mine called me Friday from a gasoline station. "I couldn't lift my bike up, so I rolled it down the stairs," they said. "Then I found I was having trouble steering, so I stopped at this gas station. I bought food and water and sat down to eat it. I am having trouble getting up." They'd spent 90 minutes at Bikram yoga earlier in the day (that's the one you do in 105 degree heat), but it had been four hours before the bike ride.

My first thought: a stroke. My first utterance, "Hang on, I'll drive over and take you to the emergency room." The emergency room at John Muir Hospital in Walnut Creek is suburban, thank goodness, so Friday night was not a nightmare of gunshot wounds. In fact, there were only six of us in the waiting room, so it only took two hours to get into the emergency room and three hours to get out. My friend had an EKG and a batter of tests, which confirmed the snap diagnosis of the doctor--while, I say snap, he asked a LONG series of questions--dehydration. Complicated because some drugs make the effect of dehydration worse. Do yours? Find out?

It's insidious. My friend, by the way, was drinking water all day. Turns out water isn't enough. I knew that--when I went on the AIDS ride from SF to LA, the doctor reminded us every night that if you rode 100 miles a day, as we were doing, and only drank water, you could, literally, drown. (He also told us if you didn't get up at least once in the night to pee, you were dehyrdated. I got up every night). The reason: you don't just need to replace water, you need to replace electrolytes. In short, Gatorade, or some other power drink (preferably the low-sugar version).

I was told years ago that if you wait to drink until you're thirsty, you're already dehydrated.

Anyway, while we waited two hours for blood test results, they hooked my friend up to a bag of saline solution and we played electronic Scrabble on my iPhone--better than watching the Disney channel for two hours, for sure. We then went to Safeway and bought a dozen bottles of Gatorade. One before Bikram and one after, from now on.

Ironically, while shopping the next day at Safeway, I felt a little dizzy, so I grabbed a bottle of Powerade and drained it, explaining to the clerk, "of course I intend to pay for it!"

Bottom line: dehydration is nothing to fool around with. Drink, drink, and then drink some more.

The Top 16 Quotes From Animal Mystery Novels (Part II)

I'm back in the comedy business; I made the Top5 List! Everyone should subscribe...

June 5, 2009

12> He crept quietly across the room like a herd of cockroaches in the snow. Suddenly -- a noise! His head snapped to one side like the business end of a locker-room towel. But it was no use; nothing made sense, because he was a bad dog. A bad metaphor dog.

9> "Expectoramus," he shouted, waving his wand. Well, he WOULD have shouted and waved, if he'd had vocal chords and opposable thumbs. As it was, Nick Newt couldn't do much to halt the steady progress the wizard was making towards gouging out his eyes.

and Topfive.com's Number 1 Quote From an Animal Mystery Novel...

1> "How can I ever repay you?" she asked breathlessly, the slit on the side of her skirt opening like a fresh wound. I may be slow, but I'm not stupid. I stared her right in the eyes and said with a steady voice, "Let me bill you." A little intimacy was all I needed. That's all Duck Tracy ever needs.

[ Copyright 2009 by Chris White/TopFive.com ]

Paul Schindler, Orinda, CA -- 9, 12

 

The Truth About Paulson

Mike Taibbi: "Even if it weren’t about five years too early to make any kind of judgment at all about whether or not TARP helped, the notion that Henry Paulson is a hero is complete and utter madness because TARP would never have been necessary if someone, anyone who wasn’t a greed-addled incompetent like Paulson had actually been regulating the economy" from 2006 to 2009. "If anyone besides Paulson had been running Goldman Sachs earlier in this decade — if a person with a serious brain injury had been in his place, for instance, or a horse, or a head of lettuce — we’d all be better off today, because there wouldn’t be so many toxic Goldman-underwritten mortgage-backed CDOs on the market."

ATT disenchantment, Alfred Hitchcock on movie length, Dan Grobstein File

Craig Reynolds notes: "...The growing disenchantment with AT T by even Apple's more loyal followers is starting to become a problem for Apple..."

Why Does My iPhone Suck?

For a blogger, as for a teacher, there is no higher compliment than to learn that someone out there is paying attention; after all my ranting about overlong movies, I got this quote from Peggy Coquet:

The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.
- Alfred Hitchcock

 

Dan Grobstein Report

• BUSINESS / ECONOMY | June 10, 2009
  Economic Scene: For U.S., a Sea of Perilous Red Ink, Years in the Making
  By DAVID LEONHARDT
  Beyond the sniping between Democrats and Republicans about how the government racked up so much debt, there is enough blame to go around.

• OPINION | June 11, 2009
  Op-Ed Columnist: This Time, We Won't Scare
  By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
  What one woman's medical experience in Canada can teach the United States about health care reform.

• TECHNOLOGY / INTERNET | June 12, 2009
  Simon Schuster to Sell Digital Books on Scribd.com
  By BRAD STONE
  The publisher said it would make about 5,000 titles available for purchase as the book industry sought alternatives to Amazon's Kindle store.

• Obituary: Professor Rajeev Motwani, the computer scientist who has died aged 47, advised the founders of Google, the world's biggest search engine, and became one of their earliest backers.