Ingenuity isn’t one of the Rapture’s strongest suits. Pick any track off Echoes and you’re likely to hear the seeds of other bands germinating throughout. Want the Happy Mondays? Well, you’ve got “I Need Your Love.” How about Wire? They cover that on the album’s opener “Olio.” Gang of Four? Try the entire fucking album. Hell, they even take a detour into Bends-era Radiohead on “Open Up Your Heart.” Seems the album’s title may be letting on a bit more than The Rapture would like. With this in mind, how do I justify Echoes‘ lofty placement on this list? Simple, what it lacks in invention it makes up for in determination and attitude. Yeah, the Rapture sound like a bunch of other bands on Echoes, but they embody their influences with such foolhardy zeal that it rarely matters who or what they sound like while doing it. Plain and simple, Echoes is a damn entertaining album, easily one of the catchiest and most danceable punk albums of the decade. For all the critical acclaim tossed carelessly at the Strokes, they too wore their influences on their sleeve (ahem, Lou Reed). On top of that, their music was also a bit dull. So why should the Rapture suffer when they’re simply following the trend set up by their contemporaries, especially when they put out a product that is miles above what everyone else is doing? If anything, Echoes captures so perfectly what makes that post-punk sound so influential and important that in that regard it can’t be ignored. It will never rank alongside landmark albums like Entertainment or Chairs Missing, but its ability to harness the power and ferocity that made those albums so amazing makes it an album that is well worth your while.
Hailing from Montreal and led by husband and wife duo Olga Goreas and Jace Lasek, the Besnard Lakes will undoubtedly conjure up comparisons to the Arcade Fire, if only for their geographical and conjugal similarities. Given the material present on The Besnard Lakes Are the Dark Horse, however, they deserve more than to be pigeonholed as opportunistic disciples of their Quebecois contemporaries, especially since their music shares very few common threads. The album’s name says it all, as the Besnard Lakes certainly don’t have the notoriety yet to make waves, but have the potential to be that out-of-nowhere indie gem poised for great things. The Lakes mostly explore an exceedingly gloomy variety of chamber pop on The Dark Horse, which isn’t to say the album is dreary by an stretch of the imagination, quite the contrary, it feels exceptionally beautiful, crafted with such painstaking detail it’s breathtaking. The number of producer credits to Monsieur Lasek’s name may explain why this debut sounds so confident and doesn’t shy away from the grandiose. Goreas and Lasek have a penchant for haunting orchestral arrangements that weave in and out of the bombastic guitar work laced throughout the album. The Besnard Lakes Are the Dark Horse doesn’t “rock” very often, at least, not in the traditional sense, but when the Lakes do open up a bit, as they do on a track like “Devastation,” it’s all the more invigorating. For the most part, though, the album takes a low key approach, favoring swirling organs, ghostly vocals and longer, more slowly-developed songs (the album contains only 8 tracks, but the Lakes make each one of them count) . It’s as graceful as it is haunting in its texture and themes. For those willing to dig up this hidden gem of a band, it’s well worth the listen.
Another post, another ten albums. No introduction necessary here, so let’s just dive right in…
Following their very poorly-received 1999 release Come On Die Young, Mogwai couldn’t catch a break with critics. The general feeling among those in the know was that their sound had grown stale and predictable since their acclaimed debut Young Team. While the vitriol was by no means justified, Mogwai must have taken it to heart as their music shifted away from guitar-based compositions in favor of droning electronics as witnessed on the ironically-titled Rock Action and further explored on the even more ironically-titled Happy Songs For Happy People. Calling Mr. Beast – the fifth release from the Glasgow quartet – a return to form may be a bit of a stretch, but it’s definitely a less-labored and more streamlined approach to Mogwai’s distinct brand of gloomy space-rock. On Mr. Beast piano plays a prominent role, most notably on the somber “Friend of the Night,” burying the guitar in the mix to a nearly inaudible level. Mogwai even take a stab at off-kilter alt-country with the unexpectedly catchy “Acid Food,” continuing Mogwai’s hallmark of including at least one song with vocals on each album. Meanwhile the album’s finest treat, the scorching “Glasgow Mega Snake,” once again illustrates Mogwai’s very obvious obsession with metal. Mr. Beast may not stand as a landmark album like the group’s debut, or as divisive an experiment as Come On Die Young, but it remains the group’s most consistent and accessible effort to date.
It’s been a while – close to a year, in fact – since I’ve last posted on this site. If you’ve stopped visiting, I can’t say I blame you. After all, why the fuck would you be checking back to a site that hasn’t been updated since February? Furthermore, what are the chances that you’re even reading this now? Get the feeling that I’m talking to myself? It happens a lot. You might be even more alarmed to learn, as is the norm for me, that on top of all this I’m also gesturing wildly as I write as if locked in an intense conversation with another party. Certain questions may arise from this scenario like how I’m managing to both gesture and type simultaneously, am I crazy or just borderline OCD or why do I think you care about any of this? But such questions have no easy answers and I say it’s best just to accept things as they are and not tax yourself unnecessarily. Besides, I’m getting a bit off topic here.
So, moving on. Let’s not bother with the explanations as to why the posts dried up and the half-hearted apologies resulting from that and instead just act as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened. No lapses in content; no personal changes in scenery or lifestyle, etc. Let’s just pretend the last 8 or 9 months never existed and just get on with things as usual here at Boxing Uwe Boll.
And what exactly are we continuing on with? Why an exhaustive list of my favorite albums of the decade, of course. I know, it sounds tedious, uncreative and more than a little self-aggrandizing, but bear with me. I haven’t written in a year and this is a pretty good exercise to get me back into the swing of things. Besides, there’s even the off-chance that I might actually have something marginally interesting to say about one or possibly even two of these albums and the even less likely chance that some of you will take my recommendations at face value. In any case, it helps me remind myself of how cultured a person I believe I am and distracts me ever so slightly from the misery and boredom that is being alive.
Back when I used to work for Stylus Magazine before the site went through an epic collapse, the film section would occasionally publish a feature called “Scenes” where the writer would dissect a specific film moment and discuss what it meant to them. I always enjoyed the articles and feel now that I never took full advantage of the opportunity to analyze some of my favorite film scenes. So, I’ve decided to resume my discussion on film – which was essentially buried when COMACC went defunct – and am determined to resurrect the feature here. We’ll see how long this persists, but for now I’d like to make it a semi-regular feature here on the site (of course, since I’m not posting with the frequency I once was the term “regular” should be taken with a grain of salt).
Rather than start things off with a ubiquitously classic film scene that would cast an unwanted air of academia over the whole thing, I’m opting instead to go with a scene from the most recent movie I have watched which was Kicking and Screaming, the first film directed by Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale, Margot at the Wedding). It’s a film that I can’t believe I haven’t seen before and in fact my roommates were appalled that I had somehow skipped over it all these years. Eh, it happens.
That said, the film is far from perfect – Baumbach delivers his message in broad, heavy-handed strokes and sentimentalizes far more than he should – but it does contain a number of brilliantly written (and performed) scenes, none more lasting than the oddly effective final scene. For those of you who haven’t seen the movie before, there could potentially be a few *spoilers* ahead and it would probably be advisable to watch the film before reading this. However, I will suggest that what I have to say here will likely not take anything away from the viewing experience since it isn’t as if Baumbach takes his narrative in a direction that, given the tone of his other films, isn’t at least slightly expected. So, use your own discretion in regard to whether you should read on or not.
Anyway, here’s the scene.
After that, the credits roll with Freedy Johnston’s appropriately forlorn 90s pop hit “Bad Reputation” playing and that’s it. There’s no further closure to anything. If nothing else, Baumbach knows how to end his films. The abruptness with which he wraps up his narrative and the odd sense that the lives of these characters extend beyond the end credits reminds me strongly of the qualities the great André Bazin attributed to the success of the Italian Neorealist films of the 1950s. While a certain amount of closure is achieved likewise in the endings of films such as the Bicycle Thieves as in Kicking and Screaming, the entire concept appears more like a snapshot of a larger narrative; as if the audience wandered into the middle of a drama only to catch a small sample of these characters’ lives. Granted, Baumbach plays upon the sympathies of the audience far more than his Italian predecessors and is probably slightly guilty of attempting to make the mundane more grandiose than it should be, but for this one brief moment it all coalesces into a perfectly scripted coda to an otherwise restrained post-College comedy.
Now, I’m no romantic (or maybe I am, but remain in an extreme state of denial over that fact), but the exchange between Jane and Grover left me feeling, well, kinda warm. It’s not so much the things that Grover says to Jane, which all come across as a little labored when you think about it, as much as Jane’s reaction to them; her knowing smile, her awkward yet adorable posture, the way she simply asks “What?” in response to Grover’s intense gaze while fidgeting nervously. It all works so well in getting Baumbach’s point across and one wonders why he didn’t resort to more of these moments earlier in the film. It’s a cathartic release from all the dense and theoretical musings on life (the film is very heavy on the dialog) that weigh down Grover’s existence throughout the film. Jane doesn’t have to say anything at all in response to what Grover tells her. Her body language says it all. And this final scene stands as one of the more effectively romantic endings to a comedy.
Of course, there’s another side to this that gives the whole ending a bittersweet tone. Out of context, the scene appears endearing and almost sappy in its portrayal of two people falling in love. Lest we forget, Baumbach ends his film in a flashback. In the film’s present tense, Jane has already absconded to Prague and Grover, perhaps feeling too proud or too afraid to accompany her, has elected to stay behind and wallow in his own self-loathing. With this in mind it becomes an unfathomably depressing scene accented even further by the fact that in the previous scene (that is, the chronological finale to the film) he made one last desperate and spontaneous attempt to visit her, but was thwarted by his own lack of preparation for such a trip.
Baumbach correctly leaves their future in flux, never hinting either which way if Grover would attempted to reconnect with Jane. In this way, the final scene suggests a number of potential futures for them, but ultimately boils down to two perspectives with which to speculate on the nature and outcome of this truncated romance. I imagine that the option you side with reflects a little something about your own perceptions about such situation. The optimist might view this as giving Grover a reason to make that trip, a reminder of what she meant to him and how her presence in his life helped give him a direction beyond simply wandering around a college campus, attempting to hold on to his quickly fading youth. The fatalist might instead view this as hopelessly lost moment in time, the last fleeting memory of Jane that Grover will ever hang onto. In reality he will never board that plane and will spend the rest of his time reflecting upon this moment, but never attempting to reconcile the affect it has on him by choosing the adult path of coming to terms with Jane’s decision. And while to some, simply having such a memory is better than never haven had such an experience, no one would ever mistake this for a conventionally happy ending to a romance.
How do I approach this scene? Well, I’m not going to reveal that. What you might know about me suggests a very obvious answer to that question. But sometimes you never can tell what a person is thinking and often times they end up feeling the exact opposite of what you anticipate. This may very well be one of those times.
Whoa, I knew I had not updated in a while, but I’m absolutely appalled to discover that it’s been two weeks since my last post. That is simply unacceptable. Let me assure you, I’m still alive and well. While I feel bad offering up any excuses for my laziness, I will mention that I’m currently in the midst of planning for a move, so I’ve been a little distracted as of late. I hope to have some more posts up here in the coming weeks, but for the time being please try to overlook the scarcity of content on the site. However, for those of you dying to check back frequently, here’s a picture of a cute puppy. Hopefully that will be reason enough to visit the site.
Leave it to Dentyne to pull society back from the precipice it so precariously rests upon. They’re right; we don’t get out enough, don’t make personal appearances nearly as much as we should. Damn this internet society that thrives on a sense of alienation and lack of face-to-face interaction. It’s time for me to get out of this Horny Chicago Singles chatroom, grab a fucking stick of Dentyne Ice and get some face time in with the locals. Thanks Dentyne for helping me realize what a waste my life of solitude has really been.
In any other instance an ad such as this wouldn’t ordinarily offend me. For a commercial it’s decently shot and the song that backs it is actually enjoyable. It’s just that the message buried within it is, frankly, a little insulting. Since when did Dentyne turn into this reactionary social entity that has any right to criticize what it alleges are the shortcomings of a society saturated with technology? Jacques Tati they most certainly are not. There’s nothing insightful about this that hasn’t already been beaten to death by pedestrian “philosophers” and self-proclaimed opponents of the modern age.
The ad makes a few too many assumptions about what people do with their lives and wrong-headedly asserts how we should be spending our time. I agree that one cannot rely solely on the internet to forge enduring relationships (something I do not believe actually occurs to the extent people seem to believe) but to vaguely imply that such technological advancements are in any way detrimental to our society is simply naive. And by the way, what does chewing gum have to do with making face time anyway? Are they insinuating that this society of internet nerds are also unable to utilize the far more conventional toothbrush/toothpaste combo as a breath freshener prior to leaving their squalid apartments? Maybe I’m just not connecting the dots here (or connecting dots that need not be connected) but I just don’t understand the motivation behind this set of ads.
4. AT&T’s Rollover Minutes
Advertisers often times think they’re far more clever than they actually are. Case in point, AT&T’s latest crapfest of ads that feature a psychotic mother obsessed with unused minutes. Her dopey teenage sons are constantly trying to get rid of those unused minutes because it’s uncool to hang on to old shit or something, and, in one of what I assume are her numerous mental breakdowns brought on by an unloving marriage, general unhappiness with her shallow, materialistic lifestyle and realization that her sons are cardboard cutouts of what the adult world believes teenagers stand for, she admonishes her offspring for being wasteful of such luxuries. What a total fucking cliché.
There’s a whole slew of these commercials and it’s hard to determine which one stands out as the absolute worst. I picked the above commercial for the subtle (albeit unintentional) racial undertones that crop up near the end (better hang on to those unused minutes or underprivileged black children will attempt to get them from you!) The entire premise is based on a faulty conflict that neither has nor requires any sort of resolution, and in any case, the point being driven home here is totally tangential to whatever marketing strategy AT&T believes it is pursuing.
Unused minutes are largely irrelevant unless of course the amount of time you talk on the phone in a given month is somehow increasing exponentially with each subsequent month. With that in mind, those unused minutes will eventually be wasted (assuming this whole rollover program works exactly how AT&T insinuates; something I highly doubt) rendering the crusade this pathetic mother finds herself engaged in an impossibly hopeless affair. Hopefully AT&T recognizes this and introduces a new series of commercials in which she deals with dark thoughts of suicide and isolation from reality.
3. Stride’s Ridiculously Long-Lasting Gum
First of all, I don’t recall the last time I’ve actually had a piece of Stride gum, but one thing I know for sure, gum rarely retain flavor for very long, no matter what they put in it. But never mind that, let’s suspend disbelief for a moment and assume that Stride gum contains the kind of “flavor crystals,” or whatever the fuck pseudo-scientific term companies use to describe it now, that lead to an extended sense of enjoyment, what is Stride, as a company, saying with this ad? We fucked up by making a quality product, please don’t allow us to go bankrupt as a result? Even if I overlook the logical flaws in the ad, I cannot overlook the fact that the humor, which is essentially what this advertisement leans far too foolishly on, simply doesn’t exist.
What results is advertising gibberish that somehow made it on the air. The fact that these ads are played to death illustrates the sense of desperation Stride must be feeling at the moment. I’m not sure who the gum-chewing market happens to be at the moment. Teenagers? The elderly? Sexual deviants? I can’t think of a single demographic this might possibly appeal to. Oh wait, stay-at-home moms. They’re amused by just about anything. Right?
2. Wendy’s 3conomics
Wendy’s historically has awful ad campaigns but their latest batch of ads, dubbed “3conomics” in order to likely appeal to the struggling new economic atmosphere, really pushes it to the limit.
Take two (occasionally three) hideous and unlikable actors, have them discuss trite and simplified economic scenarios through Wendy’s food items and close the whole thing out with the slogan “It’s Way Better Than Fast Food, It’s Wendy’s,” and you have a commercial that is not only desperately unfunny, but sorta misleading as well. Granted, I do eat at Wendy’s more often than I probably should and, in comparison to other fast food restaurants, yes, it generally tastes better, but to try pitching their menu items as somehow superior to fast food is simply ludicrous. Not to mention that implicitly that statement is meant to give the illusion that the menu items are not only more flavorful, but healthier as well.
On top of that, have you ever actually had one of their 99¢ menu items? They’re fucking bite-sized. The average consumer of fast food probably won’t stop there, opting for one of the far more filling sandwiches like the Spicy Chicken Sandwich (depending on where you live, likely over $3.00) or the Godforsaken Baconator (even more expensive). By the end of this fast food binge, the quality of the food does not justify the cost of the meal and ironically will likely leave you feeling even more depressed about the state of the world and the lightness of your wallet.
1. FreeCreditReport.com Jingles
The absolute nadir of human creativity, the FreeCreditReport.com commercials represent everything wrong and evil with advertising. Horrendously annoying songs that somehow drill their way into your skull. This appears to be an old advertising standby. If you can’t make something interesting enough, making it so goddamn annoying that people have to take note of it. I imagine that the results eventually even out to 50/50 in terms of bringing in business. In other words, half the people who listen to this shit are completely turned off by them and the other half eventually grow accustomed to the annoyances and actually visit the site making the ads a strange sort of success.
It’s hard to say who is immune to such ads and who is not. It doesn’t always work out as one would expect. A good example would be my love/hate relationship with Subway commercials. When the $5 Foot Long commericals arrived this summer, I found them utterly appalling. However, after being exposed to them for a prolonged period of time, I found myself humming the song throughout the day. Then as the months went by, I suddenly discovered that I was eating at Subway a lot. Was it a result of the ad’s jingle? It’s quite likely. The point is, I was duped into it by something reprehensible, but now I find myself trapped in the vicious cycle of weekly (if not, daily) Subway consumption.
I liken it to the proximity effect related to attraction. Say you work with someone who is not exactly your type, but after working in close quarters with them for a while (in the case of the ad, this translates to being bludgeoned with them every commercial break), you suddenly find yourself slightly attracted to them. Spend even more time with them, and these feelings are sure to intensify. In the case of the FCR ads, this person would represent an individual so reprehensible and unattractive that the sexual relations that follow from the proximity effect could only be explained in terms of a hate-fuck. So, yes, there are likely far too many people hate-fucking their way over to FreeCreditReport.com right now. Maybe Dentyne was right. Our society is totally fucked.
Posted January 11, 2009 by Dave Categories:Religion, Society
Back in college I took a class that exclusively covered the works of James Joyce. Here I learned two valuable lessons. 1.) Finnegan’s Wake is a phenomenal waste of time and 2.) self-proclaimed Joyceans are epic douchebags. For those unfamiliar, the Joyceans were literary types whose commitment to the texts of James Joyce went past the simple masturbatory attachment most college students ascribe to their favorite authors and instead bordered on being flat out pathetic. They would attempt to recreate the lifestyle Joyce lived. The more privileged of them would go as far as to visit the places that Joyce frequented in Dublin; the less fortunate resigned themselves to, among other things, writing their sad, derivative narratives on bar napkins just like Joyce purportedly did while working on Ulysses. In other words, they felt that by simply living in the footsteps of Joyce they could somehow channel the inspiration that caused this brilliant mind to churn out some of the greatest works of art of the 20th century. What they too often forget is that inspiration has to come from your own experiences, not by mapping the experiences of others onto your own psyche. The relevance Joyce’s work has exists in a broader sense and relates to how he turned the collective suffering of his people into inspiring narratives, not what fucking bar he wrote the Cyclops chapter in.
I mention the Joyceans not simply to poke fun at people I don’t necessarily agree with, but because I think it ties in closely with the same absurd lifestyle endorsed by religious zealots; most notably the ones that attempt to interpret the teachings of the Bible literally. The difference is, of course, that while Joyceans’ obsessive worship of James Joyce is understandably annoying, it ultimately does no harm to anyone. The same cannot be said, however, of those that strictly follow the teachings of the Bible, a notion that makes even less sense when you attempt to dissect the exact teachings of that book, specifically those that arise from the New Testament.
What results from this stringent dogmatism is bullshit like this. This is a great example of how blind devotion to one’s faith can actually influence a negative perspective on life and lead to a more conflicted sense of spirituality. Here is a pastor who has found a way to preach fire and brimstone to his parishioners, going so far as to force individuals to disown disobedient children who oppose his doctrines, while at the same time exploiting them for his own personal gain in ways that are… well, pretty sleazy:
In 2002, three weeks after the death of his wife, Scott, who was then 55, stood before the congregation and announced that the Bible instructed him as a high priest to take a virgin bride from the faithful. A week later, he did — a pretty 20-year-old who a couple of years earlier had been a star basketball player on the church high school team.
Of course, this is an extreme example of the flaws in religious faith and by no means does it apply to the broader sense of Christianity. At the same time, it does reflect that same stubborn obedience to outdated religious doctrines that far too often are used to oppress society, specifically the gay and lesbian population.
The Bible is often cited by opponents of gay marriage. But many of those most fervent opponents of these unions really understand in what context, if any, the Bible actually condemns homosexuality. Often times, people will invoke the story of Adam and Eve as the basis for marriage between a man and a woman. But while no intimacies between two men ever spring up in Genesis, the book likewise does not condemn such unions and using it as infallible evidence against homosexual unions represents a faulty logical conclusion. In any case, the question remains as to what relevance a book written thousands of years ago (by God himself *wink*) has to our current society.
While killing time before a dentist appointment last week, I read an extremely engaging article on the matter in an old copy of Newsweek. The article puts the argument in such sensible terms, charting out the exact way in which Biblical Scriptures not only do not specifically condemn homosexuality, but raising issues that indicate how the Bible may actually work in favor of gay and lesbian unions. Since many people don’t fully understand where the Bible finds fault in homosexuality, it’s particularly informative to see this argument laid out in such detail, making it all the more discouraging to think that those that are opposed to gay marriage will likely never give it the time of day. Still, one passage in particular drives the point home:
The Bible does condemn gay male sex in a handful of passages. Twice Leviticus refers to sex between men as “an abomination” (King James version), but these are throwaway lines in a peculiar text given over to codes for living in the ancient Jewish world, a text that devotes verse after verse to treatments for leprosy, cleanliness rituals for menstruating women and the correct way to sacrifice a goat—or a lamb or a turtle dove. Most of us no longer heed Leviticus on haircuts or blood sacrifices; our modern understanding of the world has surpassed its prescriptions. Why would we regard its condemnation of homosexuality with more seriousness than we regard its advice, which is far lengthier, on the best price to pay for a slave?
It’s a question of how human beings are meant to interpret the scriptures. If we must take Leviticus at his word, then we must take the rest of it as well. Divorce would then be a far worse violation of faith than homosexuality. Additionally, slavery would still be an acceptable practice and if you’ve read the entire article, you would also have to resign to the notion that marriage itself is a last resort simply meant to curb one’s lustful desires.
The fact of the matter is, the Bible is a collection of parables written by a number of different authors. Not all of the lessons retain the same relevance and, in fact, some seem to contradict others (as noted in the shift between the teachings of the Old and New Testaments). What we’re meant to take away from it are the larger lessons of love, acceptance, forgiveness, etc. and it’s ironic to think that all of these lessons, which are integral to the text, are the ones most ignored when people invoke the teachings of the Bible in defense of their cause.
Now, I’ll admit that my belief in God is tenuous at best and the more I hear from the fundamentalists of this nation, the less inclined I am to put any faith in spirituality, but I still contend that there is an inherent value to the teachings of the Bible in the same way that one can find value in the works of James Joyce without necessarily subscribing to the personal beliefs of the author. In the case of the Bible, it’s a trickier matter due to the scope of the writing, the amount of varying authorial voices and the fact that the text has been altered throughout the ages. It is our duty to disseminate the necessary values, from those that no longer hold any relevance. Otherwise we run the risk of turning into this. Is that really the kind of society you want to live in?
Posted January 9, 2009 by Dave Categories:Politics
By now it has become abundantly clear that Roland Burris will be seated in the U.S. Senate seat. The Democrats have been on tenuous ground since this thing started both from a legal standpoint in addition to a PR one. Initially Democrats such as Harry Reid and Illinois’ own Dick Durbin were adamantly opposed to seating Burris which raised absolutely ludicrous notions of racism. Of course, issues of race weren’t at the crux of the matter, rather it boiled down to an attempt to distance themselves from the Blagojevich scandal (something that obviously backfired) considering that there exists this lingering suspicion that the corruption potentially includes Obama’s cheif of staff Rahm Emanuel.
Whether that’s in any way substantiated or not is irrelevant. What matters most is that the Democrats’ attempt to block Burris has to come to an end. Reid must have realized at some point that he had no legal recourse against this and as objectionable as the person who appointed him is, Burris himself is entirely entitled to the position. This perhaps explains the jarring about-face pulled by Reid not more than a day ago that saw him suddenly praising Burris in overly glowing terms.
This can only further bolster Burris’ tremendously inflated ego. Burris may have the qualifications to be seated in the senate, but his personal nature makes him a less than stellar candidate for this position. A friend of mine talked recently with a professor he works for who ran for governor against Burris a while back who claims he was extremely ego maniacal. Of course, you can’t place much stock in an unsubstantiated claim heard second hand, but the accusations seems fairly justified. I mean, the dude has a mausoleum with his fucking résumé etched on it! Can we not agree that such a thing suggests a certain degree of pomposity? Fuck, I might erect a mausoleum of my own but instead of proclaiming myself a “trailblazer,” I’m going to go with “slacker;” and instead of carving my unimpressive list of accomplishments onto it – in effort to make myself appear to be the person I always wished I was – I’ll just put a picture of my Rock Band 2 avatar in place of my actual photo.
David Micevic 1980-2012 "Slacker, Rock Band Superstar"
Of course, the other big news today is the impeachment of Rod Blagojevich. This comes as no surprise to anyone, including Blago himself. However, the former governor continues to insist his innocence in the matter, citing political issues surrounding his controversial health care plan (which, by the way, was never approved by the state legislature) rather than accusations of corruption. Of course, Blagojevich is right about that… to a degree. There certainly is more to this than simple corruption charges, but it’s not a matter of policies that Blagojevich should be proud of, rather an overarching failure to fulfill his duties that did him in. The vote of 114-1 to impeach Blago by the Illinois House should be a wake-up call that no one wants him around anymore. God only knows who that one vote against the impeachment was and why they felt the need to make it. Perhaps out of sympathy?
Well, it must be that one solitary voice in supposrt of the Blagster that has empowered him to continue to assert his innocence in the matter since only a clinically insane person would continue to fight the charges at this point. Ultimately, Blagojevich can continue to fight all he likes, but much like Burris’ appointment to the senate, it’s pretty much a done deal at this point.
Over the weekend I found myself unexpectedly engaged in a lengthy conversation regarding the state of education in this country. Typically topics such as these don’t develop with such detail in a crowded bar with a perfect stranger, but as I’m quite passionate about the subject, I couldn’t help but ramble on about it endlessly. Thankfully, the other party felt equally enthusiastic about such things. So it worked out perfectly for two people looking to vent a little frustration about the sad state of American education.
Personally, I’ve been a little frustrated ever since Barack Obama nominated Arne Duncan to be his Secretary of Education. For a politician so committed to change this choice suggests a complete disregard for reform in America’s desperately disheveled educational system. Over the last several years I worked for the Chicago Public Schools and while my contact with Mr. Duncan was certainly fleeting, the few encounters I did have with him did not leave me feeling confident about his ability to make key decisions impacting the city’s severely understaffed, severely underfunded public schools.
Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I will admit that Mr. Duncan was almost entirely responsible for blocking the funding needed for the organization I worked for to survive. In other words, he definitely had his hand in my eventual loss of a job, but I assure you, my feelings toward him regarding his competence as an administrator are not motivated by this unfortunate turn of events. If anything, I feel dismantling our organization was the right thing for him to do especially considering how desperately CPS needed to cut costs. In any case, my reservations about him have nothing to do with his ability to distribute funding. Such a task is bound to make enemies no matter what, so you can’t hold one accountable for simply doing their job. No, what I find fault in is his staunch reliance on purely statistical evidence in determining the effectiveness of educational reform.
I found an excellent article that goes into great detail about Mr. Duncan’s shortcomings as an educational reformer. Of course, the article touches upon the ways in which Duncan used the tenets of No Child Left Behind to force the closing of underperforming schools. More disconcerting was that he would base a number of these closings strictly on standardized testing leaving no room to view the necessity of these schools in any other light. As the article hints at, the opening of charter schools in the areas where the recently closed down public schools were located suggests where Duncan’s allegiance rests in terms of the gentrification of such neighborhoods.
At this point, I think most educators would agree that No Child Left Behind can eat a big fat scholastic dick and should be done away with immediately. Now, in all fairness, it’s entirely too idealistic to think that education reform can exist without a certain amount of standards-based and measurable goals put in place. But to allow the entire system of reform to dictate the failure/success of individual schools inevitably leads to lower standards across the board or education entirely geared toward standardized testing. This is an absolutely ludicrous way to measure success unless you measure success merely by the ease at which you can pour over and assess the data.
During my heating discussion of this very topic over the weekend, I asked what might be a better approach to the public school system here in America. My friend, who had previously taught English in Germany, brought to my attention the way in which German’s handle education. What’s interesting about the German method of education is that it doesn’t endorse a comprehensive high school curriculum but instead values other forms of intelligence rather than automatically assuming than all students have aspirations toward a lifetime of academia.
Children in Germany start school at the age of 6, and from grades 1 through 4 attend elementary school (Grundschule), where the subjects taught are the same for all. Then, after the 4th grade, they are separated according to their academic ability and the wishes of their families, and attend one of three different kinds of schools: Hauptschule, Realschule or Gymnasium.
The Hauptschule reflects a more vocation-oriented approach to education and usually results in an apprenticeship whereas the Gymnasium suggest a college-bound student. The Realschule constitutes a middle ground between the two, but can still result in a student going on to higher education. I imagine such a system comes with its own set of problems and faults, but compared to the way in which our current public schools assert that a lack of affinity for higher education is synonymous with failure, the German system looks positively revolutionary and progressive.
Of course, education reform is a tricky topic. Everyone thinks they have the answer, but there really isn’t on overarching solution to the ailing state of education in America or anywhere else, for that matter. Obviously more funding would be a good start, but with the current state of our economy and the shit-ton of money being poured into Iraq, education reform has fallen by the wayside.
There was a statement I will forever remember as the enduring testatment to our shitty attitude toward education. It was immediately following the events of September 11th. CNN was interviewing two senators whose names I no longer remember. One of them turns toward the camera and says (and obviously this quote isn’t verbatim as it has been nearly a decade since I heard this), “This is what happens when you take money away from national defense and put it toward education.” Yep. What a fucking douchebag. This should help explain why in this country literally every child is left behind.
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