Bin Laden dead, at least to most people

Just a few seconds ago, fireworks went off near my flat. I don’t know if it’s because of yesterday’s football match or because of Bin Laden.

It was a pretty dull Sunday (honestly, are Sundays ever anything but dull? In my city they are and forever will be dull…). After watching some random TV shows, including the really cheesy, dumbing down, low-quality local late night Sunday show on RBS called “Tele Domingo”, I found out that “Raiders of the Lost Ark” was showing on another channel. I decided to watch part of the movie for the 115th time before calling it a night. I was ready to turn in, gathering some things for this morning’s class, when for some reason I switched to CNN. Sunday night is usually when they show something related to sports, so I almost never watch it.

The funny thing is how you deal with something unexpected. Everything happened in a fraction of a second, I mean, 3 fractions of a second. First I see Obama speaking and the first thing I thought was, “did he give a speech today?” I don’t know, something on economy, health care, birth certificate, whatever. Then, I see it’s a live speech, and I think, “what the hell?” The last thing I see on the screen (should have been the first) is the caption: “Osama Bin Laden is dead”. I’m like, “what?” “WHAT?” “Oh my God!!!”

So, at this point it’s almost 1a.m. and I’m at home yelling “what?” and firing up the computer, which takes about 20 minutes to load, still not believing what had just happened.

So, this morning my students and I obviously talked about it and they basically focused on the fact that Obama was able to pull off something that W didn’t for almost 10 years. My co-workers, on the other hand, were more skeptical. First, they want to see pictures (pulling a birther. A “proofer,” maybe?) and I don’t blame them, I’d like to see it too. I remember when Saddam was hanged, Sky News showed the footage almost on repeat mode (it was Sunday morning and I was working at the cafe in London). Then, they tell me that they don’t believe the convenient burial of the body at sea. Then they went on to question the sheer existence of Bin Laden! Well, I don’t think I’m with them on these matters…

But keeping alive the tradition of dead people helping out the living in this world, such as Ayrton Senna helping Brazil win 1994 World Cup by deviating Baggio’s penalty, president of Peru decides to say during an inauguration speech that Pope John Paul II helped out on the killing of Bin Laden. Well, I don’t care if it was the late Pope or the SEALs that got the guy, only that he’s gone for good and the magazines and newspapers covers will be historic. As well as Obama’s speech.

News in 2010

After a few months of really hard work and insomnia and not meeting deadlines, I finally got a few days off. No big plans for these days, apart from catching up with some studying and watching some news. News…

So, this morning I was watching Fox & Friends and they showed images of an apparent riot at Moscow airport because people have been stranded there for days because of weather conditions, as have folks in the US and Europe. You can see the Euronews report here. Of course people are pissed off, nobody likes to spend even one hour waiting for an airplane. The problem with Fox & Friends was that, as they were showing the images of people protesting in Moscow, the hypothetical questions started and they were something like: ‘could we see something like this in NYC? People have been at the airport for three, maybe four days here, so could this be a possibility? If the situation continues, people might start doing the same…’

I saw the same story on CNNI, they showed the same images, but instead of coming up with hypothetical things and making audiences think, ‘uh, this WAS President Obama’s fault, he should be shoveling snow off the tarmac right now!’, I actually learned what was going on there.

This is something that really pissed me off this year: the hypothetical news, the passionate-blogger news, the no news-value news. And they’re everywhere.

I’m a big fan of Twitter, for me it’s the best way to compile all the organizations or people you want to get news from, but I guess in the urge of producing more and more content you can see stuff that, well, should be left unsaid, like when our local newspaper Correio do Povo reports something like: “Beach vacationers enjoy the day walking along the shoreline”. If you knew what the shoreline really looks like in my state, you’d be running like hell from it. (Oh, so maybe THAT’s the news! People enjoying themselves on the awful beach shore!)

Photo taken in Imbé

This year was definitely Jon Stewart’s year. Having a comedy show, it’s obviously easy for him to make fun of the absurdities that politicians and pundits say, but the different thing about him is that the show researches and checks facts before putting something on the air and one of his biggest trademarks is the sound bites shown to contradict what somebody is now saying so passionately on TV (this is now being used by AC360. Couldn’t have he done this before?) Anyway, one of my favorite moments was the ‘republicans will ride in the “back of the car”/”back of the bus” thing’. In the failed attempt to get people to vote in midterm elections, Obama said he wouldn’t give the car keys back and GOP would have to sit in the back of the car. Well, guess what Fox News reported…?

They simply progressively replaced “car” by “bus” and this obviously became a racial issue. The whole Jon Stewart segment can be seen here, really worth watching!!! What makes me angry is the progressive change, you know? Slowly and subtly during the hard news, and then boooom! Obama wants to send all Americans to concentration camps. In the back of the bus.

But I think one of the most outrageous passionate-blogger pieces of news was Obama’s trip to Asia last month. It all started with this Michelle Bachmann’s interview on AC360:

And it all turned out to be complete bullshit spread by those talk radio guys that for some reason have millions of listeners. That piece on AC360 actually generated comments on the NY Times, basically saying good job for the fact-checking.

It’s unbelievable that now pieces on good reporting are not given to Watergate-like articles or war stories, but to reports that straighten out fake/not fact-checked ones.

Students as customers

I got up this morning to find myself without water in the house. None, zero, all dry… With my beautiful morning face, I went downstairs to check out what was going on, if they were cleaning the water tank and hadn’t let anybody know. Obviously, the only good-looking guy in the building was going to work and had the privilege to see such beautiful image… Well, I contacted the guys in charge and they’re still figuring out what happened. In the meantime, I called the school and said I was stranded because I just couldn’t go to work as I were! No shower, no-show.

Alright, working from home then, which isn’t so bad because I’m watching the World Cup, England’s playing Slovenia and I do hope the boys win! You already know how I feel about who should be the World Cup winner!

I read this fascinating article yesterday in the NYT about university teachers in Texas having a “contract” with students and abiding by that contract. Also, the implementation of teacher evaluation based on student’s feedback. This is all wrong, man…

I’ve been a teacher for seven years now — there was the year-an-a-half break in London, but I was a student there, so still in classroom — and I can’t help wondering what’s happened along the way. I do a different job now but whenever necessary I teach, I prepare classes and I research material. In fact, I’m coming up with all the activities for the winter workshops the school is offering… Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is that I couldn’t help thinking about our situation at the school after reading that piece.

When our school had a change in management — a hostile takeover perhaps — teachers became mere puppets, having no control over the material and the classes. I was in their shoes up to a year ago and can tell you that the situation is brutal. All teachers now have to treat the students as customers and they (the teachers) are evaluated by the number of people that come back for another term. Tough situation… So, the difficult part here is getting teachers and students to meet halfway. While teachers try to get them to communicate and put into practice what they’ve studied, the students don’t seem to be willing to help, because they think that showing up for class means they will learn automatically and further practice outside the school isn’t necessary. So, obviously the lack of SOME dedication will reflect in their results. Students really get mad and blame the TEACHER for their poor results. And the fact that there are language schools popping up everywhere isn’t helping either, because teachers go to class having in mind that if they aren’t just what students want them to be, if they don’t do just what students want them to do, they run the risk of losing these guys to other schools that promise people they can be fluent in English in just six months. I’m sorry, but the only way you’ll be able to speak English in six months from scratch is by going to England (or Canada or U.S. or whatever other country) and living there for six months and having no contact with Brazilians whatsoever. And I still have my doubts whether somebody would be able to pull it off in six months…

So, the “contract” is that in six months, or one year and a half in most cases, the student will be an advanced speaker of English, even though their writing is laughable and their speaking is just a frustrating translation from Portuguese into English, which can sound really weird in most cases. But what’s the teacher supposed to do? If they tell students that they’re not making any progress, the students go look for another school that offers what they want just to find out that in six months they haven’t learned anything for the same reasons they didn’t back in the other places. If teachers DON’T tell students that their English sucks and just keep allowing them to advance to the next level, the students will find out about it the hard way, in a job interview or when they travel abroad and figure out that they can’t communicate with native speakers or foreigners.

The question is: is it OK for the student to be a customer? Should we keep them happy so that they come back the next semestre or the next month in order to keep our based-on-results jobs? Or should we treat students as students, working on their weaknesses, pointing out their strengths and assisting them, not worrying if you’re being funny or not?

I’m just glad that the guys I teach are a little different and I still have some freedom to prepare my classes…

—

Comedy show Fox & Friends is the gift that keeps on giving! Unfortunately I missed it today trying to figure out what had happened to the water in the building, but I’m glad that Time magazine made the highlight available online. Basically, according to Gretchen Carlson, being the president is just like being a TV anchor. Yeah, I can see the similarities… But that isn’t as surprising as seeing that Fox News is actually defending BP and slamming the government over the 20-billion-dollar escrow fund. Or is it really surprising?… Media Matters explains.

—

Another TEDTalk available in Portuguese. I’ve translated this great talk by Brian Cox where he shows the importance of space exploration and the investment in this area, accompanied by great images! The reviewer was Fernando Marinheiro and the talk is available here.

P.S.: England qualified!!! This is the year! It was actually the first time I enjoyed watching a game during this World Cup…

Cheer up, Keanu!

When I read this in Time magazine I just couldn’t believe it. Yesterday was the official Cheer Up Keanu Day after this picture of him was taken recently. He does look pretty miserable…

Obviously, the thing went viral and we can now see him together with:

Forrest Gump

'My name is Forrest, Forrest Gump.' 'Who cares, dude?'

Construction workers in 1930’s NYC

'10 more hours to go...'

Bear

'No, it's my sandwich!'

The Thinker

'It stinks here...'

the Lost crowd

but this one has got to be my favourite…

'Please say yes...'

Well, I can give Keanu a few reasons to cheer up:

1. He doesn’t make the shitty money I do;

2. He doesn’t have my bosses;

3. He doesn’t have a prick mother fucker living down the hall;

4. He doesn’t live out of his overdraft limit;

5. He doesn’t know what ‘CALA BOCA GALVAO’ means.

So, Keanu, baby, cheer the fuck up already!!!

I was able to get up pretty early this morning, which means that inevitably I’ll turn on the TV on Fox & Friends and see if I can have a couple of laughs before going to work since Fox & Friends is, you know, a comedy show, right? Anyway, as I expected, they were talking about the Obama’s Oval Office address last night and, when interviewing Newt Gingrich, Gretchen Carlson asks if “some people” might think that President Obama’s remarks were disingenuous because he doesn’t go to church on a regular basis (Obama asked the nation to pray for the country during his address, Media Matters explains).  Now, these folks have got to be kidding (I told you it was a comedy show…). One day I’d like to see them actually disclosing who ‘some people’ are. Who are “some people”? Where do “some people” hide? How can “some people” give interviews overnight and have so specific things to say about the president and have all their views “reported” on a 6am show?

Two TEDTalk translations available in Portuguese. The first, translated by Fernando Marinheiro and reviewed by yours truly, is the absolutely amazing talk by Simon Sinek on how great leaders inspire action. He explains that almost all of us — companies or individuals — know exactly what we do but not so many know why we do it, and believing in the why is the key point if you want to be successful. Simply great, riveting talk. The second one, translated by me and reviewed by Francisco Dubiela, shows politician Omar Ahmad saying that the best way to get through to someone in office is not by writing thousands of e-mails or trying to contact them by phone. You might get a chance of being heard if you go old-fashion: by writing a letter.

We Feel Fine: “I sincerely hope you make the decision to ask for help There is no shame in asking for help if you honestly feel that you can’t do it on your own” (18 min ago)

Almost forgot how mad Glenn Beck is…

Spending most afternoons at work, and most of them doing overtime, it has been ages since I last saw a Glenn Beck show. With the timezone difference down to only one hour between NY and Porto Alegre — wow, for a split second it even sounded as if Porto Alegre was a place worth mentioning… — his programme starts at 6pm, and I’m usually at the school or on my way home, so I don’t get to see it. My co-worker even says a “thank God” now and then when I say I can’t watch the show anymore. Well, I agree with my co-worker in many aspects, and not seeing his show kind of made me forget how insane he is. So, as I was at home preparing the meal for tomorrow, and it was 6:15pm, I went, “why not?”

He was of course blasting the “socialist” media, that you know, write about him and write about people that seem not to enjoy what he says and thinks — basically what Fox News does with everybody that’s not a Tea Partier (or a sympathizer), right-wingers and radio talk show hosts — something that, again, contradicts his ideas of “freedom” and “no government control whatsoever”. Shouldn’t he be OK with the fact that, by saying things that would cause a bit of a distress in some people, such as encouraging parents to take children out of school, he would probably be the target of a lot of criticism? But the topper was during his show today. He so passionately delivers his crazy, non-sense stuff, almost preaching, that he managed to link Obama with Satan! This is really, really sad, you know, what people are capable of doing for ratings. And as I said before, what’s even sadder is that people believe that kind of stuff.

Well, you might think that I’m one of the ones that gives the guy those ratings, and as Jon Stewart would say, “guilty as charged…” But you cannot ignore that this guy is big and it helps me understand what’s been going on there, you know, when crazy Arizona bills get passed or when commentators get surprised that Obama’s ratings go up five points or when Bill O’Reilly devotes huge amounts of time grilling the “liberal” media and says that Fox News is the “fair and balanced” news network — and he includes himself into the mix… — and the other networks just don’t show what people are interested in, what people want. And, as “the trusted name in news” that they now are, Fox News can simply say whatever they want and support whatever groups and parties and simply get away with “we’re number 1”. I think that’s happening a lot lately.

I guess, once again, I turn to Stewart…

Arizona bills shameful

Next week we’ll have the last immersion with two people, then just one more week with one student and that’s it, so much for Immersion Program 2009-2010. I’m guessing I’ll have a relatively ok couple of months ahead of me until it’s time for another Corporate Assessment, meaning basically two trips to Santa Cruz, correcting writing tasks, doing interviews over the phone and writing down the results. Last year I assessed 52 people between July and August and maybe 15 more until December. At some point, you don’t know what else to write. Usually the first 10 assessments are the ones that serve as models and as people have more or less the same needs depending on their command of the language, I adapt it to each employee. Otherwise I guess I’d be prepared to write the book “101 ways to write a corporate assessment”… Anyway, what surprised me earlier this week is that I was able to organise the schedule in ONE DAY! I don’t know how I could pull that one off… Well, I guess it’s because of the help of all other teachers, a couple of exceptions, but most of them helping out big time.

And the battle Stewart/O’Reilly-Fox News seems to continue. Last night, Bernie Goldberg was back on the O’Reilly Factor for a rebuttal to Stewart’s response to Bernie’s comments on Stewart’s “F*ck yourselves!” and… what? Who’s telling who off here? It reminds me of that Friends episode where Phoebe and Rachel discover that Monica and Chandler are together and Joey is in the middle, trying to keep secrets other than Hugsy, his bedtime penguin pal… “They know that we know? Oh, but they don’t know that we know they know we know…”

In politics, the bill that was passed by the Arizona Legislature about illegal immigrants is just absurd. It allows police to stop people on the street and ask for proof of identification, otherwise they can go to jail immediately. However, the question is who will be stopped on the street other than Latinos — it’s Arizona, for crying out loud –? Representatives say that only people that the police “suspect” are illegal will be asked for ID but this is vague. Plus, who’s to say that folks won’t start saying things and pointing fingers passing on information about immigrants? This is major retrocession, as big as the other bill passed by the same state of Arizona — what’s the problem with those guys? — that now the candidate that wants to be in the state ballot for presidential election or re-election must produce their birth certificate. The Republican representative Cecil Ash was on AC360º last night and said this was just another way to show a candidate’s qualification for the job, but nobody has ever asked the 43 former presidents to do such a thing, why right now? As AC360 said “the birthers are back” and it’s fucking ridiculous, and it even promotes some crazy bastards and their delusional thoughts. It was an interesting interview last night, by the way.

Yesterday was a holiday and got to stay at home and do some stuff. However, I woke up not feeling so well. Major sore throat and feverish. That reminded me of the talk I’d had with my co-worker on Tuesday. I was at home, getting ready to go to work when I received this text from my colleague, saying he’d had a dream about me the night before and that I wasn’t well healthwise. Needless to say I started looking for lumps and feeling tumors growing in my brain. A little later we bumped into each other at work and I told him I was fine as far as I knew but had now grown suspicious of it. He said it wasn’t his intention to raise any alarms but the damage had been done. Well, 24 hours later there I was, waking up not feeling my best. I DO hope that’s the connection with the dream…

Anyway, not feeling 100%, what I did was to stay at home and catch up with the news. Watched some CNN but then decided to turn to Jornal do Almoço, a couple of months after having convinced myself it wasn’t a show worth watching at all, maybe the weather forecast only, but still pretty lamely delivered. I watched the programme for some 20 minutes and it had NO news value whatsoever the entire time. First, they spent a few minutes talking about football and giving the same information that would be given half hour later, during the SPORTS show that follows! Then, there was this interview with Marcelo Dourado, Big Brother Brasil winner and, frankly, a douchebag. After, there was another interview with a psychic that is in the state touring cities and probably giving some psychic advice to the psychos out there. I must tell you that watching that programme was as painful as watching Fox & Friends in the morning.

Desired temperature: -5ºC

I don’t remember experiencing such excruciating heat in years. I don’t know, it’s 10pm now and the temperature must be seriously above 35ºC. There isn’t one tiny blow of air, a half of a weak breeze or anything that resembles some sort of wind to ease this extremely uncomfortable situation.

This might be the Sahara desert, but it accurately portrays Porto Alegre at 4pm

One way that my mom describes really hot summer days: “it’s Senegalese hot”. I don’t know why she chose Senegal, I don’t know if she heard it somewhere and started using it, I only know that I grew up listening to that sentence. Obviously I’ve never been there so there’s no way I can tell it’s accurate or not, but it’s sure funny. So I googled the country and saw this image. For sure it doesn’t resemble not even for a second our southern Brazilian coast — which is a piece of crap (that’s actually the colour of the sea down here) — and with that Senegalese view before me I don’t think I would mind the Senegalese hot days. But being more realistic, for the past few days I’ve envied the guys that could make it to our crappy beaches because at least the temperature there is 10ºC lower.

A beach in Senegal

It’s the end of a holiday in the city today — obviously we weren’t granted with a long weekend and we all had to go to work yesterday. But honestly, it was better to spend the day at work because at least we had air-conditioning. It’s basically going to be a pretty busy February. Even though my work hours have been expanded I don’t think I’ll be able to finish everything in time without doing some overtime. In fact, I had to stay for almost two hours after my shift and I don’t know how and when I’ll be compensated for the extra hours. So, I was kind of thinking about asking for the 17th off since it’s Carnaval’s ashes and, well, my birthday, but the answer that I got, after all those weeks doing overtime and not being paid, was that we had to see with HR first but it’s not likely to happen. That really put me down, seriously.

After a few days watching some different programmes, I watched Beck earlier. What am I supposed to say? I can’t understand why people seem to enjoy what he does on the show, I’m actually shocked by some things. Today he “explained” the metaphors he used on a previous show about Obama leading the country to a plane crash and people being taken to be slaughtered or something. So there were people on other shows — O’Reilly included — that were disagreeing with the way he delivers his opinions. Why use all that crap? Is it entertaining? Is it amusing? Is that what people are really looking for? If so, well, I think the future is bleak. I think it shouldn’t be about this or that network; people should be getting the information from a variety of sources, listen to different opinions from both right and left, liberals and conservatives and put everything into perspective and base their decision on different sources. Well, if they are doing whatever they want on TV, they should be open to criticism as well, without throwing a fit on the air. I don’t think Beck likes when people don’t agree with him… hum… isn’t that what dictators do?

There’s no place like clean home

Don’t know what to say about the last few days. First I had some sort of stomach bug on Friday and wasn’t able to go to work, again. No biggie, I think, because I didn’t actually have a class, it was only the final presentation with the student. However, my boss wouldn’t be there to get the feedback from him and I’m not sure if the last teacher knew about that.

So I was at home and watched the whole “Hope for Haiti” on CNN. It was supposed to be a show co-hosted by George Clooney, Wyclef Jean and Anderson Cooper but the latter did appear throughout the whole thing, I don’t know, some six times maybe? Well, I watched his show afterwards but the best part was the day before, Thursday, when they were showing a report during which an actual aftershock happened. Saturday was cleaning day. Man, I really hate doing that but once the service is done I just feel better. Clothes washed, floor mopped, balcony swept. So it occurred to me that it’d been one year since my grandmother gave me a hammock to hang in the balcony and I never had used it. So, I put it there and started reading the book my friend lent me, Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope”. The temperature couldn’t be better and there was this breeze blowing that made everything feel just right, it seemed as if I was in the front porch of a beach house, just reading a book and enjoying sounds of nature.

Well, what seemed to be a great idea turned out be bad for my neck. I’ve got this painful stiff neck now on top of my still ongoing stomach ache. I’ve put some Gelol on, took pills and nothing happens, really painful. My sofa doesn’t help either, not comfortable at all.

Some good movies on TCM — classic Hollywood, right? Sometimes a movie is shown more than 100 times on TV and you never get to watch them until the moment you basically have nothing to do because you’re sick and it’s the only option you have. I’m watching “The Empire of the Sun”, with Christian Bale at the age of 12 maybe? So, this is a good example. This movie must have been on TV perhaps 50 times and this is the first time I watch it, and probably last. It’s an ok movie.

I can’t believe another week is starting. Obviously there was a last-minute cancellation and only one person is coming for the immersion, which I don’t mind at all. The week after there won’t be immersion because of the holiday (Feb 2) in the city.

Palin on FNC — they’ve got them all now

And one more week of immersion has started. This time two people have come and so far so good — until it gets to Friday (on which I’ll have to work until 6pm). I liked to idea of shorter lessons, it gives me more options to work with them, instead of the old schedule that has been used for two years now. I’m definitely doing something about it next week. Tomorrow is the busy day, the one I work since early morning and hope for the best, you know, that I’ll make it to the end of the day without putting up with drama queens. I’m sensing that this week won’t be so harsh since I’ve got more options to work with and I totally removed myself from any extra work other than the schedule. And the plan is to start preparing the activities for the work in SCS tomorrow, even if it’s just a pre-draft.

Well, best piece of news of the day: Sarah Palin is to contribute to Fox News. No comment. I should definitely bring pop corn for tomorrow’s Beck. He really enjoyed associating Obama with Marx — has done it many times on his show — and he has produced his first “documentary”, I guess do to be launched on the 22nd, and let me tell you that, from the sneak peek, he’ll link the gas chambers from WW2, which according to him were created by the communists that have seen now in Obama one of the most avid supporters. What else can I say?