Fox News no longer in Brazil: going cold turkey

Yesterday before going to work, I turned on the TV to watch the talking points of the day on Fox News’ early show, but to my surprise the show wasn’t there. I hit the buttons for Fox and got Bloomberg every time. The channel wasn’t there. Well, OK. 

Later I found an article about cable company NET’s plan (then) to drop Fox News from its line-up but without any official statement. It suggests that NET might be trying to comply with some regulation that requires more Brazilian content on cable TV. The article also hints on the fact that Fox News hasn’t got much of an audience in Brazil, due to the fact that it shows its original American content as opposed to having a more international approach like BBC World or CNN International.

Wow… That took me a while to take in…

I know more than anybody else that FNC is like smoking: it’s really really bad for you, but very hard to quit. The disservice this organisation does to information is so big that you cannot not check it out for yourself, and then you come back the next day to watch the reaction over an outrageous interview.  Then you want to watch the spin they put on anything from the WH and when you realise, it’s already too late.

I know I can read about it on media websites and definitely see some of the pieces on The Daily Show, but it’s not the same. I guess what pissed me off was the cable company doing it for apparently no good reason. They could have offered the channel with the news pack (with BBC World) or the international pack (with Deutsche Welle), but they decided to drop it altogether. I’m sure NHK has a much bigger audience than Fox News.

Check your facts

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard the name Shirley Sherrod in the last 48 hours. I think what happened to her just shows it’s all become a free-for-all, people spitting out whatever bullshit they want because they have internet connection. Myself included, the only difference is that nobody reads what I write and the things I write about cannot cause anybody to get fired. Perhaps only myself.

Look, I’m not in news and don’t intend to be, but  isn’t checking your facts the first thing you should be doing before getting something on the air? What this guy Breitbart did to support his talking points was deceiving, but what the other guys did was stupid because they reported the video as “news” and even more stupid was rushing into conclusions and firing the woman. If I read War of the Worlds again on the radio, will people believe the Earth is being invaded?

At the same time many people still believe that the so-called news organisations do their job and report evidence and not talking points, that they check their facts before making allegations against somebody or doing something media isn’t supposed to do which is accusing/judging/condemning. But unfortunately reporting facts is the last thing people do in the media nowadays, and being hammered every day, every hour with political agenda, some doing it more subtly, some doing it blatantly, can really mess up with your mind and we should “refudiate” that. What’s the most effective way to get people to hum tunes of annoying songs? Play them 50 times throughout the course of the day… I know my limit when Fox News starts sounding plausible…

I guess nowadays it is just hard to find trustworthy news sources, at least sources that are widely available to the public.

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It’s been a long week of hard work and different from the other weeks this one won’t finish tomorrow. I stupidly volunteered to teach this workshop on Podcasts, meant to be worked with adults, but now I have two teenagers attending the class. I guess the person who came up with the idea of Saturday workshops during vacation knows as much about adult students of English as Beck knows about journalism.

Well, I can live with that, especially because another teacher is supposed to help me out, so the pressure won’t be on me entirely. What pissed me off, though, is that I only found out about the teenagers because I decided to ask how many people would turn up. “Oh, by the way, they’re teenagers…” Excellent, not only did I have to throw away everything I had prepared, I also had to research possible subjects for the programme and reorganise everything.

And, oh, the distance classes project! I honestly haven’t slept well in the last few days thinking about it and as the time approaches I get more nervous and certain that this one I’ll screw up big time!

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TEDTalks with one more Portuguese translation available. This talk shows investment banker Euvin Naidoo on forgetting about we constantly hear about Africa and investing in the continent. Translation by Leandro Cianconi and reviewed by me! Available here.

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…

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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.

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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)

Happy 41st, Dave Grohl

I think this week at the school has been good, the students seem interested, teachers haven’t reported any incident, you know, when folks are a little high maintenance and the class is just a disaster. I’m actually looking forward to their final presentation tomorrow, because their project sure looks interesting. One thing that I’m not enjoying, though, is going there on Friday. Coming back to the days that I was the only teacher working on Friday — and for me that was actually the busiest day of the week with a group in the morning, phone classes at lunch time and immersion in the afternoon. But anyway, I might change the schedule for next week.

Speaking of which, I’m trying something new, as an experience, for next week’s immersion. Instead of having two classes in the morning and two in the afternoon, I’m shortening the class length so that we’ll have three classes each shift. I think it’s way better for everybody, the students don’t get tired and it’s easier to prepare the lessons and shorter tasks. Let’s see how it goes.

Tragedy in Haiti is all over the news. It’s really amazing that for several hours the media had access only to what was posted on social networking websites (now being called “social media”) — photos and videos on Facebook and Twitter were the only images available on TV until they were able to send their people to Haiti — an according to the Huffington Post AC360 was the first American journalist to get there, I’m not surprised at all.

So, obviously I’ve  been watching the coverage on TV. Extensive coverage on CNN, and on FNC the only evening programme that has reported news was Fox Report. O’Reilly simply focus on where the money ended up since Clinton administration and trying to make the Executive Director for Doctors without Frontiers US admit that the gangs and thugs and drug dealers that rule Port-Au-Price are giving them a hard time, which obviously wasn’t the case. She was trying — trying, since the interviewee can never finish their commentaries, unless they’re Sarah Palin — to say that at this moment they have been able to do their work and as she wasn’t backing down he proceeded to talk to the other guy. Yesterday he had a guest on the show and she was definitely liberal and again the interrupting continue. When he mentioned that every other network  is biased and only FNC was only reliable source for news, she said that folks should do their own “investigation” — by going online and having different sources — as opposed to relying on a single source. Obviously after this the interview was over. As to Beck, well, I’m not really sure if he knows where Haiti is.

I can’t believe tomorrow is Friday!!! But it’s gonna be a busy weekend for me because I need to prepare material for next week’s class — the guy who’s coming works in HR and I must get familiar with the vocab and also prepare tasks since this is the first time I’m using this material.

Today is Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl’s birthday. 41 years old. Man… I found this video on You Tube and he looks 18… Time is merciless!

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?