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.

Stop the leak!

I really don’t know what’s happening in this building of mine. A few weeks ago, I woke up to find my house without a drop of water. The problem was fixed and I moved on. Well, apparently it wasn’t that easy. After that day, the building ran out of water on three other occasions, twice this week, being the last one last night.

On Wednesday, the plumbers were investigating where the problem was and they think there’s a leak in one of the flats that’s causing the inconvenience. I have noticed that there is a big stain on the garage’s ceiling right below the next door flat’s bathroom, so maybe that’s the source of the leak. However, the owner or tenant doesn’t live there, you know, it seems as if it’s a place to crash whenever the person is in the city. That actually happens a lot in this building. There is what I call “the Veranopolis Mob” living or hanging out here, every week you can see different cars in the garage and basically they come and go, lend the flat to friends and relatives and at the end of the day you’re not really sure who’s who, but they sure are all obnoxious people.

Anyway, I had no water overnight. I texted the person in charge of the building but she didn’t reply — I guess she is away — so I would have to contact the company that is supposed to help with the maintenance in the morning. I woke up this morning and there it was, water, running from the tap. I don’t know if somebody fixed it, if there’s some water in the water tank or some higher power just stated “let there be water…” What’s bothering me is that now every time I go to the kitchen or bathroom is gonna be a surprise: will I be able to flush, brush my teeth? Is today gonna be a shower or no-shower day? Clean or dirty dishes? Come on…

And the funny thing is that we ran out of water around 11pm, and some half hour later I started hearing cars getting out of the building, you know, as if people were just fleeing the scene, “no water? I’m getting the hell outta here!” So now I have to leave my own flat, for which I monthly pay a substantial amount of money, because they can’t fix the problem? If there’s a leak find the fucking thing and fix it!!! (I just hope they’re not as efficient as BP…)

Just one thing about Veranopolis. I’m not saying that everybody that lives in that city is obnoxious, I’m sure it’s a lovely city and there are hundreds of fantastic people over there, but it seems that these guys from this city were handpicked to make everybody else’s lives just miserable.

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I have FINALLY finished writing the assessments… of the first group… Curiously, I read this fascinating article in the NYT about plagiarism. I know it focuses on college and university papers, but the timing couldn’t have been more perfect because of the cases I had while correcting their writing tasks. The second group is now in process of taking tests and I’ll interview them in a couple of weeks. A lot of those interviews will be over the phone and I wish I could record them, you know, to have something to refer to while writing the evaluations. A couple of years ago I did it through the speaker phone, the quality of the recording wasn’t great but it was excellent to get to listen to the conversation again. Now, do you think I have this at my disposal? I better start sharpening the pencil…

Not to mention that the distance classes thing isn’t going very well. I haven’t progressed one bit since I presented the first draft last month and I’m supposed to present the final project in a couple of weeks during my second visit in Santa Cruz. What really disappointed me was the unhelpful reaction I got from people that were suppose to contribute to the making of the project. The last thing I need is somebody telling me that this is something very difficult to pull off given our current situation and coming up with a list of cons. I know it’s fucking difficult, but it’s been okayed by the school and now it has to happen.

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I have one more translation available on TEDTalks, reviewed by Rafael Eufrasio. Filmmaker Newton Aduaka shows bits of his movies, focusing on “Ezra,” which tells the story of a child soldier in Sierra Leone. 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…

Outcome: chaos

So, what’s the best thing to do on a Saturday night? Go out? Catch a movie? Dance? Wow… everything sounds very appealing, but I guess I would have to go with documentaries on Discovery Channel about the world being destroyed by major catastrophes…

I guess this is the “Catastrophe Weekend” on Discovery Channel, you know? Sometimes we see “Shark Week”, “Africa Special”, “Mafia Marathon”, “Tornado 360º”, “Airport 24 hours: Sao Paulo”.

Since last year — and I guess it will only increase until the fateful date — we’ve been bombarded by 2012 specials. What will happen on 21 December, 2012? And what we see is the possible outcome. One of the things we hear could happen is that Earth’s magnetic poles could be inverted. I thought this meant that the Earth would turn upside down but this is obviously not the case. What happens is that every some 10,000 years there are big solar magnetic storms, really big ones, and when they occur, radiation can easily penetrate the thinner parts of the ozone layers and through the holes that already exist. The way it can affect Earth is that it could generate dozens of magnetic poles scattered around the globe and, having no specific magnetic north, animals could migrate to the wrong regions in the winter, huge amounts would die and consequently the food chain would be affected. Outcome: chaos.

Another theory presented was that a planet — not only meteors or asteroids — but a whole planet could be coming towards our galaxy. And the thing is that it doesn’t even have to collide with the Earth. By only passing through the galaxy, it would immediately change the orbit of the planets. Outcome: chaos. (Before the commercial break, one scientist said it would be impossible for this to happen within the coming millions of years because if there was really a planet approaching the galaxy, they would have spotted it already.)

Needless to say that every new scenario they painted made me become more frightened. It was raining at the time and every time a bolt of lightning struck, it made me occupy less and less space on the sofa (I don’t know how that was physically possible, but it did happen).

I guess the most impressive one — because it’s the most realistic — was the supervolcanoes. Scientists say there are dozens of active supervolcanoes around the world and one example is Yellowstone. The park sits on an active supervolcano that erupts every 600,000 to 800,000 years. They said the last eruption happened 640, 000 years ago, which means that it’s already in the “red zone”. With the super explosion (couldn’t expect less from a supervolcano…) the ashes would take over the atmosphere all the way to New Zealand, literally covering all the surface of the planet and leading us to what they call a “volcanic winter”: cold and no sun light. This could last years and would cause the death of animals, plants and crops. Outcome: chaos. (Well, we all know what happened a couple of months ago with the Icelandic Eijjalgbcocksuckergjjlt volcano…)

I changed the channel to Nat Geo and the “Saturday Marathon” was on: Aftermath!, a series of “what if” programmes basically showing the worst possible imaginable scenarios happening to the Earth. I watched the programme about the Earth’s population doubling overnight to 14 billion people. What would lead to catastrophe is the lack of water. Los Angeles would build desalination plants but would discover this to be extremely expensive to maintain, so the plants would be shut down. New York City would have to build skyscrapers in Central Park to accommodate all the people living there. Farmers would abandon the countryside because the rivers wouldn’t have enough water for irrigation of crops and diseases would spread. People would start migrating to colder regions and even try to bring ice  from polar ice caps to supply the cities with drinkable water. Outcome: chaos. (After about 40 years, the population would slump to only 4 billion.)

The other shows were “What if oil disappeared overnight?” and “What if the Earth stopped turning?” but I thought I’d had my share of catastrophe for the day, so I decided to turn in. I wanted to read some news and logged on to The New York Times. Editorial: Another Bad Idea From Arizona. Now, what the guys in that state want to do is to make the children born in the US to illegal immigrants also be illegal, going against the 14th Amendment (read here).  Outcome: chaos. (Where’s Glenn Beck to defend the Constitution now?)

I finished reviewing this TEDTalk by Enric Sala, translated by Luis Eduardo Cerquinho Cajueiro. It’s another talk about the situation of the oceans and Enric proposes ways to try to preserve what we have before it’s too late.

We Feel Fine: “I ever doubt myself and what I can do All I have to do is call my dad and by the end of our conversation he will have me feeling reassured that I can do hard things”

30-hour day for some 10 days would be perfect…

Never thought would have so much to do and such little time. We’re traveling next week to Santa Cruz and haven’t finalized all the activities yet. I believe I’m switching to panic mode between tomorrow and Wednesday if we don’t at least come up with the topics. We decided to split two days and do four shorter activities instead of the whole-day thing previously proposed. And obviously folks at the company called me all day but couldn’t reach me because I was involved in classes and meetings the whole day.  Needless to say that I’m pretty beat by now — it’s only Monday! — and I’ll only be able to relax a bit after the 18th — boy, will I celebrate the end of “Special Edition”!

Last week I was “asked” to leave the teachers’ lounge and move to the directors’ room, where the Corporate Coordinator works and the directors occasionally stay when they’re at the school. Today, one of them arrived and I offered my table, she refused. The room is ok but internet connection not so much. For some reason I had no internet access throughout the whole day, having one million things to do in between classes. If that becomes a pattern, well, it’s not gonna be good for anybody…

Also, I don’t think I like being in the “east wing”, you know, while all my material, the books, the printer and everything else is in the “west wing” of the building. I gotta admit, though, that staying in the teachers’ lounge can cause a little bit of distress at times. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a teacher as well and love chatting and exchanging ideas with my peers, but sometimes it’s virtually impossible to get some work done with lots of people speaking non-stop around you. One thing that I observed being in the same room as the Corporate Coordinator is that basically she’s passing on wrong information about the programme, so I must talk to her urgently otherwise it could be bad… One thing that wasn’t bad at all was the feedback from one “immersee”  we had last week, who happens to be the VP for one big company from outside Porto Alegre. The guy wants to have 20 more hours of class before his trip to Asia, which is awesome — expand services to his employees in the near future perhaps? — but we basically covered everything in 20 hours, so I’m not sure what could be done. Speaking of which, there are people at the school that are unwilling to, you know, do their job, meaning preparing classes. Do they expect me to have everything ready for them, so that they can just get the material, get in class and do their thing? Well, I don’t think so, my dear…

I saw this piece in NYT about the future of network news. Is there really anything that could be done in times of Facebook and Twitter and quality online content and livestream news — I get BBC World, Al Jazeera, Deutsche Welle English, rfi English, Euronews and many more online — to save network news, not only in the US but worldwide? Let’s not forget that after Haiti’s earthquake, for many hours the population was basically providing all the images and videos seen on CNN and other channels. It’s hard to compete with 24-hour news channels when you are allowed only 22 minutes, there’s no way you can’t be superficial. Plus, there’s been a bigger contribution from regular folks — “iReporters” — in this process (Haiti’s example and most recently, Chile). If you have a camera and happen to be at the right place at the right time, do you really need a news crew to broadcast the event? A lot of job losses forecast, the job of correspondents might become something to be remembered dearly in the near future and more and more freelance reporters will be on the news and bringing the world’s stories to our TV sets/computer screens.