HamNation: Better Living Through Activism
This is completely silly and completely anti-sanity and completely right wing in-total-denial madness...but it's still funny.
Friday, March 23, 2007
School Daze
The current flap over schools for foreigners is a)long overdue, and b)the tip of a much concealed iceberg.
Downtown Vancouver is replete with young Koreans who are bringing much to our local economy. They rent apartments, pay exorbitantly for English language studies, buy food and beer, CD's, DVD's, clothes and coffee.
The only problem is the schools that are claiming to teach these kids English are doing a terrible job.
Language is spoken.
Say, it again. Language is spoken.
You can write declensions until you're purple, but if you can't say "Buon Giorno," you're toast.
The main library downtown is filled with foreign students pouring over their workbooks and electronic translators. None of them talk to Canadians. None of them speak English. None of them make local friends. They huddle together in floating ghettos, smoking cigarettes and speaking Korean. All of which is understandable and their right.
But don't these schools have an obligation to get these kids connected to the English-speaking community? Doesn't the government have an obligation to assure that schools actually teach what they claim to?
Big Smoke
Provincial Minister of Tourism, Sport and Arts, Stan Hagen, is blowing smoke up yer ass, again.
He's released a little self-serving fiction about how TV production is way, way up here in B.C., and The Local Rag has soaked it all up. Numbers, stats, flag waving, trumpets.
The only problem is this alleged piece of news is as believable as an episode of Buffy, The Vampire Slayer.
Every actor I know - and that includes actors who have been used to working regularly and buying homes and cars - has been crying the unemployment blues for about a year now. The pickings are slim and the pay is cheap.
Maybe Mr. Minister should try a few months of waiting on tables.
Michael Penn - Try
O.K. Here's another Michael Penn video, this one directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, the director of "Magnolia" and "Boogie Nights."
The video also features Oscar winner Philip Seymour Hoffman.
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