Monday, April 13, 2009

Are you still out there? Can you hear me?

So, I started a blog project with the high school seniors I'm teaching. Basically, instead of doing a research paper, the kids are doing research blogs in their chosen topic areas. You can check them out if you got to www.shahmaat.blogspot.com

The ironic thing about the whole thing is that now that I'm teaching them how to write their blogs, now I don't have time to do my own. Such is life.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Why does "and dad's, Too!" have to go in a different, less impressive font?

Jeu Identifient Jeu


NeObama is scary.

His performance at the G20 summit was crazy nice and the world is officially on his jock. Before the summit, it looked like people were going to give him trouble. Nikolai Sarkozy was talking trash about how he wasn't going to show up if NeO didn't make a concession early in the process (he was determined to not get one of those cheap re-gifted iPods NeO has been giving out like candy) and China was making noise about developing a new standard world currency (they want Deng Xiao Ping on the two dollar bill).

But when NeO stepped into that room, everything changed to bullet time. Instead of trying to fight him, the Chinese and French turned on each other. Instead of catching a beat down, NeO was the voice of reason that reconciled the feuding parties. If that ain't some Jedi Mind Trick type stuff, I don't know what is.

And it's almost too much that he's married to MiO. Michelle Obama could show up to see the Queen in a jogging suit and make it look both fly and appropriate. And on top of that, she's holding onto that woman like they're back in Iowa and she's about to help her register to vote in the primary. 

And damn MiO is fine.


Carla Bruni: we don't believe you, you need more people. :(

Of course we know that this is all political theater. It's the bread and circuses that keep the people satisfied and unconcerned with all of the protests that were going on outside of the G20. There's a major restructuring of the world economy going on and whether or not Barack played Carla or Carla played Barack isn't going to mean much to the average life of a citizen of this planet.

But what is important is that rarely have we had a president with such a sense of drama and presence. George W. Bush's biggest failure was that his team knew how to set a tone of high drama, but he had the soul of a buffoon. NeO can set the drama, but he also knows how to deliver the rhetorical and intellectual goods. And he knows what he's talking about.

NeO's comments during the G20 press conference were painfully insightful. One of the reporters asked him whether or not the United States had been diminished as a world power and he judo flipped the question into a treatise on the need for world diplomacy. Game recognize game.