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Three Rants in Three:
Oct. 20th, 2013 03:09 pm1) Re: Two girls who bullied a fellow classmate into committing suicide being charged with a felony (The count starts after the colon):
Once again, I'm left wishing that the discussion would go beyond "What should we do about / for these kids?!" (which is necessary, but... not enough). Just look at prime time television viewing {Survivor, Big Brother, Wipeout, Hell's Kitchen, The Apprentice . . .}, not to mention the tabloids that line the check-out aisle in the grocery store, and you'll see a culture that celebrates bullying, and awards the biggest, most skillful, bullies with fame and fortune. Until we acknowledge and try to change that, all the classroom-centered workshops and special assembly speeches will be hollow words.
2) Last night (this morning), I caught an episode of the British architecture/renovation series Grand Designs (the one with the Victorian water tower in central London). In conclusion, the host said something along the lines of (paraphrasing, here): Architecture's not about practicality or common sense, but Imagination and the Grand Vision. Wrong -- architecture should be so easy and useful that it melts into the background, and allows each successive inhabitants' imaginations to flourish and expand, rather than the architect's single vision.
3) I loved the TV show Chuck for (what I saw as) its underlying philosophy honoring the geek's/nerd's love of learning as a joyful endeavor. But nearly all the fan-uploaded clips focus exclusively on the romance narrative between the leads. It just makes me feel like if you're not paired up, somehow, with a "significant other" (or looking to pair up) then you are insignificant.
***
*sigh* That last rant dipped into grieving...
Once again, I'm left wishing that the discussion would go beyond "What should we do about / for these kids?!" (which is necessary, but... not enough). Just look at prime time television viewing {Survivor, Big Brother, Wipeout, Hell's Kitchen, The Apprentice . . .}, not to mention the tabloids that line the check-out aisle in the grocery store, and you'll see a culture that celebrates bullying, and awards the biggest, most skillful, bullies with fame and fortune. Until we acknowledge and try to change that, all the classroom-centered workshops and special assembly speeches will be hollow words.
2) Last night (this morning), I caught an episode of the British architecture/renovation series Grand Designs (the one with the Victorian water tower in central London). In conclusion, the host said something along the lines of (paraphrasing, here): Architecture's not about practicality or common sense, but Imagination and the Grand Vision. Wrong -- architecture should be so easy and useful that it melts into the background, and allows each successive inhabitants' imaginations to flourish and expand, rather than the architect's single vision.
3) I loved the TV show Chuck for (what I saw as) its underlying philosophy honoring the geek's/nerd's love of learning as a joyful endeavor. But nearly all the fan-uploaded clips focus exclusively on the romance narrative between the leads. It just makes me feel like if you're not paired up, somehow, with a "significant other" (or looking to pair up) then you are insignificant.
***
*sigh* That last rant dipped into grieving...
