Obama and the Press
Ever since Barack Obama hit the national scene, it's been painfully obvious that the press, rather than act in its proper role as inquisitor of public figures has degenerated into lapdog. But only for Obama. Collectively, they are his lapdog and are willing and eager to do his bidding. What is their thanks for this unquestioning obedience? Well, as
this report, that I found at
Subvet's blog, shows, their thanks is that they get treated like the dogs they've become.
On April 27, President Obama welcomed the University of Connecticut Lady Huskies, who had just won the NCAA women's basketball championship.
After the event, President Obama went to the White House basketball court to shoot hoop with the Lady Huskies. The White House press corps was not allowed to attend.
Reads the print pool report from that day: "After shaking hands with the team's parents and members of Congress who showed up, the president walked the team over to his basketball court and shot hoops. The pool was held back from the stroll down the drive and around the corner, and couldn't see the court. Poolers could hear periodic cheering coming from the other side of the bushes."
Can't you just hear the whimpering? See the tongues hanging out of the reporter's mouths?
And don't forget what happened when a member of the White House Press Corp dared ask Obama a real question when he paid them a surprise visit. At around 3:20 of
this video of the event, the foolish reporter who forgot his place gets shown the rolled up newspaper.
Obama's attitude of disrespect reminds me of
Macbeth, Act III, Scene I, where Macbeth is meeting with the murderers whom he hired to kill his friend, Banquo.
First Murderer
We are men, my liege.
MACBETH
Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men;
As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs,
Shoughs, water-rugs and demi-wolves, are clept
All by the name of dogs: the valued file
Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle,
The housekeeper, the hunter, every one
According to the gift which bounteous nature
Hath in him closed; whereby he does receive
Particular addition. from the bill
That writes them all alike: and so of men.
Now, if you have a station in the file,
Not i' the worst rank of manhood, say 't;
And I will put that business in your bosoms,
Whose execution takes your enemy off,
Grapples you to the heart and love of us,
Who wear our health but sickly in his life,
Which in his death were perfect.
As my students and I discussed when we read this scene, Macbeth knows that he has dipped his toe into the water of evil and is only going deeper. How can he have respect for men who make their living doing vile deeds? He holds his nose as he deals with them and hates himself as much as he despises them.
I don't think Obama despises himself. I do think that he has lost his respect for an obsequious press that has debased itself enough to willingly become cheerleaders for a man who is not qualified to be president of the United States. And as Eric Hoffer noted,
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.
Labels: Eric Hoffer, Macbeth, MSM, Obama
Macbeth for Kids - Part 2
My fourth graders finished reading Macbeth a few weeks ago. I posted previously about this subject
here. I can't say everyone enjoyed reading Shakespeare, but I can say that they all got something out of their reading, and that the majority of the class did like it. I even started reading Hamlet with a group of four because they begged me. The leader of that group had been one of my biggest trouble makers for the past two years. She was also one of the smartest and most perceptive students in the class, but was, shall we say, foul-tempered, especially when she didn't get her way. The rest of the class was memorizing the witches'speech from act 4. Some were brave enough to recite what they had memorized in front of the class and for visitors.
After we finished the play, we watched the movie version by Orson Wells. My other choice was the Roman Polanski version. It was produced by Hugh Hefner and Playboy Magazine, so it really wasn't a choice. Whenever we show current movies to classes in school, the students are noisy and obnoxious. In this case, even though the movie was in black and white with lousy sound, they watched. They pointed out to me the places Mr. Wells took liberties with the script. I hadn't seen this kind of attention paid to a movie since I showed a group of fifth graders Romeo and Juliet after they had read that play.
The point here, as we can see, is that if children are taught to read properly, they can read, understand, and
enjoy anything we put in front of them. We don't have to bring Shakespeare "down to their level". We don't have to patronize our "urban" and minority students to make great literature palatable to them. It's so much better for our students when we raise them up to meet the great voices from the past.
In his book, The Western Canon,
Harold Bloom says something to the effect that reading the great books gives us something to think about when we're alone. I also know from years of teaching that the more a student brings with them when they read a piece of literature, the more understanding they will get from it. These students will bring with them more than most fourth graders.
A final point. We read some things after Macbeth. Students were much more fluent than before Macbeth. The ease of reading "normal" books surprised them.
Labels: education, Harold Bloom, Macbeth, Shakespeare
Macbeth for Kids
I've been reading Macbeth with my fourth graders. The real Macbeth by Shakespeare, not one of the many children's versions. I teach in a small "urban" district, one beset with all of the maladies of other "urban" public school districts. But I was determined that we would read Macbeth. After reading Romeo and Juliet with a group of fifth graders a few years ago, I knew it was possible.
First, of course, I had to teach the class to read. I did it using The Writing and Spelling Road to Reading and Thinking, published by
The Riggs Institute. It was a struggle, but it paid off. While not everyone is as fluent as I'd like, we're reading Macbeth, bit by bit, every day. The exciting thing is that most of the students are enjoying it. We stop a lot to discuss things like plot, character, and "what did he just say?" I've read this play before, I've got my heavily annotated edition, and I do a lot of explaining, except for the dirty parts. We just pass over those.
I'm amazed almost daily at how well some of my students are understanding the motivations of the characters, what they're thinking, possible future plot directions, and themes. Some of the essays they've written about the play have shown remarkable perception. Some haven't.
Either way, it sure beats the stuffings out of reading the district approved dreck the rest of the fourth grade is subjected to.
Labels: education, Macbeth, Riggs Institute, Shakespeare
War's legitimate object is more perfect peace. Flavius Vegitius Renatus
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