Basic Friday Random Ten.

Nothing fancy. I have to get some real shut-eye.

1. Brian Eno--Another Green World
2. Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings--I'll Still Be True
3. Marvin Gaye--What's Going On
4. Barenaked Ladies--Light Up My Room
5. Sly & the Family Stone--That Kind of Person
6. New Pornographers--Your Hands (Together)
7. The Velvet Underground--That's the Story of My Life
8. Count Basie & Sarah Vaughan--You Go to My Head
9. Arcade Fire--Month of May
10. Nina Simone--Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair

Sticking with "New Post" as a header

This essay would be worthwhile if only for the quote, "The future is a mutated bacteria that you never saw coming." But Ms Newitz's take on the non-imminence of The Singularity is good all around. The point can be elaborated. We now live in a world where some people have mechanical arms and cochlear implants in their ears. At one time they would have been seen as gods or monsters, or at least aliens. But now we see them as simply people who have parts they weren't born with. The mundaneness of self-image usually carries the day.

Grifterific

Not too much to say about this. It just gave me a giggle. I've thought about joining support groups for things I don't have just as a way of socializing, but I'm not sure I'm equipped for a double life.

CON ARTIST SUPPORT GROUP from Serious Lunch on Vimeo.

Friday Random Ten, under or over the weather

I think I'm starting to get over this cold. Which I'm fairly certain I have now. For a couple of days I thought it might be allergies still. Sort of like playing whack-a-mole with OTC medications.

1. John Buzon Trio--It Must Be True
2. Stan Kenton--Blues in Riff
3. Velvet Underground--Pale Blue Eyes
4. Roy Orbison--He's Too Late
5. The Barenaked Ladies--Told You So
6. Tom Waits--You Can Never Hold Back Spring
7. Jackson Browne--Late For the Sky
8. Macy Gray feat. Slick Rick--Hey Young World, Part 2
9. Taj Mahal--Statesboro Blues
10. Count BAsie & Sarah Vaughan--You Turned the Tables On Me

Mass. update

All of this is somewhat baffling. Tim Cahill never really had a chance in the Massachusetts governor's election, but suing his own advisors while the election is still on makes him totally marginal. Better to wait until next year, when there won't be as much attention on him. On the other hand, why are the Republicans paying him any attention when the state house in Boston is still very much in play? Not exactly keeping your eyes on the prize.

Then again, elections frequently play out as slow motion train wrecks. I guess they didn't want to let Democrats have all the fun.

Waiting for Joey

I don't see myself going out to see Waiting for "Superman". When it comes to films about education, Allan Arkush's and the Ramones' Rock 'n' Roll High School set a very high standard. Can Davis Guggenheim fill those sneakers? I doubt it.

This rave from Forbes is smooth and articulate. It has the structure and contours of a reasoned response. Trust it not. Close your eyes for a second and you can see the guy in front of you swearing that he's never met the three card monte dealer before, and going "golly gee" as he "wins" twenty bucks.

I find myself more in the same boat as IOZ.

I would probably strangle the first "likely voter" I saw upon leaving the theater, and somehow I don't think that my cellmate would believe me when I told him that I'm a top. The anguish that our technocrats direct at the perceived failures of our system of education delights me to no end. Oh, no, we are failing to turn our children into readily employable automotons whose mecahnistic mental processes mitigate against any improvement in their own station, amelioration of their own working conditions, or consideration of the nature of control and ownership--indeed, cause them to work actively against their own best interests by inculcating a Stockholm-syndrome-like identification with the values and imperatives of a corporate ownership class that they themselves will never join!

And through him, Eye of the Storm.

if you are sitting here with tom friedman actually worrying that our kids have lower standardized test scores than the finns or something, i say you have floated outside the realm of actual human beings or real children or anything relevant to learning. really is this an education program, or is it a project for world conquest? these people give you the impression of each nation's children as a kind of army, in a war with all the other nations' children to dominate the future. try to become aware of how fantastical and optional that is as a way of representing reality. but try to be aware too of what a picture like that entails about how we actually treat children.

My own two cents, the expression of which is compromised by computer keyboards lacking a cent sign? You hear about merit pay. You hear about battling the evil teacher's unions to get rid of bad teachers. A smokescreen, all of it. They're not talking about elevating good teachers over bad ones, not really. All educators are to be reduced to indentured servants. The future is all about central planners. Pay attention to flesh and blood kids to see what they need on a case-by-case basis, and you are not With The Program.

And doesn't the question of "Why are so many immigrants doctors and engineers?" sound a lot like "Why can't we put those people back in their place?"

Sesame Friday Random Ten

Feel like checking in with everyone's favorite roommates?

Well, I guess they're pretty comfortable with each other at this point. Moving right along...

1. Ladytron--Whitelightgenerator
2. Soul Coughing--Moon Sammy
3. Macy Gray--Relating to a Psychopath
4. The New Pornographers--Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk
5. The Kinks--I'll Remember
6. Marvin Gaye--Flyin' High (In the Friendly Sky)
7. Yuka Honda--Why Do We Distrust the Machines We Made?
8. Nellie McKay--Crazy Rhythm
9. The Magnetic Fields--Acoustic Guitar
10. Nina Simone--Trouble in Mind