Shama Lama Ring Ding

If you are not already hip to "Jack's Big Music Show" on Noggin, you need to be.

http://www.noggin.com/shows/jacks.php

Yes, it's on Noggin, which means that it's for pre-schoolers in the same way that "The Muppet Show" was intended for kids; that is, it's intended for kids AND adults.

The puppeteers are Henson's Muppet Workshop alum, so Jack, Mary and Mel are amazingly well articulated for what are essentially sock puppets. The music videos they show have been made for Noggin especially for these episodes; yes, this is MTV for the Pre-K set. That having been said, the music simply rocks. In addition to regular video appearances by uber-MILF Laurie Berkner, there is a band called the Dirty Sock Funtime Band which is a Ska band. Yes, Ska for the Pre-K set.

Coolest Episode honors just got a lot more difficult. You see, I thought "Mel's Super Swell Dance Party" was fairly kick ass, especially with a character called Dancey Nancy bouncing up and down to the Mel Polka. My daughter, Hadley, is a big fan of doing the Mel Polka. I thought this one was in the bag because of Dancey Nancy and Laurie in the same episode, but now I've seen "The King of Swing" episode, with Buddy Guy as the King. Buddy freakin-Guy.

Yeah, this is "for kids."

Dept. of Scary Times for Teachers

So geography teacher Jay Bennish gets recorded by some kid in his class pointing out the eerie similarities between some of Hitler's policies, and Fearless Leader Geo. "Dubya" Bush.

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_3560566

I don't know what is scarier: the fact that, teaching in Dubya's backyard, I am about to compare the rhetorical elements of Bush's post 9-11 speech to the rhetorical elements of Bin Laden's post 9-11 speech; or the fact that if you type "bush hitler colorado teacher" in Google, the first seven web sites offered are conservative blogs that make the knee-jerk reaction to the Mohammed caricature look like well reasoned assertions.

Let's face a few facts here:

1. If you want to study propaganda in college and your course doesn't cover the well-oiled Nazi propaganda machine that was Hitler's Germany, you need to find a better course, or a better college. That is not to say that anyone, ANYONE, should buy into their crap; rather, through well-placed words and images, Hitler's people were able, essentially, to bend an otherwise rational nation of individuals to their evil will. That's the power of rhetoric, and why we should study it.
2. Yes, there is a time and a place for such comparisons as Mr. Bennish's remarks, and a high school geography class may not have been the best venue. And yes, Mr. Bennish is paid by the public's taxes and his contract falls under the school board's review. However, the responsible examination of issues is what makes for true teaching. I will continue to argue both sides in class, often taking the more reprehensible side, for the sake of education. If I can make my students think, I will make them think. Ultimately, that is what I'm paid to do.
3. There are some eerily similar rhetorical stances between the two regimes, specifically the "my way or the highway" attitude of this current administration. If I thought that Dubya might actually be able to learn something from the criticism, I might actually invite him to my class; my larger fear is that if I actually invited him here and he were to actually show up, I'd have to slow down the pace of my class so much that it would interfere with the eductional process.

So now I'm about to go continue with my Rhetoric of War unit, but I'm going to add the Denver Post's story to the lesson plan.

Like "Apocalypse Now" with a Musical Number

I spent way too much time in front of the television as a child; when I wasn't in front of the t.v., I was behind some book that no one else I knew wanted to read. The end result of this unholy combination is that I am long in the trivia department, but it took a foreign exchange student's reaction to an obscure reference to Nostradamus to make me go "hmm."

You see, amongst the apocalyptic quatrains, Nostradamus predicts that the next anti-Christ will be a man from greater Arabia wearing a blue turban, and he will rain down fire from the skies. Anti-Christ v1.0 was Napoleon, and v2.0 was Hitler; v3.0 may have been created this weekend with W's visit to South Asia.

I was talking about rhetorical strategies for justifying war in class, and used the example of Hussein's being likened to Hitler as a means of explaining how we demonize the enemy. I added, in my usual, offhand, no-one-is-going-to-get-this-allusion-either way that I love, that at least Hussein doesn't wear a blue turban, or the Nostradamus devotees would have had a field day. A couple of students pressed for more info, and I explained the reference; that's when Manu's jaw dropped and he pointed out that the Indian prime minister wears a blue turban. Ha ha, semi-nervous chuckles all around until I remembered an NPR story I heard this morning about Bush welcoming India into the Nuclear Club... dum dum DUMMMM.

So there you go: Nostradumbass was a little off. The next anti-Christ is actually the Indian prime minister, and he is going to rain down nuclear fire from the sky soon after visiting Europe. I wonder if Bollywood has done any films about this....