Al Jolson for Prime Minister

One of the most fascinating things that have emerged from this election campaign is Julia Gillard’s hands. This may sound a bit weird but when we look at her speaking style pre and post her ascension to the office of Prime Minister there is a marked difference. Why is this worthy of an entire blog? Well, you know the quality of this campaign so I won’t say anymore…

Watching Gillard’s performance at the Labor Party launch today brought back some fond memories. It reminded me of the time that I saw a musical about Al Jolson at the Capitol Theatre. Al Jolson, the famous black face jazz singer, was well known for his live performances of “Mammy” with his excellent jazz hands. These same jazz hands were out in force today with our acting Prime Minister. In the short 30 second grab they showed of her speech I counted nearly a dozen individual hand movements that can be categorized as follows:
-Left jab
-Right jab
-Jazz hands
-Double jab left
-Double jab right
-Thumb back

Next time you see her talk try doing a running commentary on her hand movements. It’s even more fun when speaking to someone else and makes the repetitive nature of her words (moving forward, lets have another debate, you’ll wake up with Tony, yes we can – no I mean yes we will) more bearable.

More importantly, it gave me some ideas for Tony Abbott’s next announcement. Known for his love of cycle and all things exercise, maybe Abbott can do his policy announcements on an exercise bike or incorporate the following hand gestures:
-The swim
-The jog
-The Muhammad Ali

So as we head to Saturday lets hope for a plethora of new hand gestures to generate further interest in this insipid campaign.

Badger for PM

When the election was initially called a couple of weeks back I had a great idea for this blog. My idea was to do a running commentary on the weekly events in the spirit of South Park, who devoted an entire show to democracy and PETA: concluding that most elections are a choice between a giant douche (foam baseball bat) and a shit sandwich (enough said). It was decided that Julia due to her height could be the giant douche while Tony’s muscular frame was more suited to the shit sandwich (NB: both are as bad as each other so do not read anything into the choice of roles for either leader).

Unfortunately, I have been so under-whelmed by this election campaign that I haven’t had the urge to write anything and am feeling even less inclined to actually cast my vote. In fact, the only reason I will chase up my voting options is so that I can avoid a fine from the electoral commission. Moreover, this is a sharp contrast to 2007 when I proudly wore my Kevin 07 t-shirt much to the annoyance of my workmates in a blue ribbon liberal seat and felt passionately about changing our government.

What has changed since then? For one, I lost my opportunity to vote out Kevin Rudd myself. Yes, I didn’t think he did a good job and was hoping that I could let him know on polling day myself. Instead, Julia has chosen to deprive me of my right to vote out the Prime Minister (yes Julia, we chose him NOT you as PM) and so I would like to deprive her of her right to lead the dysfunctional Labor Party. Moreover, the Liberal Party decided to remove the thinking man’s politician, and my local member, Malcolm Turnbull as leader of the opposition. I remember announcing to my Redlands history class that day that the Liberal Party was now dead to me with Abbott as leader and reading back on my blogs even wrote one about him called “Stupidity”. Has my opinion of the Mad Monk changed: not really, he is still an idiot with minimal policy ideas and if I see him running around one more time I will scream.

So a week to go and to say I am disillusioned would be a gross understatement. The actual campaign has perhaps been even worse that Julia’s attempts to revive the corpse of the Labor Party with quick fixes that make Abbott look like a policy intellectual: scrap the ETS, decapitate the mining tax and re-badge the Pacific Solution. Then during the campaign itself it has been a plethora of small target announcement aimed at marginal seats (unfortunately I am not in one but at least the race for the senate in the ACT is interesting) with appearances from a fake Julia and a caged Abbott.

However, like Stan in South Park, I must vote or face exile (a fine in my case). So what issues most influence me?
1. Julia is a backstabbing puppet who will be shafted as quickly as KRudd was when she goes badly in the polls
2. Tony has changed his mind on so many issues that he is a blank canvas to Julia’s puppet and essentially shows a lack of leadership
3. National Broadband: Julia’s plan is clearly too expensive and leaves us still too far behind other countries but Abbott’s plan is not clearly explained and produces speeds that are too slow
4. Education: both parties want to pay teachers for better performance with Abbott’s plan sounding more sensible than Julia’s and Labor’s track record on delivering the Education Revolution (revolutionary in its failure to do anything despite massive fanfare) being dismal
5. Immigration: both parties are racing to the bottom and Julia’s nose dive to sympathize with racist, moronic, idiotic, Western suburbs voters (what’s to fear? Most of the immigrants don’t take your jobs) made me ashamed to have voted Labor

So all up I will vote Malcolm Turnbull in not because he’s Liberal but because he actually brings some intelligence to the table (see his debate with Maxine McKewen for evidence). As for the overall winner: we’re screwed either way – a dysfunctional, incompetent Labor Party or an ultra-conservative, idiotic Liberal Party.

Congratulations Australia: we have officially had the worst electoral campaign in history!

A Rat in the Kitchen!

Last year I made a promise to myself. It wasn’t made lightly or without much thought. It was a matter of principle and something that I cared deeply about. The promise I made to myself:

NEVER WATCH MASTERCHEF AUSTRALIA EVER AGAIN!

Why did I make such a decision? Call it a protest of sorts: a protest against deliberately manipulated outcomes that increasingly dominate reality television. Anyone who watched the series would attest to the fact that Julie Goodwin (the eventual winner and I‘m happy to note a somewhat insignificant figure on the Australian television landscape except for her target audience: stupid, gullible housewives who watch crap like Kerri-Anne) should have been eliminated multiple times in the last two weeks and was somehow kept in the competition. As a dead give away to the ridiculous meddling this involved: for most of the final week we didn’t see the judges deliberation as presumably they would have had to admit that her performance did not warrant her continuation in the competition. Ultimately though, she didn’t deserve to win because she wasn’t a master CHEF. Julie was a great cook no doubt but was clearly an inferior chef in terms of her presentation and style of food.

The reason why I rehash this old news, much to my satisfaction there was a significant backlash from the netizens about this travesty of justice, is that history is repeating itself. A feature of Julie’s tarnished run to the line was a series of incomplete dishes that failed at a basic level to meet the requirements of the challenges. For instance, the task was to complete a two course meal and she completed one or half or not much of it at all. Regardless, the judges gushed about how tasty her food was and a contestant who actually completed the task (shock, horror: someone actually doing what they asked) was shown the door because they weren’t overweight, had a stupid Australian accent, cried at the drop of a hat and gushed constantly about cooking for their kids.

It seems Callum from South Australia has the same such luck. In tonight’s elimination challenge he failed to plate up the five dishes as required in the task (notice the similarity) but somehow avoided the bottom three because it tasted so good (despite ALL THE OTHER CONTESTANTS plating up the 5 dishes as required). This is a joke: if not completing all aspects of the task are required to go through then previously eliminated contestants have a right to complain. Maybe if the judges had chosen to ignore incomplete task at other stages then they might have survived.

It’s left me wondering why Callum is having so much luck. A few things immediately come to mind: large puppy dog eyes, a cute but stupid sounding lisp, looking like an idiot, being only 20 years old and residing in South Australia. All these things normally spell disadvantage and probably do for him in normal life: he probably has problem relating to people (perhaps living in South Australia this is negated as most people are weird in that state) and being a young man obsessed with lisping and cooking would make him a bit different from the football crowd. Moreover, his constant looks of disappointment and blinking back tears probably make it hard to maintain a conversation with him as you would be afraid of him breaking into great big sobs. However, maybe this is a demographic that Channel 10 has identified as the next big money spinner. Due to the failure of Julie Goodwin’s cookbooks (its already on sale at Borders which is a bad sign) maybe they have realized that stupid housewives tune in but don’t fork out the money for the merchandise.

Either way, there is definitely a rat in the kitchen and no amount of over dramatic acting by the three judges can hide the fact!

Attack of the Counselors

There are many times in life when we are struck by grief and sadness. The loss of family, friends or even prominent figures such as Heath Ledger can trigger such emotions. Ultimately though, each person needs to find their own way of dealing with this grief so that they can move on with their life and continue with the business of living. This process can take months or even years and is a deeply personal journey that cannot be fitted into a one size fits all approach.

On a personal note, I have experienced loss of both immediate family and close relatives. Some of the issues surrounding these linger to this day and the grief I experienced remains unresolved. Moreover, following the murder/suicide of professional wrestler Chris Benoit, I experienced a profound sense of grief that lingered with me for many months. During that time I felt numb and was visibly upset and emotional when news reports and print articles appeared. This numbness led to an almost obsessive collection and following of the events. Why? Perhaps I needed to make sense of the events within myself in order to continue living. By finding out all I could about this man, his life and ultimately his death maybe I could justify how one of the people I most admired in the industry could so coldly end both his family and his own life. For me this was a real and saddening time and something that I can only now begin to look back on with some sense of calm.

What angers me though is the crap we get with events such as the recent death of the pilot in Sydney. A hero by all accounts, he flew his plane away from crowded areas including schools so that there was minimal loss of life. This man is a hero and his family along with that of his passenger will be experiencing a deep sense of grief at this time. These people deserve to be in our prayers and need all the support they can get to help them continue on. Who doesn’t need help are the children at the school next to where he crashed.

Yes, you heard me correctly. The children at the school at which he DIDN’T CRASH and at which NOBODY DIED as a result of the accident don’t need counseling. In fact, they don’t need any special attention whatsoever. They all lived and should get on with their lives. Instead we have the crock of shit counselors who seem to make a living from turning up at large public gatherings as soon as something remotely “traumatic” occurs. These people do nothing to help or aid these people; instead they encourage them to express grief for events that did not result in any of them losing their lives. The moronic idiots who decided they should be present in the first place should be fired for incompetence and stupidity. All they are doing is encouraging the students to experience grief that is unnecessary and harmful.

Resilience is a word that is not used often enough at such times. Rather than teach our kids to fall to pieces for an accident that didn’t occur to them and which none of their school friends died, the school leaders should instead encourage them to show resilience to continue on with schooling and move past the tragic events. This is not to ignore the accident or make it trivial: this IS a tragic event but for the PILOT and his PASSENGER not the unharmed and unaffected school children.

Its time Australia stopped its obsession with grief counselors that encourage our kid to fall to pieces when something mildly bad happens to them. We should be teaching our kids resilience so that they can overcome real tragedies in life’s journey when they actually occur. The death of the pilot was sad and tragic but lets remember who for.

Thrilling mediocrity: why James Patterson is a rich, pathetic fraud

James Patterson is a rich, pathetic fraud. He may be an internationally best-selling author with millions of fans. He may make bucket loads of money. He may well go down in history as one of the best-selling and most popularly read authors of all time. But deep down he knows he’s a fraud and even he admits it.

Conversely, today I saw the new comic-book-comedy-action film Kick-Ass that was no fraud and certainly lived up to its title. The film had awesome fight scenes, a kick-ass cast of actors (the girl with the purple hair was the best young performance since Little Miss Sunshine for my mind) and the final showdown was over-the-top brilliance that fitted in perfectly with the tone of the film. Moreover, the main character could teach James Patterson a thing or two about integrity.

The hero of Kick-Ass is a ‘nobody’: a teenager, ignored by girls with his small group of friends just living out his life. Then one day he decides to don a superhero outfit and try and fight crime because of his disgust at society’s lack of care for its fellow humans. In doing so he gets his ass kicked numerous times and by different people but wins the admiration of some real superheroes and the girl of his dreams. Importantly though, there is a scene towards the third act in which he realises that he is a fraud: sitting in his room after nearly being killed again, he looks at himself in the mirror and realises that his whole act is a sham. He recognises his own failures and his inability to actually save people and decides that he would rather give it up than continue to live the lie. Ultimately however, the situation demands that he becomes an authentic hero and he gets to act out his fantasy one last time.

I wonder if James Patterson ever looks in the mirror (he probably has heaps in his large estate) and asks himself the question: am I a real author? I hope he doesn’t do that too often because he might has a severe panic attack. I’ve never met the man but an interview in this week’s Spectrum was enough to convince me.

The first thing that set me off was the by-line: “One of the world’s most successful authors must churn out a new book every six weeks – no wonder he brings in hired help.” I was in shock, a famous author getting someone else to write his books: impossible! Reading further on worsened my initial dismay: he’s writing six books at once and has a “small team of co-writers to help him meet demand.” So he isn’t really a proper author after all, he just writes outlines and gets other people to fill in the bits that don’t excite him. There had to be something wrong here, how could this man dare call himself an author if he was producing books like a sausage factory?

The answer soon became clear: he isn’t really an author. He’s a writer: a fraud of an author who is so crap at what he does he doesn’t even pretend to treat his subject material seriously. A few quotes to highlight my point:

“He abandoned the book he was writing because he didn’t think he could match the work of his heroes, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and James Joyce.”

“Patterson set out to evolve a new style based on what he felt held the most appeal for a mass audience, with the last shreds of literary aspiration boiled from the bone… ‘I’m going to stop writing the parts that people skim’… The result – writing so spare it is nothing but plot and narrative…”

So in summary: he realised that he couldn’t write with the talent or flare of the great writers so decided instead to produce pulpy crap that would sell millions of copies. Moreover, he decided to hack off the limbs of writing, character and setting, to ensure that people wouldn’t be bored by what he wrote.

I must admit that this was ingenious. He tapped into the unlimited resource of human laziness and idleness and redefined a genre. In fact, his writing was so crap that even Stephen King, one of the princes of genre based pulp, has labelled him as a “terrible writer”. In doing so he had netted himself a fortune and will undoubtedly be studied in years to come if not now.

However, there is something inherently wrong about this. Like the hero from Kick-Ass I feel like donning my superhero author suit and blowing this guy to a million pieces with a rocket-launcher. As a teacher and lover of literature, this man is an appalling, disgusting, leech on society. Rather than help his readers to aspire to better quality prose that delves into the emotions and meaning of existence, he instead encourages us to switch off even further. This is the television equivalent of Melrose Place: populous garbage.

Moreover, he is desecrating and vandalising the very people he inspired to be. Imagine if Marquez had decided while writing One Hundred Years of Solitude or Love in the time of Cholera to abandon detailed character and setting so that people might not be bored by his novel. I wonder if Patterson read Ulysses and got bored and just skipped the uninteresting bits. I bet he didn’t because these authors created masterpieces of writing that have a timelessness that people will continue to connect with long after the authors have perished. These books challenge the reader to rethink their assumptions and values while also stretching their vocabulary. In short: these writers did not dumb down their writing to suit their audience; they trusted that their audience would rise to theirs.

Back to Kick-Ass, I wonder at what point Patterson realised he was a fraud. The man doesn’t really write his own books anyway: I wonder how much his co-authors contribute and whether he is just an overseer on a production line so that he can stamp his name on the cover. He must have realised that in vandalising his heroes that he was in fact degrading himself and the profession of writing. By hacking at the limbs of literature he is degrading culture and speeding up our terminal decline into mediocrity and mental laziness. If he doesn’t realise this then he is simply moronic and stupid but if he realises this and continues on anyway then it something much more sinister.

Let us hope that James Patterson is an anachronism (yes James, it is okay to use polysyllabic words that your audience may not know the meaning of) and that society may eventually move away from the dumbing down of culture (for other examples see Twilight and Harry Potter) and aspire once more for greater heights. If not, in twenty years time Patterson may be still publishing adult best sellers: only this time they’ll be picture books.

Just an action film?

Sunday for me was a fantastic day. Usually a day of growing tension as I prepare for my busy Monday and a realisation that my spare time is coming to an end, I instead spent the day doing something I love doing: watching movies!

The first of my movies was the Oscar hyped and nominated The Hurt Locker. Due to the immense press coverage, particularly of its director who might become the first ever female winner of a best director Oscar, I had a strong expectation of the film and thus expected to be disappointed. How wrong I could be! The film was an intense ride from start to finish with each scene similar but fresh and the acting perfectly underplayed. The direction itself was spectacular: Kathryn Bigelow deserves all the praise she has received and was able to make a war film that was gripping throughout. The characters had enough depth and there was a strong enough story arc to keep it all together.

However, despite my enjoyment of the film, I struggle to see how it can be a favourite for the best film Oscar. That is, traditionally action films have not been in the running for this honour and it has instead gone to films of a more topical or thought provoking nature. This is not to say the film is not topical: its relevance as a revision of initial views of the Iraq conflict and changing attitudes towards the US’s current wars is clear. However, the film lacks the though provoking aspects of other was films such as Full Metal Jacket or The Thin Red Line. While these films may lack the emotional intensity of The Hurt Locker, they make up for it for their scathing critique of war and its impact on humans. The best one could say about The Hurt Locker is that it demonstrates the addictive nature of war and its pointlessness but this is neither particularly insightful nor deeply developed within any of the characters.

Overall, The Hurt Locker is a great action film that captures the intensity and emotional rollercoaster that it is to live in Iraq. From the pervading sense of potential menace from every ‘innocent’ bystander to the emotional trough experienced after a mission, Bigelow has captured this experience like few people have done before her. For this she deserves the best director Oscar but please give the best film Oscar to a more thought provoking film such as Up in the Air, A Single Man or The Road (not sure if this last one is even nominated).

My second film experience yesterday was Shutter Island by Oscar legend and winner Martin Scorsese. I was a big fan of his Oscar winning film The Departed and had waited with some impatience as week after week I saw the trailers for his new thriller. My enthusiasm however was dampened when film reviews and even The Movie Show started criticising the film. Despite this I went in with a sense that this could be a strong follow up to The Departed, particularly as he teamed once again with leading man Leonardo DiCaprio.

My initial sense of this film was laughter. Strange I know, considering it was a thriller, but I couldn’t help but laugh at the overdone background music that almost hammed up the sense of dread one was meant to feel on reaching the island. The hammed up atmosphere unfortunately continued as DiCaprio’s character seemed so unstable you wondered how he could ever become a federal marshal in the first place. Moreover, Mark Ruffalo was underused in his support role and he seemed to do more good in taking up space as podgy detective than displaying any investigative skills. Apart from that, Kingsley was brilliant as usual and the rest of the cast gave good performances that reeked of secrecy and dread. This all bode well for most of the film and despite some plot holes, for instance access to supposedly well guarded areas of the island, the film built a good momentum that had it set up for a strong finish.

IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE FILM AND WISH TO STOP READING NOW!










However, the ending was atrocious! It stunk almost as much as Spielberg’s ending to the last Indiana Jones film in which aliens are the answer but not quite. The twist that DiCaprio was a patient all along and it was an elaborate hoax to try and cure him seemed a cop out to make a neat ending. Granted that this ending made sense, it explained DiCaprio’s odd behaviour and some of the plot holes; however it failed in the satisfying ending stakes. Endings like this always reek of a lack of imagination or an impatience to finish the script. The film could have easily ended with the conspiracy being uncovered or even DiCaprio being sacrificed to save the conspiracy but making it all a big hoax was just plain wrong.

All in all it was a great way to spend a Sunday. With only a few Oscar films left to see, hopefully next weekend will be one for A Single Man and a Crazy Horse.

Stupidity

Firstly, a few things or people who are stupid:

• Packs of cyclists who bully cars and pedestrians
• People who talk loudly on the bus
• 30 minutes of advertisements before films

Secondly, let’s talk about the stupidity of Tony Abbot, the Mad Monk. I, like most people, was shocked when Tony became leader of the opposition late last year. While I could accept a coalition party lead by Joe Hockey, Tony not only seemed primitive in his views but lacking the class or touch of an alternative prime minister. Unfortunately, little has changed about this since he has taken the reigns and started the tried and tested method of opposition: oppose everything and anything the government does. Fortunately for Tony, the Australian people are so enamoured by his stupid, straight talking style that he is achieving success in what matters most to his party: the polls.

This of itself is not an issue. Every government, no matter how good, needs a decent opposition to hold it to account and the coalition lead by Turnbull was not doing this (although in-fighting lead by Tony didn’t help). Moreover, Kevin 07 has not delivered nearly enough and, if the bashing he got on Q&A a few weeks is any indication, many swing voters are now considering not voting for him this time around. However, Tony has not offered up anything remotely like a sensible policy or realistic plan for the future. Take his environmental policy of direct action: in truth, all he wants to do is plant a few trees so that he looks like he’s doing something and then sneer at environmentalists when the world doesn’t end when they predict it. Anyone with half a brain, this does exclude most Australian voters, could see that this would not reduce emissions nearly enough but it has gotten support and people are now turning on Rudd. How about health policy: local boards running the show. Maybe Tony thinks history is crap like the environment but this is what we had before and it still doesn’t even solve the issue of local doctors, funding or waiting lists. Finally, industrial policy: work-choices-is-dead-but-we-will-introduce-it-back-piece-by-piece-although-it-cost-us-the-last-election. This is truly insane because it was Howard’s hubris in trying to once and for all screw over the Australian worker that allowed Rudd to cakewalk to the Lodge and Howard to lose his own seat. Then Eric “I’m not going to announce policy on PM” Abetz can’t make up his mind whether statements by shadow ministers is policy and won’t give any promises but criticises Rudd for making similar promises.

Thirdly, what about the teacher shortage in NSW? I read in the font of knowledge the Daily Telegraph that there are over 400 unplaced full time teaching positions vacant in NSW at the moment. This does not surprise me one bit. I have been searching for a teaching position for two months; I have registered with the DET and told them I will work in any country town as long as it is at least a 6 month contract. Have I heard from them? No. Have I got a peep about working in a hard to staff area? No. All I can say about the education system in Australia: MORONIC! My sister-in-law informs me that schools in Maitland don’t even bother advertising and the way to get a job is just ring up and they offer full time work. Listen up morons in Maitland: quality candidates need to be advertised for, I know because I now work in recruitment. People don’t have time to ring every school in a region on the off chance of finding a job. Just place a freaking advertisement and then people might apply and you might get good quality teachers. As far as I’m concerned, if you’re stupid enough not to advertise then you deserve to have unplaced, poorly recruited positions.

Fourthly: that stupid country music film that is up for best actor Oscar. Americans need to get over their obsession with drunken/dysfunctional/abusive country singers: we get it, they get drunk, screw up their lives and cry over it. As an astute reviewer for SMH put it; this would be a B-grade midday movie if not for the lead performance and for this reason it doesn’t deserve a single damn Oscar. Clooney puts in a great performance in a touching and thought provoking film but he’ll probably lose to some hick cowboy who gets drunk. Grow the f^%k up America! Stop playing cowboys and Indians and get into the twenty-first century with your taste and cultural sensitivity. And if you must watch films about drunken cowboys see Walk the Line: at least the singer isn’t fictional and it has Reese Witherspoon in it.

Lastly, some stupid things about wrestling:

• Hulk Hogan’s 1,000,000,000,000th comeback – piss off Hulk, you can barely walk let alone wrestle
• Jericho not winning the Royal Rumble – he’s been the best for the past year and he deserved to headline Wrestlemania as the winner of the rumble
• TNA – see about the Hulk but they also waste great wrestlers with ridiculous storylines and gimmicks e.g. Curryman
• WWE themed pay-per-views – Vince obviously doesn’t understand the concept of overkills, it does explain his love of people kissing his naked arse on TV, and so must destroy ladder, hell-in-a-cell, elimination chamber and submission matches by having 3+ on one night rather than as special events
• AJ Styles as the new Ric Flair – Wooooooooooo what a joke, AJ can’t style, nor profile and he looks surprisingly uncomfortable about women for a guy who’s meant to be living it up, just wrestle because that’s what people love about you
• RAW Guest hosts – please stop shilling your god damn movie, TV show or product especially if you don’t give a rat’s arse about wrestling in the first place. Apologies to Bob Barker, even though you punked out Jericho, and William Shater, whose album of spoken entrance music I would actually buy.
  

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s… a HATS!

While I often marvel at the level of stupidity and ignorance in the reporting on and about education, I was incensed by the news articles that did the rounds on the so called “super teachers”. So, are they really that super?

For those who don’t know, the “super teachers” are officially called HATS (highly accomplished teachers). In order to retain their services in the public sector they are given a 20% bump on their pay up to $98,000 and get to spend less time teaching and more time mentoring other teachers and liaising with the community. Of course, there are fewer HATS but they are targeted at lower socio-economic areas to help address disadvantage in the community.

At this point, you’re probably asking why I have an issue with paying people to assist the disadvantaged. In fact, I agree with addressing the in-balance just not at the expense of all the other teachers. There are numerous problems with the scheme which I outline below.

The first major issue is the selection of the HATS. The article from the Telegraph says they underwent a “rigorous selection process” but then doesn’t explain what was so “rigorous” about it. Did they base it on test scores like NAPLAN? This would be unfair as teachers with better students would benefit while good teachers may be weighed down with poor performing students. Did they base it on student feedback? Apart from the difficulty of surveying ALL students, this ignores the fact that sometimes students may not appreciate the tough stance a teacher may take that ultimately leads to future success. What about peer feedback? If it comes down to a popularity contest among staff then this is perhaps the worst measure as many popular people are extremely inept or simply just talented at playing office politics.

The second major issue is the office dynamic of working with a HATS. Imagine this scenario if you will, your boss introduces you to a new worker X that does less of the same work as you but spends the rest of the time attending meetings. Then to top it all off, X gets paid 20% more than you and spends some of his/her time telling you how to do your job better. I know that I would feel jealous of such a worker, they get paid more than me for doing a similar job, and pretty pissed off too, where do they get off telling me how to do my job? Now combine this with the fact that teachers can be quite narky, I know because I am one and believe me most teachers can whinge with the best of them, and don’t get paid enough anyway, to me it’s a recipe for disaster. I can just imagine the staffroom conversations about the HATS that go on and I personally wouldn’t want to put down my own colleagues by demeaning them in such a manner and rubbing my fatter pay cheque in the faces to boot.

The third and last major issue is the claim that it will entice young people to go into teaching. Reality check morons: I went into teaching after finishing school on the promise of plenty of work and greater recognition. I now have to work in an administration role because I cannot find a full time role and with all the retirees coming out to replace funds lost by the GFC all those young teachers are stuck either working casual or maternity leave and hoping that another position is just around the corner. It sounds so enticing I’m sure everyone is just waiting to do a BEd so they can join the queue of under-employed teachers. Moreover, the HATS are a select group from the entire teaching force and thus the chance of a young person who becomes a teacher even achieving this status is even smaller. So I’m sure it will entice young people to become teachers: young people who can’t think through the likelihood of the event occurring and thus probably being a stupid candidate for a teaching job in the first place.

After all that you would think that I am against the scheme. On the whole yes. I would rather the government spread that money out to ALL public school teachers so that ALL teachers are made to feel special and super thus ALL public school students can perform better. Australia only needs to look at our academically bright neighbours in places such as South Korea to understand the secret to good education: appreciation and recognition. In this country, where I have taught, ALL teachers are revered and respected in the community and shown recognition for the important role they have in society. There is no shortage of quality teachers: in fact it is a difficult prospect to get into the public system because there is so much competition. So if Kevin “I wish I hadn’t voted for him” 07 wants an education revolution try this: revolutionise society’s respect for education and stop treating us like top performing sales executives that you selectively favour depending on your budget bottom line.

After the party

Joan had always hated the Pattersons. She’d told John a thousand times how her mother, God bless her soul, had always warned her about being friends with those people. Not that she’d listened, heavens no, and still didn’t. Well, perhaps this might be the final time she thought, struggling with her suitcase up the stairs onto the XPT, perhaps they might have used up their last chance.

“Oh will you hurry up!” barked John from behind her.
“I’m trying as best I can,” she scolded, making a point of heaving the suitcase with both hands.
“Well, you’re not the one left holding the heavy suitcase are you?”
“Oh please stop complaining, I’m nearly there.”
“Nearly there, Patricia will have had her 70th birthday by the time they start the blooming train.”
“Oh stop being so melodramatic.”
“There not even my friends, well Patricia isn’t anyway. I don’t know why you always go to these things anyway.”

Patricia had by this time made her way over to the window seat and was wrestling to fit her bag into the baggage rack. Turning her head sharply at the last remark, she saw John having a monumental uphill battle with his own, heavier, suitcase.

“Not your friends are they?” she snapped back, “Well next time I’ll make sure to tell Bill he doesn’t need to invite you out on the boat.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m not sure I do because you seem to enjoy his boat, his beer but when it comes to a simple…”
“Alright, alright, I get the point Joan.”
“You do, I’m so glad.”

John had at last mounted the stairs and was organising the suitcases in the rack. Looking back at Joan, already staring pensively out the window, he felt a heaviness slowly settle itself over his stomach. He usually dreaded these trips anyway; the long train ride followed by hours of the same conversations with people he only met once a year, but to have picked a fight so early on in the piece had made it that much worse. Lumbering back to the seats, as Joan deliberately moved her handbag away from him, he weighed up his options.

“I’m sorry.”
“Really, what are you sorry for?” she replied caustically.
“You know, what I did before.”
“Which was?”
“For yelling at you when we got on the train.”
“And…”
“And those comments about Patricia.”
“Well, I’m glad that you are.”

Joan turned back to the window and continued to look out onto bushland as the train rushed by. In her head she had already forgiven him by the time she had sat down but she knew better than to let him get away with something like that too easily. As her mother, God bless her soul, had always reinforced with her: politeness at all times, especially when you are angry. Thus John needed to be taught a lesson for losing his temper like that, especially in public which most embarrassed her.

“Do you want your magazine?” he said, waving a copy of the Woman’s Day in her direction.
“Not now, you’ve made me cross and I couldn’t concentrate on it.”
“Cross, I already apologised about that.”
“I know and the apology was accepted.”
“So you’re going to use that as an excuse to be cross all the way home then.”
“I didn’t say I would, all I said was that I didn’t want to read my magazine.”

John restrained himself from throwing the magazine into the aisle. For fifty years he had put up with this and every time he asked himself the same question: why? He knew the answer of course: it was what they did now and what they always did. Was it love? He had a vague notion that the longevity of their marriage somehow made that a answer void. Perhaps it was comfort? At the age of sixty-five he surely couldn’t be blamed for seeking a bit of that. The bottom line though was that he would have to hold his tongue until Newcastle and hope she would get over it. He placed the magazine on the spare seat next to her and opened his Patrick White biography.

“How dare they?” she expounded a few minutes later.
John was so absorbed in his book that he didn’t look up.
“It was just so rude!” she said, this time louder.
John put his book down, “What was rude?”
“The Pattersons of course.”
“What did they do?”
“You mean you don’t remember? Or are you trying to ignore it?”
“I genuinely can’t remember.”
“You know; what they said at the party on Saturday.”
“What did they say? I can’t remember?”

Joan had the scene burned into her memory. It was business as usual for Patricia’s birthday weekend, a small gathering of intimate friends with a few nights to drink and catch-up on the year passed. All was going well until the subject of their schools days had been brought up. Patricia, as usual, bragged about how she had come from nothing and that she had always felt looked down upon by everyone. Joan, playing the comforter assured her that it was nothing really and that in the end everyone had turned out alright. Patricia, who was on her sixth champagne by now, decided this night that this wasn’t enough. Turning on Joan she had poured scorn on their friendship and accused Joan of pitying her and treating her like a house pet. Too shocked to defend herself, Joan had tried to calm things down but that only made Patricia angrier. It all ended when Patricia finally got off her chest the thing that had bugged her most all those years: “Joan, your mother was such a bitch.”

“Darling, are you okay?” John’s tone sounded slightly distressed.
“Fine, everything’s fine,” Joan replied as if coming out of a daze.
“What did the Pattersons say? You were about to tell me.”
“Oh, it was nothing really, just something silly.”
“Are you sure? You seemed quite upset a moment ago.”
“Really, nothing but a few drinks talking.”
“Oh, I know how Patricia can get after a few. Are you sure it wasn’t too nasty?”
“No, no. As I said, it was just the drinks talking.”
“If you like, I can cancel the fishing trip with Bill – its just fishing anyway.”
“Don’t be silly, we wouldn’t want to offend Bill over such a small silly thing.”
“Are you certain? It seemed to really upset you.”
“It’s fine. Can you pass me that magazine?”

Joan flipped through the magazine, barely registering the ups and downs of Bragelina and Tomkat. The image of Patricia’s face, heavily made up with her sneering mouth, kept repeating and repeating in her mind’s eye, her words repeating over and over. She resolved to not put up with that ever again.

The phone rang and she fumbled with the keypad before hitting the talk button. It was Patricia.
“Yes darling, we had a fantastic time… Next year? Of course we will Patricia. We wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Travels with the Doctor – Death by a thousand cuts

The Doctor was unhappy.

And everyone knew it.

Mrs Austen, who often lamented being stuck in her cubby hole, was for once thankful of her isolation. The Doctor had spent all morning tramping around his office, curtly dealing with the daily business of the school and anyone who got in his way.

At about tea time, when she was expected to appear with a fresh cup of Lipton’s and a tray of Scotch fingers, she emerged timidly from her desk and began preparations for her dreaded duty. As usual, she dipped his tea bag slowly in and out of the cup he used, watching cautiously lest any tea slip over and stain the fine bone china. Finally, she expertly extracted all the non-broken biscuits from the packet, the few spare not already grabbed by the other staff, and arranged them cautiously on the plate. Taking a deep breath and looking hopefully for one last distraction, she began her mission.

Rapping lightly on the door, Mrs Austen had to steady the tea tray as her hands shook slightly. While she had seen him in a temper, over troublesome staff or an enraged board director, she usually had some idea of what ailed him. However, today she had no idea and it was not knowing, and more importantly being expected to know, that frightened her the most. She awaited his reply.

“Who is it?” the Doctor barked.
“Your morning tea sir.”

Silence.

“If you like, I can come back later,” she reiterated in a slightly softer tone, hope springing in her that perhaps a break from his morning ritual may spare her this time. This was followed by a shuffle of papers and she heard him pad towards the door. Bracing herself, she put on a forced smile and consciously relaxed her shoulders as he opened the door with military precision. Indicating that she should join him for tea, he held the door for her as she entered.

Making her way carefully over to the leather couch, she noticed that the morning paper lay open on page two. What struck her as unusual was that he often finished with the papers by nine, another of his daily rituals, and returned it to be perused by guests and his staff. As he turned around she desperately scanned the pages for a clue to his discontent but no headline cried out either the school’s name or trashed private school funding.

Lowering herself into the soft leather couch, always a challenge when trying to balance his fine china, she searched the room for some other clue to his mood but the office yielded nothing. His immaculately arranged shelves, alphabetical by subjects, and dustless keepsakes, mainly old school photos and trophies, spoke of his usual order and tight control. Panicked, she racked her brain for any suspect phone messages she may have missed but couldn’t recall a thing. Hopelessly she settled into the soft embraces of the lounge and prepared for the worst.

The Doctor meanwhile had been busily arranging some notes he had kept on his desk. Looking over periodically to Mrs Austen, he took a sadistic pleasure in her obvious attempts at trying to deduce this current crisis. He deliberately lingered over an old phone message as her eyes frantically looked around the room, much like a baby deer trapped in a hunting trip, before discarding it and sitting opposite her in the stiffer wing back chair. Eyes downcast, he pondered his opening remark.

“Seventy-seven,” he expounded, almost joyfully.
“Pardon, I didn’t understand that.”
“Seventy-seven.”
“I still don’t quite understand,” she stammered.
“Seventy-seven… seventy-seven… you know, the number.”
“What about it sir?”
“What do you mean?”
“What exactly about the number, seventy-seven, is troubling you?”
“Why do you think it troubles me? Did I tell you it troubles me?”
“Well, just your behaviour this morning…”
“What about my behaviour?”
“It just seems that you were upset over…”
“Upset would be a strong word.”
“Unhappy then but all the same…”
“So you think that I’m upset, no unhappy, about the number seventy-seven.”
“Well, I don’t know sir as you seem…”
“Unhappy?”
“No, displeased with something and I can’t for the life of me think what it might be.”

The Doctor settled back. He loved Mrs Austen for just this quality: helpless helpfulness. For years he had found it a frustration, often exasperating him at times of crisis but he had recently learnt to embrace this and often now used it as a bit of sport, as they used to say. Today she was being the perfect victim: expertly set up by his behaviour this morning and hopeless in her ability to discern any useful facts. Surveying his victim under the guise of the troubled boss, he revelled in the small beads of sweat that had formed on her perfectly made up brow. He watched as they rolled down and she tried, in vain, to discreetly dab them with her ever present ladies handkerchief.

“Do you think seventy-seven is a good number?” he began again, deliberately calm, almost cool.
“Well, it depends…” she let her words trail off.
“On what?”
“How you measure it?”
“Go on then, explain what you mean by ‘how you measure it?’”
“For instance, if it’s a score out of say one hundred it wouldn’t be bad. Bot good but…”
“As a percentage then.”
“Yes.”
“Quite true but my number seventy-seven is not a percentage or score out of one hundred. More to the point, why would a ‘not bad’ score make me as you say upset, no unhappy or displeased?”
“On the other hand, if it was a ranking then seventy-seven could be disappointing.”
“Indeed, well done! My number seventy-seven is in fact a ranking. Can you guess for what?”
“Oh… I couldn’t possibly guess.”
“Why don’t you look again at the newspaper you were so desperately scanning before?”

Mrs Austen took her eyes of the Doctor and focused on the newspaper. This time she read each headlines carefully, all the while trying to sense whether this was a trap or some sort. Meanwhile the Doctor looked on, occasionally sipping on his tea or nibbling at his biscuits.

After a few minutes, in which Mrs Austen had carefully read each news story in full just in case his point was more subtle, she looked up. The Doctor could see the cogs in her head formulating her response, couching her blows in the powder-puff of platitudes she held in reserve for such occasions.

“It’s the school HSC ranking, isn’t it?” she ventured.
“Correct again. What about these do you think displeases me, as you so expertly put it?”
“Our rank was seventy-seven.”
“Ah-ha,” he exploded. Banging down his tea cup, spilling the brown liquid over the lip and into the shallow saucer, he got up and started to pace about the room.
“And what exactly do you think that means for me?” he continued.
“For you…”
“Yes, me. The one the board holds responsible for EVERY failure or poor performance these numbskulls produce.”
“I’m sure they don’t personally…”
“Don’t personally blame me. Well, do they want to see all those idiot seniors who performed so badly next week at an emergency board meeting? Do they?”
“I wasn’t aware…”
“Of course you weren’t because they bypassed the usual channels to personally inform me of their little emergency board meeting.”
“But surely Robert…”
“Robert, oh our supposed head of English, might take the fall.”
“Yes. He is…”
“Well. I’ll give you credit for at least spotting our weakness. No, Robert can’t be the scapegoat this time because of the recent school certificate results.”
“But HSC must take precedence…”
“Take precedence indeed. But then again, why wasn’t I on top of the situation in the first place?”
“You can’t be responsible for everything. They must see that clearly. There are certain things that others must take responsibility for.”
“Yes and who’s responsible for the poor school certificate results in computing or the discipline issues on the junior campus or the ratbags who make up year eleven or the other litany of problems that have arisen thus year.
“I don’t know.”

The Doctor slumped back down in his chair and began to dab at the spilled tea, diligently rubbing the messy brown stains that had formed on the cup and saucer. The colour of his cheeks began to fade as he tucked in his dishevelled shirt and readjusted his tie. Mrs Austen meanwhile remained seated, eyes down, sipping her now cold tea in a vain attempt to blend into the lounge.

After a while she looked up to see the Doctor, head in hands, slowly massaging his temples. His frame while calm, had visibly withdrawn and he now seemed like a main retreating into himself, forming a cocoon of protection from a predatory world. Slowly, she gathered up the cups, sauces and half finished biscuits then exited the room. As she closed the door, the Doctor walked over to the office window and stood staring into space.

Cleaning up the cups and sauces, Mrs Austen heard her phone ring and rushed over to answer. On the line was a disgruntled parent concerned over the schools performance, she settled in for a long day.

Still Up in the Air

I’m a little miffed. In fact, I’m quite annoyed at the ending of the new Clooney film Up in the Air.

On a positive note, the overall film was fantastic. It was well paced, humorous and the three main actors did their jobs well. The character of Ryan had a suave sense of detachment with just enough vulnerability to make his failed attempt at attachment believable and heartbreaking. Alex was surprisingly sexy as the love interest while providing an understated class that tied in well with her betrayal. Finally, Miss Keener was perfectly annoying with the exuberance and brashness of youth but still able to eat humble pie and get on with it.

As for the plot, it was well paced and thankfully did not dwell too long on the comedic yet tragic aspects of people dealing with redundancy at the hands of a ruthless, efficient bureaucrat. It coasted along nicely for a recent film and didn’t overstay its welcome by dragging it out too long. Also, the messages of emotion/technology/heartbreak/family were handled in a sophisticated way without undue sentimentality or crude pessimism.

BUT… the ending SUCKED!!!!

For those who want to see the film, you could stop reading now but in truth knowing the end won’t really hurt your enjoyment of the film as a whole.

Anyway, the final scenes in which Ryan realises that his dream life with Alex (who turns out to be married with kids and not the free spirit we take her for) is a sham and thus he returns to his life of the empty backpack (metaphor for material wealth, emotional attachment and human contact) riding the airways DOES NOT WORK.

The main reason for this is simple: Ryan is human. As hard as the film tries to portray his lifestyle as a logically reasonable but ultimately empty, he could not possibly go through the experiences he did and not come out as unscathed as he did. While I appreciate that people return to the norm in times of crises to try and cushion the impact of hurt or deception, the experience itself cannot help but alter that norm in some way. Be that in a major way, such as a change in job/wife/country, or in a small minor way, such as a more cautious approach or altered habit, it is impossible for this to have no impact whatsoever.

Now this is where there is certain to be contention. As the person I went to the movie argued, “it was the look in his eyes that showed you how he had been affected.” Also, he does show some compassion and give his newly married sister some of his frequent flyer miles for their honeymoon. But this is not enough.

For me, I wouldn’t have minded whether he accepted his meaningless existence or broken with that in an attempt to find human contact but he had to make that decision. As the film portrays it, he simply picks the default setting without making a conscious decision one way or the other. Now you may argue that this is okay but every person, at some point, must make the decision to continue in the default setting. Even if they choose to remain unchanged, they must have a clear reason or purpose behind that choice and ultimately, the movie does not make this vital decision clear, reasonable or justified.

So Up in the Air left Ryan and me just that but unlike Ryan I’m not taking it lying down in a first class seat.