Media and other linkages..
Sep. 12th, 2019 06:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. Malcolm Gladwell on How to Talk to Strangers -- rather interesting. He points out how alcohol can be a toxic ingredient in interactions with strangers, also, how very easy it is for things to go horribly wrong in face to face interactions with strangers. He defines strangers as anyone outside your immediate family and intimate friends -- those you don't interact with on an intimate level. And often are mistake is treating strangers the same as we would those we are closest to. Sort makes me want to read his book which I had originally dismissed out of hand.
2. 9/11 is History Now -- Here's how it is being taught in the classroom
What Must Be Learned
It’s not surprising that teaching 9/11 as history is a delicate task. In addition to the emotional burden that falls on teachers who remember that day, the subject matter is sensitive and the images and documents that might be used as primary sources are disturbing. The story is also very much still being written, as the effects of 9/11 on American society continue to evolve.
There is also no national guideline that states are required to follow in terms of teaching the topic, so lessons will vary depending on the teacher or school district. In New York, for example, schools will observe a moment of silence on Wednesday, after Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a law on Monday requiring observation of the anniversary. A 2017 analysis of state high-school social-studies academic standards in the 50 states and the District of Columbia noted that 26 specifically mentioned the 9/11 attacks, nine mentioned terrorism or the war on terror, and 16 didn’t mention 9/11 or terrorism-related examples at all.
That variation is part of the reason why Jeremy Stoddard, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education, set out to analyze how teachers are talking about 9/11 in classrooms nationwide.
A new study released this month, on which Stoddard is the lead author, polled 1,047 U.S. middle- and high-school teachers and revealed that the most popular method of teaching about 9/11 and the War on Terror was showing a documentary or “similar video.” The next most cited method was discussing related current events. The third most mentioned approach was sharing personal stories, the way Hetrick does; Stoddard says younger teachers in particular tend to aim to get kids “to feel like they felt that day, to understand the shock and horror people felt that day.”
The survey built on his prior research looking at textbooks and classroom resources developed to teach about the event in the first few years after 2001. He and UW-Madison colleague Diana Hess studied nine of the bestselling high school U.S History, World History, Government and Law textbooks published in 2004 and 2006, and then did side-by-side comparisons between three of them and editions published in 2009 and 2010, noting how descriptions of the attacks evolved.
For example, four of the nine earlier textbooks mentioned the war in Iraq as part of the aftermath of 9/11, but when Stoddard and Hess were doing research in 2005, only one, McDougal Littell’s The Americans (2005), got into how evidence for the weapons of mass destruction claims had not yet been found. One 2005 textbook, Prentice Hall’s Magruder’s American Government, said that when Congress authorized President George W. Bush to take whatever measures were “necessary and appropriate” to neutralize the threat of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in the wake of 9/11, “it was widely believed that the regime had amassed huge stores of chemical and biological weapons”; the 2010 edition deleted the sentence about weapons of mass destruction. In some textbooks, the descriptions of the attacks got shorter as time went on. For example, that 2005 edition of The Americans said about 3,000 people were killed in the attacks, and then specified how many were passengers on the planes, people who worked at or were visiting the World Trade Center, and how many were first responders. The 2010 version cut out the breakdown of the casualties.
“A lot of the main themes that we saw way back in 2003 — in terms of, it’s a day of remembrance, a focus on the first responders and the heroes of the day and the actions they took, the world coming together in response to this horrible terrorist attack — a lot of those themes are still very much the way it’s being taught,” says Stoddard. “Middle schools are focusing a little bit more on first responders and heroes of the day. High school is where you would probably see more of an emphasis on the causes, the events leading up to it and maybe more on the response. High–school teachers did talk more about the Patriot Act and surveillance and some of those national-security-versus-civil-liberties types of issues.”
One World Trade Center on Aug. 29, 2019, in New York City.
3. Stacy Abrams discusses Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Political Themes with in it, also why a remake won't work
I actually agree with what she says. She states that she had watched all of Buffy and all five seasons of Angel, and felt those characters arcs were satisfyingly concluded, and we don't need to revisit them. She liked how they ended. And if you were to reboot or remake that with the same characters, that hurts both the watcher and the actor trying to do it. It's a disservice to the previous story. She doesn't tend to like remakes for that reason. If you are to do something with Buffy -- it would make more sense to explore new character within that world or a different character that hasn't been explored -- such as the potentials. In revisit the world, not the same characters.
Having attempted to read the Boom!Comics Reboot -- I agree with her. It doesn't work. You can do it with movies -- which are isolated moments in time, and shorter. But a series on television -- not so much. It's jarring.
4. EW's Fall Television Preview finally arrived. And it has lengthy articles or snippets on various upcoming series that look interesting.
* I'm most excited about His Dark Materials -- which is a book series that has been adapated and is airing simultaneously on BBC and HBO. I loved the books (actually I liked the books a lot better than Game of Thrones, far more enjoyable.)
It's an interesting world with some interesting ideas.
Watchman is also coming, but it looks dark and depressing and...sort of similar to all the other dystopian stuff that I've seen of late. Also talked about it in previous posts.
Others of note that are on streaming channels?
* The Mandalorian on Disney + makes me want Disney + -- it's set after Return of the Jedi and long before Force Awakens. It follows a bounty hunter in the far reaches of the post Empire. Has an interesting and diverse cast -- and is developed and directed by Jon Favereau, along with Takiti W, who plays a role in it. Really explores the world, and has an old west-sci-fi feel similar to the first Star Wars film - "Star Wars: A New Hope".
* Modern Love is on Amazon Prime -- and it is anthology series that adapts personal love stories from The New Yorker, I think. One of which was written by Denis Leary's wife about how they reinvented their marriage, that one stars Tina Fey and John Slattery, others ...Dev Patel, Anne Hathaway, Andy Garcia, and Cristin Milloti.
[There are two on Apple Streaming, which I'm ignoring, because I don't have nor want Apple TV. Also several on Showtime, Starz, and Facebook...seriously there's one too many distribution channels at the moment.]
Netflix has quite a few, making me wonder how Netflix is doing this..they have the most scripted series of any distributor out there.
* The Kominsky Method -- comes back with Kathleen Turner portraying one of Michael Douglas' ex-wives. (They are long term friends.)
* Raising Dion (October 4) is a nine-episode adaptation of the Denis Liu and Jason Piperberg comic of the same name. It's about a single mom who discovers her son has superpowers.
* The Politician - (September 27) is a political satire about an overly ambitious high schooler who sees himself as President. And needs to become President of his high school's student council first. It stars people like Gwenyth Paltrow, Ben Platt, Jessica Lange...and is by Ryan Murphy.
* Living with Yourself (October 18) - Paul Rudd plays himself and a clone of himself. It's a science fiction comedy thriller about a man who tries to become the best version of himself through a spa treatment, only to discover that means having himself cloned -- and the original version destroyed. The clone is the best version.
Something goes wrong and he survives.
* Daybreak (Oct 24) -- this is a dystopian teen dramedy, in which the adults are turned into brain dead zombies, and teens have formed Warrioresque tribes in their high school to survive. The cheerleaders, the geeks, etc -- and the protagonist, who is a transfer student from Canada has to go travel through this high school apocalypse to find his missing girl-friend.
(Sigh. I keep wishing they'd adapt The Girl Who Owned a City (which apparently now has a graphic novel version? The Girl Who Owned a City - The Graphic Novel. It was a favorite of mine in Junior High, when I was about 12 or 13. That's a cool dystopian story -- all the adults die of this weird illness, and a teenage girl figures out how to turn her abandoned high school into a city. Has a lot of interesting organizational politics and world-building, doesn't just delve into oh we have to fight each other like brainless brutes from Fieldings Lord of the Flies. Honestly, after a while the Lord of Flies trope gets old.)
* Unblieveable -September 13 (wait that's Friday) - This is a limited series adapted from a real story about an 18 year old rape victim who is forced to repeatedly account her story because the male detectives refuse to believe it. Toni Collette and Merrit Weaver play the female cops who investigate and trace it to a serial rapist. It's adapted from the acclaimed Marshall Project/ProPublica article that traced the girl's journey along with the separate investigation into the serial rapist. (I'm not sure I can watch this -- sounds like it will raise my blood pressure.)
* On CBS (not the streaming channel, the network) and forcactuswatcher who asked about this some time ago...EVIL got a good review in EW. The critic lists it as among the Must-Watch TV Shows of the new fall season. "There's nothing here that will reinvent the skeptic/believer TV Template but thanks to innovative creators Robert and Michelle King, Evil is perhaps the sharpest, funniest and smartest CBS Drama since The Good Wife. (It's hard to imaging any other show-runners working Occam's razor and Wernicke's area of the brain into their network pilot.) Offering thoughtful debates about religion and more, Evil could be a new kind of TV anima : the philosophical procedural."
The idea came from a debate between the creators on whether there is a scientific explanation or religious one for evil.
The cast is Katja Herbere (Westworld), Mike Coulter (ex-Luke Cage), Assif Mandvi, and Michael Emerson (playing a villain).
There's other shows too -- but I've already mentioned them in prior posts. Also, EW apparently gave up on talking about everything. It used to, but at this point, let's face it -- it's impossible. They just feature the stuff that they found interesting or got to check out prior to publication.
Of the new stuff?
I've decided to try on network television the following:
Evil (because I find the King's interesting, not the subject matter)
The Unicorn (because I'd watch Goggins read the newspaper -- Walter Goggins of Justified, The Shield, Sons of Anarchy, Lincoln, Ant-Man and the Wasp, plays widower with kids, who re-enters the dating game.)
Emergence (I'd watch Ann Tolman in just about anything -- she was the best thing in the Fargo series...she plays a cop who helps a little girl, who is the sole survivor of a mysterious plane crash)
Carol's Second Act (Patricia Heaton and Kyle McLachlan in a hospital themed sitcom)
Stumptown -- Cobie Smulders plays a kick-ass female Philip Marlow
Almost Family (Timothy Hutton plays a fertility doctor who got a bit too loose with his sperm donations, and Brittany Snow plays his daughter who discovers half a dozen or more half-siblings because of Daddy's nefarious deed.)
Nancy Drew(October 9) - CW - I read the books.
The streaming? I only have netflix, amazon and HBO. Also Broadway HD, which is via Amazon and will be cancelled soon.
I am not getting Apple, FB, or CBS All Access. I may do a free trial again of Hulu in December. And I may get Disney +, but I'm waiting for a bit. Right now all it has is the Mandalorian as new content.
2. 9/11 is History Now -- Here's how it is being taught in the classroom
What Must Be Learned
It’s not surprising that teaching 9/11 as history is a delicate task. In addition to the emotional burden that falls on teachers who remember that day, the subject matter is sensitive and the images and documents that might be used as primary sources are disturbing. The story is also very much still being written, as the effects of 9/11 on American society continue to evolve.
There is also no national guideline that states are required to follow in terms of teaching the topic, so lessons will vary depending on the teacher or school district. In New York, for example, schools will observe a moment of silence on Wednesday, after Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a law on Monday requiring observation of the anniversary. A 2017 analysis of state high-school social-studies academic standards in the 50 states and the District of Columbia noted that 26 specifically mentioned the 9/11 attacks, nine mentioned terrorism or the war on terror, and 16 didn’t mention 9/11 or terrorism-related examples at all.
That variation is part of the reason why Jeremy Stoddard, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education, set out to analyze how teachers are talking about 9/11 in classrooms nationwide.
A new study released this month, on which Stoddard is the lead author, polled 1,047 U.S. middle- and high-school teachers and revealed that the most popular method of teaching about 9/11 and the War on Terror was showing a documentary or “similar video.” The next most cited method was discussing related current events. The third most mentioned approach was sharing personal stories, the way Hetrick does; Stoddard says younger teachers in particular tend to aim to get kids “to feel like they felt that day, to understand the shock and horror people felt that day.”
The survey built on his prior research looking at textbooks and classroom resources developed to teach about the event in the first few years after 2001. He and UW-Madison colleague Diana Hess studied nine of the bestselling high school U.S History, World History, Government and Law textbooks published in 2004 and 2006, and then did side-by-side comparisons between three of them and editions published in 2009 and 2010, noting how descriptions of the attacks evolved.
For example, four of the nine earlier textbooks mentioned the war in Iraq as part of the aftermath of 9/11, but when Stoddard and Hess were doing research in 2005, only one, McDougal Littell’s The Americans (2005), got into how evidence for the weapons of mass destruction claims had not yet been found. One 2005 textbook, Prentice Hall’s Magruder’s American Government, said that when Congress authorized President George W. Bush to take whatever measures were “necessary and appropriate” to neutralize the threat of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in the wake of 9/11, “it was widely believed that the regime had amassed huge stores of chemical and biological weapons”; the 2010 edition deleted the sentence about weapons of mass destruction. In some textbooks, the descriptions of the attacks got shorter as time went on. For example, that 2005 edition of The Americans said about 3,000 people were killed in the attacks, and then specified how many were passengers on the planes, people who worked at or were visiting the World Trade Center, and how many were first responders. The 2010 version cut out the breakdown of the casualties.
“A lot of the main themes that we saw way back in 2003 — in terms of, it’s a day of remembrance, a focus on the first responders and the heroes of the day and the actions they took, the world coming together in response to this horrible terrorist attack — a lot of those themes are still very much the way it’s being taught,” says Stoddard. “Middle schools are focusing a little bit more on first responders and heroes of the day. High school is where you would probably see more of an emphasis on the causes, the events leading up to it and maybe more on the response. High–school teachers did talk more about the Patriot Act and surveillance and some of those national-security-versus-civil-liberties types of issues.”
One World Trade Center on Aug. 29, 2019, in New York City.
3. Stacy Abrams discusses Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Political Themes with in it, also why a remake won't work
I actually agree with what she says. She states that she had watched all of Buffy and all five seasons of Angel, and felt those characters arcs were satisfyingly concluded, and we don't need to revisit them. She liked how they ended. And if you were to reboot or remake that with the same characters, that hurts both the watcher and the actor trying to do it. It's a disservice to the previous story. She doesn't tend to like remakes for that reason. If you are to do something with Buffy -- it would make more sense to explore new character within that world or a different character that hasn't been explored -- such as the potentials. In revisit the world, not the same characters.
Having attempted to read the Boom!Comics Reboot -- I agree with her. It doesn't work. You can do it with movies -- which are isolated moments in time, and shorter. But a series on television -- not so much. It's jarring.
4. EW's Fall Television Preview finally arrived. And it has lengthy articles or snippets on various upcoming series that look interesting.
* I'm most excited about His Dark Materials -- which is a book series that has been adapated and is airing simultaneously on BBC and HBO. I loved the books (actually I liked the books a lot better than Game of Thrones, far more enjoyable.)
It's an interesting world with some interesting ideas.
Watchman is also coming, but it looks dark and depressing and...sort of similar to all the other dystopian stuff that I've seen of late. Also talked about it in previous posts.
Others of note that are on streaming channels?
* The Mandalorian on Disney + makes me want Disney + -- it's set after Return of the Jedi and long before Force Awakens. It follows a bounty hunter in the far reaches of the post Empire. Has an interesting and diverse cast -- and is developed and directed by Jon Favereau, along with Takiti W, who plays a role in it. Really explores the world, and has an old west-sci-fi feel similar to the first Star Wars film - "Star Wars: A New Hope".
* Modern Love is on Amazon Prime -- and it is anthology series that adapts personal love stories from The New Yorker, I think. One of which was written by Denis Leary's wife about how they reinvented their marriage, that one stars Tina Fey and John Slattery, others ...Dev Patel, Anne Hathaway, Andy Garcia, and Cristin Milloti.
[There are two on Apple Streaming, which I'm ignoring, because I don't have nor want Apple TV. Also several on Showtime, Starz, and Facebook...seriously there's one too many distribution channels at the moment.]
Netflix has quite a few, making me wonder how Netflix is doing this..they have the most scripted series of any distributor out there.
* The Kominsky Method -- comes back with Kathleen Turner portraying one of Michael Douglas' ex-wives. (They are long term friends.)
* Raising Dion (October 4) is a nine-episode adaptation of the Denis Liu and Jason Piperberg comic of the same name. It's about a single mom who discovers her son has superpowers.
* The Politician - (September 27) is a political satire about an overly ambitious high schooler who sees himself as President. And needs to become President of his high school's student council first. It stars people like Gwenyth Paltrow, Ben Platt, Jessica Lange...and is by Ryan Murphy.
* Living with Yourself (October 18) - Paul Rudd plays himself and a clone of himself. It's a science fiction comedy thriller about a man who tries to become the best version of himself through a spa treatment, only to discover that means having himself cloned -- and the original version destroyed. The clone is the best version.
Something goes wrong and he survives.
* Daybreak (Oct 24) -- this is a dystopian teen dramedy, in which the adults are turned into brain dead zombies, and teens have formed Warrioresque tribes in their high school to survive. The cheerleaders, the geeks, etc -- and the protagonist, who is a transfer student from Canada has to go travel through this high school apocalypse to find his missing girl-friend.
(Sigh. I keep wishing they'd adapt The Girl Who Owned a City (which apparently now has a graphic novel version? The Girl Who Owned a City - The Graphic Novel. It was a favorite of mine in Junior High, when I was about 12 or 13. That's a cool dystopian story -- all the adults die of this weird illness, and a teenage girl figures out how to turn her abandoned high school into a city. Has a lot of interesting organizational politics and world-building, doesn't just delve into oh we have to fight each other like brainless brutes from Fieldings Lord of the Flies. Honestly, after a while the Lord of Flies trope gets old.)
* Unblieveable -September 13 (wait that's Friday) - This is a limited series adapted from a real story about an 18 year old rape victim who is forced to repeatedly account her story because the male detectives refuse to believe it. Toni Collette and Merrit Weaver play the female cops who investigate and trace it to a serial rapist. It's adapted from the acclaimed Marshall Project/ProPublica article that traced the girl's journey along with the separate investigation into the serial rapist. (I'm not sure I can watch this -- sounds like it will raise my blood pressure.)
* On CBS (not the streaming channel, the network) and for
cactuswatcher who asked about this some time ago...EVIL got a good review in EW. The critic lists it as among the Must-Watch TV Shows of the new fall season. "There's nothing here that will reinvent the skeptic/believer TV Template but thanks to innovative creators Robert and Michelle King, Evil is perhaps the sharpest, funniest and smartest CBS Drama since The Good Wife. (It's hard to imaging any other show-runners working Occam's razor and Wernicke's area of the brain into their network pilot.) Offering thoughtful debates about religion and more, Evil could be a new kind of TV anima : the philosophical procedural."The idea came from a debate between the creators on whether there is a scientific explanation or religious one for evil.
The cast is Katja Herbere (Westworld), Mike Coulter (ex-Luke Cage), Assif Mandvi, and Michael Emerson (playing a villain).
There's other shows too -- but I've already mentioned them in prior posts. Also, EW apparently gave up on talking about everything. It used to, but at this point, let's face it -- it's impossible. They just feature the stuff that they found interesting or got to check out prior to publication.
Of the new stuff?
I've decided to try on network television the following:
Evil (because I find the King's interesting, not the subject matter)
The Unicorn (because I'd watch Goggins read the newspaper -- Walter Goggins of Justified, The Shield, Sons of Anarchy, Lincoln, Ant-Man and the Wasp, plays widower with kids, who re-enters the dating game.)
Emergence (I'd watch Ann Tolman in just about anything -- she was the best thing in the Fargo series...she plays a cop who helps a little girl, who is the sole survivor of a mysterious plane crash)
Carol's Second Act (Patricia Heaton and Kyle McLachlan in a hospital themed sitcom)
Stumptown -- Cobie Smulders plays a kick-ass female Philip Marlow
Almost Family (Timothy Hutton plays a fertility doctor who got a bit too loose with his sperm donations, and Brittany Snow plays his daughter who discovers half a dozen or more half-siblings because of Daddy's nefarious deed.)
Nancy Drew(October 9) - CW - I read the books.
The streaming? I only have netflix, amazon and HBO. Also Broadway HD, which is via Amazon and will be cancelled soon.
I am not getting Apple, FB, or CBS All Access. I may do a free trial again of Hulu in December. And I may get Disney +, but I'm waiting for a bit. Right now all it has is the Mandalorian as new content.