Dave Maass

The trailer makes Season 5 look incredible, though I’m not sold on Matt Smith yet. I’m waiting for the personality to burst through. So far, he just looks dopey. I keep telling myself: Have faith in Steven Moffat. If Smith sucks, he’ll only last a season or two. (Knock on T.A.R.D.I.S.)

I don’t wade into education issues very often for three reasons: 1) I don’t have children, 2) I studied a great deal overseas and 3) I usually find the issue very boring. I also tend to find PBS quite dull, so it’s surprising that I feel strongly that this particular NewsHour segment blogworthy.

In this story (embedded below), some teachers’ unions are opposing the Race to the Top grant competition.  Why? Because they don’t like the idea of rewarding teachers based on their results. Here’s the explanation that National Education Association president Dennis Van Roekel, a union leader, gave to astute newsman John Merrow:

JOHN MERROW: You defend the current system?

DENNIS VAN ROEKEL: I believe it works, yes.

JOHN MERROW: I get paid based on how many years I have been teaching and how many graduate credits I have. It has nothing to do with how my students perform?

DENNIS VAN ROEKEL: I think, depending on how you do the — the advancement on the salary schedule, there are a lot of ways to do that.

JOHN MERROW: But some teachers are better than others. They are. I mean, there’s plenty of evidence showing that some teachers actually deliver real performance gains, and some don’t. Should those teachers who deliver those performance gains make more money than the ones who don’t? It’s a yes-or-no question.

DENNIS VAN ROEKEL: Not only — not based just on that factor, no.

You kinda have to watch Van Roekel’s demeanor in the interview to get the full effect (below). This guy gives unions a bad name. The education system is about making our youth smarter, better informed and able to succeed in whatever endeavors they pursue as adults. If the union isn’t on board with that goal, then screw ‘em. The education system’s main function is not to keep teachers employed.

Here’s the video:

Many of you know that I now have a significant other, so to speak, and that her name is Megan and that she’s a filmmaker. Those of you who don’t, well, now you do. Recently, she completed a trailer for her 1-hour-long documentary, Finding Home and uploaded it to YouTube (above). Give it a watch; she’s currently in the process of finding funding in order to host more screenings of the film and to submit it to film festivals. Here’s the synopsis (which I helped write):

“Finding Home” explores the concept of home at the beginning of the 21st century from a working woman’s Do-It-Yourself sensibility.

Megan O’Connor, the San Diego-based filmmaker, takes the viewer to the blizzards of Beatrice, Nebraska, both her hometown and the location of the Homestead National Monument, only to discover that home isn’t necessarily where you were raised. Unfortunately, it isn’t where you live at any given moment either, she learns by polling everyone from her Generation X friends to the homeless of Southern California. O’Connor’s journey unfolds while the concept of “home” takes center stage in politics, as the 2008 election reaches a crescendo and the mortgage crisis slams the nation.

A first-person film that will remind documentary fans of Ross McElwee, Finding Home universally resonates with renters, homeowners, and anyone who feels lost and lonely in contemporary society.

I really like McElwee, so it’s no surprise I really like her film (and just her in general).

America just got the health-care bill it earned and deserved. I won’t be surprised if the media analysts come back and declare the 2009-2010 war over health-care reform the most-watched legislative battle in US history. The people protested in new, outrageous, attention-grabbing ways—and they were heard. As were the corporations, the unions, the churches. Both parties in Congress fought until they nearly broke their teeth and nails. Call it compromise or compromised, you can’t argue that the finished law, assuming it survives the legal challenges, isn’t a tempered reform.

I wish conservatives, of both parties, would seize the positive spin: They were victorious in killing the public option and getting an anti-abortion executive order out of a progressive President. That’s doing the public’s business and they should take credit for pushing and shifting the debate. Maybe one day you’ll regain the majority. We can fight the battle again and see whether you compromise less than the Democrats did and still pass the fucker.

This is an invitation to Republicans: Once the bill is a done deal, we should all work together to make the new health-care system as effective, honest and transparent as possible. We should all watchdog it, barking and biting when it strays off course. That means throwing out ideas at public hearings. That means analyzing the data and proposing fixes. That means you cease hoping it will fail and, instead, join the effort to make it work.

America needed something done. And we, America, did something. Stop calling it Obamacare. For better or worse, America owns it now. Live with it.