The 2011 Thing We Won't Forget Award

The first award bestowed by iBlogAmerica

I took it all pretty seriously this year. I found I couldn't even finish most of my ideas because I couldn't stop trying to be The Best Blogger You've Ever Read. Sigh. Waste of time, really.

It's all retrospectives in December. Why? Because everyone wants to know what we're supposed to remember from 2011. Well, in order to do our civic duty, we here at iBlogAmerica offer: The 2011 Thing We Won't Forget Award.

Let's get to it. What were the best fashion disasters? Dancers for Dancing Amongst the Stars? Viral Videos? It's been a huge year, to be sure. But mostly for weather, politics, and business.

WEATHER

These are a few of my favorite things, of course. We got an East Coast earthquake, a NYC hurricane, and three solid blizzards (including one on Halloween). Pretty awesome-- if problematic (because while natural events are awesome, people's lives get ruined. Like in Joplin. No smiles about that-- or about flooding in Vermont or New Jersey. Awesome weather events often are terrible ones-- and that's problematic. And an earthquake isn't weather, technically.)

POLITICS

Osama dead, gay marriage in NY, the Occupy movement, and the GOP presidential carnival are all huge events from this year. Union busting and tenure ending in education (as we predicted in this blog)-- that'll be big in the years to come, for sure.  The ten year anniversary of 9/11 will stick with us, for sure. The embarrassing US Congress will be hard to forget.  The Arab Spring, of course, the death of Qaddafi (or Gaddafi or Xaddafi or whever), the Russian winter. Kim Jong Il died. That's big in North Korea. The Axis of Evil had a terrible year! And who can forget the End of Days by Harold Camping. Oh, right: probably most of us. But I'm still excited for the Mayans in 2012!

MUSIC

But for art, my other other favorite thing, it was a pretty lousy year. Think about music. Gaga? Perry? Tyler the Creator? Beyonce? Kanye and Jay, Lil' Wayne or Wiz? Not much there. I liked Gaga's drag at the Grammy's (or was it American Music Awards). “Born This Way,” even though it's a naked ripoff of Madonna, is an awesome tag for our time. I'm glad Gaga did it. The biggest music story of 2011 may have been that Amy Winehouse died-- but she was so quickly replaced by the much-less-dangerous-to-herself-and-everyone-else-Adele that no one seemed to notice much after a month went by. The point is: there were few truly huge ideas or styles that will likely survive to next year.

MOVIES

Movies? Um. Harry Potter? Dragon Tattoo? The Tree of Life? Hugo? Melancholia? The Artist? Moneyball? Midnight In Paris? Shame or Guilt or whatever. Gosh, I don't know. Where's the unforgettable stuff? Dragon Tattoo seems like it might affect female stereotype model in Hollywood.  That would be cool.  As for the piece you can't imagine missing? I guess I missed it.

THEATRE

Broadway had Warhorse. That's pretty amazing. Big puppets, like in Avenue Q, but without the irony. Certainly an analogue standout in a year of such digital-tech development. Sleep No More has got to be the most successful installation/theatre piece of many years (all time).  I think it has more to do with shooter-perspective video games than anything else-- but that's a whole other blog.  I guess that I should mention Spider Man and Book of Mormon-- but it's hard to see how either will move theatre very far forward.

TV

I hear that there are tons of awesome shows this year. I don't really watch them-- but I should. Mad Men? American Family? Boardwalk Empire? 30 Rock? I've seen a few episodes but certainly not enough. They're all supposed to be amazing.  Memorable?  Well, Tina Fey is the most important female writer in entertainment.  That's not a small thing.

BOOKS

I read The Submission, by Amy Waldman. You should read it. It's an awesome portrait of race, religion, and politics of our time. I am so glad to have read it in the shadow of the constantly growing World Trade Center. Keep growing, building!

TECH

Siri is big. We will all be talking differently forever. Mark my words (add echo effect here). You wait until the 4 and 5 year olds of today are 14 or 15. They will not talk like robots or anything, but they will be deeply changed by the voice interfacing which is sure to be the greatest thing that Steve Jobs is leaving us all. No, he didn't invent it-- he just made its hardware platform a global phenomenon about 8 years before his company made it standard on the iPhone 4S. Yup, we'll be changed by that one.

AND THE AWARD GOES TO...

2011's biggest contribution to world history: the Too Big To Fail Movement in Business. Politically, no one is too big to fail. Look at all the toppled world leaders, Republican presidential candidates, and Anthony Wiener-- but don't look too long.

In Business, being Too Big To Fail is the winning strategy. It spawned the Occupy Movement, remains an albatross around Obama's neck, and and will likely lead to all kinds of political and class conflict in 2012. Go BP! JP Morgan! Bank of America! Congratulations to you all.

The idea “Too Big To Fail:” iBlogAmerica's winner of the 2011 Thing We Won't Forget Award.

Let me know if I forgot anything.

Thanks for the attention, gentle readers. We here at iBlogAmerica (me) wish all of you (you) a happy, prosperous, and risk-filled new year. Go get 'em in 2012, marshmallow.

Teachers: Scapegoats and Saviors I

If you can't DO, then TEACH.
If you can't teach, teach Gym.

What do you call a lazy, know-it-all with summers off?
A high school student.
What do you call a lazy, know-it-all with summers off with pay?
A high school teacher.


It's actually kind of hard to find good teacher jokes on the interwebs. I mean: hard in a “I found it on Google or Yahoo in .34 seconds” sort of way. I only looked for five minutes-- which is the equivalent of three weeks in pre-internet time-- and found really stupid, “family friendly” jokes. Gross. I think I hate “family friendly” anything. (Disclaimer to my parent readers out there: I know that I am a myopic bachelor who lives at the center of my own universe AND when/if I have children, my outlook on everything, including “family friendly” will change. Check. I got it.)

Anyway, I started thinking of writing this blog based on a simple supposition I have: teaching is the most controversial profession of our time. More than oil tycoons, prostitutes, priests, or bloggers, teachers bring out reactions in us. We all have opinions about them, many of us think most are frauds, we've all been screwed by them, and we know that a good one is priceless.

No one doesn't have an opinion about school teachers. Whether we are talking about summers off, salary, moral character, or competence, everyone feels free to judge teachers. A few of my favorites:

“Teachers only work nine months a year-- and they only work from 8-3.”
“People who become teachers do it because they get to push around little kids.”
“I had a teacher who was wasted/high all the time.”
“Teachers have no 'real life' experience.”
“My friend/cousin/coworker had a teacher who was sleeping with his students.”
“Teachers are people who couldn't make it in 'real world.'”

Fun! And these are just among the most common. My favorites are about how teachers are lazy fakers who mooch off the tax system, just to teach their own, narrow belief systems.

Don't get me wrong. I know that the other side of the coin is equally charged: the belief that teachers are magic-working angels. That a good teacher literally gives his life for his students, sacrificing a life outside school in order to grade papers, plan assignments and activities, and tend to his most needy students. These teachers are the Christs or Buddhas of our times. They have no families, are divorced or unmarried, often have nine cats or a couple of dogs, and float a few inches off the ground.

Anyway, so what's it all about? How did the 'fall back job' of the last few generations become the Lady Gaga of professions?

Check back soon and let's talk about it in Part Two!
And I'd love to hear your thoughts...