Just a quick note
I've changed my blog settings so that now anyone can leave comments who wishes. You don't have to be registered at this site to do so.
I'm also trying to learn how to modify the page and add pictures to the blogs so I can customize things around here more to my liking.
Finally, I don't know why I hadn't started with this, but for those who read my previous blog, I'll be going back to the television/movie quote at the end of each posting.
Thanks for reading, and I'll be putting up something again soon. I'm organizing thoughts for a whiny rant (those always seem to be favorites) and since its the weekend, I should have some movie watching time.
Ciao, and thanks for reading,
Shaun
Philosophic waxing inspired by film and work
When people ask me what position I hold at my job, I often answer "communal brain" when I'm in a sarcastic mood. The number of lazy questions I get in a day baffles me. A lazy question is one I define as something anyone with an IQ above 25 could figure out in 5 seconds if they just bothered to look around them and put 2 and 2 together. Tonight, for instance, I was asked which color toner you used when the black toner ran out in the copier, then was asked which was the black toner. When I responded black is the one that says "black" on it, the person proceeded to grab yellow.
Years back I worked the midnight shift. I only worked with one other person most nights, and this particular night I had a trainee whom was anxious to learn, but just seemed incapable of doing so. At one point he turned to me and said, "I just ran a book with 36 pages. I made 2 copies of the book. How do I figure out how many total pages I ran?" I was minorly baffled by the question, but responded with, "What's 36 times 2?" Without missing a beat my trainee responded with "72." I then saw his eyes light up as he figured out what he'd just done. I suppose he could have had a momentary brain fart on a massive scale, but I don't think so. I think that he just honestly had no idea why he was taught how to multiply. He knew his tables, and how to put the numbers together, but was never taught why he would need to do so.
What has happened that causes so many people (I was going to say Americans, but the more I think about it, I've seen it in all races and cultures I've encountered) to lose the ability to critically think? Or did they ever really know in the first place? I blame a large portion of the problem on the current focus in our educational system on the standardized test. This, of course, isn't a new idea. I don't pretend I just thought of it. But, it is a large problem. I've talked to many students who have no idea why they learn what they learn, they just memorize because they are told to. Teachers have told me that they feel their hands are tied because the "system" tells them they have to do things a certain way, and if their scores aren't high enough they could lose their jobs.
But, laziness is also a huge contributor. Why think for yourself when others can do it for you? People you work with, your television, your pastor/rabbi/guru/astrologist or whichever path you follow. Thinking not only means you have to work, it means you have to take some responsibility. If you do well, you can take credit, if you fail, you can say, "S/he told me to do it that way." I see this mindset more and more each day amongst all walks of life, and it is scaring me. Perhaps things have always been this way and I'm just noticing it more and more as I gain more responsibility in life. In way, I hope so, because it would mean we as a people are not getting dumber and lazier, but I suspect due to many of the culprits I mentioned above and too many others to list here we are in fact becoming a more stupid and lazy thinking people.
I recently watched the film "Christmas in July" by Preston Sturgess (I picked up the Preston Sturgess collection recently, you will be seeing his films mention often in this blog in the near future, I imagine). In it, a man dreams of winning a $25,000 prize by coming up with a new catchphrase for a coffee company. His coworkers learn of this, and decide to pull a prank on him by sending him a fake telegram stating that he has won to see how he will react. I won't spoil the movie's plot beyond that, but watching the man's transformation throughout the movie is fascinating. The theme to the film is that you don't have to honestly succeed to be a success, you merely have to convince yourself that you are, and others will follow suit. I know this is an awkward topic shift from my "lazy thoughts" rant, but the two do somewhat go hand in hand.
The power of the mind is an amazing thing. I've said for a long time that intelligence (meaning raw IQ) and book smarts mean very little without also having some other trait that allows you to put them into practice. That trait could be discipline, common sense, wisdom, or compassion, or I'm sure many others. But, you need to have something else. If you've memorized your multiplication tables - fantastic - but what good does that do if you don't understand why? Use a little common sense. You can know how to do everything at your workplace, but so what if you don't have ambition and responsibility to use that knowledge to its best effect?
Just my simple thoughts for the day.
Until next time....
The entry first
I thought I would start my first post of my new blog with my least controversial passion - film. In this newest edition I plan on keeping a log of the movies I see, and particularly those that have an impact on me in some strongly positive or negative fashion. I'll start with two recent viewings.
The Great McGinty
There has never been a writer/director quite like Preston Sturgess. Over 50 years since he last worked on a film, no one has quite been able to make comedy quite like he did. His films somehow manage to deal with tragic events and circumstances and explore uncomfortable themes by largely using slapstick comedy. Even if I didn't know a particular film was directed by Sturgess, I would know a short time into it that he was the one who made the film purely on the basis of his style. Woody Allen is the only director I can think of who even comes close to a similar style, yet Woody never quite got the slapstick right, and Sturgess never whines nor is self effacing in his work.
The Great McGinty was Preston Sturgess' first film. Its a story about a corrupt man who rises to power through corrupt means, then loses everything when he tries to do the right thing for once. But, the story is told mostly through humor in typical Sturgess fashion. I would probably use this film as an introduction to Sturgess for the initiate. Not because its his finest work - far from it - but because it is solid, entertaining, a good example of Sturgess' style, and not his finest work, saving better for later.
The themes in The Great McGinty are quite daring for the period in which the film was made. Not so much on the political front, stories have been made about corrupt politicians since the days of the ancient Greeks, but, more on a moral front. It talks about marriage being a sham that is merely something society uses to approve of a person and not an instrument of love at all. It shows a single mother caring for children who don't really know who their father is, nor even whom to look to for a father figure. Its largely pessimistic about human nature, and leaves you wondering if the director was trying to say that its best to just not care about what happens to others if you want to get ahead in life.
This is a comedy, folks. A slapstick comedy. And, it is quite funny, though often dated.
Still, unlike The Lady Eve or Sullivan's Travels, two Sturgess films which I feel are superior to this one, this film is more about the themes than the humor.
Children of Men
As we walked out of the theater, the person I saw Children of Men with turned to me and said, "That was a really great film, but I'm going to have to warn the people I recommend it to that it's a Jesus movie." I found that statement odd at the time, but I thought about it, and I realize that this person was focusing far too much on one of the themes of the film - and misinterpreting the theme at that.
Children of Men is a film about a near future in which mankind has been sterile for 18 years. No children have been born in 18 years, and despair has taken over the entire human race. Most world civilizations have fallen to ruin and London is the only country left with some form of order, but that order is still a very militaristic and violent one. One man is taken in by a covert organization and given the task of escorting a pregnant woman out of the country. Not an easy task since not only are the laws for emigration and immigration incredibly harsh and enforced at gunpoint, but also because there are many organizations - terrorist and governmental alike - who want to use this woman and her child for their own agendas.
This is what brought up the Jesus comment. One of the stronger and more obvious themes of the film is one of religion and violence. A child is both the salvation of hope in mankind, and the cause of much violence. But, when you see images of people in an immigrant camp being tortured and killed under the Bureau of Homeland Security, when you see images of war from a single person's point of view, and when you see a divorced couple discussing how their lives would have been different if only their child had lived, how can you call a film a "Jesus flick?" It's so much more.
Children of Men is a film that will bother people who need everything explained to them. No one knows why mankind is sterile. The mysterious Human Project is never seen nor is it explained why getting the child to them is so important, other than that it will be away from the people who would use him to their advantage. Many things go unexplained. Not only is that unimportant in my opinion, but it really adds to themes of the film - which if I had to sum them up as succinctly as possible - are about hope. Religion, politics, marriage, family, friendship, all are dealt with maturely in the film and all show what the world would be like if we didn't have people to rely on. That is what the film is ultimately about. How we all help each other against the powers who would take away our hope.
