"Black Watch," A New Play

Gregory Burke's new play, Black Watch, premiered at this year's Edinburgh Festival, and this NPR report by Rob Gifford (8/29/06 - 4:40) provides an unusual, non-American look into the Iraq War. The "Black Watch" of the title refers to a famed Scottish regiment, and the piece details the fierce local loyalties of the soldiers. A Scotsman interviewed in the group compares American marines, who fight for their country, with Scottish soldiers, who, he claims, are more interested in defending their villages, perhaps not unlike so much of the reporting from Iraq itself that focuses on neighborhoods inside Baghdad or villages or cities such as Fallujah.

Classroom thoughts

• The NPR site notes how "Scots have long formed a disproportionate percentage of the British military, from Waterloo to Kosovo." What is your sense, based on high school experience or friends generally, of who is serving in the U.S. military?
  
  
• We often hear international conflict explained as a global war or clash between civilizations--for instance, those who believe in freedom versus those who do not. Yet, this piece suggests that local loyalties, basically to one's village, even one's family (in some places, they may be the same), may play a much bigger role in global conflict than we admit. What do you think?
  

Tracking Kids' Every Move

From NPR's Tovia Smith comes this feature (8/29/06 - 5:40) guaranteed to arouse a heated discussion in any freshman class: on automobile tracking devices based on GPS technology. Not only does the technology track where teenagers take the family car but also how fast they are driving.

A core part of this feature is the position of child psychiatrist Steve Shlozman, who argues that "keeping too close an eye on kids, often backfires":

When kids feel crowded, they tend to do things that they otherwise would not do . . . . They take even greater risk because they have a desire to prove their independence and their individuality. There is something they need to get away with.

The father in the piece calls this "psycho-babble," and claims his daughter will someday thank him for caring enough to keep tabs on her movement.

Classroom thoughts

• Where do you come down on the debate between the child psychologist and the father in the NPR piece?
  
• Monitoring or spying is clearly becoming a more normal part of everyday life, especially for groups that for one reason or another seem to willingly have conceded some of their rights, such as people who fly. What other groups of people seem to have less right to privacy, and how do you feel about the matter?
  

A Year after Katrina: A Photo Essay

Here is something different from NPR: a photo-essay (3:50) featuring 10 pairs of photographs of New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, then-and-now, one year later, by Mario Tama. The music is Nicholas Payton's rendition of "Way Down Yonder."

There's also Steve Inskeep's audio essay (with photos), 24 Hours: A Day in the Life in New Orleans (3:14).

Classroom thoughts

• Which pair of Tama photos do you find most effective?
• What advantages, if any, do you see in still photographs over video clips?
• Find and report on other Katrina photos on the web.
  

Spirit of New Orleans Music

To commemorate the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrica , NPR has posted this web page feature ten local musicians or groups, and ten songs that convey the "spirit, their spunk and their commitment to Crescent City."

Melissa Block talked with local musicologist Nick Spitzer a week after Hurricane Katrina (9/9/205 - 7:32) in a report that features 5 songs that remind Spitzer of his home: 'Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans?' - Louis Armstrong; 'Louisiana 1927' - Aaron Neville; 'When the Levee Breaks' - Memphis Minnie; 'Walking to New Orleans' - Fats Domino; and 'Right Place Wrong Time' - Dr. John.

Here Randy Newman (4:06) talk about the song that has become the anthem of Katrina, "Louisiana 1927" - lyrics here.

Classroom thoughts

• What songs do you associate with your home?
• Songs can capture different emotions. What different feelings about New Orleans arfe captured in these songs?
  

Deep-Fried Fuel

Sometimes a story is just too good to pass up, too colorful, too much fun -- such is the Kitchen Sisters' NPR piece, Deep-Fried Fuel: A Biodiesel Kitchen Vision (7/24/06 - 6:44). Part of what makes the piece so much fun is the cast of Texas characters collected here, including Carl Cornelius and his one-of-a-kind truck stop, Carl's Corner; Kinky Friedman, "a self-described 'compassionate redneck,' guitar player, songwriter, mystery writer, entertainer and leader of the band Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jew Boys"; and country singer Willie Nelson, the founding spirit of BioWillie Diesel Fuel. Maybe things in Texas really are larger than life!

Much of the atmospher is added by the music in the piece, including songs, which can be played individually, by Roy Garrett and Linda Elaine, Bill Kisinger ("Biodiesel Rebel"), the Sons of the Pioneers ("Diesel Smoke"), and Los Strait Jackets.

Classroom thoughts

• Bio-diesel may or may not be a solution to our energy needs; here is a serious article on the subject from Wikipedia.
  
  
• One point raised in this piece is the value of grass-roots activity, people acting in their own interest without the sanction of either government or corporations. What grass-roots activities are you aware of?

Iwo Jima Photograph

This week saw the passing of Joe Rosenthal, the man who took the famous photo of six U.S. servicemen raising the U.S. flag over Iwo Jima in World War II -- an event marked in this short piece (8/21/06 - 0:55) by Renée Montagne. The NPR page also has the AP story on Rosenthal's death. On 2/19/05, Scott Simon (1:01) marked the 60th anniversary of the U.S. landing on the island.

NPR's Ken Rudin has this blog on the event, noting the controversy surrounding the photograph, namely whether or not the scene was staged. Rosenthal's photo seems to have taken on new life with Thomas E. Franklin's iconic image of the fire-fighters raising the flag over the ruins of the World Trade Center.

Other U.S. wars, like Vietnam, seem to be associated with much different images, such as Nick Ut's photo of girl being burned by napalm.

Classroom thoughts

• Patriotism is a difficult topic to bring into the classroom as it arouses fierce emotions in many. Perhaps one entry point might be in a discussion of the role images play in thatg intense experience -- Rosenthal's photo, for one, or other images as well, including the flag.
• Look at other famous historical photographs (here are some Pulitizer Prize winners at the NewsMuseum.org) and see if you can find a common feature in them.
  
• During the recent war between Israel and Lebanon, there was a dust-up over a doctored wire-service showing smoke over Beruit. Can you explain the issues there?
  

Black-White Reality TV

You have to hand it to the creators of reality TV shows: There seems to be no limit to their creativity, their ability to imagine unusual, fascinating situations. Now the F/X Network has used the latest Hollywood makeup techniques to create a new series, Black-White, in which a black family and white family change races. In this piece from NPR's Day to Day, Race Reality TV Series Debuts (3/8/06 - 8:55), Madeleine Brand talks to the show's executive producer and two of the show's participants. Here's a link to the show's website.

There's a longer piece, Shades of Gray, from Talk of the Nation (3/7/06 - 40:23).

NPR also has these other features on reality shows: 'Fat Chance': A Plus-Sized Beauty Contest
(8/5/05); 'Dancing with Stars' Gets Off on Right Foot (7/3/05); 'Being Bobby Brown': Surreal Reality TV (6/30/06); The Reality of 'Amish in the City' (7/28/04)

Classroom thoughts

• A tangle of issues specific to the F/X show, Black-White
• What makes a good premise for a reality show? Can you come up with a new one yourself?
  

Cremation of Sam McGee

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who toil for gold;

The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;

The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see

Was that night on the marge of Lake Laberge
I cremated Sam McGee.

So begins and ends of Robert Service's classic comic poem "The Creation of Sam McGee -- the tale of gold-mining in the Yukon Territory and one miner's "last request.""

Here's a bit of a deep-summer lark, two readings of the poem, one by country singer Johnny Cash and the other by children author Daniel Pinkwater with NPR's Scott Simon.

Service, a Scotsman, lived in the Yukon during the Klondike gold rush and actually based his poem on an incident of his rommate, a surgeon who came across a corpse.

The poem was originally published in 1907, was later transformed into a children's book with striking serigraph illustrations by Canadian artist, Ted Harrison.

Classroom thoughts

• Compare the two readings.
• Consider the impact of climate on people, their culture and art.
• Is the service poem "children's literature"? How do you explain the enduring popularity of such a poem, or children's literature generally? Feel free to draw on your own examples.

The 1st Invasion of Iraq

The war in Iraq is the great historical event of the day, and, while it clearly arouses great passions across the country, it may not be all that easy to bring within the confines of a college writing classroom. The issues are so large, so polemical, and, in their own way, rooted in historical, geo-political questions that may be hard to frame. Here we look at one related matter: the utter mess of things the British made when they invaded, occupied, and then tried to build the modern nation of Iraq in the 1920s, after World War I and the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

From All Things Considered (7-8-2003 - 7:47) comes this historical piece:

Britain's experience in Iraq after World War I offers a cautionary tale for the United States and its forces in the country. Like the United States, Britain promised to "liberate" Iraq, not to "occupy" it. As with U.S. forces, British troops were attacked by Iraqis not long after the occupation began. And British forces in Iraq were stretched too thin. NPR's Mike Shuster reports on these and other parallels between then and now.

Here's a short follow-up review (11-5-2003, 3:13) of Shuster's on Toby Dodge's Inventing Iraq: The Failure of Nation-Building and a History Denied. And here is an interview Scott Simon had with Dodge (11-15-2003, 5:18).

WWI Deserters

At a time when some are referring to the "War on Terrorism" as World War III, it might be interesting to take this peek into that bloodiest and most horrific of all wars, World War I, or what at the the time was called The Great War and, later (and mistakenly) "The War to End All Wars." This short Morning Edition piece (8/17/06) by Guy Raz, "UK to Pardon WWI Deserters" (3:33) deals with one lingering aftermath of the horror that so affected an entire generation of British life. At the heart of the issue was trench warfare (see Wikipedia on trench warfare)--the first time that countries brought the full weight of industrial culture to bear on warfare, with the result that deeply dug in armies could bring immense killing power against an enemy who attempted any offensive maneuver.

World War I is memorable for the amount of literature it produced and eventually films. Two notable ones that deal specifically with the horrors of trench warfare are Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory (1957) and Peter Weir's Gallipoli (1981).

The NPR piece raises the question of then-and-now as related to the condition of shell-shock, now referred to as PTSD (post-traumatic shock syndrome). Here is just one NPR commentary, by Jesus Bocanegra, on PTSD and Iraq.

Youth and "Oldies"

Here's a fascinating piece by NPR's science report, Robert Krulwich, Does Age Quash Our Spirit of Adventure? (12:49) on human nature and our openness to innovation. The piece begins with the case of a noted scientist in his 40s, Robert Sapolsky, who was being driven crazy by a 20-something assistant who was playing different styles of music everyday: "from Sonic Youth to Minnie Pearl." This infuriated Sapolsky, who began to wonder why he still felt so attached to the music he loved when in college. "Is there a certain age," Krulwich asks, "when the typical American passes from the novelty stage to utter predictability?" Are there larger implications here about the tension between stability and change, who we are and who we might still become?

One wonders about the range of openness and adventure in a class full of colege students in fall 2006. Why not conduct some surveys and find out, regarding music and the other two areas Sapolsky studies, food (sushi, especially) and body modification.

Here's a link to an NPR page on the enduring popularity of Bob Marley, including the complete track of "One Love."

Bodies

Science museums across the country have been attracting huge crowds to exhibits featuring human bodies, or cadavers, that have been treated with silicone (plastinated) for public viewing. This NPR piece by Neda Ulaby, Cadaver Exhibits Are Part Science, Part Sideshow (All Things Considered, 8/10/06 - 8:57) presents an overview of the phenomenon or fad, raising an issue that haunts all sorts of exhibitions, including zoos, and that is, how do we balance the educational value versus a kind of unseemly sensationalism and voyeurism? (See these Wikipedia entries on zoos and Ripley's Believe-It-or-Not Museums.)

Ulaby also has a background piece on the same page. NPR's Day to Day did a piece on the plastination process two years ago (7/16/2005 - 5:42). Body Worlds has its own web site and there is a Wikipedia entry as well.

Hassan Nasrallah

New York writer Adam Shatz gives this short overview of Hassan Nasrallah by (All Things Considered, 7/17/06 - 4:30), the leader of the Lebonaese terrorist, paramilitary, and policitical party known as Hezbollah ("Party of God"). You can also read an article by Shatz, "Nasrallah's Game" from The Nation (7/31/2006). Guy Raz has also posted this written profile of Nasrallah at NPR; also on this same page is a piece by Jennifer Lunden entitled, "Hezbollah's Changing Mission."

In March 2005, Ivan Watson filed this report, Hezbollah's Political Wing Flexes Muscle (4:48), on the changing status in Lebanon in the face of Syria's withdrawal from the country. There's a longer, detailed discussion (with transcript), "Who Is Hezbollah?", including a 1st-person account of Nasrallah on Talk of the Nation (7/19/2006 - 33:58).

One important element of the discussion here is the role of villains in political discourse--what has become a significent since 9/11 and what is now called the global war or terror. The notion of villain (Wikipedia), however, comes not from politics, but from theater, and one can legitimately raise the issue of the benefits and possible problems of such a theatrical understanding politics.

One might also want to look at the Nasrallah entry at Wikipedia to see the problems in trying to produce "objective" account of such a controversial figure.

The Marlboro Man

In 2002, NPR began a series entitled Present at the Creation--a look at a series of American icons, many drawn from popular culture. One wonders if students today even know of the Marlboro Man ads that began in the 1950s. The NPR piece, The Marlboro Man (7:03) is a model of historical reconstruction, covering a signiicant moment of American culture in capsule form.

Musings

• This topic also deals with the power of one specific image: that of the rugged cowboy. How do you explain the effectiveness of this particular image? Does it appeal more to men or women, the old or the young ? Why? Here's an aside: One of the most recognizable photographs from the Iraq war is the Marine at Fallujah, not surprisingly known as the "Marlboro Soldier." The soldier was Lance Cpl. James Blake Miller and a little bit of research will reveal the great distance that often separates images from reality.
  
  
• The NPR web page has links to a number of articles relating to Marlboro, Philip Morris, and anti-smoking campaigns. One particular sub-area of this campaign has been the largely unsuccessful effort to ban the use of all pictures in magazine, poster, and billboard ads for cigarettes--that is, the kind of advertising that made Marlboro so popular and seems still to have a real appeal. Here's a summary of the history of cigarette advertising. What are your thoughts about not allowing cigarette companies to use pictures in their billboards and magazine ads? Here's a link to some background on Camel's Joe Camel campaign.
  
  
• A related matter here is the movement to ban or control other sorts of ads: for instance, beer commercials on TV or in college arenas, or junk foods aimed at kids. Identify some commercial images used in commercials for these products that you think have been especially effective. Here's an aside that may prove of interest to some: an article on the move in Sao Paolo, Brazil to ban all outdoor picture ads (that is, billboards).
  

One Hundred Years of Cool

In the midst of a sizzling summer, here's a short piece (3:10) on Weekend Edition Sunday (8/6/2006) celebrating 100 years of air conditioning--an interview with Deborah Hawkins, Chairman of the Air Conditioner and Refrigeration Institute. There's also a short, opening segment with Gail Cooper, author of Air-conditioning America: Engineers and the Controlled Environment, 1900-1960, broadcast last Friday on Boston's WBUR. Cooper briefly discusses traditional, old-fashioned ways people used to beat the summer heat, including summer cabins. Swimming surely was another way, as was summer drinks, foods, and clothes. Students might have their own thoughts on life without air conditioning, even though some may never have known such a world. NPR has a whole page on summer diversions, including these two delightful pieces by Gilliam Kohl on lemonade stands (3:39) and Bonny Wolf on jello molds (2:55). Everyone has something to add on summer foods or other ways of coping with the heat.

In the interview with Cooper, there's a brief discussion of (hard to believe) the possible negative consequences of air conditioning, focusing on the possible social, not environmental, consequences. Here's an article, How Air Conditioning Changed America, that might frames the issue.

What Is a Museum?

Harriet Baskas’s entertaining piece, What Is a Museum? (All Things Considered, 8:13), raises the question of definition: What constitutes a museum? Does it have to have a real (brick-and-mortar) existence, or can it just exist virtually (online)? There is much to play with on this single issue. Surely, no one would claim that a business has to have brick-and-mortar form to be a business—think of Amazon.com. Yet, for some, museum seems to be a different matter, perhaps because the word itself seems to carry a certain level of cultural authority: Not just any old place where things are collected but a place where certain things are collected in a certain (proper?) way. Students often are asked to write definition papers, and here is as good a place as any in which to begin such an assignment.

But there is much more here, as the virtual museums mentioned here are utterly delightful places, including American Dime Museum, Gallery of Skate Park IDs, and the Guide to Whistling Records. These are fun places to visit and open up the endlessly fascinating topic of roadside attractions and our general interest in oddities. The Museum of Online Museums, mentioned in the piece, is a good place to start exploring--another is RoadsideAmerica.com-- although many students may have knowledge of more local, even family collections. Let the fun begin!