Oscar Ennui

We are such stuff as dreams are made on...

~ The Tempest, Wm. Shakespeare

Really? Well, once upon a time, Hollywood seemed such a place to me.

Never have I been more detached from Oscar proceedings than I am this year. I've seen one nominated movie in the theater and two on DVD. Aside from that, I'm completely uninformed, and happily so.

The King's Speech, which represents my one trip to the movies, was an excellent film. Whatever prizes it collects will seem justified to me. I watched Toy Story 3 on DVD and thought it inferior to the previous two movies. Inception, another DVD pick, would more aptly have been titled Incomprehensible. Good acting, quality production--nonsensical story.

I'll watch the pageant tonight, as I always have since my teenage years. It's a personal tradition. But sadly, never have I cared less who might win.

Educational Wasteland

"I get paid whether you learn or not."

- American teacher, quoted by a former student, in Waiting for Superman

The current government workers' stand-off with the Wisconsin governor over entitlements provides a timely background story for a viewing of Waiting for Superman, the award-winning documentary about the sorry state of our nation's public schools.

Michelle Rhee, former chancellor of Washington D.C. schools--which are, ironically, the worst in the nation--puts it best. She remarks that the teachers' unions are "all about protecting the adults." In the unions' calculated war to protect teacher tenure and taxpayer-funded pensions and healthcare, it's the children, especially poor ones, who are left out of the equation.

If you care about education in America, watch this film. It will make you angry, break your heart, and offer a ray of hope at the end. Waiting for Superman is a movie every parent should see.

The Storm Gathers

Allah is our objective, the Prophet is our leader, the Koran is our law, jihad is our way, and dying in the way of Allah is our highest objective.

~ The Muslim Brotherhood

Andrew C. McCarthy paints a harrowing picture of how ill-equipped our current president is to deal with the grim realities on the ground in Egypt.

McCarthy, author of The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America, knows what he's talking about. He convicted the terrorists who planned and executed the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Today's geopolitical climate is frighteningly like Europe's in the 1930s. Not enough people are paying attention to the gathering storm.

Chilling Reality

"It is going to be a long two years. You see, the world has figured Obama out, and the wages of our version of 1979-80 are coming due."

~ Victor Davis Hanson

As the turmoil in Egypt continues, my worst nightmare has come true. We are in the midst of an international crisis, and our president is Barack Obama. It is difficult to imagine anyone in politics today less qualified to negotiate for American interests in the perilous waters of Middle East foreign policy than our current "citizen of the world" president.

Victor Davis Hanson's website has extensive, insightful commentary on the dangers of the current Egyptian unrest. Where the crisis in Egypt is headed is still a mystery, but one thing is almost certain: President Obama will perform his usual fence-walking act, with customary bombast and no action.

Even more chilling is the probability that the president has never heard of, let alone read and learned from, The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright. The Muslim Brotherhood must be rubbing its collective hands together with absolute delight.