Thursday Trendwatch (Saturday Edition)

10. ROBOT SURGERY
Why it's trending: According to a headline on Foxnews.com (and I can only imagine what kind of sinister GOP cookies just got embedded in my computer when I went to THAT site), "Questions remain on value of robot prostate surgery."  I didn't even realize robots had prostates!

9. MITT ROMNEY
Why he's trending: I'll give you three guesses, and the first two don't count.  Specifically, though, the Mittster has affirmed that, if elected, he "will not take God out of the name of our party platform."  The Democrats, of course, first removed and then reinstated the Almighty in their party platform, a non-story that Republicans predictably milked for all it was worth.  I was unaware that God appeared in the "name" of the Republican party platform, which is actually titled "Republican Platform: We Believe in America."  Perhaps it's in a special font that only Republicans can see?  Or did Mitt just have dyslexic moment when he saw the letters "GOP"?  Which don't appear in the name of the platform, either, but what are you gonna do?

Asked for comment, Yahweh replied, "I'd appreciate if everyone could leave me out of it.  I stopped following politics after the dissolution of the Whig party."

8. CLINT EASTWOOD
Why he's trending: Why do you think?  Personally, I had no problem with Clint's rambling interview with the invisible POTUS at the RNC.  I did think it was a little tacky to wrap up with, "And remember, 'Trouble with the Curve' opens on September 7. Peace out!"

7. COCA-COLA FLAVOR DROPS
Why it's trending: Technically, what's trending is "Dasani drops," a soon-to-be-introduced water-enhancer from the Coca-Cola Company.  Added to water, the drops turn boring H2O into a fruity, refreshing treat.  One word of caution: Do NOT  drink undiluted Dasani drops: Stuff's like uncut heroin.

6. KIM ZOLCIAK
Why she's trending: Because she just gave birth a few weeks ago, and CHECK. HER. OUT!

Now I just need someone to tell me who the balls Kim Zolciak is!

5. GOLD MINING
Why it's trending: With the weak jobs report, and speculation that the Federal Reserve will take further action to stimulate the economy (and thus potentially cause inflation to rise), end-timers and other survivalist types will flock to gold as a safe financial harbor.  Only a churl would point out that the value of gold is exactly as arbitrary as that of fiat currency like the American dollar, and I am not a churl.  Still, I recommend like-minded citizens join me in an internet movement to transfer the symbolic value of gold onto a more accessible medium.  Dasani drops, perhaps.

4. AMY POEHLER
Why she's trending: She and husband Will Arnett are splitting up after nine years of marriage.  I didn't know they were a couple.  Must have been a lot of fun around the dinner table. Or maybe not.  They are splitting up, after all.

3. KHLOE KARDASHIAN
Why she's trending: After completing a mini-marathon to help raise money for Medecins san Frontieres (Doctors without Borders), the reality-TV star and respected medieval scholar joined MSF volunteers on a trip to Nicaragua, where over 100 children received free cleft-palate surgeries.  She also dined with President Daniel Ortega and his cabinet and discussed opportunities to subsidize tenant farmers in the country's interi--  Nah, I'm just messing with you: She's a finalist for the "X Factor" hosting gig.

2. MICHELLE OBAMA NAIL POLISH
Why it's trending: Style-obsessed Americans have been buzzing for days about the nail polish that First Lady Michelle Obama wore the other night at the DNC.  Now, it can be told: The striking color, "Vogue," was created by extracting stem cells from aborted fetuses.  It's true!  That's what Rush Limbaugh said, anyway.

And the number-one trending topic at this moment on the space-time continuum is. . . .

1. JENNIFER GRANHOLM
Why she's trending: The former governor of Michigan gave a fiery speech at the Democratic National Convention, blasting Mitt Romney for opposing President Obama's plan to save General Motors.  Too bad she can't run for President: She was born in Canada.  I mean, I obviously have no fundamental objection to a foreign-born President, but Canada?  I have to draw the line somewhere.

A Fate Worse than Death Panels

During the debate over healthcare reform, Republican legislators and their cohorts in the punditocracy warned darkly that a vote for Obamacare would lead inevitably to the formation of "death panels": bureaucratic troikas that would determine whether the elderly or infirm retained enough societal value to justify their continued existence; those deemed to have outlived their usefulness would be swiftly euthanized.  How we all enjoyed the spectacle of a sitting US President forced to assure the public that he had no grand plan to authorize the wholesale slaughter of the nation's grandmas.

Consider this: An article in today's Times explained that millions of low (and even not so low) income people depend on Medicaid for long-term care.  Since only a small number of people have insurance to cover them if they become incapacitated due to age or injury, millions must deplete their life savings--as well as those of their families--before ending up in nursing homes paid for by Medicaid.  If the Romney-Ryan budget is enacted, however, Medicaid will face massive cuts.

What, then, will happen to people like Rena Lull, 92, who has exhausted her savings to pay for  nursing-home care, and who now must turn over "all but $50 a month of her $969 income from social security and a pension toward the Medicaid cost of her shared room"?  What will happen to people like Elaine James, 76, who suffers from dementia and whose daughter has struggled to provide some minimum level of care?  Republicans have no good answer for that.

Railing against phantasmagorical "death panels" may make for good--or let's say effective--politics.  The GOP's positions on the realities of things like Medicaid and Medicare, though, seem far more likely to destroy our grandmas' quality of life.

Apres MOS, le Deluge

We've all had lots of laughs this year poking fun at those silly, silly Mayans who supposedly predicted the world would end on the disconcertingly specific date December 21, 2012.  In reality, they probably said no such thing and simply ran out of space on their calendar stone.  But I'm beginning to think they may have made such a prediction and, moreover, may have been right.

The signs of the coming end-times are all around us, from violent weather to Mitt Romney.  Still, I didn't put the pieces together until today.  For those keeping a keen eye out for signs of the coming apocalypse, brace yourself, I've got one: Today,  my mother, the world-famous MOS. . .tagged me on Facebook.  MOS.  Tagged me.  On Facebook.

This is the woman who doesn't own a television!  Who isn't sure about the difference between DVDs and DVRs!  Who told me her keyboard was broken when it would only print in capital letters--as if it were somehow "locked" in that position!

OK, maybe I exaggerate, but the tagging thing has me a little freaked out.

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Incidentally, I finally bit the bullet and opened a Twitter account, mostly so I could receive a steady stream of headlines from The Onion.  I'd invite you all to follow me there, but I don't exactly know how to do that.  I'm totally serious, by the way.  (And yes, the irony of admitting technological illiteracy after just trashing MOS for the same is not lost on me.)  I know it has something to do with following me "@" something, but I'm not sure what comes after the "@."  Try @JasonBerner, if you're so inclined.  And who knows, if I get some followers, maybe I'll start tweeting!  Who KNOWS what kind of wacky crap will come out of this twisted and troubled mind?

Advice for Young Teachers: Abandon Preconceptions

As a writing student, I always felt skeptical about pre-writing strategies.  Of course, "pre-writing" in some form or another is a necessary part of the writing process--thinking about what you want to write, maybe doing a little research, drinking heavily, whatever works for you.  But I never much went in for more "formal" types of pre-writing--those strategies that writing teachers have advocated since time immemorial, or at least since I started taking writing classes (which is as far back as I can remember anyway): things like free-writing and brainstorming and the ever-popular "clustering" (or "mind-mapping"--a phrase for which I've always reserved an irrational loathing).  Nevertheless, I've always dutifully taught these strategies because. . . well, honestly because what else am I going to do?  Say, "Just sit around and think for a while and something will come to you"?  Not particularly useful to a class of inexperienced writers.  So I grudgingly planned my lessons on pre-writing strategies, walking my classes through the rules of free-writing, brainstorming, and clustering, feeling satisfied that I had done my pedagogical duty, if dubious about these lessons' ultimate worth.

Imagine my surprise, then, to discover that my students actually seemed to get something from these lessons--to find value in that which I had always considered to be, at best, harmless busywork.

The lesson goes like this: I start with a general description of what pre-writing is: the work that a writer needs to do before actually beginning the drafting process.  I talk about how this can include informal activities like just thinking about a topic or talking about it, or more formal steps like reading and research.  But it can also include activities to help a writer get the creative juices flowing.  This leads to a discussion of freewriting--something which several students have already heard of.

In case you're not familiar, free-writing involves simply writing without stopping and without, as much as possible, self-consciousness: Spelling doesn't count, and neither does punctuation or grammar.  One can simply free-write about whatever pops into one's mind, or one can try free-writing on a topic ("focused" free-writing); even when doing a focused free-write, though, it doesn't matter if one drifts off-topic.  In my class, I ask students to do a focused free-write for five minutes on a topic of my choice.  I usually tell them to write about "the octopus."

Predictably, students groan and express utter ignorance of all things octopus.  I remind them, though, that there are no "wrong" free-writes, and, however dubiously, they give it a try.  After five minutes elapse, I stop them, and, while they shake out their hands--which, if they've done free-writing "right" are aching--I explain the next step.  In groups of four or five, students share their free-writing.  While each person reads, the other members of the group jot down whatever ideas interest them, whatever they think a writer could expand on, whatever facts might be useful for a later piece of writing.  After everyone has read, the group compiles its members' ideas into a master list.  I then go around the room, soliciting three or four ideas from each group, which I write on the blackboard.  Essentially, I explain, what we are now doing is brainstorming: gathering ideas about a topic, again without any particular judgements about right or wrong, better or worse.

Once I've heard from each group, we consider the "master list" on the board.  Now, it's time to start organizing and categorizing ideas.  If, for example, the first thing on the list is "eight legs," I put a number one next to this.  Let's say the next item is "calamari": I ask the students whether they think calamari "goes with" eight legs, or if this would belong in a different category.  Most agree that calamari belongs in a different category, so this gets a number two.  If the third item is "Squidward," this gets a number three.  But then let's say we come to "shoots ink": Some people would place this into a new category, others would place it in the same group as "eight legs."  Who's right?  Well, both.  At any rate, students are now told to move through the rest of the list, assigning numbers (sometimes more than one) to each item.

I next move on to the more "visual" pre-writing technique of clustering.  I draw a circle in which I write the word "octopus."  Around this circle, I place numbers--the numbers which we assign to each item in the master list.  Under number one, I write "eight legs," "shoots ink," and any other things the students decide to place in that group.  We then talk about a potential title for this group, "physical characteristics," perhaps.  Group two might be "octopus as food"; three might be "TV or movie octopi."  And so on.  (Appropriately enough, the finished cluster, with its various branches, kind of looks a little octopoid.)  Once we finish this cluster, I ask students if this big picture, with its various lists of ideas, is starting to look like anything.  Invariably, someone says "an essay" and/or paragraphs.

And there's the point.

"Imagine," I say, "if you had come in here today, and I had told you that, for homework, you had to write me a well-organized paragraph about an octopus.  Most of you would probably have felt at least a mild sense of panic.  'I don't know anything about octopuseses!'  But now, looking at what you've got here, if I asked you to write me that paragraph--and don't worry, I'm not going to--but if I DID ask you to write it, would it really be that difficult? In fact, you could probably write me a rough draft of this paragraph--which I PROMISE I'm not going to ask you to write--in about five minutes, right?  Sure, you'd probably want to go on Google and check your information for accuracy, but you could certainly generate eight to ten sentences on one of these aspects of octopusness, right?"  The students nod and say that, yes, in fact, it wouldn't be that hard to write that paragraph.  And then I tell them to write me a paragraph about an octopus.

Yeah, I suck.

The point, though, is that, even though I never saw a huge value in these strategies for myself, my students do see the value.  It's an important reminder that I need to abandon my preconceptions--which after all are the biases of someone who has been doing the thing that I teach at a relatively "expert" level for a relatively long time--in order to help my students advance along their own paths toward expertise.  Anything that helps teachers develop this all-important level of empathy is a valuable experience indeed.

A Brief Post

I don't have a lot of time today, so I thought I would take this moment to address your number-two demand.  I would address your number-one demand, that I stop talking smack about Canadians, but, let's face it, that's just not going to happen.  So, instead, please enjoy this video of pandas playing on a slide.

Happy Labor Day!

In honor of Labor Day, I would like to acknowledge the contributions that unions have made to our great country.  But I have been so pissed off ever since President Obama told me that I didn't build this blog that I just can't bring myself to do that.

Wait, though: I do belong to a union, so I guess I DID build this blog.  OK, then, in that case, Happy Labor Day everybody!  Enjoy the barbecues.

One Not for the Record Books

If a tree falls in a forest, with no one around to hear it, it may or may not make a sound.  But there will certainly be one less tree standing in that forest.

Yesterday, the Penn State Nittany Lions football team played their first game since the death of their legendary coach Joe Paterno and the conviction of longtime assistant coach Jerry Sandusky for sexual abuse of numerous children.  They lost.  Paterno's replacement, Bill O'Brien, thus begins his coaching career with a record of 0-1.  He has a long way to go to catch up with his predecessor: Joe Paterno's final won-loss record stands at 409-136, making him the all-time winningest (let's just say that's a real word) coach in college football history.

Except he isn't.

In the wake of the Sandusky scandal, the NCAA imposed numerous appropriate sanctions on Penn State: The college paid significant financial penalties, and the team was barred from post-season play for several years.  As a further punishment--one particularly targeted at Paterno--the university's wins since 1998 were "vacated"; thus, Paterno's official career victory total stands at 298.

Penn State deserves punishment for its role in facilitating Sandusky's heinous behavior.  As far as I'm concerned, the football program could be eliminated entirely.  Joe Paterno, who took insufficient steps to protect children from the predations of his longtime friend and assistant coach, deserves a fair amount of condemnation.  The university has rightly removed a statue of the coach from its place of honor, and I think any time Paterno's name is mentioned, it should be followed by, "co-conspirator in numerous acts of child molestation."

I have a problem, though, with the idea of "vacating" Penn State's victories.  Just because facts come to light that reveal Paterno (co-conspirator in numerous acts of child molestation) to be less of a moral paragon than previously believed does not erase the fact--the fact--that the teams he coached racked up 409 victories.  (I think the fact that the NCAA did not vacate the losses suffered during that time indicates the logical bankruptcy of the whole proceeding.)  I have a similar problem with the decision to strip Lance Armstrong of his Tour de France titles in the wake of his refusal to continue cooperating with anti-doping investigations--but that at least makes a certain amount of sense: One could argue that Armstrong would not have won those races had he not been using illegal performance enhancing drugs.  Of course, since it seems like everybody else was using the same or similar drugs, any advantage Armstrong gained was probably negligible.

There is something more than a little Stalinist in the actions of sports officials rewriting history, airbrushing away accomplishments of those who are later found to have bent the rules in one way or another.  Like it or not, Lance Armstrong won seven Tours de France.  Pete Rose has more base hits than anyone else in baseball, and he belongs in the Hall of Fame--as does Barry Bonds.  As people of my political persuasion have long complained when faced with the distortions or Fox News and its ilk, people are entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts.  Sports history--like all history--depends on scrupulous maintenance of factual records.  And the factual record shows that the record for most wins by a college football coach belongs to Mr. Joe Paterno. Co-conspirator in numerous acts of child molestation.