On TV: Tough Love: Miami: Ep. 304, "Flirting"

I'm watching a rerun of Tough Love: Miami, episode 304, titled "Flirting". I can't help but wonder: does anyone else find it ironic that the go-go dancer is named Chastity?  Maybe that's her stage name and Soules, Chastity Soules' real name is undercover (like that of SIS Agent 007).

On Craigslist: this lazy-a$$ student's ad emphasizes one dangerous flaw in online education

I saw the following ad on Craigslist.  It's not unlike others I've seen, some of which promise to pay a stooge to write one's papers.  Is it not bad enough that so many colleges have dumbed down their curricula and grading standards?  Apparently not: compounding the problem is the abuse - by many students, in my observation and that of many writers - of those online and hybrid/blended classes which lack appropriate mechanisms to prevent and detect cheating.   Bleh!

The ad was posted under new york craigslist > queens > jobs > education/teaching jobs:



Compensation for taking a 100 (freshman) level online course (Queens)




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 2011-11-04, 11:15AM EDT

Reply to: job-rshnr-2684846084@craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------







Me:



I am a 24 yr old college student and i need help taking 18 credits per semester, in order to accomplish my goals, and save time.

were talking about liberal art courses such as art 100, theology 100, science 100, etc. easy stuff i dont want to concern myself with and focus on my double major instead.

i will buy the materials for you

i will give you 35% up front, 35% after the midterm and the rest 30% once the course is over.

starts Jan 20th, 2012 - 1st week of may



You:



Serious Inquiries only.

Have a Bachelors Degree, resume is a plus.

have a lot of experience taking online courses

live in Queens area

agree to get me a B+ or higher

write original essays, must not plagiarize.

MUST have time, dedication, discipline to take this 4 month course!













Location: Queens

Compensation: 400$

This is a part-time job.

Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.

Please, no phone calls about this job!

Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.







PostingID: 2684846084

On TV: Con Air

I'm watching while I work (at home). Here's what's on TV: Con Air. This flick earned both an Academy Award nomination AND a Golden Raspberry Award! (Go figure.)  This best-of-the-good and worst-of-the-bad dichotomy similarly describes the assortment of guys (and gals) associated with The Jailbird - the prison plane after which the movie is named.

The film's not yet over, but I have already adopted a favorite line: "Put the bunny back in the box!" Heh.

here

John Grisham






What I'm (re-)reading now:  The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town by NYT Bestselling author, John Grisham [July 12, 2009 Paperback].  Read a synopsis, reviews, and interview with the author here.

What I'm reading now: Gus Hasford's THE PHANTOM BLOOPER (1990)

http://www.loc.gov/vets/
Happy New Year!

Befitting a Veterans History Project Official Founding Partner/New York, I re-screened Band of Brothers and Saving Private Ryan this holiday weekend and then one thing led to another.  I read about Gustav Hasford's war novel (The Short-Timers). It's the basis for another fave film - Full Metal Jacket - to which both the aforementioned films give nods. And then I snagged both books, The Short-Timers and Gus Hasford's sequel, which I'm reading now: The Phantom Blooper (1990). 

Both books are highly engrossing, savagely powerful, gripping far past the last page, and highly recommended.  Here's a vivid excerpt from The Phantom Blooper chapter 1, "The Winter Soldiers", which made this pogue pause. I'm using the luxury of being able to call a cease-fire-at-will to blog this post.

Black John Wayne hangs tough, firing his M-60 until the barrel glows red and white. But an NVA flame thrower roars across the trenchline and then Black John Wayne is a black man wearing fire as formal attire and his bulky body jerks like a puppet and he dances as M-16 rounds in his bandoliers cook off, and then the M-60 in his hands blows up, and Black John Wayne is still standing, while advancing NVA troops move around him and out of his way. He holds on to his throat with both hands, like a man trying to strangle himself, or like a man trying to pull off his own head. And he falls.


Whew! The horror. But the violence, blood and guts are not what grab me. 
 
This excerpt can't convey the anxiety-provoking, ominous quiet or the dreadful darkness Private James T. "Joker" Davis inimitably describes at the book's opening.  Nor Hasford's brief but brilliant character sketches and background context. Nor the disturbingly violent and claustrophobic circumstances preceding this paragraph, that only someone who's been there (like this author, or one of Wallace Terry's Bloods, or a Veterans History Project subject), could describe. Nor the reasons why Black John Wayne's loss is, at once, so heroic and so heartbreaking.
 
What is does provide civilian readers, REMFs, and hobbits is a representative sample of Gus' on-the-front lines clench-your-sphincter grit-your-teeth kiss-God's-green-earth-and-naivite-about-war-goodbye ride. I repeat, Pilgrim, The Phantom Blooper is not a read; it's a wild, heart in throat, can't get off 'cuz Gus' taken you POW, ride.  And as you can read for yourself, this book is not for faint of heart or those with IBS.  Rider/reader discretion is advised.
 
In contrast, those concerned with the firsthand Vietnam War experience and its aftermath, for grunts, this semi-autobiographical novel is one must-read.  Two others, of course, are Hasford's Short-Timers and Wallace Terry's 100% true-life, first-person accounts of African American soldiers of a diversity of ranks and backgrounds titled, Bloods: Black Veterans of the Vietnam War: An Oral History.