BREAKING: Concerning the children of Baltimore!

FRIDAY, JANUARY 12, 2018

Nobody cares about this:
Concerning the 48,000, what's up among their peers in Baltimore? Possibly about some of their peers who may have lost their way?

Yesterday, the Washington Post ran this report as a human interest story.

Former councilwoman Rikki Spector is 81 years old. The report concerns what she decided to do after getting mugged in her parking garage in December 2016.

On line, the headline says this:
‘A beacon of hope’: Former Baltimore councilwoman becomes mentor to teens who attacked her
Kids can get lost along the way, especially when surroundings are poor. According to this report, Spector is trying to help.

On "cable news," these kids don't exist. Nothing could be more clear.

16 comments:

  1. Cue Somerby to describe the 50s noir film Blackboard Jungle. He should note what happened to the earnest teacher who brought in his jazz collection to help nurture the disadvantaged kids in his class.

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    1. Cue the mongrel crawling out from underneath his rock.

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    2. Blackboard Jungle doesn't meet the definition of Film Noir. Instead it falls under the category of another genre, a "J.D.", or juvenile delinquent film. Perhaps one of the earliest examples.

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    3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    4. Here is one of the definitions given for noir:

      "a style or genre of cinematographic film marked by a mood of pessimism, fatalism, and menace. The term was originally applied (by a group of French critics) to American thriller or detective films made in the period 1944–54 and to the work of directors such as Orson Welles, Fritz Lang, and Billy Wilder."

      I think this film fits because there is menace, pessimism and there is little hope for the kids involved, hence fatalism. Just because it is about kids doesn't make it upbeat or hopeful, like the current genre of high school movies. It reflects the uneasiness with emerging youth subculture, in my opinion.

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    5. I recall both the book and movie of Blackboard Jungle. Blackboard Jungle was effective and shocking because it exposed the reality of inner city, crime-ridden schools, where students were warehoused rather than educated.

      Today, everyone knows that such schools exist. But, as Bob points out, there's not much will to fix the situation.

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    6. Nothing in Blackboard Jungle about bad teachers or kids being warehoused. I think you have forgotten what the film was about.

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    7. I remember the book better than the movie. The attempted rape scene was hot stuff for a junior high school student.

      Anyhow, as I recall the book, after a number of tragedies, there is a happy ending of sorts when a single smart juvenile delinquent-type kid realizes that he can have a future in the middle class by learning and using his brain. As I recall, this kid was very much the except. Most of the other kids were learning little and going nowhere.

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    8. But their teachers were dedicated and cared about the students, working hard to reach them. No warehousing or cynical burnouts. Your negative comment about schools doesn’t fit.

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  2. Yeah, great. But if you watched The Wire you would've gotten the impression that by the time they are teens they're already too late to mentor. Not only did they get lost along the way, but the basic personality has already been formed by the environment. So, this is probably just more bullshit.

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  3. To adopt Somerby's dour framing of other issues: Why didn't Spector take a tour of poor neighborhoods, become a mentor, and advocate juvenile justice reform BEFORE her 80th birthday? The evidence of those youthful attackers' poor surroundings was always there. What a hypocrite she must be.

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  4. "On "cable news," these kids don't exist. Nothing could be more clear."

    "Cable news" , left and right, is mostly about politics. That's the way it is. I don't know why a reasonable person would expect otherwise. Again, if this issue is so crucial to Somerby, why can't he just discuss it? Become a passionate advocate for it? Is he even actively engaged in his local Baltimore school issues, or is he content to write blog posts that show more interest in scoring points against those bad old hypocrites (you know, like history professors) than in shedding light on this "crucial" issue?

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    1. Hmm. Somehow I got the impression that cable news are mostly about the terrible ordeal of a 19 year-old woman kissed by 32 year-old Alabama judge in 1973.

      And perhaps Bob feels that there are more worthy subjects. Is that so horribly wrong of him, to express this crazy opinion in his own blog, in your opinion?

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    2. Don'r mind this troll, who's missed out on the first-to-post-gibberish bonus. It's just trying to make up in volume what it missed in timeliness.

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    3. Cable news is mostly about running interference for racists and plutocrats (i.e.. Conservatives).

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