StephenBeale.com

Something needs to be said about the failings of Avatar, if only for some relief from all the oohhing and ahhing of awestruck fans. Don’t get me wrong, this film deserves to be spoken of in superlatives—extraordinary, phenomenal, groundbreaking, most beautiful, entertainment of the highest order, shock and awe. In Avatar, director James Cameron has dreamed up a whole new world with its own, internally consistent rules of gravity, biology, and ecology. Its creatures have just the strangely necessary mix of familiar and foreign features that make them believable to us. One can’t think of any other imaginative venture as thoroughly creative and aesthetically fulfilling as this one. Avatar indeed is an extraordinary achievement—and that is precisely why it also fails. In trying to be more, it ends up being less.

It is easy to be carried away by all the special effects—floating mountains, fluorescent flowers, dinosaur-like aliens, and some kind of super-sized Sequoia tree—and forget the storyline entirely. But strip away all the computer generated imagery and the plot could be summarized thusly: Evil corporation invades foreign land, plunders its natural resources, and uproots the indigenous people. The natives confront missiles and machine guns with bow and arrows, facing certain annihilation. Mother Nature steps in deus ex machina, saves the day, and drives out the evil corporation. Kind of reads like environmental pulp fiction, right? With its use of mercenary soldiers and a scowling commander who speaks of shock-and-awe tactics, the film also takes some cheap shots at American imperialism.

But the audience is too absorbed—entranced—by the nonstop CGI to notice any of this. Call it simulation inebriation—the result of the imbalance between being visually over-stimulated and underwhelmed by plot and theme. One reviewer put it best—a wonder to behold, a story to forget.

The Providence Journal has an interesting feature on ‘Confucius classrooms’ in a local high school, where students learn all about Chinese language and culture. On the surface, this sounds like a good idea for two reasons. First, given that it is the oldest continuous civilization, most populous country, and fourth largest economy, Americans students could stand to know a few things about China. Second, the Confucius classrooms—funded by a nonprofit institution—are a great example of public-private partnerships that save taxpayer dollars. But there is a catch, and you have to read into the story to find it:

The classrooms are possible through a five-year $500,000 grant from China’s Office of Chinese Language Council International, known as Hanban. Though the grant, which was awarded earlier this year, means Smithfield’s classrooms are officially recognized by the Chinese government, students have been learning about Chinese culture and language in afterschool programs since late 2007.

Based on the information in the story, this seems harmless enough, but the idea of the Chinese subsidizing and ‘officially recognizing’ U.S. public school classrooms is certainly an eyebrow-raiser.

A wide-ranging piece in the London Observer paints a grim picture of how the Golden State has experienced a Katrina-like social and political breakdown so severe not even the Terminator can makes its problems go away: A bankrupt state government has begun issuing IOUs to its employees. Teachers are going on a hunger strike to protest the layoff of 60,000 state employees. And once thriving suburbs have been turned into ghost towns by the collapse of the housing bubble and the foreclosure crisis.

So how did this happen? The author of the article seems to think it is the ailing economy, especially the housing bust.

Of course, the proverbial 800-pound gorilla in the room is illegal immigration. California is the state with the most illegal immigrants. The state has an estimated 2.2 million of them, nearly double the number in the state with the second highest number, which is Texas. Illegal aliens put a strain on social services, especially education, health care, and the penal system. One study concluded that they cost taxpayers a net $9 billion, once their own tax contributions are factored in. Moreover, to the extent that they resist assimilation, illegal immigrants stretch the already-thin social fabric of the state.

But the adverse impact of illegal immigration does not even seem to cross the mind of the author. He mentions immigration only once—to note that between 2004 and 2008 a state that was once a magnate for immigrants lost half a million residents. It is any wonder people are leaving?