CBC Exposes High School Confidential

Ah, fortune and fame shall follow me...and I shall dwell in the world of the chosen for a few moments of fleeting ecstasy; ere the seven burly lads turn into creditors and hustle me off to debtors' prison at last.
Hunter S. Thompson, The Proud Highway, Letter to Porter Bibb III, February 6, 1957, p. 44

As on every media outlet in Canada, there are stories and then there are stories. On our much beloved State Broadcaster The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, there are several times a year on average where a story comes on and even if you are not listening, you soon find yourself paying very close attention. And on the Monday June 20, 2011 National News it happened again. Ioanna Roumeliotis hit it totally out of this viewers park with here feature story entitled "Under Pressure" about high school, and all the intendent pressures and crushing expectations that these young people shouldn't even have to be thinking of. If the Oracle of Ottawa is any media hound at all, Ioanna Roumeliotis should win something for this story and it will be very well deserved! If this is what 1.1 billion of my tax dollars buys, we should double up the CBC's allotment to make sure we protect and even further extend this great national brand.

CBC - A tax dollar well spent!

The greatest shock that the Oracle of Ottawa received from this story was the horrific realization that the neo-conservative corporate agenda has even been allowed to invade our high schools! The bit where the young lad was talking to his guidance counsellor and she started by asking him if he had started taking the "pills" yet just floored me! That so called "guidance counsellor" so reminded me of the classic evil Human Resources thingy that every working male has had to clash with in the soul destroying everyday corporate work-a-day world. I was also very disappointed how much young students have become absolute whores to marketing. They are buying into every myth of the so called "American Dream" ! And for some of them, it is not working out to plan right from the start. This is all so very sad.

A Canadian archetype institution...

I could only remember how much of a hoot my days at high school were! In the four full years that I successfully attended, I can't for the life of me remember once hearing the words "Big Eight" or "American College" or any other of the buzz expressions that are wailed on today! We just didn't buy in to that in the 1970's. The thought of getting out of high school to go to an more boring and rigid institution seemed at the time and even more so now, as totally insane! To this sometimes contented camper, there is no greater truth than that stated by the great Thomas Carlyle; The true University of these days is a Collection of Books. The source of that quote by the way is; The Hero as Man of Letters. And no, you wouldn't catch me dead in a corporate rotted, soul dead "university"....

If you like CBC Television, you will also enjoy this..

 The real purpose of high schools should be to help discover who the student really is rather than programming
into them the neo-conservative marketed agenda that warps their minds into becoming what the agenda wants them to be! This world does not need any more "wanna bees". ( Damn Blogger formatting....)

 Forgive me, but what else would fit here? This is the way high school should be...Not some marketing horror mill....