A Brief Return to WGN Radio

Doug talks EASY EVIL on WGN Radio

How Absurd Have Some School Bureaucrats Become?

The folks who administer and teach in our schools have a tough job. No doubt about it. And those who do their jobs right, successfully juggling concerns for kids' education and their safety, deserve our support and as many attaboys as we can give them.

Then there are the petty, the foolish, the hysterical, and the absurd: the bureaucrats who value their image and the appearance of political correctness over everything else.

An example just this week would be the principal of a Mesa, Arizona elementary school who asked a police officer-parent to stop wearing his uniform and gun to pick up his children at school because it scared some of the other kids (http://www.lawofficer.com/video/news/arizona-officer-asked-not-come).

And the teachers at a middle school in Connecticut who call the Geico "hump day" commercial  "disruptive." (http://www.kctv5.com/story/23593314/some-teachers-say-geico-hump-day-commerical-is-disruptive-in-classrooms).

Match these examples with all of the others...every school district that has expelled children for pretending their hands are guns and going "bang" at another child. Or the district that fired a teacher because she revealed her husband threatened her.

Or the high school in my own backyard where administrators produced a list of "inappropriate words" that should not be used by those of us invited to speak at a school-wide creativity event. Among the banned words? "Gun," "gangs" and "murder." After all, if you don't talk about such things, they'll never become a problem, right?

 The Mesa school incident in particular has me shaking my head. A child reportedly told his parents a man with a gun was at school. The parents communicated that the principal. The principal called the officer. Considering that children discussing what they saw could have twisted the story any number of ways, and another child could have reported misinformation to already fearful parents who then overreacted...the principal's request is beyond absurd and borders on the hysterical.

Schools are supposed to be teaching students to think. To confront problems and come up with logical, reasoned solutions.

It appears some school administrators have flunked that lesson.

Definitely NOT For Kids or the Faint of Heart: Prisoners

Disturbing, dark, and too long at 2.5 hours, Prisoners is nevertheless a compelling film with standout performances. The basics: on Thanksgiving, two young girls go missing and, while a detective searches, the father of one of the girls takes the law into his own hands.

Hugh Jackman's theatre background shows in the preparation and depth he brings to his role as the survivalist father who swears he will get his daughter back. As Jackman rages, Jake Gyllenhaal quietly counterpoints as the detective assigned to the case and Paul Dano fits perfectly between them, his enormous sad eyes and pale, offbeat features making him every parents' nightmare of stranger-danger come to life. In fact, I found Dano the most fascinating of the characters to watch. He's so affective an actor that he can compel our fury in one scene and beg for sympathy in another...all without words...and then darn near disappear while still on screen. 

Director Denis Villeneuve uses weather elements and tight shots to create a cold, claustrophobic atmosphere that gives Prisoners a horror film feel right through the chilling climax and ending. 

There's not much fat to the plot but the brain can only comprehend what the butt can endure and two-and-a-half hours spent in a theatre seat was thirty minutes too long for mine. For that, and for the writers who gave in to the trite idea of detective-as-lone-wolf (any fan of Cops or Castle knows you never go by yourself to search an abandoned building or creepy church basement), I award Prisoners 4/5 stars with a special thumbs up to Melissa Leo(Homicide: Life on the Street) and Len Cariou (Blue Bloods), two of my favorite, and often overlooked, character actors.

Amanda Knox: The Italians Are Calling

The Italian courts, which earlier this year reversed Amanda Knox's acquittal in the 2007 murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher, are seeking her extradition to face a new trial. The U.S. State Department can refuse to grant extradition or they can accede to the Italians request. We have an extradition treaty with Italy. In most cases, it would be a routine matter to sign the papers and send her on her way.

If she is sent back, she will almost certainly spend more than twenty years in an Italian prison. The prosecutors in the case are adamant she is guilty and they convicted her once already. I suspect they will make certain she has the opportunity to resume writing in her diary and brushing up on her language skills.

What is the Obama Administration to do?

Should the State Department refuse to extradite Amanda Knox, some pundits argue, our relationship with the Italian government would suffer. Their fear is that the Italians would then be in a position to thumb their noses at us if, say, a terrorist fled to their country after committing a grievous act here in the states. I disagree. The Italians would certainly lodge a formal protest, the State Department would step in, some quiet offers of compensation would be made and bam! Amanda Knox? Chi è quello? (Amanda Knox? Who's that again?).

The question is...should the U.S. get involved? CNN legal analyst Paul Callan believes, it's an entirely political decision. If enough Americans think Knox should not be sent back, she won't be. Treaty be damned. I absolutely agree.

Has Knox helped her position with her TV appearances and writings? Many Americans believe her claims that she had nothing to do with Kercher's murder. I think she's a cold fish who's been expertly trained how to handle even the toughest reporter's questions and whose book was professionally written by someone else. Has she always been that frosty? I have no idea. There's a strong suggestion she seemed disinterested in the killing before she was arrested but four years behind foreign bars would leave most people pretty jaded.

However, I'm no longer sure she's guilty of murder. The evidence was so poorly handled and the prosecution so clearly inept if not criminally prejudiced, the Italian courts certainly did not meet the U.S. standard of "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt."  And, she's spent four years in an abysmal jail. Some convicted murderers in this country go free in far less time than that.

Were I a Roman, and she in the pit with the lions, I'd throw her a thumbs up.

Pines by Blake Crouch (A Review)

A Secret Service agent awakens and comes to realize he's either suffered a beating or been in a terrible accident. He remembers where he is and why eventually but, like walking up an incline that's constantly shifting, he's off balance and can never fully right himself. He can't contact his boss, his wife or anyone outside the town of Wayward Pines. And those within the community all seem a little odd, graduating to homicidal and then terrifying.

At least a dozen times during my reading of Pines I nearly gave up. It's not a relaxing journey and if you get annoyed by being thoroughly confused, you won't make it.

What kept me going was the realization that if I was having a weird trip, the main character, Ethan Burke, was going through three kinds of hell and it was fascinating to watch him cope.

This is pure action with a hard twist. Ethan is a resilient hero, perhaps a little more Superman than I'd prefer (eventually he begins to sound like Lee Child's Jack Reacher whose every punch has cataclysmic impact) but likable and, especially, sympathetic. I could relate to his struggle to comprehend what the hell was happening to him and why.

If you remember the iconic 1960's TV series The Prisoner, or even Twin Peaks in 1990, you'll be in familiar territory. Throw in some Planet of the Apes and you'll feel right at home.

Pines is the first book in the Wayward Pines series. The second, Wayward, was released this week. Now that I understand the author's concept, I'm curious to see where he takes it.

I gave this book a four out of five star rating on Amazon where the Kindle price is $4.99.

WILL by Dan Cardinal (A Review)

Truth be told, I figured I'd flip through Will because the author, Dan Cardinal, is the son of some old friends. I didn't expect to discover an irresistible main character on the first page and a compelling story that I put down only once (and reluctantly at that) before I finished reading.

Will Brown, mourning the death of his young wife and child in a traffic accident, gives up his engineering job and moves to his family's long-unused cabin in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. He plans to stay for ". . .maybe a week--maybe a little longer." Cardinal takes us along on Will's quest and shows us the landscape in deft bites that describe just what sorry shape the property is in ("Along the back wall of the cabin stood a row of firewood that bore the uniform blackish-gray color that came from years and years of weathering" and, even better, "There was nothing else that was not a part of the forest. Indeed, the timberland was making a nature-paced advance to reclaim the old cabin").

From there, the timberland becomes not only backdrop, but a supporting character.

Will is the name of this likeable protagonist as well as what the story explores. Will's resolve to survive even as he copes with his grief leaves us urging him to go the distance.

Cardinal describes the brutality of life in the UP, but also its beauty--and the rough but comradely kindness of its people. But this is far from a navel-gazing novel of sadness and despair. It's a story with plenty of action and plenty of heart, a tale as personal as one told in the back booth of a warm country tavern while a winter storm rages outside.

It is an exceptional piece of work.

Teachers, Guns, and Bulletproof Whiteboards

I absolutely believe schools at all levels need to take reasonable steps to protect students against the threat of violence.

But arming teachers? Volunteer armed security guards? Bulletproof whiteboards?

As school bells start to ring, all are either proposals or realities in various parts of the country. I don't agree with any of them.

Arming teachers is one of those "fine in concept" ideas that breaks down when closely examined.

What sort of skills are those teachers required to have? How much preparation? Confronting a gun-wielding assailant, particularly in a room or hallway filled with terrified students, requires far more aptitude than one acquires popping away at a silhouette on a target range once a month. SWAT and special operations personnel, even line cops faced with handling an active shooter situation, receive many hours of particularized training. Some of them even admit they haven't had enough.

And where are the guns going to be kept? In a drawer? In a closet? In a purse? If they are anywhere but on the teacher throughout the work day, they'll probably be too far away to do any good. And if the teacher plans to wear a gun all day, how are they going to carry it? Shoulder holster? Ankle? Or just strapped to the hip? Talk about added stress!

In my experience, if a firearm cannot be carried comfortably, it will likely not be carried for long.

And ask yourself this. How many teachers, those who are not veterans or ex-cops, will have the mindset to kill, even in self-defense?

I raise the same arguments about volunteer armed guards in schools. Where's the training? Where is the psychological preparation? Where is the liability if there’s an accident?

And from the Silly Ways to Drop Good Money Department, University of Maryland Eastern Shore announced earlier this month that it plans to spend $60,000 to supply faculty with bulletproof whiteboard tablets. Each tablet measures 18 by 20 inches and comes in a variety of colors.

Yeah, those are gonna be real useful, I’m sure.

Instead of teachers with guns and whiteboards, how about hiring some well-trained, off-duty cops?

Or better yet, how about hiring experienced security specialists to assess the unique risks of each building on each campus?

Immediate, cheap, feel good, scattershot approaches seldom provide long term solutions.

In cases of school violence, they could result in the deaths of those they were adopted to protect.