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A Century Is Nothing A Century Is Nothing
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The Language Company The Language Company
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Subject to Change Subject to Change
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Ice girl in Banlung Ice girl in Banlung
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Entries in people (4)

Wednesday
Apr152020

Profit Before People

A global virus has a long term effect. Humans adjust priorities.

Big busine$$ restructures their operations. Oil, banks, pharmaceuticals, travel industry, automotive, and airlines.

It's a numbers game, said Profit Before People.

Story time...

...He unlocked the door. Five empty freezing rooms.

The kitchen counter displayed empty soda bottles, a black plastic bag of cheap harsh stale tobacco, a box of lavender herbal tea flowers, 1/2 jar of Nescafé, one white coffee cup, one spoon, a sharp knife, a fork in the road and one bright yellow plate.

On a white laminated shelf was a first edition of Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, signed by the author.

“Read this,” said Silence, the loudest noise in the world.

Next to it was a black key for a teachers’ cabinet at TEOL.

“Call Trabzon,” the German man informed Ebru. “We have an MIA.”

She rang Sit Down in Trabzon.

“Lucky Foot took a hike,” she said.

“Call out the SWAT team and dogs. Hunt him down. Kill him with extreme prejudicial kindness.”

She called SWAT. The line was busy.

The German returned to TEOL and gave Ebru the key. She approached the cabinet. A rancid smell smashed her nose. “What’s that god-awful stench?”

Gagging, she threw up all over a teachers’ desk littered with empty tea glasses, cell phones and half eaten Simit pretzels. Regaining her composure she approached The Cabinet of Dr. Cagliari (1920).

She heard a ticking sound. Maybe it’s a bomb. I should call the bomb squad.

They arrived. A man in a bombproof origami suit applied a stethoscope to the front panel. Yes, something is ticking.

He drilled a hole and pushed a microscopic eye into darkness. A mirror inside the cabinet reflected a thin piece of pulsating metronomic metal. Tick-tock. Tick-tock.  

“We’ll have to open this with thrilling caution. Get the Die Rector.”

The Die Rector, an economist, knew what to do. “Let’s assume there’s no fucking problem. Give me the key.”

Ebru handed it over. Everyone backed up hard drives.

The Die Rector, 56, who was scheduled for a heart-valve transplant in January, unlocked the door.

Inside was The Language Company by Zeynep, class rosters, green, yellow, orange highlighters, a

magnifying glass, telescope, world globe, hourglass, a bag of hazelnuts, radioactive isotopes, a red rose with

thorns, a dissolving image of a smiling ghost playing with Lone Wolf in a mountain meadow, a mirror, a

dozing Black Mamba, a high voltage Dream Sweeper Machine from Hanoi, a Honer blues harp in the key of C,

a magic carpet, one sugar cube, a glass, spoon, dry tea leaves, an empty bottle of Xanax, a ticking

metronome, a bamboo forest, dusty footprints and rusty Communist loudspeakers squawking:

We are Authority, Power and Control. Surprise!

51 Days in Turkey

The Language Company

 

Study currency with a friend.

How did I grow?

Tuesday
Nov132012

nothing behind. everything in front.

He went to Turkey for 51 moments. 

He explored a 4,000 year old Roman city on the Black Sea. Citizens were hospitable. Strangers came and went.

He wandered to Sumela, a Greek monastery (386 A.D.) in the mountains. Murals covered fall changing colors.

It reminded him of Mesa Verde (600 A.D.) in Colorado. Cliff dwellings. Isolated. Peaceful.

 

 

He returned to Trap A Zone, photographed street life and attended an English teacher training class.

You have to complete a unit in 53 minutes, said the female administrator. Ryhmes with see you later alligator and procrastinator.

The economic fact she did not enunciate was the language school's objective:

PROFIT BEFORE PEOPLE

We enroll them, take their money, give them a textbook with a fancy CD and their class time. Your job is to push them through. One class means finishing 3 units in 3 hours.

After nine weeks, presto! they complete one level, we take their money and they advance toward a higher standard of living filled with past continuous verbs, fresh tomatoes and black olives garnished with hazelnuts.

Does Hazel have nuts? To be evaluated. 

A native speaker from O-Zone asked a question. Are students all the same level?

Close enough, she said. They know grammar rules like nobody's business. They lack vocabulary. They are afraid to speak. They are robotic victims of the educational system well trained to keep their mouth shut, read and memorize. You have no freedom to create fun, interesting, student-directed activities.

Just do the book. Everyone's happy, especially the accountant.

Thank you for your attention.

Monday
Jan242011

Tarek Bouazizi

Greetings,

Tarek Bouazizi, 26, finally had enough of the endless cycle of bribery, threats, and corruption. He sold vegetables on the streets in the small town of Sidi Bouzid in Tunisia where the unemployment rate was 30%.

He loved poetry. He supported his mother, uncles, and five brothers and sisters at home.

He set himself on fire. He died. Tunisians grabbed their chance at freedom. The dictator of 23 years ran away. Middle Eastern and North African despots and autocratic dictators went into denial mode.

Oh no, we're next, they cried. Yemen, Libya, and Egypt gave the police and military more money to protect their intractable insatiable greed to maintain power and control. They decreased the price of food to temporarily appease hungry people.  

Protect us in our castles and mansions. Protect us from educated individuals demanding human rights, equality and an end to the charade, to our reign of economic terror. Protect us from desperate citizens setting themselves on fire. Protect us from the aftermath.

You have to sacrifice the peel to enjoy the fruit.

Metta.

Read more, NYT.

Friday
May082009

Transient species

Yes, we, meaning you and I and a billion other H. Saps are all in transit on a spinning rock. Can Earth take care of itself? How does it continually renew itself against the onslaught of too many humans?

How does this process of natural Hobbit reality survive? Wit, guile, cunning, compassion, kindness, love, flash drives and tremors well below the surface of our best intentions. Natural selection. Survival of the fittest, fastest, fashionable.

Self interest and greed=happiness.

Such a mysterious puzzle.

When I am asleep I am awake.

Metta.