1. Another semester done at last! And exams were mostly pretty fun this year. For my English students (all high schoolers this time around), I opted for a discourse method in which students had to give a verbal answer to a question regarding one of the books we read, followed by a general class discussion on a different question.

This prompted some interesting discussions.

2. The best part was students very confidently (and very wrongly) guessing my stance on the Brutus-Julius Caesar debate.

(Arguably the fact that we’re still discussing that 2,000 years later is even more interesting than where you fall on the question).

3. Andy Serkis’s Animal Farm adaptation looks to be taking a few small liberties with the original book. Such as, apparently, turning it into a story of the evil of capitalism and big business, rather than the evils of the Russian Revolution.

I mean, is any one surprised by that?

It’s also, apparently, a goofy, kids-friendly version of the Russian Revolution. Only not a good kids-friendly version of the Russian Revolution: that would be Anastasia.

Coming soon: a wacky roadtrip version of The Gulag Archipelago starring Seth Rogan and Patton Oswalt.

4. In any case, I think we need to add Andy Serkis to the list of “great actors who should not try to direct.”

5. Naturally, pro-Communist propaganda is much more lucrative than the anti-Communism or pro-Capitalism kind. Communist chic allows the customer to imagine himself as a broad-minded rebel who cares about the downtrodden, which feels good and hence is very profitable. Capitalist chic only allows the customer to feel smarter than the armchair Communists, which has a much smaller market.

Anti-capitalism is a brand; a brand that many consumers are dumb enough to fall for without realizing it and so are more than happy to pay giant corporations in order to support the said brand. Anti-capitalism is good for capitalism.

6. The snag, of course, comes when those dumb consumers start taking it all too seriously and try to actually enact Communism. But by then the capitalists selling communism can always just cash out and flee the country until things settle down.

In any case, capitalists have never been known for their long-term thinking.

7. If Hollywood weren’t hypocrites they would have no values at all.