The Post Below is Playing Out with The Pirates...

In the previous post, I said of the 1967 film, To Sir, With Love:

"Having been a teacher and/or school administrator for 30 years, I must admit I've always been a sucker for those "teacher-befriends-hoodlum-students" movies. It seems Hollywood cranks out that familiar plot at least once or twice a decade. If there is any place where optimism and ideals should have a fighting chance... it's in a school.

Today I revised that post slightly to include the pirates as an example:

"But in the real world, there are hundreds of stories never told about teachers who cared and tried just as hard as Poitier did as "Sir," but they end up being run over by the hoodums, who almost always take all that chumminess as an opportunity to start yet another spit-ball war. In other words... in the real world, it's hard to get real pirates to change their ways and try-out for the school play--even if the play is The Pirates of Penzance. In the real world, "pirate ships [do not] lower their flags when Puff roars out his name."

Even supposed Euro-allies take flattery and chumminess as signs of weakness. Obama has been cozying up to Sarkozy for months, and look how easily the French president slapped him down yesterday.

Perhaps now that the president has been in the shoes of his predecessor for 3-and-a-half months, he'll begin to understand that other world leaders will soon tire of his "rock star" glow. Perhaps before matters get much worse in Somalia and other hotspots, he'll begin understanding that it takes credible Mr. Tibbs-type action to get the attention of nations that harbor terrorists and pirates.