"The Dog" and Andy Kaufman

My entry today is about 2 unconnected items that have caught my attention today. First, after showing the movie "Dog Day Afternoon",  which is based on a real bank robbery, I started searching information about the real person portrayed by Al Pacino - John Wojtowicz.  To my surprise, I discovered that there is a documentary about the real man that was just released in August of this year.  It sounds interesting, and is on my list of films I must see.  Here is Bob Mondello's review of the new documentary "The Dog". This is the "true" story of the man Al Pacino played in "Dog Day Afternoon":

NPR Review

The second item, and even more interesting, is about a new Andy Kaufman book written by his friend and writing partner Bob Zmuda.  In the new book,  “Andy Kaufman: The Truth, Finally” (BenBella Books), written with Lynne Margulies, Kaufman’s girlfriend,  Zmuda reveals that Kaufman is still alive after faking his death, and that the 30 year time limit is up this year and Andy will soon return. Here is a link to a recent (September 28, 2014) NY Post article:

Andy Kaufman Alive!

This isn't the first time there was talk of Andy's return. Just last year his brother said he was still alive, only to admit that he had been a victim of a hoax.  There is a full entry on snopes.com that talks about all of the "Andy is alive" rumors.  They declare that Andy is, in fact, still dead.

Monday Monday

The new school year is upon us, and so starts a new season of blogging.  This year I have opted to save some trees, so all my ERA students are required to create and maintain a blog in place of the written journal notebooks I used to hand out. They have to write 1 entry a week, and so I am joining them and will be posting on a weekly basis here. So let the blogging begin!

My last post was on Net Neutrality, and it's still a major concern. Last week was the "Net Slow Down" where web sites and companies like Netflix  posted graphics of the loading icon to illustrate the impact of a slower Internet.  I have heard people complain about how slow their computers were because of this, but the problem is these were only graphics and did nothing to actually slow the Net down.  Perhaps increased concern added net traffic, but all I know for sure is that the FCC comments site was overwhelmed and crashed again. If you want more information about what happened, This Site has some numbers and info.

Here are some tweets by members of congress:

The solution to this problem is simple. The FCC MUST reclassify Internet Service Providers as “common carriers” and enact the network neutrality rules we need under Title II of the Communications Act.