terrible hacks to get rudimentary functionality in workbench / studio.

@aboudreault @gwprice  - these are some really hasty changes I've made in order to see this code work in the xblock workbench and in lms/studio.

@aboudreault does any of this change look like it will disagree with the jquery-xblock runtime or with the approach you're looking at?   (i am very new to xblock...)

if so, then i suggest we try to organize around a few efforts:
  * getting threads / content in and out of the lms successfully
  * getting the style / client-side app behavior right
  * ironing out integration points with studio