any other words? (pt. 2)

In our move to continue talking more "politically correctly," do you notice about how there are some words that are still used much more frequently. Like how there is an effort to say "African-American" or "Afro-American" versus "black." However, we still continue to use the word "white" rather than "Caucasian" or "European-American." I think it's interesting. And even more interesting when you can visibly see the PC-barrier breaking down in people when they just start refering to "black" and "white."

It's weirdest seeing it in myself.

James Garbarino & Blaming Culture

I went to a talk yesterday by James Garbarino at the University of St. Catherine on the topic of female aggression. While really interesting at many points, there was one spot that I almost considered totally tuning out.

He started talking about pop culture and the effects that it is having on today's youth. (This was through the increased portrayal of strong, aggressive females in movies & violence in both music & movies.) And he started into what sounded like a blaming of youth violence on the lack of immunity to these displays of aggression. (Evidently, in a research study on the effects of television on youths, girls were impervious to any negative effect from what they saw until the eighties.) I hate these blame games.

Each time there was a school shooting in the last decade, there were these lines of psychologists (and other "experts") that would rant on & on about the impact that violent games, music, & movies had. Doom & Marilyn Manson make you kill people. I'm sorry...but NO! FUCK NO! If this was true I would feel like there would have to be a lot more blood in the streets. Life is bloody now, but not as bloody as it seems like it should be.

Anyways, I was about to totally tune out (& be VERY bitter that I had dealt with driving just so I could hear a man say things that I didn't believe were good enough), but I managed to hang on just long enough for him to redeem himself.

See, James Garbarino says he analyses from the "ecological" standpoint. That means that the answer to most any question is: "It depends." Broad patterns are contextual, primarily based on society or time period. One of the examples was how "permissive" parenting in the 1920s brought about the best-adjusted adults; while in the 1960s "authoritative" parenting was more effective. This was due to the strictness of the world outside of the home, and how the home worked to counterbalance the outside. Thankfully, in my opinion, this held true to the effects of violence in media as well.

As it came across, violence in the media does not necessarily breed violence in those who view/listen to it. It is only dangerous when there is not a support structure in place. Those who already feel alienated are at a greater risk of acting out than those that have strong "spiritual" ties. (I think this was emphasized because the talk was at a Catholic college.) This "spiritual" grounding was just that the person felt that their life was meaningful in some way, or that the world/universe was meaningful.

I liked this a lot better. Despite the way I defend it, I do acknowledge that youth involved in violent acts are often drawn to violent music, movies, & games. It just should not be the scapegoat, and I do not believe that censoring is the right way to fix it (although it always sounds like the easiest). This "ecological" viewpoint shows that while pop culture is to blame, so are the rest of us that are not supporting each other well enough. It's the parents, the educators, and other positive role models that are lacking as well. There is not just one thing to point fingers at, there are many factors. And that should be acknowledged more often by those who talk about why moral disasters happen.


There, I feel better.

I thought this was a worthy addition.

	It may not be a true story... (Anonymous)
	Read this http://www.antiwar.com/orig/ttaylor.php?articleid=5801 before you believe this book. I'm not in any way saying honour killing does not exist (5000 murders per year, according to the UN) but you can find better accounts than this.

Re: It may not be a true story... greenpingu

i think that it was more interesting since i had never before been exposed to the idea of honour killing. (i had heard about the acid, and about another related affair in india, but nothing quite so specific.) also, part of the reason that i thought that it was more interesting than most stories was because of the split between the two "lives". like when she talks about how she thought things were normal, but didn't until she left for europe. it just feels like although this horrible thing is being talked about, it's almost like it has is seen worse through a western eye. there just felt a little hesitance in giving in entirely to the belief that what happened was wrong. aside from the shock of the treatment of women (although i really shouldn't have been as shocked as i was), this was one of the most intersting parts to me.

Souad

i'm going to end up copying this to several places, so if you've read this before, i'm sorry.

i read a really good book last week; and if anyone finds it, i highly recommend reading it. it's called Burned Alive by Souad. it's the true story of a woman who survived an "honour killing" (because she had sex before marriage). and it's really not that long (~200 pages).
so quick read, interesting story.

READ IT!

Lifetime Movies (copied from Livejournal)

while i was out shopping for movies last night at best buy, i saw something that both totally apalled & intrigued me: lifetime movies. i couldn't help staring at it & wondering the horrors that i was sure it contained. (and how could it not with the titles of "mother at sixteen" & "too young to be a dad"?) so while i could appreciate the idea, i feel SO CERTAIN that they dealt with the issue of teen pregnancy in such a bad way.

unfortunately, the only way to prove how bad...or good...they were was to buy the disc & watch it. while i may enjoy watching movies for analyzing (as evidenced by the bad teen movies i watched too much of last year), i am not willing to spend $15 on a gamble. my limit is $10 for movies that i'm not going to watch for any real reason other than to write about.

i'm sure that there are other (bad) movies on teen pregnancy that i can actually rent at blockbuster. i'd prefer cheap rental to too expensive of a commitment.

"Hotel Rwanda"

Isn't it amazing what horrendous things we are capable of when we turn a blind eye?


"Cowardice askes the question: Is it safe?
Expediency asks the question: Is it political?
Vanity asks the question: Is it popular?
But conscience asks the question: Is it right?
And there comes a time when one must take a position, that is neither safe, nore popular, but he must take it because his conscience tells him that it is right..."
~Martin Luther King, Jr.

any other words?

Because of the horrible associations with the word, it has been shortened down to being called the "N" word. I find this totally understandable. The word is extremely derogatory and carries a lot of baggage with it. (I do also realize that it has been used more colloquially, but I am not sure that it would constitute the sort of "reclamation" of "former" derogatory words such as "faggot" & "cunt".)

What I wonder, though, is: are there any other words that we shorten down like this?

Curse words are shortened down because it is unacceptable for unacceptable for young children to say them. When others say them, they need a way of expressing that the word was said & they need a way of saying that they found them inappropriate. But do we have any other words that are deemed such for adults as well as kids other than the one that I first referred to?

...I am not sure. I can't think of one. And I've been trying for a few days.

Texas Truth

While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75-year old Texas rancher (whose hand was caught in a gate while working cattle) the doctor and the old man struck up a conversation about George W. Bush being in the White House.

The old Texan said, "Well, ya know, Bush is a 'post turtle'." Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a 'post turtle' was. The old rancher said, "When you're driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a post turtle."

The old man saw a puzzled look on the doctor's face, so he continued to explain, "You know he didn't get there by himself, he doesn't belong there, he doesn't know what to do while he's up there, and you just want to help the dumb bastard get down!"

"wow!" i say.

"Abortion is the worst form of terrorism."

"fighting the enemy?"

...We still remember a proud city covered in smoke and ashes, a fire
across the Potomac, and passengers who spent their final moments on
Earth fighting the enemy. We still remember the men who rejoice in
every death, and Americans in uniform rising to duty. And we remember
the calling that came to us on that day and continues to this hour.

We will confront this mortal danger to all humanity. We will not tire
or rest until the war on terror is won...



(i didn't think they were "fighting the enemy." how does he mean that?)

Radical Militant Librarians!

When the shepherd is a wolf, the flock becomes only so much meat.
- Gurney Halleck

There was an internal FBI email sent in October 2003 that speaks volumes about why our legal system has been arranged the way it has. An unnamed agent was railing via email against the Department of Justice's Office of Intelligence Policy and Review. Specifically, the agent was frustrated by OIPR's failure to deliver authorization to use Section 215 of the Patriot Act for a search. "While radical militant librarians kick us around, true terrorists benefit from OIPR's failure to let us use the tools given to us," wrote the agent.

Radical militant librarians?

Radical militant librarians?

This, right here, is why the legal system is arranged the way it is. This is why officers must obtain warrants from a judge before they can conduct a search. Even in this time of watered-down civil liberties, warrants serve a vital purpose. At a minimum, the warrant firewall keeps walleyed FBI agents with wild hairs about radical militant librarians from bulldozing through the Fourth Amendment.

The President of the United States of America, it seems, does not agree with the sentiment.

It has been widely reported that Bush personally authorized the super-secretive National Security Agency to conduct surveillance against American citizens. "The previously undisclosed decision to permit some eavesdropping inside the country without court approval," wrote the New York Times upon breaking the story, "was a major shift in American intelligence-gathering practices, particularly for the National Security Agency, whose mission is to spy on communications abroad. As a result, some officials familiar with the continuing operation have questioned whether the surveillance has stretched, if not crossed, constitutional limits on legal searches."

As if this were not outrageous enough, Bush, during his weekly radio address, bluntly admitted to violating the laws governing surveillance of American citizens and the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution not once, but some thirty times. "I have reauthorized this program more than 30 times since the September 11 attacks," said Bush, "and I intend to do so for as long as our nation faces a continuing threat from al Qaeda and related groups."

These revelations hit Congress like a dung bomb, and caused what would likely have been an easy rubber-stamping of the renewal of the Patriot Act to go flying off the tracks and into the puckerbrush. "Disclosure of the NSA plan had an immediate effect on Capitol Hill," reported the Washington Post on Saturday, "where Democratic senators and a handful of Republicans derailed a bill that would renew expiring portions of the USA Patriot Act anti-terrorism law. Opponents repeatedly cited the previously unknown NSA program as an example of the kinds of government abuses that concerned them, while the GOP chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said he would hold oversight hearings on the issue."

...(rest of article can be found on my livejournal.)

---

William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know and The Greatest Sedition Is Silence.

Alito Turns Aside Democrats' Criticism~Chicago Sun Times

Under persistent questioning, Alito also declined for a second straight day to say whether he believes, as he did in 1985, that the Constitution contains no right to an abortion. "I don't think it's appropriate for me to speak about issues that could realistically come up" before the courts, he said.



(SO mad he got confirmed...it makes me want to learn how to perform abortions just so I can for women who want them after it becomes illegal again.)

"Nina Grant, Pediatric Nurse" (1960)

"I like being Mrs. Enoc Halpern," she said with a glorious smile.

His smile matched hers. "I'm glad you do, my little nurse," he said.
"For that is what you're going to be for the rest of your life."

Current Mood: nauseated

...yet they are so very, very different...

Rumsfeld Compares Chavez to Hitler

The Secretary of Defense likens the Venezuelan President to the German dictator, saying: “‘He’s a person who was elected legally—just as Adolf Hitler was elected legally.”

(from truthdig.com)

Groundhog Day!

This year, both Groundhog Day and the State of the Union Address fall on the same day. As Air America Radio pointed out, "It is an ironic juxtaposition: one involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to a creature of little intelligence for prognostication, and the other involves a groundhog."

keeping 'em down.

'We have 50 percent of the world's wealth, but only 6.3 percent of its population. . . In this situation we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will allow us to maintain this position of disparity. We should cease to talk about the raising of the living standards, human rights, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.'

-- George Kennan, Director of Policy Planning of the U.S. Dept. of State, 1948