Course Summary

Although I do read, I am not a reader.  I like short pieces and things music-related.  So, the fact that this course was all shorter essays was great.  I haven’t read so much in ages. I liked quite a few of the stories although 30 Little Turtles and Women Confronting War were the easiest to comment on.  Code Breaker was my least favorite.  The essay was interesting but I’m sure there was something more that I should have got out of it that I didn’t.  Here’s where the blog thing is helpful.  I could read what others commented on and get a better understanding of the essay. I liked the distance format of the class- it's my first (the other classes I have are face-to-face).  I think I actually got more from it then I would have if I’d been sitting in the class.  When I was writing I could actually refer back to questions and answers from others in the class so I think it helped me make fewer mistakes (we’ll see).  This was probably my heaviest course and definitely the one which has had the most reading.  The assignments were well spread out – sometimes I wondered if it were necessary to do both a discussion and a blog in the same week – the responses (mine included) got lesser as other assignments got in the way.  I know I have to work on my sentence structure still but maybe that’s just practice. I know that more reading helps make you a better writer so as much as I would have preferred to read less I know more is better.  Thanks.

To be or not to be?

Kurt Vonnegut essay How to Write with Style provides writers with valuable information which will help them with their own writing.  Vonnegut speaks from experience. He is the "author of such novels as Slaughterhouse-Five, Jailbird and Cat's Cradle" (p. 66) as well as many other novels and short stories. His book Cat's Cradle was reviewed as one of the best books of the twentieth century so it can be surmised that tips he provides in How to Write with Style have served him well. 

Vonnegut breaks his essay into manageable subsections and in each subsection he provides examples to support his topic sentence.  Interestingly, the examples he chooses to illustrate his points are from writers whom I always thought were outside my grasp. For example he refers to excerpts from Shakespeare, and Joyce, both themselves exceptionally accomplished writers.  

Vonnegut doesn't insist that we write novels, but he encourages us to write about things we care.  Great stories say  ".... precisely what their authors meant them to say" (67) and do so by selecting the best words for the job.  Neither does he set limits on what one can write about and points out the Americans are utterly unlimited on their topics unlike other countries. 

Perhaps, for me, his best recommendation was that "if a sentence ... does not illuminate your subject in some new and useful way, scratch it out" (p. 66).  It sure cut down on the filler in my paper for Engl 150. 

Did you find any of the information particularly useful?

Heaven or Hell

Japan’s Kamikaze Pilots and Contemporary Suicide Bombers: War and Terror written by Yuki Tanaka creates interesting comparisons between the actions of Kamikaze pilots and Palestinian suicide bombers.  Sadly, the use of suicide bombers is employed when the country is aware that they have insufficient military and technological know-how to suppress the opposition.  It then seems even more outrageous that the use of a man (or men) against, for example “… F-16 jet fighers, Apache helicopters, tanks, missiles and the like” (p. 299) would be anything other then futile.  But, as Anwar Ayam, the brother of a Palestinian suicide bomber says in Tanaka (2008) the purpose of the bomber missions was to paralyze the population by destroying their economy and their social life (p. 298). In neither case did the attacked country respond in such a fashion.  They retaliated and the result was devastating.

But, what is unique to Japan’s culture is that suicide, especially in the mid-twentieth century was culturally acceptable. In fact Alton Trevino in Bushido and Seppuku - The Code of the Samurai and Ritual Suicide
(http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Alton_J_Trevino  <http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Alton_J_Trevino)  says that ritualistic methods (disembowelment) of suicide performed by Samurai are a point of honor not hopelessness and despair.  Additionally their Confucian heritage that stresses the group over the individual (and their Buddhist religion which does not prohibit suicide) supports the decision to end one’s life in such a fashion – especially, as in the case of the Kamikaze, when there are benefits to be gained by community. These young men can commit suicide without dishonoring their beliefs. Infact, they died on honorable death.

Conversely, Palestinian’s practice Christianity which considers suicide to be a horrible sin. In the eyes of their Church, one’s life is a property of God so that destroying it is an act against God. Therefore, their mission becomes very difficult to justify in the eyes of their God and for which they will not receive his forgiveness. In life and in death they will dwell in Hell.

Realizing the ineffectiveness of Kamikaze pilots against the Americans why do you think a militarily deficient country like Palestine would employ the same strategies against the Israelites?

No ovation here

In Thomas Friedman’s 30 Little Turtles he explains the benefits garnered from outsourcing low-end American jobs, such as call center attendant, to people living in places like India or Pakistan (p. 177).  However it also demonstrates how powerful countries, such as United States exploit communities/countries where opportunities are limited. 

Friedman indicates that the opportunity to work, for example, at a job which starts at $300 a month helps give these people self-confidence, dignity, and optimism (p. l77).  However, in exchange for that, Friedman indicates that a newly-hired employee is expected to loose their native accent through a process called “accent netralization.” An instructor teaches “would-be Indian call center operators to suppress their native Indian accents and speak with a Canadian one …” (p. 176). or British or US, depending on where their job market is.  So part of what we ask of them if they work for us is to give up their culture.

Friedman indicates that many of these unemployed men and women have college degrees yet have limited employment opportunities in their own country. So, rather then providing any likelihood of an education-relevant job, but yet tapping into these individuals’ desire to better themselves he purports all the benefits they garner by accepting these token opportunities.  These jobs “transformed their lives” (176).  We fail to recognize that by tapping into their intellect they may transform our lives.

Finally, companies which offer wages as low as $200 to $300 a month should be called upon to be accountable. This is an impossible wage to live on or to support a family in a more industrial country so the job described can only target a disadvantaged group. It is an example of a larger, wealthier company or country exploiting those who are less so.  This doesn’t seem like an appropriate time to stand up and accept an ovation because we threw them a crumb their way.  

Do you think companies, especially those that show such huge profit margins, should be required to pay fair wages to their employees so that they can have a means to support themselves and be less reliant on social services?

A Brilliant Mind Lost

On the surface, Jim Holt’s Code Breaker  tells of the life and death of Alan Turing.  But there is so much more to this essay.  It talks of isolation, loneliness, rejection. Turing parents chose to give their son up and place him in the care of a retired Army couple. He was rejected at birth. Undoubtedly, his childhood was considerably different from that of his peers; he was adopted, had no siblings, and his caregivers were much older then his peers' parents.  Setting him apart even further was an interest in “exploring esoterica like Einstein’s relatively theory” (Holt, J. in The New Yorker, February 6, 2006).  Although he managed to have one friend who shared his interest that friendship only lasted a year before the friend died and “Turing seems to have been left with an ideal of romantic love that he spent the rest of his life trying to duplicate” (Holt, 2006)

Due to his sheltered life, Turing's college years proved no different.  He wasn’t accepted by the aesthetic set so spent his free time performing solitary sports like as rowing and long distance running.  He was also an intellectual and spent hours contemplating abstract concepts which didn’t require the companionship of others. He devised the ‘turing machines;’ by the age of 23 he had “dispatched the decision problem…;” had a Ph.D. by age 26; managed to break the German coded messages in WW2 and finally conceptualized the early computer.  He was brilliant.  However, he was a homosexual which, in the early 1900's when views of sexuality were much less liberal then today was unacceptable.   These people were referred to as diseased and much like the leppers who were sent to Darcy Island to be set apart from society so were homosexuals. They needed "... treatment by a duly qualified medical practitioner” (Holt, 2006)  and Turing was no exception.  He was rejected by society and under an 1885 act, he was persecuted for “gross indecency. The  crime … punishable by up to two years’ imprisonment.” (Holt, 2006). Turing was forced to submit to a chemical castration to ‘cure’ him.  Holt continues saying that although Turing’s crime received no national attention he descended in “a slow, sad descent into grief and madness”  and committed suicide three years later during a period of societal anxiety about spies and homosexuals. Turing, a man capable to enormous scientific accomplishments may have deduced that the only solution to treating his sexuality was that of death.   Do you think Turing’s death was an escape from his homosexual tendencies? 

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/02/06 

(Sorry everyone - I have misplaced my course textbook and had to find the story on the web)

Women: A casualty of war

Jennifer Turpin’s essay “Women Confronting War” looks at the negative effects  war has on the lives of women. In fact, if war were defined as a sex it would be male.  Women are passive participants in war.  They are not involved in war in the physical way men are,  nor do they die  a noble death fighting alongside their comrades against a visible enemy. Rather, women take care of family and homes yet it does not prevent them from suffering agonizing treatment and abuses at the hands of men. War dehumanizes women and provides men with a vehicle to totally dominate women.   At the hands of men, women suffer  “sexual abuse and torture, and losing loved ones, homes and communities” (Turpin, 325). And sadly “attitudes of military personnel often support the sexual abuse of women and girls” (327).  Rape in wartime appears to be a used as some kind of tool. Firstly, rape seems to be some kind of reward or payment to those who are supposedly helping women.  Turpin points out that women and girls who find refuge in camps are sexually abused and forced into prostitution.  She continues saying, even UN peacekeepers who are supposed to be protecting civilian rights have raped or committed sexual abuses against women (327).  Secondly, rape is used as a method of control towards women.  Here, Turpin describes details of women who because of their political activities are imprisoned and   then repeatedly raped in an attempt to break them down   And finally rape is a way to demoralize women. To support this belief, Turpin speaks of the anguish women experience having to carry a “child who was both their own and the enemy’. (326). Even prostitution is supported by “militaries around the world” (327) for its potential to boost the economy and ‘service’ soldiers. 

Unfortunately, even women who don’t live in these war-torn countries can be subjected to  increases in domestic violence. Statistically speaking, Turpin says there is an “increase in the number of sons who commit violence against their mothers … an increase in violence in marriages where the husband and wife’s ethnicity differ … an increase in alcohol consumption among men returning from combat” (p. 328) during wartime.  There are many reasons put forward to explain this behavior however, if sexual domination is supported by military heads, UN troops, refugee camp guards, etc., in countries at war how can we expect men’s attitudes towards women to change when they return home. 

Women hold ranking positions in the military.  Do you think during their tour they’d turn a blind eye to activities such as prostitution or rape or is it an accepted activity of war?

Ignoring the Lesson

Gary Kleck’s essay There are no Lessons to be Learned from Littleton, criticizes the  solutions government officials conjured up after several  publicized high-school massacres.   Journalists, and “…other writers of every ideological stripe explained to their readers what lessons were to be learned from Littleton or, more broadly, from this cluster of massacres” (Kleck, 211).  Unfortunately these lessons or causes and solutions were put in place because they simply fit the media theme which was a “trend” in youth/school/gun violence” (212).  In addition, because these crimes are publicized in lots of detail to a very large audience it becomes a believeable message.   However, in actuality, the ‘trend’ in school gun violence shows a decline which would suggest that the media treated the incident for the wrong disease.   Thus, the disease could return when we least expect it.

How could no lessons be learned from such horrific events.  Kleck points out that “… the more bizarre an event, the less likely it is to be repeated” (212) so creating solutions is much harder to do.  However, in a 'normal' shooting there are patterns  so solutions are possible. .  However what does  appear to be consistent in these multiple massacres is: the media attention they receive, the emotional state of the population viewing the event on TV or listening to it on a radio, and  finally, the public outcry for an immediate solution.  But, as Kleck points out “frightened people often favor actions that make them feel better over those that would actually make them safer, if the actions can be implemented quickly and easily and are touted as producing results immediately” (215) which can lead to the wrong solution.  For example in the Littleton case analysts proposed restricting the sale of guns at gun shows even though  the guns used in the event were not purchased at a gun show and therefore had nothing to do with the Littleton massacre.  Or, after the West Paducah massacre the newspaper “… reported that the school system was  considering installing metal detectors “ (213).  However, in the Paducah massacre the attacker shot his way into the school so this ‘fix’ wouldn’t have prevented the Paducah-type massacre from happening again. 

Although Kleck, who has a background in criminology, doesn't agree with the solutions the analyst put in place to prevent future massacres from happening he does see some merit in them - in a general sense. Guns have been at the root of all these massacres.  However, youth were responsible for the committing the crime.  Kleck does not down-play the need for gun control and gun legislation but suggests  that a better understanding of youth and social order in schools, cultural background and economic background are important in determining why these events happened.. Issues such as “… school bullying … male-on-female teen dating violence, and violence-saturated entertainment …” (215) are complex and should be reviewed prior to providing a solution which will see an end to any future massacre. 

If gun's weren't available to youth through any kind of market do you think these mass killings would end?