Composition

I have a friend at work who’s husband is a former journalist for the Detroit Free Press.  He now does technical writing but he still keeps a blog running as a creative outlet.  The website is writestuf.com…I’ve read numerous articles of his and I enjoy his writing style.    I am posting one of his articles that he notified me about on his site.

Paris has turned America into a disgusting version of “Fantasy Island”

This entry was posted on 6/27/2007 12:50 PM and is filed under The Real World.

I don’t think I’ve ever been more disgusted or ashamed to be an American than I was Tuesday watching Paris Hilton leave the Los Angeles County Jail to a sea of flash bulbs as if she were some conquering hero just returned from helping save the world.

Disgusted and ashamed aren’t even strong enough words, to tell you the truth.
Sad and angry is how I really felt.

Sad because a 20-something year old millionaire heiress, who just finished a less than two-week stay in isolation at a county jail is treated with more respect than men and women who’ve been in jail for years, wrongly accused of crimes they never committed.

Angry because in Georgia right now an 18-year-old black teenager sits serving a 10 year sentence for having consensual oral sex with a white girl two years ago when they were both underage.
His sentence was just overturned a few weeks ago by Georgia’s appellate court, ruling the punishment was too harsh and didn’t fit the crime.
Nevertheless, he still sits behind bars because the prosecutor who put him there refuses to let him out, filing motion after motion to keep him in jail until he can take the case before the state’s supreme court.

The mother of the girl he had sex with says he should be let out, the public’s sentiment is the same and the appellate court has even ruled that he be freed.
All this is happening in a state that has a long and well-documented history of inequality when it comes to justice for blacks vs. whites.

Still, there’s not one paparazzi camped outside the jail where this kid is.

Probably because they were all in L.A. trying to get a picture of a spoiled little rich girl, who spent less than a month in jail because she was too stupid not to drive while already on probation for another stupid driving offense months earlier.

What does this tell you about the country we live in?

Ok … let’s go to the scorecard and weigh the two:
Black teenager still in jail for having sex although a court says he should be free vs. rich little white girl who has served less than two weeks in a county jail.

Hmmmmm. Which story seems more deserving and compelling of endless media coverage to you?

It’s really no contest. BUT it shines a rather bright light on exactly the kind of fantasy world this country embraces.

There are kids dying daily thousands of miles from here in a foreign country most all of them never thought they’d ever set foot in.
There are homeless people on the streets with not an ounce of hope for the future.
There’s countless medical issues killing people every day. And some, if not all, of those issues could be wiped out by a few strokes of a pen on legislation by the jackasses in Washington … putting the wheels of research in motion to find cures.

But you turned on any TV channel Tuesday and what did you see?
Paris Hilton and her crap-for-parents mommy and daddy, mugging for the cameras as they drove away from jail in a top-of-the-line SUV, headed to a million dollar mansion to no doubt bask in glory that their ordeal was finally over.

Disgusting.
Completely and utterly disgusting.

(Darron Patterson is an award-winning freelance journalist based in Detroit)

I enjoy the racialized twist he includes in his writing.

Then this victim beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance victim wore,
`Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,’ I said, `art sure no craven.
Ghastly grim and ancient victim wandering from the nightly shore -
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!’
Quoth the oppressed, `Nevermore.’

Baa baa black slave, have you any will?
No sir, no sir, but I wish I still!
One whip for the master, one for the sprain,
And one for the other slave who escaped via train.

Quoth the oppressed, `Nevermore.’

Art sabotage strives to be perfectly exemplary but at the same time retain an element of opacity – not propaganda but aesthetic shock – appallingly direct yet also subtly angled – action as metaphor.

Jack and Jim went up the hill to fetch a pail of water
Jack fell down and ruined his gown.
And Jim came tumbling after.
Up got Jack, and home did trot
As fast as he could put on make-up
He went to a pride march and loved to put his wig-up.

Wish we could switch up the roles
And I could be that…
Tell you I love you
But when you call I never get back
Would you ask them questions like me?…
Like where you be at?
Cause I’m out 4 in the morning
On the corna roll’n
Do’n my own thing

What if I?
Had a thing on the side?
Made ya cry?
Would the rules change up?
Or would they still apply?
If I played you like a toy?
Sometimes I wish I could act like a boy

Quoth the oppressed, `Nevermore.’

Art sabotage is the dark side of Poetic Terrorism – creation-through-destruction-but it cannot serve any Party, nor any nihilism, nor even art itself.

Itsy Bitsy Indian dancing up the spout
Down came the disease and wiped the tribe out
Out came the white man and laid down all the pain
Now Itsy Bitsy Indian will never be the same!

Quoth the oppressed, `Nevermore.’

Art sabotage seeks to damage institutions which use art to diminish consciousness & profit by delusion. This or that poet or painter cannot be condemned for lack of vision- but malign Ideas can be assaulted through the artifacts they generate.

[Note:  I'm still editing the Works Cited for the above text, I will post it here when finished]

My last post was skipping a weekend on the syllabus, I didn’t realize this mistake until class saturday.   I also managed to misplace the movie reviews and other handout twice.  I typically bring books/handouts to work so I can get it done during lunch time.  Obviously I sent this to every one on the list serv a few days ago by accident.    I managed to find (at least I hope so) one of the movie reviews from Sight and Sound.  I didn’t realize this movie was a low budget, home video based production.  According to Sight and Sound, Jonathan Caouette is an innovative filmmaker who managed to awe with simple mechanics.

From what I read I get the idea that the movie is very raw regarding emotion as well as graphics.  I tend to enjoy raw film over stylized (hollywoodized)  dramatic productions.  It is fascinated that Caouette chose to expose himself, his family and his past for the sake of film.  What I don’t understand yet is the queerness aspect that the review is talking about.   I could see how the film could be shot with that in mind but I’m curious if its the focus of the plot.    Maybe the queerness aspect is not obvious when viewing the film unless attention is drawn to it.  Or maybe I am completely misreading this article, either way I’m sure the movie will be fascinating.

I thought the “Arhive: Play of Text” reading was interesting.  I have never read that sort of literature before.  Overall “Making it Stick” is a unique form of writing that exposes the stereotypes often associated with Asians (the most essentializing word there is).  I think the most profound part of the piece was “Proud to be Assimilated” and “We support your troops.”   I think the author intended those two phrases to be read sarcastically.  The consequence of national pride is erasure of your own identity.  The blanketing term “Asian”, that is often used in this country, lumps a diverse and culturally developed set of nations into one header, one entity.  This process if used to create assimilation into western culture.  From the perspective of a foreigner (myself), assimilation is a daily struggle that we must deal with.  We worry about losing our self, language and culture to a majority set of values.  If we do not assimilate enough then we are labeled un-American which nowadays may result in ethnic violence.

Must we support our troops?  In okinawa, Japan our troops are raping 12yr old girls on a regular basis.  From a Japanese perspective the answer may be no.  “No I won’t support YOUR troops.”

Our military is stuck in hyper-masclinity maybe a feminized approach to international politics would be more encompassing.  Instead of perpetuating anti-gay, anti-feminine and anti-foreign ideologies in our military we should train using cultural sensitivity.  This may motivate a wide array of people to SUPPORT YOUR TROOPS.

I had a difficult time picking a topic to write about. I thought most of the ideologies were pretty obvious except for the Indian collection. There was a book called the Bhagavadgita that I wanted to try and figure out. I already knew before I left class that my paper was going to have to be about that book because I wanted to be some what original. I didn’t want to write about education, ethnicity, or love. I enjoy writing when it’s more cynical and less generic.

Ultimately I decided to pick capitalism as an ideology. I make the point in my paper that it is much more pervasive than “JUST” an economic system. In fact I even suggest that it has co-opted nearly all other ideologies. If you looked at all the collections there is only one common connection, capitalism.

The other items I talked about in my paper were the monk who sold his ferrari and the gold rings. They fit nicely with capitalism but hopefully I didn’t make my connections too obvious. I have three general themes, sacrifice, virtual reality, and desire. The Sacred song book created those themes but not directly in the context of capitalist ideology and epistemology.

I’m interested to hear what others say about their collections.