Resistance to Civil Government

Thoreau in his argument that government is cold and not bound by a moral compass described soldiers as hard and unfeeling. They are nothing but machines that have been brainwashed to subscribe absolutely to the cause of their government. Joe, however, in Johnny Got His Gun, is only a boy. He barely knew his reasons for war; all he wanted to do was stay home and take care of his beloved Kareen. As he lay dying, he thinks about all of his explanations for going to war, and not a single one made sense. He was a scared boy, not an insentient block of stone.

On page 841 Thoreau says that it is good for a man to wholly cast himself into a cause he truly believes in as long as it doesn't interfere with the dreams of another. The US government does not do this for Joe. They use their authority to shove him into an undesired environment regardless of his personal objections. His plans take a back-seat to the objectives of the government, and he is told that his life is expendable in the fight for "liberty." The word, nothing more. Thoreau proposes this only as the ideal.

The Handmaid's Tale

I just finished a book that Maddie lent me called The Handmaid's Tale. It's amazing. It depicts a world in which the Bible is taken literally, but this occurs in the future, and the transition is instantaneous. The woman from whom the perspective of the book is written is part of the transitional generation. Her duty is to become impregnated by her Commander because his wife cannot bear children, and because she is nothing more than a uterus with legs, everything that her ruling bodies think she should want is provided for. However, she is trapped. Women can no longer read or own anything. The Eyes spy on you wherever you go, and no one is allowed to leave. Even to leave her home, she must have a pass. All women's skin must be completely covered, but as a handmaid, the main character must also cover her face. Every freedom she once knew is taken from her. She who does not wish to be a vessel of fertility much either be forced to toil in the Colonies, cleaning up toxic spills, or as a whore for the Commanders looking for a more physical sexual experience.

The book is loaded with twists that reflect how complicated human nature really is. It brings religious fundamentalism, misogyny, and basic liberty into question while telling the story.

Go Green!

10 tips for living a greener life:

1. Turn out the lights! When you leave a room, don't forget to flip the switch. If you're doing work and it's light out, but your area gets little natural light, move near a window or work outside to avoid wasting energy.

2. Borrow instead of buy. Gets books and movies from the library, a movie rental store, or mooch off of a friend. If it's something you're only going to use once, there's no sense in wasting the resources. If possible, find a couple neighbors that you trust to share big things like lawn mowers and snow blowers. If a product cannot be borrowed and is a necessity, buy used. If you can't find it used, buy the brand with the most eco-friendly policies and minimal packaging.

3. Write on the backs of used paper for notes. Why consume when there's perfectly usable stuff that you're just going to throw in the recycling bin anyway? Just 3-hole-punch the homework, essays, and assignment sheets of yesteryear, flip them upside-down, and put them in a binder.

4. Cut back on shower time. The average shower uses a little over 2 gallons per minute, which really starts to add up. If you reduced your shower by 2 minutes and showered every night, you would save 1,606 gallons in a year. Skipping days is encouraged if you've done nothing but sit in your house all day.

5. Plastic baggies are your enemy. A sandwich-sized plastic (but preferably glass) container will save you money and keep all of those bags out of the landfill. The average american kid puts 67 lbs of lunch wrapping waste in the landfills every school year (greenopolis,com). When it comes to saving bags, bring a cloth one to the store. Store bags are even more evil that lunch baggies. Also, carry a reusable water bottle instead of using bottled water, or if you have a friend who does drink bottled water, steal their bottle when they're done with it. Refill and reuse that one until it starts to smell bad.

6. Use stuff for as long as you can instead of buying a new one. We don't wear out our clothes in a single school year (though there are some exceptions), but at the start of fall everyone goes out and purchases a whole new wardrobe. Is it really necessary? If your clothes/school supplies/cell phones/whatever are still good, keep using them.

7. Summers coming up, which means everyone starts blasting the air conditioning. Let the house be a little warmer than is comfortable. Turn of the air on breezy days and open up the windows. The opposite goes for winter; put on a sweatshirt instead of cranking the heat.

8. Bike or walk to places within a distance that you are capable of traveling. Invest in a bike chain and avoid burning up the nonrenewable fossil fuels. Not only is it good for the earth, but you'll also find yourself in great shape! If the distance is far, but you know someone nearby going near where you're going, carpool.

9. Eat less meat! When you eat a steak, you consume not only the cow, but everything that had to be fed the cow as it grew up. The resources you consume when you consume meat are huge when you consider not only the grain and water, but also the transporting of the animal and emissions that come from its processing. Granted plant products must be transfered and processed as well, but less so than meat. Eating mostly plant products is being a direct consumer, especially if you grow your own veggies in your back yard.

10. The most obvious one: Recycle, please. It seems like such a simple thing, and yet so few actually do it. If you don't want to pay for the recyclables pick-up, take them to sites. Libraries and schools always have dumpster-shaped containers for paper, and grocery stores often have ones for cans and bottles.

Fencing

Fencing is a pretty cool sport. I'm going to blog about sabre fencing. There are alternatives to it, but sabre is the most physically demanding of the three weapons. Plus, it was my weapon.

Two people face each other in a bout. Each is hooked up to a box with the wires able to retract or extend according to the fencer's movements, and that box connects to a machine that lights up for the person who scored a point. The sabre is connected to a wire, which is connected to the wire coming out of the box and the electric lame. The lame is the fencing jacket, and is covered with a tiny wire net. When one person's sabre touches the other's lame (which is also connected to the wire-covered mask), his/her light turns on. If you know anything about electricity, it's just a big circuit.

Target area includes everything above the hips, excluding hands. In sabre, you can either stab or cut, unlike the other weapons in which you can only stab. There are lots of rules, like right-of-way, that determine whose point is was when both lights come on simultaneously, but I'm not really going to go into them. It's really complicated, and there are too many for me to list right now. A director mediates the bout, and his/her call is final, unless one fencer concedes. If you're incredibly lucky, you can argue until the director abstains from call, but arguing typically just puts him in a bad mood. Screaming after every point is highly encouraged, even if you're not sure the point was yours. You may influence the director, but the real purpose is to scare people and reap the benefits of a much-needed release.

Tournaments are huge. Women's sabre is the smallest event in all age groups, and that averages 120 people per event (one event example is Y14 (age group) women's sabre). Most fence in multiple evens because regarding age groups, you can fence in your own or any above your age group. Events can also be divided by rank (some require you to have at least a B, C, or D rank. You're ranked A,B,C,D,E,or U for unranked). You start with pools, which are groups of 5-8 determined by seed where you fence every person to 5 points. This determines your seed for DEs (direct eliminations). DEs are bouts to 15, where you fence until you either lose a bout or win the tournament. Top 8 medal.

So that's fencing. It's complicated, but it's a lot of fun. Since I left, I've thought about it every day. My coach changed my life, and I am forever indebted to him.

Anorexia

I am not the usual suspect when it comes to eating disorders. What are the characteristics you think of when you think of an anorexic? Of course she's terrified of what people think of her appearance. She cares about making herself more beautiful. About looking better than the people around her because the thinner the better. You know what? I hate those assumptions. I'm extremely self-assured, and I've never particularly cared about what other people think about me, especially my face and figure. Sometimes I'm flat-out arrogant. My anorexia came out of something completely different.

I remember the trigger. In the book Ender's Shadow, the main character Bean observes of the other children that they are fat-never missed a meal in their lives. At this time I was both fencing in every spare second of my time and running track. I looked at myself in the mirror and realized my soft features. I wasn't fat by any stretch of the imagination (this was the strongest point in my life, physically, anyway). Unless you compared me to say, children in Darfur. I've always been extremely sensitive, and I was struck by my very selfishness. Who am I to eat 2500 calories per day when these kids are lucky to eat a full meal?

I wish I could say that my self-inflicted starving was some noble form of asceticism, but I can't. That was the trigger, but my disease was ultimately a symptom of a deeper problem. I have obsessive-compulsive disorder. My obsession? Food. Restricting my intake, specifically. That's just my strongest one, but by no means the only. OCD haunts you at every moment of your life. Without my medication, I don't even sleep because my obsessions will keep me up at night.

So why am I telling you this? Because I am sick of people calling things anorexic when they're thin. It's a serious disease, and it drives me insane. People see eating disorders as something that happen to rich selfish celebrities. It's not, and it would be really nice if people would stop treating it with suck a lack of seriousness.

Also, I get incredibly frustrated when people claim that psychology-related drugs keep you from being who you truly are. Mine saved my life. I don't like taking them. I've tried to go off of them, but I can't. I am physically incapable of functioning properly without my meds. This is not a question of making me feel better; it's a matter of living.

So thats my random blog.

Gender

Gender is an interesting subject for me. Though I lack a penis, in my mind I view myself as male. I prefer male pronouns, though I understand that some feel too uncomfortable to use them and it leads to excessive amounts of confusion. Plus, I am required to keep myself looking "presentable" if I want to keep my hair chopped. Why? Because chopped hair is a guy thing. Because ladies don't wear baggy, ripped pants or flannel shirts no matter how comfy they are. Because young women never go to bed with wet hair and walk into school with stray clumps of hair shooting toward the ceiling. Because girls always give a damn about how they look because no matter how intelligent, sensitive, qualified, or whatever you are, you will still be judged by your appearance, and dammit, I'm sick of that bullshit. This is what is dealt to me when I don't look as nice as the girls who spend $100 per pair of jeans. I've been wearing the same pair of pants since 6th grade; when they get holes, I sew them up. They're still good.

Though the primary influences in my life would argue that the plastic life is the life of a girl, I learned my gender roles from other sources. For as long as I'm stuck with this body, with its feminine curves and delicate features, I refuse to accept that I have to obey the roles. I don't remember where I learned the new and fascinating concept that you don't have to eat what was shoved down your throat. The traditional gender roles have simply always triggered my gag reflex. I've always admired the feminists throughout history, and I've constantly found myself the only representative of my sex in a variety of situations. The only thing I mind about this is that people assume that my gender is in agreement with my plumbing, and it results in conflicts. Special attention is unwanted here. I'm just as man as they are, though I will never be able to make that clear.

You can take back your plaster/make-up, those awkward dresses, those ankle-snapping stilettos. I'm a man whether you like it or not.

Media

The way Ortiz Cofer is perceived both in Puerto Rico and the U.S. directly relates to the media. This is the venue in which the concept of beauty is defined. In each place, her skin makes her stand out because it contrasts with what the people in the area are used to in the media. In fact, her race is defined according to where she resides: white in Puerto Rico, Latina in the States. In the media, those thought to be "pretty" did not have chicken pox scars on their faces, so when he skin became marked, Ortiz Cofer no longer regarded herself as beautiful. The most glamorous people in each ares had more substance to them than skin and bone, and her desired body type was that of Wonder Woman, the paragon of a body filtered through the media. Later, when she is asked out by a white boy, his father says that he cannot date her. The father's view of Puerto Ricans being rats was a media image, though he claimed it was from his personal experience. The way people react to Ortiz Cofer and how she sees herself directly relate to what the media portrays as beautiful.

Same-Sex Marriage

I believe that everyone should have the right to marry the person that they love regardless of sex. Seeing as I am personally affected by this, I am extremely biased, but that is not the only reason. "Making it official" really gives people a more committed feeling. That's not to say that two men or two women living together aren't in a committed relationship just as gratifying as a married man and women, but psychologically, it can be extremely important to some people. Aside from that, there are also huge amounts of legal benefits that come with marriage. In the article we read, there was an example about a woman who was unable to be in the room to support her partner/wife when she was giving birth to their child. Even though the doctors were aware of the fact that the woman was going to be the mother of this child, they would not allow her in because they weren't legally married. Really important issues like death and health are affected by marriage laws. I just can't understand how one person can look at another and say, "You do not deserve these rights because you fell in love with the wrong person, and you are living the wrong life." The exact same quote could have been used when interracial marriage was in debate. Now if you said a black person couldn't marry a white person, you would be ostracized by society.

However, though I believe that the government has no right to deny this to a couple for something that they were born being on the basis of religion, I think that a church should have the option of refusing to marry a couple. Separation of church and state means that the Bible should stay out of the laws, but I understand that some people will never be able to get past their prejudices. The benefits of marriage come with a legal certificate. Determining whether or not to preform the religious ceremony should be up to the individual congregations.

Marriage

Wolfson begins this reading with an extended definition of marriage to show how integral it is to our culture, global culture, and historical culture. Marriage has almost always existed, and everywhere there are people, there is a form of marriage. His main points are that marriage is a way to declare to society that you are in a committed, loving relationship, gain indispensable legal benefits, and to feel more as one with your partner.

I think that his definition is logical and complete, but it feels as though the reading is very weighted. Except for the last paragraph, Wolfson writes assuming that all people want to be married. He makes it seem as though without marriage, your loving relationship is incomplete, which though for many is true, there are also many who are happy with their own autonomy within the relationship. He does not push the fact, but to a minor extend I feel like he invalidates the relationships of non-married people with no intent to marry. He also assumes that all who marry have good marriages. I know couples who had lived together for years and broke up within months of "making it official." He doesn't account for the fact that despite claiming unconditional commitment, people do lie, cheat, and abuse.

It Takes a Family

Dr. Horn compares raising a child to boarding a plane. One plane always reaches the destination, while the other makes it most of the time. Santorum uses this analogy to explain why a mother-father family is important. He argues that though it is possible to raise a child with only one parent (the plane that mostly makes it), the child will best succeed in a mom-dad household (the plane that always makes it).

I think it's interesting the Santorum never gives a "why" to his argument. Using the plane analogy, this is because there is both a mother and a father flying the vehicle, but he never says why they fly it better than a single mom or dad. He provides more than enough facts to make his argument, but no evidence of how they do it better other than that's just what he believes. He also fails to account for the fact that if too much attention is given to the child, (s)he'll become coddled and spoiled. (S)he will be unable to fend for his/herself once (s)he reaches the real world because in ever given situation there has been an overly-devoted parent there to hold his/her hand.

Also using the plane analogy, it would seem as though two men or two women could fly the plane just as adequately as one man and one woman. I feel like this analogy undermines his whole argument in "The Meaning of Family." Unless of course, he applies the "liberal marriage" factor that he proposed. By his logic, because homosexuals are in relationships strictly for sexual desire, they would be unable to fly the plane because each would be too preoccupied on pleasing him/herself instead of landing the child safely. According to him, only a married mother and father would be capable of the selfless love needed to fly the plane.

Appearances

Vazquez waits to disclose the fact that Brian and Mickey were heterosexual victims of homophobic violence because she was aware of the fact that the reader would automatically assume that each was gay. In an article that is clearly about violence against the gay community, the reader would simply accept that the article would use examples of gays getting hurt for their sexual orientation. However, the fact that she discloses this fact makes the examples far more shocking. A straight reader would likely be less inclined to protest homophobic violence because it is outside of their little bubbles; it's the stuff that happens out there instead of right here. By informing the reader that Brian and Mickey were straight, Vazquez gives the gravity of her argument significantly more weight. She instills the idea that everyone is a victim, particularly if they happen to be gender deviants. Antigay violence is not only an issue of prejudice against a minority, but also is sets back all motions toward gender equality.

When heterosexuals can be victims of gay violence, it becomes clear that society is not yet prepared to accept "manly" women and "girly" men. It means that to an extent, the genders are expected to stay in the cultural spheres dictated by their sex. Women may as well all be housewives, vacuuming in their heels and house pearls while men go off to do manly jobs and earn manly pay checks. Expanding the horizon of antigay violence to straights makes the lack of equality for men and women, gays and straights, far more ominous.

Transcendentalism

Eustace Conway was not a transcendentalist. He shared many transcendentalist views, but he was searching to achieve a different purpose. Eustace may have had an extreme reverence for nature, but his perception was not the lofty spiritual sort of take the transcendentalists had on it. Yes, he understood that nature was perfect with everything in its place, but he didn't care to ponder its higher meaning. He was utilizing it, both to achieve his goals and to survive. He was at a more gruesome, basic level than the transcendentalists, though he was a spiritual being. Additionally, Eustace Conway lacked the focus on the individual. He wished that society were different, but he longed to be a part of it. His pining after his father's affections, as well as the love of a female mate reflect how his actions were based on things other than self-gratification. If he were not so focused on pleasing his father, he may not have excelled at so many achievements.

I think that Gilbert sees Eustace as more of a pioneer than a transcendentalist. She saw him as someone who wanted to ensure that the wilderness survived, but he was also there to take advantage of its resources and survive using only the skills so that he could accomplish what he needed himself. Instead of finding spiritual truth, Eustace was looking for personal betterment through physical deeds and risky adventures. I agree with this.

Nature-Emerson

"The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence."

This line means that in order to truly have a connection with nature, one must make himself accessible. No matter how hard he tries, he will never be able to reach the stars. However, if he opens himself to them, they will reach for him. This is true of all components of nature, but today, man no longer has the desire or the care to be a part of the natural world. Man lives artificially; his clothing is synthetic, he lives in climate-controlled boxes, and no longer even has to walk anywhere if he doesn't want to. He is not open to nature because in the modern world, this is no longer necessary. The path to understanding nature is not to scientifically analyze it for its worth; one must simply open himself to it, and allow himself to become family.

"Most persons do not see the sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing. The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child."

This means that as we grow older, we lose the desire to connect with the natural world. As children, we have not yet been conditioned to reside strictly within or fake, synthetic boxes, and instead feel open and comfortable with nature. Because the children are more open to it, they have made themselves accessible. They are ready to experience nature's influence. I actually see this today. If you look outside at the park on a beautiful summer day, I see little kids bouncing around, just happy to be outside playing. Their parent sits to the side reading a book or the newspaper. I recently saw a survey that said one of teenager's biggest criticisms of their parents was their disregard for "going green"-type things, and a piece of me wonders if this is the reason why.

Gilbert's Reason: Last American Man

I think that Elizabeth Gilbert wrote The Last American Man partially to spread the idea that being one with nature is the best way to live. However, she does not do this by glorifying Eustace Conway’s life. On pg 264, she records a conversation she had with Conway regarding building a snowman. Conway was unable to even consider making a snowman without taking a pragmatic approach. He spent a long time just weighing the worth of this seemingly trivial activity. He decided that the fun was not worth the cost of time or the carrot for its nose. She instead chooses to glorify the ideal that everyone cannot look past when considering Eustace Conway as a human being. On the next pg, Gilbert writes, "The best man that Eustace can be is the man he becomes when he's alone in the woods." Later, she even confronts him about it, asking him why he cannot just live in harmony in nature and not engage in the activities that cause him so much stress. Every time he has to try to convert multiple people to living his lifestyle, he becomes miserable. Social interaction (when with the average, or even above-average modern American) brings out the worst in Eustace. However, when he is truly communicating with nature, without having to care about how incompetent other human beings are, he experiences his own bliss.

Gilbert does not want everyone to abandon their homes and jobs for the sake of the woods, but I think she adamantly believes in the Pacos Bill/Paul Bunion/Daniel Boone stories of the rugged manhood that can only be experienced outside of the comfort of our boxes. I think that she believes that we would be living truer lives if we could better understand our reliance on the nature around us, and she wrote the book to try to communicate this to people.