Pick: Noise or Silence

Imagining a world without sound was a very hard thing for me to do, if not impossible for a hearing person. Both the hearing family and deaf family made very intelligent and weighted arguments. The deaf side of the family for the Artinian’s, made points on how they are changing Peter’s personality. They then continued to ask “Why can’t you accept him for him, you’re an awful mother.” But, since the Artinian’s are hearing they believed they were fixing Peter because he was broken. The deaf didn’t like being referred to as broken. They believed there was nothing wrong with being deaf. There is nothing wrong with being deaf in my opinion but, the majority of Americans are hearing able. Which means that with cochlear implants Peter and Heather would both be able to communicate better with a bigger world. They would have more job opportunities and there would be no barriers between speaking and hearing worlds. Except maybe for Peter if his parents decide not to teach him sign language. Which was another point the deaf people argued. “Are you going to tell him he’s deaf?"

There are two main discourses in this film.  One is being deaf and one is being hearing able. These are two different worlds and, it is hard for them to imagine each others worlds because they are such opposites. They also communicate differently, although small amounts can be understood from each side.  The deaf side wants the children to embrace their deafness and to be added into the deaf community. The hearing able want the children to be like them, to appreciate all of the sounds. They believe deaf people are missing out on life. Deaf people believe that hearing able people are missing out. Both are right. These two discourses often conflict with each other during the film. There are many times in the movie where both sides are shown, and they are shown equally. This works really well in the film and allows the audience to see both sides of the story. It allows the audience to make their own decisions. I believe, however, that a hearing able person will be biased towards themselves and vise-versa with a deaf person.

Scared of A Closed Basement Door

Nine years ago, almost a decade, I was annoying my eldest sister.  And I must have annoyed her til the point she could not longer take. As punishment, my struggling unwilling body was pushed through the open basement door by a very agitated twelve year-old. Slowly my pink elephant socks slid on the tile floor. Where the tile of the kitchen floor ended the wooden unfinished stairs of the basement started.  My feet hit the first step and the door was slammed shut behind me. I crouched down on the first step and sat as close to the door as I could. A wailing, whooshing sound started coming up the unlit stairs, the light switch was too far away. Shadows of  demons and other unimaginable nightmares moved around at the bottom; waiting for me to move, for me to breath so they can sense where I was. I was not going to give the monsters the satisfaction of eating me. I did not breath. It had to be years later that the door was opened and I sprinted towards the light and the safety of my bedroom and stuffed animal friends.  When my parents came home, my eldest sister was scolded after I told them of my punishment.

Now nine years past, I sit at my kitchen table doing homework. The house is silent, everybody has gone to the library. The heater in the basement kicks up with a small whurring cough and the basement door, which had been left open a foot, slams shut. And, in my mind, I see a little girl crouching at the top. My heart rate picks up as I walk over to the basement door.  With all the lights in the kitchen turned on, I open the door and let the child that could be there escape the nightmares in the basement. The basement door will never stay shut again. 

"Let me" inform "you"

             On July 30, Robin Thicke decided to publish his thoughts on women in his new song "Blurred Lines". Sending a message to the young generations that women want men. That it's in our "nature" to act like an "animal". That we "must wanna get nasty... you wanna hug me... I know you want it." His song undermines respect that all human beings should get equally. It is his way of saying that women are the problem in relationships: "You're far from plastic, Talk about getting blasted, I hate these blurred lines." When he says you're far from plastic, he is implying that we are real. We have feelings and emotions. Then he says something completely different, that we talk about getting blasted. That it's so confusing and women send mixed messages. And I am sure that some women probably do. But when you write a song about "blurred lines" and the fact that it's okay to cross them, "And that's why I'm gonna take a good girl, I know you want it." That's just not okay. He is sending a universal message that says it is okay to cross women's boundaries because it's in our nature, we're just animals. Oh, but don't worry, we're far from plastic.

             But it also sends the message that all men think they can "domesticate" and "liberate" women. And that men think women are the weaker sex. "What you don't like work." But, just like the above statements, this might apply to some, but not the majority.

              At first I thought that this song was really catchy. I would find myself singing it during random times of the day. Then, when I took the time to look up the lyrics, I was disappointed. I was disappointed that pop-stars today think that they can say whatever they want--even if it is offensive. Pop musicians have a responsibility for the messages that the promote to the world. Because their words are heard near and far. "With great power comes great responsibility." And musicians have great influence, or power, over their listeners. What bothers me is that young people are going around singing this song, much like I did, and not even knowing what they are implying. Or that when they sing the song they are agreeing with and supporting his claims. That women are a weaker sex, and that they want men because they are animals.

             To smooth things over with the public, Thicke claimed that he was making fun of stereotypical R&B and hip-hop discourses. Except for the notion that there is no evidence, in words or the music video, that he is making fun of anything. If the R&B stereotype is nudity, such as Miley Cyrus's Wrecking Ball music video, then how does the audience know that he is not just participating in it, but making fun of it. Because there is no evidence for or against his disclaimer, many people are going to take their own opinions of his song and music video. Creating a very biased song that will be listened to and re-watched hundreds of thousands of times. Maybe a biased song with nudity is the way Thicke is trying to gain money. Looking at it from that prospective, he is a very smart man trying to get people worked up about it. He makes money when people tell their friends, "Hey, did you hear about the new song that's getting all these bad reviews. Let's watch it and see what all the talk is about." Maybe everyone should let it go and focus instead on the good songs out there. Let profit go where profit is deserved, and vice-versa. 

August 1, 1944

For my non-fiction book I chose to read "The Diary of a Young Girl--Anne Frank."  Anne Frank was a little Jewish girl who lived during the Holocaust. She started her journal June 12, 1942. By July 10th her family had moved to a very small secret annex in Anne's Father's workshop. It was strange to read this book and comprehend that everything that she talked about actually happened.  Many times Anne would act as a child. Running to her parents bed when gun shots and bombings could be heard. But who could blame her?  She was thirteen years old. But surprisingly, she also many times acted as an adult. She was a very stubborn person and maybe that is what made her stand up to the adults in the little annex. I cannot imagine living at a time of such horror. The saddest parts of this diary were when Anne learned of what happened to her Jewish friends and neighbors. And when she learned about the gas chambers. "Perhaps that's the quickest way to die."

Another thing that became obvious to me, as time went on in her journal, was that I could see that Anne was maturing. "As long as you can look fearlessly at the sky, you'll know that you're pure within and will find happiness once more." She said these words when she was falling in love with Peter, one of the Van Daans, who was also in the safe annex.

On Tuesday, August 1, 1944 Anne Frank wrote her last diary entry. Three days later the eight people living in the Annex were arrested along with two of their helpers. Hermann was gassed to death shortly before the gas chambers were dismantled. Peter was forced to take part in the death march were he died three days before the camp was liberated. Margot and Anne died the winter the typhus epidemic broke out within days of each other. First Margot, then Anne. That spring the camp was liberated. "The bodies of both girls were probably dumped in Bergen-Belson's mass graves." "Otto Frank was the only one of the eight to survive the concentration camps."   "...he devoted himself to sharing the message of his daughter's diary with people all over the world."   

All of them were so close to surviving, it's truly heartbreaking. Anne Frank is a legend. And through words and stories her legend lives on. 

Beauty...

My second choice essay was on beauty. I chose the topic beauty because as an artist and want to be photographer I have no definition of beauty. And I wanted to see how other people defined it. I chose this essay “Definition Essay on Beauty” by Lindsey Fares because she has the same view as me on beauty.

“…beauty can perhaps best be described as connoting youthfulness.” Fares explains what the first Ancient Greeks thought of beauty. But I cannot agree with them. I believe that beauty is not only young but old. There is a certain beauty to behold the weathered and lined skin of someone who has lived a long life. The wisdom that you can see in the eyes of someone who has seen more years than your life doubled is untouchable. It’s not only that they are beautiful because of what time has bestowed on them, but because the way life flows off of them. They have lived. They have experienced things that you may or may not ever experience. And I believe that is beautiful.

“Other Ancient Greeks, particularly the Pythagoreans, conceived of beauty as connoting balanced ratios and proportions.” I also do not believe in this. Sometimes it is the unbalanced part that captures our attention. The fact that one single part stands out above all others. If we are talking about faces, an extraordinary jutting jaw line can be the most beautiful part of a face. If we are talking about nature it might be the big oak tree that stands among tiny green saplings. Or a large deformed rock among small circular pebbles. Beauty doesn’t have to be balanced.

“We have seen that, despite there being a general consensus that beauty exists, definitions of this concept are very different from each other. Perhaps we must conclude with the admission that beauty is one of those indefinable concepts that mankind will wrestle with for millennia to come.” Now, I can finally say that I agree. Beauty comes in all forms. It is undefinable by any one person or thing. You could almost say that what cannot be defined should not exist. Color exists, but try defining the color red to a blind person. It just cannot be done. It is almost like trying to explain what a poem is. Impossible.

That is why the title of Fares’s essay “Definition Essay on Beauty” is false. You cannot write about the definition of beauty if it does not exist. The Webster’s New World Dictionary claims beauty is “The quality of being very pleasing…” . But beauty can be exciting, dangerous, secretive, and mysterious. Name an emotion, and you have named a type of beauty. Look closely, maybe in a different light, a little bit of beauty can be found anywhere.

Read more at: http://free-essay.org/philosophy/definition-essay-on-beauty.html#ixzz3BzAbefj5

Thinking Like a Mountian

For my first choice essay I chose “Thinking Like a Mountain” by Aldo Leopold. I first heard about Aldo Leopold’s essays in Environmental Science. I didn’t get a chance to really explore his essays and decided to take a closer look at this one. Aldo Leopold was said to be before his age. In the majority of his essays he writes about nature and the things that destroy it. In “Thinking like a mountain” he starts out with a very sad, but true story, about killing a wolf as a young adult. How he was trigger happy. He then went on to almost explain the circle of life and how humans have corrupted it. How humans hate wolves because they kill the deer, livestock, and can be dangerous. He wrote that he himself foolishly believed that less wolves would mean more deer which would create a hunter’s paradise. It was not until later in his years that he had looked outside of himself at the bigger picture and saw the true effect. 

The problem with deer is that they eat anything green they can reach. So, Leopold explained how the mountains looked… “Such a mountain looks as if someone had given God a new pruning shear, and forbidden Him all other exercise.” He then goes on to explain how the deer starved to death because their population was too many for the amount of food available in the environment. And how the mountains turned into a desolate place with no greenery and sun bleached bones littering the ground. “I now suspect that just as a deer herd lives in mortal fear of its wolves, so does a mountain live in mortal fear of its deer.” I just loved this sentence! Nobody ever thinks about it this way.

Another of my favorite passages was this, “The deer strives with his supple legs, the cowman with trap and poison, the statesman with pen, the most of us with machines, votes, and dollars, but it all comes to the same thing: peace in our time. A measure of success in this is all well enough, and perhaps is a requisite to objective thinking, but too much safety seems to yield only danger in the long run. Perhaps this is behind Thoreau’s dictum: In wildness is the salvation of the world. Perhaps this is the hidden meaning in the howl of the wolf, long known among mountains, but seldom perceived among men.” Aldo Leopold has reached deeper than anyone I have heard about. The way he perceived life in and of itself - - from the wolf, the deer, and the mountain - - was just amazing to me. And it makes me think about the actions I take and how it each affects the world around me. Who knew one wolf could make a difference. Or how a pack of wolves can save an entire ecosystem from collapsing. Maybe one person could be the same way.

I was thoroughly inspired by this essay “Thinking Like a Mountain”. Aldo Leopold, I am impressed. I encourage everyone to think deeply, to grasp at the meaning of things, to think like a mountain.

If Men Could Menstraute and The Great Lawsuit

“If Men Could Menstrate” was by far my favorite article. It provides a hilarious picture of men stepping into women’s shoes. My favorite part of this article was picturing them boasting and creating slang phrases about the menstrual cycle. When I was reading this article, I noticed that it was making fun of men, their pride and their peculiar ways. I, for one, would not want to be around a man while he was menstruating. This was a very well written article that had me laughing. It also had me thinking “Yeah! Go women!” It completely changed my attitude about menstrual cycles. 

But this has me thinking of the things that women do that are the opposite of what men do. An example: most men want to be big, while most women aim to be small. It would be a strange funny world to see very buff women walking around with their arms slung over the very skinny shoulders of their boyfriends. While the men wore dresses and the women wore classic pants and white tees. Or if men shaved their legs and women didn’t. Ooh those pasty legs!

This article also makes me think of women’s and men’s roles throughout history. I can picture it starting with the cavemen. The men hunted the women gathered. Then as time goes on I guess it goes back and forth between man being more superior than women and reverse throughout history. Sadly, it hasn’t been even in the account of years. But we can see moments where women were not thought of as inferior… It has been changing, however, because Cleopatra was a leader of the most prosperous civilization in Egypt. Then I guess it would be presidents. And now there has been the first women senator. Now there are many women in politics… including one who will likely run again for President.

Talking about the roles of women and men offers a great transition into the next piece of writing, “The Great Lawsuit”. I believe that the most powerful paragraph in this writing was the second to last one. This is where Margret Fuller takes both men and women in our minds and seamlessly joins them together. She turns the ‘written in stone’ roles into something more malleable and pliable. “…we believe that the Divine would ascend into nature to a height unknown in the history of past ages, and nature, thus instructed, would regulate the spheres not only so as to avoid collision, but to bring forth ravishing harmony.” Margret Fuller uses this sentence to show that what is happening is different from what normally happens. It has never been done before, “…to a height unknown in the history of past ages, and nature…” But she believes it will not only not end in war, but “ravishing harmony”. That it will make the human race stronger “the Divine would ascend into nature”. Almost Godly.