Essay Collection

Наша цель.

2011-06-28T04:34:00.000-07:00

Цели героев избранных пьес в их же словах.

Что вы изволите спросить? Чего я хочу-то от жизни? Да я ж, друг мой любезный, всю жизнь свою отдала ребёнку моему. Ни силы, ни денег не жалею, лишь бы только сделать из него хорошенького, учёного мужчину, как следует. Да я ж по другому-то не смогла бы. Сердце у меня такое, материнское. Кто кроме меня бы знал как вырастить такого бодрого и умного как он? Так вот я и поняла, что ум разум-то у него достиг высшей степени. Хвалить своё дитя дурно, но ни счастлива ли была бы та девка, которую я подберу быть Митрофанушкиной женою? Так я авось либо да смогла бы найти ту, что по богаче! Что-ж мне, дворянке вольной, не найти такую? Как увидят мамки да отцы моё счастие, так кучей кинутся с просьбами женить на моего голубчика своих дочерей—вот тут-то и пойдут делишки шито крыто, и буду я хозяйка в доме да никто не посмеет тут уж мне упрекать! А в прочем я только счастия, Митрофанушкино-то, и хочу добиться...

—Г-жа Простакова.

А чего ещё можно добиться от жизни? Я не за то с подростковых лет служил чтобы излагать свои жизненные намеренности первым попавшимся, а за то, чтобы чина добиться благородного! А без чина в Москве как же? То самое главное, иначе никуда не деться кроме как в канаву! А я, усердием и терпением и трудом нажил себе такой чин, что вот-вот в Генералы попаду. А там уже жизню обживайся да делай что хочешь. Вот мне например, как стану я генералом, то генеральшу себе отыскать хорошенькую и будет все ладнёхонько. Философ-то я не настоящий, но могу уверить, что важнее чина в этом мире вы не отыщете причины жить, и пуще меня каналы доставать чины уж никого не найдётся. Как стану генеральствовать, идите ко мне, а я как ни как, а одолжение вам сделаю на чин. —Полковник Скалозуб.

А, что-там о жизни думать? Это всё суета, скверно. А в прочем можно было бы денег понабрать. Куда-же без денег? Вот я бы взял те деньги, да пошёл бы играть! А ещё дом построю, и всех приглашу на бал. А какой бы у меня был бал! Да хоть сам Царь приходи, и девушки были бы такие красивые-прекрасивые—ох! Умереть. Вот чего мне надо от жизни этой—жену-красотку, чтоб еду делала мне и убирала за меня всё. Как же можно мне всё делать самому? Это вздор! Это нехорошо! А пока они там убирают у меня чего-угодно, вот я бы и смог пойти праздновать и мужиков разигрывать. А когда есть так много дел, как у меня, то нельза терять время ни на какую скуку! Нельзя терять за зря так свою жизнь! Ведь на то живёшь, чтобы срывать цветы удовольствия. Так хватит тратить моё время! Меня ждут! Спасибо! Прочь!

—Хлестаков.

Да я же так особенно-то и не задумывался, чего я хочу от жизни. Маменька-то разве позволила бы такие вопросы спрашивать! Ну уж если так задуматься... Устал я в этом городе! Да каково отсюда выбраться вот и не знаю. Разви только вот по делам когда отправляют, то можно расслабиться да забыться. А вот-ка если бы так да навсегда отсюдово? Так всять и на всегда исчезнуть с города этого, чтоб больше никто, ни мама, ни кто ещё другой не повелевали мне чего делать надо и как. А ещё жену с собой, чтобы можно было позабыть строгости дома и ласковать её и любить как следует. Худо, конечно, нельзя так. Но вот хотя-бы и иногда так уехать на недельки две-три, да прямо танцевать охота! Хоть жену и нельзя привезти с собой-то, да ладно—хотя бы от маменькиных глаз да когтей подальше быть. Так вот знаю-то я, что таким желаниям не дано сбываться, но если так почаще уезжать от сюдова, то можно и прожить до конца жизни так. Но если бы жить тут без маменьки, то всё было бы вообще как в сказке.

―Тихон

Да чего-ж от жизни не хотеть-то? Всё, что захочешь, всё нужно пробовать и понимать, а так-то никуда и не денесся. Вот я уже пятый год подряд встречаю одного там у калитки. Это сдесь плохо делать, но что же кроме того девушке можно поделать? Приходится встречать. Ну а от жизни... скучно мне сдесь, в этом городе. Я хочу от сюдова подальше, там где я могу делать всё, что захотела бы, и никто меня бы не судил, как тут. Вот с Кудряшем например. Взять куда-нибудь да умелькнуть, чтоб и след простыл. А так, кому нужны деньги и большие дома? С этим всё равно малого от жизни добьёшься. Вот я и хочу узнать, как можно покончить с такими людьми на всегда да начать где-нибудь снова, да по своим правилам.

—Варвара.

Какой вопрос, какой вопрос! Но это же секрет фирменный! Ах, я шучу же! Ну вы как сами думаете, какова может быть цель в жизни владельца карточного заведенья? И как гоняюсь я в розыске опытных игроков, как например любезный друг мой, Евгений Александрович. Нет, я знаю, что вы думаете—успешный бизнес не может быть целью всей жизни человека—и вы правы. Я человек простой, и ничеко больше не люблю, чем быть свидетелем наслаждения любезными моими приятелями карт. А карты, это такое удовольствие, такое благолепие! О, я хоть всю жизнь бы звал всех туда, там такой риск, такой шанс—где же ещё можно найти такое возбуждающее мероприятие? Но вы уж знаете ответ, и я сдесь слишком долго пробыл, слишком много вложил на это силы и время, чтобы стремиться уж на что-либо иное в жизни. Карты, это что-то невероятное, что-то чудесное, и пускай все в них играют, хоть не у меня, да где нибудь ещё! Да иссохнет Волга и помрут все цари и дворяне—карты, это вечно.

—Арбенин.

Классицизм и просвещение в русской комедии.

2011-06-28T04:30:00.000-07:00

«В России классицизм был известен с начала XVIII до начала XIX века и всё это время был господствующим направлением и методом в литературе.»[1]

В рамках пьесы, классицизм накладывал чрезвычайно тяжеловесные правила на драматурга, который был вынужден соблюдать как минимум пять серьёзных ограничений на его работу. В состав этих пяти правил входит чёткое разделение героев на положительных и отрицательных, традиционная система амплуа, сюжет основаный на «любовном треугольнике», строгое соблюдение «трёх единств», и конечно, благополучный конец в котором порок обязательно должен быть наказан, а благодетель должен торжествовать.[2] В этом эссе я примерю ети правила к двум известным пьесам классического периода, к комедии Фонвизина Недоросль, и Грибоедова Горе от ума, чтобы узнать на сколько драматурги классической эры в России действительно соблюдали все правила классицизма.

Начнём с первых двух правил. Разделение героев в Недоросли чётко делится на положительных и отрицательных: все те, которые в лагере Стародума (включая Милона, Софью, Правдина) явно положительные герои, а те из лагеря Скотининых все отрицательные, эгоисты и социально неразвитые персонажи. По системе амплуа тоже многие герои совпадают с правилами – Софья действительно идеальная героиня а Милон её герой-любовник. Второй (и третий) неудачники Скотинин и Митрофанушка. Резонёр, хоть и имеющий собственные чувства но в оснавном искладывает морали и высказывает авторскую оценку происходящего, так что можно сказать, что роль резонёра он выполняет. Служанка Еремеевна конечно никакая не субретка, но это небольшое отдаление от правил. В отличии от этого, Грибоедов гораздо более неясен со своими героями. Софья далеко не идеальная героиня – она нелюбит «героя» Чацкого (который тоже не весьма героически упрям и надсмешлив), влюбляетса в низкого типа Молчалина и неслушается отца. Поскольку нет точно героя любовника, то и второго любовника тоже сложно определить. Роль резонёра практически отсутствует, если только не Чацкий, но он слишком сильно учавствует в происшедсвиях чтобы возможно было приписать ему такую роль. Единствинная часть амплуа исполненая в Горе от ума, это субретка, Лиза, которая действительно бойкая, находчивая и остроумная, и помогает господам в интригах. Из за того, что роли в этой пьесе так спутаны, сложно вести речь о положительных и отрицательных героях. У всех есть хорошие и плохие признаки, и в основном кто прав а кто неправ определить сложно даже прочитав всю пьесу.

Правило о любовном треугольнике не соблюдается в обоих пьесах. В Недоросли за Софию борются не три а четыре человека: Милон, Скотинин и Митрофанушка. А в Горе от ума дело ещё более запутано, и состоит как минимум из трёх таких треугольников: Чацкий любит Софию, которая сама любит Молчалина; тот любит не Софию а Лизу, которая в свою очередь влюблена в буфетщика. Это правило одно из самых ограничивающих, поетому оба драматурга решили его не соблюдать.

Четвёртое правило классицизма, соблюдение трёх единств, тоже весмя строгое. Хотя обе пьесы проявляют единство времени (они происходят за сутки), и места (всё содержится в одном доме), но единство действия не соблюдается ни в той ни в другой пьесе. Что и в Недоросли то и в Горе от ума легко спорить что именно главная суть пьесы – любовная интрига или социальная неполноценность большинства героев, которую в продолжение всей пьесы критикуют Стародум и Чацкий. Это вынуждение задуматься о главной теме пьес сразу означает, что единство действия не соблюдено.

Последнее правило как и первое соблюдается только в одной из пьес. В Недоросли все пороки, которые несли страдание служащим им были страшно наказаны Правдиным, «за бесчеловечие жены [Г-жи Простаковой] повелевает [ему] правительство принять в опеку дом [их] и деревни.»[3] К тому же, Милон, со влиянием Стародума, заполучил свою любимую Софью, разрешая разом любовную интригу. По сравнению с этим, окончание Горе от ума гораздо более неясно. Молчалин был наказан за то что любовь его на самом деле была далеко не искренняя, но в то же время нельзя сказать, что Молчалин полностью отрицательный герой и порок, ведь он хотел только лучшего для всех и делал тат как отец его научил. Но хуже то, что герой Чацкий тоже был наказан за его напрасные попытки изменить Московский народ морально. Герой по правилам классицизма должен торжествовать в конце пьесы, по этому такой конец идёт вразрез классицизму.

Подводя итоги, легко заметить что Недоросль подвергается многозначительно болшим правилам классицизма чем Горе от ума. Если вспомнить что последняя пьеса написана гораздо позднее в периоде классицизма чем первая, то мы можем сделать вывод что к тому времени как Грибоедов написал свою пьесу, сила влияния ограничений этой эпохи драматургии сильно уменьшилась. Одной из причин этого процесса является Эпоха Просвещения, оттенки которой особенно видны в том как в обоих пьесах особое значение придано дискуссии социальных моральностей и этике. Соответственно перехождение драматургов в эту эпоху просвещения чётко отражается в их пьесах. Утихает значительность авторитетных догматов и правил, которые изображают религию и монархию, а подчёркивается отношение человека с обществом, и именно это и твердили философы эпохи просвещения, что человек и его отношения главнейшие в жизни. Таким образом мы можем сделать вывод, что процесс в котором драматурги перестают придерживатся классицизму символизируед переход всей России в просвещенческий век.

[1] «Классицизм (Россия)» Википедия. 21 Декабрья 2009. 20 Апреля 2010.

[2] Стучебрухова, О. Лекция. 20 Апреля 2010.

[3] Фонвизин. Недоросль. 78.

Почему «Гроза?»: символ и шаблон.

2011-06-28T04:27:00.000-07:00

Названия пьес часто бывают весьма любопытными. Что «Недоросль», то и «Горе от ума», по одному названию сложно определить, о чём будет сюжет. К тому же, после тщательного прочнения всей пьесы, иногда всё равно не сразу ясно, каким же образом автор выбрал всё-таки название. Одно из интереснейших выборов в названии пьесы—это «Гроза» Островского, поскольку анализ того, почему назвал он её «Грозой», каждый раз может давать новые выводы и открытия. Правда, что любой, прочитавший пьесу, мог бы сделать вывод, что название отражает саму грозу, которая обливает провинциальный город Калинов в четвёртом действии. Но дело в том, что это только поверхность—если вглядеться, то можно отыскать множество более глубоких выводов. Островский пользуется структурой самого погодного феномена, целясь сделать сравнение между ним и процессом развития различных элементов сюжета пьесы.

С таким выражением анализа названия, пример, который должен первым броситься читателю в глаза, это сам сюжет пьесы. Как и с настоящей грозой, пасмурность пьесы накапливается длительно. Вступление состоится из мелочных конфликтов, которые обсуждаются не на переднем фоне, а со стороны, где Дикой ругает Бориса, как всегда, за пустяки (290). Далее, Катерина и Варвара задумываются о малоподвижности их жизни, особенно Катерины с человеком, которого она не любит, что навивает сильнее «тучи» пьесы (302-303). Но первый признак того, что скапливающиеся тучи не просто дождик проливной, а полноценная гроза, это барыня, предупреждения которой, как гром (который действительно гремит скоро после этого момента), гораздо страшнее и заметнее прежних признаков ненасти (303). После этого момента, на протяжении следующих трёх действий, помимо продолжающегося накапливания туч начинает капать дождь—это персонажи начинают совершать физические поступки, нарушающие их общественные обязанности. Сначала Варвара даёт Катерине ключ от роговой калитки, а затем Катерина делает выбор нарушить клятву и встретиться с Борисом. В конце концов, напряжение обстановки лопает, Катерина высказывает свой грех, что ливнем обкатывает весь город бедой. После этого, стихийный порыв происшедствий затягивает в себя весь Калинов, как гроза затягивает судно на море. Эта структура сюжета пьесы придаёт очевидность причине выбора названия автором, но это не единственная метафора грозы.

Для жителей Калинова, обладающих весьма небольшим знанием о внешнем мире, то, что происходит с миром нынешнем сходно с грядущей грозой. Феклуша выражает волнение Кабанихе, что «по другим городам так просто содом: ... шум, беготня, езда беспрестанная» (316). К тому же, она утверждает, что «умные люди замечают, что у нас и время-то короче становится» (317). В основном, события, которые описывает Феклуша, похожи на тучи, собирающиеся перед грозой. В этом случае, сама гроза выражается концом мира. Феклуша упоминает, что когда она была в Москве, то видела какого-то чёрта, травящего землю под ногами прохожих, что несомненно намекает на библейскую стихию. Хотя Феклуша утверждает Кабанихе, что эта «суетня» ещё не достигла город, где происходит действие пьесы, признаки этого всё-таки не трудно разглядеть. Лучший пример—это поездка Тихона. Эта поездка сильно напоминает такую суетню потому, что ни разу в пьесе не сказано о её причине, так что кажется, что Тихон, как и москвичи, едет незачем, и не зная точно куда, но в тоже время очень уверенно в себе. Так и получается, что будущее угрожает вот-вот хлопнуть громом и рвануть ливнем кончины всего света.

Можно определить и третий способ применения автором «грозы» в пьесе, но в этот раз не как шаблон для структуры событий, а как символ страха жителей Калинова. Они, как и многие в провинциальных городах, суеверны, и верят в праведность традиции. Даже мысль об отклонении от этих двух сил доводит людей до страха или злости. Никто не смеет противоречить Дикому, когда тот вступает в один из его порывов гнева, несмотря на абсурд его аргументов или причины гнева, только из-за того, что он «значительное лицо в городе». По схожей причине, Кабанов невольно повторяет за мамой указы жене, хоть сам явно не верит в то, что повторяет. Дикой, к тому же, выражает суеверие, поучая, что «гроза-то нам в наказание посылается» (332), и Катерина подтверждает, что «всякий должен бояться [грозы]» (304), потому, что она может убить человека неожиданно. Один Кулигин, учёный-самоучка города, не боится грозы. Он знает, что гром и молнию можно отвести с помощью шеста-громоотвода, и что сам дождь не страх, а наоборот радость—от него цветут цветы и трава растёт. Но его, конечно, не слушают, и жители Калинова отказываются думать о переменах, и таким образом не способны предотвратить несчастие с Катериной.

Не зря Островский выбрал название «Гроза» для своей пьесы. Помимо присутствия настоящей грозы, она ещё участвует как один из центральных символов пьесы, и даже внушает структуру произведения. И даже те три примера, приведённые в этом сочинении недостаточны, чтобы описать весь размах способов включить символ грозы в пьесе Островского. В конце концов почти невероятно, сколько значений автор смог вложить в одно слово «гроза», и становится легко оценить усердие, с которым выбрал автор это первоначально непонятное название пьесы.

Кошмар чинов: Общественный конфликт русской комедии XVIII века.

2011-06-28T04:12:00.000-07:00

По классицистическим принципам, комедия состоит существенно из одного любовного треугольника. Но в России, писатели комедий не могли обойтись без того, чтобы в сюжете, кроме истории о любви, ещё не рассказать об общественной проблеме, чаще всего о самолюбии господствующего класса, и их принебрежении подчинённым. Такая формула была настолько распространена, что можно было бы добавить её в правила классицизма именно русской комедии. Особенно полезно проанализировать ту проблему, о которой пишет Д. И. Фонвизин в комедии «Недоросль» и А. С. Грибоедов в комедии «Горе от Ума». Общественная проблема, описываемая этими авторами, несколько похожа, что в одной, то и в другой пьесе. А именно, Грибоедов и Фонвизин пишут о страстном увлечении России чинами, и можно чётко разглядеть примеры и из свинарника «Недоросли» и из фантастического общества «Горя от Ума» как одержымых чинами, так и резонёрствующих против этой помешанности.

В обеих пьесах есть множество случаев, в которых персонажи принимают свои чины главнейшими факторами своей жизни. В самом начале «Недоросли» пример злоупотребления нечестно заслуженного чина сразу бросается читателю в глаза, когда, обращаясь к портному, Госпожа Простакова рявкает «А ты, скот, подойди поближе. Не говорила ль я тебе, воровская харя, чтоб ты кафтан пустил шире» (14). Скотинин разъясняет причину их уверенность тем, что они могут так распоряжаться слугами, докладывая, что «Я Тарас Скотинин, в роде своем не последний. Род Скотининых великий и старинный» (60), и поэтому он возмущается, «Да разве дворянин не волен поколотить слугу, когда захочет?» (71). Москвичи в «Горе от Ума» обожают получать чины, так же, как и Скотинин и Простаковы. Полковник Скалозуб мечтает о возвышении и при вопросе об генеральстве хвастается: «Да, чтоб чины добыть, есть многие каналы; / Об них как истинный философ я сужу; / Мне только бы досталось в генералы» (116). Для Скалозуба нет ничего важнее, чем получить высокий чин – но что же это ему даст в конце концов? В какую сторону потечёт остальная его жизнь после того, как он добьётся своего генеральства? Смотря со стороны, сложно сказать, зачем всем так нужны чины, но, к сожалению, общество приучило их так жить, и никаким образом уже нельзя переубедить таких людей.

Но в том то и комедия, что существуют персонажи в обеих пьесах, которым страстно хочется переубедить этих неисправимых людей. Стародум в Недоросле резонёрски замечает, что «чины нередко выпрашиваются, а истинное почтение необходимо заслуживается» (35), и так задаёт тон своей критики по всей пьесе. С Правдиным, Стародум решительно разоблачает пристижность чина, потому, что «одно почтение должно быть лестно человеку - душевное; а душевного почтения достоин только тот, кто в чинах не по деньгам, а в знати не по чинам» (38). В конце пьесы, не сумев растолковать персонажам из лагеря Скотининых, что чин их от правосудия не спасёт, Правдин вынужден принять в опеку дом и деревни Простаковых, будучи от страсти к чинам такими бесчеловечными. Наименее благополучны усилия Чацкого втолковать Москвичам о бессмысленности чина. Больше всего он огорчён тем, что «Теперь пускай из нас один, / ... / Не требуя ни мест, ни повышенья в чин, / В науки он вперит ум, ... / ... / Они тотчас: разбой! пожар! / И прослывет у них мечтателем! опасным!!» (120), что и происходит с ним в самом конце пьесы, и он, недоумевая, как же может до таково дойти общество, покидает свой провальный проект в Москве.

Фонвизин и Грибоедов подчёркивают кошмарное положение общества России в XVIII и XIX веках. Люди, бросая всё, сломя голову, дерутся за чины, забывая в процессе должности к семье и близким, и даже те достоинства, за которые сам чин предназначено давать. Хуже всего, что таким людям доверенно править народом страны, и из «Недоросля» легко увидеть, какое бесчеловечие от этого происходит. Немудрено, что оба драматурга посветили такую значительную часть пьес дискуссии об этих общественных проблемах, местами даже опережая по важности любовный треугольник, который в принципе по классицистическим правилам должен оставаться важнейшим и единственным сюжетом комедии. Как же можно не учесть в произведении проблему, которая проникает в каждый уголок общественной жизни?

Analysis of Lu Xun's Stories

2011-06-28T04:04:00.000-07:00

Lu Xun’s cynicism towards superstition is evident in many of his works, which often take place in rural settings where people are prone to these beliefs. For example, he tells us about a character named Jun-Tu in “My Old Home” who was born on a certain date pertaining to the horoscope, which consequently meant that “he could … catch small birds and fish.”[1] This is ironic because since it is about his birth, that horoscope is supposed to be predictive of his whole life, and yet it is so mundane and specific. In another instance in his story “Medicine,” while visiting his grave, an unnamed old woman imagines that her son’s spirit is still present and asks him to demonstrate this by making a “crow fly onto [his] grave as a sign.”[2] The crow never gives them the satisfaction, though, merely flying off to the distance, which gives the story a purposefully unsatisfying end.[3] In fact, Lu Xun makes this explicit because the old woman’s last words, “What does it mean?” are never answered or resolved.[4] Because this question can be interpreted as “What is the point of it?” it represents the author’s discontent with superstition itself. In the same story, there is a much more obvious and unfortunate example of taking superstitious beliefs too seriously. In the story, the characters are told that “A roll of human blood … can cure any consumption!” which they take to heart, and give up a large sum of money to obtain this.[5] By repeating the phrase “a guaranteed cure” five times throughout the story, Lu Xun conveys how the characters are fooling themselves by stubbornly believing in the roll’s healing power, which in the end proves vain as the sick one is unaffected by the human blood and dies shortly thereafter.[6] Thus, Lu Xun warns us that superstition is not only a waste of resources, but putting faith in its unreliable predictions can be fatal.

Another custom that Lu Xun is particularly resentful of throughout his stories is the class system in China. In “My Old Home,” two characters, the narrator and Jun-Tu, met as children and became fast friends, but when they met again decades later, their classes were on very different levels.[7] As a result, when they did meet, instead of embracing like any other pair of old friends would, they only stood awkwardly apart and Jun-Tu could only say “Master!...” and force his child who was with him to bow to the narrator as well.[8] This reservation may have been valued in Confucian society, but Lu Xun shows the reader how ridiculous he thinks it is that two friends can not treat each other as friends when they meet. In this case, the class system overpowers even intimate personal bonds two people have developed, which Lu Xun finds unacceptable. He again uses the technique of stating his problem explicitly after suggesting it implicitly, when in the same story the narrator is on his way back from home describes that he feels an “invisible high wall, cutting [him] off from [his] fellows.”[9] Another image of class structure that arises criticism is in “The True Story of Ah Q.” In Chapter 3, the main character is “favored with a slap … by Mr. Chao” and “became famous.”[10] So in this case, even though we know that Ah Q was probably the one that transgressed on Mr. Chao, and the latter was just in his punishment, the people still treat Ah Q with “unusual respect” just because he was touched by an upperclass individual.[11] Another startling example of this criticism is in Chapter 7, when Ah Q attempts to join the revolutionaries.[12] Preaching of revolution, he shows up at the convent, but the nun tells him that “The revolutionaries have already been here.”[13] She then goes on to say that the revolutionaries are the successful country candidate and the Imitation Foreign Devil―two of the most upperclass characters in the story.[14] Here Lu Xun may be mocking the revolution itself, because in China it was not led by the proletariat as Marx had hoped, but by the educated scholars, who claimed to represent the proletariat. This is of course a complete farce of a communist revolution and a mockery of Marx’s philosophy because instead of having the upper class overthrown, the upper class actually helped itself get ahead.

[1] “My Old Home,” p. 56

[2] “Medicine,” p. 33

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] “Medicine,” p. 29; “Medicine,” p. 25

[6] “Medicine,” p. 31

[7] “My Old Home,” p. 55-56

[8] “My Old Home,” p. 61.

[9] “My Old Home,” p. 63

[10] “The True Story of Ah Q,” p. 74.

[11] “The True Story of Ah Q,” p. 75.

[12] “The True Story of Ah Q,” p. 96.

[13] “The True Story of Ah Q,” p. 99.

[14] Ibid.

Laws Versus People in Ancient China.

2011-06-28T04:02:00.000-07:00

Of the three most popular schools of Ancient Chinese philosophy with respect to government, Confucianists valued a ruler that would lead by his own virtue, Daoists preferred a government as minimal as humanly possible, and the Legalists had confidence that good laws alone could hold a nation together well.

Although different teachers of Confucian thought differed greatly in what they taught, a very significant undercurrent of the school is best made by Confucius himself, who said that if a ruler will “lead them by means of virtue and regulate them thorugh rituals … they will have a sense of shame and moreover have standards.”[1] Confucianists argue against reliance on laws and rules to control their populations, fearing that “the people will be evasive”[2] and do their best to go agains the government. But if the governor rules by his amazing virtue rather than by laws, “the common people will love their superiors and die for those in charge of them.”[3] In this way, the Confucianist teachers are advocating not for a strong government per se, but a strong ruler.

Legalists, on the other hand, do advocate for laws and regulations, and rather strongly. Han Feizi, for example, considers “the intelligent ruler … [as one who] does not cultivate feelings of empathy but builds up awe for his power.”[4] He disagrees with Confucius’s virtuous ruler, because “if one wishes to curb subordinates by acting righteously, the relationship will be flawed.”[5] Han Feizi reinforces this point, saying that instead of trying to inspire the people to be decent, “the enlightened ruler … increases the guards and makes the penalties heavier; he depends on laws and prohibitions to control the people…”[6]

Lastly, we come to the Daoists, whose ideal form of government emphasizes neither rules or rulers, believing instead in a near-absence of government entirely. Laozi professes in his Dao De Jing, that “the sage takes on the task of doing nothing / And teaches without speaking.”[7] He directly disagrees with Confucianists and Legalists, saying that “those who use knowledge to rule a state / Are a plague on the country,”[8] and that conversely, the best government is one that would “make the state small and its people few.”[9] This mysterious calling to rule without ruling is difficult to imagine and truly flies in the face of the carefully planned governmental procedures of the other two main schools of thought, insisting that the more laissez-faire the government is, the more the subordinates will coexist in harmony.

In conclusion, the three schools of thought can be arranged on a scale from emphasizing government to emphasizing the people. The Legalist school advocates for strong laws and regulations, not trusting the ruler to use his own judgement to lead the people and be able to sustain his state for long. Confucianism, in the middle, is a compromise between laws and people, lightening up on laws (Confucius barely talks about them) and trusting the people to take a virtuous ruler as a role model and follow in his path towards forging a better society. Daoism, though, is on the opposite extreme, willing to forego virtually all governmental functions, leaving the state to the people who will function in it just by going about their daily routine. These are the ways in which proponents of these three schools of thought views the role of government in society and the economy.

[1] Ebrey, Patricia. “6: Confucian Teachings” in Chinese Civilization: a Sourcebook. (New York: The Free Press, 1993), 21.

[2] Ebrey, 21.

[3] Ebrey, 23.

[4] Ebrey, Patricia. “8: Legalist Teachings” in Chinese Civilization: a Sourcebook. (New York: The Free Press, 1993), 37.

[5] Ebrey II, 35.

[6] Ebrey II, 36.

[7] Ebrey, Patricia. “7: Daoist Teachings” in Chinese Civilization: a Sourcebook. (New York: The Free Press, 1993), 28.

[8] Ebrey III, 29.

[9] Ebrey III, 29.

The Athenian Prosecution System as a Protector of Democracy and Community

2010-02-23T17:26:00.000-08:00

Imagine if you will that you are walking through the neighborhood in the early evening, just as folks are finishing their dinner. Suddenly, you see a man in disguise climbing though the window of a nearby house with an empty sack in his clutches. What do you do? Whip out my cell phone, you would say, and call 9-1-1, of course! But wait. The catch is that you are a citizen in ancient Athens in the fourth century before the Common Era. This condition suddenly poses a much different problem. Do you call the police? Is there any kind of police in the first place? Would you scream and try to get everybody’s attention? Would you try to stop the perpetrator yourself? The reality of the matter is that in Athens, crimes such as these were dealt with for the most part by the person against whom the crime was committed. In this case, as an innocent bystander, you would be obligated to actively witness the crime as it was happening, as well as get others to witness it with you. The plight of the owner of the soon-to-be taken property is even worse. He is responsible for every part of the process, from figuring out who the perpetrator was to persecuting him in court to exacting the punishment charged by the court. Fortunately, in many cases the government of the Athenian city-state did in fact have a role in intervening during the process. They were responsible for widows and orphans that suffered injustices and would conduct most of the legal procedures on their behalf, and also apprehend suspects when the litigator himself was physically unable to do so. In cases of large public offenses, the boule would even undertake the legal process without a private litigator if they deemed the case important enough for the security of the nation. Finally, Athens had a force of around 300 Scythian slaves which they employed as a kind of formal police force at public events to protect attendees. Despite this, the government’s intervention was indeed very little compared to the highly structured and involved police and justice system that we are used to in modern times, laying the brunt of the work onto the individual who has been offended in some way. What this implies for Athens is that the only way one could win and follow through most legal cases is to have a large social network. Reliable people are needed to act as a witness during the event of the crime, they are needed to aid in gathering information and doing detective work, they are needed to testify in court and they are even needed to carry out the court’s ruling. For this reason, the Athenian prosecution system in the 4^th century BC was an important factor contributing to the perpetuation of Athens as a face-to-face society that required everybody to know everybody else, which serves as another window into the Greek mentality of individualism and democracy, and their unparallelled value for political and civic participation from every citizen. In the following paragraphs I will elaborate on the persecution process for the litigator, on the involvement of the government, and on the involvement of bystanders and community members and their importance to the process.

As mentioned before, the litigant alone is responsible for presenting his case to the jury, including the investigation, apprehention and prosecution of the miscreant. Even in the case of investigation, he was required to do at least four different tasks that were all serious and difficult, “Being required to seek out relevant laws and decrees; to solicit witnesses; to employ the skills of a detective, if a special search was needed; and to issue a public challenge to his opponent to give or receive slaves for torture,” (Hunter, 1994:130 ). As far as laws and decrees were concerned, this was, especially at first, only available on written plaques located in different areas around the city which had to be found and carefully recited, because stating a law that does not exist was an offense punishable by death. To this end, it would be very reasonable for the litigator to find a group of acquaintances (who all needed to be literate) to aid him in the search for the relevant laws. (Hunter, 1994:131). The search for witnesses was of a similar vein, and included all the neighbors of the person whom the crime had been committed against who are often called upon by the victim or other bystanders to witness the scene of the crime as it happens.

Once all the information was put together for the lawsuit to be able to succeed, the next job of the litigant was to find the actual defendant and bring him to court. Since this requires the use of force if the defendant failed to show up after a formal summons had been made, it is a very clear example of just how much responsibility was put on the person trying to prosecute. If and when the suspect was spotted by the person trying to make an arrest, both parties would immediately call out to the bystanders (which, as usual, always happened to be around), and try to convince them of their own story and why they are in the right. Then usually the bystanders would help to intervene to stop the suspect or to prevent the apprehender if they felt that the person being chased was actually in the right. So because Athens didn’t have an official police force like in modern times, the citizens needed to have friends and family that they could depend on to help them take the place of this institution in times of need. (Hunter, 1994:139) This is a crucial analysis of the Athenian point of view on civic duty, because although we know that they expected their citizens to participate in the politics of Athens and to vote, this kind of participation, which could be classified as manual labor and putting one’s life at risk, was also viewed as a required duty of being a good citizen. If you were a bystander in Athens and saw the robber sneaking into your neighbor’s house and you did nothing but walk the other way, it would be a shameful shirking of political duty on your part.

Finally we come to the last part of the litigant’s job, that of prosecuting the miscreant whom he already worked so hard to apprehend. But he would have no reprieve here either, for “the citizen who was responsible for the arrest of a criminal … exercised the functions of both prosecuting attorney and complaining witness when the trial took place,” (Bonner 1927:46). There were no reliable forms of professional lawyers or any other such amenities that we are used to in courts to-day, and both the prosecutor and defendant had to use their full knowledge, oral skills and all the evidence they were able to come up with personally in the trial, and to present their own case. The only case in which there was an exception to this is if either man found a representative to speak for them under exceptional circumstances, and also the families of the two parties were allowed to say a few words after the cases for each side were presented. (Bonner, 1927:55). At last, when the verdict is reached, we come to the matter of the penalty. In public suits (those against the state), Athenian officials carried out the penalty themselves (even this not always, for in the case of a fee the prosecutor would be expected to do this privately as well). In private suits, on the other hand, the responsibility for carrying out the penalty was, again, entirely the responsibility of the litigant. If the defendant did not do what the verdict had stated in the time period allowed, the litigant was expected to force him to do this, i.e. appear at his place of residence and take whatever property he owed to the litigant, etc. If this still did not work (a dangerous prospect to be sure―if one uses force and doesn’t succeed this could surely imply having been overpowered and even killed), then finally the state would step in to make the defendant a state debtor and some official would then bring extra force to coerce the miscreant into compliance. But throughout this process we see that Athens relies incredibly on its individual citizens to carry out the repressive tasks of policing wrongdoers. From investigating the case, to bringing the defendant to court, to making his case and winning it, and finally to carrying out the punishment deemed appropriate by the court (who also, by the way, consisted of voluntary citizens), the responsibility overwhelmingly lies in the hands of the litigant himself. This reveals a great deal about the value Athenians had for individuality and public duty, not merely because it had these expectations for the harried litigant in the first place, but also because it repeatedly entrusted the security of the polis to such private individuals. Consider that with the exception of the few public cases in which the government does play a role in prosecuting the defense (and even then not fully), the only protection from evildoers against future misconduct to the rest of the public was the victim of the latest crime committed by this person. This level of expectation is astounding, and could even be considered careless because the duty of the government is to protect the citizens. Nevertheless, the Greeks faithfully carried out their duty and participated politically as their expectations dictated, keeping their streets safe.

There is another important aspect gleaned from discussion of this legal process which has been touched upon but not yet been fully brought to light, and that is the aid from the rest of the community. In almost every step of the process we saw a large window of opportunity for this phenomenon to present itself. While gathering information on laws and doing detective work for the case, having no formal venues to turn to, the litigant needed to ask his community to aid him with this task if he wanted to get everything done in a reasonable amount of time. Apprehending the criminal was an especially important point to involve the help of community members, as we have seen, most importantly because unlike an organized police force, which would apprehend the person whom there were charges against almost without question, the community could choosewhom to help based on their previous knowledge of the individuals or what they hear during the attempt at catching the defendant itself. The implications of this mean that the bigger and more positive your reputation is among your community, the more likely you are to glean the help of your community in catching your enemy, and the more likely you are in making progress with your entire case. And lastly, although the community deliberately has little capacity to change the outcome of the actual trial, they once again become necessary to exact the punishment provided that the court ruled in the litigant’s favor. Since, again, there is no formal authority that would consider aiding the litigant from the start, if he had somehow miraculously gotten this far in the prosecution process without the aid of any community members, the defendant would have much less to fear of one man attempting to confiscate his personal property than a man and a large posse of neighbors behind him.

Thus, almost paradoxically, the set-up of the ancient Athenian system of prosecuting a defendant perpetuated both individualism and a tightly-knit community. Private initiative was the one major driving force behind the entire legal process from the scene of the crime to the final resolution of the conflict. But at the same time, it would be impossible for one man to accomplish any of these tasks with any notable degree of success were it not for the community behind him that helped to overpower resistance and greatly reduce the amount of time for preparation in every step, all by personal virtue and completely voluntarily. It becomes clear that the Athenian government, though in most likelihood unconsciously, uses this individualistic system of dealing with miscreants to accomplish a twofold purpose: first, to maintain the knowledge base of its citizens, contributing to the preservation of an efficient and well-informed democratic system of government by putting most responsibility for carrying out policing and prosecution into the citizens’ hands, and second to halt the deterioration of community that we so often bemoan in the real world dead in its tracks by putting such a strong emphasis on the necessity of a supportive community to accomplish any legal procedure.

What can we glean from this lesson? While these methods are indeed rather extreme from the perspective of modern nations, the most important value that Athens has shown us is that putting responsibility into the hands of citizens leads to very important positive outcomes. In the modern world, there are no concessions to the citizen to carry out civic duty to the extent that they are given in ancient Athens. In fact, most of the actions described above would be prohibited today. But perhaps if we allowed our citizens to take a bigger role in the process of persecution as they did in Athens, our citizens would also begin to educate themselves with increased vigor. As for the necessity of community aid, I would argue that ancient Athens has provided us with a sufficient basis to conclude that if we were to call an organized police force and justice system as the higher level of security, then there is not only a tradeoff between security and individualism as many authors have argued in sociological texts, but even community ties are affected by an overwhelming obsession of government control over public safety.Thus, as the duties of social control are delegated more and more to the government, we must be aware that we may be hurting ourselves in more than one way.

Bibliography

Hunter, Virginia J. Policing Athens: Social Control in the Attic lawsuits, 420-320 B. C.Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994.

Bonner, Robert J. Lawyrs and Litigants in Ancient Athens: The Genesis of the legal Profession. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1927.

Cohen, David. “Crime, Punishment and the Rule of Law in Classical Athens,” The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Greek Law. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005

Gagarin, Michael. Early Greek Law. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.

Save Fort Ross

2009-09-23T14:53:00.001-07:00

The crisis forced California Government to dramatically cut down the funds for the State Parks and so Fort Ross State Historic Park is now in danger of being closed. We understand that this was unfortunate and hard decision that our lawmakers had to make but Fort Ross is not just "another" typical State Park where you can bring your family for a weekend to relax and grill some sausages - it's part of our American History.

In nowadays American and Russian visitors, volunteers, and helpers come to "Fort Ross", the museum under the sky. The park is open for Cultural Heritage Days and is the point where two cultures interweave naturally. There people from many backgrounds meet, and the relaxed and beautiful site of the open air museum helps to promote understanding between nations.

This place is especially important for the young generation. There are interactive educational programs for children. As a part of the overnight trips at Fort Ross, students, dressed in XIX century costumes, adopt the names of people who lived in the settlement and study this page of local and Russian history through enacting various aspects of the life at this time. American youth get to know more about the different people who lived here; and Russian children who live in America feel their roots and their belonging to the rich Russian culture through Fort Ross.

This is our responsibility to preserve the memory about the people who lived in California before us and to pass this information to our children. Please sign the following simple petition to save this beautiful piece of our history: http://makefortrossnationalmonument.us/index.html

Amercative

2009-06-19T00:49:00.000-07:00

a•mer•ca•tive (uh mer' kuh tiv'), adj. 1. Characterized by a distinct influence of culture or way of thinking typical or stereotypical to the United States of America. An amercative policy. Amercative shopping is not affordable in Europe. Note: distinguished from American in that to be American is to be made in America or to be patriotic to America: a positive connotation. -tively adv., -tiveness noun.

There is no i between the r and c.

wis•to•des•sa•meing (wis' tuh dess' suh ming), n. 1. A misunderstanding which leads to a positive result. I met my wife Brandy through a wistodessameing, when I asked for a glass of liquor at the bar. -meings pl.

pange (panj') n. sing. 1. Trousers. This pange is too tight around the waste. panges pl.

hal•few (ha' fyoo) adj. 1. One and a half; half of three. I'll be there in a halfew hours. Also, hafew.

Students and Workers Unite for Human Rights

2009-03-17T11:31:00.000-07:00

Can you imagine peasants and nobles from medieval Europe laying down their class differences to fight for better treatment of the peasants from the clergy? How about white southerners and undocumented Mexican immigrants joining forces to squeeze rights for the immigrants out of the government? Just this kind of interclass cooperation has been happening at both Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the University of California in Davis (UCD). Unionized workers in both universities had recognized that they were not being treated fairly by their employers and deserved higher wages and benefits, and both schools’ students immediately picked up the message. They joined hands with the workers to fight the administration and try to get the improvements in working conditions that the workers wanted. The fact that university students are supposed to be regarded as a different class than low wage workers is incongruous with the other fact that these two groups cooperated so fully and willingly to fight for better wages and conditions of the workers. But against all odds this cooperation went above and beyond expectations, gaining significant victories for both campaigns in the name of social justice. The breaking down of this social barrier between meritorious university students and low-wage or poverty level workers catalyzed an extremely efficient way to fight for a cause both of those groups viewed as just. The following comparative case study will explore the two aforementioned struggles and demonstrate how the worker-student relationship made these struggles a success.

In early 2007, the Associated Students of the University of California at Davis (ASUCD) passed a resolution that promoted higher wages and benefits to workers in the food service sector of the University. Their reasoning was simple: not only had all of the other UC’s switched from contracting their food service to university employment, but merely the fact of their being subcontracted makes them unique as employees of the University who cannot unionize and have few other privileges that UC employees enjoy. Students had helped workers organize a team to talk to the administration of the university, but the workers were denied UCD employment, setting the foundation for a labor movement. Throughout most of the first half of 2007, the students and workers campaigned by spreading information to other students and residents of the town, and held protests, at one of which 24 students were arrested while demonstrating. In response, the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), a nationwide union with over 1.6 million members which represents workers employed directly by the university, began to actively endorse the movement, putting even more pressure on the University. The Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef resisted the movement, claiming that a shift of such magnitude would cost millions of dollars, which would raise student fees, but justice-driven students demonstrated that they would prefer their workers to be well treated to having a lower tuition. After a final climactic protest and march on campus, the University at last began to take steps to resolve the conflict, culminating in an agreement signed in April of 2008 between AFSCME and UCD which helped raise food service workers’ wages by $1 to $3 an hour, and saw a stronger health care coverage and a monthly stipend of $100 to help offset the cost of living for the workers. The debate’s outstanding brevity and the fact that a strike was not needed to win the campaign shows that this was a very successful struggle.

Just short of ten years earlier, a longer, similar, but much more serious campaign had been launched on the opposite side of the nation at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. With the passing of a new resolution, the Cambridge City Council mandated a living wage of $10 per hour for all public workers, and encouraged all private companies to follow suit. The Harvard Corporation did not even cast a sideways glance at this ruling and continued as before. In response, students at the university organized the Living wage campaign to pressure the university to negotiate a better deal for the workers. Rick Fantasia and Kim Voss tell us that “in April 2001, Harvard students had engaged in the longest sit-in in the university’s history, spending three weeks occupying the office of the former president. They demanded a living wage for Harvard’s service workers―the janitors, food servers, and security guards―many of whom were working two and three jobs to support their families” (p. 171). The mission statement of the Living wage campaign itself points out how unacceptable it is that “few of the service workers at Harvard share in [its] health: many struggle to raise their families as the richest university in the world pays them poverty wages. … At any time in the past 360 years, Harvard could have implemented decent payment standards on its own. Its failure to do so reflects a serious disregard for the well-being of its workers, and sends the clear message that Harvard values profit over human dignity” (p. 1). Eventually, Harvard would allow a so-called “Katz Committee” to be formed out of some of the sitters-in to recommend changes in its policies. Although many of the recommendations of this committee were controversially inadequate, the struggle won several notable improvements. Guards’ and Janitors’ wages go up to between $11.35 and $13.50, and dining service workers’ wages become $10.85 per hour. Although the latter is still below Cambridge’s living wage ordinance at the time (of $11.11), it is a significant improvement to the earlier level of $9.

Although these two movements were nearly a decade apart, there were many things that they had in common, especially those that brought success. One of the contributing factors to the campaigns’ widespread popularity was the social capital, or connexions to vital organizations, that they both had. At UC Davis, the local union representing workers at UC Davis endorsed the food service workers and their student proponents, and indeed had been trying to push for the same results before the student campaign had started, albeit with little success. Alex Gourevitch, in his article “Awakening the Giant: How the Living Wage Movement Received Progressive Politics” tells us that this factor was even more substantial at Harvard, because the Living wage campaign “received tremendous support from labor―every local union in Cambridge endorsed the students. The local Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees (HERE) 26, representing the dining hall workers, went a step further, authorizing a strike to support the sit-in, electing the sitters-in honorary members of the union, and voting to make academic immunity for the students a key bargaining point during June contract renegotiations,” and that “[w]hile students and labor were the most visibly active members of the living wage campaign at Harvard, civil rights groups and the religious left added key support” (p. 1). This broad base of contacts allowed both groups to do tremendous outreach and pressure their respective universities, which proved enough in the case of UC Davis to rule out even the necessity of a strike having to occur.

Another factor that the two campaigns had in common was their tremendous leverage based on how much they can threaten the university with. Even though at UC Davis, the campaign only concerned the food service workers, a work stoppage by these employees would be devastating. It would mean that all of the students living in the dormitories at the University would not be able to feed themselves where they most often eat―there are no kitchens inside of the dorms themselves, and no other nearby cheap food alternatives. But this would go beyond simply threatening to cause students severe discomfort. This would immediately travel to parents, who would become outraged that they are putting in tens of thousands of dollars per student to a university, and in return their children are being starved and mistreated. With this much leverage the university feels very threatened and even if they are trying to resist the change in the early stages, if a strike did happen they would try to resolve it at all costs. At Harvard the situation is even more drastic―the food service would stop, a lack of janitors would cause dirt and mess to build up to grotesque levels, and the absence of security forces would allow the entire campus to descend into mayhem―it would be like pulling the bottom out from underneath Harvard and letting its insides spill out. These services are so essential to the universities that without them they not only cannot operate, but pose a risk to the community of students living on the premises, and the threat of a strike by these workers was so unacceptable that the university would basically have to take whatever the workers wanted if it came down to a strike.

The last and arguably most vital point of similarity was the huge role that students had played in both of these campaigns. Alex Gourevitch explains that “the issue resonates with students because it is their tuition that universities are using to pay campus workers poverty wages, and many are unwilling to be implicated in injustice within their own community” (p. 1). Fantasia and Voss go on to say “it was a struggle that students initiated on their own, from their contact with service workers at the university, and that conjoined the tactics of the student movement with the immediate concerns not of the students themselves, but of a working class that is normally invisible on the academic radar screen” (p. 172). Though this latter quote is in reference to the living wage campaign at Harvard it applies to UC Davis just the same―the students are more likely to see the suffering of workers as a social justice issue needing immediate resolution than as a positive effect on their tuition prices. This cross-class sentiment provides a very powerful ally to workers―students have social and cultural capital that workers don’t, they have a much broader knowledge base as students, and are usually a lot more resourceful and have more free time than workers. This enables them to form such things as campaigns and teams to do sit-ins and disseminate information to the broader public on the workers’ behalf. Without the help of students, non-unionized workers at UC Davis may not have even had the right to organize, much less the resources, because since Sodexho (their subcontracting company) is a nation-wide firm, they would have had to gain the approval of more than half of all the workers employed by this giant to unionize at UC Davis, and most of these other people may not even have heard of such a place. (In fact, Sodexho was one of the subcontracting companies that workers at Harvard were having grievances with in the other campaign!) But with the help and outreach of students, especially students who were also employees of the universities, outreach became very real and the progress moved much more swiftly than many other unions in the United States.

So where does this all lead us? Fantasia and Voss perceptively point out that “Both examples are indicative of an emergent social movement that appears capable of dismantling powerful social barriers” (p. 172). And once these barriers are dismantled, groups with completely different long-term goals can nevertheless come together to fight for the same thing, joining hands and heads in the name of justice. Unlike most unions and strikes involving people from the same trade and the same class, movements like these allow much more widely dispersed skills and information to come into play―something that does not exist at the workplace but is desperately needed in a labor union. The concept is very simple and optimistic: once a social barrier is struck down and people can intermingle, they can accomplish unfathomable victories. The conclusion, therefore is that the more social barriers we break down, the farther we can advance as a nation in not only social justice, but technology, economy, and peace.

Bibliography

Fantasia, Rick. Hard Work: Remaking the American Labor Movement. University of California Press, Berkeley: 2004..

Gourevitch, Alex. “Awakening the Giant: How the Living Wage Movement Revived Progressive Politics.”

“A Brief History of the Living Wage Debate at Harvard.” < http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~pslm/livingwage/timeline.html>

Lapin, Lisa. “Better pay, benefits for food service employees under new agreement.” Sept. 17, 2007. < http://www.dateline.ucdavis.edu/dl_detail.lasso?id=9695>

Robertson, Kathy. “UC Davis to hire Sodexho food-service employees.” Sacramento Business Journal. Thursday, April 17, 2008.
< http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2008/04/14/daily56.html>

“Food worker employment.” The Aggie. Apr. 24, 2008. < http://theaggie.org/article/479>

Kelly-Sneed, Caitlin. “University to employ food-service workers.” The Aggie. Apr. 21, 2008. < http://theaggie.org/article/421>

“Harvard Living Wage Campaign.”
< http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~pslm/livingwage/timeline.html>

Heterosexist Hollywood: A Study of Its Effect on the Public

2009-01-29T16:11:00.001-08:00

Film is one of the most widespread forms of entertainment in the world, and not surprisingly, it affects how people view the world very significantly. Although everybody knows that film is most commonly fictionalized, there are still aspects of it that affect people’s opinions on almost subconscious levels. For example, if no film ever showed women being in charge of men, people would start to believe that this is how the real world works as well and take this sexist viewpoint out of the cinemas and into their daily lives. Homosexuality is one such issue in film. It is still a hot debate topic today, and in the past it has been completely banned by censors. Has there been any homosexual influence on Hollywood in the past century of filmmaking? And conversely, how has Hollywood influenced the population’s perception of this issue?

Unlike what many people have come to believe, homosexual connotations and actual queer themes have been present in film since its very beginning. At the earliest stages in Film history in the beginning of the twentieth century, people’s views of homosexuality were completely different than what they are today. It was the general opinion of the public that homosexuality is linked to gender identity, and that the reason for the same sex attraction had its roots in a supposed desire to be of the other sex. Harry Benshoff summarizes in Queer Images that “homosexual men supposedly wanted to be women and homosexual women wanted to be men.” (21) For example, it was not considered strange or wrong for two men to dance with each other or even kiss, as long as they still looked masculine. The online article “Homosexuality in Hollywood” explains that “One of the earliest surviving motion picture images is a primitive test made at Thomas Edison’s studio, in which two men dance together while a third plays the fiddle.” (1) People believed that it only became “perverted” if there was gender-switching, such as a man wearing a dress.

This ignorance to see the connotations of the general public and the powers responsible for production of film created a kind of innocent era of filming where it was neither illegal nor condemnable to film homosexuality, since all film was still in a kind of experimental stage at that point. Benshoff notes that this innocence was then easily taken advantage of by directors such as “Cecil B. DeMille’s The Sign of the Cross (1932) [which] make[s] homosexuality surprisingly overt. … Roman emperor Nero fits easily into the pansy stereotype … [while] Empress Poppaea demands that one of her female friends disrobes and shares her bath.” In fact, there were even positive responses. “Homosexuality in Hollywood” remarks that “a woman dressed like a man—like Marlene Dietrich in ‘Morocco’ (1930)—the audience loves and thinks that is sexy.” (1)

However, this innocence was not long-lived. The United States was still a deeply religious nation and its ethics and morals stated that homosexuality is an abomination and will not be tolerated. The article “Homosexuality in Film” explains that “powerful forces were already at work. Religious and women’s groups had been protesting the movies’ permissiveness throughout the twenties and thirties, lobbying for federal censorship of the movies.” (2) Although the federal government didn’t respond to these pleas, the film producers themselves tried to create censorship guidelines, such as the Hayes Code. Joseph Boggs connects the issue in The Art of Watching Films when he writes that “Hays and his staff first reacted to state and local censorship by codifying the most frequent objections to film content and advising member companies on what to avoid.” (514) The Hays code, along with suppressing many other aspects of film, tried to ultimately scour any reference to homosexuality, or as it said, “sexual perversion” from motion picture.

Even though the success of these measures was not absolute, it had very saddening long-standing consequences. It tried to purge all images of “sexual perversion”, especially positive ones, but at the same time it was impossible to exclude all references to gay subculture in film, because all types of culture naturally make their way into film. The film Celluloid Closet explains that “For all its efforts, the Production Code didn’t erase homosexuals from the screen—it just made them harder to find. And now they had a new identity: as cold-blooded villains.” (Scene 7) Film, one of the most influencial communications media in the public at the time, was telling America that homosexuals are heartless and insane, and this message was taken in by straight and gay folk alike. Homosexuals began to be more afraid than ever to accept themselves for who they were because they believed that would mean that they would become murderous maniacs that try to force others to be gay as well. This was actually one of many stereotypes Hollywood imposed on minorities during this period to try to belittle them and single them out. In fact, many of these villified homosexuals were women ending up behind bars or in cages like animals. The Celluloid Closet explains that “These women were a warning to ladies, to just watch it and get back to the kitchen, where God meant them to be.”

On the other hand, Benshoff reveals that

“Queer images did not completely disappear after 1934 … Often, because Code officials were lacking any understanding of the era’s queer subcultures, they missed more subtle instances. For example, while Code administrators were ever watchful to censor the word pansy from proposed film scripts, the newer use of the word gay seems to have slipped through on occasion.” (30)

This is a very crucial point, because it emphasizes the capability of the culture to persevere in the face of adverse suppression. “Homosexuality in Hollywood” states that “Hollywood had learned to write movies between the lines, and some members of the audience had learned to watch them that way.” (2) The fact that it was possible to sneak in gay references even when they were actively being “scoured” from cinema served as a model for future hope of gay rights movements, the first glint of hope amidst extreme hatred and prejudice.

In addition to this, foreign film industries had started letting down their own boundaries, creating competition for Production Code Hollywood. “Homosexuality in Film” recounts that “a film came out of Great Britain in which an explicitly gay (or at least bisexual) character actually stands up to fight the system that oppresses homosexuals.” (4) Because of this, Hollywood filmmakers tried to attract their own audiences with more adult themes, and eventually they had circumvented most of the code. Even though this was not a victory for gay rights in film directly, it was a step that began reverting all of the ignorance and hate that America had shrouded itself in during the Code era.

Then, after the Second World War, something strange began to happen. After this catastrophic war, people realized that not everything might be as it should be in America and many people started to voice their opinions. All kinds of minorities began to gain more rights, like African-Americans and women. But, at the same time, the subject of homosexuality seemed to go even further into the closet. Benshoff writes, “Male homosexuality was especially egregious to a nation obsessed with its own masculinity (or potential lack thereof). Homosexuals were branded ‘sex murderers’ in the press, a sort of human plague that was threatening to destroy the very foundations of society.” (87) This mindset stayed with Hollywood well past the World War into the sixties with producers and other officials choosing to ignore the gay liberation movement that was gaining prominence so quickly.

However, this period did not last forever, and finally began to subside after the Stonewall Riots of 1969, in which the members of a gay bar called Stonewall chose to resist yet another in a long series of raids by the New York Police Force on queer establishments. The riots reached national level of popularity and kicked off a cascade of events granting queers many rights they had not had previously. Fortunately, the film industry finally relized the cultural representation that Hollywood was trying to cling to was extremely outdated, and released two revolutionary films—The Killing of Sister Gorge and The Boys in the Band, both of which present homosexuality as a part of life for the characters along with the problems they must encounter because of it, rather than making the characters themselves and their queer identities problems of the plot. These two films were the prototype for the first gay feature fiction films that followed inevitably, but were not such themselves because in the end they did treat the subject of homosexuality as something negative and something that puts a dark stain on one’s life.

Queer Directors

The kind of homophobic attitude Hollywood had throughout the Production Code era and the Postwar era would make you think that every single movie director was a heterosexual homophobe. But this is a very transparent assumption, because in fact there were plenty of producers that tried to sneak in gay content into their movies. According to the article “Film Directors” on www.glbtq.com, “It has sometimes been said that the lesbianism of Dorothy Arzner (1897-1979) afforded her a certain license as ‘one of the boys’ in a fiercely male dominated profession,” and that she was “one of only two successful female directors in Hollywood's Golden Era.” Though she had many difficulties achieving this high rank, it cannot be debated that she was an extremely successful, and yet queer film director.

And even directors such as James Whale, who were unapologetically open about their sexuality, were still able to produce films under Hollywood’s name before their careers inevitably fell apart because of their notoriety. In fact, James Whale himself directed the highly regarded and yet overtly queer horror film Bride of Frankenstein (1935).

So a conclusion can be made from these facts: even while Hollywood thought they were scouring out all queer images from their exclusive industry, gay directors were almost proliferating in their backyard and infusing many of the most well-known movies with queer subtexts that undermined the entire philosophy. This counterbalancing of ideals provided a check on the power of Hollywood to influence the feelings of its audiences about homosexuality, and gave the queer movement more time to develop and settle into the picture.

Queer Actors

While directors control the film backstage, actors create what the audiences will see, and what else, if not this, influences an audience’s opinion? One of the most important queer actors of film is Rudolph Valentino. This man was the one and only male icon of his era of film (the silent era). According to the article “Valentino, Rudolph (1985-1926),” from the website www.glbtq.com, “His androgynous persona, at once assertively virile and gracefully sensitive, threatened traditional images of American masculinity in a crucial period of cultural change.”

Another important actor to mention is Clifton Webb whose career spanned the 40s and 50s. This actor, as the article “Webb, Clifton” from the same website states, “had the charisma and authority to single-handedly rescue the sissy from secondary roles; he is either the star or a major player in all of his films that followed.” This is crucial because the sissy—an effeminate male character—was one of the only representations of queers in Hollywood movies at the time, and certainly the most obvious. For gay audiences to see the sissy rise to leading roles was a very reassuring and hopeful change, albeit the fact that a sissy is still a sissy.

Conclusion

Throughoug the early and middle parts of the century, Hollywood, after realizing its undeniable presence, attempted to remove all queer references from its films. We have seen that the goal of these actions the hope that a lack of such ideas in film will have a direct consequences on the real world because film has such a big impact on viewers’ lives. We may be prone to believe that Hollywood succeeded in this heterosexist mission because of all the repression of queers that has been clearly present during this time period. However, upon more careful analysis, we find that this is not true, because where acknowledging the presence of homosexuality is concerned, the public has been and always will be ahead of the cinema. The fact that Hollywood’s officials chose to ignore the growing openness of the public for no less than twenty years did not affect this growth. What we must deduce from this goes back to the very fundamental concept of the entertainment industry—the purpose of which is to entertain the public. And the only way the public can be entertained is by displaying what the public wants to see or is used to seeing (and even that is stretching it). Therefore, it is impossible for Hollywood to be used as a tool for forcing the public to think a certain way unless the public itself chooses this path. It is not the producers that have tried to ban homosexuality from the screen, but rather the queer community that has succeeded in melting the strong stereotypes about it, one by one, to the point where soon Hollywood will portray people of all sexualities and gender identities in an unbiased, natural way.

Bibliography

Benshoff, Harry. Queer Images: A History of Gay and Lesbian Film in America.Rowman &Littlefield Publishers, Inc. New York: 2006.

Boggs, Joseph. The Art of Watching Films. McGraw Hill. Boston: 2004.

Epstein, Rob. The Celluloid Closet (film). Brillstein-Grey Entertainment. 1996.

“Homosexuality in Film.” , 2007.

“Homosexuality in Hollywood.” 2004.

“Film Directors.” <>, glbtq, inc. 2002.

Civics Final Paper

2009-01-29T16:01:00.000-08:00

Picture this: it is 3 AM and you are sound asleep like any other night. You’ve worked hard all day like any other day trying to keep your family fed. Suddenly, pounding on the door wakes up you up. As soon as you open the door, a policeman grabs you, handcuffs you, muffles you and takes you away for no reason you can think of to a detainment chamber. You have no idea how long you will be forced to stay there, how you will be treated, if you can contact anyone, but more importantly, why you are there in the first place. Does this sound unfair and ridiculous? It does, and this does not happen often in the USA because Americans are protected against this by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. The Amendment states that

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”[1]

This is a vital human right, because it helps maintain a restriction on the government that prevents it from freely invading people’s privacy—something done in socialism but not in democracy. As an activist, I believe that if I were living in a place where the effects of this amendment were not manifest in any form, I would be instantly subject to the ramifications of a ransacking of my house to find evidence that I am a dissenter from the views of the government. With the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, I feel that I have more liberty to express myself and fight for what I believe is justice (in addition to help from other amendments, like the First Amendment.). However, after working hard to create a more effective protection of privacy for citizens by making decisions in favour of the Fourth Amendment, the government has taken away much of the amendment’s power, and has been consistently and unconstitutionally ignoring its provisions.

The history of searches and seizures goes back hundreds of years. In fact, the first recorded case dates back as far as 1335 in a case involving counterfeit money. [2] The power of search and seizure continued to grow without inhibition by royal and parliamentary decree all the way until 1688, the Glorious Revolution. “William of Orange, the new monarch, persuaded Parliament to abolish one tax because the searches required for its enforcements were ‘a badge of slavery upon the whole people.’”[3]

One of the most despised manifestations of search and seizure was called a writ of assistance, which is a document issued by a judge that allows a law enforcement officer to basically ransack any place whenever he feels like it is necessary—at his own discretion. This was a perfect pathway to the abuse of this power, and officers would search people’s homes for made up reasons if they were offended by that person or any similar scenario. Even when England outlawed the use of these documents at home, they were still widely used in the Colonies to harass the Colonists.

An important turning point in American history with respect to this protection came from James Otis. The death of King George II automatically caused all writs of assistance to expire and caused them to have to be reissued under the new king. James Otis petitioned the Massachussetts government not to hand out these writs because of their severe encroachment into people’s privacy, which was supported and passed into law by the Massachussetts General Assembly.[4] The governor, however, who was loyal to the King, overturned this law, which was extremely unpopular with his subjects. This act is claimed by some to be the spark of the Revolution.[5] In fact, the Declaration of Independence mentions the harassment of the Colonists by the King as one of its grievances. The Fourth Amendment was created in order to protect the people of the new United States from a repeat of this.

Laws by Congress

Congress has passed two consecutive acts that severely cripple the freedoms granted by the Fourth Amendment. The first act is called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978. After Nixon’s violation of the Fourth Amendment by spying on political and activist groups using federal money, much investigation was done into the legality of cases such as this. It was after this that Congress passed this act, which in effect legalised what Nixon did under the condition that the judicial and congressional branches are made aware of each such move in due course, meaning that if it threatened national security, the government didn’t have to declare the action until much later. In addition, this act changes the conditions needed to issue a warrant from the Fourth Amendment. While traditionally, warrants issued upon “probable cause” have had to be based on evidence that the person was comitting a criminal act, the FISA court can now issue a warrant if the US government can prove that the person they are asking a warrant for is merely affiliated with a foreign power.[6]

FISA and a few other acts are all detriments to the Fourth Amendment, but they maintain that information obtained by warrants granted in this way is not constitutionally acceptable to be used in criminal court cases. However, a bigger change came when Congress issued the PATRIOT Act. The act was hastily passed by Congress in response to 9/11 as a means of fighting terrorism, by lowering restrictions and protections on intelligence gathering. This enables law enforcement to search different electronic media like email and phone calls, and also makes it much easier for the government to detain people that it suspects are associated with terrorism. In addition, this act requires using evidence gathered in ways conflicting with the Fourth Amendment in criminal cases, unlike all the acts preceding it. The Patriot act all but completely dismantled the Fourth Amendment, because it creates a much lower standard for “unreasonable search and seizure”—many people would consider that an assumption of terrorist affiliations is an unreasonable cause to seize one’s property; and it creates easily navigable loopholes to avoid the need for obtaining a warrant to conduct these actions. These are the two provisions given by the Fourth Amendment, and they are both nearly nullified by the Patriot Act.

Executive Branch Policies

The Executive Branch has instituded many policies that are largely unknown to the general public which, among other egregious offenses, overtly violate the provisions of the Fourth Amendment. Called Covert Operations, these policies are the Executive Branch’s way of attempting to preserve national security with radical measures that it does not disclose to the other Branches of government until much later. Among operations that bring down the Fourth Amendment are ones such as MKULTRA, which centered around investigating mind control techniques to gain information about the enemy. This is an unlawful extortion of information that tries to directly invade personal security of an individual to extract the information. Not only are these operations unconstitutional, but just the fact that they are kept away from the public makes it clear that the government is scheming against the will of the people. If the government is supposed to represent what its people need and want, then everything the government does should be known and monitored.

Another project that undermines the Fourth Amendment is the Guantanamo Bay military base. This was established on the land of Haiti and never returned to its original owner. Now, it is used as a holding ground for detainees under the excuse that since it is not on US soil but still a US prefecture, neither the bill of rights, nor the Geneva Convention applies there. However, there are known cases of US Citizens that have been taken by force from their homes and families to this facility and detained for an arbitrarily long amount of time without any kinds of rights that are Constitutionally provided to all citizens.[7] Not even the USA PATRIOT Act is as blatant of a defiance of Fourth Amendment rights than this facility, which undermines the very foundations of the Constitution.

Supreme Court Cases

As we have so far seen, the US government seems to have a trend of wearing down Fourth Amendment restrictions. However, the Supreme Court, as its fundamental duty, is opposed to such avoidance of Constitutional law, which is clear through rulings it has made with regard to the Fourth Amendment.

In Chimel vs. California, a man was arrested, and then the officers entered his house. Ignoring the felon’s denial to “look around” the officers proceeded to thoroughly search his home, and find incriminating evidence. After the man sued for Fourth Amendment rights, the Supreme Court ruled that the arrest was valid because the police had an arrest warrant, but the evidence found in his house was taken unconstitutionally, since the officers had no search warrant to look through the suspect’s house. The Supreme Court then went on to define that it was only permissible for officers to search in the area immediately around the suspect after arrest, and not in his or her home.[8]

An important case of this is Mapp vs. Ohio, in which police officers, after a denial of entry by Mrs. Mapp to search her house for another suspect, broke into her house, handcuffed her to her bed, and searched the entire residence without a search warrant. They found some material that they decided was obscene, and arrested her. The Ohio state court upheld the arrest and gave Mrs. Mapp eight years in prison. However, the United States Supreme Court heard Mapp’s lawyer’s appeal four years later, and ruled that the evidence was found unconstitutionally. Then they also ruled that this kind of evidence cannot be used as legal evidence in State court cases, and not only federal court cases as was the previous rule.[9] This is a prime example of the Supreme Court trying to uphold the Constitution by making restrictions on the other branches, known as checks and balances, to prevent them from corrupting their power.

This important decision is actually upholding an earlier Supreme Court decision which introduced the exclusionary rule, in which evidence unlawfully seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution is not permitted to beused as such against a defendant in a federal court of law. This ruling took another important step and enforced this protection for every possible criminal case.

Conclusion

Although the Supreme Court’s rulings are in favour of supporting the Fourth Amendment, it is not enough to protect the rights of US Citizens. The other two branches of government—Congress and the Executive Branch—are both allowing laws and policies to slip through that undermine this fundamental right. It is very alarming to see how little is being done about cases such as Guantanamo Bay, which are not only unconstitutional, but are basic human rights violations. It is imperative that the actions taken by the government to create encroachments on our rights such as this are reversed and properly punished, because if it is not, then the United States is at great risk of losing progressively more and more of its restrictions that protect its people, and can turn into an imperialist dictatorship that claims to be waging a war on terror while ruling by means of terror itself. The Fourth Amendment was created to protect the people from the government, and the government must be forced to uphold this principle.

Bibliography

“Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752 (1969)”,

David, Andrew. Famous Supreme Court Cases. Learner Publications Company, Minneapolis: 1980. (50)

De la Pena, Nonny. Unconstitutional. (2004)

Lasson, Nelson B. (1937). The History and Development of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Johns Hopkins Press.

Napolitano, Andrew. “Congress is Gutting the Fourth Amendment.” 2006

Newman, Robert K. The Constitution and Its Amendments. Macmillan Reference USA, New York: 1999.

"The Constitution of the United States," Amendment 4.

[1] "The Constitution of the United States," Amendment 4.

[2] Newman, Robert K. The Constitution and Its Amendments. Macmillan Reference USA, New York: 1999.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Lasson, Nelson B. (1937). The History and Development of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Johns Hopkins Press.

[6] Napolitano, Andrew. “Congress is Gutting the Fourth Amendment.” 2006

[7] De la Pena, Nonny. Unconstitutional. (2004)

[8] “Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752 (1969)”,

[9] David, Andrew. Famous Supreme Court Cases. Learner Publications Company, Minneapolis: 1980. (50)

Anna Eschoo Bills Opinions

2009-01-29T16:00:00.001-08:00

1) Abortion
Abortion Pain Bill
Official title: HR 6099: To ensure that women seeking an abortion are fully informed regarding the pain experienced by their unborn child.

Summary: This bill would require hospitals or physicians to give the woman wanting an abortion a brochure that warns her of the possibility that the unborn fetus over 20 weeks old will experience pain during the abortion. It should be noted that the woman must sign a document in order to waive the receipt of the brochure, rather than suggesting that the woman may receive one if she wants.

Rep. Eshoo voted “Nay” on this bill.

I think that she did the right thing. I think the creators of this bill probably aimed to dissuade a woman from abortion by making her feel guilty about it, even though it was a choice that she has already decided was necessary.

2) Civil Liberties and Civil Rights

Reporter’s Source Confidentiality Guidelines

Official Title: HR 2102: To maintain the free flow of information to the public by providing conditions for the federally compelled disclosure of information by certain persons connected with the news media.

Summary: This bill prohibits from any federal organization such as a communications service provider from forcing a reporter to show or demonstrate any media he or she is providing to his or her customers for any reason except in certain extreme cases.

Anna Eshoo voted “Yea” on this bill.

I agree with her choice because if it was legal for such a federal organization to evaluate the reporter’s product, they could easily censor it and create propaganda and misleading within the public.

3) Immigration

Immigration Law Enforcement Act of 2006

Official Title: HR 6095: To affirm the inherent authority of State and local law enforcement to assist in the enforcement of immigration laws, to provide for effective prosecution of alien smugglers, and to reform immigration litigation procedures.

Summary: This bill lets government officials arrest, detain, interrogate, etc. any “illegal aliens” or people who have been “smuggled” into the country and also clarifies litigation issues about it.

Eshoo votes “Nay”

I feel that this bill is harsh on said “illegal aliens,” but I personally do not have a stance on whether we should dispose of them or let them stay in America yet.

4) Sexual Orientation

Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007

Official title: HR 1592: To provide Federal assistance to States, local jurisdictions, and Indian tribes to prosecute hate crimes, and for other purposes.

Summary: This bill amends the federal definition of a “hate crime” to include sexual orientation and gender identity as one of the protected classes.

Rep. Eshoo voted “Yea”

I wholeheartedly agree with this bill since it impacts me directly. I am now more protected than I was previously.

The Continuum of United States Foreign Polity: A Ranking of the Effectiveness of US Actions

2009-01-29T15:56:00.000-08:00

••••

(Averages)

Explanation of bullet points:

Meaning, in order from left to right

•National Security •Democracy •World Peace •Aid to People in Need

Color Coding

•Failed •Somewhat Successful •Extremely Effective

USAID •••• (12 points)

USAID is a programme started under the Marshall Plan whose objective is to provide aid to developing countries and people in need. According to Wikipedia, “USAID advances U.S. foreign policy objectives by supporting economic growth, agriculture and trade; health; democracy, conflict prevention, and humanitarian assistance.” It has provided countries in need with 0.17% of its Gross National Income, a whopping $23.53 billion in 2006. The program makes certain that all of its actions are easily accessible information.

USAID promotes national security by attempting to stabilizes countries where there may be radical movements because of lack of an acceptable lifestyle, and by being generous to other nations it helps keep the US image positive. The program upholds democracy by attempting to finance operations necessary for a democratic process where otherwise a nation would not be able to. The program unquestionably promotes world peace and aids those in need because that is what it was created to do and it has clearly been the only target of its funding and resources.

Marshall Plan •••• (11)

The Marshall Plan was a program hosted by the United States in which they granted 13 billion dollars of economic aid to many Western European countries after the second World War. By the time the plan came to a conclusion every country that it had helped except Germany had economically grown beyond pre-war levels. It also had an essential role to starting European integration by erasing tariffs and trade boundaries.

The plan indirectly helped national security by preventing the nations the US aided from becoming communist, since the nations knew the US is against communism and wouldn’t give them aid otherwise. It helped to support democracy because it gave the countries a peaceful means of rehabilitating instead of a revolution like the Russian or French revolutions. Both world peace and aid to others were achieved with great success by the Marshall plan because it created a greater alliance between the European nations and it directly aided them to recover from the War.

Spanish-American War •••• (10)

The Spanish-American War of 1898 started off as excitement by the American population about liberating the Spanish colonies in the Mediterranean that had been struggling for independence. After Spain refused to peacefully resolve the Cuban fight for independence, and America heard of riots in Havana, the US government deployed the USS Maine to patrol the waters around Cuba. Unexpectedly the ship exploded and along with muckraking that accused Spain of horrible atrocities, the US government decided to go to war. 109 days later after a few decisive naval victories at Cuba and the Philippines the Treaty of Paris was signed and the United States won the war.

This war was very quick, easy, and mostly light-hearted for America, and had many positive consequences. From the standpoint of national security, the war helped to unite the north and south after the Civil War by providing them a common enemy, and helped to integrate the Black population into society by allowing them to fight for the homeland alongside whites. From the standpoint of democracy, the United States freed five colonies from imperial Spain and allowed Cuba to elect their own government, although it did keep three as US colonies. From a standpoint of world peace—it was indeed a war, but it was short and had relatively few casualties, and it served to resolve conflicts between Spain and its colonies by separating them. Finally, the US aided at least Cuba and Puerto Rico, where citizens were looking for a turnover of Spanish power. The Philippines sought this as well but when the US replaced the Spanish as oppressors they were not pleased.

National Security Council •••• (10)

The Council was created by the National Security Act under president Truman and is the main medium through which staff members can discuss national security and foreign policy matters with the President. The decision making process of the council has become less and less formal and regulated, while the influence of the council has become stronger and reached farther than ever. Throughout its history, the NSC served as the center for all operations regarding foreign policy and national security that the United States has made, including Cold War and post-Cold War invasions.

Though many of the decisions of the NSC have had almost disasterous consequences, many others have served their purpose, and many others still have gone beyond expectations, such as the Peace Corps. So far, national security has been very heavily monitored, so the goal of the national security council has been mostly achieved. This by its very nature supports democracy as the nation that harbours one of the most prolific democracies in the world is kept secure from other ideologies. In addition, the council has passed many decisions, such as the Marshall Plan, that provide very generous aid to peoples that are genuinely in need. However, all three of these things must be taken with a grain of salt for they are done very haphazardly and with many grave and unforgiveable errors, and because of these errors, world peace has been greatly compromised more than once. Therefore, the NSC is a very dangerous, but essential instrument.

Détente •••• (8)

Détente was a period during the Cold War where both Superpowers realized that the hostilities were negatively affecting their economies and that there would really be no benefit to waging a war against the other side. Consequently, both sides started trying to loosen tensions and begin negotiating. The first treaty to be signed was the Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963 which was the beginning of the period, and several other important treaties such as SALT I were signed. However, by 1979, Détente began to unravel with the hostage crisis in the Iranian revolution, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan followed by US financially aiding Pakistan to oppose communism. Because of this, many planned treaties were abandoned and tensions increased yet again.

Détente was a very good idea on both superpowers’ parts, but in the end it was only marginally successful at maintaining national security by slightly curbing the nuclear arms race, and equally slightly effective at promoting world peace because even during the peak of good relations each side still had missiles pointed at each other and the Vietnam War was raging throughout the entire period. The goal of supporting democracy wasn’t achieved because the United States increased relations with a communist country. However, the United States did send vast shipments of grain to the Soviet Union to help them after the failure of kolkhoz, so providing aid to people in need was visibly effective.

Cuban Missile Crisis •••• (6)

The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation between the United States, Soviet Union and Cuba during the cold war with the climax of the crisis beginning on October 15, 1962 when United States discovered the missile silos and bases being build on the island of Cuba and then came to a conclusion two weeks later on October 28 when the two superpowers agreed to dismantle all missiles in Cuba.

The actions that Kennedy took during the Cuban Missile Crisis did maintain national security, as he quarantined Cuba in order to prevent the Soviet Union from putting more missiles there. However, the way he treated Cuba—not even noticing them or asking them of what they wanted to do with their own country—cannot be viewed as upholding democracy, and furthermore, his threats to the Soviet Union are anything but an attempt to promote world peace. Finally, providing aid to people in need is not even an applicable goal of this action because the United States cannot be bothered by people in need when we are about to get nuked… right?

Iraq War •••• (5)

The Iraq War is a US-led invasion of Iraq by several different nations. The basis for the invasion was that Iraq posessed and was actively developing weapons of mass destruction and that this was a direct threat to the United States in many ways. However, the weapons of mass destruction were never found in the country even though it was the most heavily investigated case of all time. After the defeat of the Iraq military, the US coalition occupied Iraq and tried to establish a democracy, but many sectarian groups started violences agains the occupation. Estimates of people killed range from 150,000 to over a million, and the cost to the US budget is between 3 and 5 trillion dollars.

From a perspective of national security, the Iraq War was not a good move. Not only did we risk the Iraq government striking us with the supposed weapons of mass destruction, but in the end it was uncovered that there were no such weapons in the first place so the invasion was completely unnecessary. Second, the occupation claims to have attempted to institute democracy to the country, but there is a difference between “supporting” it and imposing it on those that don’t want it, which was evident by the mass insurgency that started happening. Promoting world peace is completely out of the question since an invasion is anything but peaceful, and aid to people in need was completely forgotten as the coalition forces heedlessly killed many of those people in need in Iraq.

The War on Terror •••• (4)

This is a series of operations undertaken by the United States after the September 11 attacks in order to eliminate all possible global terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda, with the first being the invasion of Afghanistan by the United States. The war has been going on for more than seven years with no end in sight all over the world. Not only has this been a terrible strain on both our country and the rest of the world, especially economically, but it is also regarded as unproductive. Many experts say that it has actually served to consolidate the opposition to the US, to aid terrorist recruitment, and to increase the likelihood of terrorist attacks.

Though based on a need to maintain national security, the war on terror in many ways has only made it worse—by having a lack of success in the middle east, by heavily straining our economy, by exporting troops and power overseas making our nation less defended on the home front. Though the war on terror tries to promote democracy by fighting against terror dictatorships and the like, it fails by collapsing any type of democracy extant in a country the US invades, and even installing new dictatorships. By the constant warfare and invasion, world peace is heavily compromised by this war on terror, and many people are needlessly killed and left completely neglected.

Life’s Appearance was Elegant and Probable

2009-01-29T15:51:00.000-08:00

There are many theories as to how life got its start on Earth. Whether it was by intelligent design, evolution, comets or space aliens—the same problems tends to pervade each hypothesis. The first problem (with theories such as evolution) is the very beginning of life. Sure, evolution accounts for every subsequent stage, but how indeed was the first life form created? And the second problem is the probability factor of any theory. For those such as space aliens or even intelligent design, there is no proof of the cause itself, much less a way to determine if it really was the cause of life. Other theories are more susceptible to such ponderings. So was life probable or not, and how so? These questions are at the heart of any scientist seeking to find the origin of living existence, and rightly so.

First, let us consider the theory that Harold Urey and Stanley Miller researched. “They passed an electric discharge through the flask containing the atmosphere to simulate lightning … After a week, Urey and Miller … found that the water contained large amounts of amino acids, … nucleic acids, sugars, and fats.”[i] This experiment demonstrated that it is not in fact impossible to create organic compounds from inorganic ones, given the right conditions. And, according to Panno, “Given the conditions of that period [prebiotic Earth], it now seems almost inevitable that such molecules would be synthesized.”[ii] This experiment, however, does not provide an example of how this organic matter could have replicated itself, not even mentioning creating living cells. To begin countering this flaw, another hypothesis is coupled. Since neither DNA nor proteins can both replicate and catalyze reactions simultaneously, scientists proposed that most of the matter created by these random lightning storms was RNA, which can perform both functions. “Ribozymes [an RNA molecule capable of enzymatic activity], assembled in the prebiotic oceans, could not only replicate themselves but also could have catalyzed the formation of specific proteins, which in turn could have functioned as structural proteins or enzymes.”[iii] So we have one hypothesis that states that organic matter was created from inorganic matter by random lightning bolts, and another that says that RNA became the dominant molecule of this organic matter. This still does not address the question of how actual cells came into being, as well as others. Before this adventure delves even deeper into improbability, a different opinion is called upon.

Though one of the mainstream theories, this Urey-Miller series of hypotheses may not be at all likely. The Scientific American explains that “In recent years … researchers have envisioned that life’s ingredients might have accumulated in … rocks, like gray volcanic pumice, [which] are laced with air pockets created when gases expanded inside the rock while it was still molten. … Given enough time and enough chambers, serendipity might have produced a combination o fmolecules that would eventually deserve to be called ‘living.’”^ivHazen goes on to explain many different ways in which minerals could have helped creating a stable beginning for life. In addition to creating pockets for cells, rocks could have acted as scaffolding in layered minerals that prevents the breakup of large molecules in early-earth conditions, and participated in vital reactions, such as crystal lattices aligning amino acids to form peptide bonds. Nick Lane in his book Power, Sex, Suicide elaborates on a very stunning and elegant example of the role of minerals. “[Mineral] bubbles were probably formed … by the mixing of two chemically different fluids: hot, reduced, alkaline waters that seeped up from deep in the crust, and the more oxidized and acidic ocean waters above, containing carbon dioxide and iron salts. Iron-sulphur minerals … would have precipitated into microscopic bubbly membranes at the mixing zone.”^vThis theory is so elegant because it helps to explain a number of questions, which all stem from the same problem—life’s common ancestor. The problem is that prokaryotes are in two fundamentally different domains: archaea and bacteria. The differences between them are so numerous that it is hard to imagine a common ancestor for them, but there was one (called LUCA—the Last Universal Common Ancestor of all known life on earth.) After a lot of research and comparing data, it was determined that both photosynthesis and fermentation are too complex of processes to have been part of LUCA, but the last remaining option of respiration at first seems no less complex. However, “Although respiration is far more complex than fermentation today, when pared down to its essentials it is actually far simpler: respiration requires electron transport (basically just a redox reaction), a membrane, a proton pump, and an ATPase, whereas fermentation requires at least a dozen enzymes working in sequence.”^viSo how does this relate to the iron-sulphur minerals? Simlpy enough: another vast difference between archaea and bacteria are their membrane structures, which leads scientists to believe that LUCA didn’t have either type of membrane. If the iron-sulphur mineral bubbles could act as such membranes, it would be fairly easy to apply the other ingredients of respiration to their structure: an ATPase across the bubble canopy would create a passage for electrons, and the environment of this primordial mineral formation would have already had a huge difference in charge because of the reduced alkaline waters from the crust mixing with the oxidized and acidic ocean waters. Thus, it is one of the best explanations as to why archaea and bacteria are so different and how they could have possibly had a common ancestor.

The iron-sulphur mineral bubble theory is a very convincing candidate for the origin of life—not only because it explains previously unanswered questions, but because it is very probable, and we once again turn to Nick Lane, the author of the theory, to explain how probable it is. He suggests to

“Think about what is happening here. Such conditions could not have been rare on the early earth. … Volcanic seepage sites must have existed across much of the surface of the earth. … The formation of many millions of tiny cells, bounded by iron-sulphur membranes, requires no more than a difference in redox state and acidity between the oceans and the volcanic fluids emanating from deep in the crust—a difference that certainly existed. … UV rays [from the sun] split water and oxidize iron … The ocean becomes gradually oxidized relative to the more reduced conditions in the mantle. According to the basic rules of chemistry, the mixing zone inevitably forms natural cells, replete with their own chemiosmotic and redox gradients.”^vii

These conditions are not only probable but they must have been in constant existence, unlike the fragility of something like a primordial soup or an RNA world. And if all the cells really need is an ATPase in the iron-sulphur membrane, it would be easy to imagine that perhaps more than one such bubble trapped this essential protein from the environment created by a Miller-Urey type of process, and was able to begin respiration and other chemical reactions that would eventually lead to life itself. With the iron-sulphur mineral bubble theory, I can now reasonably conclude that the appearance of processes performing chemical reactions that aid to propagate the same processes (which is one of the definitions of early life) was probable, if not inevitable on the early earth.

[i] Panno, Joseph. The Cell. Facts on File, Inc. 2005, p. 4.

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Panno, Joseph. The Cell. Facts on File, Inc. 2005, p. 11.

^ivHazen, Robert M. “Life’s Rocky Start.” The Scientific American, 2001, p. 79

^v Lane, Nick. Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life. Oxford University Press. Oxford, UK: 2005, p. 100, 102.

^vi Ibid., p. 98.

^viiIbid., p. 103

Division of Labor in a Service Economy

2009-01-29T15:43:00.000-08:00

The famous political economists Frederick Taylor and Adam Smith both write of the division of labour as the be all and end all of progress at the workplace. Though their views differ, they both exalt its efficiency and capacity to inspire workers to put out as much as they are able. But a brave journalist by the name of Barbara Ehrenreich sets out to test if this hypothesis still applies in the modern day United States by becoming one of the workers the economists spoke of. What she helps the modern world to discover is that though they may have been applicable at the time, the views of both Frederick Taylor and Adam Smith on the best way to govern the workplace are obsolete in the United States’ 21^st century economy, since in today’s service-based world there is no easy way to divide one job into multiple independent malleable units.

A pioneer of political economy, Adam Smith describes his vision of the division of labor in great deal in his book, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. In his view, “The division of labor, … so far as it can be introduced, occasions, in every art, a proportionable increase of the productive powers of labour” (p. 9). This makes much sense when considering his example of pin-making―each person working on one particle of this manufacturing process can indeed create a lot of efficiency. However, to take this suggestion and apply it universally to every labor market can seem almost foolish. Barbara Ehrenreich tells the story of working for a business she calls “Hearthside” in her book, Nickel and Dimed. She describes how after finishing her actual waitressing duties, her manager forces her to move on to tasks such as vacuum-cleaning or other similar tasks that have nothing to do with her main line of work (pp. 22-23). In fact, had the business employed extra personnel to perform these tasks, it would probably have lost more profit than gained, since the task could be performed by people who are finished with their main job. Similarly, my mother Kate once worked for a branch of an insurance company called Farmers’ Insurance, where rather than being assigned a single form to fill out for each customer or a single procedure to walk through, she got one customer’s entire program of responsibilities to herself―ensuring the customer’s house, car, helping them through their paperwork, answering questions, and even inspecting the property of that customer. Her coworkers operated similarly, and this was the most efficient way to run this service-based business, because customers would be driven away unless they had a familiar face to work with, in addition to many other aspects that make this arrangement optimal. Thus, Smith’s view on the magnificence of the division of labor may apply to factory-style jobs, but certainly not a large proportion of service-based labor.

Like Smith, Frederick Taylor heavily promoted the division of labor, but he went beyond Smith to say that not only should the labor be divided, but precisely spelled out for the worker in minute detail days in advance. In his article called Scientific Management, Taylor writes that “The work of every workman is fully planned out by the management at least one day in advance, and each man receives in most cases complete written instructions, describing in detail the task which he is to accomplish, as well as the means to be used in doing the work” (p. 72). From the previous examples applied to Smith, this may seem as easily dismissible when applied to service-based labor, but Ehrenreich demonstrates that businesses have indeed attempted to do so, as she works for a firm called the “Merry Maids.” To introduce her to the trade, she is asked to watch a series of videos. While watching a particular one about Dusting, her manager tells her, “You know, all this was figured out with a stopwatch” (p. 74). Throughout this chapter, however, Ehrenreich finds out that it’s not at all possible to work methodically as the videos suggest. In fact, she has to skip some parts, swap others with coworkers, and overall use a great deal of cooperation to get the job done. This is counter to Taylor, who not once mentions the advantage of inter-worker cooperation on the workplace. Even this one example opens the door to a vast array of trades where Taylorism, the scientific management of absolute efficiency at the workplace that Taylor promotes, is impossible to practically implement, especially in jobs that are service-based.

In conclusion, both Smith’s theory of the division of labor to make increasing efficiency easy for the workers, and Taylor’s theory of scientific management to force workers to increase efficiency are highly effective in the industrial world where each piece of the labor puzzle is independent of the other until the final product is finally produced. In the modern context, however, neither of these two theories are the most efficient solution any longer, because the major economic production has shifted away from manufacturing and into services, the labor processes within which are very difficult to divide up into individual, independent tasks. Though this conclusion may make sense to the reader, the problem of the incongruence continues to be very present and sometimes even counterproductive, when managers out of traditional favorability for these theories, try to force them into their own businesses. Scientific management of customer service type jobs may increase efficiency in the short run, but eventually the customers will become dissatisfied with the process, whether because they are being rushed, or not receiving sufficient attention. Therefore, the question remains of how to convince modern employers to seek alternative management techniques that maximize both their efficiency, and their consumer favor. It is time to move on from Taylorism and into the service world of today.

태극기 ~ Tae Guk Gi—The Brotherhood of War

2008-01-03T20:43:00.000-08:00

The movie Tae Guk Gi—The Brotherhood of War was one of the most emotional films I have ever seen. By the end of the film, I could not stop crying for the bitter lot of the two brothers, especially Lee JinSeok (이진석), the younger brother. He desperately tries to keep his brother from sacrificing himself for him, and through this, he is forced with unbelievable hardship, to grow out of an innocent schoolboy and into a mature soldier.

The main theme of the movie is exploring how the bond between two brothers can be ravaged and thrashed to absolute extremes by unimaginable forces, which in this case is the war in 1950 between North and South Korea. Albeit this monstrous force, the bond is still able to hold on until the very end.

The two brothers start out being poor but happy shoe-shine boys in the streets of a village near Seoul. Then, by an evil twist of fate, they are drafted by merciless recruiters to join the unexpected war effort. There, JinSeok’s older brother JinTae (이진태) tries to do everything he can to both keep his brother out of danger, and to get his brother discharged and sent home. JinSeok, on the other hand, is alarmed by his brother’s mindless boldness on the battlefield to achieve these goals, and wishes that JinTae would not risk so much for his brother. The movie then takes us through many tense battle scenes as the South Koreans slowly advance on North Korea, and at the same time, JinTae becomes more and more absorbed in trying to get the medal that will in theory allow him to send JinSeok back home. After North Korea reconciles their war effort with Chinese reinforcements, JinSeok ends up imprisoned under suspicion of being a Communist. JinTae attempts to rescue him, but seems to fail as the commander who should have issued JinSeok’s release orders him to be burned instead. This drives JinTae insane and he joins North Korea to fight the evil South Koreans who killed his brother. Meanwhile, JinSeok is alive and learns of his brother and flees the South Korean army to see him. After a long, gut-wrenching scene of trying to make JinTae come back to his senses, he finally realises that JinSeok is really still alive and tells him to flee, promising to return. Here, the movie comes full circle with the archaeology scene it started with, but now we see an old JinSeok looking down at the bones of his boor brother and crying his remorse about how his brother never returned.

Even though this movie has so many special effects and stunts created to make the battles seem realistic, which are in fact, extremely successful and effective, these are only background effects. They are not what you remember about each scene they are featured in after seeing them. What you remember is the tension and how you plead in your mind for the characters not to do something (such as run through enemy fire, or hit each other), and how you can almost literally see the bond that ties the brothers together being violently jerked and stretched to the breaking point. It is one of those movies which I don’t want to keep watching because of the exhausting emotional experience, but cannot stop watching at the same time because of the suspense and beauty of it all.

Tae Guk Gi is an unforgettable emotional experience that will make you rethink how you take those close to you, and their love, for granted in such an eye-opening way that it will stay with you for a very long time.

준향 ~ Chunhyang

2008-01-03T20:42:00.000-08:00

The movie Chunhyang by director Im KwonTaek (임권택) is very unique and interesting. The film, though simple in plot structure, is still very captivating and original, allowing the viewer to experience an emotional journey with the focus of the movie, Chunhyang (played by Lee HyoJeong) who is an innocent daugther of a courtesan. She undergoes cruel punishments and near execution for the sake of trying to remain faithful to her husband.

The type of story told in the film is a stereotypical folk tale with an ultimately good and innocent party, which is Chunhyang, Mongryong, and their friends, and an ultimately evil and cruel party, Gov. Byun Hakdo. It is the story of the evil governor trying to break the love bond that Chunhyang has for Mongryong, but failing and being punished for his evil misdeeds.

The story starts out with a singing narrator beginning a korean story-telling in lyric singing. This is one of the uniquenesses of the movie—often times, this singing narrator will chant whatever is being shown on the screen at the moment like “Mongryong flips open his fan to block out the sun” or “Pangja jumps over the stones and dances through the bushes.” It is rather queer at first but then one gets used to this concept, and sometimes it is rather helpful to explain a scene. Mongryong, the son of a wealthy nobleman, falls in love with Chunhyang at first sight, and asks her to marry him. This must be kept a secret, however, to allow Mongryong to take his state exam. Under unfortunate circumstances, he has to leave the town that they both live in, and cannot take Chunhyang with him. While he is away, the evil governor becomes instated in Chunhyang’s district, and orders her to be his courtesan. She pleads that for a woman to serve more than one man is like for a governor to serve more than one king. The governor proceeds to beat her and plans to kill her. Meanwhile, Mongryong successfully becomes an emissary for the king after taking the test, and comes back to Chunhyang’s village to investigate. The day before Chunhyang is scheduled to be executed, Mongryong stages a planned mass arrest of the evil governor and all the embezzling nobles, thus saving his love and his country.

The use of special effects in this movie was rather insignificant. Instead, the director relied on subtle scene creation such as camera angle and sound editing that made every scene seem appealing and kept me focused and impatient to know how the story continues. The simplicity of this story had a purpose as well. It was to take a well known general scenario, and explore the details that may be used to put it to-gether.

Chunhyang is a well-known folk tale told in a unique style that takes the viewer through the story not only with the conventional film, but with the traditional Korean way of story-telling.

스캔들 ~ Untold Scandal

2008-01-03T20:40:00.000-08:00

The movie Untold Scandal, by Lee JaeYong, was very intriguing and an ingenious story, though unnecessarily stretched out. There were many confusing parts, but in the end, everything was brought to-gether to make shocking sense. The main character, Cho Won (Bae YongJoon), wins a bet with his cousin, Madam Cho (Lee MiSuk), but in the process creates a fatal wound in the hart of others, as well as his own.

The main theme of this movie is that it is dangerous to play with other people’s hearts, bycause the repercussions can be unimaginable. Here, it not only causes the deepest emotional pain, but even death itself, and the lessons learned from this horrible experiment are lifelong.

The plot starts out with Cho Won making a bet with Madam Cho that if he is able to seduce a 27-year-old virgin widow, Lady Jung (Jeon DoYeon), then Madam Cho will give him one night of lovemaking as a reward. Otherwise, Cho Won must forefeit his enormous love life and lust, and become a chaste monk. Madam Cho will know he accomplished his task by receiving a cloth with the blood of Lady Jung. Through much intrigue, lying, and secrecy, Cho Won manages to break through the thick walls of Lady Jung’s heart, and make her believe he loves her. But the bloody rag is not enough for Madam Cho as evidence. This causes Cho Won to take more heartless measures. When Lady Jung visits him next, she finds him with another girl, and he tells her that he never loved her. Lady Jung is devastated and returns to her home village to tend to those ravaged by the plague going on there, and refuses to eat or drink. Word of this convinces Madam Cho that Jung really is in love with Cho Won, but by this time Cho Won’s heart is already with Lady Jung. After failing one last time to ask Lady Jung for forgiveness, Cho Won returns home, where he is stabbed by Jung’s outraged brother after hearing rumours about Cho Won and Jung. News of this takes the last shreds of hope away from Lady Jung and she takes her own life in despair, and Madam Cho, who was in love with Cho Won all this time, is devastated as well, and forced to flee the country with a leaden weight in her heart.

One of the strangest things in the movie is that every little prop in every scene is simply immaculate. Even in the secret Catholic meetings every garment is perfectly pressed and every inch of wooden floor is shining. Are the Koreans trying to please a certain audience with this, or does it carry some symbolic meaning to the movie? Additionally, many of the scenes seem very drawn out. If they were shortened, then the movie experience would be much better. What is most memorable about the movie (other than the pristine condition of everything) is poor Lady Jung and how her heart was completely shattered by a careless Cho Won.

Though mostly geared for women, Untold Scandal is an entertaining and fascinating rendition of the novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Choderlos de Laclos that highlights the importance of keeping a game involving people’s hearts from getting out of hand.

Film Analysis Seniour Project Research Paper Proposal

2008-01-03T20:38:00.000-08:00

1) The focus of my research will center around exploring the history, magnitde, and manner of the portrayal of homosexual people and gay rights in film. I will try to answer such questions as “How long has there been a presence of gay characters in film?” and “How have gay characters in film been treated, and how has that changed over the decades?”

2) Some primary sources could include Ruth and James Gibbs at Los Altos High School, Leslie Bulbuk, president of BAYMEC, and Eileen Ross and Shannon Turk at the Community Health Awareness Center with the Outlet program for queer youth.

3) Some secondary sources can be websites such as or books like Masculine Interests: Homoerotics in Hollywood Film by Robert Lang. There are many secondary sources available on this topic.

4) Some early films such as Our Betters, and Queen Christina, some less old movies like Suddenly Last Summer, and Boys in the Band, and newer films such as Brokeback Mountain, Mean Girls, Saved, The Bird Cage, To Wong Foo Tanks for Everything, Julie Newmar, and many more can all be very instrumental in generating research material for this project.

Korean Film ~ A Spectrum of Emotion

2008-01-03T19:54:00.000-08:00

In The Art of Watching Films ~ Sixth Edition by Boggs and Petrie, we are introduced to the theory that “This manipulation [of emotions] myst be honest and appropriate to the story. Usually we reject as sentimental films that overuse emotional material. Such films might even make us lugh when we’re supposed to cry. So a filmmaker must exercise restraint,” (49). So if a movie has either more or less emotional restraint than prescribed by the authors, the movie will either become silly or bland, and the audience will not take it seriously. Although this statement can be true for many movies that have failed by doing just that, we are led to question whether this theory is really true for all cases. Though The Art of Watching Films is tells us that it is impossible to expand the horizons of emotion, this is not at all an impossible task, as some ingenious directors working in South Korea have demonstrated. These directors stretch the boundaries of emotion and emotional restraint in their films, but despite that, are able to make captivating and memorable movies that keep the audiences coming back for more.

The quantity of emotion used in some Korean films is so copious that it would obviously make the audience receive it as ridiculous. But in actuality, it only serves to make the film stronger. This is an element of the film Jibeuro ~ The Way Home by director Lee JeongHyang, which is about a young spoiled grandson SangWoo, played by Kim EulBoon, learning love and respect for his aged, mute grandmother, played by Yu SeungHo. At one point in the film, SangWoo throws a hysteric fit about not getting the precise kind of chicken that he wanted for dinner. This would appear to be an overuse of emotion, because the viewer is prone to laughing at the scene, but it isn’t, because the scene conveys the ridiculousness of the situation by overdramatizing the events and adding some humour to the otherwise tense and hopeless point in the story. In contrast, at the end of the film, when the grandson realises that he’s been mean and insensitive, he starts being nice to his grandmother and cries when he has to leave her. Though this is rather melodramatic, it is very effective in emphasizing the transformation that SangWoo went through. By exaggerating the emotions of this scene, the director tries to convey to the audience that if they tried to go through a similar transformation, they will have a similar feeling of emotional release and happiness.

Another outstanding example of the use of generous emotion is Tae Geuk Gi ~ The Brotherhood of War, by director Kang JeGyu, in which two brothers are forced to fight in a war, which does all it can to tear their brotherly bond to shreds. Even though it manages to do so physically—by killing one of the brothers—the emotional bond between them never even wavers. While watching this movie, there was more than one place where I burst into tears because it was so emotionally charged, like the scene where the older brother JinTae is with the enemy army killing South Koreans, and refuses to believe that he is trying to kill his brother JinSeok, no matter how hard JinSeok pleads with him. It is a really tense and despair-filled scene and it brings out the deepest emotions. But it never felt as though the film is deliberately trying to milk tears out of the viewer like some Hollywood movies do. On the contrary, the beauty and truth of the movie created an atmosphere where one just can’t help but become emotional. These two directors have successfully been able to open new grounds in the area that Boggs and Petrie would have called a “lack of emotional restraint,” proving that it is not necessarily an undesireable concept.

On the other hand, some Korean directors choose to put a surprisingly small amount of emotion in places that would seem to have to burst with it. One such inconsistency is found in Chi-Hwa-Seon ~ Painted Fire by director Im KwonTaek, about a prodigious artist whose incredible skill brought him world-fame. He could never be happy, however, because the girl that he loved was in a different class than he, and in the end she married another, causing OhWon, the artist, to become a drunk, homeless wanderer. However, when this marriage happens, it is not a huge dramatic scene with tears and great sadness. On the contrary—we see OhWon go through an angry fit and then leave and start his wanderings. Instead of the audience being shocked and emotional, the movie has the audience accept this as just an event that happens and move on to the rest of the plot. And even though there could have been an emotional scene that could have worked well, this style works well for the film as well, because it reflects the artist’s wandering lifestyle and introversion, making you question whether OhWon himself really thought about what had happened, or whether he just acted on impulse. Therefore, KwonTaek effectively uses the lack of emotion itself as symbolic. A similar example is in the movie Untold Scandal by director Lee JeYong, which is about ChoWon, the cousin of Madam Cho, going too far in his attempts to prove the love of the widowed Lady Jung, a 27-year-old virgin, to Madam Cho. To accomplish this, he calls Lady Jung to see him, but when she arrives, excited and impatient to see her love again, he greets her sitting behind a windowsill with a young pretty girl, who giggles and runs away. ChoWon simply gives Lady Jung a cold heartless look, and after understanding what has happened, the lady passes out. The coldness and heartlessness of ChoWon’s actions towards Lady Jung is emphasised by the lack of emotion attached to this scene. It is almost as though the audience takes on ChoWon’s emotional perspective during this action, feeling no remorse for the actions and only focusing on winning the bet with Madam Cho. Similarly to Painted Fire, the director overuses emotional restraint as a symbol, to emphasise a point. But in contrast to the same movie, the audience is still feeling high emotional tension and a need for release during this emotionless scene, making it even more powerful. Clearly, in both of these films, the directors showed that overuse of emotional restraint can be a powerful element of a film, capable of conveying more meaning than the emotional style prescribed by Boggs and Petrie in their textbook.

It is obvious that, albeit an understandable perspective gained from collected research, Boggs and Petrie are wrong to assume that all movies must follow similar emotional formulae in order to be successful. These four masterful directors, among others, have unquestionably demonstrated that there can be great effect and meaning conveyed by using more or even less than the expected amount of emotion in a scene of a film. We are now left to question the extent to which Boggs and Petrie have erred. Is it only Korean directors that have this impressive ability to extend the horizons of emotion in films, or do other cultures have the same capacity? Is it coincidence that these four outstanding examples are all Korean-made, or is the opposite true, that the amount of such successful deviations from Boggs and Petrie’s theory found in just Korean films reflects that there are just as many examples in other cultures, resulting in a great conglomeration of counterexamples to this theory? Further research may reveal the answer to this important question, and whether this theory should be altogether refuted, or whether it can be applied with great caution.

Wall Street Movie Essay

2008-01-03T19:53:00.000-08:00

The movie Wall Street demonstrated how the dollar, the fundamentally scarce resource, is traded, utilised, and allocated in the stock market. The two main characters in the film, Bud Fox and Gordon Gekko, exploit this allocation medium by using inside information. The main focus of the economic aspects of the movie is how greed contributes to our society.

The stock market is a great tool in to-day’s economy. It allows companies to raise money much more easily, and also has great liquidity in the exchanges which reduce the time and effort of selling securities. The limitations of this system, on the other hand, is that it is similar to gambling. If one invests money into stocks of a certain company, it is almost impossible to predict whether one will gain or lose money in the long, or short run. Thus, many people have lost a lot of money in the stock market. If this system were applied universally to the economy, it would most likely actually detriment the economy. For example, real estate is not part of the stock market. If it was, then people could invest their house into a company, and then if the company started to lose price, the investor could lose their house. Universalising the stock market would probably hurt a lot more people than it would benefit.

Our economy is largely driven by the guiding principle of self-interest, which states that people will only undergo transactions that benefit them directly, and they will always pick the one that benefits them most if there is a choice. However, this is not enough to drive the optimal functioning of the economy. If personal self-interest were to be allowed to have complete control of the economy, one consequence could be the creation of economic giants such as Rockefeller that can take over the economy of the entire country. In a less extreme scenario, people would lie and double-cross each other in nearly every transaction to ensure they get the most out of the bargain. This is clearly an unesireable world to live in. The way to counterbalance it is by introducing a government which guides the nation in the proper course, and an accompanying set of laws imposed over economic proceedings that will return an economy threatened by the aforementioned consequences into relative equilibrium. Such resolution is evident at the end of Wall Street when Bud Fox’s illegal transactions are uncovered by the police and he is arrested and incarcerated. Otherwise, self-interest is a sufficient guiding principle for the economy within these legal restrictions. In fact, it is what assures that economic supply and demand returns to equilibrium in every possible scenario.

Thus, as long as it does not get out of hand, personal self-interest is a sufficient guiding principle for the optimal functioning of the economy.

The Transformation of the U.S. Economy

2008-01-03T19:49:00.000-08:00

Everyone knows about the thirteen colonies that started the United States, and everyone realizes that we have come a long way since then. But what many people may not know is that our economy has taken leaps and bounds since the 1700s the size of star systems and galaxies. The United States’ economic progress is one of the most astonishing phenomena in economic history, but it wasn’t a coincidence. The reason we got this far is because of the occurrence of specific, fundamental changes that completely revolutionized the way we run the country’s economy between the 1700s and today.

At the onset of the 1700s, the (soon to be) thirteen colonies were finally beginning to settle in and develop a sense of unity and economy. Everything was in its beginning stages, however, and still at a very small scale, especially compared to today’s giant. The Gross Domestic Product of all the colonies combined at that time was around $500 million, and the per capita GDP was only about $500. This is because most of the population were not only farmers, making little money off the inefficient production of crops, but they were mostly self-sustaining, contributing little to the overall economy, and not often involved in the exchange of money for goods. Most of the colonies produced raw materials like fish, wood, meat, grains, &c., but every colony was very inefficient at producing these, since they were trying to fulfill their own needs by themselves rather than making what they make best, and trading. In addition, the governing body was very weakly involved in economic affairs of the colonies, not using its sovereignty to create a better productive and allocative efficiency, which would have benefited them immensely. For example, The Economies in the 1720’s states that New Hampshire “would produce hemp and flax if proper encouragement were given for it, and the people had good seed for the first sowing.” This is clearly a job for the government, but since it pledged not to be economically involved, it failed to provide the aid to get the colony started on this production. This is indeed quite a problem for the colonies, as most of the aforementioned report lists many products made by each colony, and immediately after lists many other products that the colony would be more suitable and effective making. Though they bring in a £200,000 surplus, the colonies could definitely use some organizational improvement to boost the economy, and that is exactly what they will get before the century is done.

One of the biggest influences between 1700 and 1800 that changed the economic organization of New England was the ratification of the United States Constitution, and the unification of the thirteen States. This created a centralized government among the States (rather than overseas) which could make decisions and enact changes a lot more efficiently than the British throne could. That, in addition to a steady increase of population due to a constantly expanding rate of immigration from Europe gave the U.S.’s GDP a nice 800% boost up to $4 billion. In addition, it is clear that this expansion is not solely the result of a greater population, because the per capita GDP also rose by 160% to $800 per person, meaning that individuals were overall better off in 1800 than in 1700. This can only mean that the “encouragement” mentioned in The Economies in the 1720’s that the colonies needed to produce the right materials to be more efficient was adequately provided to make the nation indeed more efficient. Upon further examination, we see that in the 1700s, “No mines are yet discovered [in Virginia], except iron, which are very common, but not wrought, for want of a sufficient stock, and persons of skill to engage in such an undertaking,” but in The Economies of the British North American Colonies in 1763 we see that Virginia is making £35,000 in iron bars and pigs. This is a clear sign of higher entity involvement, to organize and provide the sufficient stock and persons of skill to successfully start producing this export. Though the economy of the United States did expand between 1700 and 1800, it was still at a crawl compared to the revolution it would experience in the next century.

Comparing the U.S. economy in 1900 to that of 1800 is like comparing the wallet of a farmer to the wallet of an entire company. The Gross Domestic Product of the nation expanded seventy-three-fold during the 1700s bringing it up to $292 billion, and the per capita GDP went up five times to $3900 per person. This is an economic revolution of unprecedented magnitude, and it was due to several coinciding factors that created a very curious effect. The promise of free land in the United States created a competition for the best workers, which in turn made the States have the highest wages in the world. This, coupled with the freedoms of religion, politics, and especially economics, attracted an immense wave of immigrants that brought the population of the U.S. up fifteen times to 75 million people in 1900. The presence of this vast amount of producers and consumers, aided by stunning technological breakthroughs, such as railroads and steamships created the largest scale production processes in the world. When we take into account that the U.S. had created a corporate form of organization for its multitude of firms, and that they benefited from a massive import of capital from Europe, we see how the per unit cost also becomes extremely low—the lowest in the world. And finally, the presence of such a low cost drives the market size even larger. Suddenly, the improvements in the economy become linked in a circle, called the Virtuous Circle. Once the economy started doing rounds about this circle, it became completely transformed. No longer was the population so greatly concentrated on self sufficient farmers. National transportation networks and factory and assembly-line production methods made the products of these methods the dominant figure in the economy. Ultimately, the United States progressed from an agricultural nation to an industrial nation by 1900, but far more successfully than its European counterparts, as it now held a larger relative share of world wealth than any other country (38%).

Though the change of the economy between 1800 and 1900 seems tremendous, the next century brought about a transformation that was truly unbelievable. Between 1900 and 2000, the economy absolutely skyrocketed, bringing the GDP up 3,424% to ten trillion dollars, and the per capita GDP increased nine fold, up to $35,000 per person. There are many reasons for the occurrence of this, such as a continued increase of population and amount and intensity of land usage, and massive increases in government intervention and presence in the US economy. But probably the greatest force behind the economy’s transformation is the complete integration of oil into everything used by consumers in the United States. Oil was the driving force behind many revolutionary innovations in technology like cars, electricity, highways, and so on, which in turn helped to make everything unbelievably cheap and convenient and easy to make, expanding industry after industry ever more and constantly racking up the standard of living to new heights. All these advances thrust the United States out of the industrial age and into a level of post-industry. Except of course for the basic needs that are still depended on by the country, like farmers, electricity, and the like, the United States has outsourced a large portion of its manual labor to other countries, and instead taken on the role of an intellectual pedestal from which products are imagined and planned, and then made by other nations for us. As a result, we have become dependent on imported goods to satisfy our needs, because domestic production of these things (like toys or clothing) has virtually stopped.

It is difficult to foresee what the economy will be like in the future, but we can make some preliminary hypotheses in several different ways. The first is to look at the long run trends and expand them to our desired year of 2100. This would result in a GDP of somewhere around $250 trillion by 2100, and a per capita GDP of around $100,000. However, this is assuming that the US will follow the same development pattern as it has been for the previous three centuries. This is fundamentally flawed, because the only pattern that the United States has been following during this time is the miraculous invention of some new technology that revolutionizes the principal methods that we use to run our lives. And unless this standard is lived up to in the next 100 years, and on top of that, the previous inventions and resources persist, the economy may follow the aforementioned prediction. But it is common knowledge that there are many obstacles, the greatest of which is the end of oil, which undermines the persistence of (the most valuable) resources that allow us to run the economy so efficiently. In fact, current research is uncovering that the economic growth rate of the U.S. is slowing down at a very quick rate. Therefore, the nation seems to have two possible economic outcomes. The first is another genius invention or two that will allow us to stop relying on oil so much, but continue to use the products we use today at the same rate. This will ideally allow the economy to continue propelling itself upward as it has been doing in the past 2 centuries. The second is a slow decline of the economy and a long tumble of the United States from the throne of the world, because of the inability of the States to sustain themselves solely by borrowing (or stealing) other nations’ capital.

In conclusion, the history of the US economy is very impressive and worthy of honor. The country went from a loosely connected conglomerate of poor farmers to an economic giant dwarfing its neighbours in the world in the span of a few centuries. It went from being a purely agricultural society, to an efficient and effective industrial power with advanced assembly-lines and mass-production techniques, to a post-industrial society that tells the rest of the world how to make life better for its own residents, all through a few similar forces acting upon the economy, like ever-increasing population size, land use efficiency, and government intervention on the economy, and new and revolutionary inventions that provided us with new projects upon which to elaborate and keep up the upward momentum of the economy. The most important question to ask, then, is whether this trend will continue on into the future, or if the nation has finally reached a maximum and will now start declining out of prominence.

Keeping a Stable Society

2007-04-19T02:35:00.000-07:00

For any nation, tribe, family, or any kind of group entity at all, there will always be someone who holds more power than others. However, in the vast majority of examples, the one who is in charge of that power does not use it the way they are meant to use it. They become corrupt, wasteful, and insensitive and the list goes on and on. So what is the right way to use power? Naturally, power should be used in a way that will benefit the society below it. And how can this be achieved? In order for power to benefit society, it must be used to keep society together, and to maintain content among the majority of its members.

If power cannot keep society together, it is not being used correctly. It seems like an easy task, to force everybody to obey you. But that is only part of the task: merely bringing the society together. The real challenge is to keep it that way indefinitely. A naïve outlook on the means of staying in power is that one has to live up to the virtues that one’s subjects expect. However, this is not true, as Machiavelli describes in his guide The Prince, “A man who wishes to act entirely up to his professions of virtue soon meets with what destroys him among so much that is evil.” The Prince character, on the other hand, navigates around this demise by thinking ahead, to his future. He realises that if he tries to exercise all the virtues that an ideal prince should have, he will eventually run out of resources. So instead, he is careful about choosing the right things to be virtuous about, and the right things to hold back on. For example, he is not generous, but by doing this, he saves money that in the future could be used to prevent tax increases. Thus, by starting out with little virtuosity, the Prince is able to increase his favorability with the rest of the people over time by thinking ahead. To get a better idea of what happens when the one in control is not as enlightened as Machiavelli’s Prince, we compare Big Nurse from the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey. She was able to grasp power in the beginning by being the Administrator of the facility, but instead of looking ahead, she chose to pursue selfish goals through despotism. McMurphy, one of the patients, said that “[Big Nurse] is a ball cutter… people [like her] try to make you weak so they can get you to toe the line, to follow their rules, to live like they want you to” (57). Because of her lack of concern for the future, the Big Nurse is not able to keep her power through the end of the novel. Her subjects, after being enlightened by McMurphy of the Nurse’s evils, finally rebel, and her society falls apart.

The Prince was an example of suppressing virtues in order to keep society together in the long run. The Big Nurse was an example of a complete lack of virtues that would have helped keep the society together. A third outlook is the forced exhibition of characteristics that are perceived to be virtuous by the general public. George Orwell, in his autobiographical incident “Shooting and Elephant,” demonstrates that sometimes it is impossible to follow Machiavelli’s advice. At one point in the story, “I perceived … that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib. For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the ‘natives’, and so in every crisis he has got to do what the ‘natives’ expect of him.” This directly contradicts Machiavelli’s conclusion that if a ruler refrains from doing what the subjects expect of him, he will be able to keep them together better later on. Instead, Orwell is obligated to follow the natives’ expectations in order to keep peace. If he does not do as they expect, then he will lose his hierarchical standing amongst his subjects, and he will start to be looked down upon by them, which is more or less the equivalent of losing power, and bringing chaos to the society. In conclusion, one thing remains clear: forgetting about virtues that the ideal holder of one’s authority would have leads to the eventual collapse of society, thus failing the objective of a good ruler. If one does remember those virtues, however, then it becomes tricky to know when, or when not to display the virtues. This is why looking ahead and considering all possible consequences is such an important method of solving this issue: if the ruler can analyse what will happen either way, then he or she will most likely choose the correct path. Remembering virtues, and choosing wisely which to strive towards achieving and which to suppress, will guarantee that the society stays together, which is one objective of using power correctly.

Keeping subjects in order for the duration of one’s reign is one of the most important facets of a good ruler. However, is it enough? Say, for example, that the Big Nurse really did remember her potential virtues, and was just suppressing them, trying to follow Machiavelli’s teachings. Why did she still go wrong at the end of the novel? Her society did seem to be staying together, until McMurphy showed up, that is. The answer can be found in George Orwell’s reasoning: no matter how hard you try, you cannot keep a society together unless they are satisfied with your usage of power. Of course, Orwell’s subjects would probably much rather live independently of the colonizers, but for the moment, the situation is kept stable, because the subjects are satisfied with the ruler’s use of power. Orwell’s despotism succeeds while Big Nurse is unable to reach the same objective because her subjects gain the ability to admit how awfully unhappy they truly are under her rule. After McMurphy tries to persuade Harding, another patient at the ward, of how horrible the Big Nurse really is, Harding finally says “You are right … about all of it. … No one’s ever dared come out and say it before, but there’s not a man among us that doesn’t think it, that doesn’t feel just as you do about her and the whole business—feel it somewhere down deep in his scared little soul” (59). Once everyone else understood that they would have support from the other patients if they voiced their dislike about the Big Nurse, the Nurse’s power immediately dropped quite far. One on one, it is impossible to defeat the sheer mass of the Nurse’s authority, but together, it does not seem like such an impossible task any longer, and the patients begin to rebel. That is why a dictatorship based on negative incentive is a risky tactic to indulge in: if one’s subjects are unhappy, they can potentially realize that there is a possibility of changing the power structure, thus rendering one’s efforts at suppressing them useless. George Orwell realizes this point, which is why he acted the way that he did. Had he not done as the natives expected him to, he would have lowered his apparent power, showing weakness, and the natives would have seen that he is not so formidable after all, opening the door for rebellion. Contrary to this totalitarianism, McMurphy proves himself to be a benevolent leader, trying to make his followers feel comfortable around him. A great example is when, on one of many recurring meetings, the patients become bolder to do what they always wanted to do, encouraged by the presence of McMurphy. Chief Bromden says that “Now that McMurphy was around to back them up, the guys started letting fly at everything that had ever happened on the ward they didn’t like” (145). McMurphy, though he is a leader, does not employ the same tactics as any of the characters mentioned above to use his power. Instead of manipulating his subjects to stay submissive to his authority, he manipulates the environment of his subjects to create favorability for himself. For example, he shows the patients in the ward that there is still hope in the battle against Big Nurse, thus manipulating the atmosphere into a more comfortable state. This tactic is highly effective at keeping his followers satisfied, proving to be highly superiour to that of Big Nurse when every patient joined McMurphy’s side by the end of the novel, parting from Big Nurse’s control. McMurphy’s method of seeking out the needs and wants of his followers and acting to improve conditions for them based on this knowledge is the best way to use power to keep those under the authority mostly satisfied.

In conclusion, two most effective forms of power are evident. The first keeps the society together well, but is unstable concerning the satisfaction of the subjects, who might rebel against the authority for making their life miserable. The second keeps the subjects happy, but is rather weak in keeping the society together, because this happens passively. If the subjects suddenly decided to disband, there would be nothing to prevent them from doing so, as opposed to the first method discussed. So if the ideal way to use power to benefit society is to do both things very well: to keep society together, and relatively happy, then is it feasible to put the two aforementioned methods together? Unlikely, because while the Prince is manipulating his subjects (though not as overtly as most dictators), McMurphy is manipulating the environment around them. Now, if a ruler was to both manipulate the subjects and the environment at the same time, the two tactics would contradict each other, only making matters worse for the ruler. And, obviously, if the ruler were to do neither, he or she would not be a ruler at all. Therefore, a potential ruler is faced with a decision to either focus on keeping the society together, or keeping the followers happy, and it is crucial to make the right choice with respect to the circumstances. In practicality, there is no possible way to use power ideally, but it is possible to get close by choosing the right of two methods according to the type of society, and most likely, the unstable half of the tactic will not be a problem.

The benefits of learning Japanese

2007-04-01T12:44:00.000-07:00

The Japanese language seems at first impossible. Not only does it sound and feel completely different from any kind of western dialect, but there three different writing systems! However, it is not as incredible a feat as it seems to learn Japanese. Learning this language is both extremely beneficial, and practical.

First of all, Asian languages make up almost a third of the languages spoken on the Internet. English takes up another third, and the European languages bundled together take the last. Japanese is the most prevalent language of all the Asian languages, so it is clearly an important language to know. But why does the internet matter when learning a language? There are a few reasons for this. Japan has the second largest economy in the world, which means that its residents are not stingy about what they buy. If you are a salesman, or someone wanting to get as many people to buy your product as you can, then investing in learning Japanese will increase your success as much as twofold, because you will be able to sell your product to all those Japanese-speaking consumers that were blocked off from you previously.

If you are not looking for business, then there is still a wide open door of opportunities to enjoy the benefits of learning Japanese. If, as stated previously, Japanese is the third most widely used language on the internet, then by learning Japanese, it will be possible to communicate with these people, who may potentially have radically different experiences and beliefs than people brought up in Western cultures. By bridging the language gap between you, the different parties can share their experiences and get a taste for what the culture on the other side of the world is like. Thus, even if business and making money is not your top priority online, learning Japanese can bring much excitement and many new experiences into your life.

Now we have arrived to the logistical reason why learning Japanese isn’t as hard as it seems. First of all, the Japanese writing system has a phœnetic alphabet, which can be used in place of all Chinese characters to help beginners. This alphabet is very helpful, because, unlike English words such as “acquiesce” or even “mice,” there is no ambiguity in how to pronounce a written Japanese word like there is in English. Secondly, Japanese grammar can be a lot simpler than English grammar. For example, the verbs only have present and past forms, unlike English, which has perfect, imperfect, pluperfect, future, &c. Similarly, the nouns do not have genders or plural forms, and the accompanying articles such as “a” or “the,” which are always impossible for English learners to master, are absent in Japanese. Overall, Japanese may look baffling when briefly glanced at, but most of it is quantity, and not complexity. Therefore, learning Japanese is a relatively easy task, especially compared to an ambiguous and almost completely random language such as English.

There is no doubt about it: one way or another, learning Japanese will make your life richer (in any sense of the word) and more satisfying. And since you now know that it’s not such a difficult task to learn it after all, why not go for it? There is nothing to lose in learning Japanese, and everything to gain. Bridge the gap between yourself and all those Japanese speaking people on the internet and all over the world in general, and make friends with people who you never thought you would be able to speak with before. And if you are really serious about learning that vocabulary, then try www.internetpolyglot.com, a website devoted to creating flashcards to aid the memorization process so you can get to using your new skill as fast as possible!

The Benefits of the Nuremberg Trials

2007-03-31T13:34:00.000-07:00

Antony Zhukovskiy

Mike Messner

United States History

The Benefits of the Nuremberg Trials

The Second World War did not end on the battlefield. It ended in a court at Nuremberg. These trials put a closing stamp on the war that has remained a prominent topic in history to this day. From nation to nation, the trials brought relief to those who have suffered throughout WWII at the hands of the Nazi Fascists. The Nuremberg trials should have taken place, because they revealed terrible crimes against humanity and peace, and crimes of war, and also because they were the starting point of the Denazification process, and the improvement of the international justice system.

One of the most important facets of the Nuremberg trials was the unmasking of horrible crimes that were committed against humanity. During the course of both World War II, and the Holocaust, the Nazi Germans indulged in a series of increasingly atrocious actions against Jews and other minorities. It all began when the Fuehrer Adolf Hitler persuaded the German public that the problems of the German nation were to be blamed on the Jews. One by one, the Jews began to be deprived of their rights as citizens of the Nation. In 1935, at the Nazi party’s national convention in Nuremberg, two laws were passed, which successfully removed Jews from all of the areas of German political, social, and economic life. Some may argue that this is a perfectly allowable legislation, as the government has the power do decide how to treat its citizens and what rights they have. Notwithstanding, the level of deprivation that the Nazi party stooped to was so profound that it alone is enough to incriminate them based on common sense. The Nazi regime, however, was not satisfied with this course of action. Before long, they began to force the relocation of these Jews and other minorities to Ghettos and labor camps. This is a violation of two of our well known, natural freedoms that we as Americans consider to be inalienable: the right to liberty, and the right to the pursuit of happiness, and the fact that it was reaffirmed at the Trials made the rest of the world feel safer. The last, and most outstanding crime committed by the Nazi party against humanity was the mass murder of nearly an entire race, which was additionally accomplished by means that are torturous, and unnecessarily violent. This is the final infringement upon our natural rights: the right to life. By learning of all the grotesque experiences of the innocent men, women, and children who entered the death camps, the least the staff of the Nuremberg Trials could do to amend this atrocity is to try those responsible and to bring them to justice. During the course of the Nuremberg Trials, countless amounts of evidence were brought fourth to the jury, revealing in sequence these Nazi crimes. And one by one, the crimes against humanity were recognized, and their perpetrators punished. In this way, the trials were vital in establishing international guidelines for common sense, and attempting to prevent the crimes committed against the innocent people of a nation from ever happening again.

Crimes against humanity were not the only unclean acts that the Nazis had committed during their reign. There were numerous crimes made against peace itself by the German leaders. The most obvious of such crimes was the rapid rearmament of the German military after the Treaty of Versailles, having been passed, clearly stated that Germany was to keep their military at a certain, and very low level. The fact that the Fascist leaders agreed to break the rule set out by the other nations, was an action against the peace that they were trying to preserve. This is clearly not an acceptable way to carry out the terms of defeat for a nation, and should be punishable by law. Moreover, the case of rapid rearmament is a specific case that stems from a much broader issue. The Nazis broke many such peace treaties, such as the peace treaty with Czechoslovakia and the peace treaty with the Soviet Union. By disregarding these treaties, and actively invading the unsuspecting countries, Germany was heedlessly disrupting the already tentative guidelines set up to try to prevent a Second World War after the First had happened. This kind of aggressive behaviour is indeed what the Treaty of Versailles was trying to stamp out, which is why the Nuremberg Trials were important in enforcing those guidelines by punishing those who do not heed them.

So far, it has been made clear that the Nuremberg Trials were a valuable process after the Second World War, because they made sure that the Nazis didn’t get away with their awful crimes. However, the Trials had different consequences, as well. In fact, they played a major role in kick-starting the Denazification process of Europe. First of all, if the criminals weren’t properly tried and the consequences not properly carried out as they were at Nuremberg, the Nazi leaders would have become idols of Germany, ready to start a new Fascist state as soon as the country settled down some. Second, if Nuremberg had really been an unfair trial as, according to Mr. Messner, German historians say, then the Nazi leaders would have become martyrs hanged by tyrants. However, the trials were completely fair, and the defendants were allowed their own attorneys of their choosing, and a fair jury. Thus, the trials were very fair, and the sentences completely justified. Additionally, the uncovering of the many Fascist documents of the grotesque scenes that happened with respect to the Jews, and the concentration and death camps showed the rest of the world what horrors Fascism could bring about if allowed to take over the political situation. Therefore, the Nuremberg Trials were key in preventing the spread of Fascism by showing the horrors it can entail.

Lastly, it is necessary to mention the tremendous improvement of the international justice system as a direct result of the Nuremberg Trials. Before the Trials had been organized, there was no practical way to try and to sentence an international criminal, the actions of whom would not have been recognized as criminal within his or her own country. However, the Trials organized a group of nations in such a way that it was possible for them to communicate, and to cooperate on leading the Trials and to have an equal say in a fair, western-style trial. One of the more substantial consequences of the increased international justice is the creation of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (left), which specified the rights of every single individual around the globe. Without the trial, there would not have been enough evidence to reveal the need for this document, and many people around the world would have been left wanting of rights.

In conclusion, it is apparent that the Nuremberg Trials were very necessary because of two overarching points. The Nazi criminals must not have been allowed to go free without being punished for all of the atrocities that they committed before the world, and the international justice system was greatly improved and outlined much more carefully. With the coming of greater, more destructive technology, it was an urgent necessity for the world to unite under a more common banner, so that the anger, hatred, and aggressiveness of Fascism and the Nazis would never recur to bring such massive destruction to the world ever again. There was one problem that was never addressed however. And that is the fact that there were many American, French, and especially Russian leaders and officers that also acted in a criminal way when compared with the rulings at Nuremberg. It is assumed that their crimes, much like the crimes of the Nazis, have not been overlooked, and that the date for their trial shall be announced in the future.

Bibliography

Biddle, Francis. “Nuremberg: The Fall of the Supermen.” American Heritage; XIII, #5, p. 65. Aug. 1962.

Goldensohn, Leon. The Nuremberg Interviews. Alfred A. Knopf: New York, 2004.

Rice Jr., Earle. The Nuremberg Trials. Lucent Books: San Diego, 1997.

Austin, Ben S. “The Nuremberg Trials: The Defendants and Verdicts.”

Nuremberg: Tyranny On Trial. The History Channel; A & E Home Video.

Moru's Revelations

2006-05-17T19:42:00.000-07:00

A long, long time ago, Moru, the god of learning and education, sat in his hut on Mount Olympus with his godly laptop on his lap. And he decided that men needed to learn. He decided that they should learn about all the scientific aspects of life at an early age, so that they have the rest of their life to implement their skills. And he planned out all the details of education and how it should be done, and he typed everything on his laptop.

When he finished all his plans, he decided that the best way to tell this to man was to send his Angel secretary down to Earth to tell the people all he came up with, because the secretary had already read and reviewed all his work, and knew it like the back of his hand. He journeyed down from Mount Olympus, and came to the Council of Philosophers which was organised in Greece at the time. He appeared as a large bronze sword superimposed on a partially unfurled scroll, and as he spoke, he portrayed his thoughts on the scroll in heavenly ink, and the philosophers were overjoyed to receive such revelations from the god of learning and education.

However, back on Mount Olympus, Moru had made a fatal flaw in his plans. He realised that since human children are not gods, they cannot possibly be able to stay in school all year round, and still be able to learn well. He realized that he needed to give them some time to lay back and relax and idle in parks, and he decided that the best time to give studends a very long break would be in the winter. They would not be overburdened with work by their parents as soon as they came home from school, because in winter, there is barely any work to do, and they would also be able to rejuvenate quickly and get back to studying much more readily.

But, alas, his Angel was already on Earth explaining his plans to the philosophers, and all the other Angels were running errands for all the other gods of earthly and heavenly things. So Moru made himself a Plan B, because he was very clever and good at planning. He decided that if he cannot send an Angel, he would send the wisest animal in all the world to explain. The wisest animal was Sophia, a beautiful red, orange, and green snake whose back was laid out with valuable gems and her sapphire eyes twinkled in the sun with such ancient knowledge as no Angel secretary could imagine.

Moru enlightened Sophia with his plans, and sent her down with the sacred Water of Translation contained in a phial of pure diamond to translate her snake dialect into Greek. Sophia met the exhausted Angel on her way to Greece, and with his last strength, the Angel pinpointed to her the location of the house of the Council of Philosophers. She entered, and found the philosophers discussing the new plan with much rigor and excitement, and called their attention to herself. She opened the phial, and drank the potion, and began to explain the plans. However, as she was getting to the thesis of her speech, the potency of the Water of Translation began to falter, and where she thought to tell them to make the long break in winter, it came out of her mouth seeming like she wanted them to make it in the summer, and this wrong version seemed plausible to the philosophers. She left the diamond phial with the Greeks, and went back to Moru, and explained what had happened. Moru was greatly displeased.

He sent his secretary Angel once more to the council, and he spoke to them in his new strength of the true plan. However, as the philosophers listened to this correctional revelation, the diamond phial began to glow ever so brightly, and shattered in a million pieces; the form of the Angel began to distort into a flaming trident of doom. The frightened philosophers took out their magical staffs, and banished the Angel from their gathering place, and did not believe a word he had said.

Thus, the long break in our scholarly schedule remains in the summer, rather than the winter as Moru had originally planned. And to revere the god and his messenger snake, Sophia, they called the graduating class (10^th grade at the time) in their combined name—Sophia-Moru, or Sophomores.

Step 4 of the Reading Exercise MEHAP book ch. 13

2006-04-07T18:13:00.000-07:00

Prelude to Disaster

· Natural problems occurred, prohibiting the populace from creating enough food to provide for themselves

· The people, weakened by the shortage of food, gained illnesses, died, and consequently were unable to work.

· The decline of health, and population caused the citizens to find scapegoats, become greedy, and attack innocent people, which resulted in tumult, and general chaos.

The Black Death

· The Black Death arrived in Europe, causing many more deaths, population decline, and hatred.

· Since people were unable to find causes for the phenomenon, they blamed everything on rich people, and Jews, who had gold.

· The terrible toll the Black Death took on Europe not only damaged the physical and political structure of the entire continent, but changed the mood of the people negatively for years.

The Hundred Years’ War

· The war began as the King of England decided to claim some of France’s lands as his, and with the French barons supporting him.

· The war took place mainly in France, lasted around 110 years, and involved all classes of people, from nobles to poor serfs.

· The war took its toll on the countries via high taxes, shortage of workers, and the decline of the nobility.

The Decline of the Church’s Prestige

· The orientation of the Pope’s residence was highly inefficient, and caused Papal authority to decline, and left Rome impoverished.

· Two new Popes appeared, and had different views on how to go about fixing this problem. Their followers were nearly equal in number, and caused much unrest, which initiated the Great Schism.

· Many people thought that the church should be subordinate to the state; conflicts continued even after both Popes were deposed, and a new one elected.

The Life of the People

· Everyday life was disorganized, and boring. People could only marry once, and not out of love; life consisted of mainly only the church, and the farming.

· Crime was also widespread, as even nobles could not refrain from the “joy” of kidnap and torture.

· Finally, the terrible conditions of this lifestyle caught up with the people, who openly revolted against the inefficient governments.

Vernacular Literature

· As nations emerged out of the chaotic mess of Europe, they developed their own unique languages.

· Writers and poets were able to use this new development to write to the general public, who spoke in these vernacular languages, instead of writing high literature such as Latin, and gained more popularity as well as historic importance. This contact with the general public also increased the general level of education, and gave more people the opportunity to find jobs.

· Some of these writers included Dante, who wrote the Divine Comedy, and Chaucer, with his Canterbury Tales.

Review Question Response MEHAP book ch. 13

2006-04-07T18:12:00.001-07:00

1) Because medicine in the Middle Ages was highly underdeveloped, no cure, or relieving treatment for the plague had been discovered. The people were at a loss for the possible scientific cause of this disease, and the only reasonable explanation left was that it was the work of God. This created two groups of people – those that started to punish themselves to look better in the eyes of God, and those that started to lose their faith because they couldn’t understand why God was doing this. Both of these groups’ solutions to the problem were very negative, thus the mood of the Middle Ages also became very gloomy and hopeless. Poets wrote pieces centered on death and despair, painters made visions of skeletons leading people to Hell, and sermons were centered on death being close and unforgiving. Even today, when we look back upon the Middle Ages, we see a dark and sinister world.

2) The Hundred Years War was a very long and exhausting event for Europe. The English King claimed the French throne, and, supported by barons, initiated the event. The war engulfed mountains of money, hordes of people, and destroyed cities, but the only military change that happened at the end was the capture on one small city in France, and an increase in the hatred between France and England. The money lost had to be repaid by governments, making them in very deep debt, which made them unable to support its citizens. The citizens, outraged, revolted, and created even more problems for the governments. Eventually, the governments spiraled downward, were overthrown, and replaced by just as incompetent ones. Thus, the War was pointless, and useless, and was not worth all the time and energy France and England put into it.

3) Since the Pope was in France, he could not have direct contact with his people in Italy, and with the other high clergy members. Therefore, he was isolated from the church, but still had a lot of power. This corrupted the Pope, and he was only concerned with money, and how to manipulate the government. His lack of attention towards Italy left the country poverty-stricken, and his people did not appreciate that very much. Even more to inhibit his power was the conciliar movement, which wanted the papal authority to be given to a council, and the church to be subordinate to the state. This movement inevitably attracted followers, and opposition towards the Pope grew until a new Pope was elected creating an even bigger schism.

4) After the Hundred Year’s War, governments were unable to support its citizens, and instead, pelted them with taxes, tried to freeze wages, ignored food shortages, and did nothing about the multitudes of fur-collar crimes being committed. Added to all this, a slightly better lifestyle gave citizens false hope that it would keep increasing, so the people blamed the government for not meeting their rising expectations. All this put so much anger against the government into the citizens’ minds, that they began revolts to try to institute new ones. Citizens protested against bad taxes in front of their Lords’ manors, and they sometimes even had armed uprisings. Finally, King Richard II and his nobles tricked the peasants into ending the revolt.

Brief Summary of the Late Middle Ages

2006-04-07T18:12:00.000-07:00

The middle ages are, as they are often called, quite “Dark.” Corrupt and disorganized political activity brews with gruesome physical suffering, such as famine and plague, to create a terrifying world for its inhabitants. Poor harvests and natural disasters wiped out the food supply, stopping economics, and starving the population. Immediately afterwards, the plague arrives, diminishing the population even further. Terrifying recounts of this disease were written everywhere while a third of Europe’s people are wiped out. Then, not a moment too soon, the Hundred Year’s War begins, taking most of the nobility, and the working men, which destroys the noble class, and forces women to take jobs such as priests, which is highly disliked by critics. During all this chaos, however, the life of the people must continue, and it reflects the mood of Europe very well. Marriage was very restricted, and divorce did not exist; the church was corrupt, and the people doubted their religion – the only thing keeping them together, and sane. Nobles, who were supposed to be gracious and dignified, committed crimes for lack of better things to do. All this led to the people being outraged that their government cannot prevent all this terror, and revolts began to dot the continent, to the point that governments were being greatly weakened by the incidents. All this shows that the feudal system in the middle ages was now out of date, and that a new government was needed to institute peace within the people. However, rulers were far from willing to undergo such reform, and many revolutions followed in the years after.

We Know Your Plans, Catiline

2006-04-07T18:10:00.001-07:00

III. And indeed it is someone, Catiline, who now might hope for more, if neither the night is able to conceal the impious meetings by means of darkness nor are the private homes able to secure the voices of your conspiracy by means of walls, if they are being made clear, if they are breaking out everything? Now change your mind, trust me, to forget bloodshed and burning. You are represented everywhere; all your intentions are clearer to us at daybreak, you may now review these with me.

Troia

2006-04-07T18:10:00.000-07:00

The Greeks and Trojans fought at Troy. The Trojans were the Barbarians, who lived in Asia. The Trojans and the Greeks fought for 9 years. At the tenth year, Ulysses, a famous Greek, had in mind a new strategy. He told all the Greeks by means of a signal and entrusted to them the strategy: “Carry much wood from the forest to the camp. Prepare a high horse from the wood. We will give a new gift to the Barbarians.”

The Greeks prepared the horse and men climbed into the horse one by one. On the horse they wrote: “The Greeks give the gift by means of Minerva.” Then the moved the horse to the Trojans. They navigated to a small island and prepared the crops. The Barbarians deserted the horse and the camp when they caught sight of the Greeks. They said a sacred sign and moved the horse into the town. At night the Greeks returned from the island and one of the Greeks called forth the men from the horse by means of a sign. In the town, the allies talked. The Greeks occupied Troy. The fortune of the Trojans was bad.

To Rome

2006-04-07T18:09:00.002-07:00

On the land horses could be seen clearly. “The horses are a sign of a battle,” says Anchises; “the horses bear war. We should not engage in battle.” They do not remain there, but hurry to the neighbouring Sicily. Aetna frightens them, and they hurry from Sicily.

Then Juno, queen of the gods, who the Trojans do not like, comes to Aoelus, who controls and rules the winds, and says:

“If the strong winds will blow on the ships of the Trojans, I will have great thanks, and give you a great treasure.”

Aeolus hastens to hurl the winds into the ships. The Trojans become frightened of the high waves. The arms of the men are in the waves. Then Neptune, the got of the waves, hears the winds and comes to the place where the ships are. The anger of Neptune is great; the winds flee far. A few of the Trojans are lost; the survivours come to the neighbouring land and are being protected. But in which land are they? They do not know, but did not hesitate to make camp.

The Twelve Tables of the Law

2006-04-07T18:09:00.001-07:00

Once upon a time, this word was being recited by Publius, the Second, his little sister listens: “The enemy of the enemy rules forever.”

Publius the Second was being ridiculed for his word, but this is withdrawn into the Forum.And so, Rufus is the Father to the Second. Rufus finds the Second and asks: “What is ‘The enemy of the enemy rules forever?’” I heard this being said by Publius.”

The father explains: “These are the words of the laws of the Twelve Tables, which are always memorized by all Roman boys, from the time when they were written.”

“When were they written?”

“At the beginning of the years of the civilization, When the Ten men had power.The laws of Rome were lengthy, retained in the memory of man, not written. But to the population of Rome desired to write them down, because many injuries to men were not known in the laws.”

Superstitiones

2006-04-07T18:09:00.000-07:00

Once, Rufus observed the sky while he is walking in the Forum, and saw three birds on the right part.

“It is a Sign!” he said. “Fortune was a friend to my business!”

It turned out thus: the business went well; and so Rufus always believed the birds to bring good fortune to his business.

Most Romans were always on the lookout for signs and omens – in the sky, on earth, in the fires. They were believing the gods themselves to come to oppressed men for sleep and warn them.

Spartacus

2006-04-07T18:08:00.001-07:00

Spartacus was a distinguished slave, captive of the Romans. He called forth the allies, and urged on war: “O allies, the Romans are not equal. I was a boy in my village, and my life was always pleasant. Great was the peace in our fatherland. The populace was equal. I loved the great forests and the spacious fields. I did not have a master; there I was free. I had true friends, good and agreeable boys. But the Romans occupied our fatherland; they carried me and my friends from the fatherland.”

Now, after many years I am a man, and fight in the public arena. Today, in this town I did not recognize the man whom I killed – and was my friend!

Are you men? You do not like the populace of Rome and the bad masters. We do not deserve these injuries. Our cause is just. Is the hour not now? To arms! Fight! Show your pride! Call your allies to help! We will free the slaves, we will be free, we will hurry to depart to our sacred fatherland and there we will work in our fields and live in harmony.”

Mark Antony

2006-04-07T18:08:00.000-07:00

Role: Mark Antony was born circa 83 BC, and was one of Caesar’s most trusted men by the time he was 36 (47 BC). This is true, because even though he had a majour fight with Caesar—which involved violence—about Antony’s domus, and was fired from any political involvement, he was reinstated back into Caesar’s staff shortly thereafter, and on an even higher level, as partner for Caesar's fifth consulship.

When Caesar was assassinated, Mark Antony was forced to share Rome with two other men (Octavian, and Lepidus). Mark Antony got the eastern and half of the northern part of rome—basically all of the Greek and Middle Eastern parts of Rome, while Octavian had Rome herself, and Gaul, and Lepidus had Africa. As Ruler of those lands, Mark Antony was very self-centered, and concerned with conquering new lands (Chiefly Armenia and Parthia). He was already on bad terms with Octavian, and when Octavian did not send him the army Antony requested to conquer Armenia with, his relations went even more bad.

In his Middle Eastern endeavours, Mark Antony met the Queen of Egypt, Cleopatra, and they fell in love, and got married, Antony thus abandoning his present wife. He then distributed the lands he had in his possessions to Cleopatra and her children, and declared the children the rightful heirs of Caesar. Octavian was outraged, because he claimed to be the rightful heir, and thus began a civil war in Rome in 31 BC, with Octavian on one side, and Mark Antony on another. Octavian beat Mark Antony all the way back to Egypt in this war, and had in effect trapped Antony and Cleopatra in Egypt. Mark Antony then decided that Cleopatra had committed suicide, and did so himself by falling on his sword. The still living Cleopatra followed suit several days later by drinking poison. With their death, Octavian became the uncontested ruler of Rome, and became known as Augustus Caesar.

The civil war between the men ensured that the Roman oligarchy would fall, and there would now be political struggles between two consuls instead of a senate and a dictator. Thus Antony, as Caesar's key adherent and one of the two men around whom power revolved after Caesar’s assassination, was one of the three men chiefly responsible for the fall of the Roman Republic.

Costume: As a senator and ruler, Mark Antony wore the common dress for such people. This was a toga praetexta, or a toga with a purple border, that was worn by all men of (former) political importance, and young boys. This simple costume was worn instead of any kind of lavish and extravagant clothing to signify that the people are equal to the rest of Rome’s citizens, and so do not exceed the more poor classes by much.

As a military leader, Mark Antony wore the metal armour of high-class warriors, which was a breast/back plate, and a sectionalised skirt to protect the waist-area, but allow for extensive movement. This metallic armour was worn over a red tunic, and Antony was famous for wearing a red cape over the armour. His footwear for this costume were sandals, and his headdress was a helmet with the common “broom” decorating the top.

Gallia

2006-04-07T18:07:00.000-07:00

The Romans are occupying Gaul, and prepare a large treasure. The Gauls entrust their families and fortunes to the woods. The Romans prepare large penalties for the Gauls. The penalties are harsh. Then the memory of the injustices at the fight enrages the province of Gaul. The Gauls announce:

“You are occupying our land by means of war. You carry a great treasure to Italy by means of large wagons. Our punishments are harsh. But tomorrow, we will fight and we will save our lives and our treasure with our victories. You enrage us to battle with injuries and punishments. We prepare to fight. We will announce the pleasing victories of our families, but you will not announce the great victories of Rome.”

The Gauls fight bravely for a long time, but the victories of Rome are clear and numerous. The Gauls do not save their lives and land.

Where is the province Gaul? Do you all accuse the Gauls because they fought? Do you not praise the courage of the Gauls? Will you entrust the battles of the Gauls to memory?

Days with Books and Writers

2006-04-07T18:06:00.001-07:00

Once, P. Ovidius Naso, a pleasing Roman poet at the time, prepared to read a poem. P. Caecillus Rufus, the father of Publius, knew the friend of the poet; and so, Rufus proceeded with his friend and with his son and Furianus to the building, in which lived Ovidius. The enthusiasm of Publius and Furianus was great; in fact, they saw and displayed many poems of Ovidius in the shop of the Sosii, and often desired to see Ovidius himself. In the street, Rufus and the friend talked about many poets.

“Ovidius is the best of the poets of Rome,” shouts the friend. “When men will have forgotten the names of all the other poets who now are out of memory, the name of Ovidius will remain.”

“It is good, but not better than Vergilius and Horatius, whom the boys were listening to. Better than them, Rome has neither seen, nor heard.”

“Surely, surely, he did not write the Aneid, the Secular Hymn; The Amores and other books are pleasing, but not extraordinary. But I heard much about his new book, which is named Transformations.”

“Has Augustus seen his book?”

“I don’t know. Ovidius on the other hand is not very pleasing to be seen for Augustus. Augustus holds Horatius and Vergil in his memory.”

They arrived to the building in which Ovidius lived, and Ovidius recited to them the new book. He read the poem about Orpheus and his wife. Publius and Furianus listened with great zeal. Having read the poem, they slowly withdrew from the building.

“He is without doubt a poet!” was the word of Publius.

Daphne and Apollo Translation

2006-04-07T18:06:00.000-07:00

But your beauty prevents your wish, and your form disagrees with your prayer. Phoebus is loving that, which it is seen, and he desires a marriage Daphne’s, and because he desires, he hopes, and his oracle decieved him, in order to flatten the light stubble of grain, in order to often burn the torch, which a traveler lets them get too close, or forgets them in the morning, thus the god was killed in the flames, thus his whole heart was being burned and it was nourishing his barren desire with love. He watches her disordered hair hanging to her neck and sighs ‘What, if it is aranged?’ He sees her eyes twinkling similar to the stars, he sees the kiss, which was not seen enough; he praises her wrists and hands and fingers, and her arms bare to the shoulder, if it is hidden, he imagines better. She flees swifter than wind itself is light, and resists his words calling her back. “Nymph, I beg, of Peneus, wait! Your pursuer is not your enemy, Nymph, Wait! Thus sheep from a wolf, thus deer from a lion, thus doves flee from an eagle with frightening wings: everything flies from its enemy: I am striving for the sake of love! Pity me! Do not fall headfirst the thorns undeservedly scar your legs and maybe I am a cause of grief to you! The places are rough, through which you run. Slow down, I say, inhibit your running fleeing, and I will attack slower myself. Inquire however who you charm: not a mountain man, I am not a shepherd, not a horrible head of flocks that I see. You don’t know, rash one, you do not know, whom you flee from, and therefore you flee: Delphi’s lands are mine, and Claros and Tenedos, and Patara serve the kingdom; Jupiter is the creator; through me what was, what is, and what will be, are revealed. Through me strings harmonize a song. Indeed, our it is certain, but an arrow more reliable than ours has made a wound in the emptiness of my chest! Having found my medicine; and bringing help through the talking horizon, and my power is subject to herbs. But love cannot be healed by means of herbs, nor can the arts that cure others cure the master!”

More would have been said as timid Peneis ran fleeing, And with his own imperfect words leaving him, For it was fitting to see; they came to uncover the body, and in front of the way they

and the wind was giving incitement behind her hair, and the increasement caused the figure to flee. But the young god cannot bear to waste his pursuasive words further, and so he was moving towards love, at a quickeded pace, soon. Next he was going to spread out his search like a hound of Gaul. He sees her in an empty field and this dog, ready to snatch, she is in safety; like one about to pounce, he had hoped to snatch her, and grazes the heels of the hare with outstretched muzzle; thus the virgin and the god; he is driven by desire, she by fear. He ran faster and love aided him with wings. He did not allow pause and fled to her back, he breathed on the hair on the back of her neck.

Her courage fled her, and she began to turn rapidly pale, she was overcome by the efforts of her fleeing, and seeing Peneidas’s waves/waters. “Father,” she said, “If your waters have the divine power! Destroy my figure and what pleases so much!”

Scarecely finishing the prayer, numbness overcame her, her breast became enclosed in bark and her hair into leaves, her arms came forth as branches. Her feet so quick a moment ago, took root, her face had branches in it. Only her splendor was left.

Daphne baing changed into a tree, Phoebus still loved her, and he placed his right hand on the trunk. He experienced her heart, still under the bark and he stood before her branches, as though they were limbs, and gave a kiss to the bark: but the timber fled from his kiss.

The god said, “Because you are not able to be with me, you are certainly my tree. Laurel, with you my hair will be wreathed, with you my lyre, with you my quiver. You will be near the Roman leaders with happy Triumph Parades, your voice will sing and see Capitolia’s long procession.

You famously guard the doorpost for Augustus, and will remain before his doors, and in the middle you will protect the oak tree wreath, and just young, uncut head of hair, you will therefore carry honourable leaves.”

Apollo had finished by means of the new branches, like a head, she shook her branches.

Catiline’s Audacity

2006-04-07T18:05:00.000-07:00

Useful Words: audacia—boldness, caedes—murder, coniuratio—conspiracy, furor—madness, iam pridem—long ago, ignoro—not know, immo vero—rather, orbis terrae—the world, patientia—patience, praesidium—garrison, praetero—pass by, studeo—be eager (for), timor—fear, vigilia—loss of sleep, vultus—expression.

I, 1. Catiline, tell me how long are you going to waste our patience? How long will that anger of yours still elude us? When will unbridled audacity throw you to the edge? Do the night garrison of Palatus, do the awakened cities, does the fear of the people, does the concurrence of the good people, does this having been the most fortified position of the senate, do the expressions on the the faces at this hour not move you? Your council does not realize to open, do they not see now the bindings of all the hours the knowledge having held conspiracies against you? Why is it becoming near to November 7, why will it have driven the greatest night, where will you have been, who do you call together, of what councils do you seize, why have you decided to ignore us?

Attire of a Roman Citizen

2006-04-07T18:04:00.000-07:00

Even though in Ancient Rome there were no advanced machines to make T-shirts, or denim pants, Romans still had unique costume, and fashion to go along with it. As today, the attire of a man was somewhat different than that of a woman, and the type of clothing Romans wore differed with each occasion. This, however, was not the only reason Romans wore clothing, apart from covering their body. They used clothes to signify their social status, governmental importance, and legal standing by changing the color of the cloth, the fabric it was made of, and the amount of fabric that the article was made of.

To find a place to begin, I will start with the men’s dress. The most commonly worn garment in Rome was not the toga, but the tunica. This tunica was a type of shirt, and the simplest of all the clothes. It was simply two pieces of square cloth sewn together, except where the head and arms had to come through. The man would have tied it at the waist with a belt, and pulled it through to just the right length. Even though the tunica had sleeves on occasion, this was not a common accessory, and was left off most of the time. The tunica played an important role in signifying a man’s status, as men wore it almost all of the time. The tunica varies from the undyed, rough wool that simpletons at the boddom of the ladder wore, to the wealthy man’s soft silky tunica, which acted as an undergarment.

Even though the tunica is the most commonly worn garment in Rome, the one that they are most known for is, of course, the toga. There were a vast variety of togas worn by many Romans. The toga came to the Romans from the Etruscans and Greeks, both of which had worn a long cloak to cover their bodies. The first togas of Rome, however, were developed as smallish pieces of oval cloth worn over the tunic in a complicated pattern of wrapping and folding. Like the tunica, the toga was heavily used as a distinction of class and status – much more so, in fact, than the tunica. Though the shape of the garment was consistent, the color and texture varied. The common toga of the not-so-wealthy middle class people was a simple woolen cloth, left its natural color. This was the toga virilis, the manly toga. Candidates campaigning for a public office often bleached the toga to draw attention to themselves. A contrast to this was the toga pulla, a darkly dyed toga worn when mourning losses. The toga praetexta was a toga with a purple stripe worn by children and important public officials. Finally, the toga traeba was worn by priests, and had red and purple stripes.

The women, however, were not to be outdone, and had several different clothes of their own. The most common garment of the married woman was the stola. This long, sleeveless gown that hung down to the ground was worn over the silky tunica that women wore under clothes. It was clinched at the shoulders with fibulae, and worn with two belts – one on the chest and one around the waist, because this made the folds numerous and beautiful. To wear a stola symbolised that the woman was married, and that was a sure way to raise yourself in the social ladder. Thus, the article of clothing not only served to look good, but like most Roman clothes, was used to show the status of the individual.

Just as the toga went hand in hand with the tunica for men, the palla went hand in hand with the stola for women. This was a big rectangular piece of woolen fabric, the simplicity of which allowed for many different uses. It could be a blanket at night, or a bathrobe, or worn as clothing over a tunica or a shirt, or toga, or a stola. Even though this object had so many uses, even the palla had significance in social status. The type of material it was made of clearly conveyed the wealth of the lady wearing the palla, and the use of expensive dyes and intricate designs helped to further prove this point.

When the Romans discovered the barbarians of the north, they were apalled at the “pants” these people were. To the Romans, wearing leg covering was seen as crude, and wrong. However, when the Romans took the time to study the conditions the barbarians lived in, they learned to understand that it was a simple matter of warmth and protection that drove the barbarians to wear pants, not some disgusting fashion. Thus, the Romans decided to experiment, and adapted a version of the pants called the feminalia, tight pants that reached to the knee, worn mostly by men. They did this to protect their own soldiers from the cold of Britain, as they saw the natives doing there. Eventually, the pants became more fashionable in Rome, and even the emperor Nero could have been seen wearing these.

Bibliography

Pendergast, Sara and Tom. Fashion, Costume, and Culture: Clothing, Headwear, Body Decorations, and Footwear through the Ages: Volume 1: The Ancient World. Detroit: U•X•L, 2004.

Payne, Blanche. The History of Costume: Second Edition. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1992.

Dersin, Denise. What Live Was Like when Rome Rulet the World. Richmond: Time Life, 1997.

Symons, David. Costume of Ancient Rome. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.

Types of Chemical Reactions

2006-04-07T18:03:00.001-07:00

Purpose: This lab will demonstrate several different types of chemical reactions. The five chemical reactions that we are currently studying in chemistry are: combination reactions, which are two or more substances combining to form a new substance; decomposition reactions, which are a substance breaking down into two or more different substances or elements; single-replacement reactions, which involve a metallic ion replacing a different metallic ion from an ionic compound; double-replacement reactions, which involve the swapping of metal ions from ionic compounds; and combustion reactions, which involve the presence of heat and oxygen to burn a substance and create new substances. In this lab, we will be engaging in several experiments do demonstrate many of these types of reactions to ourselves.

Data and Calculations:

Reaction	Observation	Reaction Type
Fe + CuSO₄	Iron becomes rust-coloured, liquid loses blue color, turns more clear to greenish.	Single-replacement
Pb(NO₃)₂ + KI	Liquid turns bright yellow, dazzling yellow powdered precipitate can be seen sinking to the bottom of the tube.	Double-replacement
Mg + HCl	Magnesium dissolves in the acid very quickly. Bubbles form, and after they are collected in a large test tube and ignited, a loud “pop” can be heard.	Single-replacement
Electrolysis of H₂O	The negative side of the U-shaped tube with electrodes at each end produces much more gas than the positive side.	Decomposition

Analysis:

2) The following are the equations for each of the reactions.

a) Fe(s) + CuSO₄(aq) → Cu(s) + FeSO₄(aq)

b) Pb(NO₃)₂(aq) + KI(aq) → K₂(NO₃)(aq) + PbI₄(s)

Pb(NO₃)₂(aq) + 4KI(aq) → 2K₂(NO₃)(aq) + PbI₄(s)

c) Mg(s) + HCl(aq) → MgCl₂(aq) + H₂↑

Mg(s) + 2HCl(aq) → MgCl₂(aq) + H₂↑

d) H₂O(l) → O₂(g) + H₂(g)

2H₂O(l) → O₂(g) + 2H₂(g)

5) Please refer to my purpose for my explanations. Here’s more:

There are five types of reactions: combination, decomposition, single-replacement, double-replacement, and combustion reactions. I will start from the top. A combination reaction is one in which two or more elements or substances come together to create a new substance. An example of this is when oxygen and hydrogen combine to form water. A decomposition reaction is when a substance breaks down into two or more substances that used to make up that substance. A great example of this type of reaction is when sugar (C₆H₁₂O₆) breaks down into carbon (C) and water (H₂O). A single replacement reaction happens when an ionized metal, such as lithium, replaces another cation, such as magnesium, from an ionic compound dissolved in water, such as magnesium chloride. A double-replacement reaction happens when two aqueous ionic compounds, such as sodium cyanide and sulfuric acid, swap their cations, becoming hydrogen cyanide gas, and sodium sulfate. Finally, a combustion reaction is when an element or compound such as magnesium, and oxygen gas are heated together, and create one or more new substances, such as magnesium oxide, and emit heat in the process.

Results/Discussion: This lab was very useful to me in demonstrating all the different types of chemical reactions, so that I could witness them, and see that they actually do work. This visualization of abstract topics that we are studying was a tremendous help in showing me how they work. In the iron and copper sulfate experiment, I could clearly see the solid becoming red, and the blue tint leaving the liquid, which was proof that the copper was being replaced by the iron in the ionic compound. The experiment that formed the yellow precipitate was a bit puzzling, since I did not really know which product was the solid, and which was the liquid. The electrolysis decomposition experiment immediately showed how water decomposes into oxygen and hydrogen, since gas bubbles started rising instantly after the experiment is started. One side produces much more gas than the other, and I think that the greater gas produced is hydrogen, because in the balanced equation (2H₂O(l) → O₂(g) + 2H₂(g)), two hydrogen molecules are produced from water, compared with only one oxygen molecule. Some potential errors that may have occurred during the course of the lab is mixing the wrong chemicals together, or waiting too long to capture the hydrogen from the magnesium and HCl experiment, resulting in the failure to notice the hydrogen gas being formed.

The Specific Heat of a Metal

2006-04-07T18:03:00.000-07:00

Purpose: In this chapter, we have been studying how the transfer of heat and energy from one substance to another alters the temperature of the objects. This lab will attempt to provide a real-world example of the theories put forth by the text. We will be heating several different substances and then submerging them in a set amount of water at standard conditions to see the change in temperature. Thus, we will hope to understand how to evaluate scientifically such temperature changes by means of heat flow.

Data and Calculations:

Measurements of Mass and Temperature
Mass of Copper	57.32g
Volume of Antifreeze	5mL
Density of Antifreeze	1.26g/mL
Mass of Unknown Metal	18.39g
Initial temperature₁ of H₂O in cup	22°C
Water₁ with Copper @ 100°C	25°C
Water₁ with Unknown @ 100°C in cup	26°C
Initial temperature₂ of H₂O in cup	21°C
Water₂ with antifreeze @100° C in cup	28°C
Difference of temperature of Copper	3°C
Difference of temperature of Unknown	4°C
Difference of temperature of Antifreeze	7°C

Analysis:

1) Change in temperature of water for each substance: Copper=3°C Antifreeze=7°C Unknown=4°C.

2) Heat gained with Copper: q=∆H = 57.32 x 1 x (25-22) = 171.96
Heat gained with Anrifreeze: q = ∆H = (1.26x5)x1x(28-21)=44.1
Heat gained with Unknown: q = ∆H = 18.39x1x(26-22)=73.56

3) Specific heat of each substance:
Copper: C=171.96/(57.32x3)=.418
Antifreeze: C=44.1/((1.26x5)x7)=1
Unknown: C=73.56/(18.39x4)=1

4) N/A

5) See above.

6) Accepted value of copper: .387
Percent error=|.387-.418| = 8.01%
.387

7) It would be less than it actually is.

8) The substance may have had time to cool substantially while being transferred from the flask of boiling water to the styrofoam cup.

Results/Discussion: I have discovered that it is possible to measure the specific heat of substances if you only know their weight, and how much they changed the temperature of a certan amount of water under certain conditions. This allows me to understand clearly the origin of specific heat, and why it is used. The final specific heat of the unknown turned out to be a round 1. This is surprisingly high, and was probably an error in the experiment. I did not find any metal that was remotely close to this stellar specific heat capacity. My result for the copper, however, were satisfactorily close to the accepted value, which reassured me that at least part of the laboratory was completed successfully. I cannot say anything about the antifreeze, since I do not know what its accepted specific heat capacity is. Knowing that antifreeze is used to prevent the flow of heat, however, I think it is safe to assume that this substance would have a high specific heat capacity. Experimentally, we showed that it does indeed have a high specific heat capacity, also 1, which seems reasonable, though it is probably too low. Otherwise, car manufacturers would use water, which is cheaper and also has a specific heat capacity of 1, instead of the expensive and toxic antifreeze. I think some potential errors were that the unknown metal released too much heat as it was transferred from the double boiler to the styrofoam cup. This way, it seemed that it absorbed a lot less heat than it really did, and made its specific heat capacity a lot higher than it is in reality. I think this lab did a very good job of explaining specific heat. I now understand a lot better that specific heat capacity is directly related to how quickly a substance can be heated, or how much energy is needed to heat the substance. This will help my overall task of studying specific heat, because I have a better conceptual view of the topic in my mind.

Quantitative Analysis

2006-04-07T18:02:00.000-07:00

Purpose: This lab will be conducted in the hopes of finding the values of the coefficients of the products and the reactants, and comparing them to the theoretical result, to see if they are equal.

Data and Calculations:

Items	Mass (g)
Empty, dry cup	8.94 g
Iron nails	7.08 g
Iron nails (after reaction)	6.19 g
Beaker and dry product	9.78 g
Dry product net weight	0.84 g

Step	Observations
1	Turned bright ren in green solution. Covered with bubbles.
2	Liquid turned bright green. Nails look like they are covered in tiny spikes. They are much thicker than before, bright brown.
3	When washed, the red rust came off easily turning into fine powder in the liquid.
4	After the water was evaporated, the dry product was a big mass of brown porous material attached to the bottom of the cup. However, when prodded with one of the nails, the mass came apart into extremely fine powder, which reddened significantly.

Analyses and Conclusions:

1) Mass lost by the iron nails: 0.89 g

2) 7.08gFe . 1molFe = 0.127 mol Fe
1 55.8gFe

3) Mass of product: 0.84 g

Conclusion: I have discovered that the experiment was not 100% efficient, because the mass of the product weighs less than the mass lost by the iron nails. This proves that energy was lost somehow during the process. I have also learned that it is possible to find out the chemical equations of reactions by doing the reactions themselves, instead of finding them in books. My answer seems reasonable, because I expected some mass to be lost.