My Favorite Meta Post

My favorite post this quarter was the The Linden L Station. It best exemplified what I tried to do with my blog; take ideas from class, and do something original with them, and to explore their significance beyond just what we do in class. I think that this post worked the best out of any from 4th quarter, because of the research I found, and the way that information seemed to parallel the story of the big ditch from class. I think I successfully used these parallels to come up with ideas about the ability affluent communities have to prevent outsiders from entering, a topic that was new, but also related to issues of class we had been discussing.
       With this post especially, I took a personal experience, and connected it to a topic we discussed in class, which was pretty satisfying. It was exciting to find a historical newspaper telling a similar story that my dad had told me when I was younger, and it was surprising to find a use for proquest so soon after finishing the Junior Theme. This post also addressed one of the issues I mentioned in my first Meta Post, that my blogs weren't personal. I think I made this post personal, but in a way that still connected to the themes of the class.
       It was interesting to realize that I don't even think this is my best written post this quarter. Looking over it now, I think I could re-write the post, and make it flow and sound much better, and I think many of my other posts had cleaner writing. It's weird, but I'm not sure that having perfect writing on every post matters. I think it's important to write about original ideas, and that as long as you have at least a certain standard, it's okay for the writing to be imperfect.

Just a Pair of Arms?

              

Last week we watched a movie called El Norte in Spanish, about a pair of Guatemalans who cross into the U.S. illegally, and attempt to make a life in the U.S. The movie mentions a lot of the mythology we have discussed. Multiple times characters talk about how hard work is needed to do well in America, and the role that workers have in both the U.S. and in Guatemala is explored. One pair of scenes in particular really struck me. At the beginning of the film, in Guatemala, the main character, Enrique, is told by his father that (translated) "to the rich, the worker is just a pair of arms." Later, at the end of the movie, after Enrique has moved to the U.S. and faced a range of challenges, including the death of his sister, a man approaches a group of illegal immigrants and asks for "strong arms to work." The main character, desperate for a job, hesitates only momentarily before yelling "pick me, I've got strong arms!" (clip above, 1:53-2:25). The message of the movie seems to be that it is an inescapable fate for the poor to do bad jobs, serving as a "pair of arms" for the rich. Despite his best efforts to escape poverty in Guatemala, the main character ends up doing almost the same thing, just in a different country.
       I recalled this scene after reading the Kentucky Cycle play today about the coal miners. The mine chief accepts hires Abe without knowing anything about him. He demands that "you load your ten a day, six day a week, keep your head down and your nose clean," but other than that he couldn't care less about who the new worker is. The only thing the mine boss cares about is that Abe does his work.
       That same sort of attitude to workers plays out in these two very different times and places conveys a depressing message about the place in society of the men doing the "necessary" jobs. It seems almost unavoidable that the worker is important only for his work, that a low wage laborer is "just a pair of arms."

Borderlines

       Yesterday night I was at a friends house. He lives on the north side of Isabella street. The border between Evanston and Wilmette runs down the center of that street, and I realized as I was driving home that if he lived on the other side of the street, I never would have known him. He wouldn't have gone to WJHS, and he would begoing to Evanston High School instead of New Trier, and we would never have met. It was interesting to look down the street and know that someone my age living to my left has a similar life to mine, while someone living to my right has had a totally different set of experiences. The situation reminded me of the field trip we took last November, when we passed the large park (I can't remember the name of the park) and went from a fairly affluent neighborhood to a run-down, more impoverished neighborhood. There too an invisible border separated people with two different sets of experiences.
       It dawned on me how much impact location has on everyone's life. Americans separate much of public life geographically, so that in many cases which side of the border you live on can be destiny. This isn't just for schools, like the NT and Evanston High School border. As we saw in Chicago, economic success can depend on the neighborhood as well. If you were planning to start a business, which side of the park would you want to be on? And what would you do if you couldn't afford to be on the "right" side?
       Something important that I'm not sure many fully appreciate, me included, is how close the north shore is to areas that are vastly less wealthy than we are. A few miles and the township border is all that really separate New Trier and Evanston.

What do you think about the effect of borders on life?

Image Credit: http://cnsnews.com/image/mexico-border-4

Rupert Murdoch and the Power of the Media

       Mr. O'Connor mentioned Rupert Murdoch, the man who owns Fox News. I've seen his name in the news about a phone hacking scandal in Britain, so I did some research. I was surprised by how much he seems to resemble Charles Kane's . It turns out that Rupert Murdoch is almost a modern day Charles Foster Kane; they both are massively rich media barons, and both of them suffered a downfall because of a scandal. The most interesting part of his life to me, though, was how he used his wealth to affect politics, specifically by helping create Fox News.
       It is common knowledge that Fox News has at least some bias towards the right end of the political spectrum; they employ or have employed many former republican politicians and right wing figures, such as Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, and Glenn Beck. The news station Murdoch founded was at least more supportive to republican rivals than some of its rivals, such as CNN and ABC, and that must at least partly be attributed to the man himself.
       The support Murdoch's Fox News lends to Republican causes is mirrored by the influence that Charles Kane and his real life analogue William Hearst had over the politics of their time. The ability of those two figures to create public support for a war with Spain is similar to Murdoch's ability to create support for conservative causes through Fox News; all three figures slanted their news coverage somewhat to shape public opinion, though for radically different ends.
       The continued existence of people with such control over media, like Rupert Murdoch, is interesting because news organizations are usually seen as institutions; the power that the few people leading them has is often ignored. We all have heard of "yellow journalism" from the early part of the 1900s, but not everyone realizes that there are individuals around today with influence similar to that of newspaper owners like Kane or Hearst. Is individual control of news an issue today? How can media shape politics?

Image Credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News_Channel

The Linden L Station

       After we talked about the L on Tuesday, I remembered a story my dad had told me about why the L line ends in Chicago. I don't remember when, but at some point he told me that the original plan was for the L to end in Evanston. The owner of the railroad company lived in Wilmette, and he wanted the L to be accessible to him, so one night he ordered his crews to extend the line without the knowledge of the government. I thought that this story might parallel the story of the big ditch; a community benefiting because of its influence and the power of its inhabitants. It turns out, though, that the real story is a bit different.

       By looking up the Linden L station on Wikipedia I found the name of Chicago Tribune article from 1912 with the story; "Night Raid Puts "L" in Wilmette" I found the article using ProQuest (Junior Theme!). It turns out that the basics of my Dads story were right. The tracks were extended overnight, but over the opposition of the community instead of because of it. Most residents of Wilmette were opposed to having the L in their town because they were afraid that having the line would lead to groups of partygoers coming from Chicago during the summer. The railroad company owned the land, and wanted to extend the tracks for years, but when they decided to go ahead with the project, they were forced to do the construction in secret, because of the resistance from the community.
       I found the story to be interesting because of the amount of influence Wilmette had over the railroad. It doesn't directly match the story of the big ditch, but the fact that the community was able to prevent the tracks for so long still reflects the amount of influence wealthy towns have. The town showed a sort of protectionism; they didn't want "less desirable" crowds to have access to their town.The ability to protect the status of a town is a very good marker of class; the people in Wilmette had both the desire and the power to prevent an influx of  outsiders.I haven't really been following the Winnetka affordable housing debate, but I wonder if a similar strain of thought motivates some of the opposition to that proposal. Do you agree or disagree? Do wealthy communities try to exclude outsiders?

Image Credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linden_(CTA_station)

Class Barriers

       Last week we watched a video about class distinctions in America. The most interesting section to me was the part where the middle-class woman hires a coach to help her appear upper class. The video made an interesting argument, that even if you have money, to truly fit in with those of a higher class you need to learn a complicated set of social customs and rules. The point was that at the highest level, social ability is as much a marker of class as wealth, and to advance one's class is more complicated than simply finding a good job. When I watched the video, I wondered whether this also applied to class changes lower on the spectrum; rising from a lower class to the middle class, or between different parts of middle class society.
      I don't think the social barriers are as high between changing between lower classes as they are with advancing into the upper class. The world the video shows, of fancy parties, is much more unforgiving than the world in general. The amount of attention to detail the woman needed to even attempt to appear natural in the new setting was pretty stunning, but I'm not sure we can apply the same principle to other strata of society. I'm speaking mostly from personal beliefs, but I can't believe an engineer or other high-end blue collar worker would judge someone for not wearing the right clothing the same way those at the party would have judged the woman if she was not wearing a 3,000$ outfit.
       Because of the severity of social situations in lower classes is significantly less, I believe the barriers between advancing from the lower to middle class are mostly educational or monetary. A construction worker can advance his status  if he is able to go through a vocational program and become an electrician, or another specialized job. I don't think there is a strong difference in customs between segments of the working class, and his increased income as a result of his better job would be enough to say he has raised his status.
      What you think about the barriers between classes lower than the upper class? I mostly am basing this argument off of personal belief, so I'm interested what others with different experiences have to say.

Image Credit: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/black-tie-event.html

White Noise and Selective Abortion

       While working on my Junior Theme, I originally planned to have this section in the paper. However, I couldn't find a way to integrate my connection to white noise that didn't totally kill the flow, so I decided to put this section in as a blog post. The style of writing is different, as a result.

       One of the most common forms of genetic engineering as I defined it in my paper is prenatal genetic testing combined with selective abortions. Some parents choose to have the genes of the fetus tested for genetic defects which cause diseases, sometimes through noninvasive blood tests. Often, if the tests are positive, pregnancy is aborted. There are parallels between the attitudes that cause this practice, and the attitudes of the people of White Noise to disease.
       The people of Delillo's America do anything to avoid illness of any type. This is evidenced by the grocery list of medications in Jack's household; "Blood pressure pills, stress pills, allergy pills, eye drops, aspirin. Run ofthe mill." Each pill staves off another ailment. Any possible health issue needs an answer, and the result is a massive pile of pills. It is eventually revealed that everything Jack does is because of his overwhelming fear of death, and the urge to cure every problem, real or imagined, is one of the primary manifestations of that fear.
       The reasons for terminating a pregnancy are similar to the motives of Jack with his pill obsession. As Erik Asch, an ethics scholar who has written on the issue, put it; "the idea is that prenatal testing," usually used for selective abortions, "helps prospective parents have healthy babies." Quite simply, the use of these tests allows parents to "solve" a health problem of their child, to get rid of an illness before it even begins. Like Jack's pills, the promise of fetal testing is to eliminate any possible health issue, and the motives of the two groups are parallel.
       I've tried not to either endorse or condemn the actions of those who use such procedures, both in this blog and in my paper. Mentioning abortion tends to provoke strong reactions, but regardless of which side of the debate you are on it is helpful to understand the motivations of those who use genetic technologies. White Noise provides a good illustration of these reasons.

Genetic Engineering

       I've been meaning to write this post for a while now, but with junior theme work I haven't really been able to get around to it. It's a bit late, but here's an introduction to my topic.
       My junior theme is about the idea of genetically modifying humans, either to eliminate diseases like cystic fibrosis, or to create children with better intelligence and strength. There are several ways this can be done. The simplest is to undergo an IVF procedure, and test the embryos for certain characteristic, for a mutation which would result in a disease, for instance. The embryo with the desired characteristic is then implanted. This is already done on a small scale; many IVF clinics allow their clients to choose the sex of their child. The more extreme method of genetic engineering is to introduce new DNA into the embryos. We have already done this sort of genetic engineering with bacteria, plants and a few animals, to create crops with more yield, or fruit that grows larger. However, it's never been done before in a human. Theoretically if we refined the technology enough, we could modify many characteristics of an embryo at will. That sort of possibility is probably more for science fiction than an imminent danger, though, since the DNA of a human is much more complicated than corn DNA, and much more difficult to modify reliably and safely.
       My paper is about why some Americans support such technologies and the broader idea of physical perfection, but much of the research I have done is about a related question; whether it is even ethical to use genetic technologies. The potential to eliminate debilitating genetic diseases is extremely alluring, a point I discuss in my paper. Many concerns have been raised, however, that technologies that enable the elimination of diseases will inevitably lead to non-medical modifications, to increase the strength or intelligence of people and to create a "perfect" human. I don't address that point in my paper, and I'm curious what other people think about the idea. Should we try to eliminate genetic diseases? Is it okay for a parent to, theoretically, alter the genes of their offspring to make them "better"?

Image credit: http://blog.thomasecon.com/discrimination/genetic-discrimination-is-a-genuine-and-growing-problem/attachment/dna/

My Problems with Post-Modernism

       Last Friday we had a speaker from IGSS, Mr. Markham give us an interesting talk that really summed up a lot of the ideas in White Noise, and related them to a specific philosophy, post-modernism. I was interested particularly by the topic we discussed in the second period of the class, the interaction between objects and personal relationships. The speaker presented the idea of a progression of what is "real" in American culture, from person to person relationships, to objects, to an obscure endpoint based off of irony. However, I believe his argument was flawed, and based off of assumptions about the interactions of humans and objects that aren't true.
       Mr. Markham greatly overstated the impact of objects on person to person relationships. It is undeniably true that the number of products in human society is greater now than at any time in the past. It is also true that those objects play a greater role in interactions on a day to day basis. But I'm skeptical of the speaker's assertion that the growing importance of objects somehow means that people are less "real." I believe that objects can be understood not as a replacement of more traditional relationships, but as tools or facilitators of those relationships.
       One example of this is clothing. There's no disagreement that there are more types of clothing today than in the past, or that your choice of clothing communicates messages about you. However, clothing choices can better be understood as context for relationships instead of a replacement for them. You choose your clothes based on who you believe you are; what you believe your place is in life, and not the other way around. The vast number of choices enables self expression. What you where certainly plays a part in how you interact with others, but serves to supplement instead of obscure, by creating another way to communicate who you are.
       A more concrete example, and one brought up during class, discussion was the cellphone. A phone seems like the perfect example of objects gradually replacing traditional social structures. I would argue, though, that the cellphone actually helps relationships. Most times when you text, you're between classes, at home, or in other situations when you wouldn't be able to talk with friends anyway. By making communication easier, cellphones improve friendships, and allow people to maintain relationships that otherwise would have faded. The counter-argument is that there situations in which people use their instead of talking to a friend they're with, but I believe the net effect of phones is positive.
       Humans don't exist in a vacuum. We are surrounded by both other people and objects. I believe Americans today are still fundamentally focused on relationships with others, and objects facilitate those relationships, instead of damaging them.

Image Credit

Solitary Confinement

       This weekend I noticed a story in the New York Times about a subject we have discussed in class, the U.S. prison system. The article is about the use and history of the practice of solitary confinement, in which troublesome or dangerous prisoners are imprisoned in cells isolated from almost any human contact. The practice poses many ethical questions, as it is damaging to the mental health of prisoners, and as the article discusses, both expensive and overused.
       The piece is a pretty moving description of problems at the edge of the criminal justice system; at the margins of the margins of our society. It's definitely not a part of America we think about often, and it was startling to read about how bad things can get that far from the core of society. It's also encouraging to hear about efforts being made to improve the situation. Many of the problems we have discussed in class are fixable, and it's important to remember there are people working to improve our country.
       In addition to the discussion about solitary confinement, the article touches on the causes of the prison boom, and the increased harshness of the prison system that accompanied it. We haven't discussed causes in class, but the root of the prison boom is the crime wave of the 1980's and early 1990s (A really good story about that part of U.S. history is Freakonomics). The story behind the rise of the prison system is an interesting cause-effect relationship, and a good example of how much public opinion and perception can shape American culture.
       On a personal level, I made a connection between the conditions described and the portrayal of  in many prison movies. In "The Shawshank Redemption" especially, the main character is thrown into a solitary cell for months as punishment for questioning his guilt. His condition in the cell was terrible, alone in the dark with occasional food deliveries as his only contact with the outside. It was one of the most emotional portions of the movie, and the memory of it was why I paid so much attention to the story in the first place.

Prisons Rethink Isolation, Saving Money, Lives and Sanity