September 30, 2006
Missing
Sorry, loyal readers, I have lost my funny. Can anyone out there help me locate it and welcome it home? Stay posted for updates to this developing story. Cross your fingers, light a candle, whatever might help get the laughs back to this blog. Thank you. :)
September 22, 2006
September 21, 2006
Independence
I've rarely been more sure of who I would vote for in a major election than I am this fall with the gubernatorial race in Texas.
UPDATE: Alas, 13% of popular vote is not enough to win governor's race (but a very respectable showing for a third party candidate, dontcha think?). I was with ya all the way, Kinky. Oddly I am not saddened by fact that Governor Perry won with less than half of the state's votes. Four legit candidates in the running! I am so not a fan of the pure two-party system.
UPDATE: Alas, 13% of popular vote is not enough to win governor's race (but a very respectable showing for a third party candidate, dontcha think?). I was with ya all the way, Kinky. Oddly I am not saddened by fact that Governor Perry won with less than half of the state's votes. Four legit candidates in the running! I am so not a fan of the pure two-party system.
September 19, 2006
Venting
I advised someone recently to limit the venting and pessimistic talk that comes with frustration. My point was that focusing on positives, speaking in optimistic terms, and stating frustrations without embellishment or blame was a positively reinforcing, good thing. I have since then gone about some venting of my own. Oh well, call me (yet again) a well intentioned hypocrite. I do believe in the power of positive thinking and work on acting upon it daily.
An article about frustrated teachers' blog postings points to the serious problems associated with venting, especially about one's work and especially in public venues. I'm all for the need to vent from time to time, but I think it's a form of self indulgence. I want to be negative, so I let myself be negative. I want ice cream, so I let myself have ice cream. I think it's possible to vent and have ice cream within healthy bounds, as in the case of a person who is generally self aware, reflective, disciplined. Trouble is, most of us go about our day in an oblivious state. Discipline is often an external force, not internally, consciously acted upon. We pay attention to that which presents itself most forcefully to our consciousness. What is the answer? Like the 12 step approach advises: first acknowledge we have a problem.
If we all said we had a problem, does that in itself become a problem? Isn't acknowledging the problem the first step in coming to a sustainable solution? Maybe we don't actually believe in the possibility of a solution. There goes that negative thinking again. Like I said before, the power of positive thinking is its own reward. Try it.
I have few if any qualms about being a broken record. Am I in denial? I found a few quotes on the subject of repetition. Which of these most resembles my thoughts and actions? Which resembles yours?
I had not yet read today's Daily Darma when I wrote the above, but it seems eerily coincidental:
Do, or do not. There is no try. --Yoda
An article about frustrated teachers' blog postings points to the serious problems associated with venting, especially about one's work and especially in public venues. I'm all for the need to vent from time to time, but I think it's a form of self indulgence. I want to be negative, so I let myself be negative. I want ice cream, so I let myself have ice cream. I think it's possible to vent and have ice cream within healthy bounds, as in the case of a person who is generally self aware, reflective, disciplined. Trouble is, most of us go about our day in an oblivious state. Discipline is often an external force, not internally, consciously acted upon. We pay attention to that which presents itself most forcefully to our consciousness. What is the answer? Like the 12 step approach advises: first acknowledge we have a problem.
If we all said we had a problem, does that in itself become a problem? Isn't acknowledging the problem the first step in coming to a sustainable solution? Maybe we don't actually believe in the possibility of a solution. There goes that negative thinking again. Like I said before, the power of positive thinking is its own reward. Try it.
I have few if any qualms about being a broken record. Am I in denial? I found a few quotes on the subject of repetition. Which of these most resembles my thoughts and actions? Which resembles yours?
Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth. --Franklin D. Roosevelt
The happiness of most people we know is not ruined by great catastrophes or fatal errors, but by the repetition of slowly destructive little things. --Ernest Dimnet
We cannot always control our thoughts, but we can control our words, and repetition impresses the subconscious, and we are then master of the situation. --Florence Scovel Shinn
I had not yet read today's Daily Darma when I wrote the above, but it seems eerily coincidental:
What one thinks or reads is always qualified by the preposition "of," or "about," and does not give us the thing itself. Not mere talk about water, nor the mere sight of a spring, but an actual mouthful of it gives the thirsty complete satisfaction. --D. T. Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism
September 07, 2006
Outnumbered
As you read, remember that women make up more than half of the population. Where do you see women and where do you not?
I found an interesting article about the adapting and regendering, in essence, of female-authored stories by male filmmakers, in particular specific works of Allende, Walker, and Dinesen. The author considers what was and was not included or changed from the books to the movies. Get past the initial lingo and consider the evidence presented and you start to see a very good point. Not all storytelling comes from a single gendered viewpoint, but most movies do and it is a male one.
Next time you watch a movie made by a female director (are you even conscious of a female director?--their names are not often attached to megamovies), consider what if anything is different about the way the story is told. Who is at the center? What complexities and simplicities are ascribed to what sorts of people? What is the nature of the plot? Who wins and loses and what is "won" or "lost"?
In college I took a women's history class with Bettina Aptheker. Fascinating person, great lecturer, amazing office hours experience. Anyway, she taught from the viewpoint of cycles of history, social experiences and identities being the basis of historical record and analysis/discourse rather than war, governance, and economic systems. Finally I was able to put to words the unease I felt in many of my discussions about history with people. I've met many people who profess to loving history, but often times they end up being military or war buffs. I'm not saying this is not history, just that there is something more as well. I felt in college that too often when I said "I'm a history major" people assumed that meant I knew tons about World War I and II and the name of every President. When I became a teacher, the certification exam for social studies focused on these exact things as well, which frustrated me to say the least. My point comes to this: Not all of history is about what primarily involved men.
I am not for radical genderism of any kind. This being said, I would argue we have in many ways lived in a radical male-ist or phallocentric world for quite a while, and some think a tilt in the other direction is all that can alleviate the strife that came with phallocentric living. I feel radicalism in any form is unhealthy for the masses. Going full-tilt gynocentric does not help the masses either. Um, how about balance? Like, honoring all genders, honoring people as people, with male/female parts hormones, drives, frailties. What is so wrong with being human?!?! But I digress...
I disagree with the author of the piece which started this whole posting. She seems to villify male directors for ruining works of feminine genius. The male director's take is simply another version. Another man might give a different spin (though averages might tell us the spin would fall within a fairly narrow range, anyway...). A woman might have done similar to the man or not (dominant forces in movie making industry might determine part of this, anyway...). What matters is that there is a thoughtful version, whatever the particular gender identity.
I would argue that the fact of people looking to escape more through over-hyped, under-developed movies and television than through literature, or in either case avoiding anything not well pre-chewed, is more of a problem than there being multiple versions of a single story. There are always other views, and they are worthy. Being the most common or most popular or most familiar does not mean something is superior.
I could go on and on; I will not, not today at least. Turns out my soap box appeared benath my feet while I was talking. I now step down and give someone else a turn. Thank you for your time.
I found an interesting article about the adapting and regendering, in essence, of female-authored stories by male filmmakers, in particular specific works of Allende, Walker, and Dinesen. The author considers what was and was not included or changed from the books to the movies. Get past the initial lingo and consider the evidence presented and you start to see a very good point. Not all storytelling comes from a single gendered viewpoint, but most movies do and it is a male one.
Next time you watch a movie made by a female director (are you even conscious of a female director?--their names are not often attached to megamovies), consider what if anything is different about the way the story is told. Who is at the center? What complexities and simplicities are ascribed to what sorts of people? What is the nature of the plot? Who wins and loses and what is "won" or "lost"?
In college I took a women's history class with Bettina Aptheker. Fascinating person, great lecturer, amazing office hours experience. Anyway, she taught from the viewpoint of cycles of history, social experiences and identities being the basis of historical record and analysis/discourse rather than war, governance, and economic systems. Finally I was able to put to words the unease I felt in many of my discussions about history with people. I've met many people who profess to loving history, but often times they end up being military or war buffs. I'm not saying this is not history, just that there is something more as well. I felt in college that too often when I said "I'm a history major" people assumed that meant I knew tons about World War I and II and the name of every President. When I became a teacher, the certification exam for social studies focused on these exact things as well, which frustrated me to say the least. My point comes to this: Not all of history is about what primarily involved men.
I am not for radical genderism of any kind. This being said, I would argue we have in many ways lived in a radical male-ist or phallocentric world for quite a while, and some think a tilt in the other direction is all that can alleviate the strife that came with phallocentric living. I feel radicalism in any form is unhealthy for the masses. Going full-tilt gynocentric does not help the masses either. Um, how about balance? Like, honoring all genders, honoring people as people, with male/female parts hormones, drives, frailties. What is so wrong with being human?!?! But I digress...
I disagree with the author of the piece which started this whole posting. She seems to villify male directors for ruining works of feminine genius. The male director's take is simply another version. Another man might give a different spin (though averages might tell us the spin would fall within a fairly narrow range, anyway...). A woman might have done similar to the man or not (dominant forces in movie making industry might determine part of this, anyway...). What matters is that there is a thoughtful version, whatever the particular gender identity.
I would argue that the fact of people looking to escape more through over-hyped, under-developed movies and television than through literature, or in either case avoiding anything not well pre-chewed, is more of a problem than there being multiple versions of a single story. There are always other views, and they are worthy. Being the most common or most popular or most familiar does not mean something is superior.
I could go on and on; I will not, not today at least. Turns out my soap box appeared benath my feet while I was talking. I now step down and give someone else a turn. Thank you for your time.
September 04, 2006
Momentum
It's not a soapbox day today (though my strong feelings about the goodness of feeling good and being good and doing good did come to mind as I wrote the following), but I have been pondering. Pondering does not lend itself to brevity or necessarily clarity. Thus I ponder...
Anyway, I do not believe democracy is about success and failure but about response. (The subject of failure and democracy is intriguing though, and I found several interesting posts on the subject: first, second, and third.) The actions and reactions of millions of individuals and groups form an often unconscious collective, one that reinforces and reinvents the system, the society. People are unbelievably powerful, even as we feel individually anything from conceit to helplessness. Whatever I feel individually, I am contributing to a larger feeling in society as a whole. My malaise, my diffidence, my enthusiasm, they feed into and off of the feelings of all those with whom I have contact. So everything begins in some sense with me (and you). Over our feelings we have some control. More important is what we act upon, as over this we have considerable control. Whatever I act upon or react to individually, I am contributing to a larger body of action, influencing more directly the world around me.
Democracy is not about turning on a dime. Democracy is about the collective will of all its participants, the sum of individual actions and beliefs. Democracy begins with me, and with you, as does any social construct. The government, the society, are ours for the influencing. We do so whether we intend to or not. So what influence are you having right now? Is it a positive influence?
Go do something good. You'll feel better, I promise.
Democracy does not, in my mind, mean turning on a dime. There is nothing in human social systems to suggest any positive, productive change can occur instantaneously. I was brought to this thought by another blogger's post on the subject of democracy. I especially enjoyed the last paragraph. Anyway, it got me thinking about the bad things that happen in our country and the responsibility we as citizens in a representative-democratic state have to address the bad things.
In most cases conscious attempts at change occur in response to perceived problems and crises. When things go well, if we take note of them as true successes, then we might change only insofar as we slack off in effort, which itself produces a change of some kind. If we took note of a success and kept doing what we had been doing, and success continued, we might fail to see it as success anymore. It disappears, leaving behind a sense, at best, of complacent comfort, and at worst stagnation and decay. Ironic, isn't it?
You can't be neutral on a moving train. --Noam Chomsky
Anyway, I do not believe democracy is about success and failure but about response. (The subject of failure and democracy is intriguing though, and I found several interesting posts on the subject: first, second, and third.) The actions and reactions of millions of individuals and groups form an often unconscious collective, one that reinforces and reinvents the system, the society. People are unbelievably powerful, even as we feel individually anything from conceit to helplessness. Whatever I feel individually, I am contributing to a larger feeling in society as a whole. My malaise, my diffidence, my enthusiasm, they feed into and off of the feelings of all those with whom I have contact. So everything begins in some sense with me (and you). Over our feelings we have some control. More important is what we act upon, as over this we have considerable control. Whatever I act upon or react to individually, I am contributing to a larger body of action, influencing more directly the world around me.
I am not under any orders to make the world a better place. --Troy Dyer, in Reality Bites
Democracy is not about turning on a dime. Democracy is about the collective will of all its participants, the sum of individual actions and beliefs. Democracy begins with me, and with you, as does any social construct. The government, the society, are ours for the influencing. We do so whether we intend to or not. So what influence are you having right now? Is it a positive influence?
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. -- Rush, from the song "Freewill"
Go do something good. You'll feel better, I promise.
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