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I have Borderline Personality Disorder; Borderline Personality Disorder does not have me.

May is Borderline Personality Disorder Awareness Month!


Marsha Linehan (Left) Rachel Gill (right) at mindfulness training in Vancouver, Wa. April 2013

I may have Borderline Personality Disorder, but Borderline Personality Disorder does not have me. When Marsha Linehan came out about her struggles with mental health problems recently, I was inspired and decided to follow her lead by vowing to become a dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) therapist so that I may help others build lives worth living as Marsha helped me by creating DBT. A few years later, I am now in phase 3 of DBT, coaching my peers online in DBT skills, am a junior in college with honors, have attended a training with Marsha Linehan, and am already well into planning for graduate school.

Why is BPD awareness important? Consider this. It took ten years of misdiagnoses before I became aware of and properly diagnosed with BPD, which ultimately led me to DBT , saved my life, and taught me how to manage the turbulent emotions that are a hallmark of BPD. To make it more clear how profoundly awareness has affected my life consider this. In the years since being properly diagnosed with BPD and becoming involved in dialectical behavior therapy, I went from being chronically suicidal, homeless, and estranged from family and friends to becoming a college student with honors, secretary of a board of directors for a non-profit that provides peer support services to persons with mental health problems, and a dedicated mental health activist who single-handed sued the state of Oregon for denying Medicaid recipients access to DBT, as well as engaging the public as a member of various mental health advocacy organizations. 

Some may think that having the label of borderline personality disorder is a mark of shame, disparaging those who bear the diagnosis by the implicative nature of the term borderline personality itself, but I can honestly say that the day I received the diagnosis of borderline personality disorder was one of the best days of my lives. The reason is that in giving my problems a definite term that before was simply referred to by likewise unaware friends and family as me being a drama queen gave me the information I needed to find dialectical behavior therapy that taught me the skills I needed to stay alive, act effectively, think without unnecessarily judging myself or others and ultimately gave me the power to change my life. For this reason, I want everyone to know that I have borderline personality disorder, and I am not ashamed. Please show your support of May being Borderline Personality Disorder Awareness Month by sharing my or your own personal story of BPD with friends, family, co-workers, any and all. Where there is an awareness there is hope.

-Rachel Gill (aka Pinki Tuscaderro)

  BPD Survivor

DBT Handouts, Worksheets, Diary Cards & More

DBT Skills Quick Reference Sheet

Core Mindfulness

Interpersonal Effectiveness

Emotion Regulation

Distress Tolerance

DBT Protocols, Manuals, and Specific Task Worksheets

DBT Diary Cards

DBT Handouts for Substance Use Disorders

Client Learning Activities

Supervision and Consultation

General Materials

More Free DBT Learning Materials on the Web

Links posted by Rachel Gill

Original Web Page  DBT Handouts, Protocols & Client Learning Activities – PracticeGround Wiki.

Diversity and Socioeconomic Hierarchy: A Comparative Literary Analysis

One aspect of diversity in society is the existence of hierarchy; that is, the material and social distance created between those who have and those who do not have money, education, rights, power, etc. In the stories, The White Tiger by Avarind Adiga, Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton and the collection of short stories that are Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner by Alan Sillitoe and A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler, the audience becomes intimately aware of what hierarchy—social, economic, and/or cultural—feels like to those oppressed by its structural weight. 

Although each story is set in an equally unique cultural environment, a general underlying theme unites them, which suggests that economic luxuries of hereditary wealth and political power equally are a cause of suffering, poverty, and ethnic discrimination, pressing an even greater dilemma to readers led to question the saliency of this modern evolution of a global economy. Are capitalistic societies, which place emphasis upon monetary value and human labor as a commodity, capable of achieving such measures as serving the greater good or is a blind devotion to free market economy just a new version of the same old oppressive hierarchal structures that dominated society like imperialism, colonialism, communism, religious unilateralism, manifest destiny, segregation, apartheid, The Indian Removal Act, and the many other social constructs of inequitable and ulterior design that have oppressively ruled humanity over and into antiquity?

In The White Tiger, the reader finds an Eastern Indian chauffer from a rural village who, faced with a predicament that calls for him to make a decision between killing a fellow human for the chance of gaining upward mobility in Modern India’s cutthroat business world bound by an arbitrary system of socioeconomic hierarchy or adhering to social traditions which would have him live out a labor intensive, dehumanized, economically incapable of advancing but honorable servant existence. The main character, Balram, opts for the former option and sets about re-weaving the circumstances of his murderous act into a tale of entrepreneurial success and triumph over the insurmountable obstacles of poverty. His conclusion like a lost trial at the closing statement makes a final desperate plea of innocence, “Am I not a part of all that is changing this country? Haven’t I succeeded in the struggle that every poor man here should be making—the struggle not to take the lashes your father took, not to end up in a mound of indistinguishable bodies that will rot in the black mud of the mother Ganga?” (Adiga 273) The fact that Balram becomes a successful businessman because of his choice to murder only further begs readers to question the mutually beneficial nature of assumption that surrounds systems where human labor is disproportionately determined to be of lesser value (according to economistic logic.)

The stories collective arrival to this end is not a journey made lightly, but rather presents a very complex and systematic process of human degradation that begins at birth and ends with death and that blurs previously thought unshakable foundations of right and wrong, good and bad, etc. so that the reader discovers how social hierarchy defined by money leaves those on the bottom end struggling forever in a state of impoverished body and mind. Faced with the constant threat of consequences that come with an insatiable need for money, humane existence becomes all but a possible outcome for those who chance to be born into an economically deprived family, a point highlighted by the image of Adiga’s main character, Balram wandering amongst a squalid makeshift work camp thrown up in the middle of Delhi and assigned responsibility for constructing the exclusive surrounding luxury high-rise apartments and shopping malls. Balram observes detachedly as two children who happily splash about in filthy camp waters tainted by human excrement are hastily turned enemies at the sight and prospect of a rare, prized stray dollar.

The slum ended in an open sewer … A hundred-rupee note came flying down into the river. The children watched with open mouths, and then ran to catch the note before it floated away. One child caught it and the other began hitting him, and they began to tumble about in the black water as they fought. (Adiga 223)

Meanwhile, those at the top end of the socioeconomic hierarchy they tend to saturate themselves in delusions of politically correct grandeur that smell of self-entitlement, cultural superiority, and necessary deference to accountability. “Where in New York will you find someone to bring you tea and sweet biscuits while you’re still lying in bed, the way Ram Bahadur does for us? You know, he’s been in my family for thirty years—we call him a servant, but he’s part of the family.” (Adiga 77)

The stark contrast that becomes of glossing over or remaining indifferent to the harsh realities of oppression appears to be a rationalization for maintaining a status quo that might otherwise be at odds with personal values. In the end, what one finds is that what is good for humanity is probably bad for the economy and that appreciating monetary wealth as a measure of success probably means encouraging a world where one must win, one loses, and none shares with the other. This is but a single side to the multi-faceted social conundrum that is the free market. (For how can something be truly free when it exists purely as an object relative to sale?)

This assertion of socioeconomic hierarchy as a social ill further rings true in Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton. This story takes place in twentieth century South Africa where immigrant, pale-skinned, Europeans are coming in with industry that consequently leads to the degradation of indigenous African culture through exploitation of labor, separation of families, and environmental destruction.

However, where Adiga presumes to know only the inner thoughts and intensions of one side of the rich versus the poor hierarchal debate, specifically the poor side, by using a first-person approach to his narrative, Paton presumes to know all sides of the rich versus poor debate, and being a born South-African of pale complexion, such presumptions take on a potential new dynamic that must be considered in interpreting its significance and relation to questions of socioeconomic hierarchy. Regardless of this prospective bias to Paton’s omnipresent narrative approach, both writers make quite clear that money is a cause of suffering and disparity in India as well as Africa.

In Paton’s story, a white and a black South African father become unlikely allies in social reform after the white father’s son dies by the hand of the black father’s son. The overall moral of the story appears to be a do-unto-others message with a little good-will-to-all sprinkled in for measure, but the general state of affairs, an existing chasm between culture and economy that proliferates crime, violence, poverty, disease, addiction, and cultural deconstruction is somehow not unlike that of the one described by Adiga and, thus, becomes all the more difficult to ignore. “For this place of suffering, from which men might escape if some such voice could bind them all together, is for him no continuing city. They say he preaches of a world not made by hands, while in the streets about him men suffer and die.” (Paton 124)

Again, as in Adiga’s tale, human labor appears to become an exploit of wealth, economically forced servitude is the consequence that expresses for one in the context of outside westernized industrialists laying claim to the resources and labor traditionally belonging to indigenous East Indians, the other in the context of outside westernized industrialists laying claim to the resources and labor traditionally belonging to Indigenous South Africans. In the end, the main difference between Adiga and Paton’s settings of socioeconomic disparity is each author’s message as it does (or does not) relate to hope and faith in humanity. While Adiga forms his conclusion with an air of morbidly pessimistic pragmatism, blindly accepting the dehumanizing effects of commerce on society, Paton paints an image of brotherly love that bubbles like cool kindness under the surface of human greed waiting to spring forth its nurturing waters of hope.

In Alan Sillitoe’s The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner the main difference between the oppression described in the former two examples and those illustrated here is that rather than the western industrialists laying claim to resources and labor being of outside they are of inside origins, specifically Sillitoe’s stories speak to the oppressed class of factory workers that oiled the cogs of a burgeoning Industrial age that confirmed England’s place as a world dominating power, and finally, that humbly came to be by the calloused hands of people that worked and lived in the noisily churning and precarious lanes of nineteenth century Nottingham, England. Just as we see Adiga and Paton’s worlds affect cultural and familial depreciating values that fall in direct proportion to the raise in valuing human labor in terms of economic worth, so does Sillitoe create an image of human suffering, destroyed dignity, and insurmountable but fully preventable obstacles of socioeconomic hierarchy.

In his story, The Decline and Fall of Frankie Buller Sillitoe highlights the caveat and bitter irony that those who do manage to transcend the socioeconomic divide despite all odds must likely face in attempts to come to terms with a sense of self-identity torn and alienated by haunted memories and a burden of guarded fear determined to hide the shameful truth of one’s socioeconomic origins lest a member of one’s newly adopted class find out and be a cause for non-negotiable social rejection, “Often I would like to rip them away from me, [memories/experiences] extract their shadows out of my mouth and heart, cut them neatly with a scalpel from my jungle brain. Impossible. You can’t wind back the clock that sits grinning on the marble shelf. You can’t even smash its face in and forget it.” (Sillitoe 156)

Exploring another dynamic and personal perspective relative to impoverished life, The Disgrace of Jim Scarfdale, describes a world where people routinely and indifferently go to jail for acts of,

burglary, deserting, setting fire to buildings, bad language … poaching, trespassing, driving off in cars that didn’t belong to them, trying to commit suicide, attempted murder, assault and battery, snatching handbags, shoplifting, fraud, forgery, pilfering from work, bashing each other about, and all sorts of lark that don’t mean much. (Sillitoe 154)

This cold existence of life and crime where morality appears to be less than the weight of oppressive need for basic survival confronts the reader with grim realism and unapologetic apathy that seems to be a common attitude among both the rich and the poor characters alike (across discussed books and authors) who each apparently find it easier to accept his and/or her lot than to forgo the unfair fact of social convention, invention, tradition, and that may or may not be described as being at odds with a character’s and/or author’s personal moral values. It seems that no matter what the intentions may be in each Adiga, Paton, and Sillitoe’s stories they all speak to a similarly distinct human condition that finds principles of economic gain reduces people to suffering, and is a causal force that helps lead to the overall degradation of human society.

Although money appears to be the object that binds these stories of oppression together, there are still other forces at work in tandem and that contribute to the overall oppressive effect. For one there is the recurring issue of socioeconomic discrimination founded upon ethnic associations, especially ones defined by color of skin so that it would seem that even the most economically advantageous individual of a dark complexted nature would have less opportunity than that of his or her economically deficient but lighter skinned counterpart.

Secondly, with rare exception, in most cultures, it seems there is a protocol designed for cultivating a code of respect for one another. However, when it happens that two cultures should intersect in the context of money, there is a tendency for the culture exhibiting the upper economic hand to disregard customs of formality that imply an association of cultural equality where socioeconomic constraints insist there not be. Such realizations become apparent in scenes like that of the one that develops between the black South African village priest and the neighboring white South African farmer’s son in Paton’s Cry, The Beloved Country which reminds readers despite one’s place of respect in one’s own cultural group, socioeconomic status always takes precedence over custom even where it may seem accordingly an act of undeniable disrespect. In other words, the black priest (and reader) is well aware of the potential repercussions for attending to disciplining (in the hypothetical sense that the story called for it) the white South African farmer’s son in the same manner he might a village youth.

On the other hand, the culture with the weaker economic standing likewise tends to move toward over emphasizing customs of respect in interacting with those deemed to have greater socioeconomic standing so it seems that both sides carry some responsibility of blame. For example, in comparing and contrasting the situations and characters in Sillitoe’s collection of short stories, we see a pattern of socially acceptable violence being committed against women born and raised in the factory class, that, in the context of the story The Disgrace of Jim Scarfdale, which tells of a socioeconomically unbalanced marriage forged between a working class man, (and eventual pedophile) Jim Scarfdale and his mysteriously found upper-class born and raised wife whom the narrator describes as having a manner of speech that was, “so posh as if she’d come straight out of an office., ” (Sillitoe 144-145) we see that even such ingrained hierarchal and often cross-cultural customs that value men over women is rarely strong enough to overcome the power of one’s socioeconomic standing regardless of gender.

In Sillitoe’s story we see a socioeconomically held superior woman set her husband’s newspaper on fire while he is reading it because he does not pay attention to her and in response, rather than commence to strike her in the customary fashion readers come to associate with Sillitoe’s rough English male characters brought to life by The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner the story offers a somewhat unexpected image of a helpless Jim describing to his mother how he, “got a fright,” (Sillitoe 150) from his wife’s defiant behavior, further demonstrating how commanding the authority of economic power is compared to even the most archaic and rigidly maintained customs of social hierarchy like assignments of gender.

Similarly, in Adiga’s The White Tiger we see how money trumps another seemingly all-powerful determinant of social status, ethnic heritage. Despite the overwhelmingly obvious division existing in modern India that decides often by color of skin whether a person will find social opportunity or be subject to government-sanctioned oppression. Again, not cherished tradition or virtuous morality defines ultimate authority. In the end, it seems wealth conquers all. This becomes clear as the reader realizes that it is no secret that Adiga’s anti-hero, Balram, is a known murderer amongst his entrepreneurial allies of Bangalore, India. Rather, it is by the fact of the blood money obtained by his choice to murder that protects Balram from being gripped by the no less unjust clutches of the Indian judicial system and he knows that once such money runs out, “a man in a uniform may one day point a finger at me and say, Time’s up, Munna.” (Adiga 276)

In contrast, there does not appear to be a similar example of money trumping ethnic hierarchy in Paton’s Cry, The Beloved Country, a fact that is not altogether surprising, considering the implied intent of the book which means to inspire brotherly love and, thus, demands purposefully deemphasizing storytelling on the part of the author so as to avoid the chance that the targeted audience interpret a tone of accusation and react defensively rather than thoughtfully to Paton’s pleas for socioeconomic peace on earth.

Finally, we come to the socioeconomic questions of hierarchy posed by diverse voices characterized in Robert Olen Butler’s collection of short stories, A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain. Here, it seems the discussion is not so much a concern of correlating the gradual process and consequence of assimilatory socioeconomic oppression that similarly defines the previous three books and authors discussed as it is a different means of exploring the immediately devastating properties of war, specifically, the effects of the Vietnam war and its effect upon Americans, Vietnamese and those caught in between both worlds, Vietnamese-Americans.

Butler’s intent to writing A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain appears to be not unlike that of Paton’s mission in composing Cry, The Beloved Country, which is to apparently find a common ground that equally appeals to all side’s senses of humanity for the purpose of inspiring human kindness or at the very least, to encourage each to treat the other with equal regard no matter what one’s socioeconomic status and/or ethnic heritage.

However, where Paton’s message aims at its audience like an intentionally blaring beacon of hope, Butler’s bridge builds its common ground to humanity not by faith but by the subtle gloom, and yet no less powerfully connecting and affecting thread of human experience which appeals to a common human understanding of loss, suffering, survival, and possibility for redemption. This message of hopeful resolution becomes most evident in the story Fairy Tale where we see how two people equally affected and damaged by the Vietnam War, but existing at opposite ends of the sociocultural spectrum being an American veteran man and a Vietnamese-American woman brought to America as a refugee of war find peace and comfort in one another’s companionship due to their shared experience of suffering caused by the Vietnam War.

What these four authors’ diverse literary voices come together to reveal about socioeconomic hierarchy is that across divides such as those fashioned by land, culture, and time, social divisions caused by money consistently appear to be a cause of unnecessary and widespread human suffering and that however an oppressing group may seek to justify its inhumane actions there is no acceptable reason that excuses subjecting fellow humans to lives of misery simply for the prospect of gaining material wealth.

In reading the stories, The White Tiger by Avarind Adiga, Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton and the collection of shorts that is Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner by Alan Sillitoe and A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler and coming to the know the rich depth of each character lovingly drawn by each respective author’s creative hand and life experiences, there is a common thread relative to hierarchy that draws these different stories immersed in and shaped by cultural experience and identity together that warns readers to be mindful of conditions that encourage socioeconomic disparity and to stay equally attentive to conditions that induce and/or maintain unnecessary systems that lead to human suffering.

Whether it is Adiga’s sleek, defiant and murderous Balram, a do-it-yourself entrepreneur of Bangalore India born into a poor caste of sweetbread makers with a rickshaw puller of a father; Paton’s reluctantly oppressive, pale-skinned second generation South African farmers who mean to only achieve a modest life of comfort and legacy of land; Sillitoe’s rash salt-of-the-earth English industrial laborers, with their violent spark and loyal sense of duty to labor and family that oiled the cogs of modern industrialized society; or Butler’s displaced victims and survivors of war that are torn by trauma, loss, memories, politics and culture that the reader finds a personal connection corresponding to his and/or her own experience and understanding of hierarchy, the single plea that unites these stories and characters into one voice calls for us to above all else treat each other with dignity and decency In other words, if what does not kill us does not either make us stronger; it should, at the very least, make us wiser and therefore more sensitive to its causes.

Works Cited

Adiga, Aravind. The White Tiger. Simon & Schuster: Free Press, 2008. Print.

Butler, Robert Olen. A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain: Stories. New York: H. Holt, 1992. Print.

Paton, Alan. Cry, the Beloved Country: A Story of Comfort in Desolation.New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1948. Print.

Sillitoe, Alan. The Lonliness of the Long-Distance runner. New York: Plume, 1959. Print.


 

Dialectical Behavior Therapy Reality Acceptance Skills Overview

When are Reality Acceptance Skills needed?

 
 

When painful events happen in your life and you cannot change them, solve them, or make them go away.

 
 

Reality Acceptance Skills Set

 
 

  1. Radical Acceptance
  2. Turning the Mind
  3. Willingness

Radical Acceptance

 
 

Radical Acceptance is accepting that…

 
 

  1. Reality is what it is
  2. Everything has a cause
  3. Life can be worth living even when there is pain

     
     

Remember …

 
 

  • Pain + Non-Acceptance = Suffering
  • It is easy to accept things you like
  • It is hard to accept things you hate, disapprove of , or that cause you a lot of pain.
  • The higher the pain, the harder the acceptance
  • If you want things to change, accept them first, then change them
  • Reality is always changing and if you want to influence how it changes, you must first accept it.

     
     

Turning the Mind

 
 

What is Turning the Mind?

 
 

It is like walking down a road and coming to a fork where one road is accepting and one road is rejecting and choosing to turn toward the accepting road over and over again.

 
 

Steps to Turning the Mind

 
 

  • Notice …
    • anger, bitterness, annoyance, falling into the sea of “Why me?”
    • when you are trying to…
      • escape reality
      • block things out
      • hide how you feel
  1. Make an inner commitment to turn your mind toward acceptance
  2. Practice turning your mind toward acceptance over and over again.

 

Willingness

 
 

Willingness is …

 
 

  • Allowing the world to be as it is
  • Agreeing to participate in the world as it is
  • Actively participating in reality
  • What you need to overcome a threat

 
 


Willfulness is …

  • Saying NO, NO, NO
  • Denying
  • Pushing Away
  • Avoiding

     
     

 
 

Steps to Turning Willfulness to Willingness

 
 

 
 

  • Ask yourself,
    • “What is the threat?”
    • “What is the catastrophe?”
  1. Notice and observe willfulness
  2. Radically accept the willfulness
  3. Turn your mind towards willingness, acceptance, and participating in reality just as it is.
  4. When it becomes difficult to Turn The Mind, adopt a willing posture (open arms & palms, half smile)

     
     

     
     

     
     

Getting started with Reality Acceptance Skills

 
 

  • Find small things to Practice Accepting first
  • Write yourself a note that says Turn the Mind, hang it somewhere, & practice every time you look at it
  • Notice
    and observe Willfulness
  • Practice Willingness by participating in reality
  • Adopt a Willing Posture (open hands, arms, half-smile)
  • Remember Acceptance is Difficult and requires much time & practice to be effective.

 

Reference Marsha Linehan, From Suffering to Freedom: Practicing Reality Acceptance (# 4 in 4 DVD Set) © 2005 Guilford Press

Physiological Psychology: An Overview of William Wundt

Father of Psychology

William Wundt (1832-1920) was a prolific man of science, initially trained as a physician, his passion for knowledge not only motivated him to write the monumental text published in 1873, Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie (Translated in English as Principles of Physiological Psychology) that would lead him to found the first official psychology laboratory and lay a scientific foundation for psychological research today, but, in his lifetime, he would compose over 53,000 pages of his findings, covering diverse topics such as spiritualism, politics, ethics, history, animal physiology, poisons, optometry, and linguistics among others. (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Theoretical Principles

The thesis that shaped Wundt’s work in psychology builds upon the general concept of cause and effect asserting that for every physical behavior, there is a corresponding psychological event and vice versa. To the purpose of psychology, he proposes three goals, to analyze the components of consciousness, to find how these components connect to one another, and to define their function in physiological terms. Wundt held that human experience consisting of physical sensations and memories interact through connections in the brain to produce implicitly subjective sensory results: emotion. The process by which emotions occur he termed psychological compounding.

Experimental Methods

To test this model, Wundt maintained that research constructs need to rely on measurable variables, repetition, and variation in experimental conditions. Moreover, he incorporated a somewhat paradoxical element into his methods that seemed to inspire as much ambition as it created controversy within the burgeoning psychologist community, experimental introspection. This he defined as experiential attention to the quality, intensity, and duration of mental events. Wundt expounds on this concept in his book Völkerpsychologie, which loosely translated in English means Folk or Cultural Psychology. This text marks a significant methodological transition, which historians today often refer to as Wundt’s second psychology.

Penny Lane King – A Short Story by Pinki Tuscaderro

Amidst the swirling smells of oven-baked goodies, motor oil, incense, human sweat, coffee, and cigarettes, people shuffle along the mottled pavement of this downtown street each moving toward his or her important destination with a hurried step. Others whizz by on bicycles, hugging sidewalk curbs, soaring precariously on the fringes of motorized traffic like anti-fossil fueled martyrs. Overhead a jet casts its smoky trail across the sky and fills the air with sonic thunder that temporarily overwhelms the city sounds of revving engines, human voices, and various industrial actions that otherwise sing like an urban symphony into the perpetually soggy Pacific Northwest sky.

It is another noontime rush in downtown Portland, Oregon. People are hustling and bustling, hurriedly on foot or wheel racing the clock and each other for a quick bite of convenience only to race back to another cycle of the daily grind. However, all is not in such accord at Sweets bakery, a tiny little gourmet patisserie off Burnside Street. Here, routine, order and one little woman are quite upset and making a very big racket. 

The little woman is Ms. Tempest Sweets, the owner of Sweets Bakery. She is shouting at Mr. Chuck Morris or King, as those in the street roots community call him. On this particular day, King, in his typical urban-nomad style has taken up residence on the sidewalk in front of Sweets Bakery, much to the displeasure of its owner. Sadly, urban Nomads or The Homeless as their housed counterparts more often call them are accustomed to this sort of contemptuousness that comes between having a heart and having a home. As such, it is not surprising to see the petite baker trying to shoo King off like a bug, stray dog, or cat. King, unperturbed, sits cross-legged on the pavement belting out Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out by Jimmy Cox in a voluminous blues voice that, for all her efforts, Ms. Sweets cannot seem to overwhelm.

Laid open in front of King’s seated frame is a cardboard guitar case that holds a few dollar bills, five quarters, three dimes, two nickels, and one me, Penny. Yep, this little copper coin has seen a lot go down on these metro streets and seen more change than the bottom of a wishing well, except for change of heart, that is.

“Mr. I am trying to be nice about this …” Ms. Sweets begins.

          “… sweet as a butter crème cupcake, I would say,” interrupts King who seems quite amused with his retort. His eyes crinkle on their outer corners tracing patterns that extend outwards like beams of sunshine to betray his age less than his smile. Ms. Sweets, on the other hand, is not so amused.

“Look, I am trying to be nice about this, but if you do not leave, I am going to call the police. Why don’t you realize you are not welcome here?”

King’s smile fades. He stops strumming his guitar and sets it on the pavement, leaving its case open for business. With a more serious tone he answers, “Ma’am, I realize I am not welcome here, I am not welcome anywhere. So, where the hell am I supposed to go? I ain’t trying to disrespect no one or cause trouble. I am just trying to go about my business and get by same as you or anyone else so why can’t we be friends?” King looks directly into Ms. Sweets eyes, pleading.

Ms. Sweets sucks in her breath and clenches her little hands into white knuckled fists. Her face reddens. She is livid. At a loss for words she sputters, “Mister, look, I have work to do. Are you going to get the hell off my property or do I have to call the police?”

 “Well, Ma’am, the sidewalk is not your property; it is public property, and that means I own it just as much as you, so I’m staying. Yes, ma’am, I intend to stand my ground because the only thing I am guilty of is not having a roof over my head and if that’s a crime then you go ahead and call the damn police; that’s your business.”

“No! That’s my business!” Ms. Sweets shouts back as she points toward her storefront, and stabs the air emphatically.

“Yeah, well, that’s my business!” King counters as he points toward his guitar case. He seems to be losing his mellow mood growing frazzled, frustrated. What can a person like him do? No matter what he decides, he stands to lose.

“Have it your way, old man!” Ms. Sweets shouts as she spins on her heel and disappears through the front door of her bakery. She soon re-appears armed with a phone and holds it intently to her ear as she paces amongst the elegantly framed treats of her spotless storefront windows. When she finally slams down the receiver, she smiles to herself and goes back to her cakes and pies, humming. King, paying attention, sighs, but picks up his guitar and starts playing the guitar riff from Come as You Are by Nirvana. Even when there is no audience, King announces what song he is going to play. This time, however, he spares his usual formality and simply shouts out to the empty sidewalk, “This one’s dedicated to the sweet lady at Sweets Bakery!” He kicks his right leg in the air and launches into the first verse

Come, as you are, as you were, as I want you to be

As a friend, as a friend, as an old enemy

Take your time, hurry up, the choice is yours, don’t be late

Take a rest, as a friend, as an old Memoria

A young woman with a shaved head and a rainbow tattoo on her neck walks up and tosses a few cigarettes into King’s guitar case from the pack she has in hand, “Right on, dude, Nirvana Rocks!” She gives King two thumbs up. He nods, offering a smile, never missing a beat as she walks on.

************************

The lunch rush is passing its peak; stragglers hang about. Above the dirt and grime of my ground-level view, mounting clouds that a moment ago were but casting sporadic droplets of water now gently weeps into rain that grows steadily. Water crashes against the city streets with a force like an attack. People run from the liquid pounding fists that would flush them down the drains like the dirt and oil pushes muck from the gutter into the dank, muddy depths of the Willamette River. The wet stream of pitter-pattering grows into a torrent that shoots from the sky like bullets from a machine gun. So loud is it that I do not hear the rhythmic addition of soles on concrete before I realize there are feet about me. People’s voices murmur curiously low. A whistle blows, an engine bellows, tires screech. I begin to feel anxious, sick, green like acidic human sweat from a holding hand that dulls my shiny face with oxidation.

King is also nervous. He is shuffling about his belongings, seemingly, trying to resist the urge to run away from the police officer that is closing in like an uneasy feeling.

“Sir, please turn around. I need to speak with you,” says the officer to King whom, facing the opposite direction, looks disoriented, nothing like the man who just a moment ago so eloquently spoke of standing up for his rights. He is mumbling to himself, frantically sifting through newspapers and plastic bags, which hold all he owns in the world. The situation is tense; even the wind seems to be holding its breath. My thoughts grow uneasy as the discontent and confusion reflecting in King’s eyes.

It is cold and wet, but King’s face is flushed with heat, breath fast and shallow: panic. He moves anxiously, eyes wide. He hardly gives a second glance to the police officer. What distracts him? Finally, with what seems like considerable effort, King turns toward the officer. All but attentive, his eyes do not meet those of his inquirer but instead scan the ground, trees, and pavement. I notice a small crowd of people beginning to gather like keen concertgoers arriving early for a good spot at a standing room only show.

What is he looking for? I wonder of King. The police officer has a quizzical look upon his face as if he is asking himself the same question.

“Howdy officer, it’s a bit drizzly out isn’t it? But, you know, I have a feeling the sun is going to shine on us, at least a little, before the day is through.” King flashes the officer his most winning smile.

“Sir, I’ve been called here to investigate a complaint about someone loitering in front of Sweets bakery and disturbing the peace. Can I please see some identification?”

“Sure thing officer, I ain’t here to cause no trouble.” King pulls on the chain around his neck and fishes a metal tag out from underneath his shirt.

The officer disregards King’s attempt to make polite small talk, “Sir, I would prefer to see a state issued picture I.D.”

“With all due respect, I would prefer that I had one for you to see but this here dog tag is all I got, but I can assure you, it’s as legal as an eagle, got it from Uncle Sam when I was a tunnel rat back in Vietnam.” Kings blinks his eyes tightly in three rapid successive squints as he jerks his head to the right to shout over his shoulder, “Shut up! I know he already knows!” Behind him, the small crowd stirs with murmured excitement.

Ms. Sweets has turned her open sign to closed and come outside where, beside the police officer, she stands nervously wringing her hands, compulsively darting her eyes from her store, to the officer, King, the crowd and back. The anger that had her reeling not long ago now shivers her timbers: panic. Feverish, her almond eyes are full of uncertainty and desperation as she interrupts the officer’s dialogue to blurt out, “Please, officer, can’t you just get the guy out of here? I am trying to avoid not become a spectacle. This is getting out of hand, people are beginning to stop and stare and …”

“Ma’am, please, I need you to remain calm. There are procedures; I have to follow the law, Ma’am and I’ll need to speak with Mr. …” the officer, somewhat flustered, cocks his head to the left and reads the tag dangling around King’s neck now laying on the outside of his shirt, “… Mr. Morris, I’ll need to speak with you, Ma’am, Mr. Morris, and any witnesses so I can fill out a report before anyone goes anywhere.”

The acute air thickens as an anonymous voice erupts over the crowd. “He’s a Vietnam Veteran for Christ’s sake! Leave him alone!” Ms. Sweets blushes with either anger, embarrassment or both, the attention proving to be more than she had bargained.

The officer looks similarly uneasy though less frantic as he scans the crowd for the rogue protester, but before he can find it, another voice of protest calls from the opposite direction. “He’s paid his dues!” Another likewise follows. “Yeah, show the man a little respect!”

 King is anxious disoriented, confused to his surroundings, oblivious to the cries in his defense though they are in accord with his own. The eyes gawking only inches from his may as well be a million miles away. He seems frightened.

“You know where I go, what I do, tracking every move. What do you want from me? You sent me down in those holes and didn’t think I would come back, but I did so you had to come up with another plan, one that would punish me, proper.”

King’s fervor builds in intensity and incoherence. A bead of sweat slides down the right side of the officer’s temple: fear. His hand moves slowly up to the hilt of his gun, poised, ever slightly trembling.

Thick sounds of wailing, moaning, heavy machine gears, brakes fill the air. A school bus slows, screeching to a halt at the red light in front of Sweets bakery. I can almost hear the squeaky sounds of little children’s noses pressing curiously up against the glass fogged by their baby’s breath, straining to get a better look at The Homeless. Their little eyes look entranced, curious.

However, there is one little girl noticeably crying, a slightly taller girl, probably the little one’s sister has her arm around the little one’s shoulders, as if to reassure her; don’t worry, everything is going to be alright. Don’t be scared. No one will hurt you. The rest of the children are all transfixed. Some of them open their windows to get a better look; the bus driver is tapping her fingers nervously upon the steering wheel impatiently, anxious to get away from a situation that would no doubt cause her to have to do a lot of explaining to kids, her boss, and over reactive parents. Looking up from the traffic light into the rearview mirror, she yells at the children to close the windows. They pay her no mind.

 The officer notices the bus but keeps his eyes fixed upon King. Finally, the young officer shouts with as much volume and command of authority it seems he can muster. “Sir, now you  better listen and listen up quick because I am only going to say this once, put your hands behind your head, spread your legs, turn your back to me, drop slowly and I mean slowly to your knees. Keep your hands above your head and lay down on your stomach.

King glances toward the officer, but seems oblivious to the gun aimed directly at him. “You think I do not know about the little microchips you have been putting in me. You can’t take me to jail. I am jail. You locked me up outside!” The crowd surges like a swelling wave of energy that expels heat but tries not to transmit sound. King spins around, his hand reaches out to point an accusation and one fateful finger in the direction of the officer.  

BANG! Like a thunderous whip, the stifled atmosphere of contained crisis cracks. A shriek of a woman’s voice follows; the crowd disperses. People scatter across the street slinking like guilty shadows touched by the sun. The few who remain huddle in shock about King who has collapsed to his knees. No longer comprehensible, a gurgling sound and a weak watery cough emits from his throat; he is still trying to argue a point to some unseen condemner as a thin trickle of blood spills over his worn, weather beaten lips falling like crimson tear drops onto the concrete to mingle with those of the rain. Like the sky, his eyes fill with clouds.

At once, I am lost in a sea of rampant feet that kick, stomp, and scoot me around the pavement. Confusion and chaos abound; the noise that pierced the silence and shook the small crowd around me with fear like tectonic friction shakes the earth moments ago now leaves but a few to stand bewildered, silent, in shock and disbelief.

In kind, the rain relents; ominous clouds begin to fold like billowy drapes, parting to reveal a sliver of blue that, for a moment, casts out a meek, but forceful beam upon the disgraced sidewalk like a beautifully glaring spotlight reveals an ugly truth. You were right, King. The sun did come out today after all. Then, as quick as it had come, the sunshine vanishes. All is dark. I realize it is not necessarily for the hiding sun as much it is for a powdered, doughy, soft human hand, which has scooped me up from the street along with the other change that spilled from interior of King’s overturned guitar case.

I hear the now familiar voice of Ms. Sweets, coming from above me as I jingle in what is most certainly her pocket. “What a horrible mess!” she laments. In the distance, a sirens song of emergency response vehicles wailing their frantic cries, grows louder, closer, rushing to clean up the streets and wash away the sin of an innocent man’s demise.

 

Sound Waves Crash

Currents, energy

    Pass me, past

         I am water

            Sound waves crash

                Rhythm rocks me

                 From Sea to Shore

                Hearts beat electrical cores

            Melody is prayer

        No one speaks

    Songs are forever

Time is weak

Outcast from Outer Space


 

    With a teeth-rattling rumble the ship landed. Looking out one of the clear viewing portals of the spacecraft a profound sense of awe overcame me as the enormity of the unimaginable discoveries existing across the expansive landscape of planet Kepler-22b stretched my imagination across a circumference measuring twice that of Mother Earth’s. A thick, whirling dust of glittery particles rose slowly up from the ground in peaceful protest.

    The air was like a thick, meaty stew, viscous from a long day simmering in a crock-pot. It was strange to behold such a sluggish alien breeze, stark in contrast to the brisk, swift familiarity of Mother Earth’s atmosphere. Compared to the creamy air Chowder that oxygenated Kepler, the volatile, speedy winds of Earth were more like a finely strained chicken broth, clear, light, and easily stirred into spicy tornados and hot-as-a-habanero hurricanes.

    Below me, the powerfully explosive rocket engines slowed, with a mechanistic sigh of relief, hot, tired, and ready to rest from the brutal 600 light years non-stop flight to Kepler-22b. At lift-off, the shuttle launched into space breaking the sound barrier with the strength and sonic quality of an angry family of asthmatic Dragons huffing and puffing cyclonic air streams that whipped giant stringy propellers of mucous like a rescue team of helicopters hovering over the smoldering winds of a murderous wild fire. Exhaling, the monstrous engines spit scorching streams of fiery dragon breath that raged like a disagreement over who gets to eat the last little cookie in the princess jar.

    After 600 light years of travel, however, the angry dragon fire that powered us across the galaxy began to burn low, the exhausted turbines powered down relaxing until the Mother Ship was still, her functions slowing to a minimal state that transformed her from a mythical fire-breathing man-eater into a giant laptop in hibernation mode.

    With the ship gone into a deep sleep the sound of excited human chatter took over my ears and sounded like restless anxiousness looked through twitchy tensed muscles and dilated pupils that washed likes grains of optic sand back into the vast sea of widened whites of frightened eyes from which they came. Next to the shore eyelids blinked like a broke down car desperately flashing its hazard lights, on a dark empty road. Nervous systems wound to the brink of overload, straining against the unusually high doses of adrenaline that had breached the body’s dam of homeostasis, roared with hormonal energy through systems that quickly flooded the main neuro-electrical power plant and tripped every circuit breaker in the body.

    Two minutes moving like two hours finally gave way and the familiar sound of Mother Ship’s door unlocked us from our sealed environment. Lumbering hydraulics slowly forced the entry hatch apart, opening before us a literal gateway to another world. The nervous chatter dropped to an awed silence as we each grappled with humility that is a consequence of looking into the wonder of the universe. The size of planetary space so large it is worlds beyond any degree of measure the human mind can possibly conceive. Overwhelming evidence stinging eyes until the truth of humanity’s microscopic insignificance burns the truth into our permanent memory, threatening to crumble the egocentric foundations of our fragile social systems built on imaginary powers, money, religion.

    The excitement broke under the weight of enlightenment. Minds humbled and hopeful at the birth of new understanding, conflicting with the ominous grief that was the dying mother of our faith, morals, beliefs, and purpose. So, the Kepler-22b expedition crew filed out of the hatch with the solemnity of a funeral procession. We filed in a single line out the hatch, down the ramp, and stepped uncertainly into a new world that would change the course of human evolution. Life would never be the same from here on out. As I watched my comrades in front of me stepping onto Kepler-22b’s surface, I imagined babies experiencing upright movement for the first time, clumsily, yet determinedly moving forward, with faces lit like colored mirrors reflecting through a kaleidoscope of facial expression and human emotion, mouths and eyes dancing like vivid geometric shapes of delight, amazement, curiosity, fear, and excitement.

    When I came to the threshold of the ramp and stepped onto the loose, purple soil that clumped like dirt and glowed like lightning bugs, my legs gave out. I stumbled trying to regain my footing on a spongy buoyant ground that felt like a thick lumpy mattress on top of a trampoline adrift at sea. Jump. The word hit me with a force that bypassed thought. I leapt into the air. Below me, a strangely familiar voice, shouted.

    ”Child, how many times do I have to tell you no jumping on the bed? I mean it; you get down from there, right now! Girl, I swear, if you get hurt carrying on this foolishness, you are going to be in a world of pain, and it is going to hurt more than falling off the bed.”    

    The voice vanished as quickly as it came; I felt my body descending back toward the ground of elastic dirt. I remembered the image of dust swirling in slow motion as I looked at the new world for the first time. As my body adjusted to the sensory experience of the alien atmosphere, I began to compare what I was seeing with what my body was feeling. What if what my eyes had perceived as thickness in air, was actually a deficiency of gravity? I was hypnotized with fascination. My feet touched down again a third time, shifting my sense of wonder to worry. Something was wrong. My body sprung forcefully toward the sky. I had only jumped once, yet here I was landing again for the third time, the momentum of my body accelerating with a force that was beyond my will. Tossed up into the air, for a fourth time, I now reached a point that was over twice as high as my initial jump.

    I strained to understand the unearthly experience that seemed to be pushing me about like a spent helium balloon. Suddenly, I felt a hand grasp my arm, pulling me firmly out of the mysterious gravitational orbit that had taken control of my motion. As my body came to a stop and my feet settled back onto the spring loaded soil, my free spirited curiosity extinguished like a fire doused with a bucket of cold water that poured out of the reproachful stare of my reluctant rescuer.

    My face flushed red with heat and embarrassment. I felt foolish like the little girl who broke her arm after having ignored her mother’s warning to stop jumping on the bed: stubborn. What was wrong with me? My mind was in another world, I let my imagination confuse the unreal sensations evoked by Kepler with the very real danger that exists for human life no matter what planetary environment one is in. The reckless sense of abandon with which I pursued my curiosity was not fearlessness; it was a disregard for life and death.

    With a keen awareness, I felt the punishing eyes of condemnation that burned with a focused heat and anger that would have me self-combust; some were shaking their heads, I could almost hear the argument that would undoubtedly take place once we got back to Earth.

    ”This is exactly the reason why only scientists should be allowed on interplanetary expeditions. Is gathering a few bits of film and photography to impress the public worth risking the success of a monumental mission and the lives of Earth’s greatest scientific minds? It is an outrage that valuable time and research was lost because we had to take turns babysitting an incompetent crew member!”

    As the scandal of my space debacle played out in my head and on the faces of my comrades, I felt a cool trickle of sweat fall from my forehead, landing on my lips. I licked it away self-consciously tasting the bitter saltiness of fear and anxiety that sharpened my tongue. I bit down on it trying to contain the sarcasm that threatened to lash out and cut the seriousness and superiority right out of what was beginning to feel like a silent trial.

    ”Okay, people, if you got something to say, spit it out, but for God’s sake quit fucking gawking at me. I am not a damn monkey in one of your torturous experiments.”

    Damn my mouth, it never seemed to fail firing off like a trigger-happy police officer with a bad temper and authority complex. One of these days, I am going to learn how put thinking before speaking my mind. A voice rose above the icy stares of my jury.

    ”Why don’t you down to Earth people stay down on Earth where you belong and leave the space exploration to us intelligent life forms?”

    I sighed defeated, feeling like an illegal alien who realizes there is no melting pot at the end of the rainbow. I should have known scientists would consider breaking the laws of gravity a criminal offense.

Creating Art, Culture: Pretty Pictures, Ugly Truths

 

In reading perspectives of art as a function of value through essays by Mark Sagoff, Whitney Chadwick, Griselda Pollock, and Ivan Karp, art becomes less aesthetic splendor than a cultural expose’, casting a harsh light on civilizing control exercised in the name of art on aesthetic creations that become a means to maintain systems of socio-economic inequality, gender inequality, and racial discrimination, leading one to wonder how beauty can also contain such ugly truths.

On the Aesthetic and Economic Value of Art by Mark Sagoff, his aim is to consider why people, “go to great pains to distinguish the value of art as art from the value of art as an investment.” (Feagan & Maynard 120) Sagoff proposes the iron law, as he calls it, based upon the apparent fact that price of art always increases, never decreases. Six principles follow. 1) Art is immortal. 2) Art eludes markets of public distribution. 3) All forgeries are worthless irrespective of the artistry or quality of the work. 4) Art objects serve no practical function or use in daily life and if they once did, in becoming art, such objects no longer serve their former use.

5) Art becomes art not by creation but by a cycle of rejection and re-discovery (This principle is the most curious and the least explored posit.) 6) The value of art exists not to measure

aesthetic worth but as a means to preserve cultural heritage and prestige, a powerful status symbol, showing one to be a protector of sacred relics from the past.

Sagoff’s argument is compelling, offering a logical and thorough examination that shows how aesthetic appreciation may be less important to art appreciation than society’s manner of assigning value to it as a means to preserve cultural heritage: art-I-facts. Sagoff never seems to step outside an objective point of view; this is in contrast to the essays presented by Chadwick, Pollock, and Karp whose perspectives are equally measureable, their bias being evident in their forensic approach. Whereas Sagoff is like a detective trying to solve a mystery, the others are more like police gathering evidence at the scene of the crime, caught. While each author certainly makes valid and worthy points, Sagoff stands out in his theoretical approach which serves to explain the following essays that present like evidence to his thesis.

Women Artists and the Institutions of Art is a brief essay by Whitney Chadwick discussing the segregation of women from public institutions of art, education, politics, money, elements of cultural power. His example is The Academicians of the Royal Academy by Johann Zoffany, (Fig.1) a Royal Academy member portrait where two of its founding members, Angelica Kauffmann and Mary Moser are most notably absent from the lively spectacle of their colleagues holding court with two scantily clad models, an environment women were not permitted to attend in the time of its painting.


 

Whether it be meant as a sort of cruel joke or an attempt to be as permissive as culture would allow, Kauffman and Moser do appear in the painting as chaste portraits demurely hanging on the wall behind their male colleagues, representations within a representation, twice removed from the telling of their true place in history, erased by being immortalized in the image of art. What do such methods say to Sagoff’s argument of art as a means to preserve heritage?
Art can affect culture through aesthetic appreciation, which softens unattractive points of view.

 

 

 

 

(fig. 1) Johann Zoffany, The Academicians of the Royal Academy. 1771-2: London.

 

 

 

The point of view presented by Chadwick flows rather seamlessly in concordance with the ideas presented by Griselda Pollock in her essay, Modernity and the Spaces of Femininity. However, Pollock is more extensive in her analysis, as she explores the literal space women were confined to as a matter of cultural appropriateness as prescribed by nineteenth century standards, its relation to interpretations of modernism and does so through comparing the figurative implications suggested by spatial environments and visual points of perspective presented in works by artists such as Edouard Manet, Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt.

Particularly, her concern is with the ways women, as images of art such as those represented in Edouard Manet’s Olympia (fig.2) and Bar at the Follies-Bergère, (fig. 3) exploit female sexuality by culturally polarizing. For the artistic woman of the impressionist era two options existed: choose a doomed life of isolation and respectability or forgo social boundaries and be a damned whore.


(Fig. 2) Olympia. 1863: Paris. Musee de Louvre (Top)

 

 

(Fig. 3) A Bar at the Follies- Bergère, 1881-

2: London. (Left)

 

 

While modernists attempt to defend the sexually explicit work like Manet’s, arguing that the representations are not intended to disparage women, but to make a point about myths of classlessness in the late 1800s. Pollock does not deny this position but rather searches for understanding as to how this male dominated world of art, which revels in objectifying female sexuality, affected women artists of the time and shapes modern opinions of them today, insisting, “The historical recovery of data about women producers of art coexists with and is only critically possible through a concomitant deconstruction of the discourses and practices of art history itself.” (Feagan & Maynard 134)

This is the main difference that separates Pollock from Chadwick. While they both agree that, as a function of value, art history successfully immortalizes woman as a devalued being, Pollock presses further, hoping to reclaim truths of women artists and bring understanding to the limitations imposed upon them, so that their work may find appreciation in modern interpretations of art history.

Through insightful consideration of works such as On the Balcony by Berthe Morisot, (fig. 5) Pollock reveals a quiet desperation that lurks like a phantom within the confines of socially appropriate subject matter women artists were resigned to maintain a position of social respectability. On the Balcony is more than an aesthetically pleasing object, it is an aesthetically pleasing creation transformed into art by its ability to convey beauty while communicating unattractive truth.

What looks on the surface like a beautifully fashionable woman and child benignly enjoying a view over the city, is also a portrait of gender oppression and socially reinforced captivity. To Morisot the view of the city is not as significant as the point from which she must be satisfied to see it, at a removed distance deemed safe for feminine existence. Where the balcony with its railing emphatically drawn in thick dark lines emphasizes a feeling of being trapped the ghost-like suggestions of buildings and woman’s face with no mouth implores the viewer to see the coded truth in the sparse impressions of her brush strokes. Pollock peels away the layers of passionless art and uninspired femininity to reveal how impressionism became an artistic device by which women artists could afford to express themselves implicitly in spite of the restrictive subject matter and content society permitted women artists to convey.

 

 

 

 


(fig.4) Berthe Morisot, On the Balcony 1872: Paris, Private Collection

 

 

 

 

In How Museums define Other Cultures the same spirit of truth aimed toward revelation by Pollock is evident in Ivan Karp’s assessment of art and its value to oppressive cultural systems. However, while Karp certainly agrees that art is a powerful tool for the legacy of social inequality, his focus concentrates not on differences of gender but on ethnic identity.

The general theme Karp conveys in this essay is consistent with Sagoff’s theory of art valuation and follows the same lines of power Chadwick and Pollock present in their arguments except that in his exploration of race as a measure to value art, he considers ethnicity from a place that does not seem to necessarily seek to defend his own lines of heritage by the revelations he uncovers. Rather he confronts racism head-on, in spite of the lines of association, which may serve to taint the ethnic fact of his own history. This is quite surprising and the only example where Sagoff’s principles of art valuation do not entirely fit.

Karp proposes a model of racism as a valuation of art that transpires by two means: exoticizing and assimilation. Exoticizing is a cultural device that emphasizes differences between two ethnic groups while assimilation highlights similarities. The result of each method is the same to preserve a belief system introduced through colonialism and imperialism that dehumanizes indigenous people through imagery using familiar characteristics of one’s own culture to explain others differences in terms of irrationality, emotional-behavioral volatility, and intellectual inferiority. .

The apparent realization arrived through Sagoff, Chadwick, Pollock, and Karp’s collective writing is a perspective of art as an econo-anomaly to capitalistic practices of commerce and valuation. While it is surprising that none of the authors chose to address the phenomenon of monetary value being a determinant of the mortality of its creator, Sagoff’s theory addresses the concept indirectly through principle five, (art is not directly created; it is discarded then discovered). Overall each essay addresses different aspects of culture that support the general belief that art is literally priceless not for its aesthetic qualities but to exert control over the history it presents in order to favorably direct the immortality art represents.

 

 

 

What is it to “create” something artistically?

******************************************************************************

 

 

For the artist, the act of creation is important unto in itself. Some may even argue that the process is more important than the resultant object. For what is an inanimate unchanging object compared to the thrill, uncertainty, and anticipation that comes with inspiration. For those who do not create art, the process may mean nothing because there is no frame of reference to compare, but for those who have experienced the bliss of creative movement, it is a difficult feeling to match.

Perhaps, it may be useful to attempt to explain what inspiration means to an artist and how it transpires so the process may be more clearly understood. The dedicated artist is one who moves with creative flow, alert, always keeping the mind open to ideas that present opportunity to creative action. Whether it is seeing a strange branch on the ground and deciding to pick it up, hearing the sound of a train or bird, being struck with a blow of any blend unexpected emotions, waking from a dream too vivid for consciousness to shake, the prompts that trigger the process of creating art is not a behavior or state of mind that can be recalled, memorized, predicted, and certainly not forced.

No, it may be disappointing for those who do not attend to create to know that for every work of art the artist succeeds to create (if any at all), there are innumerable attempts that have long been abandoned and though skill may certainly improve the aesthetic quality of the artistic result, it does not guarantee the artist will produce more or better art than someone of less skill. This is because inspiration, the process by which the human mind attends to creating art, is not something that one can learn like reading, writing, or arithmetic, and once one has been inspired does not mean he or she will ever know inspiration again, in this sense, creating art is somewhat, a mystical experience, evading explanation, simple logic. It is a process that moves like hot electricity through the mind, the hands struggle to keep up with the ideas that flow with a speed and intensity that sparks and extinguishes so quickly that once it strikes, the artist can only let the mind flow and hope the body can keep up enough to capture some of the streaks of creative lightning in some form before inspiration is spent.

Art cannot be directly created is true. It is the curse of the artist as much as it is a joy. The artist who can accept this fact will enjoy the act of creativity; the artist who determines to create a work of art will only find frustration, move farther from the possibility of experiencing the process, and in some instances, even become hopeless, destroyed. The act of creating art is not a light hearted process. It is not necessarily fun or enjoyable. It is something different that requires one to abandon the conventions of learning and restraint; it is opening the flood gates and letting every mode of human emotion fear, love, hate, jealousy, happiness, anger, sadness, joy, desire, envy, pride, shame, hope, every last drop of human sensitivity let it flow out and try not to get swept up in the tow.

So, if this process, the act of creating art is so important that it rivals the objects of its attention, and then what is the artist creating? As it has been said, art cannot be directly created. As such, let us first consider the basic building materials that comprise art. First, art, above all begins with an idea. Then the idea takes shape through some form of physical action. Finally, the action produces an object. All of these stages must transpire to complete the cycle of producing art, but the cycle can began and/ or end at any one of the steps. This means that the artist creates an idea, an action, and an object. Each of these components must be completed to produce art, but not all the components need be present in the resultant product of art. Sometimes, the idea is the art, other times, the action. Though it is easiest to understand art as an object because humans are creatures who’s most dedicated sense is vision, (Seventy percent of the cerebral cortex dedicated to processing visual information.) it makes sense to think that art must be something a person can physically see, it is the sense with which humans are able to perceive with most readily.

Is there a plain answer that may describe what the artist is creating if art is not simply a physical object? Maybe, the artist is creating something that ultimately exists in the human mind, an abstract thought. So the creation here is a description meant figuratively. The art is basically creating a pathway, opening a door, building a bridge, digging a tunnel. The artist allows his or herself to be open to every idea that may spring forth and be ready to act or not act upon the ensuing emotions that may equally fire at will.
The artist is a participant, catalyst, and conduit for art, and so must always have a degree of humility. The artist who believes his or her art is a product of mastery will see inspiration fade. This may explain why, particularly, famous musicians, seem to produce their best work before fame and/or fortune. Too much pride closes the gate of creativity.

In the end, to attempt to determine which is more important, the art or the process depends upon the individual being asked and his or her relation to art. There are only two ways a person can relate to art; one can create art and one can observe art. While observing art is, in a sense, an art unto itself, this question of importance in process is one that not are all qualified to determinedly decide. The artist who attends to creating has a particular understanding of the experience of the act of creating that an observer can realize by means of imagination, but only an artist has an experience with which to attach comparative importance. So really, the only way to answer this question is to try to make art. Go. Create.

 

 

Works Cited

 

 

Feagan, Susan and Patrick Maynard. Aesthetics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.

 

Manet, Édouard. A Bar at the Follies-Bergère, 1881-2: London. The Courtauld Gallery.

 

oneonta.edu. 17 December 2011.

 

Manet, Edouard. Olympia. 1863: Paris. Musee de Louvre. repainterdiaries.com. 16 December

 

2011.
http://repainterdiaries.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/olympia-manet1.jpg

 

Morisot, Bertha. On the Balcony. 1872: Paris. Private Collection. anthenaeum.org. 17 December

 

2011.
http://www.the-athenaeum.org/art/display_image.php?id=3170

 

Zoffany, Johann. The Academicians of the Royal Academy. 1771-2: London. arthistory.about.com 16 December 2011. http://0.tqn.com/d/arthistory/1/0/Q/t/fashionable_life_0910_06.jpg

The Dialectic in Aesthetics: Resolving the Philosophy of Beauty

 

 

INTRODUCTION:

 

Aesthetic philosophy provides a fascinating means to consider culture, the individual, and their relation to art. However, it is difficult if not impossible to conduct a structural analysis of such complex ideas without first committing to a theory that defines beauty; it seems there is little if any definitive agreement to this end, which has led me to consider the question myself, drawing on my own experience as an artist and considering the various concepts introduced by aesthetic philosophy. The result is a novel solution for defining beauty that challenges the importance and significance of individual judgment in the explanation of beauty, which seems to be the primary difficulty of aesthetics, by pulling for the dialectic between the polarized arguments of reason and mysticism.

 

ABSTRACT:

Beauty is experiencing that which is beautiful. That which one beholds as beautiful is not the embodiment of beauty itself but rather a physical representation that acts as a catalyst for its expression. This concept holds in relation to the arts; a work of art is a product and function of beauty, but it is not beauty itself because beauty is a uniquely human experience much like emotion. Therefore, one can experience beauty just as one can experience happiness, sadness, anger, love and so on.

Using the experiential model of emotions to define beauty, the separation of beauty from what is beautiful becomes apparent and easily deduced. For instance, most agree that emotion is behavior unique to the human condition. Objects cannot experience emotion though they can causally induce there expression; a painting, dance, song, or poem cannot experience sadness, happiness, anger, etc. However, they can arouse such emotions in human.

 

By this logic, one can see how separate but mutually dependent aspects of physical (a painting, poem, song, etc.) and metaphysical (the emotions that arise out of contact with the physical) elements conceive beauty, and thus, the philosophical problem of beauty resolves.

Perceiving Beauty

“The beauty of the course of this world is achieved by the opposition of contraries” – St. Augustine


Beauty seems a cultural construct framed by individual perceptions of reality bound by social learning and inter-development of personally associated preference. In other words, beauty is both a public and private matter. The constructive indications of beauty are a pre-defined frame created by the cultural environment an individual is born into and lives. This represents beauty as a matter influenced by public. Conversely, Personal preferences develop from this frame by associating a variety of personal beliefs and values like religion, education, memories, traditions, and emotional tendencies etc. that the individual applies to cultural predispositions.

To illustrate the point, in modern American culture it is a generally held belief that women with large breasts are an ideal of feminine beauty, which explains the trend of surgical breast implants. Media (i.e., large breasted women in sexually suggestive ads, movies, etc.) provides a social framework or reference for the individual, but it does not dictate the individual’s associations within the framework, which explains why some people do not concur.

The reason for not subscribing to the general framework can be a cause of a variety of influences, feminist politics, sexual attraction, physical health concerns, among others. “Therefore it is possible for the mind, by taking away, as has been said, some things from objects [concepts of feminine beauty] which the senses have brought within its knowledge, and by adding some things, to produce in the exercise of imagination that which, as a whole, was never within the observation of any of the senses;” (Beardsley 98)

Beauty is not so much an implication of knowing as it implies knowing ones culture and oneself because beauty is a composite of numerous influences, which means that the more one knows about what influences participate in one’s perceptions of beauty, the more one can identify and appreciate its existence.

As to the question of Artists being somehow morally obligated to the representation of beauty (a concept introduced by Plato) Artists have no responsibility to beauty because beauty is, in a sense, a judgment, and art is not concerned with judgment (though some may interpret certain works as such) but rather, art is a journey seeking revelation through exploration and discovery. Beauty, in fact, may, at times, be an enemy of the artist because it implies boundaries or divisiveness and art is a form that necessarily escapes boundaries, creating division only by the perceptions of the individuals who behold it.

Works Cited

Beardsley, Monroe C. Aesthetics from Classical Greece to the Present: a Short History.Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama, 1975. Print.

DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets

This link is a great place to find worksheets for Dialectical Behavioral Therapy skills training. Emotion regulation, distress tolerence, core mindfulness, interpersonal skills, you do not have to be in DBT to learn from DBT.

DBT Handouts, Protocols & Client Learning Activities – PracticeGround Wiki.

Manifesto Destiny: An Ode to American Apartheid


The government holds millions of acres of tribal lands in Federal trust, which it profits from as it leases builds, dams, damns, mines and drills for uranium; coal; oil; ores. It subsidizes business as it sub-divides, dumps on, dumps in, and gives in to give some up, the indigenously derived, to greed-based interests. It slices the fruits of ancestral suffering with anyone it wants to, for any reason, without notice, explanation or even a rudimentary, vaguely outlined description. What do my federally held individual assets, my Indian inheritance, amount to other than an account number and a public misconception of government-funded support for American Indians? I am not a turkey, but this is Thanksgiving.

 

Professional oppression places its profits in the almighty, sacred institution of political debauchery, the U.S. Treasury where its dirty money re-emerges sanitized, laundered, and never hung out to dry but used in whatever manner political traditions see fit. Meanwhile, my elusive, inconclusive, information exclusive trust account assets continue to accrue, for over 33 years. Now, what do you think my just reward is for my unconditional trustee complacency? It is the grand total of three dollars and ninety-seven cents. Does this pitiful amount of dollars make sense? No. Is it calculating? Yes. Do I mean math? No. Is racial prejudice a social relic? Apparently, it is not. It seems American Indian policy can be summed up in three golden rules. See no evil. Hear no evil. Speak no evil. This is the causal tradition of suffering through suffrage.

America, you insist upon remembering the holocaust, you start wars with countries that hinder human freedom, social justice, and equality, and you take pride in the softened duplicity of your slave-owning forefathers. Let us pretend that the tragic legacy of American Apartheid does not exist.

 

There is no American Dream; there are only American dreamers who refuse to wake up. Welcome to post-modern oppression, the kinder, gentler, politically correct, passively aggressive practice of genocide. I want to believe America forsakes its violently prejudiced past, but rather than support for the oppressed, memorial rectitude, peaceful resolution, social revolution, there is blame, denial, defensiveness, determination to bury the past, passive aggressive political distraction, defensive hostility, and a general lack of empathy that refuses to acknowledge its determined upholding of colonial exploitation, expansion, excuses, protraction, and degrading disregard for the ongoing ruthlessness of dehumanizing Indian policy.

 

Where are our non-Indian supporters and advocates? We need you to raise your voices against oppression because it does not hear the voices of those it victimizes. Thus, our liberation from the bonds of segregate exploitation shall never be without your political will and social authority. Where are you, friends of the American Indians? We are dying for peace. We are desperate for healing, and embittered by trauma, not waiting for Obama, drowning in drama, and too disillusioned by cultural degradation to find the unity that would heal our nation from the camp concentration, the bar-less reservation, who will stand with us? Who will fight with us? Who will help free us from the shackles of selective Federal fascism? Thanksgiving, thanks giving, thanks gives new meaning to social medicine. Are you a healer? Then join us.

The Marriage License: From Private Lives to Public Record

Marriage (at least in America) seems to have always served political and religious interests. Though, in general, it would appear religion dominates most peoples impression as to the primary influence that would shape marriage laws, it takes very little investigation to find candid evidence of manipulating what is proposed to be sacred, the bond of marriage, to favor certain powers of interest for purpose of political control and gains.


Source: Oregon Historical Society Archives, Accessed through JSTOR

07/14/2011 at

Beauty Tips: All Natural Skin Care Recipes

Barley Tonic (A Skin-Purifying Beverage)

Ingredients:

  • ½ cup of pearl barley
  • 2 ½ quarts of boiling water
  • 2 lemons
  • 6 oranges
  • 2 tablespoons Honey (optional)

Directions:

  1. Pour boiling water over barley in a large saucepan; simmer for one hour with lid on.
  2. Squeeze the lemons and oranges; set the juice and rinds aside.
  3. Strain the water from the barley into the bowl
  4. Add optional honey, orange/lemon rinds,
  5. Allow to stand until cooled
  6. Remove Rinds
  7. Add orange/lemon juice
  8. Store in refrigerator

Bran Face pack (For acne)

Ingredients:

  • Bran
  • Baking Soda
  • Non-chlorinated water
  • Apple cider vinegar

Directions:

  1. Mix Bran, baking soda, and water into paste
  2. Apply to face
  3. Leave on for 15 minutes
  4. Rinse with 1 part vinegar, 8 parts water

Milk and Honey Mask (To tighten and tone skin)

Ingredients:

  • 1 egg
  • 1 tablespoon milk
  • 1 teaspoon honey

Directions:

  1. Beat together egg, milk and honey.
  2. Apply to face and neck
  3. Allow to harden
  4. Remove with warm water, followed by cold.

Wheat Germ Mask (For Oily Skin)

Ingredients:

  • 1 tablespoon wheat germ powder
  • 1 tablespoon plain yogurt

Directions:

  1. Mix wheat germ powder and yogurt
  2. Apply and leave on skin for 15 minutes
  3. Remove with Tepid Water

Brewer’s Yeast mask (For oily skin)

Ingredients:

  • 3-4 tablespoon of brewer’s yeast
  • Non-chlorinated water

Directions:

  1. Dilute brewer’s yeast with water
  2. Make into a soft dough
  3. Apply to face and neck
  4. Leave on for 20 to 30 minutes
  5. Rinse with tepid water

The Cultural Effects of Interpretive Language

All things are subject to interpretation; whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power not of truth.” -Friedrich Nietzsche

The act of communicating through language whether it is through speech, objects, literature, photographs, music, etc., does not fully translate between persons because individual perception and association re-organizes and interprets information in such a way that restricts absolute mutual understanding. While written language seems to be more constant than manners of speech, meta-messages, or the indirect communication of information through coded language is a phenomenon that occurs amongst people regardless of whether they share a language or not.

While meta messaging can be a powerful tool for poets and the like, the consequence of misinterpreted meta messages in every day speech through use of slang, metaphors, socially charged words, and/or over description can consciously and unconsciously confuse, influence, prejudice, and guide how individuals interpret and respond to what is being said.

For example, In America, preferences for music, may serve as a shortcut to judging personality. In describing an individual as
one who listens to rock music, there is a socially derived meta-message inferred that usually evokes different personality assumptions from that of one described as listening to classical music. In this sense, the reference implies a representational meaning that may or may not be the communicator’s intent or accurately depict a person.

In mental health advocacy, there are several examples where Meta messaging reinforces subconscious cultural beliefs and/or attitudes about persons with psychological disorders. For instance, the common use of the word crazy does not necessarily intend to demean persons suffering of mental disorders, yet its casual and indiscriminate use certainly impacts cultural views of mental health whether it means to or not.

As such, part of the challenges of advocating for mental health is re-framing historically pejorative language to interrupt transmittal of negatively charged meta-messages. Mental illness becomes mental disorder or better yet, refers specifically to a disorder. She is depressed becomes she has depression. He is schizophrenic becomes he has schizophrenia.

Some may see little distinction between the examples shown, yet there is. When a person has cancer, do we say she is cancer? When a person has a broken leg do we say, he is broken? No. Yet such correlations are the norm in regarding mental health issues. The assertion here is that calling a person bi-polar, depressed, anorexic, etc. serves as a characterization of a person rather than describing a person’s experience.

References

Doy, Gen. Picturing the Self : Changing Views of the Subject in Visual Culture. London, GBR: I. B. Tauris & Company, Limited, 2004.

Forrester, Michael A. Psychology of the Image. London, GBR: Routledge, 2000.

 
 

 

Anthropological Perspectives on Baseball, America’s Pastime

 

Anthropological Perspectives on baseball, America’s Pastime

Author: Rachel Gill, June 25, 2011


What makes baseball America’s pastime?

In seeking to answer this question, there are several perspectives from which to draw a conclusion, the outcome likely depending upon one’s personal association with baseball and American culture. Since it is difficult, if not impossible to answer such a question objectively without the skewing effects of opinion, let us consider a few different points of view using anthropological constructs.


A Linguistic Anthropological Perspective:

The term America’s pastime is an idiom that does not certainly fit into an objective definition according to English etymological standards. Therefore, the subjective nature that defines baseball as America’s pastime is a matter of popular belief and not necessarily a literally translatable fact.

A Cultural Anthropological Perspective:

Henry Chadwick, born October 5, 1824, in Exeter, England, migrated to America, settling in Brooklyn, New York with his mom, dad, and younger sister in September 1837. By the mid-1850s, Chadwick had become a cricket writer for the New York Times often covering games at Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey.

From cricket, a bat-and-ball game originating in England baseball would evolve. Later in his life Chadwick recalls playing cricket with his friends, describing how they would “dig a hole in the ground for the home position, and place four stones in a circle, or nearly so, for the bases, and, choosing up sides, we went in for a lively time at what was the parent game of baseball.” After watching the Gotham and Eagle baseball clubs play in 1856, Chadwick became convinced that he could make baseball America’s “national game in word and in truth.” (henrychadwick.com) His passion for this idea led him to becoming a sports writer for the Long Island Star, The New York Clipper, the Brooklyn Eagle as well as other local newspapers. By 1860, he began writing Beadle’s Dime Base Ball companion, which was the first definitive baseball guide.

 

A Physical Anthropological Perspective:

Before it was the United States of America, it was British territory and though the Declaration of Independence and war formally sealed the political separation between England and America that inevitably occurs where there is physical separation between groups of people, it takes much longer to develop a distinct and unique cultural identity that spawns patriotism, nationalism, and asserts political power.

As such, early Americans were frantic to create a cultural identity that would quell fear of falling back under British control. Part of this deliberate effort of early Americans, specifically, those living in New York and the surrounding areas, to separate themselves from Britain transpired through the evolution of baseball from cricket, which was a very popular and very British sport during the mid-1850′s.

An Archeological Perspective:

There was no television, smartphones, internet, video games, planes, trains, or automobiles to meet the recreational needs of early Americans. Without the aid of technology, games like baseball served as an outlet for our ancestors to pass the time, literally, and as technology increases so games like baseball become more archaic from a past time, so to speak and hence, baseball becomes America’s pastime.






Indian Appropriations Act of 1892: The Key to Pacific Northwest Development


Native American tribes are virtually extinct after the year nineteen hundred according to most American history books because, with the establishment of reservations and following Indian Appropriations Act of 1892, remaining native peoples not decimated by war and disease were essentially removed from mainstream society, stripped of ancient homelands, and politically defused, making way for totalitarian U.S. Capitalism and creating, essentially, an American Apartheid.

The Indian Appropriations act of 1892 helped free up Native American homelands to logging, mining, and, perhaps, most significant to Pacific Northwest development, railroad companies. With the establishment of mass transit spanning from the East to West coast, the influx of immigrants and their commercial interests, previously restricted by treacherous seas or wagon trails, was opened like a floodgate that has not since ceased.

By the Indian allotment method, the Federal government effectively forced agricultural methods upon individual tribal members, which necessarily defeated nomadic subsistence traditions of hunting and gathering, thereby, eliminating potential conflicts with Native American Tribes who might otherwise object to industrialization and settlement of traditionally inhabited lands. Though parcels of land were distributed to individuals, the amount of land set aside for such distribution was minimal in comparison to the amount of reservation land opened to indiscriminate claim and settlement by unscrupulous immigrants.

Despite the numerous and continued efforts of various Native American tribes, the Federal government has shown little interest in correcting the racist legislation like the Indians Appropriations act of 1892 that both spurred economic growth in the Pacific Northwest and marked the decline of Native American sovereignty and cultural traditions.

Works Cited

Department of the Interior. Administrative Reports of the Department of the Interior Vol. II. : Washington Government Printing Office, 1908. 15 May 2011. http://books.google.com/books?id=AvFGAQAAIAAJ&lpg=PA158&ots=1uh_IvjxVc&dq=indian%20appropriation%20act%201892%20acre%20statistics&pg=PA163#v=onepage&q&f=false


 

Kurt & Courtney: An Outsider Look in the Aftermath of Seattle Grunge


 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1998, UK born director Nick Broomfield released the documentary Kurt & Courtney, an attempt to understand a waning cultural phenomenon that rose fast out of the shadows of Seattle’s rock music scene (later termed “grunge” by the media) in the early nineteen nineties and fell hard in less than a decade with the Suicide of Aberdeen, Washington native and International rock star of band Nirvana, Kurt Cobain. Broomfield, slighted by Courtney Love (Kurt Cobain’s widow and leader of band Hole) and others closest to Cobain early on in his investigation, weaves a tale of Conspiracy, murder, and betrayal using random interviews that focus on exploiting persons with heroin addictions loosely tied (if tied at all) to the rock star-crossed couple. Ultimately, Kurt & Courtney is more like the Making of Kurt & Courtney.

From a directorial point of view, Broomfield’s downfall seems to be method more than for lack of talent. The film is very effective in engaging the audience with colorfully intriguing characters exploited by Broomfield’s ulterior lens. However, such on the fly, credibly questionable tactics are inappropriate for directing a documentary film and would be better suited to television journalism where such techniques are the industry standard. While Bloomfield may have been authentically motivated to make a quality documentary film, it seems his personal feelings at the rejection of his subjects seemed to drive the outcome of the movie.

 

Works Cited


Kurt & Courtney. Nick Broomfield. Dir. Strength Limited, 1998. Film.


 

From Foraging to Farming: Ancient American Southwest Transitions

Agriculture, simply defined, is the deliberate intervention in a plant’s cycle of growth for enhancing production of its nutritious elements for human consumption. There are three distinct agricultural modes tending, cultivation, and plant domestication. Each agricultural mode has its own set of benefits and complications for America’s ancient Southwest people, which ultimately, helped shape their evolutionary shift from foraging to farming.

Foraging and unintentional tending is the unconscious and beneficial human influence that enriches nutritious plant growth. Such actions may include dispersal of seed, gathering larger seeds, which may aid in genetic selection. The unintended consequences could be as basic as causing a more bountiful crop or as dramatic as inspiring the evolution of an entire new species of plant food as some suggest maize is, an ancestor of the indigenous wild grass teosinte.

Cultivation is different in that there is deliberate human purpose in beneficial behavior resulting in enhanced plant food production. Examples of cultivation include, weeding, pruning, transplanting, and sowing seed. The final stage of agricultural development is plant domestication. Domesticated plants are different in that their existence depends upon human maintenance. The beneficial aspect of domestication is that natural habitats altered to favor choice domesticated plants may increase production.

Beans squash, and, maize, were essential foods to populations that spanned from southern Canada to Argentina in ancient times. In the short span of about one hundred years, maize evolved from a common wild grass, teosinte. In five thousand years of cultivating, maize came to be the large kernelled, easy-to-grind, earlier flowering species known today. Squash cultivation prized seeds, fruit, and usefulness as containers. Beans and maize cultivation was mutually beneficial in that when eaten together, beans, rich in lysine, aids the digestions of corn protein and when grown together, beans return essential nitrogen to soil depleted by corn, helping maximize growing site fertility.

There are several theories that attempt to explain the origins of agriculture in the American Southwest. One thing that most experts agree upon is that the process involves a complex set of interactive factors. Population growth and extreme weather are explanations that make sense and are generally accepted but occlude cultural context. It appears that trading across communities played a vital role in the adoption of agricultural practices and development of social organization. Exchanges of gifts in times where important food resources such as pinons were negligible necessitated intertribal reliance. These acts were a vital tool for survival that dually provided opportunity for agricultural methods to disperse across traditional boundaries of culturally founded subsistence practices.

 

Works Cited

Fagan, Brian M. Ancient North America. New York: Thames & Hudson, 1991.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

Dam the Big River, Damn Nch’i-Wana, the Columbia


Photo of Celilo Falls Courtesy of Yakima Regional Library Archives

“River, flowing, the dam done took your life, how many more generations must face these tears we cry.” Rachel Gill, lyrics from Hydropowerless,

“The Columbia is that cruelest of all stories: a thing changed into exactly what Americans wanted, and, once changed, proving to be a disappointment of an entirely different sort.” –William Dietrich, Author, Northwest Passage: The Great Columbia River

For at least eleven-thousand years before European invasion, Native Americans lived along various points of the twelve hundred mile long Columbia River and when The Dalles Dam drowned Celilo Falls in 1957, the oldest known continual community on the continent was lost. From the first knowledge of its existence, Europeans viewed the mighty Columbia as a necessarily exploitable resource. On May 12, 1792, three-hundred years after Christopher Columbus took a wrong turn to India; Robert Gray came upon and named the Columbia after his boat. A crew member remarked “This River in my opinion, wou’d be a find place for to sett up a Factory.” (Dietrich 69).

Between the Columbia River source starting from Northern Canadian Glaciers that seep into Columbia Lake and its foggy, foreboding end that dumps into the sea at Cape Disappointment, there are fourteen dams that include, on the Canadian side, Mica, Revelsoke, and Keenleyside and on the American side, Grand Coulee, Chief Joseph, Wells, Rockey Reach, Rocke Island, Wanapum, Priest Rapids, McnNary, John Day, The Dalles, and Bonneville dam. From these several power generating obstructions, irrigation reaches approximately a million acres of farmlands, holds forty percent of United States hydroelectric potential, generates hundreds of millions of annual revenue, and in contrast, several types of salmon, once teeming in the Columbia, teeter on the brink of extinction like the endangered tribes who wane without their nourishment.

Despite, humanity’s determination to exchange illusory capital for life-giving resources, the Columbia River is still a mighty force, its mouth opening unto the sea, dark, shifting, and lethal enough to make its passage nearly impassable, but for a fraction of the year. Its massive weight flows with less urgency these days, but it is still sacred to the tribes who honored and respected it for millennia. Its power is not so much diminished as it is distributed, manipulated, humiliated, financially, politically calculated. While there may be hope for us who dream of crumpling dams, sadly, there is little hope for the precious few wild salmon. What a shame to discard a resource so precious, it may be, perhaps, the best protein-rich nourishment a human can get. Apparently, it is better to irrigate fields of alfalfa to feed fields of cows, to feed millions unhealthy food that promotes obesity via the sedentary effect of electricity, thus, increasing the risk of heart disease, heart attack, and/or stroke. However long it takes, there will come a day when the Columbia River’s hits capitalism in the face with a shock as cold as its glacial source. Like a bucket of cold spring water on the head of Mr. Sandman, eventually, for better or worse, the American dream must wake up; Rivers are not commodities. They are the circle that sustains all life. 

Works Cited

Dietrich, William. Northwest Passage-The Great Columbia River. University of Washington Press: 1995.

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy-Stage 2 Treatment Targets

DBT Secondary Target List

  1. Increase emotion modulation Decrease emotional reactivity
  2. Increase self-validation Decrease self-invalidation
  3. Increase realistic decisions/judgment Decrease crisis generating behaviors
  4. Increase emotional experiencing Decrease inhibited grieving
  5. Increase active problem solving Decrease active-passivity behaviors
  6. Increase accurate emotional expression Decrease mood dependent behavior.

Borderline Behavioral Patterns: The Three Dialectical Dimensions

A key point about these patterns is that the discomfort of the extreme points on each of these dimensions insures that individuals vacillate back and forth between the polarities.


Reference: Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder, Dr. Marsha Linehan, Guilford Press: 1993.

Poetry & Mental Health

About the Author:

Rachel Gill is a social and behavioral sciences sophomore at Linfield College who plans to continue graduate studies in cognitive-behavioral and clinical psychology. She is also a mental health advocate/consumer diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, and Agoraphobia with Panic Disorder. She is in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy at Portland DBT, is without prescription medications, and hopes to create a more positive image of persons with mental disorders by sharing her story with the public and actively contributing to the advocacy efforts of Multnomah N.A.M.I and the Mental Health Association of Portland.

In addition to her scholarly goals and community involvement, Ms. Gill also records and produces original music under the name Pinki Tuscaderro on Rez Records, her do-it-yourself record label. It is only a Machine, her second LP CD is due for release on June 21, 2011 (the 1st day of summer), and will be available for download on iTunes and several other online music stores. Physical copies will be in local music stores or ordered direct by mail; e-mail rez.records@live.com for more information. Preview music at reverbnation.com/pinkituscaderro.

About the Poems:

The following five poems are a sample of the author’s poetry chosen particularly for their relation to personal experiences with issues of mental health. The author aims to show others with and without mental disorders a creative means to self-validate and effectively cope with negative emotions/situations. The author would like to emphasize to readers that any political implications are more a side effect of the writing process than the author’s original intent.

**********************************************************************************************************

Thank You Verity Much

DBT is for BPD except in MHO policy.

County seniority is not a requisite degree.

Staff, not doctors, decide treatments for me.

Multnomah Verity, please realize.

Unlicensed psychology can cause suicide.


My Window

I listen to soft lullabies of

Murmuring raindrops.

They collide incongruously with

harsh angles, surfaces.

Rhythm drops against panes and

beats my heart.


Avoiding Fear

I sleep faithfully wrapped

In shuttered rooms & dreams,

Where there are no throngs to face

Thoughts fold illusory content.


Mental Health Cares?

Research rats are not

Obliged to pay for

Psychiatric pretension or

Statistical display.

Drugs, Psycho, Therapy,

Pseudo-healing

If mental health cares,

Where is the feeling?

R.E.M.
Bed time hours,

Blinking eyes,

Dreams water.

Dehydrate minds.


ASSISTING STUDENTS WITH ANXIETY RELATED DISORDERS

Do’s and Don’t Checklist for Anxiety Disorders & ADA Student Accommodations: A Student’s Perspective

DO:

  • Assume that the student is doing his/her best and that he/she is capable of doing better.
  • Know there is a distinction between experiencing anxiety and having an anxiety disorder.
  • Show interest in understanding a student’s difficulties. This alone often relieves a great deal of pressure.
  • Create disability accommodations tailored to function like a crisis plan, making sure all related parties understand, agree to, and are involved in constructing it.
  • Express your concerns directly to the student in a manner that is respectful and private.
  • Validate the student’s experience. (Remember, the student’s anxiety response is the problem not the anxiety itself. Understanding and communicating this is critical.)
  • Foster a cooperative relationship in solving additional problems that may arise.
  • Remain calm and non-judgmental in the event of frustration.
  • Be assertive, attentive, and consistent in responding.
  • Ask for assistance from college disability counselors when needed.

DO NOT:

  • Assume that a student’s disability outweighs a student’s ability.
  • Make things more complicated by adding extra steps to initiate assistance.
  • Minimize the student’s difficulties by comparing to other students.
  • Overwhelm students with information or ideas not directly related to accommodations.
  • Undervalue the effect of acknowledging effort and encouraging more.
  • Discuss a student’s disability in class or to others without asking first if it is okay with the student to do so (In some instances, a release of information may be required. Check school policies.)
  • Use ultimatums or penalties, doing so tends to only increase anxiety and encourage further avoidance and participation withdrawal.
  • Underestimate the effects anxiety disorders have on academic progress.
  • Respond with solutions that may inadvertently encourage withdrawal or avoidance.
  • Adopt the misconception that there is a difference between physical health and mental health when planning or providing disability accommodations.

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, only 8% of persons with diagnosed mental disorders are functional college students. This low number appears to have less to do with students having mental disorders than colleges having the ability to respond to students who have mental disorders. The following recommendations aim to create a basis for improvement from the perspective of psychology student with agoraphobia/panic disorder who has consistently found schools prepared to approve yet not to provide appropriate disability accommodations.

In the case of anxiety, it is important to keep in mind that experiencing anxiety and having a professionally diagnosed anxiety related disorder has similar yet profoundly different affects. While normal anxiety has the ability to heighten reactivity (typically referred to as the fight or flight mechanism) and positively affect a person’s ability to respond to critical situations, for the individual diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, the anxiety response is invariably dysfunctional, creating an array of problematic behaviors that can effectively reduce a person’s ability to function in some to many different aspects of daily life like attending college, for instance.

For these students, excessive worry, irrational fear, crisis generating behaviors, and avoidance in response to stress (i.e. tests, deadlines, large projects, class presentations, etc.) are issues that typically disrupt a student’s academic progress. Furthermore, students with anxiety disorders frequently set unreasonably high goals and/or have unrealistic expectations of themselves, which makes working closely with an academic advisor, a college’s disabilities counselor, and course instructors even more critical in helping a student in meet expected learning outcomes.

When a student’s maladaptive solution for dealing with anxiety is to avoid sources of anxiety, it is unreasonable to assume that such students can effectively ask for help when asking for help is part of the problem. Shame and embarrassment appear to reinforce the urge to avoid and, without intervention, a student is more likely to withdraw and ultimately abandon academic goals. Because students diagnosed with anxiety/panic disorders usually have difficulty confronting situations that increase anxiety, they are prone to avoidant behavior. This makes providing appropriate disability accommodations for these students more challenging and critical.

In conclusion, it seems that individually tailored disability accommodations relying on instructors rather than students to intervene and initiate assistance are preferred. An instructor appropriately informed of anxiety related disorders can be powerfully effective. By simply communicating concern directly to a student in crisis with a prompt, assertive, and non-judgmental manner, the risk of perpetuating crisis behaviors like avoidance reduces and the student’s capacity to achieve his or her academic goals increases.

A Biosocial Model for Depression

Mystery and myth have long plagued people who struggle with mental disorders. Science is slowly advancing, but personal stories are also needed in order to dispel long-held stereotypes that may cause shame, blame, and/or prevent persons who may need mental health care from seeking it. For these reasons, I am compelled to share my story.

My current diagnoses include Major Depressive disorder; moderate, recurrent, Borderline Personality Disorder, and Agoraphobia with Panic disorder. It is a daily struggle that began around the age of 14, but when I finally got the right diagnosis and a partner who was patient, loving, and stubborn enough to see me through my difficult journey. This empowered me and motivated me to become proactive in my mental health. It has been a long and slow road. I am making progress, but the task requires tireless patience, dedication, acceptance, and social support. If you are a friend, family member, co-worker, or provide services to persons with mental disorders, are you supportive, silent, or judgmental toward that person?

In addition to working toward a B.A. in social and behavioral sciences, (Interesting note: Only 8% of those diagnosed with mental disorders attend college, according to NAMI.) I attend two weekly sessions of Dialectical Behavior Therapy, am involved in mental health advocacy, continuously read research, and study state, Federal and international mental health law.

There are several compelling arguments and evidence supporting both sides of the nature/nurture debate. Yet, concrete science remains elusive. Nevertheless, I, like most people, have an opinion on the subject. Mine begins with biosocial theory.


From this perspective, rather than see the dilemma as a question of nature vs. nurture, I believe that nature and nurture are equally capable of contributing to the development of depression. Here is a visual explanation.


On the other hand, I think that the degree to which nature and nurture influence the risk for individuals developing depression probably varies somewhat. The following chart proposes a method for measuring nature vs. nurture risks for depression using a biosocial model as a basis.

 

  • Disclaimer: The following test is a tool designed specifically for this discussion. It is purely theoretical and does not propose to diagnose or treat any mental disorder. If you or someone you know thinks, you may have depression or other mental health issues; see a professionally licensed clinical psychologist or psychiatrist for a complete psychological evaluation.

My Biosocial Based Questionnaire for Resolving for Determining Individual Nature vs. Nurture Depression Risks

* Directions: Each yes answer = 1. Add each column. The column with the greater sum is your greater risk potential

Nature

Nurture
Does the individual have a family history of Depression? Does the individual have current financial, health, or relational problems?
Is the individual currently taking or recently stopped taking any medications or street drugs? What were parenting methods used in childhood? (Positive/Negative re-enforcement, Punishment/Reward, Neglect, Strictness, violence, sexual abuse)
Is the individual exposed to any hazardous chemicals or have any health deficiencies (lack of sleep, proper nutrition, exercise, etc.) Does the individual currently have supportive relationships with family, friends, and/or co-workers?

If you want to read the facts from the experts and come to your own conclusion, the following links offer current information from reliable sources that provide evidence for both sides of the depression nature vs. nurture debate.

ajp.psychiatryonline.org – Scientific Foundations of Cognitive Theory and Therapy of Depression

nimh.nih.gov/2010 – Same genes suspected in depression and bipolar disorder

surgeongeneral.gov – The Fundamentals of Mental Health and Mental Illness

Obedience to Authority: Motivation Mystique & the Milgram Experiment

Author: Rachel Gill – Psychology Undergraduate

Abstract

Stanley Milgram’s famously controversial experiments testing individual boundaries of obedience to authority by encouraging unknowing research participants to engage in emulated torture (subjects were convinced to believe they were administering electric shocks to individuals, who were actors in a separate room protesting in feigned pain.) prompts several questions about motivational factors that drive individuals to obey powers of authority despite harm to others. Jerry Burger, a psychologist who recently replicated the Milgram experiment achieved results similar to the original. This examination considers the implications of the experimental results and refers, specifically, to the article on the subject, featured in American Psychologist (2009), written by Dave Munger.

Obedience to Authority: Motivation Mystique & the Milgram Experiment

Summary of Research

Milgram’s original research shows that 60 percent of the research subjects administered the maximum 450 volts of (believed) electricity with 80 percent surpassing the 150-volt threshold that Milgram had predicted prior to administering the experiment. Burger’s 2006 replicated experiment found 70 percent exceeding the 150 volt standard. To address potential skewing of data and issue of controversy, Burger reinforced his study by screening out subjects who had previously completed 2 courses of psychology and presented potential bias and those with diagnosable mental disorders whose conditions might be exasperated by participation.

The Nature of Rebellious Action

In his article reviewing the subject, Dave Munger offers a summarized explanation of Milgram and Burger’s results with a brief, unfounded conclusion, “the nature of the rebellious action counts” . . . “only when rebels outnumber authority figures can disobedience readily spread.” While Munger’s estimation is certainly reasonable, he offers no quantifiable data that would warrant his perspective. Ultimately, the subjective nature of investigating and interpreting motivational factors that influence behavior presents a problem to researchers that compromise validity, reliability, and hinders psychology’s progressive efforts to find a place amongst the more established, respected sciences.

Regarding Uncharted Error Potential

Moreover, while Burger’s replicated research offers investigative enhancements that take into consideration error potentials previously unidentified, such improvements seem inconsequential where individual traits, vulnerability factors, gender/cultural/lifestyle and environmental influences are not representative  of the complex dynamics that comprise each person’s  unique process for accomplishing moral reasoning and the individual behavioral variations that arise across time and situational contexts. Additionally, Milgram and Burger’s experiment does not consider the importance of expectation effect in motivating obedient behavior. (Hans, Smith, Block 183-281)

Acquired Drives: Considering Behavior Motivation

E.C. Tolman’s concept of acquired drives (Figure 1) explains motive as an acquisition achieved through instrumental learning, suggesting that motivations for behavior transpires through a process uniquely resolved through a mechanism defined by individual differences and sensitivity to environmental stimuli. (Craighead, Nemeroff 5)

In conclusion, while Milgram and Burger’s research certainly offers a dramatic and intriguing window into the collaborative function of moral reasoning and obedient behavior, the study is incomplete, vulnerable to misinterpretation and lacks appropriate quantifiable controls necessary for balancing the many error risk potentials involved in conducting subjective psychological analysis and essential in meeting standards for scientific research.

References

Burger, J. M. (2009). Replicating Milgram: Would people still obey today? American Psychologist, 64(1), 1-11. doi: 10.1037/a0010932

Craighead, Edward W., Charles B. Nemeroff. (2004). The Concise Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology and Behavioral Science 3rd Edition. Wiley & Sons. Hoboken: New Jersey

Hann, N., Smith, B., & Block, J. (1968). Moral reasoning of young adults. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 10, 183–201.

Figure Captions

Figure 1.


Art vs. Commerce

The age-old paradox of art vs. commerce is an impossible question that centers not so much around ethics as it does artistic integrity.

On the one hand, we have art, which we know, is unpredictable in its appeal to audiences and requires a degree of sincerity to affect others as art and on the other hand marketing, promotion and production, which may have artistic merit, but, ultimately, differs in the unique, singular motive to generate revenue.

 It is difficult to compare one against the other as it hard to be a professional artist (musician) without commerce, in the end, music is best when uncompromised, though it may not always be the most profitable route.


Music Widget

Hydro Powerlessness: Children of Sun Supper at Midnite

 

Hydro Powerlessness: Children of Sun Supper at Midnite 

Above my Tipi, Crow sits. 

Dark clouds of Congress
 

Fill with Dept. of Interior shadows,
 

Killed bills and several
 

Generations of Spokane Spirits,
 

 
  

Blessed be, Children of the Sun.
 

 
  

I gather Moonbeams for supper,
 

Mixing enriched water from
 

Ancient uranium lagoons,
 

A dash and a sprinkle of
 

Radioactive, not retroactive
 

Environmental protection vagrancy
 

 
  

I spoon lard-laden drops of dough
 

Into heart attacks that swim and
 

Sizzle into fry bread promises and
 

Cardiac arrest warrants
 

I raise my glass jar of
 

Diabetic dam grand Coulee-aid,
 

 
  

Under the influence of
 

Historical trauma and
 

Reservation assisted genocide.
 

Amidst burning sweet grass, I toast to
 

Flooded dreams, hydro power,
 

Unpaid power bills, Pacific Power,
 

The powerlessness of compensation committees,
 

Final disconnect notices, generalized electricity and
 

Municipalized ill legalized Monopoly. 


I drink to my ancestors
 

Smoke in song. 


I Pray
 

Salmon someday grows feet and
 

Climbs up the vast fishy ladders
 

Crashes over the concrete dams and
 

Falls the lakes into streams and sea,
 

Freeing the blood of the river, water,
 

From concrete blocked arteries.
 

 
  

Shine in spite of Midnite.
 

Radiate irrigated skies.
 

 
  

Blessed be, Children of the Sun.
 

 
  

Coyote listens, ears dancing
 

By the light of the moon and
 

Glow of lagoon
 

His eyes flicker, fluorescing,
 

Unnaturally green.
 

 
  

It is time to eat trust, trustee. 

 

  

 

  

 
  

 
 

MARK OF DISGRACE


MARK OF DISGRACE

An editorial review of “a Case for Stigma” by Daniel Hart

 

Daniel W. Hart is an Assistant Attorney General for the Iowa Department of Justice Human Services Division or as he aptly puts it, “a lawyer for welfare bureaucrats.” He is also the executive committee Vice President of The American Association of Public Welfare Attorneys. The AAPWA is a pool of lawyers who represent local governments and oversee public assistance programs. According to the AAPWA’s website, the aim of these collected attorneys is to, “provide for cordial exchange of experience and knowledge related to the development of public welfare policy.” While the tone reflected in the former statement may suggest amicability, Daniel Hart’s article, “A Case for Stigma” seems to the contrary. Published by the American Public Human Services Association, the brief editorial offers a stark view of the negative cultural attitudes that prevail within the infrastructure of The Department of Human Services.

    Stigma: What is it? Webster’s 2nd College Edition New World Dictionary of the American Language defines stigma as, “a prick with a pointed instrument”, “a distinguishing mark burned or cut into the flesh, as of a slave or criminal”, “Something that detracts from the character or reputation of a person, group, etc.; mark of disgrace or reproach”, “a mark, sign, etc. indicating that something is not considered normal or standard.” (Webster’s 1399).

    Legislation has passed several laws to; supposedly, safeguard the public, but what good are laws to those who have no power to enforce and uphold them? Add to that, political motives, complicated inter-governmental contracts, conflicting incentives, and an honor system in place of oversight, the potential for corruption seem limitless.     Although there may be slight variations from county to county and state to state, in my experience, the general attitude towards people on “welfare” within the administrative context is, more often than not, derogatory. The word welfare, in contrast to its original definition, is generally stigmatizing today. It evokes an American stereotype that often characterizes poverty as a product of choosing to be lazy and/or incompetent, prone to deceit, fraud, unplanned pregnancy and/or criminal behavior. The consequential result of this “blame affect” succeeds to diminish efforts towards individual self-sufficiency in favor of punishment, achieved by denying access to specialized services, weakening civil rights by not building welfare recipients an equitable grievance system with practical routes for legal remedy. In the end, the discriminating process of eligibility screening is arguably more expensive to operate than to not provide at all and the system essentially defeats itself by designing an improbable labyrinth of contracts, authorization, utilization and quality assurance that requires costly, extensive employee power in order to maintain a system that swallows up public funds for administrating services that, ultimately, exist more in a figurative sense than in practice.

Originally, welfare meant, “[T]he state of being or doing well; condition of health, happiness, and comfort; well-being; prosperity”. (Webster’s 1613). With this in mind, a statement such as, “everyone will want the help we used to call welfare”, loses its power to insult and begs the question, does not each one of us want and deserve welfare?

Hart’s argument is a bitter look at the widening disparity that is shrinking the American Middle Class. As a political strategy, his methods demean the notion of public service, begging the question, “Where is and who represents the Greater Good?”

     “A Case for Stigma” is convincing evidence for the case against stigma. What is ironic about Mr. Hart’s argument is that for all of his attempts to elevate himself above the disgraceful welfare recipients, no argument succeeds to disguise the fact that he is just as reliant upon the welfare system to survive as the persons he determines to deny access to it. A coin is still a coin no matter which side it lands upon, choosing to judge, rather than count its worth causes devaluation instead of refined calculation

    Overall, it is difficult to understand what motivates an article such as this. On the surface, the only goal seems to be to perpetuate pejorative images of people who utilize human services. What is Hart trying to prove? As with most discriminatory attitudes and behaviors, the answer is not so clear. Political and/or financial ambitions likely fuel Hart’s distorted appreciation for stigma since such a perspective is incompatible with the concept of a caring community and public service.

 

WORKS CITED

“Legal Notes – Iowa’s Dan Hart on A Case for Stigma.” Policy & Practice of Public Humann Services: The Journal of the American Public Human Services Association. 67. 2 (2009): 22.

Lunsford, Andrea A. and John J. Ruszkiewicz. everything’s an argument. Bedford/St. Martins: Boston, NewYork. 2007.

Marx, Karl. Economic & Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844. Progress Publishers: Moscow, Russia, 1932. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marxs/works/1844/manuscripts/preface.htm.

Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language Second College Edition Deluxe Color Edition. William Collins Publishers, Inc. 1980.

Worthless Money

 

 

The only apparent positive aspect of money is object related gratification.


Its’ negative effects are violence, poverty, oppression, dishonesty, exploitation, senselessness, moral degradation, abuse, loss of values, hate, envy, disparity, ruthlessness, coveting, jealousy, anger, , ignorance, discrimination, segregation, denial, corruption, degradation, manipulation, deception, paranoia, fear, worry, anxiety, false sense of security, environmental destruction, devaluation, hopelessness, suicide, obsession, desensitization, crisis, chaos, social collapse, authoritarianism, depression, stoicism, recklessness, addiction, embarrassment, blame, arguments, isolation, suspicion, shamelessness, self-centeredness, disillusionment, death, despair, wars, genocide, slavery, starvation, extinction, family feuds, governmental control, rage, resistance, prejudice, parapraxia, Godlessness, illness, indulgence, racism, snobbishness, colonialism, industrialization, premature aging, intolerance, conformity, anguish, distorted perception, irrationality, blackmail, pollution, overpopulated urban sprawl, poor judgment, brain washing, mind control, fascism, identity disturbance, isolation, withdrawal, insanity, righteousness, obscenity, spiritual depravity, community destruction, repression, incarceration, ill-will, global warming, etc., etc., etc.

 
 

What good is money? I would really, really like to know.

 


 

AudioPlayerWidget



Sound Waves Crash

  
 

There is no ground to stand on.

Water and wind pelts my face.

 

Sensations tune to listen.

Aquatic salts poise to taste.

 

Currents of raw energy

Pour over me pass: past.


Moon Rocks the ocean.

Sound waves crash.

 
 

Time drifts me farther.

Space widens from the shore.

 

Moon tides are heartbeats.

Form music’s spiritual core.

 

Sea Songs swell high,

Build fluid peaks,

 

Vibration encodes language

Hear what rhythm speaks.

Portland, Oregon Pedestrian Use Zones: No Sit-or-Lie Act II

How can we call ourselves civilized when we do not care for our elders, our sick, and our poor? We need to realize that the homeless are not going to go away by drawing imaginary lines in the dirt. If you support Portland Pedestrian Use Zones, what does this law serve to accomplish other than to divide us through prejudices? Race segregation and socio-economic segregation is still segregation no matter what language one chooses to use.

If you do not like the homeless problem, then let us start rounding up beds, drug and mental health support services, mentors, jobs, instead creating more boundaries amongst ourselves. These are our people! They are not litter that we can just sweep under a bridge and forget. They are someone’s mother, father, sister, brother. They are suffering and we are angry with them because we do not want to help, and it shames us, as it should.

Who wants a daily reminder of their shame as they go into their high-rise office, cater to the rich, chat with business associates or dine on fine foods? It is hard to be selfish and greedy in the face of suffering, is it not? So what is our solution? Rather than heed our consciences, we stubbornly march forward in a state of denial. It is not my problem. They need to take care of themselves. I have my own problems. If I just did not have to look at them every day, everything would be better. We do not mind if people suffer; we just want to ensure that we do not have to see it outside our television sets. Better to get them out of sight.

Our homeless need our help. They deserve our help. Suffering is like a virus, if we do nothing, it spreads. How sick do we have to get before we seek healing? Our people need us. Our people are sick. Some are dying. They cannot wait while we play hide-and-seek the homeless or city hall hopscotch. Great leaders understand compassion, tolerance, and compromise. Please, show us what this looks like.



Portland, Oregon Homeless, The following  song is for you.

\”No Sit-or Lie\” by Pinki Tuscaderro

IMAGE AND OBJECT

IMAGE AND OBJECT

author, Pinki Tuscaderro AKA Rachel Gill

“Within the paradox of this singular intimacy, critique sets limits upon the order of the visible and the expressive. The limitations of philosophy and art, however, are simultaneously their possibilities. Where one ends, the other begins. Still, there are no authentic beginnings or endings.” (Wurzer 201).

Image, by definition, does not adhere to conventional explanation, a figurative idea that often takes shape in the form of books, photographs, music and others forms, the role of imagery, in humanity, suggests that images are less object than association and an intrinsic method in human communication.

There are fifteen different definitions listed in the English dictionary under image. (Farlex). A reproduction, an optically formed duplicate, counterpart, a double, opinion or concept, character, personification, mental picture, vivid description or representation, figure of speech, concrete representation, as in art, literature, music, a set of values of a function, obsolete, an apparition, are words giving likeness to image. If an image is intangible, as English linguistics suggests, then comparative analysis becomes quite difficult. The act of communicating images cannot be realized, absolutely, because individual perceptions and associations transform distinctly when transferred between persons, the closer the individuals know of each other, the greater the possibility of evoking images and likewise.

Art, literature and music are an exception to the figurative descriptions of image, concrete exclusively defines them. However, art, literature and music may have the apparent advantage of objectification; the result is interpretive difference, the experience, as defined by individual association, limits potential for like images mutually evolving. Misunderstandings cause disagreement and paradox. Art, literature and music may be tangible representations, but images, above all else, are ideas.

“The ‘symbolic’ autonomous, controlling subject is also a person who addresses us, individual to individual – a person with a distinct voice, a specific history and an identity. This interplay of the abstract and the particular, the exemplary and the specific, is a characteristic of human subjectivity and its representations,” (Doy 35-36).

Human cultures, generally, adhere to standards for regarding physical images and demonstrate image as a cultural phenomenon. In America, preferences for music, commonly serves as a shortcut to judging and describing personality traits. Describing a person who listens to rock music often evokes an image different from that of one who listens to classical music. In this sense, the object takes on a different representational meaning, as a frame of reference, it is not so necessarily simple to label. Image loses the effective ability to meet the confines of being a concrete representation, a person, place or thing.

(Photograph of Walker Evans)

“Our Labor as beholders is as divided as that of Agee and Evans, and we find ourselves drawn, as they were, into a vortex of collaboration and resistance.” (Mitchell 350).

 

The Collaboration between Walker Evans photography and James Agee’s writing in “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men” offers different points of perspective from which to analyze the idea of images, as both an object and effect in considering the piece separately as a physical representation and subjective interpretation. By contrast, both artists employ different means to an end. The mediums of choice and techniques used by each exemplify differences that are considerably different in form and approach. Where Evans holds back, Agee dives in. Where Evans seems removed, Agee emotionally invests.

Stylistically, the two could not be more different, but in effect, they comparably agree. One wonders if the collaboration would be as effective if the experience of its contributors were not a fact shared by physical time and space. It seems possible, but not likely.

“Let Us Now Praise Famous Men” seems not so much a resistance between photography and language as it is a resistance between reality and relativity. Where shared experiences differ and/or agree, the likely result is an image neither and both true and false, a solution of black and white, transformed into indiscernible shades of grey, “In this place they experience different foregrounded aspects of selves in relation to each other, and they determine mutually agreed upon meaning, to the extent that is possible.” (Maynard 407).

(Photograph by Walker Evans)

“For in the immediate world, everything is to be discerned, for him who can discern it, and centrally and simply, without either dissection into science, or digestion into art, but with the whole of consciousness, seeking to perceive it as it stands: so that the aspect of a street in sunlight can roar in the heart of itself as a symphony, perhaps as no symphony can: and all of consciousness is shifted from the imagined, the revisive, to the effort to perceive simply the cruel radiance of what is.” –James Agee (Bartholomae 98.)

Illusion is the impression of an image taken to mean reality. The phenomenon of acceptance without question presents a problem to images as communication, but does not devalue its significance in practice. Modern constructs are not different in this consequence. The effects are evident in the evocative imagery of propaganda and advertising.

Despite its broad and vague meaning, the image allows people the ability to identify with each other and their world in a more intimately expressed way. The process evolves with time and transpires through a framework of relativity understood within a context of personal association, comparable interpretive experience and language. Images may be objects in reference, but not, truly, an object, by definition, for the image is a product of the mind that imagines it, not of the representation that affects it.

(Photograph by Rachel Gill)

 

Works Cited

Bartholomae, David and Anthony Petrosky. Ways of Reading Words and Images. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2003.

Doy, Gen. Picturing the Self : Changing Views of the Subject in Visual Culture.

London, , GBR: I. B. Tauris & Company, Limited, 2004. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/portlandcc/Doc?id=10133135&ppg=5 .

Farlex. “Image” The Free Dictionary. Version (2009): June 15, 2009. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/image .

Forrester, Michael A. Psychology of the Image.

London, GBR: Routledge, 2000. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/portlandcc/Doc?id=10054201&ppg=1

Wurzer, Wilhelm S.(Editor). Panorama : Philosophies of the Visible.London, , GBR: Continuum International Publishing, 2003.http://site.ebrary.com/lib/portlandcc/Doc?id=10224930&ppg=214

bee

 

 

YouTube – bee
 

paint

When I decide to open my eyes,
they have been clinched tight
hopes of preventing the scalding sensation of science worship and acidic rain
peel down my back
in the waning aftermath of heat and day.
I see the scent of radiation and rhodies.
I smell the toxic sight of pure color
it curls in tendrils to confuse the senses 
wound in the breath of
destructive beauty

Constitution Derelicts


Mind blocks of bricks
Way to to worn to fix
Trade truth for tricks
And terroristic kicks

Constitution Derelicts

Force Fed on Facts
History refracts
What the public reacts
Honesty retracts

Artificial facts

American Dream for all
Pale faced and tall
The rest will be hauled
South of the Great Wall

Hypocrisy, democracy, elected aristocracy

Anglo-sexist, picts
Constitution derelicts

 

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