Adjust : Sodomy Is.
Adjust : Sodomy Is.Hopefully my telling of all this will give it justice (and accuracy), but I thought it was relevant to class :)
For any of you who didn't see this..... Story is that in response to some kind of small minded stuff and homophobia on campus, Pride Alliance has been doing a lot of chalking on the sidewalks, promoting their events...
A few people were offended by Pride's open advertising, and starting writing "Sodomy is Sin" near Pride's chalkings....
So Jess said she had a sleepless night thinking about what to do... the next morning (Thursday), she tackled some of the graffiti on the sidewalks 'erasing the Sin' (So it just said "Sodomy Is") And she spent a few hours painting this banner and figuring out how to hang it (on the overpass that goes to the fine arts building in front of the JC)
I saw it was still hanging at midnight on Thursday, and it was gone before one of Jess's friends came into the fine arts building at nine the next morning.... so, that's the scoop as I know it! :)
Arundhati Roy quote...
I just heard this at the tail end of the Democracy Now, May 23rd 2006 interview with Arundhati Roy... (the whole text /audio / video of the interview is available at Democracynow.org ... the whole interview is wonderful... packed with coolness...)
I like this quote because I feel like I've become less and less identified with "being an artist", yet, the same energy which fueled my art when it was at it's best is now behind more and more of everything I do and how I actually live my life... thought it was relevant to the class (and Makes me wonder why I still haven't read Howard Zinn's "Artists in a Time of War"... hrm... new homework!)
AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask in our last 30 seconds: the role you see of the artist in a time of war?
ARUNDHATI ROY: Well, I think the problem is that artists are not a homogenous lot of people, and some of them are as rightwing and establishment as they can get, you know, so the role of the artist is not different from the role of any human being. You pick your side, and then you fight, you know? But in a country like India, I'm not seeing that many radical positions taken by writers or poets or artists, you know? It's all the seduction of the market that has shut them up like a good medieval beheading never could.
Chapters 1 & 2 (Catch-up!)
I guess I wanted to at least cite some things I appreciated in Chapter 1…
I liked what Farmer describes as the “exoticization” of suffering, and how it ‘others’ the victims of structural violence. (p. 40)
He goes on to talk about liberation theology, and I thought his description of it as dealing with suffering and meaning was interesting, so I poked around on Wikipedia to see what I found. That kind of led to my understanding that liberation theology is trying to emulate Jesus’ role as liberator and establisher of justice, and that some of the people who are involved with liberation theology are more involved in Christian socialism, which lead me to social gospel… who knew all this cool stuff was out there? I love Wiki.
Anyhow… the depictions of the suffering in the Guantanamo Bay stories are really terrifying. This made me reflect a lot on the way media distorts news—“55 percent [of those polled] said [immigration for Haitians] should be more difficult. After a decade during which less than 0.5 percent of Haitian applicants were granted asylum, one wonders how much more difficult it could be.” (p68) I was impressed when Farmer later followed up with the comparisons with Cuba. I feel blessed to have recently made a friend in www.democracynow.org , which has lots of multimedia downloads and news feeds of news that I imagine is at least a little bit more balanced… Anyhow, I guess one of the issues really relevant to welcoming more refugees and people immigrating from averse conditions is what the author quotes one lawyer saying: “We need to make it cost-effective [for the US Government].” I was left wondering that if we had more open doors, would the racism and deprivation and human-rights violations just take place increasingly inside US Borders… Farmer promises to present ‘possible ideas for solutions’ in the book, so I really hope that includes ways that our political and economic structures all over the world can grow to fulfill the needs of those who have been most neglected in the world. Anyway, for now I’m just left thinking “Down with the media!” (except wikimedia…)
Blog beginning
hi! I'm excited to venture more into this class... I think there was a commentlast class about how people often didn't want to educate themselves about these global power issues because they were affraid they would have to change their lifestyles and do something... I was left thinking "Yeah, I feel like I'm affraid to learn too much too!" Anyhow, my main feeling is that there seems like so many issues that it's possible that they seem unrelated, and I feel like a lot of activists put their energy into different areas-- say, someone who is working for issues that they haven't connected in three different continents.
What I really want to understand for myself, the approach I want to take, is understanding how our consumerism in America effects different parts of the world that might be left as "producers" for our goods or be left in deprivation when we are living in abundance. This is a lot more relative for me because then I know how I can change my own life and educate others... it's more down to Earth for me than being an activist whose concerns all live on the other side of the world... I think there is a lot of potential for change in "enlightenned consumption"... it's definitely what I want to do research on :)
More later when I've read this weeks selections, I just wanted to put something up on the blog...
