doctoral candidate in rhetoric and scientific and technical communication
Archive for September, 2006
what the cable companies say
05 years ago
by dawn
in net neutrality
The cable companies are trying to convince consumers that ‘net neutrality is a bad thing. They want all of us to believe that they are looking out for our welfare and that they think that the Silicon Valley wonks are just using “mumbo jumbo.”
Over at slashdot, Ergasiophobia writes:
“It seems the National Cable & Telecommunications Association is spreading a blatant lie in the form of a commercial claiming that the net neutrality act will cost the consumer more and that it is “bad” for the consumer. This of course ignoring how much the cable companies will profit from the act not passing. For some truthful information on the net neutrality act check out savetheinternet.com“ This honestly seems too stupid to actually be real. Anyone know for sure?
hanging out
05 years ago
Who was in your group, clique, or posse when you were a teen?
Before we moved to Flagstaff in the middle of my senior year, I was in high school in Las Vegas, Nevada.
At Bonanza High School, I belonged to a lot of different clubs and hung out with different people.
I was in theater and speech & debate. I was in the honor society. I was in band, softball, volleyball, and basketball. I was in student government and SADD (students against drunk driving).
So, I hung out with whomever was around at the time…depending on what function or meeting I was attending.
When we moved to Flagstaff, I had a core set of friends. We were in a smaller town and the people in the same groups tended to be the same people.
I was still involved in a lot of groups but I had a core set of 5 other friends who got me through that last year of high school. We were the types that people liked to beat up on – sensitive, dramatic, and a bit on the outer boundaries of other kids. We dressed in different types of clothing than our peers. We acted differently. We thought of ourselves as the beatniks of our generation: dark sunglasses, long trenchcoats, writing poetry on napkins in the Denny’s while drinking coffee, smoking clove cigarettes (well, not me so much), and speaking of loftier things.
We were okay with being different. It suited us.
firsts
0
First date, first love, first adventures… who shared your big teenage “firsts” with you?
My firsts were not milestones in my life. In fact, I can’t remember many things that happened and when they did, they were usually cloaked in secrecy or I didn’t talk about them with anyone.
My first real kiss came from a much older man. I was 15, he was 21. Not something you go running around telling people. He wanted it to be a secret (and now I understand why – but I didn’t then).
I’m still waiting for my first love. I’ve had lots of crushes but not so much love.
Adventures, I had many. But during high school, I was that quintessential good girl. I didn’t go on adventures until I got to college and then I went crazy.
losing
0
Do people realize how good they have it while they have it?
I see people in relationships who don’t realize how good they have it. Sure, I don’t know what happens behind closed doors, for the most part, but having been around some of them for years on end has given me a nice view of the relationships.
There are some who realize how good it is and cultivate the relationships. They make the relationships more important than anything else. My brother, for instance, doesn’t live to work. He uses work to make his life better with his family – to have more time with them, to be able to take trips with them, to give them the better things in life. When I see the way he and his wife interact, it makes me smile. Sure, they have rough patches just like anyone else. But they like one another. A lot. They like to spend time together.
And then there are others. It seems like a push and pull all of the time. One person seems to give more to the relationship. One person seems to love more, to give more, to want more for his or her partner. The other person only complains and puts down his or her partner. It seems so one sided and the person who is complaining doesn’t seem to realize just how good that relationship is.
What bothers me about this is that these people have no idea what a bad relationship is like. They haven’t lived through being hit by someone who says they love them. They haven’t been told how horrible they are, how ugly they are, how fat they are, how stupid they are or any other number of things by people who purport to love them.
Instead, they are supported through difficult times by someone who loves them. Yes, sometimes there are arguments. And yes, sometimes that person won’t agree with them – but who would want someone who agrees with you all of the time?
It just makes me think that these people are unhappy with themselves and instead of dealing with whatever is making them unhappy within, they project it on to their partners. Because it’s so much easier to blame than to fix something.
One Art
by Elizabeth BishopThe art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.–Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
love worn
05 years ago
american life in poetry: column 075
by ted kooser, u.s. poet laureate, 2004-2006
In many American poems, the poet makes a personal appearance and offers us a revealing monologue from center stage, but there are lots of fine poems in which the poet, a stranger in a strange place, observes the lives of others from a distance and imagines her way into them. This poem by Lita Hooper is a good example of this kind of writing.
Love Worn
In a tavern on the Southside of Chicago
a man sits with his wife. From their corner booth
each stares at strangers just beyond the other’s shoulder,
nodding to the songs of their youth. Tonight they will not fight.Thirty years of marriage sits between them
like a bomb. The woman shifts
then rubs her right wrist as the man recalls the day
when they sat on the porch of her parents’ home.Even then he could feel the absence of something
desired or planned. There was the smell
of a freshly tarred driveway, the slow heat,
him offering his future to folks he did not know.And there was the blooming magnolia tree in the distance–
its oversized petals like those on the woman’s dress,
making her belly even larger, her hands
disappearing into the folds.When the last neighbor or friend leaves their booth
he stares at her hands, which are now closer to his,
remembers that there had always been some joy. Leaning
closer, he believes he can see their daughter in her eyes.
From “Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem’s First Decade,” University of Michigan Press, 2006, by permission of the author. Poem copyright (c) 2006 by Lita Hooper, whose most recent book is “The Art of Work: The Art and Life of Haki Madhubuti,” Third World Press, 2006. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.
in her shoes
0
In Her Shoes is definitely a chick flick. There’s no way to get around this. Based on the book written by the famed chick lit writer, Jennifer Weiner, this story brings together all of the ingredients of a good Weiner novel: women in conflict, women dealing with fears of being fat, stupid, ugly, unwanted, lost, and promiscuous.
Weiner (and the screenplay writer Susannah Grant) approach these common issues in a way that makes you feel the struggle of the women, empathize with them, cheer them on, and want to kick their butts to make them see what kinds of fools they are being.
Cameron Diaz plays the part of Maggie, a lost woman who is still a little girl. She is promiscuous (and even sleeps with her sister’s lover). She steals money. She can’t hold down a job. She can’t read. But she is cute and knows how to use that.
Toni Colette is the consumate actress. She plays her roles in such a way that you feel like she could be one of your friends. She is the everywoman in so many ways. She gets what it’s like to be one of us. Colette plays Rose, Maggie’s older, more responsible, more plain sister. Rose watches out for Maggie, rescuing her when she needs to be rescued.
This movie, now out on DVD, is about sisterhood, friendship, love and loss. The poem Maggie quotes at the end defines it all perfectly:
i carry your heart with me
e.e cummings
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is youhere is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars aparti carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
B+
(photo courtesy of imdb)
an introduction to me
0One of my instructors has us introduce ourselves at the beginning of class each semester so she can get a feeling for where we are and where we want to go.
As I read about rhetoric and the beginnings of it within these two books, I realized that rhetoric means different things to different people. We can have a textbook definition of it, but it’s still going to mean something different to different people. What first made me think this is that Plato showed his disdain for rhetoric. However, with one quote, it’s difficult to know if Plato really had disdain for it or if he had disdain for it in this one particular situation regarding one particular set of circumstances. The reason I question this is because that’s exactly what John Locke was doing. He didn’t necessarily discount rhetoric. He was discounting the educated men who used rhetoric for their own gains, as he saw it, to turn the nation in a direction that he felt was not good for the people.
This is an important distinction. The authors of the books are using rhetoric to persuade the readers (us) to think about rhetoric in a very specific way. Who is to say that their rhetoric is the Truth, though? It may be their truth and may fit with the direction in which they want their books to go, but what if their definition of rhetoric does not fit with my own personal truth? And, in fact, what if I feel that their leading (or misleading) isn’t conducive to effective learning? Aren’t they doing exactly what Locke was complaining about? Using their version of rhetoric to convince me to think a certain way – which may or may not be appropriate?
I’ve been thinking about my introduction to you over the past few days. I think this is the fourth introduction I’ve written to you and I’m wondering how I’m changing or growing and if I am at all. I should go back and re-read them (but, frankly, I haven’t the time right now).
I don’t know what I want to do when I grow up (hah!). It seems to change with the direction of the wind. I’m so curious and excited about so many things that I learn that I can’t pin one thing down. I love what I do for my job but is that what I want to do for the rest of my life? I don’t know. I feel like I’m flailing about, wondering which way to go, hoping the tides will carry me in a good direction. I’m confused. I don’t know where to go with it all.
I’m also taking an education course this semester and it has already given me some insight into some things. The course is Teaching Literacy through Photography. And it has made me think about some things that are up your alley. Is it possible to work with basic writers and readers and use multimedia and images to assist them in learning concepts and writing skills in a more manageable way? Would they be more receptive to it? Would it be something that they would understand better than a page full of words (or, worse yet, a blank page they have to fill with words just from thin air)? And I’m thinking that this may be a direction I want to lean toward – using the skills I have in multimedia and graphics to help people with literacy. I’m not sure I want to be a teacher or professor but if I could assist professors in creating positive environments like that, it would be amazing.
You may be asking where this came from. Our instructor said that thisworks particularly well with students who have special needs. As the aunt of a little boy with Down Syndrome, I’m constantly amazed at how receptive he is to the way things move, feel, or look. He may never read at great speeds nor write as well as others but when I show him a photograph or we take a photo together, there is something about it that assists him in understanding what is going on. If that could be applied to a larger setting, like a class, with people who have the abilities to do more than he does (and, granted, he’s only three years old), then what kinds of differences could that make in their lives?
I keep thinking back to some of the readings we had about Mina Shaughnessay and how students had difficulties conceptualizing topics or moving from their thoughts to words on paper. And I wonder if media would help them with that.
As I said, I love what I do. I love the editing. I love the photography. I love helping others create beautiful, interesting learning environments. I just think it’s possible to take it further. And while I find the technical writing side of this degree interesting, I know it’s not for me. I wouldn’t feel like I was helping others in that kind of a job. And I need to feel like I’m making a difference. That’s important to me.
emergency
0
I’ve spoken about my relationship with my mom a few times on this blog. We’re not very close. We don’t see eye-to-eye. There is something between us that doesn’t work quite right.
I don’t know what it is. I’ve tried to fix it and I’ve gone to therapy over it but it’s one of those things that just doesn’t seem to be fixable.
I know that that I’m down the list of her favorite people. It’s been made clear to me for years. Now, I just stay away to avoid the hurt.
So, when I got a call on Friday from the emergency room, I wasn’t sure what to think or say. My mom was in the hospital – and had been since the day before. She had been having heart pains and had to be taken to the hospital.
It didn’t faze me that I hadn’t been called. I wasn’t surprised at all. But I was surprised that no one in the family had been called. Only my sister and her husband knew about it. Not my dad or my brothers (Dad and Shadow are on a motorcycle trip in Colorado – but totally within reach because they are at my grandparents’ house – and Todd is in Mexico, incommunicado) knew about it, either.
And that made me sad – for my mom.
When something like this strikes, it is so helpful to have people around who care about you. It makes it better. It makes you feel like you’re not alone, that you’re loved, and that you’ll make it through.
At least that’s how it is for me – and I’m hugely anti-social. I like to know that people care about me. I like to know that someone is there for me, just in case I need them – even if not for some tangible need but for moral or emotional support.
When I’ve dealt with the cancer, it was the most scary when I was alone. I’ve never felt more alone than when I was alone during those times.
When people were there, it made all the difference to me.
And I hope my mom realizes that soon. Having loved ones around can change everything.
—
A friend sent me this. I thought it was insightful (if not a little morose).
This Be The Verse
by Phillip Larkin
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
disappointment
0
I feel like crying.
I enter the county fair every year with some of my photography. I plan throughout the year, choosing which of my photos I like the best and which ones I will enter into the fair.
I get excited about it. It’s stupid, really. But I know I’ll do okay in the fair and that I’ll get a ribbon or two and it’s nice to get that pat on my back from someone who doesn’t love me. It’s nice to have my work recognized by strangers who have no idea who I am.
So, I was excited to take my photography to the fair tonight. I had matted and framed them. I had figured out which ones were just right for this year’s fair.
And when I got there, I found out that the date they had in their book was wrong.
They had taken the entries on Saturday and already given the ribbons for them.
My heart actually hurt. I felt like crying.
It’s just so stupid but it’s one of the few things I really, really look forward to. It’s fun to go through and say, “That one is mine. That’s mine.” Or to hear people go through and make comments on them. It’s fun. It’s gratifying.
And now I don’t get to do it.
And I feel like I’m being a 5-year-old whining about it.
My sister-in-law told me to bypass the county fair and enter my stuff in the state fair. The state fair doesn’t differentiate between amateurs and pros. We’re all thrown in together. And I know I can’t compete with pros. I’m not that good.
In my little part of the state, though, I am. And sometimes it feels really good to be that medium fish in a little pond.
Even if it’s over something totally inconsequential.