Hic Sepultus -"Here is buried..." - Truth, Meaning, and a Very Dead Sense of Humor

On Monday Feb. 28, 2005, at 12:15 pm, we will get shot.

In the gym, unless otherwise notified.

Our pictures, that is.

So be prepared. Thank you for your cooperation in this serious affair,
~SH Amnesty Intl

Posted by ceterumcenseo at 6:47 PM | Permalink | Comments

A best-selling Canadian author, Margaret Atwood has written such books as the science fiction novel The Handmaid’s Tale (of a futuristic dystopia), the Booker Prize-winning The Blind Assassin (told by an old woman reminiscing of her life and family), and The Edible Woman (explores “female dissatisfaction,” preceding the “second-wave” of feminism.” She is also the author of a continuous flow of poetry, usually in epigrams, and a varied assortment of nonfiction, ranging from cultural commentaries to book reviews to essays.

All that being said, I can move on to other things. I was most pleasantly flabbergasted when I began to read The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. Iris Chase, an old woman telling the story in a wry and humorously deprecating tone that spares no one, including herself, remembers her past life. Inserted in the story are news articles and what seems an odd “other” story, with no names given and seemingly, little connection. As The Blind Assassin progresses, however, the reader very cleverly can piece what is going on. Or can he?

Her jaw-cracking outlook on life and her very human weaknesses are incredibly compelling. The story begins with Iris reflecting on the suicide of her younger sister Laura, who had driven off a bridge many years ago. The Blind Assassin has absolutely no respect for time, something the reader ceases to care about as he becomes immersed in the story. Despite the light-hearted banter, there exists a very real guilt and pain in the words. Iris unravels the story thread by thread, and only when it is all undone can the reader appreciate the fine tapestry it once was.

Laura is a little airy in the head, a girl who substitutes fantasies for reality and takes everything too literally. She was badly struck by the death of a saint-like mother and the aloofness of a distant father. A series of tutors did nothing for either Iris’ or her education, except to teach her how to lie, a skill she employs to dramatic, if unfortunate, effect.

You want the truth, of course. You want me to put two and two together. But two and two doesn't necessarily get you the truth... The living bird is not its labelled bones.

I think The Blind Assassin sometimes suffers from awkward wording, but almost never from a trite idea. Iris’ views are fresh and invigorating, frequently insightful and profound. Her irreverent expressions, comparisons, and metaphors cast an original light on what could easily be a mundane romance and retelling of that rosy account.

The Blind Assassin is a story within the story, told by a the male lover of the “other” story, of a grotesquely exaggerated world with all the truth of history, to his socially high-ranked, somewhat vapid paramour. The story is never finished.

I’m now saying that I’ve said nothing. The experience of reading The Blind Assassin, lyrical in its execution, grand in style if not in substance, is much more dynamic and exciting than anything I could write of it.

Posted by ceterumcenseo at 9:19 PM | Permalink | Comments

AP - An Oregon man accused of using the Internet to try to organize a mass suicide for Valentine's Day was indicted Monday while deputies kept watch over his house to make sure no one arrived to kill themselves.

Los Angeles Times - STERLING, Alaska — She does it without even thinking, as soon as she steps out of the truck: a sweep of her eyes across the sky for a sign of bald eagles. They're as common here as ravens, as hawks, but they're bigger and easier to see from a distance. Maybe a single circling eagle will spiral down to the spot where lies her son — or his body, whatever is left of it.

Argh...it's unbearable.

Posted by ceterumcenseo at 2:55 PM | Permalink | Comments

Child Abuse Education

We’re all familiar with the oft-used cliché, “What I don’t know won’t hurt me.” In this case, it will. Children, parents, must be made aware of what can hurt them, options they have, and subsequent procedures (but probably not in those words)..

Every year, there are one million documented cases of child abuse in the United States. By the time a case is documented, the harm is done. Our child abuse education bill seeks to prevent child abuse [HAC1] before it happens by educating children from kindergarten to fourth grade on the realities of child abuse[HAC2] .

The media usually presents child abuse in sensation-oriented, episodic stories. While these do heighten awareness, they usually do not have promoting informed opinions of the subject. The overall picture and pervasive patterns of abuse can be easily perceived from a distance, but up close and especially in their own lives, both children and adults have difficulty pinpointing exactly what child abuse is.

There are four different types of child abuse: neglect (not to be confused with under-involvement), physical, mental (psychological) and sexual abuse. Frequently these forms of abuse create cycles, each generation imprinting on the next a mindset of either a perpetrator or a victim.

Published in 1948[HAC3] , The Kinsey Report by Alfred Charles Kinsey and his research team revealed and clarified the truths of sexual behavior in men and women. What people had furtively thought to be unique to their own sexual habits, was discovered to be widespread patterns in private society.

There must be an educational program that covers such identifiable explanations concerning child abuse. Although cohesive works have been created covering this issue, it is such a relevant topic that it should be taught as readily as math and English, and should be as well-known and integrated into the youthful mind.

For example, foreign languages in many places [HAC4] are taught only at the high school level, somehow managing to skip like a deadline past our best years of learning something so basic (in the sense of “essential” in that in helps define perceptions) as language. The problem with the educational structure is that in high school we build on the framework developed in elementary school. Likewise, unfortunately it may be too late to add to the foundations, and child abuse should be fundamental knowledge. Most people never learn the essentials of child abuse at all. They could take a multiple choice test on it, but to understanding, preventing, and dealing realistically with it is much more difficult.

There is a gray misty area in the realm of family autonomy in relation to state intervention. Is it ethical for the state needle of child protection agencies to pop the Family Bubble? Ideally, the government should preserve the family and protect the child, but in many cases the family must be disrupted if the child is to be secure (i.e. removed from the home for safety). [HAC5]

Protecting the child from an unhealthy environment is most important. However, education would help in fixing problems as they arise before they become so serious as to permanently separate the parents and child.

Frivolous charges of child abuse can wreck havoc in perfectly harmonious families by reporting an all-to-common argument between parent and child as ca. My friend's mom, who takes nurse practitioner classes, was studying about child abuse and was visited by a police to talk about his experiences concerning child abuse. He told a story of taking his son out to see a show. His son’s eyes wandered everywhere, and his feet wanted to follow. There was such a big crowd that to get lost would lead to serious complications.

So, the police, finding it difficult to keep up with a child, having a much bigger body and unable to fit through the places that his son can slip through, finally snapped at his son, “Stand still for a moment!” A woman standing next to him turned to him and exclaimed, “That’s child abuse!” The policeman, unable to catch her train of thought asked, “Excuse me?” The woman glared at him, “Yelling at your child like that is unacceptable!” The police responded, “I know what child abuse is. Placing restrictions on your child so that he doesn’t get lost is not child abuse.” The woman argued, “No, you were yelling at your child! If you use that tone with him again, I’ll report you to the police!” The officer, exasperated and angry, responded, “I am the police!”

A possible cause of abuse is not so much malevolence as misunderstanding, something we are all guilty at some time. There is a great gulf between the mind of an adult and child. For example, the Other Minds theory suggests that people attribute their own thoughts and beliefs to others. While this usually works well with other adults, it’s normally not as effective when applied to children.

In Alison Lurie’s Foreign Affairs, a character called Fred jokes about how, when he was very young, his father imagined that his first words would be some divine message from heaven. When Fred spoke, he said, “Freddy want cookie.”

We can imagine children as angelic or demonic, or attribute almost anything we want to them because they are not adults and we often view them as vacant houses into which other personalities (generally our own) move in. They are generally neither angels nor demons, and they do not have adult minds waiting to be “filled.” That's not to say they're completely stupid, and often they may surprise us with how much they know. But they lack experience, however smart they are.They have the mind of children developing into adults.

Children do not possess adult capacities for judgment, moral or otherwise, and if we treat them at an unrealistic level, it will lead to confusion for us and them. But normal parents, frenzied with the responsibilities of child care, bills, and jobs, will not have the time to sit down and intelligently discuss, on the child’s terms, what the problem is.

Many parents who have “endured” child education programs feel that they are in essence being told to let their children do whatever they want, and that they as parents are being pushed into the role of merely provider. Society often focuses on the Parent Deficit, and education programs are accordingly slanted to this one-sided agenda to place perhaps excessive responsibility on the parents without giving any to the child. It may be beneficial to both involved parties if, in turn, children are taught how to behave towards their parents.

The fate of the child when abuse is reported is also a subject many adults and children know little about. Oftentimes, children do not report a case because they are worried that if they are taken from their parents, they will have nowhere else to go. They must be taught that that simply is not true because the focus is on placing them in a safe location, and the alternatives of, for example, foster care, are there to protect the child. Some children are also too ashamed of the abuse to report it, feeling that it is their own fault. This program will help children understand that they are not the ones who should be ashamed.

In addition, children who are abused tend to have very low self-esteem. The program will also help boost children’s self-perception and show them that they are worth something.
According to the Nicolas Research (A Qualitative Study on Child Abuse Awareness and Concept Development,”, 2001, for PCA America), “children rank in the forefront of concern when it comes to social issues.” Children are an interest that hopefully will never leave us, for, to insert a hackneyed truth here, “They are the future.” Without them, we leave the world no legacy, (here’s the cliché) only the ashes of a great fire.

A cliché is an expression tired by overuse. We know it as well as our names. But we cannot simply accept something because we think we know it in every letter and shape. Even by pinning child abuse with definitions and labeling, its Protean wiggling by aid of such things as culture and income defies complacency. We must understand how best to deal with this problem, and we should start with the children. The innards of child abuse should be as deeply ingrained as a cliché, without ever losing its freshness and relevancy.

By the time people take measures to solve a problem, it has become a problem. Too often, the interweaving strings of layers and layers of “uneducated” abuse becomes such a monstrous Gordian knot that only a sword blow will untangle it all. That will not be the stroke of conqueror, but of someone or something that has no other alternatives. A child abuse education program will open new avenues to children and perhaps later in parallel, to parents.

Child protection agency programs will visit homes to give those children an equal opportunity to know of abuse.

People do care about their children, and they do have money. In the tsunami disaster money flew from wallets like freed birds to help the victims. That is wonderful, but we cannot wait for a crisis to propel us to act. Organizations like the American Red Cross played as the intermediaries between the calamity and us, but for child abuse education there can be no second-hand relaying of information. Children have to be the first to know, and know well, what to do in abusive situations.

“In 1973 Congress passed CAPTA, a legislation that provides states with funds to strength child protection programs.” A state can submit a five-year plan and apply for government grants. Child abuse education programs would be one of the fulfillments of CAPTA’s purpose.

This bill would unlock the gateway to child abuse education, but how people come in is their business; whether it’s walking, crawling, or hopping, they can enter. Culture and income barriers are formidable, but with multifaceted education, human interest, and money, not impassable. What is most important is that children are informed that there are doors open to them.

Health care regarding the treatment of illnesses such as breast cancer slowly makes its way into the modest first generation Korean and Vietnamese communities. There the culture is an obstacle, but it is being passed for reasons of wellness of being. If income is such an issue that poverty threatens the welfare of the child, having a child educated on options will definitely assist in finding help.

A lot of random hits didn’t produce the statue of David by Michaelangelo. Yes, he chipped at it, but the point is that great works are produced with care, attention, a little bit of genius. If the last part can’t be supplied by most of us, we’ll have to substitute it with understanding, and children, as potential victims, can help people before they become actual abusers.

Children and people knowing a standard, like the recommended FDA pyramid for the food groups, can cross the No Man’s Land between discipline and abuse.

As a rule of thumb, it’s hard to grow most trees by loping off every branch they grow. Every human, as an adult and child, not a miniature adult, has a right at all times to be treated as respect as people, and now they should know it.

Ø How media presents child abuse, how that shapes our perceptions (Kinsey sex report) – Andrea Yates, Catholic Church Scandals, Saving Richard

Ø Family autonomy vs. state intervention (Family Bubble) – open gateway, how they come in is their business (hopping, walking, crawling), health care

Ø Type of child abuse, cyclic patterns (victims or perpetrators)
Ø Has to be taught from an early age (like language) – what we learn in high school is built on framework frm elementary school
Ø Education program seems one-sided, parents are told how to act towards their child, but children are not educated on how to behave to their parents (Prevent Child Abuse America's Advocacy ProgramChildhelp USA® National Child Abuse Hotline) Parent Deficit
· Factors (Children need 2 parents in their lives. Women joined the workforce in large numbers à both parents working. Older people see new generation as degenerate and in need of discipline)

Weaknesses in the argument – I focus on too much on “family abuse” as if that’s the only kind. I keep repeating the same point. The speech is bland and boring. I raise up opposing points and forget to refute them. I should be clear and direct with what I’m saying, and not obfuscate the point with unnecessary allusions. I must try not to sound like a pedantic buffoon. Do I need more proof? I think I bypassed some heavy weights in the argument of the importance of abuse, kind of like the guy who wrote Plain Truth in response to Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. And look where that got him. I need to organize better. I need some scientific facts. This is all layman’s knowledge, and might not be true for all cases.


[HAC1]Repeat words

[HAC2]Repeat word

[HAC3]Need transition here

[HAC4]specifics

[HAC5]Defend the bill. The main opponent will have all the rest of the fun pounding it down. You can say that protecting the child from an unhealthy environment is what is most important.

Posted by ceterumcenseo at 5:20 AM | Permalink | Comments

Hi everyone, You know the story of Stone Soup? Yes...that's not happening, I promise. I am doing things. Weird, creepy things, but useful things.

Anyway...

I would really appreciate it if the people whose work I don't have would turn them in. Not sure? If there's a blank space next to your name, it's a safe guess. If you see your name there and aren't planning to turn anything in this issue, please give me a quick reply to that effect.

I am taking out my columns/journals because they looked too lonely, and no one wants to hear what I have to say, anyway. ^_- That section is probably going kaput.

Attached is a more recent file than the one on the Writeway blog.

If you have been contacted to help with a page and are considering, please get back to me by Friday. Otherwise you'll have to talk with Zamin during the weekend, and he's probably not sitting at his computer 24/7 like I do.

Thanks,
~Winnie P.S.

By Friday, I might have to make a list of everything and everyone we need. Don't mean to put you guys on the spot (cough), but we really do need the content of the pages.

Posted by ceterumcenseo at 9:15 PM | Permalink | Comments

News Tidbit

AP - Shaken by scandals involving the black-market sale of body parts, University of California officials are considering inserting supermarket-style barcodes or radio frequency devices in cadavers to keep track of them.

Posted by ceterumcenseo at 1:26 PM | Permalink | Comments

Hi everyone,

There will be no meeting on Friday. First, there's Club Wars. Second, we have most of your work, over 90%, and we're assuming that what we have is the way you want it to look like when it's published.

If you do have some concerns about the presentation of your essay/story/poem, please get in touch, either by e-mail or in person.

An artist will be drawing some sketches for your work. If you want some input into that (I think yes) then please inform us.

If you want your work to be in the literary magazine, submit it by Friday, unless there is some frantic emergency equivalent to the sky catching on fire, you accidentally saw Michael Jackson naked, things like that.

We're going to be assembling all the work into pages and laying them out to look pretty this weekend. If you would like to help, please contact us. Can you use Adobe Pagemaker? You're my new best friend.

So...publication...soon...yes...and the more help we get, the faster it comes out.

How can you submit? You can give us the hard copies, or preferably, send it in electronic form so we don't have to type things up. It's so much more convenient when we have everything in one place.

The problem with hard copies - they float around. I have some work, another Writeway member has some work, and so on. Please, if it's convenient for you, make it easy for us. If your work is on the blog, any of us can access it at any time.

Then again, it DOESN'T have to be on blog. Electronic form is enough, and we're grateful.

Did I mention that feedback is good? Yes. It's comparable to White Bread, without the icky side effects of refined food.

Thank you,Writeway

Posted by ceterumcenseo at 6:24 PM | Permalink | Comments