Mom vs. Dad

The two short stories we read this week, "Shooting Dad" and "Arm Wrestling with My Father", dealt with father-daughter and father-son relationships. They spoke to the understanding that develops through time and how their relations differ and resemble. On the other hand, we can consider a child relation with his father and mother. The difference between styles of parenting is definitely there and possibly compounds over time.

As addressed by the two narratives we read this week, a father tends to take his own hobbies, interests, and expectations, and place them onto his children. Fathers are also generally more focused on having high expectations of their children and encouraging them to deliver on those consistently. With my own dad, I have found that he focuses more on results rather than the methods used to achieve them. Meaning, as long as I meet his expectations, he doesn't really have much opinion upon how I spend my time to do so. Fathers, while they do not verbalize as much as mothers do, tend to be more direct and with fewer words. They may seem to be "too tough" to the moms, but their toughness is rooted in helping kids be prepared for real life.

And on the other side, mothers tend to find themselves generally in a more nurturing role. There seems to be an emotional connection between mother and child that a father simply doesn't get. In addition, mothers tend to verbalize a lot more with the children. Mothers generally put their children's needs ahead of their own. She seems to come pre-wired to self-sacrifice; perhaps that starts with pregnancy where a Mom's full time physical care role is so dramatic. With my mom, I can definitely see more concern about the process than the result. Although she may act like a "Tiger Mother" (Chua) sometimes, she is overall more involved with my daily events and concerns than my father.

Now from my perspective, these differences are accentuated as the child grows older. With my little sister, my Mom and Dad act relatively similar in terms of babying and pushing. However with me, I can clearly feel the differences. Maybe its the difference between son and daughter, but the older I become, the more I feel the changes. But no matter the differences in styles of parenting, the affection and care are always present and ready.

F Scott Hess' "Soul", 2005

Faces

I have finished my gallery.
My Seven Laughter's of God.
This collector stands before me, in his expensive suit
and with his lustful wife.She is pale white, like a vampire.
He offers his hand to me.
His hand is warm, and exudes wealth and authority.
I will wear a smile.

I shake hands with this young artist.
My wife warms up to him.
He wears the same celebratory red as my wife,
but also the gold of wealth, and the stench of aspiration.
He stands erect, brash, and with a broad smile
that must be a result of my presence.
I am so cool.

I am moved by this painting.
Even among this clamoring crowd, there is an air of appreciation.
In my many years as a critic,
there have been none as captivating.
My excitement is tangible,
manifesting itself in the face of this lewd, crouching girl.
I can't show emotions though.

I stare at the tentative prices for these works.
My lover is pointing out a painting,
but I don't know whats going on.
She forces me here every week
because she likes to scrutinize art as a critic might.
And I stand beside her, mute and stoic.
I will pretend to understand.

Inferiority and Superiority

Fish Cheeks by Amy Tan argues that although it is important to somewhat assimilate in order to fit in with the majority, it is also important to retain cultural pride. In Fish Cheeks, Amy narrates how she tried to view herself and her family through the eyes of white society, and thus the Chinese background she came from seemed strange and grotesque. For several decades, people of many minorities were viewed as inferior to whites. Even today, this bias persists throughout our culture in several places, but it has also become severely warped in the past decade. No longer are Chinese, Indian, and Asian persons considered to be inferior, but they are in fact praised through a "new strain of racial, ethnic and culture reductivism" (Mehta) that has swept the American psyche.

Contrasting between how little was expected of Asians in the past, how they did the cheapest and dirtiest jobs, and the expectations held for Asians today is like comparing the Earth and Sky. The stereotypes today are plentiful, and although flattering on the surface, hide a different strain of racism and isolation.

• Most likely to be nerds (2010 Study by Qin Zhang)
• Academic overachievers
• Lacking in social and communicative skills

These are the most prominent among the various stereotypes offered in mass media, and each one is severely degrading to those sensitive to mainstream culture - which is about everyone. The expectations set by an ethnic background already rooted in hard work as the path to success is trying enough, but these cultural influences add upon another layer of stress in order to be accepted. Being applauded by the media for their intellectual 'superiority' is not at all flattering to many, and often leads to social isolation and detachment. These "model minorities" are just another form of racism.

What Did I Just Write?

I ask myself this question a lot sometimes, and a lot of the time it comes in different forms. The question ranges from writing, obviously, to what I say, do, read, and choose. When I read over the essays I wrote this past year, I kept thinking to myself "what did I just read?" and I'm sure I could have read over it a hundred times and still made no sense of it. Accordingly, I was curious as to how bad it was before this year: how terrible my essays and responses were during my Freshman and Sophomore years. I wasn't disappointed in the confusion the offered me.

Writing has never been one of my strengths. While I excelled in classes like math and science with slightly more definite answers, the concept of no true right or wrong in English always eluded me. So when it came down to writing papers, I ended up sticking to generic structures and bland development. Thus, a formulaic approach would come over when writing in class and sometimes at home. This was further perpetuated by the teachings of APUSH last year, where every essay was basically the spewing of facts onto paper. I have tried to move away from this a little bit this year, and hopefully I will be further along the road when the AP test comes along. Starting late last year, but really beginning early this year, I started brainstorming before I started writing an essay. I always thought this step was merely a time consumer, but have come to understand that writing down passing ideas, no matter how seemingly irrelevant helps a long way when actually writing. So hopefully by the time AP's come along, I don't walk out of the room thinking "What did I just write?"

Fitzgerald and The Great Gatsby

F. Fitzgerald in the great American novel, The Great Gatsby, suggests that the 1920s, and more so any period of materialism, was a period of shallow wealth on top of a valley of emptiness. Fitzgerald supports his claim by illustrating the dissatisfaction of the rich, the depravity of the poor, and the moral lacking of the periods populace. The author's purpose is to show how the overarching cynicism and greed destroyed the 1920s in order to evaluate the validity of the American Dream in their materialistic society. The author writes in a detached, cynical tone for the young generations who are yet to be deluded by wealth.

F. Scott Fitzgerald is among the most prominent writers from the Lost Generation. He and many of his peers were disillusioned by the materialism of America after WWI. Thus several of his works, such as The Great Gatsby and "Winter Dreams", satirize and denounce the dream of acquiring wealth for the sake of wealth. This is done through the use of characters like Gatsby and Dexter who achieve wealth but never obtain happiness - emphasizing the point that the two ideas are not as inextricably linked as common notion held at the time.

Black Friday

In November 1621, Governor William Bradford organized a celebratory feast after the Pilgrims' first corn harvest proved successful. This is now remembered as American’s “first Thanksgiving”. For more than two centuries the events were celebrated by independent colonies across various dates. It wasn't until 1863, in the midst of Civil War, that president Lincoln declared Thanksgiving to be a national day to be held every November. Because of the close proximity with Christmas and the shopping season, the day after Thanksgiving became the heaven to both retailers and shoppers alike. But has the influence of this day gone too far?

In the 1950s and '60s the term and idea behind Black Friday (the name itself came from the idea that this is the first time that retailers make annual profit or are 'in the black') became more popular - it became the linchpin and kickoff to holiday shopping. For many years retailers opened stores at 6:00 a.m. on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. This tradition was held but times crept earlier and earlier to 5:00 and even 4:00. For the first time ever, several large retailers opened at midnight Friday in 2011, and in 2012, Walmart and several others announced they were opening at 8:00 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day. At this point hasn't Black Friday gone too far? Hasn't the desire of shoppers to get a couple hours head start on shopping and of retailers to make their money a little bit earlier crept too far? Are we starting to lose the holiday? If this wasn't enough, this year, Kmart stores opened at 6:00 a.m., Old Navy stores opened 3 hours later at 9:00, and a large majority of retailers opened for business at 8:00 p.m - all on Thanksgiving Day. Not only this, retailers announced pre-Black Friday sales this year, and these promotional sales have served to inflate the hype. So has Thanksgiving just become a Black Friday warm-up?

These events have obviously not gone unnoticed, and there is opposition and support of both sides. In 2011, more than 200,000 people signed a petition on Change.org called “Tell Target to Save Thanksgiving". A Facebook Page called “Say No To Shopping on Thanksgiving” has more than 58,000 'likes'. For many, Black Friday is a fun, if not at least adrenaline-inducing, event - but opening on Thanksgiving is just ridiculous. Thanksgiving was meant to be a day for thanks and gratefulness, but it has turned into the day where we eat turkey so we're full and ready to shop later in the night. Thanksgiving was supposed to be a day of giving gratitude and has turned into a warm-up for the shopping season.

Is ignorance bliss?

Ignorance - the lack of knowledge or information
Bliss - perfect happiness; great joy

So why are these two things connected at all? Perhaps the more accurate, but still heavily flawed, statement is 'ignorance is innocence'. If one knows of nothing, how can one possibly be corrupt? This statement is refuted by the satirical poem "The History Teacher" by Billy Collins. The statement also implies two things:
that retaining knowledge from someone, making them ignorant, somehow to protects 'innocence', and that knowledge leads to corruption.

For the former statement: “Ignorance is not innocence, but sin." - Robert Browning. Although the reality isn't as harsh as this, ignorance is by and far not true innocence. Here we look at the connotations of the two words. One is obviously positive and the other is likewise negative. Now consider the type of people society generally applies these words to. 'Innocence' is the word which we use for children - those who are to young to know anything - and 'ignorance' is the term which we use for adults - who refuse to know anything. Children must be educated so that they do not become ignorant, trapped in their own well and unable to see the ocean beyond them.

For the latter statement, a logical fallacy was probably put into place to achieve this. It may have gone something like this: knowledge is power, and power corrupts, so knowledge corrupts. This is, of course, a logical error. The true quote is "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely". Since knowledge is never absolute, it can never become 'absolute power'. Also, with knowledge comes humility, so learning should never lead to corruption.