Fisticuffs Pacifist
"Privilege is something that results from a system, from systems of oppression and sexism and racism and all the other -isms...it is what results when the dominant class is never told it shouldn't be the dominant class, when it believes its rightful place is at the center of all things. So you never EARN your privilege, and if you realize that when feminists bitch about ‘men,’ they're reacting strongly and negatively to your male privilege, you'll be a lot better off."
Bullshit. Let’s take this and take it apart piece by piece.
Privilege is something that results from a system, from systems of oppression and sexism and racism and all the other -isms...it is what results when the dominant class is never told it shouldn't be the dominant class, when it believes its rightful place is at the center of all things.
Privilege is something that the oppressed gain from forcing a change in the system. When an individual performs his or her task (job) well, they are rewarded with greater privileges (promotion). On the flip side the system can only gain privileges from the individual, when the individual feels that the system is doing a good job. Companies that don’t treat their employees like slaves get more productive employees, and therefore more privilege. It is extraordinarily easy to gain and lose privileges in the system. The tough part is to rebuild the system itself from the ground up.
Another question arises to mind why shouldn’t the dominant class be the dominant class? They did something to get there didn’t they? Maybe it was war, maybe it was a successful lottery, or maybe it was being the dominant class for the longest time. The point is that being the dominant class doesn’t automatically give them all of the control/privileges of the system, because if the dominant class wants to be the dominant class tomorrow they have to at the least listen to the concerns of the minor classes, over who they dominate. It is up to the dominated classes to tell the ruling class what problems exist. And if the dominant class wants to rule tomorrow they can make changes, reward the suggestors. Unless the Dominant Class is not changing at all, set in stone so to speak, why the hell shouldn’t they be the dominant class?
So you never EARN your privilege, and if you realize that when feminists bitch about ‘men,’ they're reacting strongly and negatively to your male privilege, you'll be a lot better off.
Excuse me? Are you saying that the dominant class can’t earn even more privileges if the minor classes allow them too? Or do you mean EARN as in a happy –Disney rainbow way? What the hell are you asking for- a completely chivalrous self sacrificing man that will or course share all privileges with women equally? Go learn how to pee standing up, (a privilege, if I have ever known one) and figure out a way to get men pregnant, (this is a privilege right? Or is it still too much to ask?) Then suggest/demand it to the system. Change will happen, slowly perhaps, but it will happen. Feminist bitch and moan about male privilege do they? So let’s make sure I have this right. Feminist want privileges in a system where according to you no one can gain privileges; so they bitch. So effective. If they wanted radical change fast they should make their own system.
You call this News?
Wikipedia defines News as:
News is new information or current events. The reporting of news falls into the field of journalism. News can be reported by a variety of sources, such as newspapers, television and radio programs, wire services, and web sites. News reporting is a type of journalism, typically written or broadcast in news style. Most news is investigated and presented by journalists and can be distributed to various sites via news agencies. If the content of news is significant enough, it eventually becomes history.
The problem that I have with this definition, in my (humble/small) opinion, is that it doesn’t present a clear dividing line between the 'olds' and the 'news'. The 'olds' for example may include a story that when summarized equates to "Dog Bites Man", this story may be current but it offers no new information, I already know dog bites man. The 5 o'clock news, is supposed to be the local news ,and supposed to inform me about local events, new local/district laws that are being debated, and how the election campaigns are proceeding, with little or no 'olds'. Alas I expected too much, summarizing the 5 o'clock newscast from a few days ago, I found the following:
A completely useless weather report given by a overenthusiastic, overstuffed, bullfrog-like man, wearing a hideous tie; he predicted that the chance for rain next week is 50% and told me to stay tuned for the "news special" on how to survive a hurricane.* An extensive crime report that lasted nearly 1/2 hour, which took pains to describe each of the crimes, till I was well desensitized and thinking homicidal thoughts towards the cheerful anchor. (Curiously enough none of these crimes were anywhere geographically close to my house. **) Next came the barrage of Human Interest Stories, (Newspapers are decent enough to give these stories a separate section, called Baylife, Life, etc..), these stories are classic 'Olds' and often consist of the television station protecting the small guy against the Big Bad Corporation; Cute animals (puppies, baby pandas, etc...), and a general lack of anyone dying. After these hideous things, there was an extensive coverage of the American Idol finalists. *** And finally the newscast ended with another check of the weather (still no hurricanes); general joking around between the anchors, and a message to join them again for the 11 o'clock news, where they would be showing exclusive video of pedophiles getting caught in the act of trying to meet underage girls/boys.
I breathed a sigh of relief, clearly the journalism and the reporting of 'News' must occur at 11 o'clock. Woe on me to have believed that the news anchor wouldn’t lie. The "exclusive" video turned out to be from the story "To Catch A Predator" that was featured on "Dateline", which ran here at 9:30, I believe. I realized that both the 5 o'clock and the 11 o'clock were shams of most, if not all journalistic standards. Sad, I know, but I'd like to take a minute just sit right there I'll tell you how it gets even worse. The FCC is investigating 77 television stations around the country for playing VNR's (video news releases) and media tours as real unbiased stories. These VNR's and media tours are made and paid for by big-name manufacturers to support a certain product/ ideal. {
Source 1,
Source 2 (more credible, according to me) }. This to me is worse than 'Olds', since when have they been feeding us these newsvertisement? Weren't Infomercials enough?
So now that you have read through this semi-rant; comes the delicious discussion part.
Do you agree that 'Olds' shouldn't be included in newscasts? If not why not?
How would you define 'Olds'?
How much confidence do you place on your local news? How about your preferred national news?
How can we start identifying, and therefore reducing the amount of the VNR's in mainstream media? A searchable database? I mean they mark the things pretty obviously. {
Image.} Also looking at Source 2, notice that only 36 VNR's were tracked, the problem must be bigger than these 77 stations.
Have you ever had a similar experience with a newscast, like the one I summarized? +/-? share.
Have you ever seen any of the VNR's on your local stations? Now that you know what VNR's exist do you suspect you have swallowed some? I certainly do.
What should be the role of TV news today, how much should they focus on entertainment?
Does the weatherman you watch have a hideous tie? Does he seem happier in the more dangerous seasons? (Hurricanes for me, perhaps nor’easters for you?) Do you have a hideous tie? (I know I do.)
*Running away seems to cover most of the options.
**I'll admit that I live in a pretty secure neighborhood, but it still makes me wonder how effective citizen crime fighting must be, if they flash the artist's reconstruction of the criminal after describing their serious crimes, such as rape, murder, assault etc....
***I could be wrong on this but isn't American Idol a national event? Wtf is it doing taking up time on my local news? I am sure it creates personal interest, but if it did matter that much too the population shouldn’t the major news services carried it on national news? Networks like CNN, MSNBC, and ABC? I disregarded FOX because of the obvious. If they did cover it please feel free to correct me.
Test
So the evoca thing worked out well, much better than Odeo, much easier to use. With my voice suddenly resonating from the speakers this blog suddenly feels a lot more personal doesnt it?
Yes, I am still alive. Are you?
My feet are starting to itch due to the incessant ticking of grass. I watch the construction of some new building, as my attention wanders, for a moment from The Pad. The Pad, I should explain is the tiny notebook that fits and travels with me in my back pocket. I forget exactly when I started carrying around a notebook, but today it serves me like a diamond in the rough.
My attention returns to the tiny pages, several of which are waterlogged due to a vicious run-in with the washing machine. The application question is scrawled on a page, next to roughly sketched copy of a very pretty girl. Some time passes, my shadow gets a little longer, but I eventually start to write.
I shall begin with what I feel are two philosophies that I hold dearest to my heart, and closest to my soul so that the reader of this entry can get a better sense of what kind of a person I am. The first I believe I learned years ago, when I used to devour Saturday morning cartoons.
“I yam what I yam, and that’s all I yam” Popeye claims, before pounding on the tyrannical Bluto; I particularly like this philosophy, because it reminds me that it is important to stay the way I am. I am bookish, clumsy, dead silent on some days and too talkative on others. I like word puns, and am accused of cracking bad jokes. I am a mathlete, and I enjoy doing mathematics, accompanied by my trusty and brand-new TI89. I am artistic on canvas; although the art teacher thinks my subject matter to be a bit too satirical, (I once did a complete still life on a trashcan in the park.) I am a decent actor, a ‘drama-geek’, and currently employed as a library page, at the local library. It’s important for me to stay an individual and be true to myself, in school and elsewhere, because being something I am not seems not only idiotic, but also a lot of pointless work.
The second philosophy I believe in, I learned only three years ago. Friedrich Nietzsche said “The doer alone learneth.” I like to follow this quote as much as I possibly can, because I feel that this is the best way to learn something. Take for example, why I volunteered my summertime last year to teach mentally challenged adults some basic life skills. Although I don’t admit it very often, I used to be slightly scared of mentally challenged people; I couldn’t understand what they were trying to communicate, and like most of the kids at my school, I tended to keep my distance, and each day I feeling slightly worse. There came a day when I decided to follow Nietzsche’s advice, and do something about this irrationalness on my part. I am happy to say that I learned quite a lot from my days of volunteering, the adults I worked with were highly caring and loving, and refreshingly hate-free. They were just as easy to communicate with as my peers, once I got used to their speech. I did something, and so I learned something not only about the adults, but also about myself.
Altruism never existed.
Amazingly true, although it takes a good deal of courage to say it. I wish people would stop pretending altruism and unselfishness, they dont fool anyone.
It thought I would randomly update before going to work; the majority of what I want to say is that, I have gotten accepted to FSU, and UCF, and now like all things in life that are good, I get to choose. This ironically brings me to discuss, with myself, because I am sure this blog has no readers, my next point.
Lately I am getting fed up of the so called journalism that's going on at my school. The Pep'O' Plant, the school newspaper, is full of ultra christian conservative articles, that would be tolerable if they presented some fact instead of pure unadulturated right wing opinion. I dont know whats quite worse at this point: the lack of proofreading, to the lack of caring that the journalists have towards what they write, to the outright making up of quotes, and the blatant disregard of the use of simple things like concise sentences.My first response was disregard, as the Pep'O'Plant has been like this for more than 4 years, from what I put together. Hell, when I was a sophmore, more than a couple of my senior friends went through the paper, edited the mistakes, and resubmited it to the teacher that sponsors the P'O'P, but sadly this practice has fallen off like old and yellowing bandaids. The majority of the school considers the paper trash, and even some of its own writers feel a bit amiss about the quality of work that gets published. So today most of the population practices, as I did, a reluctant acceptance and tolerance towards it. (This reluctant acceptance and tolerance is also practiced on the condition of the school bathrooms, and the odious feelings that they create.)
But the wheels of change are being greased as I sit here typing this; James, Jafar, George, and I are seeking to establish a club where will be able to publish our own rival newspaper, although, I think that it will orignally have to start as a mere phamphelet, due to the lack of a printing press. Being brutally honest, it would have helped if some of my fellow comrades, were placed higher in the social ladder of high school, as this would hasten our successes, soften our fall's, and given us a wider reader base to start with, but what is, is. I know that all of them are extremely capable of writing good prose and even better sarcasm, and right now I am hoping this venture will start as a success. I am thinking of doing my first story on the county wide rule of turning off Vending machines, during lunch, and the effect it has on the average student's sugar fix ability... Or maybe a caricature of a teacher...
I really should have left for work by now. Sayonara from Islington.
Hmm, what to write? Every day at the end of the day I sit at my table and think, is there anything worthwhile writing in this? There isnt much excitement in my life these days, School, Work, Study, seems to be bane of my existance. Hmm... I was thinking the other day how we all are forced to interact with each other every day, if not for survival then for simple communication. I wonder what it would feel like to not have that burden?To spend an entire day, without speaking, or communicating with others, completely invisible to the world, this idea was rapidly becoming a dream of mine until I thought of people with mental and other physical disabilities,... and I laughed, aint the grass always greener on the other side? Strange how we end up wanting exactly the things we dont have.
At the suggestion of a friend I started drawing again, which of course means that I wll have to reopen the deviantart site, which I think places too much effort on categorizing art. I also landed the role of Flint in "Night of January 16th" by Ayn Rand. I dont feel too enthusiastic about this for several reasons, the foremost being that, even though I did not try in the auditions at all, (I even missed the first day) I landed a major role, and if Longo (a friend, and fellow thespian) is right that could have been due to the stupid seniority system. It almost makes me feel as if I cheated somehow, as I think back to all the shows, where I did auditon with all my talent (Twickman, Midsummers,Odd couple) and did not land a part, and they seem infinately better than this. A second very minor reason is that I have a tremendous dislike for the author, and her bad philosophy,Objectivism. I realize that this second reason has not much to do with the play, but it bothers me like the pea in the mattress. What has been done, has been done, to go forward from here, I should probably read the play again, and try to exert some Sealification into Flint, maybe an eye-patch. (Flint... pieces of eight...pirate?...nevermind then.)
Thats all I can think of now, I have a first period exam tommorrow, so go and sleep I must. Goodnight in, from, and around Tampa.
