Culture note one

I went to lunch the other day with some people, and the conversation centered for a few moments on how could I possibly live in Italy and be so ignorant of, or not doggedly interested in, what is going on around me, including Italy's rich language, culture, etc. (I have to point out I am doggedly interested in the national religion, Food, and its faithful practice, Eating.) 

By extension, how could I write things and post to this blog and not know what is really going on in Benano? After all and reportedly, the center of the world.

I have wrestled with these questions before, living superficially as I do, once I am sure in a poem a few years ago. Anyway, here goes, again. Call it in the interest of knowing about and accepting more and different perspectives on the varieties of living-experience.

First and fundamental. Interests--what characterizes and drives people--center around questions, or quests.

For one of my acquaintances, an emigre from somewhere else in Europe and now an Italian citizen, characterizing the quest goes something like this. "How can I understand and appreciate deeply the language and culture in which I live with an emphasis on history and art?"

His answer is to focus on just those things--Italian language, Italian culture (and Culture), Italian history, and Italian art. Necessarily these interests take my acquaintance into artifacts, whether physical or recorded, as well as social interaction and self expression. One purpose of pursuing what this person does has to do with immersing himself into where he lives, especially appreciating its richness--in its details. His self expression is art, natch'ly, as well as showing and selling his works (iron sculptures). His world is in large measure place-people specific, Italy and the Orvieto area, and the integration of same into his work.

For whatever reasons, and they are I assume complex, beyond a sense of belonging, this person tenaciously holds onto the country he has adopted and which fortunately seems to have adopted, or largely accepted, him.

It is also clear, his world is more than the most obvious interests I can see and hear, those I have highlighted here. How could I possibly know more, or the Truth? We always hold partial realities.

For my part my question/quest goes something like this.

Can I increase my general and specific knowledge in the areas of science and epistemology, phenomenology's relation to absolutely accurate understandings of selected things, including the person-as-subject, and writing's role in all of these?

These interests/quests take me into an inner world and personal or private study, often observations, of the realities of self and others as expressed in words meant to be heard or read. Thus the central aspect of my studies is expression; however, my expression, my words, are for "no audience." They are not other-directed. I invite no one to view my personal evolutions unless for some reason they show an interest, or I carry on temporary and relatively singular relationships for specific purposes--like this one here, just now!

Life is more than such serious stuff . . . but having said that, the reason for pursuing what I do is greater and greater understanding of the depths of human and spiritual potential. My world is not place specific, unless place provides the impetus for subjects to be looked at oh-so-carefully. This explains why I can reside, as I have, in my own and other cultures without getting too close to or too deep into them.

Living in different places affords me a buffet of delicacies I can taste and experience, to delight in and entertain myself with when not doggedly pursuing my callings, and the obligatory visit to the great mosque of Food (home) for the daily ritual and high celebration (lunch).

With the exception of the above characterization, the one before my own, I am not confident, or presumptuous enough, to attempt definitive articulations about stuff and other people, although it is tempting at times. For fear of getting it miserably wrong, I refrain, or restrain, and internalize. After some fermentation, I can employ the insights I gain, and I hope greater understandings, in getting along in the world and its different localities. The world and each of its corners are other--foreign, alien, to be coped with. The premise is that this is so whether one is born-bred in a given place or not. Landing here and the fact of being equalizes us.

The conclusion to all this is, whether found in a poem or prose or just a randomly uttered thought or a casual something one notices and comments on: People are different and they get about different stuff.

And that different stuff on the one hand makes for a rich stew--life is beautifully messy. On the other hand stuff divides us one from the other fundamentally, sometimes tragically.

Will I ever be Italian, or more Italian or German or French or whatever than I am right now? The question is improperly framed, and irrelevant.

So cultural note one ends with what each of us does to make life just uniquely so, or to thrive pursuing his or her own.

At your convenience*

A trip back to the mother country awakens one's ears to changes in the mother tongue. I recently visited the US. Not surprisingly, I found my native language changing. The following sound bite surprised me. But I hope it is an aberration, not a development.

"Hello, this is So-and-So. I am not available to take your call right now, but if you leave a message, I will get back to you at my earliest convenience."

Several people I telephoned in the US had this recorded on their answering machines inviting callers to leave a message. For those interested in native speech, this sounds like a good sample of American English to consider, or not.

The phrase "at [one's] earliest convenience" has been used to leave an urgent message, or make an important request. The caller or writer says, "Please get back to me at your earliest convenience." Translation: "I need you to do something ASAP [as soon as possible]. In fact, and quite probably, I will be very worried or upset if you don't!"

Here is the translation of the variant of that phrase given by the answering machine.

"I will get back to you when I choose to. But it will be on my terms, if I have time today, perhaps after working out, having lunch with friends, checking my e-mail, and watching the latest installment of "Desperate Housewives" on TV. If tomorrow or later, well, I will just have to see if I can fit calling you into my busy schedule."

Yes, I may be overstating a bit. I acknowledge one might let this kind of thing pass coming from an answering machine. But aren't the incoming and outgoing voices on answering machines those of people? Face-to-face, the "at my convenience" would be rare unless the speaker really wanted social boundaries and difference in status in bold, italics, and underlined. "What is important and urgent for you is not necessarily so for me. In fact, it's not."

I was surprised at hearing these outgoing messages because "at your earliest convenience" has had a limited situation or context. It was for when you really needed an answer from someone, or to have something done. Not often was it used for saying, "I am more important than you, or whatever it is you want."

Has my native language evolved with this strain, or is this a culture bite I am hearing? For people to assert how communications will be without first knowing who is calling and for what, well, that is using language for a preemptive strike. Must be a culture thing.

The American preoccupation with rights and what is right has its darker side. Argue with this if you will, but an answering machine's generic outgoing message reveals its owner in his or her new clothes. Among other, not-so-obvious messages is that "at my earliest convenience" assumes callers need to be clear about the rules for live talk. The party calling back will be in charge, including when.

It is as if the one leaving a call-me-back message isn't already clear on these points. The advance warning, or is it admonition, isn't necessary.

Having said this, I prefer not to hear the obvious, and not subject myself to a role I don't help define in relationship. "At my convenience" from an answering machine is rude. I suspect other users sensitive to the feeling-tones in the language would agree. This phrase should be reserved for those demanding few who deserve reminding their language or behavior needs restraint. "At your earliest convenience" can retain its original, useful urgency, as in "Please get back to me on this quickly."

I hope preemptive strikes are not casually creeping into the language. At your earliest convenience, argue with this message if you will. I will get back to you on that.
_____
* Posted originally by Kevin Mactavish, 13 April 2006, on http://jbrooksdann.typepad.com/anecdotal/2006/01/how_convenient.html. Thanks to J. Brooks Dann for starting the conversation.

Without unexpected challenges

[The distinction between narration and description blurs. In the succession of events recounted we see what the other says, almost as if we were also perpetrators.]

The trip from Mexico to Brussels went without unexpected challenges. The biggest was getting out of Mexico, what with both Pavla and I being "illegal tourists" and Maco requiring a piece of paper at the airport, which was difficult for the authorities to produce because of computer problems and bureaucracy and security. It took a full three hours to sort out all of the above, and my fine for overstaying my welcome was 230 pesos.

As to the trip. We took a ferry to Playa del Carmen, a taxi to Cancun. We checked into our hotel with dog. They got my e-mail and were expecting all three of us. I was surprised. Then with dog, off to the shopping center to have him fitted with a travel crate. The sales clerk quoted a price 500 pesos more than what Pavla was originally quoted. We had him call the owner and verify. We got our price. Then he sold us a water-feeder-container thing probably meant for hamsters to strap to the crate. It was overpriced and when we tried it back at the hotel, it didn't work. Who won in the end?

With crate en route back to the hotel, the first taxi driver we encountered tried the same trick--gouge the gringos. We got out of the taxi once he quoted a price of 150 pesos for a ride that not a half hour earlier cost us 20.

The entry into the European Union was slick. Maco even wanted to get back into his crate after he got out. I guess he had some nice adventures down in cargo from Cancun. He had no accidents nor was he psychologically damaged by the experience, I guess. But it would have been different had I been the only one to handle him and all the papers, my ticket, visa, etc. Except for the psychological damage. That would have been mine. I really needed Pavla's help, and she mine.

We stayed in Brussels just down the street from NATO headquarters in the cheapest hotel we could find. It was easy. The info desk at the airport helped with complete and accurate details including how to leave stuff (e.g., dog travel crate) at the airport for our flight to the CZ the following day.

Whew, what a noticeable difference from Mexico. Not just the efficiency, but this neighborhood in Brussels was clean as a whistle, everything in working order, apparently--no stray dogs, trash, loose electrical wires . . . there were even sidewalks meant for pedestrians and runners and bicyclists. Plus rabbit or deer poop lying about as occasional snacks for the dog. Not the regular Mexican fare, street food menu included. But there is a price. It is cold and wet and gray here. And there is no music or colors. The Belgians are pretty conservative compared with the local scenes in Cozumel. Everyone dressed in grays and black. Can you imagine!?

All in all, a good and easy trip, once on the plane and out of Mexico. Oh, the air conditioning in the plane in Mexico did not work. Most passengers thought that hell's end was near, until we were airborne. Then everything worked, very smooth flight, and we landed in Brussels on time. The cost all the way to the CZ without the overnight was about $500 each including Maco. Everyone loved the dog, except, of course, the Mexican authorities and airport check-in people.

No one checked Maco's ID chip. And his other papers? I don't know if anyone ever looked at them. It cost us less than 100 Euro to get him here.

While in Brussels, we ate in two restaurants. Both welcomed Maco, and he was well behaved. He is a magnet for attention in some places, each kind of attention being different. For example, several people in Brussels patted him once on the head as they walked by without stopping, and neither said anything to nor acknowledged his owner(s) as they did so.

Maco landed in Prague and got hold of the bag with the few bits of dog food in it that we had used to keep his attention, get him into his crate, etc. He was so happy to be carrying something and off the plane that he shook it playfully and it spilled all over the all-too-slick Prague airport floor. Czechs looked on without expression, as usual, as the dog scrambled and slid all over the place to gobble up the bits and greet us with abandon at the same time.

My conclusion for Maco is that he is a go-anywhere dog. We were on trains and busses, in taxis and private cars, on planes, escalators, elevators . . . all of it and no fuss. If we were just standing waiting for some reason, he lay down and just waited. The passers-by petted him and he only humped one baggage handler, female, who said she loved dogs until the humping con noticeable erection. She said, "Oh, he's a male." I think I said something like "Yes, very much so." She quickly became serious and ignored him.

As for me, my first morning in the CZ was in snow up beyond your-you-know-what, and as a courtesy and grateful houseguest, I shoveled for an hour in sandals, three shirts and a borrowed windbreaker. Welcome back to winter, one here which has not seen the sun, I am told, since Christmas. Maco is delighted with the snow. Pavla is definitely not amused.

That is the report for now. Now what? as we scratch our heads and Maco licks himself--guess where--why the hell did we leave paradise?

12.03.09

Middle Child, Middle Way

I am the second of three, stationed between an older brother who channels my father, repeating advice suitable for his baby brother, and a younger sister who behaves like a grammar school nun, threatening to strike my knuckles with a ruler because I broke one, rule that is. Being in the middle is not really the problem. It is that my brother and sister do not get along. But I have solved this problem. Here is how I did it.

The first step was I got ill. On my almost deathbed in a moment of surrender I declared, "I can't help you two get along. I have to think of myself from now on."

The next step in solving the problem involved a bit of psychology, my own first of all. Incapacitation forced me to see the getting-along problem as mine, too much caretaking. A little more psychology brought me even closer to the solution where "they" were concerned. Alfred Adler's theory of birth order reveals that my brother is disposed to certain personality traits. Wehr (2008) provides this sketch.

"The first-born child is given a great deal of attention and is expected to be the "ego ideal" for his or her parents. High expectations for achievement are placed on the namesake child. As first born, the child is given a lot of responsibility and being the oldest, wields power among siblings by using aggression and the power of authority."

Adler's traits of the first born describe my namesake brother, who quotes and cites our father, for example when he was teaching us to drive: "Remember to use your rearview mirror." Nowadays, my brother laughs when I remind him about his mirror as he gets in the car.

Nyman (1995) conducted a study where participants described self and others according to birth order, but the study did not highlight my rule-keeping sister. The third born is not seen as an "enforcer". Although birth order theory and its application in the Nyman study may not help explain my sister's behavior, my own observations are valid enough. Consider as I did, for example, the judge in my sister who to this day travels extensively for a major competitive sport to enforce what is allowed and not.

Adlerian psychology might identify me as a peacemaker (Isaacson), and that is what I tried to be before I stopped caretaking. Fate forced me into seeing the problem I now accepted I had with my brother and sister's relationship. In addition, greater understanding, perhaps through psychology, can help us come to terms with the seemingly unsolvable. In my case, the problem out there of the relationship of my brother and sister was really one in here.

Is that it then? Is this the process I used to surmount the occasional blips in my particular family relations? To find equilibrium, the middle way? No.

My paternalistic rule-maker brother and matter-of-fact rule-keeper sister will likely be unable to behave towards each other with untainted care because each would have others behave just so. My siblings are kin in fact and conduct. Where one makes rules for others to obey, the other makes sure that rules are kept. So rule one is: You need to make sure they keep the rules. Retort: You are not keeping the rules yourself! I give you my brother and sister.

Thus, the final step in the process of solving my problem was to use my own resources, to think for myself. This together with a clear identification of the problem, acceptance of it, and knowledge, both from conventional wisdom and more carefully argued cases, make for better solutions to personal challenges I have faced. Oh, yes, I have not forgotten the two other considerations.

One, we can all acknowledge that solutions, changes really, sometimes come in whole or in part from fate or coercion, or both of these. This is well understood if lifestyle corrections must be made because of an unanticipated, unavoidable illness.

The second consideration is more serious. Please help me find a way to make my sister laugh when she gets in the car and I am the driver.

References

Isaacson, Cliff. "The Personalities: Second Born." Birth Order Plus. 20 Nov. 2008

Nyman, Lawrence. "The identification of birth order personality attributes." The Journal of Psychology 129.1 (1995): 51. 18 Nov. 2008

Wehr, Marcia. "Forum and Debate on Birth Order: Does Birth Order Affect Personality?" Psychology Online. 20 Nov. 2008

There are no more cowboys in the West?

[Originally given as a Cultural Studies presentation at the Technical University of Liberec, Czech Republic, 2004. The original had links to the lingo as well as to the cultural and historical allusions.]

From the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada in California and the Cascades in Oregon and Washington, to St. Louis and the banks of the Missouri River at the Mississippi, from Calgary in Canada to the Mexican border, this is (still) cowboy country. Well after it was tamed under what was then an imperative, today there is a myth about the American cowboy, that he is a disappearing breed. For as long as ranchers and settlers journeyed to the frontier for exploration and expansion in the eighteenth century till, in some senses, today, cowboys, their work and their play have endured, albeit with a few changes.

I grew up in these parts, mostly Colorado, Nevada, and Washington. I was born and raised actually in the Far West. The polite society and civilized places in this region: for me these were Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle. But then in my late teens there was Denver, although I always fittingly thought of Denver as just a big cow town. I can attest to the living presence of what we may call an enduring culture and heritage of the ranch, cattle, horses, and cowboys, and their womenfolk.

If only from a birds-eye view, the evidence is clear. Get on a plane in Denver and travel to Missoula, Montana, Rapid City, South Dakota, Albuquerque, New Mexico, or Dallas or Reno. Fellow passengers likely as not will be wearing cowboy gear, cleaned to be sure of the dust, dirt, and dung of the ranch. Or travel the blue highways and open spaces of the West, and stop in any wide spot in the road. The people you'll find--these people are as genuine as can be, wearing the outfits that their lifestyle and callings have found practical if not comfortable: boots, canvass shirts, cowboy hats, jeans.

So I admit I am not a cowboy. But I have known a few and lived among them. Jack Morgan, legendary Nevada stable manager, Steve Jones, Colorado wrangler caterin' now to tourists by givin' hay rides, Bob Barry, ranch boy turned server-bronc buster, Bill Cowden, professional bull rider, Kent Jodrie, hired hand, Odie, one of the original Marlboro men, and Gil the rough-'round-the-edges, chain-smoking drifter tending horses here and there for dudes. But it was never my calling.

Ranchin' and ropin' was my uncle's longin', although he was a frustrated cowboy, born about a century too late and not into the life direct-like. My sister could be mistaken today for a cowgirl. She and her daughter, trailing horses behind a gas-guzzling, three-quarter ton pickup all over the western states with a horse savy dog in the back guarding truck, trailer, and tack--her English riding gear and getup give her away as a different class of horsewoman.

Cowboys and, yes, cowgirls, country and western music, line dancing and cowboy bars, the cattle and the horses and the great western landscapes are all there today. You can go and see for yourself. Order a red beer in Rangely "fer medicinal purposes." (You'd be surprised. Ain't bad to the taste!) Try to find classical or pop or rock music on the radio in the open expanses of these states. Not to be found, although a good dose of Christian fervor will be. This territory is full of God-fearin' folk, and Mormons, and lots of C-n-W.

Notions and misnotions about the American cowboy come from many sources. Clint Eastwood in the last thirty years, and John Wayne before him come to mind, as does Alan Ladd in perhaps the best western ever made, "Shane" (1953). Clint's "Unforgiven" (1992 Academy Award winner) and "The Outlaw Josie Wales" come specifically to my mind, and I recommend these as attempts to portray it like it was. But I am not qualified to say this without saying at the same time there are US and western historians in-country and abroad who are more qualified. I am reasonably certain, though, that John Wayne's "McClintock," or any of his western characters, was not accurate but mostly entertainment and hyperbole.

Zane Gray in the 20s and 30s did as much to capture and romanticize and mythologize the American cowboy as any writer of westerns, a genre now typically published in pulp fiction form. His _Riders of the Purple Sage_ is among the best, and it is perhaps from him we get the idea of the lonesome stranger and other melodramatic tones of Old West ranch life. Max Brand, another prolific writer of this period and later, made his mark, but he was German, if I am not mistaken. Then there is Karl May.

May, well, he is a special case. You might be surprised to know that Vinetou and Old Shatterhand are virtually unheard of in the US and the American West, even though May's works have been translated from German into thirty languages. Gray, Louis L'Amour, and many others overfill the reading hunger today for western fiction in the US.

But ranch folk are not known to read westerns or have time fer goin' to town and seein' movies. They are living the life they chose, or more than likely these days were born into. Cowboys and some cowgirls are wage earners and not rich. The gun fighting and killing Indians? These are matters of the nineteenth century. These tall tales about him in his free time are not, because of necessity or what cowboys are today, the truth, as far as I know.

During the nineteenth century ranchers settled the West just as sod busters did. Landowners with huge unfenced spreads raised and grazed herds of cattle where buffalo once roamed. It is a small mystery that they didn't tame the buffalo; and they and the plains Indians could have thrived in peace, but that is another story full of explanations particular to the times, and shame.

On these land holdings cowpokes are still paid per day or month to do all manner of physical labor to increase the power and profits of their employers, the landowners. In your mind's eye you can follow the cowboy figure from dawn till dusk tending and driving and rounding up the doggies and fetchin' strays. Today he and she still do this work, but not as much from the backs of horses as from dirt bikes, four wheelers, pickup trucks, and even helicopters.

The job in many ways is the same. Join some landowner's outfit and earn a day's wage the hard way. Cowhands make ends meet; in a good year with good beef prices owners make a profit. It is a 365 day-a-year job, mostly with unending chores done outside in all kinds of elements. The rough hewn features of the strong-jawed silent type persists. Marlboro gets it almost right except the male models are a bit too sanitized to pass as real McCoys.

The diversions continue. Rodeo and music and a fondness for a simple, everyman's homespun wisdom. Among those who popularized this enduring dimension to the cowboy, and cowgirl, are Will Rogers and, after him, Baxter Black. Baxter is perhaps the most well known among cowboy poets and media personalities today. He comments on current affairs and turns a rhyme or two. He hails from the hot state of Arizona but is heard throughout the US on National Public Radio. And he makes quite a living just tellin' yarns.

Annually there are many cowboy poetry round-ups, or gatherings, in the West. The most famous is the annual round-up in Elko, Nevada. And there are poetry contests.

Yes, poets and cowgirls. A lot of 'em both. Those not familiar with the West are surprised at these facts. But is it any wonder that in America, or anywhere else, that there are cowpokes doin' guy things with the girls watchin'? Or in the land of the free and open spaces, the gals also doin' their thing? And ranches need womenfolk just as they do men folk.

Among the venues--still--for meeting and having good, clean fun is the annual rodeo, in almost every town and still some occasionally at railway sidings. It is said by some that the birth of rodeo was in Colorado. But others more famous have taken the credit, rightly or wrongly, like Buffalo Bill and his Wild West show.

Time does not permit me to go on about country and western music. Suffice to say it is found now throughout the world, sung in as many languages as there are countries with radios. And this bears witness to an interest in and continuing cowboy culture, albeit sometimes hardly recognizable in its American character outside the Old West. But if you go West, young person, you will see and hear for yerself.

Cowboys and cowgirls are not known to talk a lot, or to be repetitive like English teachers. So I will just end with this.

Can you imagine riding a million dollar cutting, roping, or barrel horse for a living? My niece does just that. She recently won a cutting horse competition in Texas, almost $200,000 for three weeks' and nights' work. But consistent with what I have said about the Old and still genuine rough and ready West, she is just a hired hand. She won the money for her boss, a wealthy gentlewoman rancher whose hobby is breeding and showing prize quarter horses with cow savy, so much so that the average price for one is close to a million bucks.

My niece recently had a suitor from down Las Vegas way; there are big Nevada ranches there with casino and other money behind them. He drove across three states just to have a date with her. She said she'd never fall in love with a cowboy, or that she'd become a cowgirl. It looks like cowboys and cowgirls are not a dying breed. They are still being made. The resilience and toughness of the American West. . . .

It is indeed a myth that there are no more cowboys. The calling is just too darn nice to give up for some citified kinda life. Cowboys? They'll still be askin' fer their boots to be wearing so they can die easy and give the next generations the independence and freedom they enjoyed out West, on the frontier.

No One Here But Me

[An academic exercise and part of a larger project on authenticity in writing, 12/08.]

[THIS PAPER MAY BE USED IN WHOLE OR IN PART FOR ILLUSTRATION OR INSTRUCTIONAL PURPOSES WITH OR WITHOUT PERMISSION.]

Abstract

A passage from Gabriel García Márquez's book, The General in His Labyrinth, gives rise to a short discussion on the locus of reality. The unconcluded contemplation is that all exists in mind, mine. There is no separate external reality.

No One Here But Me

At one point in Gabriel García Márquez's book, The General in His Labyrinth (2003), "José Palacios, [the General's] oldest servant, found him floating naked with his eyes open in the purifying waters of his bath and thought he had drowned. He knew this was one of the many ways the General meditated, but the ecstasy in which he lay drifting seemed that of a man no longer of this world."

Upon awakening from this apparent trance, the General said to his servant, "Let's go . . . as fast as we can. No one loves us here."

This passage has raised this possibility: The world is located in mind, in my interior, not outside of my body somewhere. The world is not separate with an independent existence. It is only by consensus with others that we suspect an objective and separate-from-me world.

Based on this understanding, I often "just feel like" taking some action or changing course, because nothing really matters except as I would have it inside me. So much is this true for me that sometimes I even choose based on what I think is true, whether or not I can otherwise prove it.

As the General is described above and for me, there appear to be multiple realities. There are those we can sense physically and there are those of the mind, or internal. Ecstasy is of the mind. The idea that no one loves us here is also an internal experience. That idea, fact or not, seems to give the impetus for action for the General. It is his call to action, which is leaving. We also act and change course based on the world we have, the mental experiences.

What is the relationship between these realities, the physical and the mental? The contention here is that the relationship is flawed oneness. What I experience inside me is my only reality, but what I experience is not always intentional. Some stuff happens that I (we?) just (have to?) attend to.

Before I am accused of not being of this world, I declare that I am not immune from stubbing my toe on a rock or enjoying pizza and Pepsi as I write these words. Toes are real, but mine the most, as is this pizza; and, just a moment, so is my (experience of my) Pepsi. However, these supposed physical things have reality because it is I who through my intentions, awarenesses, mental experiences, and mind-directed actions accept and make them so. My internal experiences are the only things that exist that I can be sure of. Things out there do not exist, for me.

Another way to say this is to answer this old quandary. Does a tree make a sound when it falls to the forest floor? Although I am not a philosopher and this meditation is a bit speculative, I answer no, the tree makes no sound if I am not there to hear it.

Even though the reality of what I believe to be true is what I think or somehow internally experience, and this is paramount and the definition of real, other stuff happens which calls for, sometimes demands, awareness, focus, and action. Because of the call or demand, I choose to attend, that is I intend to have it real. One objection is that we may not be aware of every "intention," but after the fact of having done something means that at some level of mind (perhaps it is consciousness), there was a choice.

So I can act and change course because nothing really matters except my experience of. If I choose a course based on what I think is true, whether or not I can otherwise prove it, this might be instinct or intuition. I do not know. But this suggests a lengthier consideration.

As with the General, there is no great, unconditional affection for me, or anyone. So run as fast as you can, or silently escape as I do into my own world of a computer, music downloads, and Internet games I can play with people whose physical existence I do not acknowledge. It is as if they do not exist, or if they do, they are just objects of mind that exist for a time and later do not. I never know them. I only make choices based on my intentional engagement with their actions and the tacit understanding that their actions are part of my experience, a part of my reality, until I let them go.

Some would say that you can gather evidence (impressions or opinions or convictions--again "immaterials") that there is affection. This would be to rely on memories (past mental experiences). At my age the idea of many loves and sensual adventures such as the General may have had, as recounted in The General in His Labyrinth, is very tempting. The better orientation is that that reality is in my head. Sex is not real or of this world without my mental-immaterial reception and recognition.

Enough for now. I appear to be drifting. Am I in a trance and no longer of this world? Am I either in meditative ecstasy or in someone's physical reality? These questions, let alone that reality only exists inside me, are way too difficult to conclude in a little over two pages. For now I say, "Let's go, as fast as I can, for there is no one here but me."

REFERENCE

Marquez, G., (2003). The General in His Labyrinth. London: Vintage.

Tailoring Learning for International Students

[An academic exercise and part of a larger project on authenticity in writing, 11/08.]

[THIS PAPER MAY BE USED IN WHOLE OR IN PART FOR ILLUSTRATION OR INSTRUCTIONAL PURPOSES WITH OR WITHOUT PERMISSION.]

Abstract

A unit of instruction that uses the Internet in a variety of ways needs a context. The context in this discussion is a traditional college course and how it is designed for students coming from different countries. What follows is a sketch of the course and its units of instruction. These center around classroom and computer laboratory meetings. The meetings have a structure, or process, and the instructor has a limited number of roles to play. Student learning is based on choices in objectives and computer learning activities. The sketch concludes with an example learning objective and some different types of Internet activities to help meet that objective.

Tailoring Learning for International Students

Introduction to Computers is a beginning college course for intermediate level English students (at the Anglo-American College, Prague.) The course takes place in the classroom and the computer laboratory with the instructor acting as a meeting facilitator, content presenter, and tutor. Although the course is documented online and uses the Internet, it is traditional face-to-face pedagogy (Wuensch, Aziz, Ozan, Kishore, & Tabrizi, 2008).

Because students come from different national educational systems and they have different computer skills already, the course has to make room for these differences. Giving choices of which learning objectives to work on helps students develop their computer literacy as well as demonstrate practical skills.

The course has ten three-and-a-half hour classroom-lab meetings. Each meeting is a three-step process. The process gives the instructor the roles above and looks like this.

1. What have you discovered? This is a review of required readings and what students have been working on so far.

2. What do you need to know? This step introduces new material and gives time for discussions and student presentations.

3. What do you need to be able to do? This step is about discovering and demonstrating skills in the computer laboratory.

The topics for the class meetings show the general scope of the course. The student chooses one or more of the objectives for each meeting. If the objectives and their learning activities for a meeting do not give the student something new to learn, he or she can work with the instructor and decide what is best.

Here are example objectives students can choose for the first five class meetings.

1. Course Overview, Computers and the Internet: The learner should be able to design a directory structure for a student taking three courses, or for an office worker involved in three projects. The design should include folder and file naming, the types of files included, and sample content for each.

2. Hardware and Software: The learner should be able to analyze a recent version of MS Windows and report on what it should have to be an operating system.

3. Word Processing: The learner should be able to create and print or upload a one-page, double-spaced text document showing as many features of the program as possible--fonts, point size, tables, columns, pagination, and so forth.

4. Presentations with Media: The learner should be able to produce a simple outline of a presentation for school or work with at least five PowerPoint slides.

5. Spreadsheets: The learner should be able to create two original spreadsheets, one showing a personal or project budget with monthly and annual sample numbers and one showing the formulae for the calculations.

These are the rest of the topics for the meetings: Mid-Course Exam; Databases; Sharing Information on the Web; Current Issues and Review; Final Presentations and Exam.

To show how this course uses the Internet to meet learning goals or aims for different students, the first thing to remember is that the course’s approach already tells the teacher what to do. When a student selects an objective for a topic, choices of what the student does in order to learn opens up. Here is an example from meeting three. The learning objective is that the student should be able to list five Internet applications for school or work. The list should include why each application is helpful.

Computer lab activities to help learn or demonstrate meeting this objective include the following types and examples. A student would work on one or more of these.

Search: Search for "computer operating system" using Google and define what it is.

Quest: Go to the Web sites for two different operating systems and find what applications come with them and what each does. Afterwards, open the programs menu on your computer and find out if you have these applications.

Message Board: Go to the university learning server and leave a message on the Newbie forum about programs students find most useful for their school work. How many different programs do students list? Are any from the Internet?

OCLC: Go to the university library catalog online and find this article: Pierre Dillenbourg (2008). Integrating technologies into educational ecosystems. Distance Education, 29(2), 127-140.

E-mail: Copy and paste the abstract of this article into an e-mail and send your instructor a copy.

Reading: Read the article. Does it say anything about Internet application programs?

Self-archiving: Put a short bibliography for a paper on one of the free bibliography Web sites. Then retrieve it in print or document form.

Document Storage: If you have a Gmail or Yahoo account, go to the document storage area and upload a document, maybe a draft of one of your papers.

Reference: Look up APA style guide online. Can you use any of the information presented to complete assignments for this course?

If one sees these activities as part of the design of teaching a lesson, the above fall into place in the process. First is in the classroom. The teacher talks about two or three things you can use computers and the Internet for. The teacher leads a discussion. Step two is also a classroom activity. It might be to hear and watch a PowerPoint presentation on how to access some online resources like the ones in the lab learning activities. The instructor would make the presentation. Finally, the students work out their own list of applications to help them in work or school. The instructor circulates in the lab helping and tutoring to make sure students are learning and completing the work each chose.

Reference

Wuensch, K. L., Aziz, S., Ozan, E., Kishore, M., & Tabrizi, M. H. N. (2008). Pedagogical Characteristics of Online and Face-to-Face Classes. International Journal on ELearning, 7(3), 523-532.

Abbreviated Thematic Analysis of an Interview: Mrs. Joan Lash

[An academic exercise and part of a larger project on authenticity in writing, 12/08.]

[THIS PAPER MAY BE USED IN WHOLE OR IN PART FOR ILLUSTRATION OR INSTRUCTIONAL PURPOSES WITH OR WITHOUT PERMISSION.]

Abstract

The author asks a text to reveal what life was like. The text is a short oral history interview, and it reveals several major themes as a result of textual analysis. These are then reported and discussed in terms of an alternative to a hypothetical standard history text. A partial yet richer understanding of a person and a period appears as a result.

Abbreviated Thematic Analysis of an Interview: Mrs. Joan Lash

An oral interview can write history (Geraci 2005), but in some important respects, it tells a different story than that in a learned, bound volume. It is a story for richer understanding of what life was like. This then is the central question for storytellers and -gatherers. A close examination of one example can uncover this richer, personal texture of a time in history we might otherwise gloss over.

The act of commemorating by asking someone to recount may also be about forgetting (Hamilakis and Labanyi 2008), and an oral history may reveal as much about that as what is remembered in the moment. In addition, the act of telling one's history can reveal tensions that a carefully crafted text might overlook, or ignore all together (Saikia 2000).

What of all of this--in a concrete example? "Mrs Joan Lash, wife of an ADC [aide-de-camp] to the Governor of Madras," talked in 1985 about everyday life in India to Mary Thatcher. The text of the interview, made available by the Centre for South Asian Studies, Cambridge, has been included here. An abbreviated thematic analysis of what was said is this paper and a suggestive object lesson in what history does not always tell us.

To let the text speak, the transcribed version of the Lash interview, including Thatcher's questions, was first formatted in a table with 108 rows, one for each sentence, and three columns for numbering and notes. Repeated readings generated questions and comments--the notes--for many sentences. From these notes, larger categories, tentative themes in the third column, were isolated. A careful reading of the text, including the words of both interviewer and interviewee, showed it had many more candidate themes than those highlighted and can be reported here.

Textual analysis focused on Mrs. Lash and at the sentence rather than word or phrase level. However, the importance of the themes selected come from the words and phrases, or their equivalents, that Mrs. Lash provided. Thus, adherence to the text and what it says gave rise to the themes. Independent of the text, as may be seen below, the themes stand on their own as important in the texture of a life.

The themes selected for further study and analysis after the sifting out was a result of a back and forth reading/re-reading process, a kind of hermeneutic spiral both up and down until the briefest, cursory analysis could be summarized (Gadamer 1988).

Mrs. Joan Lash, at the time of the interview and in the eighth decade of her life, showed "placid acceptance" of "the pattern of life" as she knew and experienced it. She also showed she had "different mothers" and different ideas about what and where "home" was. Forgetting about or not remembering figure into the themes of home and different mothers. Tensions around "Being abandoned everywhere" (Line 107) relate to home and mother as well as seem to have contributed to placid acceptance of the pattern of life.

The pattern of life is Mrs. Lash's phrase, and she uses it three times (Lines 2, 31, and 80). In lines 28 and 79, she also uses phrases which can readily be understood as the pattern of life. Five references to the way it was for her, combined with being placid and accepting (Line 45) and just taking it (Line 46), strongly suggest a way of being.

Telltale in this pattern of the way of Mrs. Lash is how she refers to what happened. She is often acted upon rather than acting. Consider what she says after "just taking it": "And then when you became eighteen my father and mother were both out in India then and I then went out to India." It is as if there was a protocol for people of her background or station, that that next step was natural, a part of a known process. When she reflects that she may not have been proper when in Madras enjoying herself (Line 77), as if that were terrible, there is this preoccupation(?) with some determined-by-other way.

Mrs. Lash has one mother, the one she cherishes with a particularly vivid memory from childhood (Line 2 and following). This is the same person she can describe as her mother in the third person, without much detail or emotion. "She was a very beautiful person, very lovely, rather helpless I suppose" (Line 12). This is perhaps the same mother she yearned for (Line 44).

One wonders what the specifics were that Mrs. Lash could describe her one mother in such general terms: The cherished mother is forgotten in the interview as commemoration.

Mrs. Lash appears to have spent her early years away from her mother, perhaps both of them coming or going between England and India. She also has mother figures in nannies, unnamed aunts, and an unnamed nun.

As has been stated, Mrs. Lash was abandoned everywhere, even in early childhood (Line 9). Everywhere raises the matter of different houses. Home seems to have been England and India. The tensions Mrs. Lash felt in her houses-not-homes of boarding school and various aunts are less clear but strongly expressed (Lines 40 and 30 respectively).

In the end, although this theme would seem to figure large in the texture of a life, we have few details except the presumed number of houses in different places of residence. Perhaps Mrs. Lash did not place much importance on them.

This oral history is rich as the above analysis, transcript, and comments suggest. However, it is partial. We have a sense of Mrs. Lash, but her life is sketched only. We do not have the luxury of follow-up questions, and the analysis can help us get just so far in understanding.

Some themes are quite clear and suggest further inquiry. How did the life of a young man or young woman turn upon parents in service of the empire? What is done to the notion of home when two or more places could be called so? Women and mothers adapted in earlier times, yes, but in the main how did they? And how was life for these patriots abroad, a prescribed pattern to be followed and placidly accepted, or was there zest and excitement enough as with Mrs. Lash (Line 108)?

Mrs. Lash gives us an insight in this interview that we cannot gloss over, but lest that be all there is, history, the history of people, would be and is much more--a story for richer understanding.

References

Gadamer, H-G. (1988). ‘On the circle of understanding’ in J. M. Connolly & T. Keutner (Eds.), Hermeneutics versus science? Three German views (pp. 68-78), Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.

Geraci, Victor W. 2005, ‘Letting Sources Become the Narrative: Using Oral Interviews to Write History’, The Public Historian 27, no. 1 (January 1): 61-66.

Hamilakis, Y., Jo Labanyi 2008, ‘Introduction: Time, Materiality, and the Work of Memory’, History and Memory 20, no. 2 (October 1): 5-17.

'Interview: Mrs. J. Lash by Mary Thatcher' (1985), Centre of South Asian Studies 004, viewed 5 December 2008 .

Saikia, Yasmin 2000, ‘Creating Histories: Oral Narrative and the Politics of History-Making’, The Journal of Asian Studies 59, no. 4 (November 1): 1084-1085.

[Appendixes omitted.]

Options Versus Goals

[An academic exercise and part of a larger project on authenticity in writing, 11/08.]

[THIS PAPER MAY BE USED IN WHOLE OR IN PART FOR ILLUSTRATION OR INSTRUCTIONAL PURPOSES WITH OR WITHOUT PERMISSION.]

Deborah Davis (2006) identifies one way of developing critical thinking. That is, we can develop our skills by looking at options and their advantages and disadvantages (p. 83). This leads to selecting the best option under the circumstances to solve a problem.

What Davis does not develop is what an option is. It seems to be a course of immediate, practical action. I would propose that problem solving is not as simple as that. At least among options you have an embedded problem. Given two or more options for problem one, then the next problem is to select which one? How do you do that without carrying out this problem-options process again and again?

I would like to suggest a way to stop this regress by turning an option into a step towards a goal or objective that needs to come about because of some action. What am I trying to accomplish by doing this versus that? Once I have that, all the rest falls into place.

For example, in this exercise, how can I answer the question of which critical thinking skill can I or should I develop more? I can say one option for this problem is to stay up all night to get this paper turned in on time. Another answer is a goal, a condition or state of what it would be like that I want to have.

That desired state might be something like this: I will always be prepared for the requirements of school. From this ideal, action steps (options) come, and may include for me to prioritize everyday challenges at school such that I can turn my work in on time and perhaps get better grades. The option of staying up all night for a one-page paper then is not optimal. It does not help me get to my goal or objective very well. Think of what it would mean for me. I have. Staying up late or working all night will deprive me of my beauty rest, another important goal of mine.

Reference

Davis, D., (2006). Adult Learner' S Companion. City: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Social Research Ethics, Preliminary Thoughts

[An academic exercise and part of a larger project on authenticity in writing, 11/08.]

[THIS PAPER MAY BE USED IN WHOLE OR IN PART FOR ILLUSTRATION OR INSTRUCTIONAL PURPOSES WITH OR WITHOUT PERMISSION.]

The title alone of McIntyre’s article (2002) about doing the right thing in conducting social research suggests another, first-order matter not to be dismissed easily. Is it ever possible to know if a researcher has done, or is doing, the right thing? In considering this matter, I found I could work with the following questions to come up with some preliminary if tentative thoughts. Here are these presented with the idea that they might lead to a greater insight into social research ethics and the ultimate concern McIntyre’s article rests upon.

One: "Is it possible for anyone to genuinely consent to being objectified through the research process?" (Davidson).

Two: Do voluntary participation, informed consent, risk of harm, confidentiality, and anonymity (Trochim) pretty much cover the bases for ethical research on human subjects?

Whether quantitative or qualitative research approaches are employed to study human phenomena, the knowledge quest rests on the thing--the object of study. Whether researchers, ethics committees, the public, or others like it or not, human subjects become objects in the service of an other's discovering, confirming, or advancing knowledge.

Objectification comes with all that is the research enterprise. If, however, in a clinical or confidential study, a subject, or we can now say object, is not treated per proper procedure and respect, there may be cause for complaint. Any ethics violation may then have to be determined by those closest to what was actually proposed and done.

Davidson's question seems more philosophical than practical. It may not be nice or politically correct to objectify people in some ideal world or in some contexts, but in the interests of research we do it, just as we do it elsewhere in our lives (e.g., picture the finals in a body building competition).

Voluntary participation, informed consent, risk of harm, confidentiality, and anonymity are not the only matters for care in planning and conducting research involving human subjects. No doubt any ethics committee or listing of standards, rules, or procedures would specify these and others, and in some detail. However, there is at least one additional base to cover regardless of the group to be satisfied or the expectations to be met.

The expectation or standard should be articulated that ethics should be addressed whenever researching human subjects. This may seem self-evident, but if not stated in whatever fashion the governing or advisory body wishes to, not having some self-referential language about the advisability or requirement of the process itself has a possible negative consequence. For example, if there is no process, the possible claim above of violation could not be addressed except out of the good citizenship or manners involving those closest to the action. Another possibility is that if researchers as a group do not "require" the process of reviewing the ethics of what is proposed, a researcher need not review. If review is required, then the substance and process of research, its approval, and--it is hoped--research implementation will help ensure the proper treatment and care of those studied.

By and large, research today is not carried out by independent researchers. It is sanctioned by higher education by having research and publication as a part of the academic’s job description. Grants and contracts routinely require as much quality and transparency as is humanly possible, or affordable. The public can scrutinize pharmaceutical companies and governments when their work involves health and the common good. The researcher or sponsor that does not adhere to ethical precepts risks being ignored by an academy that embraces the almost universal norm of doing so.

There are some research studies that need to be covert, that is the object of study need not or should not be disclosed beforehand. Disclosing might in these cases bias results. This seems to contradict the principle of informed consent, but this depends. An ethnographic study might be an example exception. If a cultural informant knows he or she is being viewed as such, results might be other than what would be without this knowledge. Margaret Mead reportedly got into this difficulty with the subjects of her classic study (2001). Degree of disclosure as an ethical expectation needs to be carefully worked out for each social research study, for the integrity of the study as well as the protection of the subjects.

Now, given all of the above, is it ever possible to know if a researcher has done the right thing? It appears that as much as we prescribe and proscribe trying to ensure that we do right in social research, it appears as if the answer is akin to the imperfection we de facto accept in our lives. However, there is a difference. In social (and other) research, we would try to be extra deliberate and careful about achieving incontrovertible explanations and understandings, reducing the chances of making errors and doing wrong. Otherwise, what are we trying to accomplish?

Works Cited

McIntyre, Lisa J. “Doing the Right Thing: Ethics in Social Research.” The Practical Skeptic. Mcintyre, Lisa (Ed.). Boston: McGraw Hill, 2002.

Mead, Margaret. Coming of Age in Samoa. New York: Perennial Classics, 2001.

Trochim, William M. K. “Ethics in Research.” Research Methods Knowledge Base. 2006 25. Nov. 2008

Beacon for Human Dignity

[An academic exercise and part of a larger project on authenticity in writing, 11/08.]

[THIS PAPER MAY BE USED IN WHOLE OR IN PART FOR ILLUSTRATION OR INSTRUCTIONAL PURPOSES WITH OR WITHOUT PERMISSION.]

Abstract

Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1991 Peace Prize Laureate, remains under house arrest in Myanmar (Burma), her silence and absence from public life calling for moral action and democratic contribution where once only her writing, speeches, and demonstrations did so. Her life and work stem from and illustrate the leadership quality of charisma. She is a transformational leader in word, deed, and silence with human rights and human dignity her campaign..

Beacon for Human Dignity

"The great work we are acknowledging has yet to be concluded. She is still fighting the good fight. Her courage and commitment find her a prisoner of conscience in her own country, Burma" (Sejersted, 1999).

So the Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee introduced Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1991 Peace Prize Laureate. She remains today under house arrest in Myanmar (Burma), her silence and absence from public life calling for moral action and democratic contribution where once only her writing, speeches, and demonstrations did so.

Today, leaders and others from around the world acknowledge Aung San Suu Kyi as a beacon for human dignity, and they persistently urge the Myanmar military leaders to release her and her country so that both may enjoy the freedom and independence her father, Aung San, died for.

Aung San Suu Kyi was born in Rangoon in 1945, and she received her education in Burma, India, and the U. K., earning her doctorate from the University of London. In 1988, she returned to Burma and helped found the National League for Democracy. She ran for the office of Prime Minister, but the military junta nullified the election she had won. For most of the period 1988 to the present, Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest. Reporters and dignitaries have been barred from visiting her, but the world is conscious of her struggle and keeps vigil.

According to the Nobel Presentation Speech, Aung San Suu Kyi has acknowledged that the major influences in her life were her father and Mahatma Gandhi. Her father was a military general and helped negotiate Burma's independence from Great Britain in 1947. Aung San Suu Kyi embraced Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence. Her development as a thinker, activist, and leader thus embraced deep respect for people and therefore human rights.

In her "Freedom from Fear" speech, she says, "It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it" (San, 1995).

These words echo down the years for Burma and the world, and ensure Aung San Suu Kyi's stature as a leader. Here she asks all of us, including those in power, to act in the interest of human rights and dignity, and she invites contribution through political reform which cherishes and protects people. Fear as felt or fostered by any of us prevents realizing the dignity of each and everyone. Social and political systems can support or suppress fear. Aung San Suu Kyi's claim is that democracy, founded on respect for human rights, is the antidote to fear.

To the cheers of her countrymen and -women and the recognition and acclimation of those around the world, Aung San Suu Kyi continues to be seen as a moral and democratic beacon. She has been honored with more than fifteen awards and distinctions (United States Campaign for Burma).

Charisma is a universally recognized leadership trait. And through Aung San Suu Kyi's words and long suffering, she continues to hold the civilized world accountable for the injustices she and others endure. That charisma stems from enlightened simplicity, as is manifest in the Bhuddist way and nonviolent action. That she stands tall and confronts oppression honors Aung San Suu Kyi's father's fight for independence.

Aung San Suu Kyi may also be described as a transformational leader. According to the leadership behaviors identified by Kuhnert and Lewis (1987), she has articulated goals, built an image, demonstrated confidence, and aroused motivation. And decidedly, she has followers (p. 650).

Call her leadership charismatic or transformational, Aung San Suu Kyi speaks to our sense of right and good. The world acknowledges her and has not forgotten the struggle to realize a better life for each and all. Many have resonated with her call and followed: Though a silent beacon at present, her leadership inspires and moves us.

References

Kuhnert, W., Lewis, P. (1987). “Transactional and Transformational Leadership: A Constructive/Developmental Analysis.” Academy of Management. The Academy of Management Review, 12(4), 648.

San, A., Michael, A., Havel, V., & Tutu, D. (1995). Freedom from Fear. New York: Penguin Books.

Sejersted, F. (1999). “The Nobel Peace Prize 1991: Presentation Speech.” In Abrams, I. (Ed.). Nobel Lectures, Peace 1991-1995. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing. Retrieved on 25 November 2008, from http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1991/presentation-speech.html

United States Campaign for Burma. “Semi-Complete List of Awards Won by Aung San Suu Kyi.” Retrieved on November 25, 2008, from http://uscampaignforburma.org/assk/awards.html

Answer Montezuma like a local

The silliest advertisement I saw on TV before I murdered it began like this. "I am not an MD, but I play one on TV." Dressed in a white coat such as doctors and lab techs wear, the "TV personality" proceeded to recommend some medication! MD? Mentally deranged. Here is a confessed impostor making a health-medical recommendation to an audience of perhaps millions without so much as a . . . and we are fools to allow him or her into our homes. Thus the explanation for my, er, act of self defense.

But bits of insanity about health and medicine are all around us. For example, for years I have heard about the peril of travel to Mexico for a week or more, Montezuma's Revenge, travelers' diarrhea. By and large, if you experience other-than-usual-and-to-be-expected diarrhea, you "should take" antibiotics and those stopping-up, settle-down-your-insides pills. This will kill everything in the nether reaches and hold it/them there for safekeeping till your normal routine returns sometime later. Not insanity exactly, but precious little about causes.

Isn't the first step in commoner sense to ask what the condition is and then how to treat it? Do Mexicans know what causes diarrhea and related symptoms that last more than a few days, what we without hesitation make preemptive strikes against down there with our wonder drugs? And if they know, what do they do about it?

We can discuss one theory non-technically. That theory begins with the idea that an upset digestive system is normal for foreigners, at least at first. For example, Mexicans who visit the US reportedly have the same complaints as we do. They experience discomforts from different foods and water and sanitation standards just as we do if we venture too far south. Intestinal maladies come from changes in climate and latitude. To be expected, we can say. And they are short term.

Now, do Mexicans suffer from short or long term distress when visiting the US? To some extent experiencing short term problems must be true. If you travel, change time zones, eat and drink different stuff than at home, some adjustments can be expected regardless of nationality or cultural background. However, if you stay longer in foreign climes, I guess you either get used to things or you die.

I have noticed that Mexicans who visit the US and stay longer have been known to die in country. However, the causes do not seem to be digestive. They die of the same causes as we the indigenous populations do, from the same scourges, heart disease, cancer and materialism. These longer-term visitors and residents must have gotten used to US water, food, standards of cleanliness and the rest of what our culture has to offer.

Having addressed the obvious, we can turn to ensuring happier times in Mexico. Chances are you will get the (true) Revenge. You can die or wish you would. Beyond the normal adjustments noted above, some/many foreigners in Mexico do not get accustomed to daily realities and the vigilance needed for living in health and comfort. They get what Mexicans know is not revenge but givens, worms and parasites.

If you travel to Mexico and venture outside of the first-world hotel's restaurant and coffee shop, you might get what "everybody in Mexico" realizes is for real, so real that they regularly take precautions against it, er, them.

Cutting to prevention and treatment of these known causes of protracted colonic discomfort or distress, we can cope as locals do, and this should be the tourist's and extended visitor's first choice, without fear or risk. Here you go.

* Drink fresh coconut milk or pineapple juice.
* Eat fresh pineapple, papaya, papaya seeds (like pepper if chewed), garlic in all forms including raw, guayaba (guava, yellow when ripe, widely available in country), and pumpkin seeds.
* Eat street food only after some research. A home-based fast food counter is probably better than a small cart that appears now and then in different locations around town.
* You know the drill for water. The only water in any form that should go in your mouth should be purified. In cases of diarrhea, drink lots and lots.

When the above prevention/treatments fail, buy Vermox, an over-the-counter de-worming and parasite-eradicating medication. (Sounds so, so Ortho-like!). The active ingredient is mebendazole. Comes in various doses. I like the one pill, take-care-of-'em-all-today dose.

We gringos love pills and supplements. You can get all you need or want in Mexico, even prescription medications without the obligatory, not to say expensive, visit to the US doctor. S/he is back home and virtually unreachable anyway from Mexico.

One note about Vermox. Remember the name Vermox. Showing your squirming index fingers in the region of your belly or digestive tract does not indicate the problem or what you want to purchase sufficiently.

Amebisil, active ingredient ascaridol, is "known all over Mexico." I haven't tested this hypothesis, but I have used this supplement. Given signs or symptoms of having the little buggers in your system, take two or three pills the first day and one per day thereafter for a week. According to a local source, "They don't like the taste. So eat something with Amebisil to make them think it is mealtime as usual. Surprise 'em!" Amebisil is available in herbal medicine and vitamin shops--tienda naturista.

Prices vary for all of the above, including the drugs without prescription, the fruit and seeds and so forth, but definitely cheaper than in the US.

Symptoms? We don't need to go into that here, do we? (They are so, so clinical.) And getting a test to make sure you have the buggers, ugh.

Am I a doctor? No, but I act like one, and enjoy worm- and parasite-free eating and drinking in Mexico. The very thought of infestation when feeling drained of energy and hungry and like the bathroom can't be too close for comfort--this is diagnosis enough to down some safe stuff locals get along fine with, thank your pharmaceuticals very much.

In the event of more serious or persistent symptoms and disturbances, inform yourself more thoroughly and see a real doctor in Mexico or when you get back home.

© 2008 Kevin Mactavish

Academic exercise

[Prior to your interview, we would be grateful if you would complete the attached pre-interview task. The task will provide a basis for discussion in the interview of academic writing and your approaches to academic skills in general. Please only refer to the text rather than any other outside sources and do not spend more than two-three hours on the task. Please complete the essay within two days of receiving this message and e-mail it to. . . .

The prospective employer cleverly "revised" a text, the above mentioned attachment, the original for which seems to be "Salvaging Liberalism from the Wreck of the Enlightenment," available as of this date at http://www.crvp.org/book/Series01/I-26/introduction.htm.

Here is the response with but small changes from what was submitted, provided here as a writing sample and illustration of selected principles (highlighted below)for beginning academic writers. Also, the response is an example of sifting through the jell-o, before you can get to the good stuff.]



Cultural Creation of Free and Equal, A Critique

In his paper, entitled "The Cultural Creation of Free and Equal Individuals," Professor ??? argues that liberal democracies need a form of civic education which produces and sustains people "who identify themselves and one another as free and equal individuals." This education rests on a civic culture, "a culture supportive of citizenship" with clear, coherent, articulated central ideas. Professor ??? claims that in the absence of sufficient numbers of citizens with the requisites for proper citizenship, liberal democracy itself is in danger. States built on this model thus need to ensure a properly democratized citizenry.

Professor ??? also asserts that the citizens of a liberal democracy need members who "at least insofar as they act within the public sphere, see their membership in such communities as in some sense subordinate to their membership in the broader civic community." To paraphrase, civic education, resting on the shoulders of a civic culture, should teach citizens to think (and act?) first in the interest of the state or government and then based on their own particular identity in terms of ethnicity, class, and/or religion.

Professor ???'s paper on civic education in a liberal democracy has flaws in expression and rationale--at least one of either in almost every paragraph in the first half. The thesis, regardless of its merits as a standalone statement, thus suffers greatly. Any call to action will fall on skeptical if not uncomprehending readers.

The first paragraph of Professor ???'s paper gives general background for his argument and ends with the assertion that human beings are "made rather than found," "produced through the influence of . . . political culture." A careful reading of this assertion would suggest a glaring omission. Families as micro-political systems need to be included as powerful influences for the development of individual identity. This qualifying statement is absent here. All seems to begin and end with things political at a more macro level. Consider this omitted qualification a minor point. The author, after all, is just beginning to develop his topic.

The second paragraph claims in part that the notion of free and equal "is alien to the perspectives that most immediately shape human life." These perspectives are listed as ethnic, class, and religious. Although the author cites human development as a key to understanding human beings (first sentence, second paragraph), there is no mention of what human growth and development or other disciplines have had to say about the most obvious influence that "immediately shape[s] human life," mom! The absence of a qualifying statement about mothers and children and family influence in the first paragraph now detracts from the overall argument. There is little doubt that nature and nurture in the earliest years help shape whether or not an individual even cares to participate in society, regardless of its descriptive label or prevailing norms. To assert that shaping human life does not in the first instance include mother, parents, relatives, and so forth is to ignore the self-evident.

Hark back to a beginning English writing course. With all due respect for Professor ???, a writer should avoid omitting the most obvious questions or observations that qualify and clarify what he or she is trying to say. There is a lapse here at the very beginning of Professor ???'s paper.

The third paragraph suffers at the outset by claiming that the second paragraph's assertion sans qualification is a fact. The paper does not acknowledge or address the expected order of things again: Mothers before governors in shaping human life.

It is easy to debunk ideas by picking at details and lack of qualifying statements that an author has not deemed important enough to include. We can look at things more constructively. According to the philosopher and psychologist Ken Wilber, who coincidentally has also commented on the same matters that Professor ??? does in this essay, everybody holds at least a part of the truth. That paragraph four follows number three with flaws however important places it as suspect from the first word. Rather than focus on what might be problematic with this paragraph, we can point to its reasonableness and strength, that it holds part of the truth that should be noted.

A liberal democratic state, especially if it does not have a constituency, or only a weak one, needs to create one. The influx of civil society programs into the former Eastern (Soviet) Bloc just after the Berlin Wall's demise shows acknowledgement of this wisdom. The challenges to civil society in Iraq today can be seen as an example of Professor ???'s warnings here in paragraph four. Commonly held knowledge lends support to what this paper attempts to express.

However, the credibility of the author continues to erode in paragraph five. "Forms of government based on principles intrinsic to ethnic, class, and religious world views" do "face precisely this sort of cultural and educational challenge." Imagine instituting a governmental system based on ethnicity without precedent for it. That system would have the same vulnerability as a liberal democratic one without its support structures and procedures. If paragraph four has the merit highlighted above, then the unrevised opening statement of five contradicts it. We are no closer to giving the essay or its author a nod of agreement, nor has the notion that a liberal democracy with subordinate other allegiances been demonstrated as workable or preferred.

Paragraph six assumes that the prerequisite for governance is a kind of cultural self-understanding, particularly an understanding of the principles underlying authority. What or who is to say that democracies, liberal or not, have a populace or a portion of it that has or needs this understanding? What or who says that states deemed not liberal democracies have people who do not understand what underlies sanctioned and unsanctioned political and public behavior?

Two examples illustrate how these questions, and questions like them, must be addressed. Consider first, if in a liberal democracy individuals are free and equal, then you as citizen are free not to be conscious of or concerned about anything other than having a roof over your head, food on the table, and a television to watch. Second, if what is allowed and what is not determines whether or not you live or die, there is little to understand. Civic education in the first instance might be a good idea. In the second, there is little point except to know what it is that will get you killed. The first is optional and recommended civic education, a nicety in democratic societies. The second is all about survival and requisite knowledge, usually thoroughly understood without formal means of message transmission.

If careful readers are looking for evidence to support the argument of necessity, in liberal democracies, for a form of civic education which subordinates the ethnic, class, and religious identities of its citizens, they have lost sight of this idea or any support for it. Paragraphs seven through the end of the paper hold promise, but the weaknesses thus far discourage further reading. In addition, the next paragraphs continue with problems in expression, which in turn affect the effectiveness of thesis and argument. The author has difficulty saying what in all likelihood he intends. "[E]very democracy needs a countervailing culture--a culture supportive of citizenship." Countervailing is the problem word. To harken back to one of the principles of coherent writing: Proper expression leads to comprehending thoughts and answering calls to action.

To suggest how the author could salvage what has been commented on thus far and to strengthen the second half of the paper might be to focus on first things first.

If a liberal democracy is the manifestation of free and equal, then we need go no further than to focus on the meaning of this language. If we in a given state are free and equal, without restraint we can order our personal universe in ways we choose. And if we choose not to participate in the body politic, we do not need to. If we choose to make ethnic identity the center of daily life, then we can do that, just as our equals can choose to do what they choose.

According to Professor ???, this might endanger the very values citizens in a liberal democracy live by, but given the mix of all peoples in a hypothetical state, some will be stewards of the system as it is and can be. Others will concern themselves with other pursuits, such as the search for truth, beauty, or goodness. In the experiment that is democracy, some who think citizens do not know or value enough the idea of free and equal will create the opportunities needed to ensure people get the message. After all, liberal democracies defined as free also have their evangelists.

Free and equal are ideas and values that have some limits. Of these Professor ??? does not mention or develop, and they are imperative to discuss or acknowledge in any treatment. Although in the main the author is correct that for a liberal democracy free and equal are requisite, these concepts need to be carefully defined for socio-political contexts. As common wisdom says, you are not free to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater where there is no fire. There are subordinations, or limits, and these must be suggested or addressed given the Professor's topic.

In sum, the argument for a civic culture and its creation and maintenance through education, leading to subordination of other identities citizens have is not convincing. It is not in part because of flaws in expression. A reader should not easily find minor or major faults with almost every paragraph. The thesis is also not convincing because of an apparent neglect of the very tenets of liberal democracy as specified by the author himself--free and equal members of a state. In other words, one does not have far to look for liberal democracy's clear, coherent, articulated central ideas; and the meaning of free and equal includes those whose education may be deficient, or whose "preferences" may be other than civic.

Professor ??? concludes with a warning. Losing the capacity to form habits of citizenship threatens "the citizens of North Atlantic liberal democracies today." Whether an accurate assessment or not, Professor ???'s words call us to take heed. But what North Atlantic liberal democracy today needs an influx of civil society programs such as supported the socio-political (and economic) transitions in Central and Eastern Europe in the early 1990s? Or, what cultural or other phenomena are at play somewhere to give us the idea that an act of civic education needs to be performed? It would be nice to know; some might think it imperative. Professor ??? is conspicuously silent.

April 25, 2008
Cozumel, Mexico

+ Approximately 2000 words

+ Flesch Reading Ease (target audience)--college students

+ Writing principles to be gleaned from the above critique.

1. Mean what you say and say what you mean.
2. Answer questions your reader will naturally ask.
3. Do not introduce a new thesis in the conclusion.
4. Soften assertions and opinions enough so that your reader does not question everything you say.
5. Define your terms.
6. Use examples to demonstrate or explain or clarify.
7. Use changes in register sparingly.
8. Respect the author and what s/he says even though you disagree.
9. Note the difference between effect and affect.
10. If you are going to copy something from the Internet, copy the original and keep it as is. Cite the source so your reader can find it.

Apostrophes' demise?

The standing committee for the Preservation of Perfect and Exact English discharged this announcement in its latest newsletter:

At long last, PPEE has concluded the apostrophe no longer necessary. 'Itll be phased out beginning this year and gone from the prescriptive canon by the end of the decade.' The first phase will focus on its use in contractions, or rather its elimination as shown variously here.

Declaring the apostrophes obsolescence* comes as a result of years of misuse and outright neglect, according to the committee. 'The lofty place of the apostrophe in lines of text left vacant by willful populists and others shall now be deemed correct. Thus, the practice of English 'wordsmiths', who have refused to join the ranks of those who would conserve the language in its pure and original state, shall, alas, rule.'

In its action, the committee has succumbed to 'ponderous evidence of what writers do', not the pressures exerted by 'recent tracts that have flooded our lobbies by descriptivists. Such would be to concede authority to a competitor society, albeit an unnamed, unofficial one.'

Native speaking members of the academy already decry the change(s), while open-punctuation enthusiasts deem it long overdue. Others indeed have responded with the level of concern they have shown all along for this punctuation mark, ignorance.

Fortunately for newcomers to English, 'we have moved beyond any further debate'. To err on the side of simplicity will no longer beget furrowed frowns nor give cause for red pens to indicate where a bit of black ink should have appeared.

The following is a rough translation of the above bit of bogus and a discussion of the proposal sans inflation. Would that some committee or society could actually bring order to a sometimes disorderly language as well as help it--and thereby ourselves--evolve as it could or should. Lacking that body, we can always imagine.

Stuck occasionally between and above two letters in standard English text, or sometimes forlorn by itself at the beginning or end of a word, the apostrophe is easy to overlook and sometimes not easy to decode. To wit, what does apostrophes' in the title refer to? Have you also noticed it's mistaken application? or the absence from the possessive adjective its, or even the way some expressions should but do not invoke it, as in the Royal Firemans Union or years end?

The apostrophe is most often used to show the omission of a letter or letters.+ For example, I'm for I am. It is also used to achieve phonetic effect (which'er for whichever, ne'er for never), or to indicate possession (Mary's book).

The point of the edict from the committee is, except in cases where there is strong cause for confusion, cant we do away with some of these uses altogether? You did not stumble on that cant in the previous sentence, did you? Case in point. Lets admit that we would likely stumble on neer (for ne'er), not only for how to pronounce the word but also for whether it was indeed a word or contained a typographical error. And let it be noted that the apostrophe in possessives is already disappearing, which warrants a separate discussion.

De-contracting, however, is based on the notion that we already know these utterances that sound and function effectively as standalone words. We should be able to recognize them easily in text. A move toward greater simplicity in form is strengthened in that most contractions when deprived of the punctuation are not confused with other words spelled or sounding the same, either because there are no other words or the context makes it quite clear what has been meant. Thus, goes the argument, havent they, apostrophes, especially in contractions, outlived their usefulness? (Anticipate PPEEs next elimination, certain uses of the comma. Oops, sorry about that.)

To see how this works, consider the intractable its/it's. Untying this knot to see the common sense of just plain its can illustrate how other apostrophic puzzles can be treated.

In writings surprisingly by those who should know better, it's is used where its is called for and vice versa. We may have fewer writers and editors who are good proofreaders today, but this is beside the point. Its and it's are so similar in appearance on a page as to all but demand simplification. Plus, because of how often it's is an error, the sense of a sentence is never compromised if the punctuation is missing. A few readers may hiccup once in the flow of meaning-making until the convention becomes standard. Its is ubiquitous already, but its solidity as a standard is unsteady because of an existing rule/usage some are aware of, having to do with something that looks almost the same. That is it's, it is or has, detracts from the feeling of correctness for the correct usage of its.

The idea again is to eliminate apostrophes in contractions except in cases of confusion. If its can be easily decoded when appearing in writing, correctly or incorrectly used, might not other contractions be seen in the same way? Its/it's raises a number of basic questions the responses to which may be sufficient rationalization for implementing other de-contractions.

A. The dog ate its dinner.
B. Its dinner time for the dog.
C. Its been a long time since he ate.

1. Most readers not purists. The proofreaders among us might see the misuse of its in B and C and experience an interruption in the flow of their reading. "Stop, go back, how is that again?" But even purists as well as the rest of us--dont we just keep reading on? We get it, the meaning, in the same way we get it's in spoken English where we never see the punctuation.

2. Reading method no deterrence. If you are a subvocalizer, reading to yourself as if reading out loud, you wont skip a beat. Again, the out-loud analogue.

If you read by seeing and comprehending letters and words and chunks of text as images, then do you stop and question when it's appears incorrectly? Not likely. Text-as-image readers tend to be faster than subvocalizers, focusing less on the form and appearance of the language in its bits and pieces and more on meaning that is quickly accessible. These readers dont lose the sense of what they see because of a portrait's detail.

3. Presence matters not. The apostrophe, in the instance of it's, is such a small thing to see or attend to. In any instance of seeing or not seeing the ', the apostrophe is an infinitesimal component part of one of the languages shortest, most frequently used words. Just a jot, an atomic particle.

If the missing apostrophe in the it-is or it-has construction causes little to no interruption of flow, is not missed except by a few, and deters us not from making sense of what we read, are these applicable to other common contractions?

The weakest argument, or rationalization, above has to do with the confusion factor. If the apostrophe in contractions is phased out and all texts become standardized in appearance, where context rules for contractions and not the punctuation mark, the flow/something-is-missing-here problem goes away. What may not go away is whether or not we can easily grasp what is meant. And after all, that is the object of text written. How can we assess the magnitude of this problem? Although it may introduce other complications and discussions: What if we make a subjective assessment of how confusing it would be to drop the apostrophe from the most commonly contracted forms?

Let

0 mean not at all confusing (no other common word in the language)
1 = context would almost always make meaning clear
2 = minor possibility of confusion
3 = confusing but worth omitting the apostrophe
4 = problematic, perhaps justifying keeping the apostrophe

Assessments (of the form rating plus comment)

Id: 1; may be confused with the id (psychology) or id (identification)
Ill: 2; this de-contracted form would always begin with an upper case letter, and only confuse in the context of illness and placement at the beginning of a sentence, or perhaps as part of a proper noun/name for an illness (rare)
Im: 0
Ive: 0; example confusion, the short form for the proper name Ivy (rare)
aint: 0; this word--and it is a word if not an official contraction--always indicates less formal register
arent: 0
cant: 2; consider cant as angle, inclination, kick, etc.
couldnt: 0
couldve: 1; readers would not confuse with the non-standard "could of"
didnt: 0
doesnt: 0
dont: 0
hasnt: 0
hed: 1; may be seen as typographical error or misspelling (e.g., had)
hell: 3; example, "Hell go to hell" (versus the word as proper noun in direct address, "Hell, go to hell" (gotta be rare!)
hes: 1; could be confused with word as word in a plural sense
howd: 1; may be seen as typographical error or misspelling (e.g., howdy)
howll: 1; may be seen as typographical error or misspelling (e.g., howl)
hows: 1; could be confused with word as word in a plural sense
isnt: 0
its: possible touchstone for de-contracting (see above)
lets: 0; most often appears at the beginning of a sentence followed by the infinitive form of a verb
mightnt: 0
mightve: 0; would not confuse with the non-standard "might of"
mustnt: 0
mustve: 0
shant: 0
shed: 1; minor possibility of confusing with outbuilding
shell: (not rated--a concordance or corpus might be helpful in determining confusion factor)
shes: 1; could be confused with word as word in a plural sense
shouldnt: 0
shouldve: 0; would not confuse with should of
tarnt: (not rated, not a common contraction except in vernacular rendered in text; instance of an outlier; further assessment needed, maybe)
thatll: 0
thats: 1; could be confused with word as word in a plural sense
theres: 1; could be confused with word as word in a plural sense
theyd: 0
theyll: 0
theyre: 0; already has possible confusion with there, but in text this is clear
theyve: 0
tis: 0; infrequently used
tisnt: 0; infrequently used
twas: 0; infrequently used
wasnt: 0
wed: 3; may be confused with abbreviation of Wednesday
well: 3; (further assessment needed)
were: 3; (further assessment needed)
werent: 0
whatd: 0
whats: 1; could be confused with word as word in a plural sense
whend: 0
whenll: 0
whens: 1; could be confused with word as word in a plural sense
whered: 0
wherell: 0
wheres: 1; could be confused with word as word in a plural sense
whod: 0
wholl: 0
whos: 1; could be confused with word as word in a plural sense; could be taken as typographical error--whose
whyd: 0
whyll: 0
whys: 1; could be confused with word as word in a plural sense
wont: 1; wont as custom or habit is not frequently used
wouldnt: 0
wouldve: 0; readers wouldnt confuse with the non-standard "would of"
youd: 0
youll: 0
youre: 1; already possible confusion with your
youve: 0

You get the idea. Note that in all but a few instances, the ratings here do not reach the point where a de-contracted form jeopardizes meaning. (A "decontracted form's jeopardizing meaning" is already dying out as noted above.) Assuming that the ratings here reflect actual low confusion risks, and noting register in the comments as another possible factor to confuse, we can dismiss both of these points by reasoning that soon-to-be "ubiquitous standard usage" will result in little to no confusion and context will almost always make usage and therefore meaning clear. But let this conclusion here invite additional independent assessments of these forms along the same lines. The results would validate, or not, what has been presented thus far. Youre invited.

Comes the subject of register. Is not in formal written English is often preferred over isn't. The use of the contracted form signals informality. The proposal here is for the elimination of contractions in text. Just as in other matters, we can differentiate to clarify. Is not can continue in formal English. Isnt can continue to appear in less formal writing. The proposal is not to replace it is with isnt in the contexts where the former should appear by practice (i.e., convention) or prescription. And to suggest something like a re-alignment of register for like-wording-and-meaning forms is another, quite separate matter.

Such a small thing, this apostrophe in contractions. Why bother make any change? Is there some compelling reason beyond (mostly) the forces and reasons discussed here? Perhaps not. Surely there are bigger matters for what we say to make sense. Clearly communicating is the wholistic object, not nits and gnats.

Context should indicate unambiguously here how demise in the title should be understood: to do away with. The notion of bequeath or to hand down is not the intended meaning, or is it? Well, indeed it can be, in addition to the dominant meaning given by most of the context created thus far.

Proposals comprise what might be, and if reasonable, acceptable, and so forth, what beneficiaries will have for their good. De-contracted forms of the most common expressions in written English promise to simplify, in a small way, what all but a few can easily decode and readily understand. For those who are momentarily stopped in the face of the new, whether because of reverence for tradition, the obligation of habit, or the stubbornness of preference, can soon adjust as the practice becomes ubiquitous and standard.

Thus it is that language in form can represent, convey, and render opulent our world with economy of expression. To place the apostrophe high in the line to denote what is specifically-and-only has seen better days. It no longer needs our obeisance, especially in contractions. We have evolved, as has the language, to greater heights. And we have learned that context and meaning can and should be deconstructed with some little effort in order to appreciate the fullness of what can be or indeed intended to be communicated. One reading's demise does away with; another's brings into relief dimensions and textures that heighten and enrich experience and sense.

Text-messaging inventions, the trend toward open punctuation, the development in global or international English, among other phenomena, suggest fewer boundaries to what we can say and how it appears on paper. Apostrophes demise? Why not? Lets clean house so our beneficiaries can develop and evolve without unnecessary bits of black ink. Respecting yet surmounting convention, therein lies the creative and a world to discover. One small step. Were but a ' away.

---

* The subject of a gerund, according to many college-level style manuals for essays and academic writing, should be a possessive. In an unpublished paper, PhDr. Marcela Malá, M.A. observes that this rule is not observed in practice. Copy available upon request.

+There are other uses of the apostrophe. For example, to show the plural of a number (e.g., There are four 4's in that serial number.). However, recently published and specialized or discipline-oriented style manuals have dropped the apostrophe for this use (e.g., 4s).