Franzen Blog

cnn.com

 ”In a deal that some media executives called revolting, O.J. Simpson
plans a book and TV interview to discuss how, hypothetically, he could
have killed his ex-wife and her friend — a story his publisher
considers “his confession.” “

 ”Denise Brown, sister of Simpson’s slain ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson,
lashed out at the publisher for “promoting the wrongdoing of criminals”
and commercializing abuse.”

I think O.J. really has some nerve to pull something like this.  Whether or not O.J. is guilty I think it is wrong that he is bringing up his ex-wife’s murder in such a manner.  It is insensitive and obviously an attempt at making a few bucks.  I feel like if he is innocent then he would be more sesitive about the situation and maybe write a book about how the loss of his wife has affected him rather than writing a book about his hypothetical involvement in it.  On the other hand I feel that if he is guilty this stunt would draw far too much negative attention.  It is possible that he is so cocky that he feels he can throw his possible guilt in peoples faces.  Because there was so much forensic evidence against O.J Simpson I find it strange that he feels the need to tell the world how he “could have” killed his wife and her friend.  Everyone knows how he “could have” done it because it was all spelled out for us.  It is very easy for us to see how he “could” have done it, the question is did he do it.  If this is in fact intended to be a confession by O.J. it is a pitiful one, considering that his book deal and interview will undoubtedly earn him some money in the process.  It takes a certain kind of person to stategically profit from the confession to your wife’s murder.  I don’t know if O.J. is innocent or guilty but if I were a juror and I was confronted with the amount of evidence that was found against him, I would probably have found him guilty.  In any case I think this is bad move on O.J.’s part and will only bring him negative attention.  He has been out of the spotlight for quite a while but this will certainly land him back in it.

foxnews.com

BOGOTA, Colombia —  Colombia’s largest rebel group is calling on Denzel Washington, Oliver Stone and Michael Moore
to help it reach a deal with the government on exchanging imprisoned
guerrillas for rebel-held hostages, including three U.S. citizens.

The
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, better known as the FARC,
issued a letter made public Thursday asking the celebrities to advocate
the swap to the American people.

I found this article very interesting.  I was not aware that there were U.S. citizens captive in Colombia.  The article explains how the rebel group is demanding the release certain members who are detained in the United States, one of which is currently  being tried for the kidnapping of the three American captives. I think that everyone in a position to negotiate should take this proposal seriously.  Apparently the three Americans have been in Colombia against there will for almos four years.  The negotiation however seems a littel outrageous.  The rebel group is asking for the release of some 600 rebels in exchange for the three Americans.  I feel that our government needs to do whatever is necessary to get these people home but I don’t know how feasible it would be to release 600 dangerous criminals and transport them back to Colombia without posing a threat to civilians and or law enforcement officials.  I realize that these rebel leaders are probably not the most reasonable humans beings but I’m honestly not sure if the negotiation is possible.  As for the celebrities being called into action by the rebel leaders, there must be some reason why these specific people are being targeted but the articlel says little about this. The rebels obviously feel that these individuals would be in favor of the exchange but I wish we were given a little more information about why. 

usatoday.com

Some of the busiest airports in the country —
including Los Angeles International Airport, Chicago’s O’Hare
International Airport and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International
Airport — have more than one runway that doesn’t meet safety standards,
according to statistics supplied by the Federal Aviation Administration.

“Our runways are out of shape, and the Bush
administration has failed to move to correct the problem,” Sen. Frank
Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat, said Thursday. “If we don’t get
serious about runway problems, the result could be disastrous.”

This article really concerns me.  When people fly they want to know that all the proper precautions have been taken and that any necessary regulations have been followed. It is scary to know that some of our major airports are not in fact adhering to all regulations.  The article points the finger at the Bush administration for being not adressing this issue.  This seems to be the same late-to-act kind of attitude that has charactarized this administration over the past several years.  There have been several incidents which have occured during the Bush administration that have shaken our country and introduced a need for swift action by the government in times of disaster.  It it too bad the we only recognize this need for urgency after the fact.  Maybe Bush and his people need to start adressing issued before they turn into serious problems.  Airport, and airplane safety has proved to be an issue in the past, not so much in regards to the issues adressed in this article, but the need for attention is apparent, and I think something needs to be done quicky.

” Yet my status as insider in practice, outsider in theory was what earned me a secure- if not always comfortable- place among others at the Smokhouse.  In fact, one might say that my position as insider depended on my willingness to perform the role of outsider, to present a challenge to cultural logics.  As an egghead with middle- class aspirations, I became a catalyst for public performance, and in particular, for performances in arguments about politics”.

Lindquist describes herself as insider in practice, outsider in theory, meaning that she was part of this social interaction because she worked at the Smokehouse but in  the eyes of her customers and herself she was really part of a different social class.  She goes on to say that her position as an insider, her acceptance by these people, was dependant on the fact that she was going to present opposition to the logic that her customers adhered to.  Her customers recognized the difference between her and them and  because of this they used Lindquist as a target for there public performances, being there arguments about certain social and political ideas.  The people who frequented the Smokehouse bar, being this particular group of working- class individuals used Jack as there spokesperson, there voice of reason.  Lindquist recongized Jack’s role as  spokesperson, and Jack recognized Lindquists ability to provide opposition to his ideas.  Therefore Jack used this opposition as a means to put on a display of ideology,  a performance of sorts during which he passionately yet vaguely depicts his ideas about social issues and therefore the stance of the larger working class. 

” Not for the working- class child alone is adjustment to the classroom difficult. Good schooling requires that any student alter early habits. But the working- class child is usually least prepared for the change. And, unlike many middle- class children, he goes home and sees in his parents a way fo life not only different but starky opposed to that of the classroom. ( He enters the house and hears his parents talking in ways his teachers discourage.”

This passage from The Achievement of Desire comes from Richard Rodriguez’ interpretation of Richard Hoggart’s The Uses of Literacy. I think there is both truth and assumption in this description of the behavior of working class students. I agree that school and home life are very different environments which require different kinds of interactions and ways of thinking, but Rodriquez and Hoggart are assuming certain things about the the conditions of home life for working class children. I don’t think it is fair to say that all working class parents speak in a way that would be discouraged by a teacher or person of higher education. I feel that these writers are making broad generalization about certain societall groups. As for the working- class students who do fit the stereotype described by Rodriquez and Hoggart, it must be extremely hard to be dedicated to something that is never reinforced at home. My parents always pushed me to succeed in school and I still found it difficult at times to focus on school work. There are so many kids who have such a hard time adjusted to school life and really don’t know how to function in that kind of environment, and this may be due the vast differences between school and home life.

Concerning Rodriguez’ agrument that seperation from family is inevitable if one is to pursue academic success, I don’t know how strong of an argument it is. For people who don’t plan on living with their parents forever, there is an obvious seperation from family as one makes decisions about what they will do with there lives. Basically growing up invovles moving on and leaving the people you love behind in order to create your own destiny. I don’t think education is the only scenario in which people are forced to make sacrifices. I think the intensity with which Rodriguez approached his studies caused his seperation from family to be intensified and occured at an earlier age. I think Rodrigues tries to convince himself that it was necessary to shut out his family in order to achieve the level of success he desired.

www.foxnew.com

“This is a tough thing, but is a necessary thing
to go through,” said Dianna Hoyt, whose stepdaughter was killed by
Rolling and decapitated. “It is very hard for us to see someone else
die. But he deserves it.”

Accused serial killer Danny Rolling was recently executed in Florida more than 16 years after he murdered several Universtiy of Florida students in a brutal fasion.  The article said that one young girl was decapitated and then her head put on a shelf for display while her body was placed on a chair.  The details behind these murders, and how the killer played with the bodies, putting them in different poses is absolutely disturbing.  I was a little shocked by the quote above in which one of the parents of the victim said that despite the what happened it  is ” hard for us to see someone else die”.  Not to sound morbid but if my child were decapitated I think I would watch in pleasure at the death of their killer.  I understand that the average person might be affected by seeing someone else dying, but just thinking of what he did to that poor girl makes me feel that he deserved anything that was coming to him, and the parents of the victims deserved to watch it.

cnn.com

    “Always on the cutting edge of all things environmental, California is encouraging public and private-sector employees to bring worms to work so that the creatures can chew up apple cores, sandwich scraps and other lunch leftovers and produce compost.”

    A public works office building in Los Angeles, California has been using worms as a means of recycling paper waste and lunch scraps.  The employees simply dump whatever waste they have into a plastic bag filled with worms, and are then encouraged to take the recycled waste home to use as fertilizer for their gardens.

     It’s nice to see  that  people out there in California are thinking outside the box a little on these environmental issues.  When we go through the mundane routine of taking out the garbage I don’t think we always consider the fact that all this garbage has to be put somewhere, and with the world in a constant state of development, how long will it be before we run out of space.  When it comes to things such as dumps and landfill it seems that most people adhere to the NIMBY policy, meaning Not In My Backyard, and who can blame them.  I’m not extremely knowledgeable on the subject and am unaware of any recent breakthroughs in the area of waste management but it seems like these people might be on to something.  I don’t know however how feasible it would be to implement such a policy on a large enough scale to make a significant environmental impact.  I think that people coming up with alternative ideas such as this one will eventually lead to progress  in terms of environmental issues. 

    ” For what  this separation is done, I do not know, unless it be to hinder the development of the child’s affection toward it’s mother, and to blunt and destroy the natural affection of the mother for the child.  This is the inevitable result.”

    I could not help but notice the similarity between this passage from The Narrative Of The Life of Frederick Douglass and the part from Live from Death Row in which Mumia Abu- Jamal talks about the systematic break-down of ties between death row inmates and their families.  I realize that there is a difference in these two situations, being that the people subjected to this type of treatment in Douglass’s story are guilty of nothing, and the one’s in Abu- Jamal’s story have been convicted of terrible crimes, but both situations stem from the same kind of inhumane mentality.

There was another part from The Narratives Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass that I found to be equally inhumane.  Douglass talks about how on the holidays the slaves were given time off and were not only allowed to celebrate but were encouraged to drink whiskey.  The slave owners and overseers purposely tried to get the slaves so drunk that they would come to see the holidays as bitter-sweet in a way and associate this kind of freedom ,the only kind they had, with unpleasant times. Frederick Douglass described it like this,

” I have said that this mode of treatment is a part of the whole system of fraud and inhumanity of slavery.  It is so. The mode here adopted to disgust the slave with freedom, by allowing him to see only the abuse of it…”.

I think this goes hand in hand with the comparison I made between this text and Live from Death Row.  In both of these societies there is a system put in place with the purpose of deceiving, and destroying basic human emotions.  

    I thought Love Letters was a very powerful and socially insightful text.  I found several passeges very interesting and worthy of discussion but there are two in particular that I would like ot talk about.

    “…even something as minimal as mailing a letter required more energy units than I had to spare if I was gonna stay fixed and on toppa my hustle.  It’s hard to concieve that such a tiny task coulda been so entirely overwhelming  but it was.”

I think this quote is a good description of the desperation and hoplessness of addiction.  If something as simple as mailing a letter is too much to handle, then how are these people supposed to make a transition into a  normal existance.  The way that Foss describes this minimal task being such a barrier makes us understand how addicts get stuck in their ways.  It’s easy for us to look at such people and assume that they should be able to turn their life around, even if it is little by little, but for these people a little is a whole lot.  This quote also tell us the real reason why Mickey did’t mail the letters to Darryl. 

    “And I realized that it isn’t the broken language and the twisted syntax of the dispossessed that bothers the world.  It is the stories they render.  It is the fear that beneath the ain’ts and the sentance fragments are bright beutiful minds that would condemn the world for their alienation and exclusion if they ever got the chance to be heard.”

I think that we have all at some point dimissed someone who talks with less than perfect
English as someone who is unintelligent, or put them into a certain category.  When people talk in a certain fashion, such as the one that Mickey uses, when tend to assume certain things about their life, their upbringing, their morals and values that often hold negative connotations.  In reality these people have the same emotions and instincts and reason as everyone else, and just because thet don’t use the same words to express them doesn’t make them any less relevant.

abcnews.com

Two Americans have recently won the 2006 Nobel Prize for physics.  John Mather and George Smoot are responsible for conducting a satellite program which supports the Big Bang Theory, describing how our universe was created. By studying the temperature of cosmic microwave background radiation present in the universe when it was created, and now, they determined that only an event such as the Big Bang Theory could have accomidated such measurements.  The use of this kind of measurement and analysis of radiation in the universe is a huge step in the field of cosmology.  I feel that this is a momentus event as the relevance of the universe and our place in it continues to grow.   We have recently learned that one of our nine planets isn’t actually a planet, and even more recenlty there have been several new planets found in our universe that orbit a much smaller sun(another article abcnew.com) . I think it is interesting that we are still discovering new things about our solar system and universe, as well as new ways in which we can study them.  The Big Bang Theory has been a controversial topic but one that I, without too much knowledge on the subject, agree with.  I know there has been consideration about using places outside of Earth as a means of supporting humans sometime in the future and the information obtained from this kind of research could help to facilitate such a project if it were ever necessary, because it can tell us alot about the age and nature of planets and their suns. The Big Bang Theory is also controversial from a religious point of view and I’m curious to see if there is a reaction form religious figures as a result of this event.  Im not positve but I believe that some high schools stopped teaching the theory of evolution because of religous, or anti-religious  implications i should say,  which is ridiculous if true.  Does anyone know if they still discuss the Big Bang Theory in school? Again I am unsure of this so if anyone has any input, let me know.