getmygoat

A few weeks ago I watched Gamer in the theatre.  More than once.  While I’m not a huge fan of action movies, I thought the premise of one person literally controlling another was intriguing.  I was expecting mindless violence, but I ended up watching an hour and a half of the most thoughtful violence I’ve seen in a long time.

In the film, Gerard Butler plays a death row convict who volunteered to be “played” in a video game called Slayers.  His brain is full of cells which give him a distinct IP address and allow the young man willing to pay for the privilege to control him in a battle situation.  Any convict who survives 30 rounds in the game is released.  Butler’s character, Kable, is the only convict to last longer than 10 rounds.

But you knew all that from the previews.  What the previews didn’t show you was another game featuring similar technology, Society.  At first glance it looks like the popular real-life video game The Sims.  On closer inspection, we see that Society is less about simulating a kooky yet functional life (as in The Sims) and more about hooking up with other “characters.”

Society fascinates and horrifies me on several levels.  First of all, the game enables the commodification of the human body.  One person literally pays to control another human being.  The actors in Society, as one character points out, are people who need the money and have no other way to get it.  Like the death row inmates trying to escape their sentence as Slayers, the people in Society are in their situation out of desperation.  I can’t decide if the people who play Society are voyeurs or solicitors.

At the end of the movie, the good guys win (quit groaning, by now you’ve had the chance to see it), and the cells get deactivated.  But I still find myself wondering what kind of person would want to borrow another person’s body for the purpose of sex or killing (let us remember now that Venus and Mars are clandestine lovers).  I know it’s fiction, but at the same time I think that the story is based in truth, and I think that the idea of inhabiting a different body appeals to most Americans (I also saw Surrogates when it came out, and it contains similar ideas, except the people we inhabit are fake this time around).

This started out as a rant about using other people as a means to get off in a fantasy world, but I think there’s more at stake here.  Is our self-esteem really so low that we would rather rent another body, not to copulate with, but to inhabit while we copulate?  I find the entire situation problematic and disturbing, and I hope that the movie instigated that same reaction from other viewers.

Okay, so school has been in session for a few weeks, and I’d like to impart some advice based on a few observations I’ve made this semester.  My perspective has changed slightly; I’m on the other side of the desk (working as a TA) as well as taking classes this year.

My first insightful tidbit should go without saying: DO THE ASSIGNMENT BEFORE THE DAY IT IS DUE.  Seriously, folks, just because class doesn’t start until 1, that doesn’t mean you can put off the work until 11:30.  Also, it’s a bad idea to bring your paper to the writing lab for proofreading the same day it’s due.  Your session will feel rushed, and you may not have time to make all the necessary edits.

Even if you CAN procrastinate and create effective papers, DON’T LET ON.  Your teachers do not need to know that you don’t care enough about their classes to put actual thought into your work.  Everyone slips up; everyone forgets sometime.  When you do, own up to it.  But when you’re putting things off for frivolous reasons, that’s just disrespectful.

TAKE ADVANTAGE OF YOUR RESOURCES.  My university has a writing lab where other students will help you write better papers.  All professors have office hours during which you can reach them.  And if you can’t make it to see your prof during his or her hours, e-mail is a perfectly acceptable manner of communicating with your teacher (or TA).  I’m thrilled when students visit me during office hours.  I’m not so thrilled when they come in 45 minutes before class with a single-spaced summary of the reading with no formatting.  Take this back, use your MLA handbook, and bring it to me when you’ve engaged with the text.  Thank you.

Keep in mind this is not a rant of personal experiences.  This is simply a quick sheet for all freshmen (or older students who are out of the school habit) who need some guidelines on how to get through the semester.

Sites like MySpace and Facebook are gaining popularity, and the simplistic Twitter is taking mobile phone Internet access to a new level.  While these sites are great for keeping in touch with friends and family who live far away, I find that they hamper my day-to-day life with other friends by creating unnecessary drama.  Does it really matter who I put on my “top friends”?  Can I post a lyric from a song in my head without people assuming there’s some great crisis in my life?  Can I actually have a quick crisis without people broadcasting it online?

At first I just thought that these sites were a tribute to hubris.  Apparently I’m enough of a narcissist that I need not one, not two, but three web sites devoted to me (three web sites that all essentially say the same thing).  We justify it by saying that we need to use as many sites as possible to keep up with a wide selection of friends - not everyone uses MySpace.  But whatever happened to picking up the phone or writing a letter?  Are those practices really so obsolete?  I don’t know about you, but checking the snail mail is the highlight of my day sometimes; I never know who might send me something.

Of course, I’ve taken this personal problem of mine and posted it on a blog which I’ve reserved more for public ideas than for personal rants.  I’ve used the Internet as a medium upon which to rant about my misgivings regarding the Internet.  I’m unsure if this is ironic or simply hypocritical, so I’m going to stop this tangent now and get back to business with my next post.

I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about The Text (like I do, since that’s kind of my life’s work). This evening’s installment of Randi’s Incoherent Intellectual Thought regards the history of the text. The specific text we were discussing in class was James Joyce’s Ulysses, whose printing history is quite complex. As we discussed the many incarnations of the epic anti-novel, I began thinking of what makes a text “right” or “wrong”.

In the case of Ulysses, there are specific errors written into the text to create complex inside jokes. So grammatical correctness and acceptable spelling really don’t have anything to do with the proper text in this case. I suppose we can start with asking “What does Joyce want?” Authorial intent is notoriously dangerous territory in academia, and it is difficult to decide which manuscript of Joyce’s (or which edited typescript) is closest to what he wants.

The multiple printings of Ulysses involve careful scrutiny of available resources - many people have looked at Joyce’s manuscripts, typescripts, and annotations in order to decide exactly which version of the book the canon accepts. Our class discussion delved into cover art, which one might consider extraneous to the book’s content, but was, according to my professor, a very important aspect of publishing for Joyce. He chose a specific shade of blue-green that matches the color of the Aegean Sea in order to invoke thoughts of Greece and epics before even cracking the cover. Of all the editions we studied in class that day, NONE of them were blue.

But this isn’t supposed to be a record of how various publishing houses have botched the publishing of Ulysses. Ulysses is just one example, for me, of a complicated textual history, and it got me thinking of the following things:

• Even though each new edition is further away from the author, does that make each new text less legitimate? Can’t it be that each edition learns from the previous ones?

• Does publishing multiple editions corrupt the text? Can all texts be corrupted? What about texts, like Ulysses with purposeful errors which are corrupt by nature?

• Do texts become less stable throughout their textual history, and, if so, is this instability a bad thing?

• Back to Ulysses - Would Joyce mind the restructuring of his anti-structuralist text? Aren’t fluidity and instability crucial to reading Ulysses?

These are the types of things I think about at the end of the day, and I would like some input from my fellow readers. I am struggling with this need to find the legitimate text while I find that there are legitimate elements (at least) to all texts. Any thoughts?

Last week in class we were discussing literature (obviously), specifically which books and authors are worthwhile and who makes those decisions.  One of my classmates said that we can’t just open up the canon because trashy popular book will make their way in.  I’ve been thinking about this statement ever since, and I disagree.  I think that the canon is self-regulatory.

When I read Twilight (the book she used as an example of books we don’t want in the canon), it entertains me, but I don’t read much into it.  When I read Watchmen, however, I see many levels of analysis (and I’m sure I miss some as well).  Neither book is in the canon of academic literature, but I believe there is a place for graphic novels, especially ones like Watchmen which are full of literary and political commentary while romantic stories generally do not lend themselves to academic scrutiny.

I think it is elitist to tell people what types of books are worth reading.  I also believe that within a particular genre, some books are better than others.  Just because a book is popular or a best seller does not necessarily mean that it would suddenly become a candidate for scholarly work.  I also think that we should consider the intended audience - juvenile books are less likely to become topics of academic papers than books written for adults.

But I wonder if my ideas here are too Utopian.   Do I have too much faith in today’s readers?  I want to believe that what I say is true, and perhaps English classes will cease to be mostly about Dead White Guys.  I want to see more work on unusual, interesting, and timely books.

Last weekend I was pulled over on my way home after seeing a late movie. It was nearing 2 AM, and I was going a little bit fast because I was very much looking forward to going home and getting some rest. I knew the speed limit was 45 mph, but I set the cruise control a little higher because I also knew the police were out in full force trying to meet quotas. Apparently I did not know the speed limit in my own hometown as well as I thought I did, because the limit changed to 35, and I was stopped for exceeding the limit.

Somehow I got off with a warning. I was straight with the officer - I told him I just wanted to go home and get some rest. I didn’t cry or try to show him my boobs. I think he was expecting to find someone under the influence or perhaps under age because of the hour he pulled me over, and I was as sober as a judge. I was quite relieved that he cut me a break, because I can’t afford a speeding ticket AND next semester’s tuition. The kind officer also informed me that if I’m going as little as 7 mph over the speed limit, since I have a warning, I could receive a moving violation. As much as it sucks, I am adhering to the limit as strictly as I can - and in some places the speed limit is WAY too slow for the amount of traffic (as the people driving behind me have informed me via flashing their brights, honking their horns, and displaying certain appendages). I take it all in stride, because I know that I’m not going to be the one getting pulled over.

I would like to clarify that this is not a gripe about getting a warning. I got a really good deal there, and I was in fact breaking the rules. My ignorance is not a good excuse; I should have been more attentive. The warning is not my problem.

My problem is the fact that, since I have been pulled over and started doing EXACTLY the speed limit wherever possible, I find myself getting passed by a lot of police cars. These cars are not using their sirens or lights, but they are exceeding the limit and therefore breaking the law. It frustrates me that officers of the law frequently place themselves above the law.

Is it a big deal when an officer passes me on the road? Not at all. However I am also watching a case on television in which a New Jersey State Patrol officer is charged with recklessly killing two young girls. He was following a speeder, ran a stop sign, and struck their vehicle. Both teens died at the scene.

Some people join the police force (or the armed forces or find other positions of authority) in order to boss others around, make the rules, and consequently ignore those rules. I do not believe that all people in those positions seek them out specifically to have the means to break the rules. However, I do see a prevalent attitude of being above the rules among authority figures, and this must stop. It may seem harmless when police officers speed, but the family of those sisters in New Jersey thinks otherwise, I’m sure. Please, consider the wellbeing of the people around you - the people you were hired to protect.

I just read this article by Glenn Greenwald about how President Obama doesn’t appear to dissent from a Bush Administration decision which essentially moved the prisoners from Guantanamo Bay to a place in Afghanistan called Bagram. The way it works is this: after the Boumediene v Bush ruling in 2008, Guantanamo Bay prisoners were given habeus corpus rights (what a novel idea), which was a great inconvenience to the War on Terror, so
a new prison in Bagram, outside of United States constitutional jurisdiction, was established. It makes sense that the Bush administration would want to carry on business as usual; the top priority during that presidency was fighting terrorism. I do not understand why Barack Obama thinks it is a good idea to support the previous administration’s decision. While I never toted President Obama as a savior of any sorts, I am quite disappointed in this decision. This is a bad call.

My objections are simple ones: The United States of America is not supposed to police the world. If people are doing bad things in other countries, we have no right to step in, arrest people, and imprison and torture them. I don’t believe the government has the right to wrongfully imprison and torture its own citizens either - that would make us just like the terrorists and despots we have been fighting with for the past decade.

Leaving that aside, I do not see how it is appropriate to arrest people and then ship them to Afghanistan to be imprisoned. First of all, if the United States does not have to follow its own laws there, how can it maintain a prison? Logically, this does not make sense, and it looks like a formula for disaster. Eventually someone at Bagram will wonder why the Americans are in charge even though they have no legal bearing in Afghanistan, and the result will be a terrible mess.

As Greenwald posits in his editorial, it’s one thing to capture people in Afghanistan and imprison them; it’s another thing entirely to capture people elsewhere and move them to this super prison.

If you have a problem with the current disregard for civil liberties and basic human rights, please contact the White House and express your concerns.

The other day I read this article about some questionable practices in military mental treatment centers.  In short, the military discourages Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) diagnoses in favor of other, less severe disorders which require less intensive treatment.  The piece hit home for me especially because one of my goats came home from a tour in Iraq with PTSD.  His case was severe enough for him to be diagnosed properly, and after pumping him full of a variety of drugs, the Army sent him home.  That particular goat is in pretty bad shape, despite the support he received.  I can only imagine how difficult it is for the soldiers who do not get treatment due to intentional misdiagnosis.

I talked about this with another goat in my field, one who holds a graduate degree in psychology.  She was the one who told me about the alternative diagnosis of “adjustment disorder;” on the surface it seems appropriate because it manifests itself after trauma, yet fades over time.  It would be very easy to justify an adjustment disorder diagnosis for a man or woman who recently returned from a combat zone because enough time would not have passed to truly diagnose PTSD.  However, there are plenty of soldiers out there who resist seeking treatment until their symptoms are almost unmanageable because of the stigma attached to mental illness.  After being trained to be “Army strong,” it’s hard to go to someone and confess a mental illness.

It’s hard to prove the exact extent of a mental illness.  I understand this.  I also understand that what the government is doing to these brave men and women is wrong.  I have a problem with a mentality which refuses treatment to some and causes damage to more: “every dollar the Army spends on a soldier’s benefits is a dollar lost for bullets, bombs or the soldier’s incoming replacement.”  Essentially, the Army and the VA are telling people that soldiers are another expendable resource, one that is less important than money to be spent on creating more war-torn minds.

In the end, the Army will protect itself: “after the Army became aware of the tape [exposing the order to military psychologists to avoid diagnosing PTSD], the Senate Armed Services Committee declined to investigate its implications, despite prodding from a senator who is not on the committee. The Army then conducted its own internal investigation — and cleared itself of any wrongdoing.”  The people who are wronging these sick individuals are hiding behind a veil of plausible deniability by claiming that the condition is too hard to prove or that the symptoms are indicative of other disorders.  There is uncertainty in medicine and diagnostics, but no other doctor would be able to intentionally misdiagnose a large number of patients without answering to a malpractice suit.

My rant here is not a tear on the military in general or the Army in particular.  While I oppose this particular conflict, I support the troops, and I believe that the United States needs an armed force to protect its citizens.  I also believe that the United States should take care of that armed force as best it can, especially when its soldiers are injured in the line of duty.

It’s crunch time, and people are scrambling to do their taxes on time.  Despite all the talk about bailouts and economic stimuli, my goat finds that she’s in the same boat she was in last year.  Except this year there’s a bigger hole in it.

My goat managed to go up a pay-grade, which, in these turbulent economic times is still barely enough to make ends meet, which in turn means we have to pay back a significantly larger sum of money than we ever have before.  I know that there are other ungulates in similar pastures having the same difficulties.

Now I am not going to get into debating tax cuts here or throw out the cliche line that the current system “punishes success.”  I disagree with that claim.  I understand that the government needs money to pay off the massive debt it incurred by supporting an overseas war that I did not support, so I know taxes aren’t going to drop any time in the near future.  We cannot undo what has been done, but I would like to think that somehow we can improve the imbroglio in which we find ourselves.

I would like to see the Obama administration take stringent action against companies who are receiving and misusing stimulus money.  Even moreso, I would like to see more stimulus money go to the people who elected him into office.  And this time, I don’t want that government money factored into my income.  This year when my goat did her taxes she discovered that the stimulus check she received last year (and which she spent on paying taxes on her pasture) was a part of her income and therefore taxable.  Sure, she received a meager follow-up stimulus payment, but this time it’s going directly back to the IRS.

In the end, my goat is wondering exactly what she has to do to avoid this same situation next year.  She’s cutting back on the expenses she can, but she’s already buying her hay at a discount store.  One option is to pay more out during the year, but that makes day-to-day life more difficult during the rest of the year.  Each goat can only do so much to stay afloat in today’s economy.  Sooner or later the herders will need to pitch in, or the whole pasture will end up going to pot.

It’s been sunny for two days, but the ditches are all still full of water. No, I don’t live in North Dakota. I live in Northwest Florida, and it rained here for about a week and a half straight. I certainly needed the break from the weather, and not only because the car I drive often hydroplanes (plus the windows have this awful tendency to get stuck in the DOWN position).

No, heavy rains on the Gulf Coast can cause dangers of the strangest kind. Floods are nothing new to Milton; it is submerged in water even more frequently than it is on fire, but I digress. I am more interested in the alligator farm a few counties west of here which lots many of its residents during the storm. Apparently the water rose so high the alligators simply floated above the five-foot tall fence and are loose someplace in Alabama. One of the alligators is eighteen feet long. The news reporter told all viewers that if they encounter any of these loose gators to leave them alone and call the gator farm.

I think this is amazing - not that there are 18-foot alligators loose - I come from an area where, assuming the people encountering the gator are not armed and/or hungry (What? They’re tasty!), folks would actually call the gator farm to rescue them from rogue alligators. I have no doubt in my mind that people took down the number and started calling in gator sightings almost immediately.

As a Floridian, I know quite a bit of gator-evading maneuvers (TIP: they’re too fast to outrun, but they don’t change direction very well). Fortunately for me, my neighbors, and my pets, the worst threat in my neighborhood was a crayfish rising up from the pavement when I took my goat for her evening walk (catching crayfish is easy - simply place a Styrofoam cup behind it and scare it until it backs up). No gators in sight.

We survived this storm. And we made enough progress building our ark that we should have it completed by the start of Hurricane Season (I consider worthy of capitalization, even if it isn’t proper).