Yesterday, Today, and Beyond

The Logic of “BUG CHASING AND GIFT GIVING:  THE POTENTIAL FOR HIV TRANSMISSION AMONG BAREBACKERS ON THE INTERNET” I am very interested in the phenomena of bug chasing and gift giving.  This is not a term I had ever heard of before.  Bug chasing is when someone looks to get infected with HIV on purpose.  A person that knowingly wants to give someone HIV is known as the gift giver.  This concept seems so bizarre and foreign to me because I had always thought of HIV and AIDS as a very negative, undesirable and deadly disease.  I looked on the internet and found out about this phenomenon and the terminology surrounding it. The main purpose of “BUG CHASING AND GIFT GIVING:  THE POTENTIAL FOR HIV TRANSMISSION AMONG BAREBACKERS ON THE INTERNET” was to explore the prevalence and possible reasoning behind someone intentionally becoming infected with HIV (Grove and Parsons 2006).  Since bug chasing and gift giving is a relatively new idea, there have...

Chimney sweepers in England in the 1700’s were exploited young children (often orphans) who were sent into scary dirty chimneys to do hard manual – eventually fatal – labor for very little pay.  In Williams Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience , he describes the lives of chimney sweepers in two separate poems by the same name – “The Chimney Sweeper.”  Each poem comes from a different perspective, that of innocence and of experience.  Blake’s condemnation of society and religion is plain to see in the two poems.  Blake makes us take a hard look at the lives of these young children and the impacts of society and religion for these children. “The Chimney Sweeper” from Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake, shows how vulnerable young children were exploited by being forced to clean chimneys at a very young age.  In “The Chimney Sweeper” from Songs of Innocence , the children feel like it is their “lot in life” to do this hard work, but they have...

Wallowing in complexity is a concept of giving a lot of deep thought to a complex question.  It involves coming up with a question first of all.  Also, the problem must be thought of from many different angles and different ways to address the problem than may initially come to mind.  Wallowing in complexity means that you can look at and analyze your questions from at least 2 different perspectives:  yours and the opposition, but possibly even more perspectives.  This concept involves understanding the history, context and important facts about your question.  Wallowing in complexity means opening your mind to many possible outcomes.  You may need to do research or conduct studies to attain more information about your complex question.  By doing these kinds of high level thinking and delving deeper, you could change your own mind or the question itself may be changed.  Wallowing in complexity is a great tool to basically have an internal di...

It is important to consider your audience when writing because that will frame what information is relevant to the reader and what may be superfluous.  I used to work for a transportation company.  If I were to write using abbreviations and other jargon related to big rig trucks, most people would not understand the meanings.  I remember when I first started that job; I felt like I was reading another language.  I think Mr. Rogers was a person that was particularly skillful and attentive to preparing for and speaking to his audience.  He chose words and explained things in a way that a young child could understand, yet he did not talk down to them.  He was really pretty amazing in the way he could talk to children in a normal respectful way, yet explain concepts that were sometimes very deep.  The more research I have done on Mr. Rogers, the more I have come to appreciate his wisdom.  He once received an award and was called up to speak as he rec...

In Tim Urban’s “How to Beat Procrastination” blog, he defines procrastination literally as “the action of ruining your life for no apparent reason.”  Although this article is entertaining and can be quite funny, the ultimate tone is serious.  Urban deduces some harsh consequences for the procrastinator “to become enslaved by a self-defeating, self-fulfilling prophecy” of continuing to do things that just don’t work and don’t help him or her to achieve his or her goals.  He likens the procrastinator to an addict; the person wants to change and plans to change, but just can’t.  Urban shares some very disturbing sentiments:  the things that must be done will be rushed, stressed and not done very well; and the things you really want to do will either be started and not finished or you will not even try to start.  Urban wants to help us understand the pitfalls of procrastinating and what we can do to work towards beating procrastination.  He uses every ...

A wildfire is raging across the Appalachian area in Tennessee, leaving a trail of devastation of nature, homes and lives in its wake.  Jason Howard speaks to the lack of media coverage of this devastation of the Smoky Mountains near Gatlinburg to this uniquely beautiful part of the country in his article “Appalachia Burning.”  Tennessee is a state known for country music.  Country music artists have dedicated many a song to the Smoky Mountain Range and the country settings of Tennessee.  The first time I ever heard of the Smoky Mountains or Gatlinburg was through country songs.  The songs that come from this area of the country are full of love for family, nature, and the simple ways of life.  Howard tells us how he feels about the people in the Appalachian mountains and the great blaze that is tearing this region apart.  Howards begins his descriptions of the Appalachia people with his own parents’ modest wedding.  Howard tells us that his par...

            I have enjoyed returning to school and learning about the world and myself.  As someone with a full time job, it can sometimes be hard to keep up with school work.  I have to make schoolwork a priority.  I’m a 37 year old wife and mother of three college sophomores.  My daughters attend college in Iowa, Illinois and Japan.  Now you may be wondering if I am a proud mother of triplets. Sorry to disappoint, but you could say we have a “blended family.” Within a two week period, we went from a bustling house full of busy chatty teenagers to just us “old people.”  We miss them, but it is wonderful to see them grow as independent, courageous young women.  After our girls were settled in college for a year and a brief bout with cancer, I realized that I wanted to return to school as well.  Also, the financial aid forms didn’t seem quite as scary as they did when I was young and wanted to...

           After four long years, the American Civil War officially ended in 1865. The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified on December 6, 1865, abolished slavery in the United States. The only reason someone could be forced to provide free labor is if they were convicted of a crime. The main parts of the Fourteenth Amendment, passes in 1868, were as follows: (1) Anyone born or who came to the United States became citizens of the United States as well as a citizen of the state which they reside. States are forbidden to deprive any citizen of privileges or immunities and provide equal protection for all citizens under the law. (2) There would be representatives based on a census of all people living in each area, that would not count Indians that are not taxed. If any male over age 21 was denied the right to vote, the count used for representing that area is reduced by the same number.  Citizens not allowed to vote due to su...

Abraham Lincoln views on slavery swayed through the years. Five months after the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed in 1854, Lincoln gave a speech in Peoria, Illinois giving his opinion on the issue of slavery and its expansion. He felt that popular sovereignty was a bad idea, and that letting slavery expand into new states or territories was “wrong in its direct effect. . . allowing it to spread to every other part of the wide world”. (Lincoln 1: 267). Lincoln stated that he felt the institution of slavery was unjust, made us look like hypocrites to the world and made American citizens doubt the very ideals that the United States was built upon. He stated that he understood how slavery worked in American society and didn’t blame the people whose lives had already been built around the institution. Lincoln said that his first instinct is to let all the slaves be free and help them settle in Liberia, in Africa. The only reason he didn’t think that is a feasible idea is that there was not f...

The “Declaration of Sentiments” came out of the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. Its goal was to show how women were treated unequally and to fight for equal treatment, including the following: voting rights; access to education; equal access to divorce and child custody; employment, including within the ministry; rights to her own property and wages; and for males and females to be judged and upheld to the same moral standards. Elizabeth Cady Stanton used the Declaration of Independence as a guide in writing the “Declaration of Sentiments,” showing the ironic need for women to get rights denied to her by men in the same way that Americans were denied their rights by the king of England. A main point made in the “Declaration of Sentiments” is that women were represented without the right to vote. If a single woman owned property, which was the only way a woman could own her own property, she would be taxed without representation. Stanton is clearly plagiarizing the Declaration of Inde...

“The Discord” shows the battle between males and females for control and rights. They are shown fighting over a literal “pair of pants” in a tug of war between males and females. The males in “The Discord” are on the left, not fully dressed, neither of the two men are wearing pants and one even seems to be wearing a slip or skirt. The females on the right are fully dressed in dresses, and one of the women appears to be wearing a pair of pants under her dress. This painting is showing the power struggle between men and women in family and society in general. The painting shows how both sides feel about the issue.  The women want what they feel is basic rights. The men appear to think the women are asking for too much, since they are already fully dressed and they still want the pants. The man in the middle of the cartoon says he would “Rather die! than let my wife have my pants” and that a man should always be the “ruler.” (Heppenheimer). The woman in the middle says “Woman is born...

Toqueville described three races of people that lived in the United States in Democracy in America . He notes the main obstacle between the three races in coming together as a society were education and law and where they originate from, which was apparent by their skin color.  Toqueville says that the whites are “superior in intelligence, in power and in enjoyment” and proud of their race, but oppressive to the Native Americans and African slaves. (Toqueville 216). He noted that the Negro has lost all ties to their African culture, language and family structure and are deprived of their basic humanity. Toqueville asserted that their status as a slave has made them inferior, ashamed and animalistic. His opinion of the Native Americans was that their life was easy and carefree before the Europeans came: they lost their traditions and culture and became more uncivilized and dangerous, yet remained very proud. Their pride was a downfall to the Native Americans in Toquville’s opinion,...

“Virginian Luxuries,” showed a white slave owner kissing a black female slave on one side and beating what appears to be a black male slave on the other side. “Virginian Luxuries” illustrated the power dynamic that dominated slave society. The slave owner had authority over and easily took advantage of his slaves. This showed the slave owner in negative light, showing the sexual and physical abuse that slave owners committed against their slaves. The title itself is ironic, since what was portrayed in the painting showed the opposite of luxury, especially for the slave. However, one could conclude that the female slave perhaps enjoyed some sense of “luxury” by having a sexual relationship with the slave owner. She could have held influence over the slave owner by getting better treatment for her and her children (possibly his children), better housing, more and better food, easier job duties, etc. In the situation where most slaves didn’t have much control, she could be taking fate in...

The most i mportant  events in United States history to me are the Revolutionary and the Civil W ars .  The w ars  themselves are not a major i nterest  to me b ecause  w ar  just s eems  to be a sad l oss  of l ives  for e ither  s ide  of a ny  w ar .  More i mportant  to me is the c auses   fo r the w ars  a nd  the e nsuing  results.  The Revolutionary War set i nto  motion the a ctualization  of the g reat  c ountry  we know t oday  a nd  the U nited  States of America.  Citizens in the c olonies  f elt  that they were b eing  treated u nfairly  a nd  taxed w hile  not p roperly  r epresented  in England.  The issues the colonist had with England led to the  fo unders  of the United States to create a d emocratic  s ystem  totally different f rom  a monarchy.  Today, we stil...

If I could only choose one lesson to teach someone about American history, it would be about slavery and the lasting impacts on Americans today.  Although there are many great things about America, our history and legacy has been built on the backs of slave labor. Slaves were treated as property and less than human.  It shocked me when I first found out about slavery in elementary school.  I was horrified!  How can one person think to own another? And the treatment of slaves was usually horrible.  Families were broken apart through sale of children or other loved ones.  Slaves were beat and whipped, sometimes worse.  Female slaves were often taken advantage of sexually by masters. Since slavery in America was predominately based on skin color, American culture was and is more slanted towards racism against African Americans.  This was to keep the slaves held to lower standards and later to rationalize mistreatment or unequal treatment of African A...

There are two different forced migrations in the United States that I feel have most dramatically impacted who inhabits this nation and how America is today.  One is the forced migration of Native Americans away from their original homelands.  The other is the Africans that were brought to this country to be used as slaves.  The Native American population was decimated by the forced migrations.  As many as 1/4 of Natives died on the Trail of Tears where they were forced to relocate to "Indian Territory", which is present day Oklahoma.  Many present day Native American tribes are still located in Oklahoma today.  This forced migration has changed the populations of states all over the nation.  Instead of these tribes and people being all over the United States, like they were originally, there are only in reservations set aside by the government. Of course, not every person of Native American descent lives on the reservations, with the original tribes. ...