“I call myself a peaceful warrior….because the real battles we fight are on the inside.”

“A warrior chooses his path with heart, any path with heart, and follows it; and then he rejoices and laughs. He knows because he sees that his life will be over altogether too soon. He sees that nothing is more important than anything else.”

“To be a Warrior is not a simple matter of wishing to be one. It is rather an endless struggle that will go on to the very last moment of our lives. Nobody is born a warrior, in exactly the same way that no one is born an average man. We make ourselves into one or the other.”

Carlos Castaneda

The worst thing that could happen to us is that we have to die, and since that is already our unalterable fate, we are free; those who have lost everything no longer have anything to fear.

The primary text that I will be using for this assignment is James Allen’s As a Man Thinketh. I find that some of this text is difficult to interpret at some times, which is partly why I choose to write about it. The text is a highly inspirational book that cannot help but to motivate you in some way. James Allen talks about how if you think bad thoughts then eventually bad things  will manifest themselves in your life. Likewise, if you think about good things then they will eventually happen to you. He goes on to explain further that when you think about something you begin to attract that circumstance into your life. Moreover, he explains that these circumstances don’t just happen out of chance. Allen says that once you cultivate a thought, you eventually act on it, which affects your outward circumstances. The text reflects the mind-set that an athlete, or any other successful person, must have in order to achieve success. I believe that this text will help me to accurately describe the amount of thinking and will-power that a person has to possess in order to be sucessful in sports.

The rest of the resources that I will be using to write my discourse are ones that I have discovered through my research. A majority of my resources are of a philosophical nature, which I will use to help talk about the motivational aspects of sports and exercise. Other resources include some workout magazines and essays that deal with sports and the dilema about sports and the health of many Americans.

Folks

I’d like to sing a song about the American dream

About me

About you

About the way our hearts beat way down in the bottoms of our chests

About the special feeling we get in the cockles of our hearts

Or maybe below the cockles

Maybe in the sub-cockle area

Maybe in the liver

Maybe in the kidneys

Maybe even in the colon

We don’t know

*

 America Under Attack

At 8:45 a.m. EDT, the first of two airliners crashed into the World Trade Center, opening a horrifying and apparently coordinated terrorist attack on the United States, which saw the collapse of the the 110 story towers into surrounding Manhattan streets and a later attack on the Pentagon.

*

Of course people don’t want war. But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a facist dictatorship, or a parliment, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger. It works the same in every country (Goering).

*

 In the fields the bodies burning

As the war machine keeps turning

Death and hatred to mankind

Poisoning their brainwashed minds

*

“America is a nation with a misson–and that mission comes from our most basic beliefs. We have no desire to dominate, no ambitions of empire. Our aim is a democratic peace–a peace founded upon the dignity and rights of every man and woman.”

*

They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason(Hemingway)

*

No weapon has ever settled a moral problem. It can impose a solution but it cannot guarantee it to be just one. It’s not right to respond to terrorism by terrorizing other people. And furthermore, it’s not going to help. Then you might say “Yes, it’s terrorizing people, but it’s worth doing because it will end terrorism.” But how much common sense does it take to know that you cannot end terrorism by indiscriminately dropping bombs?(Hemingway).

*

“Make no mistake, the United States will hunt down and punish those responsible for these cowardly acts. Freedom itself was attacked this morning by faceless cowards. And freedom will be defended.”

 *

Politicians hide themselves away

They only started the war

Why should they go out to fight?

They leave that role to the poor

*

Land of the free because of the brave.

*

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety,is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself (Mill).

*

It is only a living organism that faces a constant alternative: the issue of life or death. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. If an organism fails in that action, it dies: its chemical elements remain, but its life goes out of existence. It is only the concept of “life” that makes the concept of “value” possible. it is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil (Rand).

*

“Our mission in Iraq is clear. We’re hunting down the terrorists. We’re helping Iraqis build a free nation that is an ally in the war on terror. We’re advancing in the broader middle east. We are removing a source of violence and instability, and laying the foundation of peace for our children and our grandchildren.”

*

Let’s impeach the president for lying

And leading our country into war

Abusing all the power that we gave him

And shipping all our money out the door

*

Man’s motive power is his moral code. Ask yourslef where their code is leading you and what it offers you as your final goal. A viler evil than to murder a man, is to sell him suicide as an act of virtue. A viler evil than to throw a man into a sacrificial furnace, is to demand that he leap in, of his own will, and that he build the furnace, besides (Rand).

*

Bush said “Bring it on!”.

And mothers of soldiers wept until dawn.

*

Let’s impeach the president for spying

On citizens inside their own homes

Breaking every law in the country

By tapping our computers and telephones

*

” I believe the most solemn duty of the American president is to protect the American people. If America shoes uncertainty and weakness in this decade, the world will drift toward tragedy. This will not happen on my watch.”

*

“Yeehaw!” is not a foreign policy.

*

 What if Al Qaeda blew up the levees

Would New Orleans have been safer that way

Sheltered by our governments protection

Or was someone just not home that day

*

I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they’d never expect it (Handey).

*

“The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people and it is unacceptable to me. Our troops in Iraq have fought bravely. They have done everything we have asked them to do. Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me.”

*

Freedom isn’t free, but you can’t buy it with blood!

*

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper

*

“We go forward with trust that the author of Liberty will guide us through these trying hours.  Thank you and good night.”

Folks

I’d like to sing a song about the American dream

About me

About you

About the way our hearts beat way down in the bottoms of our chests

About the special feeling we get in the cockles of our hearts

Or maybe below the cockles

Maybe in the sub-cockle area

Maybe in the liver

Maybe in the kidneys

Maybe even in the colon

We don’t know

*

 America Under Attack

At 8:45 a.m. EDT, the first of two airliners crashed into the World Trade Center, opening a horrifying and apparently coordinated terrorist attack on the United States, which saw the collapse of the teo 110 story towers into surrounding Manhattan streets and a later attack on the Pentagon.

*

Of course people don’t want war. But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a facist dictatorship, or a parliment, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger. It works the same in every country (Goering).

*

 In the fields the bodies burning

As the war machine keeps turning

Death and hatred to mankind

Poisoning their brainwashed minds

*

“America is a nation with a misson–and that mission comes from our most basic beliefs. We have no desire to dominate, no ambitions of empire. Our aim is a democratic peace–a peace founded upon the dignity and rights of every man and woman.”

*

They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason(Hemingway)

*

No weapon has ever settled a moral problem. It can impose a solution but it cannot guarantee it to be just one. It’s not right to respond to terrorism by terrorizing other people. And furthermore, it’s not going to help. Then you might say “Yes, it’s terrorizing people, but it’s worth doing because it will end terrorism.” But how much common sense does it take to know that you cannot end terrorism by indiscriminately dropping bombs?

*

“Make no mistake, the United States will hunt down and punish those responsible for these cowardly acts. Freedom itself was attacked this morning by faceless cowards. And freedom will be defended.”

 *

Politicians hide themselves away

They only started the war

Why should they go out to fight?

They leave that role to the poor

*

Land of the free because of the brave.

*

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety,is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself (Mill).

*

It is only a living organism that faces a constant alternative: the issue of life or death. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. If an organism fails in that action, it dies: its chemical elements remain, but its life goes out of existence. It is only the concept of “life” that makes the concept of “value” possible. it is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil (Rand).

*

“Our mission in Iraq is clear. We’re hunting down the terrorists. We’re helping Iraqis build a free nation that is an ally in the war on terror. We’re advancing in the broader middle east. We are removing a source of violence and instability, and laying the foundation of peace for our children and our grandchildren.”

*

Let’s impeach the president for lying

And leading our country into war

Abusing all the power that we gave him

And shipping all our money out the door

*

Man’s motive power is his moral code. Ask yourslef where their code is leading you and what it offers you as your final goal. A viler evil than to murder a man, is to sell him suicide as an act of virtue. A viler evil than to throw a man into a sacrificial furnace, is to demand that he leap in, of his own will, and that he build the furnace, besides (Rand).

*

Bush said “Bring it on!”.

And mothers of soldiers wept until dawn.

*

Let’s impeach the president for spying

On citizens inside their own homes

Breaking every law in the country

By tapping our computers and telephones

*

” I believe the most solemn duty of the American president is to protect the American people. If America shoes uncertainty and weakness in this decade, the world will drift toward tragedy. This will not happen on my watch.”

*

“Yeehaw!” is not a foreign policy.

*

 What if Al Qaeda blew up the levees

Would New Orleans have been safer that way

Sheltered by our governments protection

Or was someone just not home that day

*

I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they’d never expect it.

*

“The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people and it is unacceptable to me. Our troops in Iraq have fought bravely. They have done everything we have asked them to do. Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me.”

*

Freedom isn’t free, but you can’t buy it with blood!

*

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper

*

“We go forward with trust that the author of Liberty will guide us through these trying hours.  Thank you and good night.”

Before viewing the movie “Tarnation”, I decided to do some research on the movie. Tarnation is a documentary on the life of Jonathan Caouette, but the movie apparently also focuses on his mother Renee LeBlanc. His mother was treated with electroshocks very early in her childhood. Caouette comes out as gay and he moves to New York at the age of 25. He eventually finds his father in New York and brings his mother to stay with him and establish a family connection.

 The movie was made for $218.00 and consists of various VHS and super 8 video clips that Caouette filmed by himself. He was able to make the film using iMovie software on his Macintosh computer.

I expect the film to be very powerful, see that it was well accepted at the Los Angeles, Cannes, and Sundance film festivals.  I think there will be a lot of clips where John will be sharing personal experiences and expressing his very deep feelings for his mother. From what I saw in the trailer for the movie I think that I will like the movie.

This week our readings deal with the transformation of texts. Our first reading was “Making it Stick” by Lawson Fusao Inada. What Inada does is transform various bumper stickers that describe the various stages Asian Americans have gone through. This form is based on the style of the famous Japanese Haiku poet Basho. Overall, the poem’s style is very appealing to the reading. The words flow to the left and right, swaying from side to side as you read down the page. The bumper sticker quotations are all negative and either express an Asian stereotype or the racism that Asian American are exposed to. The last line of the poem is the authors dedication to the Japanese poet Basho, as he writes Basho’s most famous poem. I think that this expresses the authors feelings toward his own race. Although the whole poem is negative the author expresses his true feelings at the end, his pride for being Asian American.

The Revolver: A Textual Transformation

This piece, written by Derek Pell, takes an excerpt from The Warrren Commission Report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. What Pell does is transform the paragraph that he takes from the report into various versions, each one different and at the same time the same. He writes sentences that are more descriptive and of a broader category. He starts with the word gun and changes it into any instrument used for fighting, then he changes it into a thing by means of which something is done. This last description could be used for numerous objects and not necessarily a gun. By doing this with many objects he is able to transform the text into something that is unrecognizable and open to interpretation. In this way, he uses some words that may not be well known but are synonymous with the previous words. By doing this he is able to confuse the reader by using unnecessary useage of words and advanced descriptions of objects.

“Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm”

The Grimm brothers version of sleeping beauty is the oldest of the 2 stories. The story is very straight forward, describing the major plot points, like how sleeping beauty falls asleep, but it fails to elaborate on the story. You can see in the other versions  that there is more detail and entertainment to the story. A reason for this may be because most stories told around the Grimm brothers time were passed down by oral tradition instead of being published in books. The shortened story may serve to lack detail so people could remember the story and retell it.

“Charles Perrault”

Charles Perrault’s version sleeping beauty is undeniablly more elaborate than that of the Grimm brothers. First, the story has more dialogue, starting with “oh, if only we had a child!”, which changes the story from  narrators point of view to the actual characters in the story. The story also changes the crab that tells the queen about the baby into a frog, as well as adding detail about the process of how sleeping beauty is put to sleep. This process enriches the story, giving sleeping beauty a reason for sleeping for 100 years. Perrault also added the aspect of the mother that wanted to kill the child of sleeping beauty, thus adding an evil aspect to the story. This leads the story to end with two exact results; the evil is punished and the good live happily ever after. You can see that this version is one that was meant to be printed; the dialouge and added details make for a more interesting story to read.

“Bruno Bettelheim”

Bettelheim was a child pyschologist and beleived that many folktales actually told a lot about the inner-workings of humans. He relies heavily on Freud’s theories to try and interpret the story of sleeping beauty. Bettelheim argues that story of sleeping beauty symbolizes the time of menstration for young girls, describing that the girls sometimes feel sleepy or withdrawn. Some believe that such fairy tales as sleeping beauty imply gender stereotypes, but Bettelheim does not agree.The long period of sleep is said to be the begining of puberty, which can apply to both girls and boys. As the girl goes through the process of menstration and inward focus the boys focus on agressively dealing with external problems. Both of these situations combined symbolize what humans have to go through in order to gain a sense of one’s self. We as humans have to learn to successfully master our inner and outer worlds at the same time. His main interpretation of the moral of “Sleeping Beauty” is that no matter how hard parents try to delay their child’s passage into puberty it will happen nonetheless.

Our assignment this week was to read the two essays “Bambi: A boy’s story” by Russell banks and “Rapunzel across Time and Space” by Connie Porter. Both of these essays examine the impact that children’s stories, and other mediums, have on the behaviour of our culture and the innocence of our children.

During the essay, Banks explains how many movies and texts altered his view of the world when he was in his late teens and twenties. As a child growing up in the twentieth century, Banks was affected by movies way before he even began to read books and experience everything that adolescence has to offer. He then goes on to explain how the movie “Bambi”, which he first viewed at the age of four, changed and influenced his childhood unknowingly. While viewing the movie later in life with his granddaughter, Sarah, he began to see the subtle undertones that the movie expressed about the gender roles of our society. Although he didn’t realized it yet, this movie changed his life, almost instantaneously. The movie “Bambi” was taken from Felix Salten’s book “A Life in the Woods”, which examines the territory of a male life from life to death. Both the book and the movie are moral stories that represent the dominant cultural stereotypes that evident in every type of medium today. 

When Bambi is born in the movie all the animals gather around and a bird says “The prince is born!”. This is obviously a reference to Jesus, which can be thought of as an ideological figure. Banks also showed, through lines from Bambi, the specific gender roles implied in the movie. The kids that watch these movies are at a crucial point in their lives where they start to be more individualistic and are influenced by many of the things that  they see. If this is so then won’t these movies just push children into these stereotypes that we as adults are trying to rid from society?

After reading Russell Bank’s essay I couldn’t help but wonder what movies influenced me as a child. I remember watching some Disney movies, most of which I can’t remember. I think that the biggest influence on a kid is his parents. In some ways I guess I have been influenced, but I can’t say how or even when I made the transition from a child to a adolescent. In a way, I don’t even remember who I was or what kind of mindset I had as a child.

“Rapunzel”

Connie Porter’s essay “Rapunzel across Space and Time” was another story that examined the effects of gender roles in children’s stories and how they influence children. The essay tells of a lunch meeting where Connie is talking to a little girl and she uses the word “baldheaded”. Baldheaded refers to a black female with very short, especially kinky, hair. The little  girl asks ” Why was the character Sarah in your children’s book baldheaded?” Connie goes on to recall the heroines of her day like Pippi Longstockings and the Strawberry Girl, girls that had long and straight hair. As a child she was convinced that she only had “nice” hair, not “good” hair because it wasn’t naturally straight or curly. I think that this kind of stereotype would lead to a lack of self confidence in a girl who was “baldheaded”. Being baldheaded meant you were ugly, unlovable, and deserved to be humiliated. Instead of being happy about who they were these little girls were told they were ugly by society and they would struggle to change themselves throughout their lives.

One thing that Connie points out is that in the story of Rapunzel, the prince is attracted to Rapunzel’s voice, not her hair. Like in the Bambi essay, Connie’s life was changed without her even knowing it. The stereotype was just planted in her brain as a child through books with a lack of positive black female characters.

Connie then goes  on to say that she likes to go “baldheaded” every once in a while, when she’s tired of straightening her hair. I think that this story has removed the stereotype that she believed in as a child and has taught her that she is really beautiful, even if she is baldheaded.