Monday, September 20, 2004

These are a few of my favorite things...


I'll admit that I probably complain a bit too much about the place that I live. This occurred to me yesterday afternoon as I was driving down I-265 toward home. The sky was a bright autumn blue, the air was crisp, and the hills were (alive with the sound of music? Nahhh...) breath-takingly beautiful. So, without further ado, a short list of my favorite things about Kentuckiana:


WNAS Radio:
Airing live since May of 1940, this is the oldes student-run radio station in the world. It airs from both New Albany, the first public high school in Indiana, and from Floyd Central High School (my alma mater).


Harvest Homecoming:

A street fair held one weekend in early October every year, this would be your only chance to have pumpkin ice cream, chicken and dumplings, funnel cake and just about anything you could imagine on a stick. (However, the thought of deep-fried Snickers bars makes me want to vomit.) It's worth it to go on a Friday night if only for a rousing game of "Spot The Mullet"


Lynn's Paradise Cafe:

The best day to go is either Derby Day (see below for information) or, my personal favorite, New Year's Day, in which there is a giant pyjama party and mimosas and bloody marys for $1.50 each.


Hawley-Cooke:

Hawley-Cooke was bought out by Border's last year. It had formerly been the first privately-owned bookstore in Louisville. The staff was personable and extremely knowledgable, and it was a joy to shop there. When Border's bought it, they respected the history of the place by keeping up articles and memorabilia about Hawley-Cooke, and paid attention to what the customers really wanted by keepingmany of the original staff. It's still fun to shop there.


Kentuckiana:

An area-unique name developed by advertisers in the 1950s, this is the only area name that really caught on. (Perhaps obviously, it's a contraction of the two state names and refers to the multi-county area surrounding Louisville/Jefferson County. Personally, I would have preffered Indiyucky. Somehow, that didn't catch on.) Other areas might have their "tri-state area" or whatever-valley, but we have this. Plus, it's less surrounded by controversy than "Louisville" (see below).


Churchill Downs:

It actually came as a surprise to me that people even just one hundred miles away have never heard of the Derby or the Oaks, have never been to a Derby Party (a fact that Chris is probably thankful for!), and have never had a mint julep or Derby Pie (see below). The Oaks is run on the first Friday of May, and is run by three-year-old fillys (female horses). The winner receives a $500,000 purse and a garland of lilies.


The Kentucky Derby is run on the first Saturday of May by one-year-old male horses. (Smarty Jones, the horse that one the 2003 Kentucky Derby, was the first gelding (castrated horse) to win in over fifty years.) The winner of the Derby receives a trophy, a $1,000,000 purse, and a garland of roses in the winner's circle. The horse usually eats the roses while waiting to have his picture taken.

(Some might be interested in the fact that the Kentucky Derby is the first of the horseracing Triple Crown. The second is the Preakness Sweepstakes in August and then there's the Belmont in October. The following year is the Breeder's Cup, after which the winning horse(s) are sold for breeding and put out to pasture. (Oh, to be a horse.) No horse has won all three races in many, many years (I can't find how many right now) because of the difference in the racetracks.)


The other festivities (the Hat Parade, the Infield crazyness, the millions of dollars worth of fireworks at the pre-Derby festival) are too extensive to mention.

Derby Pie:

Nobody knows what's really in it, and no one can really make "Derby Pie" other than the Derby Pie makers themselves. It's a sweet pie made with pecans, sugar, semi-sweet chocolate, and bourbon, with a cookie crust on the top andbottom. It's perfection, and it's worth putting up with three of my major food allergens (eggs, sugar, and tree nuts) for.


Louisville, Looeyville, Luhville:

Okay, at this point, the controversy is actually quite funny. People who've never been to the area call it Louisville (pronouncing the 's'). Much like the 's' in Illinois, it's not pronounced by anyone except the extremely gauche. People who've lived here for a couple of years pronounce it Looeyville, but people who've been here for 4+ years say Luhville/Lu-uh-vll. The trick is to not open your mouth at all.

Thursday, September 16, 2004

Ramblings: Monotheocracy

I finished reading   Reading Lolita in Tehran yesterday and The Handmaid's Tale today. Both were good books, worth reading and worth my time to recommend them.

The thing is, though, that away from school, away from the constant contact of people who will discuss things ad nauseum, ad infinitum (and know what both terms mean), only to arrive to a closing point in a discussion and say, "Yes, but what does any of it really mean?", makes discussions where you don't really know what your point of entry is particularly difficult. I could start with the fact that both societies in the books--the fictional Gilead in The Handmaid's Tale and the nonfictional Iran in Reading Lolita... are monotheocracies that use state religion to control women specifically. Questions:

1. Is the mandated wearing of garments that cover the entirety of the body--veils/hijab, hats/burquas, robes/chardors, etc., a terrible thing? Is true freedom in revealing as much of the body as possible, or is it in the sovereignity of being able to choose how one's body is revealed?

2. When the US "democratizes" countries like India, Nicaragua, and Afghanistan, why are we persuaded to go into these countries by the supposed inhumanity of women being covered up? Why is the miniskirt a symbol of freedom from oppression?

3. Why are women's bodies so often seen as dangerous or subversive?

4. What happens to the faith of people who are subjects of monotheocratical tyranny?

Right now, I have more questions than answers. Par for the course, I suppose.

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I keep saying that I'm not ready to go back to school yet, but with the sheer volume of books I've read recently and the papers that I've begun in my head, symptoms would indicate otherwise

Monday, September 13, 2004

Liminal space



I wanted to see if I could still do it. And I can, more or less. Forgive the errors--my accent keys aren't set up on this keyboard.

*************


La dificilidad en este vida es que solo algúnas personas pueden vivir en un mundo entre Español y ingles. La mejoridad del tiempo, estes personas son niños de personas que imigran a los paises ingleses, y ellos encontran sus propios difícilidades en viv irían en un mundo liminal. Este es la lastima, por supuesto, porque estas personas, mis paísanos, son mas benidictado de las personas que deben enseñar una lenguanueva cuando estamos adultos. (Aprendí español cuando era joven, pero la lengua siempre estaba mi lengua segunda. En años pasados, puse pensar en español, y cuando viví en España, puse vivir en un mundo solamente español. Ahora, olvido cerca de tres palabras cada día, mas o menos.)


Es un lastima que, en muchas partes del mundo inglese, no ponemos mucha respecto a ensenar una lengua segunda en un tiempo durante que aprenda ms de una lengua es mas facíl. Tambien, es un lastima que no podemos existan en un mundo que es normal a usar varias lenguas en un frase. Hay veces que solo una lengua no es suficiente, como en hablando del amor o otras emociones fuertes.

Friday, September 10, 2004

Mental illness and cultural relativism



I'm incredibly fascinated by this. For the full text, please visit here.

"...how people narrate their own experience will be influenced by culture. Happiness is a particular cultural value. In North America, it is important to indicate your success by exclaiming your happiness. In many other cultural contexts, however, people don't view the point of life as being happy; they may view it as being productive, as being honorable, as being a contributing member to society or to a family. I think the idea that we should be happy is a particularly American value. It fits very well with consumer capitalism, where the route to happiness is the consumption of products. It's certainly possible that the strategies someone uses to pursue well-being (such as through economic productivity) have built into them inevitable unhappiness, but we're not really encouraged to question our value system."

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E-mail me at Currer1013-at-yahoo-dot-com if you have any thoughts. I'm not sure where it goes from here, but it's going somewhere.

Wednesday, September 08, 2004

Indiana--Case in point

I don't know if there's anything to say about this...

Coroner Discussing Gun Safety Shoots Self


BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - Monroe County Coroner David Toumey was hospitalized with a leg wound after accidentally shooting himself while trying to demonstrate gun safety.

Toumey told The Herald-Times for a story published Saturday that he was demonstrating gun safety to some people at a Lake Monroe boat ramp about 11 p.m. Wednesday when he accidentally shot himself.

He said that as he checked to make sure his weapon was unloaded, the gun discharged, and a bullet struck him in his left leg.

"It's an unfortunate accident," Toumey said. "I've always been very, very safe."

He was taken to Bloomington Hospital and later transferred to Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis.

Toumey said he was scheduled to have surgery Saturday and expects to be in the hospital from three to five days.

Monroe County Sheriff Steve Sharp said he was unable to release details of the shooting because the report had yet to be filed by the deputy assigned to the case.

Sunday, September 05, 2004

An introduction: Hi there!

Welcome, bienvenue, willkommen, bienvenidos...

I've decided to shut down an old weblog and move the interesting stuff here. From time to time, you'll find updates from me. I'll be posting rants about current issues, ramblings about what's going on in my life and the lives around me, reviews of movies and books, and random thoughts. Hopefully, some of it will be thought-provoking, amusing, or at least interesting. Feel free to leave notes.

Quotation of the week:

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two diametrically opposed ideas in the mind at the same time. One should, for example, be able to see that the world is ultimately doomed, yet be determined to make it otherwise." (F. Scott Fitzgerald)

Thursday, September 02, 2004

Rant: Kobe Bryant and the message boards

I find it appalling that the charges against Kobe Bryant have been dropped. Equally appalling is the fact that her sexual history was admitted into the court, violating two decades of Catherine Mackinnon's work. But perhaps even more appalling is the public's perception of the trial proceedings. A post on a Louisville-area message board prompted a high-octane rant from me. The text to which I responded is itallicized.

I agree 100% with you bluerider. Kobe just doesn't fit the bill as a rapist. Any girl that has sex with multiple partners in the same day lacks credibility in my eyes. This isn't like Mike Tyson who has a violent history either. The whole case was screwed from the start. A slutty girl and a man with no violent history, gee I wonder who wins.

While I realize that this may make me immensely unpopular, I had to respond to this post. There is no one who "fits the bill" as a rapist. Rapists are not creepy weirdos who hide in the bushes and pop out at unsuspecting women. Rapists are, by definition, people who violate another person sexually by force. That's it. Most convicted rapists do not have a "violent history," although there often will be a history of battery or other sex-related offenses that he or she is not convicted of. The fact that the sexual history of plaintiff in the Bryant case was admitted into court is a travesty and a violation of victim's rights laws that have been in effect for two decades. It is permissable, if not required, to admit any history that would reflect on her credibility as an accuser, but the fact that she was presented as "slutty" is unforgivable. Whether or not she's a "slut" is beside the point. Rape is not about sex, it's about power, control, and violence. Prostitutes can be raped, as can nuns. The sexual character of the survivor is without merit in any sort of case, including a rape case.

For more information, please visit Rape Victims' Advocates.

How many times have we heard of girls like this claiming to have been forced to do something they didn't want to?

The statistics are 4 to 6% of reported rapes are false claims, which is exactly the same for other reported crimes. I agree that those who falsely report crimes of any kind should be prosecuted (and, I might add, are). BUT--falsely reported sexual assault cases are a rarity, and are considered problematic because of the disproportionate publicity they get.

Her sexual history is very important in this case, because it shows what she is capable of. I mean the girl had sex with 3 guys in one day. Let's use common sense, if she did that, then why in the hell would she turn Kobe FREAKIN Bryant down?

Maybe she turned Bryant down because...she didn't want to have sex with him? Just a suggestion. Here's a scenario: A person gives money to a charity early in the day. Later that day, the same person gives spare change to a homeless person. At the coffee shop, the person puts money in a can for another charity. While walking home, the person is robbed. Because the person gave money three times earlier in the day, does he or she "deserve" to be robbed? It's exactly the same with a rape case.