ah, is not my type to criticize someone’s ideas, but Cherles Bernstein affirmations intrigue me. I certainly do not agreed with him by simple fact that he’s limiting our thinking. what it differentiate us one from another, is our inner thinking. most of us share same living conditions, but when Bernstein is pointing where the formation of poems resides, it just turn me over.

The marix of social and historical relations are more significant? than any personal qualities of the life or voice of the author? is like you are living, thinking and working  for somebody. What do you think? what about your thoughts? can you ever describe what you are felling if your inner voice cannot be heard?

the personal qualities shape the concept of the text, or  the poem without being influenced by the society. 

A Traveler’s Discourse

*Exploring

            The lovely earth- limited to our discoveries and knowledge.

*surrounding elements

            Nature with its components-water, land, life and fire

*arctic, dessert and jungle

            Opposite places that are challenging surviving within

*embracing the elements

            Human interference with the nature-water dome, suspended and buried highways,

*urbanism and nature

Nature is The place for relaxation, after living in the urban society.

*the big picture

            Where are we going?

Living your life is based on surviving to the conditions encounter during lifetime.

I should probably change the discourse title, to A Survival’s Discourse, but I think that I dare too much already by choosing a theme, which is part of my dreams.

I will base my discourse on several movies, 7 years on Tibet, Apocalypto and Around the World in Eighty Days (Jules Verne’s novel).

http://www.online-literature.com/verne/aroundtheworld/

The last week of the center being open is here. Every one is being really nice to each other. All the parents and the teachers are sad. The younger children are picking up on their parents’ emotions. The older children tell their favorite teacher how scared they are to go to a new school and how they don’t want to be alone and away from their siblings. The parents’ are asking the teachers if they need letters of recommendation and asking for their contact info. The children bring the teachers a small gift of appreciation. The Thank You cards that come with the gifts have a picture of the children and a nice note that makes the teacher cry.

The last day is here…There are a lot of teachers by the front office talking and greeting parents as they walk in the front door. There are teachers with children walking in the hall and there are teachers rocking babies and feeding them their bottles for the last time. It is sad to see that every one is going to be leaving soon. The management team is walking around talking to everyone and letting all the teachers know how much they appreciate their help and how without them the center wouldn’t have been what it was. Management is crying, the teachers are crying, the children are looking…..People are walking around with cameras taking pictures of everyone, trying to remember peoples’ smiling faces, the people they have worked with for 5 years.

  One last get together…everyone was invited to a co-workers house for hotdog and beer. A lot of people showed up, some early some late. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. There were people sitting at tables all over the back yard. Some were sitting by a bonfire making ‘smores. Some people were calm and relaxed and some were loud and obnoxious. No matter what people looked like they were having fun. After a while everyone seemed to migrate to the basement. There they started to sing Karaoke and play drinking games like Drinko….not the scene for me so I took a few minutes to say goodbye, promising everyone I will keep in touch. It will be hard to keep in touch with some people, but easy to with the ones I worked directly with.

The teachers from this daycare all stared to think about their futures and what will happen to them. Some made the decision that they will stay home, some made the decision to look for a new job and others said that if they couldn’t find anything they will travel and visit family. Everyone started to apply for this job and that, but after going to interviews they were soon disappointed. The pay that they were offered was much less then what they were making. No one is willing to work for a $3-$5 pay cut and more responsibility. This made people think about going to school to change their career and look into other fields.  Every one who knew of a job opening told other people so they can apply too. Quite a few people applied at the same daycare. Most of them had a position offered to them, and a few didn’t. Let me tell you, it must really hurt when you know that you are one of the people that didn’t get hired and your other co-workers did, especially when you are the one that told them about the opening position.

After being open for five years, an announcement was made that the daycare center where my wife works will close its doors for good. These are the thoughts and experiences she has shared with me form the day she found out the center will close to the last day of work.

 When everyone heard the news they were shocked and angry. No one could believe that this could happen to them…that they will be unemployed within six months. The parents of the children that these teachers were taking care of were angry beyond belief, saying that this company is taking good care and opportunity away from their children. They organized parent groups, came up with cost saving techniques and passed petitions around hoping that the company will change its mind and keep the daycare open. Even with all the effort that the parents put forth, they did not succeed. Within the months that followed, all the parents started to look for new daycares where they could take their children to. They asked their child’s’ teachers where they’re going hoping they will be able to enroll their child there. After visiting a few centers, everyone said that there was no place like the one they are at right now and that it will be really hard to settle for one. Never the less some parents settled for certain daycares even though they didn’t like them as much. Some did it for convenience and some did it because they had no choice.

not just about writing , but about choosing the right method of describing your ideas. let’s say that a major impact in reading someone’s blog has to do with the way that  page is designed. just choose an appropriate font size and an appropriate color contrast between fonts and background. so you are not going to choose black color fot the fonts and dark grey dor the background.(same idea applies when you design your power point presentation-see micrsoft website for some power point templates)

there is one more thing: make useful all your writtings. place a weblink next to it-make it easyer for the reader.

I will come back with detailed instructions.

*What about those fellows waiting still and silent there on the platform, so still and silent they clash with the crowd in their very immobility, standing noisy in their very silence; harsh as a cry of terror in their quietness? What about these three boys, coming now along the platform, tall and slender, walking with swinging shoulders in their well-pressed, too-hot-for-summer suits, their collars high and tight about their necks, their identical hats of black cheap felt set upon the crowns of their heads with a severe formality above their conked hair? It was as though I’d never seen their like before: walking slowly, their shoulders swaying, their legs swinging from their hips in trousers that ballooned upward from cuffs fitting snug about their ankles; their coats long and hip-tight with shoulders far too broad to be those of natural western men. These fellows whose bodies seemed – what had one of my teachers said of me? – ‘You’re like one of those African sculptures, distorted in the interest of design.’ Well, what design and whose? 

*

“Is based upon the spiritual fact that man must have freedom in which to develop his full stature and through common effort to raise the level of human dignity.”(E. Roosevelt)

 *

Race, then, lies in the eye of the beholder. Humans show such a mixture if physical characteristics-in skin color, hair texture, nose shape, head shape, eye color, and so on-that there is no inevitable, much less universal, way to classify our many biological differences. Instead of falling into distinct types clearly separate from one another, human characteristics flow endlessly together. Because racial classifications are arbitrary, the categories people use differ from one society to another, and they change over time. In sense, then, race and its accompanying idea of racial superiority are myths.

*

Minorities shared these five characteristics:

1.      Membership in ascribed status; that is, not voluntary, but comes through birth.

2.      The physical or cultural traits that distinguish minorities are held in low esteem by the dominant group.

3.      Minorities are unequally treated by the dominant group.

4.      Minorities tend to marry within their own group.

5.      Minorities tend to feel strong group solidarity (a sense of “we-ness”).

These condition-especially when combined with collective discrimination-tend to create a shared sense of identity among minorities, and, in many instances, even a sense of common destiny.

 *

Young Latinos, unlike their elders, were not content to stay within their barrios, but were spilling into downtown dance halls, movie houses, pool halls and clubs. As young men are prone to do, many young Latino males distinguished themselves with distinctive hairdos (“duck tails”) and apparel (“drape shapes” or “zoot suits” – wide-brimmed hats, broad-shouldered long coats, high-waisted peg-legged trousers and long dangling chains). They called themselves pachucos. They came into contact with swarms of other young men who wore another type of uniform …military men.

*

On June 3, 1943, a number of sailors claimed to have been beaten and robbed by Mexican pachucos. The following evening, a mob of about 200 sailors, tired of boredom and fired up with bigotry, hired a fleet of cabs and rolled into East Los Angeles to beat up and strip the clothing off any young Latino male they could find. The authorities seemed to approve. Police made a few initial token arrests of sailors, but they were quickly released.

*

Nationwide condemnation of the actions of the military rioters and civil authorities followed. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt commented, “The question goes deeper than just [zoot] suits. It is a racial protest. I have been worried for a long time about the Mexican racial situation. It is a problem with roots going a long way back, and we do not always face these problems as we should.” The Los Angeles Times responded with a June 18 headline, “Mrs. Roosevelt Blindly Stirs Race Discord.” The editorial page accused her of communist leanings.

 *

“I am one of the most irresponsible beings that ever lived. Irresponsibility is part of my invisibility; any way you face it, it is a denial. But to whom can I be responsible, and why should I be, when you refuse to see me?”

*

It’s gotten way out of hand out here … Just wear it properly. Cover your vital parts. I mean, if you expose your private parts, you’ll get a fine. If you walk up and your pants drop, you get a fine. They’re better off taking the pants off and just wearing a dress. 

*

To preserve the peace and good name of the Los Angeles area, the strongest measures must be taken jointly by the police, the Sheriff’s office and Army and Navy authorities, to prevent any further outbreaks of ‘zoot suit’ rioting. While members of the armed forces received considerable provocation at the hands of the unidentified miscreants, such a situation cannot be cured by indiscriminate assault on every youth wearing a particular type of costume.

*

Finally, on June 7, military authorities did what civil authorities would not. Navy and Army commanders sought to get control of their men by ordering that the City of Los Angeles be declared off-limits to military personnel. Nonetheless, the official Navy position was that their sailors were acting in “self-defense against the rowdy element.”

*

American culture is replete with negative stereotypes about Latinos. Whether it’s the “greaser”, “bandito”, or “macho” stereotype, they are portrayed as lazy, shiftless, lawless, thieving, immoral, or violent. Most of these stereotypes go back to the War with Mexico. “Greaser”, for example, came to be applied to other ethnic groups, but originated with the use of Mexicans to grease wagon train wheels. One of the major events that resulted in some permanent social damage was the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943. Young Mexican Americans (and some African Americans) started dressing in long coats with padded shoulders, porkpie hats, watch chains, and peg-top trousers tapered to narrow cuffs. The outfit was later picked up in the 1960s by blacks as the superpimp look, and it has made a comeback in the 1990s with swing music. It was designed to be battle gear to defend themselves in LA from the sailors who were encouraging the red light districts of their neighborhoods. Numerous fights and killings broke out between the Zoot Suiters and servicemen, and for several nights, the police response was to let vigilante bands of servicemen and citizens run amok and with impunity maim or kill as many Latinos and Africans as they wanted. More Mexican Americans died in the Zoot Suit Riots than all who served in WW II. *When a group expands its political boundaries, however, it produces minority groups if it incorporates people with different customs, language, values, and physical characteristics into the same political entity and discriminates against them. For example, after defeating Mexico in war, the United States took over the southwest. The Mexicans living there, who had been the dominant group, were transformed into a minority group, a master status that has influenced their lives since. Referring to his ancestors, one Latino said, “We didn’t move across the border-the border moved across us.”

*

Virginians who wear their pants so low their underwear shows may want to think about investing in a stronger belt. (Spruill)

*

But there is rhythm here
Its own special substance.
I hear Billie sing, no Good Man, and dig Prez, wearing the Zoot suit of life, the Porkpie hat tilted at the correct angle; through the Harlem smoke of beer and whisky, I understand the mystery of the Signifying Monkey. (Neal)