The Lies of Liberty

          "Now imagine a place as far from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan as possible. It's 2009 and the ice cream man is jingling through Brooklyn's Prospect Park."(Ward 660). Though the excerpt I included from the text goes on to tell the story of single mother, if we were to just stop there. At the end of THAT sentence we would have a very hard time distinguishing our society from that of the "Taliban -controlled" Afghanistan. People like the american tea party, the so called "grass roots movement" of our modern society, are the reason for us losing so many of our liberties and the ability and POSSIBILITY of Democrats and Republicans working together to make our society a better place to live.
            These articles really didn't show me anything new, they more less reaffirmed my current beliefs about our corrupt political system and failing government. These articles talk about our negative and positive liberties and yet they fail to take into consideration that we have almost no liberties anymore. The government regulates everything in our society anymore. Organizations like the FCC limit our rights of press and free speech on TV and nobody even remotely opposes that. What they fail to realize is that by starting limitations like that, they cause a chain reaction of limitations. There are new things brought in for limitation and, possibly, prohibition because they feel they suddenly have the power to limit anything they want to.
              Our rights are vanishing before our eyes. Yet, we don't seem to realize just how many freedoms have been outlawed or limited to the point where they might as well be outlawed. It is sad to say that our society founded on liberty and freedom has become a society that is coming closer and closer to having limitations reminiscent of Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia. Our rights are disappearing before our eyes and unless we stand up to the government and fight for our rights it stands to reason that we could wind up as a society of mindless drones doing what we're told to, when we're told to do it, and HOW we're told to do it. All I can say it, God help us when that day comes.

Confusion in the Midst of the Poetry

           One thing that I find confusing in all of Lorine Niedecker's poetry is that fact that her poetry doesn't seem to follow any sort of similar organization. They are all set up in different ways and I find that that makes it hard for me to follow and process the poetry. In some instances it even makes it hard for me to interpret the meaning of the poetry because I just find it very difficult to follow. 

           Her work is very beautiful though. I love the way she talks about all the animals and the nature around her. Her description is magnificent. I particularly loved the one poem in which she mentioned the thing about the birds. It was the lines that said: "Thru birdstard, wingdrip, weed-drift." Something about that line is very beautiful when I look at it and I just really really like it. In some weird way it just kind of relaxes me and it calms me down. It makes me forget about the complexities of life and the frustrating things I deal with on a day to day basis. All her poetry has that effect on me, comparable to a nice cup of tea or cup of coffee. It's nice read something that helps you unwind and relax and just make all the stress melt away.

           I just wish her poems were longer because with how she writes her poems would be amazing if they were longer. That isn't to say that they aren't already amazing, but it would give us all more of her amazing poetry to read and unwind with.

The Guy Code

The Guy Code

         From a very young age I was exposed to this supposed "Guy Code" that we read about in our text book. The "Guy Code" made the earlier years of my life a nightmare to say the very least. I often woke up wondering why I was being treated the way I was. I didn't know what I had done to deserve it. I feel like most people don't know why they are treated poorly by the people around them. Still to this day I question why I was treated so poorly at a young age, I have suspicions and guesses, but I will never know for sure what I did wrong to deserve being treated the way I was treated. But I was different from other boys.

       When I read "The Guy Code" I was able to draw parallels to my life very easily. It felt like I was the opposite of so many of these predominantly masculine traits. It made me ask the question: Is this why I was treated so poorly by my father? Growing up I was treated poorly by my father. He didn't have a father figure growing up and I have come to blame that for his behavior. He depended upon his friends to show him what the guy code was, and, in a way, they taught him how to later abuse his son.

       Growing up I was very emotional and I tended to show my emotions through tears and words instead of the usual masculine tradition of going out and beating up my problems. From an early age my father would yell at me for crying or being afraid of something. He would call me a wimp and tell me to grow up. He didn't even remotely understand the basics of being a good father, and, as a result, I suffered. I was a wimp because I was afraid of spiders, or because I didn't like scary movies, or because I had nightmares.

       Upon  reading the essay on the guy code I realized just how damaging these standards are to the emotional and psychological health of little boys across the nation or the globe for that matter. These standards, in some ways, can cause a resentment and abusiveness to the people around them. I feel like it is the boys who are harassed and teased growing up that tend to abuse their children more as a sort of revenge to all the people who were cruel to them growing up. Sometimes I notice a resentment towards fathers, even among my own friends. They resent their father because he didn't stand up for them or help them, he simply told them to "grow a pair and fight". Fighting isn't always the answer.

      Look at congress. They fight each other tooth and nail everyday. Is this as a result of this ridiculous "guy code" that prevents males from having any emotion at all and turns us into mindless and unfeeling humans? I feel that this code does more damage than it prevents. Fighting isn't the answer to anything, nor is being stubborn or anything else that the code preaches about. Diplomacy and flexibility are what make boys into men. Standing up for our beliefs and feelings and not backing down is what men really are.

     Why do we follow this code? What purpose does it serve us males or anybody else for that matter? I felt the impact of this code, and I still do everyday when I walk through school and observe the people around me. Why this code is so important most of us will never know, but I end this post with one question: why do males choose to invest so much time into such a primitive and irrelevant code?

       

Bill Lee. What a Guy.

Bill Lee. What a Guy.

               Talking about unorthodox, crazy, funny, and just all around comedic, if there was anything that Bill Lee was, it is all of the aforementioned words. He wasn't just funny all the time though, on one of the worst days of a certain student's life, he was there for that student. Now the student I'm talking about isn't an enemy nor is he simply a friend, the student I am speaking of is me. No teen expects the text messages I received earlier that day, nor would they want them. Two hours earlier I had Bill Lee's class, I had gotten several text messages from my step father telling me to go home because my mother was going to take her own life. Stop for a second and picture that. Your MOTHER, the woman who birth to you, suddenly finds her life so unbearable that she wants to end it all. I spent a good portion of the day in the principal's office as a result of it all.

           By the time I had gotten to any of my classes a vast majority of my class mates and comrades had heard what had happened. Several of my teachers got it. They knew what was going on, the few that knew had been told by either class mates or by me. I managed to calm down enough to go to my third and fourth hour classes, but fifth hour was when I couldn't take anymore. I started to explain to one of my best friends, Robby Mandel, what was happening and then to Brett Luedke, and suddenly I was unable to talk, a big lump had placed itself in my throat. I felt the hot tears rolling down my cheeks, and then Brett grabbed me by the arm and pulled me out of the classroom and into the hallway. Out in the hallway I explained exactly what had transpired just a few short hours before.

          Then he walked out. Bill Lee. He asked what was going on. I told my tale to him. I'd never seen a teacher tear up before until I saw his eyes. He could feel the same pain I was feeling. His heart was breaking because he saw one of his most charismatic and cheerful students was feeling a level of pain that no high school student should ever have to feel. He looked into my eyes and told me how sorry he was. He told me how everything was going to be fine. He cracked a few jokes and even managed to make me smile a few times. He extended all of my assignments for the next couple weeks, they were due whenever I was able to complete them.

        That day Bill Lee became one of my personal heroes. I had developed a completely new level of respect for him. I had never respected anyone more, nor could I ever respect a friend anymore than I respect Bill Lee. He helped push me through one of the darkest times in my life, and not only did he push me through it, he changed me. He helped me become a better person as a result of everything. Over the course of the days that followed, he asked me every single day how my mother was doing. It was his support that helped me to keep going. I could never repay him for everything that his support did for me that week, but perhaps in time I may be able to at least tell him just how much his kind words helped me.

          You see, teachers aren't just there to teach us. Teachers are very good at listening when we need someone to talk to. We sometimes forget that teachers are just as good at drying tears as our friends and family are. On days like that one though, even the busiest teachers step up to the plate and show their students just how much they mean to every teacher, regardless of subject and grade. Bill Lee taught me that on that dark day. He showed me that it didn't matter that I was a senior, it didn't matter that I was in Advanced United States History. The only thing that mattered was that I was human. He demonstrated to all his students that day that he is human too. That he feels emotion too, the tears in his eyes proved that to everyone. Sometimes we have the misconceptions that our teachers aren't mortal humans, we think they are something somehow above mortality and humanity, but it's on days like that, that everyone, teachers included, stick together to show their students just how important they are to the future of the world.