Push

I read this entire book on my flight to California on Thursday. I couldn't put it down. It was too much on the edge and it was all to real. I can't imagine what it would be like to want to know how to read and write but not be able to do so. I can't imagine being pregnant at 12 and not knowing about it until I was bearing a child on the kitchen floor, not to mention by my father. Precious had to deal with things unbarable to most people, and although she felt like she wanted to die she did not ever think of taking her life. I think that the amount of suffering she went through shows great character. Even with a Down Syndrome baby she goes on to say that abortion is evil, it takes a great amount of strength to do what she did. It takes even more strength for someone with two kids by the age of 17 to want to go to school, learn and get out. Her journey from her home where she was sexually abused, and subjected to violence by her mother, to the half way house is a tremendous one.
It amazed me that her mother blamed Precious for everything. She said that Precious stole "her man" - her man was the father of a child whom he was raping since a very young age. Such atrocities as this one outraged me and even made me cry at certain parts of the book. I wondered is this what poverty is like? Do people actually get through these times in thier lives?
I remember her mentioning the hate for the white man alot - "the problem is not crack it's crackers" and I remember her wanting to be light skinned because she considered that beautiful which posed a great paradox in my mind. The one thing I cannot forget and will probably stick in my mind for a long time is when Precious' mother comes in to the counselor's office and talks about how Carl, Precious' father, would breast feed off of her mother's nipples and one day he was on her and reached over to Precious and put his finger in between her legs. He then proceeded to take of her Pampers and try to put his penis inside this small infant. Her mom states "You know what trip me out was it almost can go in Precious." WHAT?!??! A MAN, ANY MAN WHO TAKES OFF THE PAMPERS OF A BABY AND TRIES TO PUT HIS PENIS INSIDE IT IS A SICK, TWISTED, LUNATIC! I am so mad at Precious' mother for condoning this and letting it go on, allowing it for her benefit because she knew that as long as she allowed this man to have sex with her child he would stick around. Is this poverty? Is this ignorance? Or is this just plain lunacy?

Another thing I foud interesting and also not surprising was that Precious refused to give up Abdule because without him she claimed she would have nothing. This very much correlates with another piece of literature I read by the same author a novel called American Dreams. In the beginning it made it more clear to me why girls in poverty are much more likely to keep their children even though they may not have the means to care for them. In that world, where those girls have nothing, and often are shown no love, their child is their only possession and their only means of recieving the love they seek. By having a child they have a purpose - something to care about and something that needs them which they also grow to need in return.

Beyond the outrage I felt in my airplane seat and the tears I was fighting back I knew this was a truly insparational story. I feel that Precious is one of the few children who have taken that much abuse who can make it. She wanted to learn. Miss Rain's class and her opporunity to write in a journal served as an outlet for her which was beneficial in dealing with many of her struggles. She made friends, real girl friends, like she had wanted who helped her pull through. Through the darkness of abuse and hopelessness was the light which came with her choice to go to school. It turned out to be her savior in the end.

Pain in Songs

I think that music a very successful mode of expression for pain. People open themselves up on a track and pour everything out, which blended with some creativity or a new tune, makes a great song. The reality of songs and the feelings of the artists makes it easy to envision them as a little bit closer to us, a little more human; their experiances resonate with ours...they are just like us. Most often songs are sung about love and the pain which comes of a break up, which is something almost all of us can relate to. I remember when the song by Eamon titled "Fuck it" came out. I thought, "man there goes a vulgar controversial song", but it is so raw and real. This artist said all of the things we truly feel and definetly spoke to the younger generations who can relate to the vulgar language. When someone ripped your trust and love to pieces there is nothing left to say but "fuck you, you hoe, I don't want you back". I can only imagine the pain which comes with uttering those words.
Then there are pop songs which made it big on Top 40 charts like Kelly Clarkson's "Walk Away". I can totally relate to the words in that song too. In all songs dealing with pain, it feels as though the release of that pain inside of the song produces support amongst fans and has an empowering effect on the artists, almost like a catharsis. At the same time they are bare and exposed for the world to see which is a certain kind of vulnerability, which at the same time makes them stronger.
It is hard to miss that three of the songs on the list are by Nirvana. No surprise there. It reminds me of the line "I bleed just to know I'm alive". Torn, twisted. Dead.

Beautiful Boy

This truly was a wonderful book. I have to say I cried at least three times while reading it. It's definetly a breath of fresh air comapred to the other more technical books we've been reading on pain.
After finishing the book, I found myself asking, why did Nic do it in the first place? Something that David Scheff was trying to figure out the length of the book and probably for the rest of his life. Was it the need for a better high after pot, LSD, and ecstasy?
This book certainly explained a new level of addiction and pain to me. I learned that meth is worse than any other drug since it kills 90% of the brain's dopamine, which then makes it impossible to recreate the intial high of the drug: the addicts ultimate quest. Depression and anxiety are worse than ever and these things combined make recovery very difficult since the neurotoxicity of the drug makes it that the brain may never fully recover and addicts are unable and unwilling to participate in common treatments during stages of withdrawl, making addiction and relapse a destructive and on-going cycle.
How many times does an addict have to relapse to get it? After the numerous relapses Nic experiances I found myself distrusting of his promises just like his dad was. It's hard for me to imagine that he is actually clean right now, as we speak. Relapse is just another brick in the road, it seems. I certainly hope that the little something inside Nic, clicked and made him change so radically that it dulled out his desire to get high.
I found the quote from John Lennon "God is a concept by which we measure our pain" very interesting. How could Nic and David Scheff measure pain, when their belief was not God, but ethical principles? Pain has no measure.
I cried at the passages which described Nic as an innocent child, the best gift in David's life, with his arms wrapped around his father's neck, doing the many things they would do together. How did that child, turn into this lifeless addict. "Addiction is an equal opportunity affliction - affecting people without regard to thier economic circumstances, their education, their race, their geography, their IQ, or any other factor", David mentions. Nic was incredible and smart, with huge potential. This part of the book made me feel so helpless, uncertain, and unsafe. What if this were my child? There is no control over this situation. And yet it is impossible not to seek the blame in yourself. This must be the most excruciating thing a parent has to face. "It may be true that suffering builds character, but it also damages people". This experiance certainly left David and the entire family damaged. He, with a hole in his head, and the family seeking counceling including the children, simply innocent by-standers.
I am amazed at the fact that David, beyond the fact that he suffered and went through so much, has the courage and strength to say "I will take the worry in order to take waht has come through as the most important emotion after my hemhorrage". He accpets evil in order to participate in the miraculous. Even after everything Nic has caused he takes back the comment of wanting to erase Nic our of his memory, like in the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. "There is much good, but to enjoy beauty, the love, one must bear the painful". I feel that we could all learn from David Scheff. That is a true love of life, at its purest.

Saw V Torture Porn?

What is torture porn? These are two words which don't seem like they belong together. It is a difficult phraze to define. When taken quite literally torture is a the cruel act of inflicting pain in inhumane ways to other human beings. Porn is explicit acts made for the viewership of others, they are made to be exposed. Put together these words mean refer to torture which is inflicted on others with an intent to be shown to an audience for gratification.

Like the previous movies Saw V scared me and put me on the edge of my seat as far as what was going to happen next. I love the twists in the story and the way the audience has to think a little and put two and two together. Despite the fact that many people didn't like the fifth Saw at all, I beg to differ. Granted, it was nothing like the first few. One has to ask why? It seemed to me that it had a similar amount of blood and anticipation. It is that society is become more and more decensitized due to all of the horrific images we are exposed to? Perhaps, it takes much more than the content of the previous films to wow the audience now.

Something I found fascinating in this movie, as in the previous Saws, were the clever devices which were made a part the "games" which people had to play in order to preserve their lives. I was surprised at the trick move Agent Hoffman pulled when his head was in a tank, quickly filling with water, and he stabbed a little tube into his throat in order to get oxygen and survive. It's one of those things where viewers would go "ohh I would've done this...and this....to break out" but Agent Hoffman actually did it and prevented the opportunity for such statements.

As far as why people actually attend such movies is beyond me. It is sick to think that people pleasure in such cruel and disturbing content, but perhaps we do on some subconscious level. Why would we go if we didn't like the way this "torture porn" made us feel? I would definetly classify the Saw movies as torture porn since they explicitly focus on torturing different subjects, with different devices, provided in different situations for the pleasure and viewrship of an audience, who presumably paid money to attend this.

The one thing I could not get over and which stood out to me was the fact that the "dungeon" or abandoned warehouse in which all of the torture and murders take place remains untouched. Police have been there countless times, countless people have died there. You would think that with such a history this place would be on lock-down, survailanced at all times in the day? That is apparently not the case. Not only is this warehouse of torture not being watched, it is wide open for the next serial killer to walk in and implement the devices of jigsaw and completely cover up a murder. If there is anything more realistic than that, then I am a banana in pijamas.

The Wounded Storyteller

Wow! It seemed like this book was filled with nonsense. It took forever to read, or so it seemed. Perhaps all the difficulty was posed by the fact that the author kept referring to others' work in every chapter. It was informative overall and it definetly showed me a perspective of pain that I never would have thought to look at before: how people tell about it.
I suppose that is a very important aspect within individual cultures. How we come to know of the horrors and painful experiances people have all depend on the storyteller and which body they have taken on. No matter what narrative style a storyteller chooses one thing is certain: we seek and expect a return to normalcy...health.
From my personal experiance I know there has been time where I have been the narrator of a chaos story, and pain has limited my choice of words, if any. People couldn't possibly understand. All I know was that I was silently communicating that I would give anything to be back to normal again. All efforts within my body were re-draw and focused at that one ultimate goal. Disease is definetly a reality check in terms of our priorities. But do we know our destinies as narrators of these stories?
This book also has made me realize how many special groups there are for patients coping with sickness and how much they focus on the positive stories of survivors. That is ultimately what our society wants, they want to hear "I'm fine" and move on. But even though our bodies heal, and we grow strong and the broken places, we will never forget where we were once broken.

Ghosts of Abu Grahib

I can't believe that our tax dollars and our good men and women are used to fuel such bureaucratic disorganization, filth, and conspiracy. We had troops going places and doing things they were not trained to do with no plan for anything. These innocent soldiers were made to believe propaganda which trickled down from the high positions of people sitting behind a desk in a shirt and tie. They believed. They did their job...and then they paid for doing so. How could our country do this to these people?
How could the United States uphold such standards and values and fight for democracy when the very essence of their mission and all actions taken at this prison go against democracy, fairness, and human rights. Oh, and of course, it wasn't wrong until it was exposed. Again, we were the deer in head lights. Of course this fired back at us, how could we unify Iraq and make a functioning government? How could those people learn to trust us when they see what our soldiers have been doing to the thousands of prisoners, 75-80% of whom were simply at the wrong place, at the wrong time?
Bush stated that "50 million people once lived under tyranny and today they live in freedom". Does he believe his own words, or are they something his speech writter though up and he agreed to read because it sounds good? Yes, population what we have done is successful, support us!
No, what we have done is wrong. And just like the CIA agents who follow direct orders from their superiors and get thrown in the slammer, so do the lower ranking soldiers; but why aren' those who gave the orders in jail? We never see who they are, they never face charges, and yet they are the root of the problem. We are killing the messenger and leaving the king to roam free. This is once again exemplefied by the Iraq war.
I'm not saying that the soldiers were right in committing acts of torture, even if they were orders. I guess we do get caught up in things, we naively believe, and accept the honor and power that comes of doing these things. What I find proposterous is the pictures of the female soldier with the smile and thumbs up next to dead bodies. I don't care about the explanation. I don't care that it's what that particular person does in photos. We need to gain awareness of our surroundings and judge the appropriateness of our actions. A time and a place for everything. A U.S. soldier, smiling, with a thumbs up, next to a beaten up, lifeless, Iraqi body, like she won a trophy for something, does not create the image we want of the US and it certainly doesn't aid in achieving our objectives in that war, which if I might add, is far from over.

The 9/11 Report

A hundred and thirty pages of cartoons later I am left feeling uneasy by this book. It was alot to handle coming from goofy looking bubbles and figures which were supposed to resemble some famous person, like Condoleeza Rice, drawn to perfection without missing detail like the gap between her teeth. I have to wonder if the authors of this book are conservative or liberal? Some parts of it seemed like they were critical of government and others seemed like they were recruiting for it.
The pictures were quite upsetting at times. I understand that the authors wanted to re-tell the events of 9/11 in a way that will interest people but I know that this book disturbed almost everyone I showed it too. "Is it serious?" I guess that is the worst part, everything inside was all too real. However the bubbles and cartoons between those pages can't hold a candle to the fury, confusion, and mass chaos that took place when the planes hit the north and south tower of the Trade Center in New York.
Everyone already knew the story. To the average eye, like mine when I was in seventh grade and this tragedy took place, it seemed like the nation was unprepared for such an event. In reality, and underneath all of the precautions and safety measures and beaurues inside governement in charge of homeland security, this book revealed that we truly were unprepared and unsuspecting of those lusting to kill us. It is shocking to me that the people we trust with our country, our safety, and our future could let such a catastrophy take place. Events like the 1993 car bombing in the garage of the World Trade Center and the bombing of the USS Cole were simply disregarded. It took a second attempt at the Trade Center to make the nation realize that it was a target for a terrorist organization, by that time it was far too late. We had a lack of emergency and evacuation plans. Our contacts with the airplanes and airlines were poor. The president didn't even know what had happened on 9/11 until an hour or so after the planes crashed. Figures which were supposed to take care of the situation didn't come together too quickly either. The United States was a deer caught in headlights and Bin Laden and Al Queada loved the snap shots of it; a deer which got run over. We were left with our tails between our legs.
What about all those burried in ruins? The fathers and mothers who left their families behind in attempts to save someone elses'? My deepes apologies, our candles continue to burn for you.
We are left with propositions and a Commission with ideas to better us in preparation for future attacks. But why is it that previous attacks didn't better prepare us for this one? It seems as though government has gotten too big and too ahead of itself. We have forgoten cardinal rules taught to us in kindergarden "sharing is caring", so why is it that the CIA won't share information with the FBI and other departments refuse to pool information as well, a practice which could better inform everyone and create a much more efficient protocall for action. Jacobson and Colon write "while terrorists have been learning and adapting, we have been moving at a bureaucratic crawl" on the last page titled Postscript. I guess it's just too difficult for all of those in the senatorial seats and represenative offices to get on board and finally get it together. Like the authors mention, we allowed one of the poorest, and least technologically inclined countries beat us at a game we should be familiar with by now.