Philomena

Philomena Lee’s story is a very powerful one. The book hollows the life of Michael A. Hess an adopted child born in Ireland and raised in America. Anthony Lee was born an illegitimate child to Philomena Lee in Ireland. Philomena and Anthony were placed in the Sean Ross Abbey, Ireland’s dumping ground for illegitimate children and mothers. There, Philomena toiled in the hot, badly ventilated laundry department for three years while simultaneously raising her child. She was coerced into giving up her child for adoption when he was three years old. Stripped from his mother and renamed for his adoptive father, Mike gradually adjusts to American life while Philomena attempts to find out what happened to him back in Ireland. Mike leads a very interesting life, and he proves that the bond between a mother and child can never truly be broken.

Mike faces hardships from the moment he sets foot in America. His adoptive brothers and father were not very accepting, and he suppressed every qualm he had with them for years in an attempt to fit in. Finally, he could not take it anymore. He began to argue with his father, paid his way through law school after his father refused to back him. Mike was a devoted Catholic, but he was very conflicted, and eventually shied away from church activities after finally admitting that he was a homosexual. He grew up masking his true self, eventually rising very high in the ranks of the Republican Party. This caused him even more conflict. His friends who knew of his sexual orientation questioned his reasons for working for the very party that sought to strip him of his rights. Mike defended himself, but the conflict only drove him crazier. Mike faced unknown attachment disorder after being separated from his mother. This showed when he cheated on several of his lovers and eventually contracted HIV because of it. Mike survived for two years with the virus while trying to find his mother. He was unsuccessful and died with the only comfort being that he would eventually see her in the afterlife.

I personally think the story is a very powerful one. Martin Sixsmith, the author, did a fantastic job uncovering the details of this story; he incorporated them flawlessly into the book. The details were not pretty, often grotesque, but they allowed me to form a clear image of the horrors that Philomena and Mike were subjected to. I often found myself yelling at the book when Mike or some other character did something stupid or cruel. I t has been a long time since a book has grabbed me like this one did. It was an eye opening experience. Now I have learned just what being stripped of an ordinary childhood can do to people. Looking deeper into people, I have become a more tolerant person. That never would have happened without this book.

If Men Could Menstruate, The Great Lawsuit: Man versus Men. Woman versus Women

  Attention has been called to a problem that has taken a back seat to many movements throughout history and it is high time that this was rectified. Women have been oppressed throughout history, and although the oppression is not as bad today as in centuries past, it is still a problem. Women are still at a disadvantage at home, in the workplace, and in politics. The disadvantage comes not from any lack of qualification; it comes simply through prejudice.

Margaret Fuller addresses the problem of men taking advantage of the work of women in The Great Lawsuit: Man versus Men. Woman versus Women. “We will not speak of the innumerable instances in which profligate or idle men live upon the earnings of industrious wives.” This statement sums up the story Sweat told by Zora Neale Hurston. Women, such as Delia, will toil and support the family while the men, like Sykes, sit around and take advantage of their earnings.

In the workplace, women have historically been at a disadvantage. Politifact.com states that women make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. Men earn almost 25% more money for doing the same job as women. That is not right. In politics, women are again prejudiced against. When Nancy Pelosi became the Speaker of the House, history was made. She was the first woman ever to be elected to a position that was over 200 years old. The Executive Branch has the office of First Lady. The title of this office automatically assumes that a man will be president and that his wife or appointee will assume the spot. No woman has ever been elected president, and there has never been a First Man. This has been a statistic that only aids the prejudice.

Gloria Steinem’s If Men Could Menstruate calls attention to the fact that men have rigged society to benefit themselves more so than their woman counterparts. Women bear the brunt of having a child. They carry the fetus for nine months. They give birth. They menstruate every month. Yet despite all this, society is still not equal. This piece of literature also points out that it is a perfectly correctible situation. It just requires slightly different thinking from members of society. “The truth is that, if men could menstruate, the power justifications would go on and on. If we let them.” People in society are perfectly capable of making the necessary changes to promote equality. All that remains is to make it happen.

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

“Google it.” This phrase is one of the most repeated in the entire English language. I hear it on a daily basis. Computers, phones, and technology everywhere are becoming very powerful, and the developments are only increasing in speed. It is a very good societal question that Nicholas Carr addresses in “Is Google Making us Stupid?” Is technology good or bad for the advancement of human society? For me, the pros of the advanced technology far outweigh the cons.

Technology is quickly becoming the glue that holds our world together. People call each other on cell phones. They use electronic calendars. Even digital books are gradually library books. These all allow the transfer of knowledge to happen more quickly. Instead of going into a building or using the nearest phone booth, a person can pull out their cell phone and dial a number as quickly as they want to. Smartphones often come with calendar apps, so replacing a paper calendar every year and remembering to turn the pages becomes a thing of the past. The production of digital books saves trees as no paper is required. No longer do we have to wait for our local libraries to obtain a book. We can just buy it online.

Carr brings up his fear that machines will soon be doing more thinking than humans will. I disagree with this statement. He mentions that when Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, it caused some people to denounce it as demeaning to the intelligence of men. This technology rendered the writing of books by hand obsolete. It was a new invention, but society became more advanced along with it. I believe that the same thing is happening today. The printing press was rendered obsolete, and now new computers constantly render old ones obsolete. I believe that the human mind is evolving along with these new machines. New research is constantly used to produce greater and greater technology. The mind of a human invents every new development in the technology world. The development of the human mind is linked with the development of technology and they will continue to develop at the same pace.  

The Ethics of Living Jim Crow

Richard Wright’s The Ethics of Living Jim Crow is a piece of literature that provides an inside look at the true horrors that African Americans had to endure during the years when the Jim Crow system went unchecked. The story provides shocking details and drives home how much courage civil rights leaders and workers showed in the years both during and surrounding the movement. I often wondered as I read this what role I would have taken were I in Wright’s shoes during his childhood and young adulthood. As the story developed, I realized what that path would have been.

Richard Wright recalls some very vivid details from his past. The story opens up on him getting hit by a broken milk bottle during a cinder fight. Rather than showing sympathy, his mother scolds him and beats him. She wants him to take the submissive route and succumb to the Jim Crow laws.
This made Richard angry, but later he realized that his mother only wanted him to be safe once he left the house. Years later, his mother’s advice proved itself to be wise. He was l stopped by police and white citizens alike and harassed. They tried to make him submit and keep Jim Crow alive. Sometimes they even held him at gunpoint. “They climbed out of the car, guns drawn, faces set, and advanced slowly.” Wright’s details capture the essence and the terror felt by all African Americans during the Jim Crow years.

Reading this story really made me think about what I would have done if I had been an African American growing up during this time period. Immediately I though that I would have kept my head down, been submissive, and avoided danger and conflict as much as possible. However, as I read more, I realized that this would only add fuel to the Jim Crow fire.

The whole goal of the oppressive southern society was to make the African Americans feel like they were inferior to the white people. The white people bullied them and harassed them. The African Americans were discriminated against in the workplace and often couldn’t find jobs. At night, the KKK terrorized them, harassing them and even lynching them sometimes.

I think that if I were alive during this time, I would have joined the Civil Rights Movement. I would have placed articles in newspapers and tried to speak up for my own rights. I realize that this would be the most dangerous path, but it is also the one that made the most difference and eventually caused the Jim Crow society to collapse. I admire the bravery of leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. They helped promote non-violent resistance and helped eventually make the difference they wanted to. I would want to be like them.

Talk of the Town

“We knew we had just witnessed thousands of deaths; we clung to each other as if we ourselves were falling.” John Updike’s words in his article Talk of the Town perfectly describe the thoughts of everyone who witnessed the horrific events of September 11^th, 2001. Heroic firemen rushed in to save the thousands of people in the towers; people fled the building in terror. All of America watched as the inevitable collapse of the towers played out on live television right in front of our eyes, leaving every witness with a haunting sense of helplessness as they watched the towers fall.

I have witnessed the events the events that took place on 9/11/01 multiple times. I remember the day it happened. I was five years old. We were driving home when the radio broadcast cut to the scene playing out in New York. I did not understand it, only that something was not right. My mom did her best to explain it in terms that I could understand until we arrived home and turned on the news. I remember seeing the north tower burning, and the second plane hitting the south tower. Luckily I left the room before the towers fell down. I thought my experience with the events of that day was a thing of the past, until I visited a museum in Washington D.C. six years later.

The museum had the remnants of part of one of the towers on display, and a small anteroom played the news clips from the infamous day. People covered in dust and rubble were interviewed, crying as they talked, describing their experience. Many had worked in the towers and had watched their colleagues throw themselves out of windows eighty stories above the ground to escape the heat of the fires. I cried as I watched the clips. It was more powerful than watching it live, because this time I could understand what was going on. It was like rewinding the clock six years and reliving it.

John Updike offers an opinion very similar to my own regarding the action that should be taken following this terrible day. He argues that American freedom is something that shouldn’t be limited just to diminish the chances of something like this happening again. I believe that increased airport security measures are a good thing, but that should be the extent of the measures that should be taken. Updike offered some very insightful words on freedom. “It is mankind’s elixir, even if a few turn it to poison.” Additional rights should not be sacrificed so that an incident as rare as this has a slightly smaller chance of happening.

Susan Sontag takes a very interesting perspective on the events of 9/11/01. She has brought into the spotlight both some holes in the American response to this event, and some American hypocrisy. American journalists and the government have denounced this deed as “cowardly.” Sontag denounced them as hypocrites for doing this. “And if the word “cowardly” is to be used, it might be more aptly applied to those who kill from beyond range of retaliation, high in the sky, than to those willing to die themselves in order to kill others.”

Sontag has a point. America has attacked from beyond the point of retaliation in the past. The atomic bombs were dropped on both Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II from airplanes. Napalm strikes as well as Agent Orange were used during the Vietnam War in order to minimize American casualties. I do not believe that Sontag wishes for American soldiers to rush blindly into their deaths on the front lines. She merely is pointing out that America cannot call the terrorist attacks on 9/11/01 cowardly. The terrorists did a heinous and awful thing, but they were not cowards.

I believe that Sontag has higher aspirations for America. She wishes for peace in the Middle East and for America to be able to back up its judgment of the rest of the world. I believe that the only way to tackle this problem is through peaceful manners. We will never be able to defeat al-Qaeda through violence. We instead must turn to diplomatic and educational methods. Six years ago, I read a book called Three Cups of Tea. In the non-fiction book, a man named Greg Mortenson built over fifty schools in Middle Eastern countries. Mortenson believes that the only way to defeat the warring terrorists based in that area of the world is through education. Many children do not receive education in those nations, and they turn to terrorist organizations looking for work. In order for them to be able to analyze their options and make a better humanitarian decision, they need to be educated. Securing these children peaceful jobs will eventually dry out the terrorist organizations and will bring peace to an area that has not seen peace for centuries.