The Turbo Times

My Culturally Oblivious Haircut

2012-03-06T14:21:00.005-08:00

Never walk into a barbershop wearing Chuck Taylors without being prepared to discuss basketball.

I enter Ron's Professional Hair Salon oblivious to what I'm about to encounter. My barber emerges from hiding in his car. "I'm Roger. Are you ready for the dopest haircut you've ever got?"

Though this slip makes me uncertain about Roger's beautician license, he assures me he'll make my "Danny Partridge doo look like Frank Sinatra."

As I sit down in the barber chair, I fend off questions about basketball sparked by my red shoes. I know nothing about basketball. All I can say is that I'm upset Taylor's business was bought out by Nike. No one cares.

I'm not used to this pressure to converse. I've been getting my haircut by the same lady forever and all she ever asks about is me, me, me. She knows how I've wanted my haircut my whole life.

I ask Roger to trim my hair short with scissors. BUZZ! He starts with the electric razor anyways. It becomes clear I have plunged into the unknown.

Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg's classic "Deep Cover" comes on the radio. The man cutting hair next to Roger starts dancing. Too bad I can't bob my head.

A man in a trench coat arrives selling bootleg DVDs and CDs, mostly movies and albums I've already gotten online. He boasts, "I got that new scary shit, that dramatic shit and even some of them funny jauns like Harold and Kumar."

Roger's rough with the razor and my neck feels like it’s on fire. He shoos away a kid who whispers, "wanna buy some china dolls?" Roger explains that means pills but says I would know that if I was "5-0." It's a shame. I could use some pain killers.

Apparently Ron's Professional Hair Salon used to be called "Hands On U 2."

Roger is lowering my ears with no mirror so I'm turned towards the door when a police officer steps in. Bootleg man slips his money from the customer who bought Overworld into his coat. The room goes quiet. Officer Killjoy looks around and leaves.

The bootlegger sighs, "that was lucky, I'm on parole." Roger asks the man to tell me about the time he got shot and arrested; the room erupts with competing stories. Apparently getting shot is cooler than shooting hoops!

Nearly finished, Roger says I should come back next week. The salon is having a special deal for two free haircuts. The marketing catch: free STD checks.

"You get one haircut. Then we have this lady test you in a truck out front for diseases," he says. "Even if you gots one, she can use her equipment to suck them right out of you. Then you can come back to get another free haircut after I teach you how to use condom so you don't get burnt."

Though I say one week isn't enough for my hair to grow out, Roger warns, "you're going to look so fresh that you're gonna need an STD check!"

I guess I'll grow into it.

Germantown: Community Development Corporation Hosts Expert Panel on Neighborhood Revitalization

2012-03-03T11:14:00.007-08:00

A man pushed a shopping cart on Chelten Avenue,
a commercial corridor discussed at the Germantown United CDC event.

The Germantown United Community Development Corporation held an expert panel event at Germantown Friends School's Yarnell Auditorium at 31 W. Coulter St. from 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m on Wednesday, February 29, 2012.

The event aimed to inform community members about potential strategies to "re-stimulate, re-invigorate, and redevelop" the neighborhood, specifically through "commercial corridor revitalization.”

President of Germantown United CDC John Churchville described the event as a “coming out party” for the organization, which formed last year after the community voiced concerns about the construction of Chelten Plaza.

Colvin Granuum, the president of Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation since 2001, was the featured speaker at the event. The Brooklyn-based nonprofit is considered the original model for community development corporations.

US Senators Robert Kennedy and Jacob Javits founded the organization in 1967. While the organization has raised over 500 million dollars over the last 45 years, Granuum said the difficulty of revitalizing a community is "a long, hard road."

After serving a community of over 133,000 people, Granuum said partnerships with other CDCs and other community organizations is essential to achieving "a vision of a mixed-income community."

The University of Pennsylvania graduate said managing relationships, with federal and state government as well as with philanthropic and free enterprise organizations, is necessary to create effective collaboration.

: Colvin Granuum discussed the progress made by Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation.

Granuum explained the significance of commercial corridor revitalization to restoring a neighborhood.

“Healthy commercial corridors reduce urban churn, stabilize real estate values and build social capital," Granuum said. "Social capital means encouraging local shopping and local jobs."

"Every Saturday, my mom would take us to the same stores at the same time," he continued. "We'd be in the same store with the same people. If something was developing in the community, that got discussed in these shops."

Granuum said it is important for a CDC to develop a comprehensive agenda that is focused. While his organization has grown into addressing housing renewal, creating cultural institutions and educational work, he said commercial corridor revitalization began the organization's success.

He said collaboration requires agreement on a few key goals and a "narrative that everyone buys into." He said the problems that a neighborhood faces in "outliving old stigmas" require a clear message about the neighborhood.

He said it has as much to do with internal patterns of consumption as with outsiders' perceptions. He said it is the wrong attitude to assume "if they put something here, it's not going to be good. Just because it's difficult doesn't mean it's impossible.”

After Granuum’s speech finished, moderator Julie Stapleton allowed the panel to introduce themselves and discuss their backgrounds. They offered advice to the newly formed organization, which will elect its Board of Directors in May.

: Granuum, Mullion, Frishkoff, Sauer, Salzman and Hogue (left to right) made recommendations for the Germantown United CDC.

Rick Sauer, Executive Director of the Philadelphia Association CDC, explained that running a sustainable organization is complex but “Germantown has assets to build on.”

Steve Mullion, Senior Vice President and Principal of EConsult, evaluated how to understand the economic realities that Germantown faces. He said understanding that there are perfect answers to creating vibrant commercial corridors but rather trade-offs and different value judgments.

Barbara Hogue, Executive Director of Historic Germantown, noted that Germantown is a national historic district and that “people are rooting for us at the national level to succeed.”

Andy Frishkoff, Executive Director of Local Initiatives Support Corporation, outlined strategies and issues for community groups addressing affordable housing, commercial corridor revitalization, education, personal health, environmental health and fresh food. He said that because there are so many issues to cover “you need a collaborative effort where you trust your partners.”

Sandy Salzman, Executive Director of the New Kensington CDC, explained how her neighborhood worked with local organizations and around red tape. She said community efforts to improve housing and to develop land parcels, which were once “giant trash cans,” caused businesses to look at the neighborhood with a new perspective.

After introductions, Julie Stapleton began with prewritten questions the organization had for the panel and said the organization would collect questions from the audience to ask later. Her first question was “How do you attract diverse retailers and investors when your starting point is nail salons, check cashing and discount stores?”

"You build on your strengths," Salzman said. "If you have a lot of nail salons, become the bridal capital of the world.” Mullin added that good economic decisions are often opposite from what the neighborhood thinks it needs. He said,“It is a dying effort for any geographic spot on the planet to have where all you’re doing is saying, ‘here I’ll sell you a pizza and you sell me a haircut.’”

Mullin explained that income has to come from exports or money from the outside in order to have economic growth. Granuum agreed. “Sometimes property owners are stuck in the past,” he said.

The panel discussed encouraging businesses that work to make the community desirable. After Frishkoff outlined the “main street model” for revitalizing a neighborhood, Hogue noted that perceptions of a neighborhood as “scary, dirty and having nowhere to eat” makes developing difficult because it “gives people excuses not to help.” Stapleton encouraged the audience to go to a Germantown business they had never been to before.

After discussions about promoting positive assets by encouraging history and art, and addressing obstacles involved in sustaining a CDC, Stapleton asked questions written by the audience. The questions addressed topics like how to get territorial communities to cooperate and how to prevent “over-gentrification.” A question about how to prevent political corruption drew laughs from the panel and the audience.

Stapleton read an audience question out loud unaware of its contents, saying, "We all agree that development starts with the community. With the majority of Germantown's community unmotivated, under-educated and seemingly not interested in processes that require to make personal alterations, how will you battle these demographic developments in the community?"

She rephrased the question, "how do you think we should energize the community about the corridor?" An audience member yelled, "I think we're better than that."

"There's always going to be people who are unmotivated until they have something to gripe against," Salzman said. "If you want people to get involved, tell them they're tearing down something they don't like. People love to come out and complain about something." She noted that sometimes people get angry about issues like low-income housing when it would actually be to their benefit. She added the best way is to communicate with the neighborhood effectively and transparently.

Anie Doley, a 35-year-old who has lived in Germantown since she was five years old, expressed concern about the last question of the evening.

“I thought the last question and the question about gentrification was interesting because I don’t know what the answer to that is. Much of our block is unemployed, much of our block is poor," Doley said. "I don’t know where we go with the economy being what it is right now. I think education and job training are important. I understand the importance of corridor development and the commercial districts and new housing and new developments but I’m not sure that’s the starting point for what Germantown needs.”

The publicist for the Germantown United CDC’s Steering Committee, Emaleigh Doley, corrected her sister’s assumptions that the CDC would not encourage what she thought was important. She reminded her sister about the experts' recommendation that the organization should focus on a short list of priorities. She said, “redevelopment does not mean pushing out all the old businesses. It means making better what’s already here.”

For more information on the Germantown United Community Development Corporation, visit their website or contact Emaleigh Doley at edoley@gmail.com.

Workweek Audiotopia

2012-02-24T12:20:00.002-08:00

Here's my latest idea for an Audiotopia/dystopia:

Every day of the work week will have an assigned key signature. Sirens, whistles, car horns and hums, trains, buses and other noises in the city all must adhere to this noise ordinance to maintain harmony.

Throughout the week, a logical progression of key changes will be enforced daily to raise the feeling of action as the exhausting workweek goes on. The week will ascend in key while transposing properly to minor keys on rainy days.

To prevent depression, everyone has government-issued noise-canceling headphones to opt-out of the day's mandated ambience music.

Starting Friday afternoon through Saturday evening, strict silence will be enforced for all noise makers involved in the week's ambience. Everyone is allowed to listen to whatever music they wish, wherever they wish, as loudly as they wish.

Still haven't worked how to make the transition from the freedom of the weekend to the strict key code again but I think it might have something to do with soma.

Join me and we can rule the world!

Christ Against Humanity: The Trial of Jesus by Judge Mental

2012-02-21T22:30:00.001-08:00

All rise for me, The Honorable Judge Maurice Mental! I have reached a verdict on the defendant, Jesus H. Christ, for his crimes against humanity, namely, creating it.

Almighty then, "judge not, lest ye be judged!" What an infuriating paradox! Just because I'm a hypocrite doesn't mean I'm wrong, Christ. Thanks for existence but I can't sit around waiting another millennia for you to dish out punishment to the morons making life miserable. Besides, this Book of Revelations bluff is a crock of poop! If anyone else threatened revenge with such sorcery, we'd try them for witchcraft and wizardry. Here's to finding this Harry Potter prat, he acts like he's the next… well, you know who!

I'm just mad you died for people who think they're pious because they pretend like they don't judge everyone. When somebody says, "I'll pray for you," I know they're really telling me I'm going to hell until I agree with them. "Turn the other cheek," my ass! I'm not going to be bullied. Passive-aggression is still aggression, you know. How the hell could you create such an annoying species?

It's unhealthy! Each group has their own day for getting together to bad-mouth to your many forms. Muslims have Friday, Jews have Saturday and Christians have Sunday. All to read a revenge story promising heaven for killing infidels who don't believe their testament. You never rest a bit, do yah, Yahweh?

It's not just Semitic religions. Buddha, whoever the hell that is, said holding onto anger was like holding hot coals intending to throw it at someone. It burned me when atheist hipster Jack Kerouac used Eastern religion to call getting blackout drunk a "spiritual experience." Then he made a bad pun of your Beatitudes, pretended like he never started the "Beat Generation" and called himself a Catholic!

"Everybody must get..."
Bob... you're not helping!

Don't get me wrong, God's been pretty good to me. He's given me almost everything I ever wanted, but claiming these people can strive for perfection might prove His creative impotence. In my courtroom, we don't stone people to death but I'll be damned if I'm going to let some Bethlehem-born, commie-pacifist say I have to put up with Osama bin Laden. Just 'cause I think dirty thoughts doesn't mean I can't judge a murderer! It was nice of you to stop those jerks from stoning that adulteress, Jesus, but if you're truly the one without sin, you could have totally gotten your rocks off.

Even so, you can't pretend like you didn't make this mess! Thanks to you, we suffer through self-righteous stupidity of all styles, even without religion. If you haven't joined the latest book cult, seen a certain indie-chic movie, or listened to a different kind of death-metal-dubstep than the next person, somehow you're less of a human being. Why the hell didn't you say hypocritical humans would make life so insufferable? I should throw the whole Good Book at you. Have you seen the show the kids watch called Jersey Shore? If these people are the "salt of the earth," it's sodium content, not sodomy, you should have warned us about.

Isn't suffering what you supposedly did for us? I thought we could just pray it away but I won't get peace 'til these buffoons die slowly. Then, when I die, You forbid, I'll have to put up with them all over again! For creating this inescapable hell, I sentence you to life in prison, Mr. Christ. I ain't falling for that martyr-miracle-madness with the death penalty you deserve! I'm God in this courtroom and Judgment Day is today. It's back to the cave you came from and time to contemplate your wicked creation! Let me cast the first stone! I don't care that I've sinned, you started it!

153-Year-Old Man Arrested for Planting "Historical Herb" Across Gettysburg Battlefield

2012-02-13T17:42:00.003-08:00

Since America's bloodiest battle in July 1863, Gettysburg has struggled with the tension between preserving the battlefield to be historically authentic and allowing nature to take its course but a relative of General Ulysses S. Grant seems to have found a balance between the two positions: planting pot.

Local vagrant, Johnny "Appleweed" Grant, 153, was arrested at Devil's Den in Gettysburg for allegedly planting marijuana seeds across the battlefield. Grant claims he has photographic proof that the plant, made illegal in the United States in 1937, grew naturally in the woods surrounding the battlefield in 1863.

Though his ancestor was not present at the battle, Grant said he planted the "historical herb" to honor veterans of the conflict. Over a period of three days, he crossed the hallowed ground tossing seeds from a Civil War ammunition cartridge box while wearing a Union kepi cap. Park visitors complained that Grant was disturbing the peace, singing Bob Marley songs and reeking of patchouli.

Park rangers found Grant sleeping at the famous Confederate sharpshooter’s barricade after pretending to fire his guitar towards Little Round Top, where Confederate general Stephen H. Weed was shot during the second day of the battle. As Grant was arrested, he saluted the park rangers and said he would report to General George Meade, the commanding General of Union forces at Gettysburg, "im-Meade-iately." He giggled raucously as he was handcuffed and taken to Adams County Prison.

The National Park Service has dealt with delusions caused by the illegal drug before. In the 1980s, park ranger Godfrey Spooks found hash-smoking historians growing the plant near the Eternal Peace Light. The historians argued that Franklin D. Roosevelt had smoked a marijuana cigarette lit from the monument's flame when he dedicated it in 1938, a year after the plant was made illegal.

Spooks agreed to let the historians off with a warning, admitting, "he dedicated a monument to eternal peace while Hitler rose to power--he had to be high!"

While burning the evidence, one of the historians, a Grateful Dead fan named Peter Gastley, breathed in too much campfire smoke and had a vivid hallucination of Abraham Lincoln urging him to "start telling ghost stories around town to trick tourists out of their money."

Grant also cited the beloved martyr President in his defense. He said he was fulfilling Lincoln's hope in the Gettysburg Address "that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain." When asked for further comment, Grant sang, "this land is my land, now get off my lawn!"

Disclaimer: Not truth! Satire!

Germantown: Inaugural 'Double The Love' Event Brings Couples Together at Circus School

2012-02-13T17:41:00.000-08:00

Throughout its four years in Germantown, the Philadelphia School of Circus Arts has always encouraged participation on the part of the community. For the first time, the school offered a special doubles class with a focus on couples for the Valentine's Day season, entitled "Double The Love."

The event featured both regular students and newcomers, and couples participating in the workshop do not have to be dating.

Before the event, instructor Jackie Zalewski said, "We may meet some of these people for the first time tonight. I would imagine there's some committed couples, there might just be some friends."

Participants Will Dampier and Jen Jahowski have been dating for three months. Though they met online, they found out quickly that both of them attended the school. Dampier is a student at Drexel University. Jahowski is an emergency room resident.

Dampier estimated he has been learning circus arts at the school for six months to twelve months. Dampier mentioned that although the couples' activities brought people closer than usual, there were "just as many double entendres as usual in regular classes."

Jahowski has been attending the school for about two and a half years. When asked how the event improved their chemistry Jahowski said the event gave the couple "lots of things to laugh about later."

While some of the participants have previously attended classes at the school, other students were completely new to circus arts.

Jen Palanteo, a 27-year-old social worker and current student at PSCA, took the opportunity to bring her boyfriend, Chris Lynch, a 26-year-old senior art director at a pharmaceutical company who had never tried circus arts, to the event Friday evening.

"It was my first time technically but I've been here for a few performances to see her before," Lynch said. "It was definitely not what I'm used to. I do a lot of strength training. Shows what muscles I need to work on."

Led by instructors Jackie Zalewski, Eric Michaels and Niff Nicholls, couples learned beginner doubles techniques for tight wire, trapeze and acrobatics. The school held three sessions over two evenings. Zalewski and Nicholls directed the Friday lesson with four couples of varying experience.

In the school's building at 5900A Greene St., Zalewski and Michaels introduced themselves a few hours before the workshop began. They performed examples not only of what would be taught at the event that evening but also what the school's more advanced classes teach. Zalewski, who taught the Friday class with Nicholls, has been teaching for a couple of years and has been performing aerials for about four years. Michaels, who taught at the Saturday classes said he has been doing assistant teaching and training for about a year and a half. He has also been teaching aerials class for almost half a year.

Michaels explained that the Valentine's Day theme presented an opportunity to introduce new students to the school. "We have current students who maybe have a spouse that has been curious about what they've been doing here," Zalewski added, "it's a chance for them to bring that spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend with them and get to try this stuff out."

The instructors insisted that there was no pressure for anyone attending the event to be a couple however. Zalewski said that the staff was not "privy to anyone's relationship status when they signed up." She and Michaels agreed that these doubles activities were fun with both a significant other or someone who was just a friend. Michaels joked, "We're not going to screen them at the door and say 'You have to make out for 30 seconds or we won't let you in.'"

After the event, instructor Niff Nicholls said that she liked the new event especially because it gave regulars and beginners a chance to "loosen up" and "have some fun." Nicholls has taught at PSCA for five years and now holds the title of adult aerial coordinator at the school. She noted that she is currently the longest employed instructor at the school. She began teaching there when the school "started down the street in a little studio." At the time, the school was called Airplay until the school moved to its current location about four years ago.

Nicholls cracked jokes throughout the night as she encouraged her students through the night's activities. She also said it was interesting to see a newcomer "to appreciate the strength and coordination it takes" to perform circus arts "especially when the partner's a guy and they had no idea how hard it was and they notice that their female partner is a little stronger than they thought."

The school offers a curriculum featuring "aerials (static trapeze, corde lisse, aerial silks, and lyra), juggling, unicycling, tight wire, tumbling and physical conditioning." The school also offers "corporate and institutional team-building and leadership workshops, social events, birthday and other parties, summer camp and special guest performances and presentations."

The school's programs are for all ages and introductory workshops are offered for $25. If you are interested in signing up for a class, email classes@phillycircus.com or call the office at (215) 849-1991.

Germantown: LaRose Jazz Club Sunday Sessions Continue Despite Superbowl

2012-02-09T15:00:00.000-08:00

Pianist Jeff Knoetter (left), bassist Jonathan Michel (back right) and drummer/bandleader Robert Henderson (front right) close out the Sunday Session at LaRose Jazz Club.

Steve Moliene, a busboy at LaRose's Catering and Ballroom, an aspiring sportscaster studying at Community College of Philadelphia and an avid Patriots fan since 1998, just wanted to watch the Super Bowl like the other 111.3 million people who tuned into Sunday's game.

However, as Kelly Clarkson began to sing "The Star Spangled Banner," drummer Robert "Rappin' Rob" Henderson had to ask the busboy to turn down the television he was watched enthusiastically the entire evening near the bar. Nothing was going to stop the bandleader of the club's weekly Sunday Sessions. He was thinking downbeats, not touchdowns.

Turning back to the band in the ballroom, Henderson exclaimed, "They ain't gonna cancel the Super Bowl because of us!"

Henderson has been hosting the weekly jam session at the venue, better known as LaRose Jazz Club, for nearly three years. Henderson has been playing drums in Philadelphia since 1970. After Ortlieb's Jazzhaus shut down in April 2010, he was inspired to find a new location to feed his appetite for improvised jazz.

"Historically, Germantown has been a breeding ground of great musicians," Henderson said. "We're simply carrying on a tradition of Philadelphia jazz that's been happening for decades and decades." The shows typically feature two experienced musicians to get things started. This week, Henderson recruited bassist Jonathan Michel and pianist Jeff Knoetter.

Dr. Chenet LaRose was Henderson's dentist when he found out that "he had a place that had music." Henderson gained an interest in the club by going to the Monday night jam sessions hosted by Tony Williams, which have been happening for the last six years at the venue. Henderson had found a the "place where the young cats could come out and play and network and have fun" like they used to do at Ortlieb's.

Henderson pays out of pocket for the band and the use of the venue with the money he earns as an owner of an automobile inspection station and a drummer. He considers both to be his full-time jobs.

Other "early birds" at the venue assist Henderson in the endeavor of running a quality show each week. With the help of jazz promoter, Kim Tucker, and photographer Lester "Les" Hinton, Henderson has developed a forum for learning and networking that JazzTimes writer Suzanne Cloud described as "an incubator for jazz babies who hunger to learn about playing music for a living."

Tucker, a former professor of music business at Temple University, arrived early with homemade brownies to set at the table where she collects the $5 cover for the band. She has been keeping a log that lists performers, songs, instruments and any other important details about the show. Though she documents the event for her own enjoyment, she shares the information on Facebook as soon as she gets home from the evening performance. Along with Hinton, who currently works at Temple, their contributions have made each show memorable as a distinctive experience. The team's extensive documentation has kept the event fresh, even when filled familiar faces, ensuring that no set is ever the same. Tucker recalled, "I was calling out songs last week and eventually, Rob yelled, 'no more!'"

Bassist Jonathan Michel performed
with a bow on his string bass
at one moment of the concert.

Frequent audience members have taken notice to each show's uniqueness. Lola Crooks, a resident of West Oak Lane, said, "I've been attending these shows usually two times a month. I started coming about a year ago. I'm a big jazz fan and what I like the most about the event is the versatility that is brought to the show. It's always different and that keeps it exciting."

Proactive promotion brings a wide variety of performers to the shows. Legendary musicians like Leon Mitchell, who once led the house band at North Philadelphia's Uptown Theater, tenor saxophonist Sir Charles Cunningham and drummer Edward "Eddie" Jones represented previous generations of the city's jazz performers in the audience and in the performance.

Mitchell's wife for 33 years, Ella Gahnt, was one of the first audience members to join the initial trio, singing the popular standard, "It Could Happen To You." The event functioned as a direct way for her to network and to promote future gigs in the city. Gahnt noted that she was booked heavily this month as a result of many "Afro-American history events throughout the city."

Many more audiences members spontaneously joined the show as it progressed, showing off their vocal and instrumental chops in an atmosphere free of the pressures of some of the city's more structured and competitive jazz venues. The welcoming, relaxed spirit of the event has created an environment comfortable enough for anyone to participate. Henderson, as band leader has certainly become a crowd favorite, but he noted that the true success of the event stems from an interactive between participants and an audience he reminds that without them there would be no show.

"We're bringing people from the community together," Henderson said. "It's different than downtown and we allow for a lot easier access as a place to play."

Pianist Jeff Knoetter performed by reading from digital sheet music.

Not only do participants feel welcome to experiment and improve their chops, they feel at home enough to express themselves with a group of people they consider to be like family. Monti Keino dedicated a version of "Autumn Leaves" to her mother, who is currently in the hospital. She explained how her feelings about the event extend to anyone who walks through the door at LaRose, saying, "I don't just share with my people, I share with everybody."

Seventeen-year-old Dustin Hill, who lives in Cheltenham and attends Abington Friends School, said he had only been playing tenor saxophone for a year. Nevertheless, he was able to keep up with the changes in songs he had never played before as bassist Jonathan Michel told him and guitarist Noah Gershwin the root notes to his bass line.

"These guys have like 300 songs memorized," Hill said. "I'm usually learning new songs on the spot but they give you a lot of help along the way."

Henderson has been happy to use the event to continue the jazz tradition of on the spot learning. College and high school performers, like bassist Bruce Ketterer, pianist Karl Reiders, drummers Anthony Chieffo and Ben Singer, received rides from parents, audience members, and public transit from all around the city in pursuit of learning a little more about performing for a live audience.

"I've been fortunate enough as a jazz musician to travel the world with my music. This is my small way of giving back," he continued. "Venues have started to decline. Our success is our consistency. We offer a chance for younger players to learn with seasoned performers. That's what the greats like Charlie Parker and Duke Ellington where known best for doing, sharing their knowledge with others."

At the end of the show, Henderson thanked the audience for understanding that "it takes a special kind of person to play jazz music and when they do it, it's great."

Sunday Sessions are held at LaRose Jazz Club at 5531 Germantown Ave. from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m every Sunday.

Correction: At the time of publishing, this essay mistakenly said that Leon Mitchell and Ella Gahnt had been married for over 50 years, they have actually been married for 33 years.

LaRose Jazz Club Reflection

2012-02-09T14:16:00.000-08:00

Miles Davis once said, "It's not the note you play that's the wrong note - it's the note you play afterwards that makes it right or wrong."

I had my fair share of "wrong notes" in my efforts of newsgathering for this first individual assignment for PhiladelphiaNeighborhoods.com. I forgot batteries for my still camera and lighting equipment for filming a dimly lit jazz club. I even hit the worst note possible in the coverage: forgetting to turn on my microphone to record the sound.

Robert Henderson, the bandleader at LaRose Jazz Club in Germantown, admitted that if I were in his classroom I would probably failed the assignment of getting the full story of what happened in the ballroom Sunday night. When Davis assessed how to play to jazz, he did not mean that a jazz musician could never make mistake, he just meant that there was no point in dwelling upon them. His career exemplified never looking back, always look forward to how he could improve. Jazz emerged in America under restrictive conditions that could have hindered its growth yet the genre managed to overcome the adversity of opposition.

So instead suffering from my failures of footage, I did what any jazz musician would do. I improvised. My iPhone took over for my camera that lacked batteries. I bought a flashlight at the local dollar store to make my footage visible. I called Robert Henderson for help the moment I got home and realized my greatest error. After feeling so accomplished from a successful event, I learned firsthand what Ella Gahnt said on Sunday about how life is like the knobs on a PA mixer, filled with "highs and lows." Henderson's delivery of his audio represents the best example of what a musician and journalist should be: a communicator with concern for even the strangest of strangers.

Part of what my struggles helped me remember was an appreciation for the abilities we have as journalists and musicians today. Before the invention of audio and visual recording, we had to be in exactly the right place at the right time. A band arriving into town was considered such a magical experience because one knew that it could never happen again, LaRose Jazz Club captures that feeling almost every weekend. I feel as though the audio I lost helps exemplify how so many events like the Sunday Session can feel like such a flash in the pan and how the permanence of recording has perhaps made us forget that joy of the temporary.

My efforts in constructing my story worked like a long, rambling jazz piece. My mistakes as a journalistic soloist made playing the right notes more difficult but through communication with my journalistic band of sources and editor,s I managed to pull through to complete a project that did not look or sound anything like what I expected it to be. Despite my regrets about losing performances by the many talented musicians I saw, I think my coverage captures the magic the participants feel every week in LaRose as the music comes and goes.

Will Pennsylvania's Compromise with Natural Gas Companies Runoff into New York and Erode Environmental Conservation? U.S. Energy Development Corporation and Yeager Brook

2012-02-05T00:57:00.000-08:00

Yeager Brook: "Look ma! No liners!"

Bias disclaimer.

After New York's Department of Environment Conservation filed a complaint against U.S. Energy Development Corporation for allegedly causing sediment runoff in Yeager Brook from gas wells in Pennsylvania, the company has issued a statement saying it "is not aware of any issues at the wells in question."

U.S. Energy said it was notified by the DEC's complaints filed on January 21 seeking $187,500 in fines after "it had already issued a press release, giving the company no chance to respond."

Apparently the "drill" is to not respond to public criticism
until you've weaseled your way out of paying your fines or taxes.

Though the company came to an agreement in December 2010 with the DEC in response to original allegations about Yeager Brook, opting to pay a penalty up to $10,00 and prevent erosion and runoff from their operations near the Allegheny State Park, its official statement claims the regulations are the responsibility of Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection.

The company said in its statement that "the wells are in Pennsylvania, and the company’s operations are regulated there by the Department of Environmental Protection...We were told that DEC alerted Pennsylvania’s DEP of its concerns. DEP asked DEC for a meeting to discuss DEC’s concerns for validation, but DEC never responded back to DEP."

New York Notices U.S. Energy's Problematic Pennsylvania Past

While the legal battle has yet to pan out between the New York's DEC and U.S. Energy, which is based in Getzville, N.Y., Pennsylvania's DEP's past litigations and negotiations shed light on the relationship between the natural gas company and state government regulations across the state border.

Over a period of two years, beginning in August 2007, U.S. Energy had committed 302 violations of the Clean Streams Law, the Dam Safety and Encroachments Act, the Oil and Gas Act, and the Solid Waste Management Act in Pennsylvania. Some of the violations stem from complaints about the companies participation along with other natural gas companies in the state in the controversial practice of hydro-fracturing or "fracking" for natural gas, especially in Marcellus Shale.

Before litigation against the company ended in Pennsylvania with DEP, protesters picketed outside U.S. Energy's New York headquarters in April 2010 as the company attempted to extend its operations into New York's Allegheny State Park. An editorial in the Buffalo News warned against a proposal by the company to drill in Allegheny State Park as a result of Pennsylvania's problems with the company.

In 2010, Aaron Besecker got U.S. Energy's President to bend the truth like a horizontal hydraulic fracturer.
But he didn't fracking transcribe his interview or spell "Allegheny" right, so I did it for him.

Aaron Besecker of the Buffalo News interviewed U.S. Energy President Douglas K. Walch. Walch explained how the company "acquired a large lease holding in the Bradford area, about 10,000 acres that stradded New York and Pennsylvania line a few years ago." He noted how they had been developing mostly in the Allegheny National Forest. He said, "about 3,000 acres runs into the Allegheny State Park. The park has seen about 400 wells. There is actually a natural gas storage in the park as well as a big pipeline through the park. So the park has seen oil development over the years."

Douglas Walch lies to himself for a living.

Walch said, "With this lease holding we just started the process, Aaron, and planned about five wells at this point in time just to see if the trends that we're experiencing in Pennsylvania run up north into the park area."

In 2008, U.S. Energy sought permission to drill five test wells in Allegheny State Park where it claimed to control 3,000 acres of private mineral rights. The state fought the company's effort, requiring it to prove it held those rights. U.S. Energy and the state disputed the matter in court for more than a year before the company stopped its efforts.

Although the company dropped the issue a year ago in the courts, Walch continued by telling Besecker U.S. Energy's argument that "the part of land that we're drilling on was primarily owned by oil/gas companies and was bought by the park back in the '20s. For like, you know, anywhere from ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five dollars an acre and you know, they didn't pay a lot of money for it. And the oil and gas companies who sold it fully intended to retain the mineral rights and develop laws down the road in the years to come. So when you're buying land as cheaply as they bought it, they only bought the surface, they didn't buy any minerals, and it was always understood to be something that down the road it would be developed."

In July 2009, Pennsylvania's DEP ordered a cease-and-desist letter against U.S. Energy drilling in the national forest "for persistent and repeated violations of environmental laws and regulations." The company was prohibited from all "earth disturbance, drilling, and hydro-fracturing" in the state. The regional director of Pennsylvania's DEP, Kelly Burch, said, "U.S. Energy has demonstrated a pattern of behavior that displays disregard for the environmental laws and regulations, the consequences being the contamination of water and soil in Warren and McKean."

The severance of minerals and the surface is not black and white. Generally, it's being litigated in some states. I know in Pennsylvania it's a little bit of a hot topic but generally when you're severed it you're basically the oil and gas rights, which in this area here are maybe five-, six-, seven-hundred feet down, all the way down to the center of the earth--not that there'd be oil and gas down that deep. So what happens is the minerals were reserved intentionally to be developed in the future. If the state park in their expansion plans wanted to buy minerals rights at that time, they would have paid a lot more money for the acreage than they ended up paying."

The company paid a lot less money for their violations that what they would have ended up paying. Pennsylvania allowed for the company to resume operations in October 2010 after it corrected one-third of its violations. DEP executed a consent order and agreement allowing the company to resume drilling activities in northwestern Pennsylvania though limiting the number of active well sites. U.S. Energy paid a $200,000 civil penalty to DEP. Burch said “The agreement is structured to ensure both immediate and continuing environmental compliance and allows U.S. Energy the opportunity to resume operations under a structured format. As part of the agreement, U.S. Energy will operate under an environmental management plan that will serve as a blueprint for future compliance and development.”

Walch finished his interview with Besecker by explaining the company's success while excusing its violations. He said, "last year in 2009, we were pretty active in Pennsylvania on the national forests as well as off forest properties near as well. We had a contractor out there who just did a very poor job--we're really mad at the guy too-- we fired him right off the bat and in fact we have a lawsuit against the guy right now. The violations that we had in Pennsylvania were in large part caused by his actions. It's something we don't take lightly and we know we can develop these resources in an environmentally-friendly manner. In his case, he just did a very poor job and ended up damaging our company. For a period of time we were unable to develop any more wells but then we entered an agreement with the Department of Environmental Protection which is the Pennsylvania equivalent of the Department of Environmental Conservation. We've been working very closely with them. They inspect our sites frequently and we've passed all the inspections without any issue whatsoever."

Despite its legal battles, U.S. Energy was ranked No. 140 on Inc. magazine's 2009 Inc. 500. The company saw a 1,260.3% three-year growth and earned $56.4 million in revenue for its 73 employees in 2009.

The company maintained in its statement that in the current fight with New York's Department of Environmental Conservation, "U.S. Energy intends to vigorously defend itself."

Potential Future Stories

Corbett's Compromising Campaign Contributions

While the National government throws journalists out of a House of Representatives hearing about the controversial natural gas procurement practices of companies like U.S. Energy, the natural gas lobby has financed the careers of the politicians in Pennsylvania responsible for overseeing their practices. In February 2011, Governor Tom Corbett repealed a four-month-old policy regulating natural gas drilling in park land. In April 2011, Corbett argued against criticisms from Democrats that he opposed a tax on natural gas because he received nearly $1 million in campaign contributions from natural gas lobbies saying, "I will not let them poison the water" and ""Had they not given me a dime, I would still be in this position, saying we need to grow jobs in Pennsylvania."

New York meanwhile has seen companies spend more than $3.2 million lobbying for "fracking" and other controversial policies.

Is Natural Gas Now A National Nuisance?

Is Barack Obama beholden to the natural gas lobby?

State of the Union 2012

"This country needs an all-out, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy - a strategy that's cleaner, cheaper, and full of new jobs.

We have a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly one hundred years, and my Administration will take every possible action to safely develop this energy. Experts believe this will support more than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade. And I'm requiring all companies that drill for gas on public lands to disclose the chemicals they use. America will develop this resource without putting the health and safety of our citizens at risk.

The development of natural gas will create jobs and power trucks and factories that are cleaner and cheaper, proving that we don't have to choose between our environment and our economy. And by the way, it was public research dollars, over the course of thirty years, that helped develop the technologies to extract all this natural gas out of shale rock - reminding us that Government support is critical in helping businesses get new energy ideas off the ground.

What's true for natural gas is true for clean energy. In three years, our partnership with the private sector has already positioned America to be the world's leading manufacturer of high-tech batteries. Because of federal investments, renewable energy use has nearly doubled. And thousands of Americans have jobs because of it.

When Bryan Ritterby was laid off from his job making furniture, he said he worried that at 55, no one would give him a second chance. But he found work at Energetx, a wind turbine manufacturer in Michigan. Before the recession, the factory only made luxury yachts. Today, it's hiring workers like Bryan, who said, "I'm proud to be working in the industry of the future."

Our experience with shale gas shows us that the payoffs on these public investments don't always come right away. Some technologies don't pan out; some companies fail. But I will not walk away from the promise of clean energy. I will not walk away from workers like Bryan. I will not cede the wind or solar or battery industry to China or Germany because we refuse to make the same commitment here. We have subsidized oil companies for a century. That's long enough. It's time to end the taxpayer giveaways to an industry that's rarely been more profitable, and double-down on a clean energy industry that's never been more promising. Pass clean energy tax credits and create these jobs."

CEO of U.S. Energy Development Corporation, "Job Creator"

...yeah, thinking that U.S. Energy Development's Corporation has done a great job creating 73 jobs is one firing away from being just as delusional as believing in 72 virgins... maybe we should fire this guy when I find out who his company's campaign contributions are going to other than Pat Buchanan's failed presidential bids.

Jean-Paul Sartre's Existentialism: "Man is nothing but what he makes of himself"

2011-12-11T12:58:00.000-08:00

Jean-Paul Sartre's essay “Existentialism” from Existentialism and Human Emotions explains the problem that stems from Sartre's assertion that “consciousness brings nothingness into being by questioning being.” Sartre's atheistic existentialism argues that God's existence is not relevant to discussing human values, using subjectivity as the starting point for evaluating how we find meaning in existence. For atheist existentialists “existence precedes essence.” Instead of a definable human nature predetermined by God, existentialists acknowledge the absence and nothingness in living with freedom and possibility that his absence highlights. Finding meaning in freedom requires individuals to continue define their essence in response to the conditions of their existence. A tension arises between defining one's essence in relation to one's existence which is already an unstable concept due to the nature of self reflection and subsequently defining one's essence in relation to the existence of others. Subjectivity becomes a dilemma for an individual because ultimately “man is nothing else but what he makes of himself” (Sartre 345).

Jean-Paul Sartre said to Charlie Parker once:
"Jazz is like a banana - it has to be consumed on the spot.

Consciousness: Nothingness Into Being

When Sartre argues that “existence precedes essence” he means “that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world – and defines himself afterwards. If man as the existentialist sees him is not definable, it is because to begin with he is nothing. He will not be anything until later, and then he will be what he makes of himself.” Sartre argues that because “consciousness brings nothingness into being by questioning being,” man's subjectivity in reaction to his existence must be the starting point of creating meaning and value in life. Sartre says “there is no human nature, because there is no God to have a conception of it. Man simply is”(345).

"If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company."

Existentialism: Dialectic Subjectivity

Sartre argues, “The word subjectivism has two meanings, and our opponents play on the two. Subjectivism means, on the one hand, that an individual chooses and makes himself; and, on the other that it is impossible for man to transcend human subjectivity. The second of these is essential to the meaning of existentialism”(346). Subjectivity arises from the perceptions people have of existence as defined by the individuality of Descartes' cogito. The problem becomes that self reflection becomes the only certainty individuals have in defining their meaning and existence. “I think; therefore, I exist” becomes the philosophical starting point for Sartre because private subjectivity shows a person what is possible within themselves (357). Sartre affirms that all existentialists, both atheistic and Christian, share the belief "that existence precedes essence, or, if you prefer, that subjectivity must be the starting point" (Existentialism and Human Emotions).

Paper-Cutter People: “Essence Precedes Existence”:

David Banach notes in his lecture “Ethics of Absolute Freedom” that Sartre's argument Existentialism and Human Emotions criticizes the old view of “essence precedes existence” because it reduces people to artifacts with preceding essence and a predetermined nature tied to a project outside themselves. He quotes Sartre's example of a paper-cutter to explain how we came to believe that man had been created with specific function determined by an essence:

Let us consider some object that is manufactured, for example, a book or a paper-cutter: here is an object which has been made by an artisan whose inspiration came from a concept. He referred to the concept of what a paper-cutter is... Thus, the paper-cutter is at once an object produced in a certain way and, on the other hand, one having a specific use… Therefore, let us say that, for the paper-cutter, essence ... precedes existence (344).

Sartre says “When we conceive of God as the Creator, He is generally thought of as a superior sort of artisan... Thus the concept of man in the mind of God is comparable to the concept of the paper-cutter in the mind of the manufacturer...Thus, the individual man is the realization of a certain concept in the divine intelligence” (Existentialism and Human Emotions 14). It is because God's essence can no longer be used to define man's existence in the absolute that existentialism's critics find the idea that “existence precedes essence” so difficult to overcome.

The tension between those that believe in God and atheist existentialists described in “Existentialism” stems from the ambiguity of God's existence combined with a need for absolute morality. This disagreement arises because “The freedom which Descartes ascribes to God, Sartre reserves for man”(Kadir 52).

"You must be afraid, my son.

That is how one becomes an honest citizen."

Absence of God: A priori Ethics, Private Subjectivity, and Freedom's Responsibility

The existentialist “thinks it very distressing that God does not exist” (Sartre 349). Without a god there can no longer be an a priori Good. Existentialists argue against the framework of God as a concept to transcend human subjectivity in creating “secular ethics” around the concept of God. Without god, atheist existentialists argue that there is no essence to compare to for the meaning of existence, existence finds its essence in private subjectivity.

Soren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling exemplifies how this anguish transforms Abraham's action from a question of ethics to a transcendent religious belief. Sartre argues that following Abraham's example “every man ought to say to himself, 'Am I really the kind of man who has the right to act in such a way that humanity might guide itself by my actions?' And if he does not say that to himself, he is masking his anguish”(349).

"Man is condemned to be free;

because once thrown into the world,

he is responsible for everything he does."

Three Objections to “Essence Precedes Existence”

Sartre objects to essence preceding existence because it masks his anguish. A person faced with absolute freedom wishes to abdicate responsibility through some form of “bad faith” to deny this inescapable freedom. Facticity allows people to claim that their life's essence has been predetermined by outside forces therefore they do not control their life because they do not choose. Anxiety emerges when faced with the responsibility of free choice while having a lack of external value. Despair occurs when absolute freedom restricts us to what is under our control. Existentialists need to recognize these possible deceptions and self-denials in order to understand the condition of freedom they have been placed in. Sartre argue that although existentialist recognize the difficulty of losing God as an external predetermined value, “it is plain dishonesty for Christians to make no distinction between their own despair and ours and then to call us despairing” (367). “Existence precedes essence” does not suffer from this loss of external value because happiness within ourselves and our existence which cannot be taken away by external force if we embrace absolute freedom.

Sartre argues that existentialism is criticized not for “pessimism” but for “optimistic toughness” (356). The coward is responsible for being a coward just as much as a hero is responsible for being a hero. Although man's “private subjectivity” is the “point of departure,” existentialism is not a “philosophy of quietism, since it defines man in terms of action;”(357). Sartre's existentialism meets criticism for its “radical position on the totality of human freedom” (King 19).

For Sartre, American jazz music was an expression of freedom, imperfection, and authenticity.

He wrote in Nausea:
"For the moment, the jazz is playing; there is no melody, just notes, a myriad of tiny tremors. The notes know no rest, an inflexible order gives birth to them then destroys them, without ever leaving them the chance to recuperate and exist for themselves.... I would like to hold them back, but I know that, if I succeeded in stopping one, there would only remain in my hand a corrupt and languishing sound. I must accept their death; I must even want that death: I know of few more bitter or intense impressions."

Absolute Freedom: The Impossibility of Transcending Human Subjectivity

Sartre says that existentialism does not outline a philosophy that allows subjectivity and absolute freedom to exonerate man from his actions. He argues that man's subjectivity means that man is “not that he is simply what he conceives himself to be, but he is what he wills, and as he conceives himself after already existing – as he wills to be after that leap towards existence.” Man's will defines his essence and in light of subjectivity and the absence of God, man is all the more responsible for his actions. It is because of the responsibility that comes with absolute freedom that Sartre's argument that “Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself” is so dramatically consequential, Sartre proposes that “such is the first principle of existentialism”(347).

Whether distrusting a belief in God, deceiving private subjectivity, or denying the destiny of mankind, the burden of freedom becomes that man is “condemned every moment to invent man” (Sartre 350). Sartre argues that accepting the responsibility inherent in defining one's freedom with the pressures of creating meaning in life. To act is to assert a universal value or to negate universal values in a way that attempts to transcend human subjectivity. For Sartre “freedom is absolute, or it is not at all. Man is deeply influenced by his family and environment, but he freely chooses how he will relate to this influence” (King 19). Kant's universal values gave individuals escape from their subjectivity the same way God did by asserting predetermined principles. Sartre argues transcending human subjectivity is impossible and makes the existentialist realize that “our responsibility is much greater than we might have supposed, because it involves all mankind”(Sartre 346).

Existentialism's Three Objections to “Existence precedes Essence”

“So you're able to do anything, no matter what!"

Sartre addresses three objections to existentialism directly in an attempt to explain how humanism transcends human subjectivity. Critics argue that existentialism makes constructing moral values impossible given the arbitrary nature of subjective perspective. Sartre mocks the idea that acknowledging freedom of choice means “So you're able to do anything, no matter what!” (Sartre 360). Sartre compares making moral choices to “making a work of art” in that it is clear there is no definite painting to be made. There is no a priori rule to art but “we never say that a work of art is arbitrary” (361). This is why Sartre rejects the first definition of Humanism as honoring man as a higher value. He rejects the idea that we can think of man as an end because he is always in the making. Man's good creations are not evidence for the good nature of his a priori essence but rather a reflection upon what he has made of his freedom and choices in his existence.

“You're unable to pass judgment on others,

because there's no reason to prefer on configuration to another.”

The second objection Sartre imitates is that with existentialism “You're unable to pass judgment on others, because there's no reason to prefer on configuration to another” (360). Sartre's definition of Humanism makes clear that reflection on others is necessary to construct subjective value in a society. By choosing who we associate with we are making choices about what we do with our freedom. There is choice with consequence, though subjective reality might make us blame circumstance. Sartre says by recognizing that “existence precedes essence,” a free human being realizes that he is obliged to want freedom for others (363).

“Everything is arbitrary in this choosing of yours.

You take something from one pocket and pretend you're putting it into the other”

Sartre's atheist existentialism laments the loss of God as an absolute authority on right and wrong who can grant an individual absolution from the responsibility of freedom and choice. Sartre addresses a third criticism that in existentialism that “Everything is arbitrary in this choosing of yours. You take something from one pocket and pretend you're putting it into the other” (360). Existentialism simply points out the arbitrary nature of any choice of how we use our freedom. Even with the arbitrary decision to choose to discard God “there has to be someone to invent values.” Existentialists reject the belief that if there is no a priori purpose to life that somehow “fundamentally, values aren't serious, since you choose them”(365).

"I have no need for good souls: an accomplice is what I wanted."

Existentialism as Dialectic Humanism:

The Doctrine of Action and the Acknowledgment of the Other

Sartre argues that even though there are no a priori values in life, he does not mean that values are just arbitrary. Sartre outlines existentialism as a constructive philosophy to define Humanism. His second definition of Humanism reflects the idea of how to transcend human subjectivity by arguing that being a humanist requires “acknowledging that man is constantly outside himself.” Sartre's philosophy acknowledges the difficulty in defining our relationship to the Other but ultimately finds Humanism as a hopeful promise for cooperation. The concept of “passing-beyond” individual subjectivity and transcending into the human universe allows for the “particular fulfillment” of “liberation”(366). A man who can make freedom for himself can make freedom for others. Existentialism is an optimistic “doctrine of action” which should not be seen as in despair over how the existence of God affects human essence. Man's existence provides the possibility of defining an individual's essence on his own and through his efforts with others. In this way, Sartre's philosophy breaks from the trappings of both Descartes' cogito and Kant's universal values.

"Commitment is an act, not a word."

Freedom and Responsibility: Creative Freedom and Conformative Freedom

Sartre's writings Creative Conformity: Descartes and Being and Nothingness outline “Cartesian Freedom” as two kinds of freedom “(i) creative or productive freedom and (ii) conformative 'freedom'”(Kadir 51). These perspectives of the kinds of freedom exemplify Sartre's existentialism's use of Descartes and Kant. Descartes' philosophy exhibits how consciousness requires a dialectic relationship making “being” and “nothing” as distinct definitions. Descartes argues that “man is free to assent to, conform to, given truths” willing “being” out of “nothingness” for the self (54). Subjectivity gives man the freedom to act with “creative or productive freedom.” This freedom recognizes consciousness as “being-in-itself.”

Cartesian freedom also means “withholding positive judgment regarding the uncertain, the unclear, the untrue, and the false”(54). Kant's universal values also play a role in this conformative freedom. Sartre rejects the “world of seriousness” and “quietism” caused by this feeling of negative freedom. He instead outlines in Being and Nothingness the idea that without God, conformative freedom is best shaped through a humanism that acknowledges the look of the Other to judge actions instead of through Descartes' cogito's perspective of the “indifference” of God or the individual's despair of Kant's universal values (56). Sartre's Being and Nothingness emphasizes how consciousness “reflects back to us a significant part of who we are to which we have no other access, namely, our 'being-for-others.'”

"For an occurrence to become an adventure,

it is necessary and sufficient for one to recount it."

Acting and Action: Vulgarity and Authenticity

Existentialism's doctrine of action makes it a humanism that is neither indifferent or in despair over the Other. Man is free to create value by choosing their relationship and responsibility to the Other. However, as the sense of self's relation to others is mediated through others actions become a question of how “being-in-itself” and “being-for-others” create the tension between vulgarity and civility as well as the tension between authenticity and hypocrisy (Charmé 6). These tensions exemplifies how neither “being-in-itself” nor “being-for-others” can transcend subjectivity.

Sartre's “Existentialism” addresses “a lady who, when she let slip a vulgar word in a moment of irritation, excused herself by saying, 'I guess I'm becoming an existentialist'” (Sartre 342). Sartre's existential humanism requires the subversive powers of vulgarity and authenticity which is why its critics object to his contention that “existence precedes essence.” Vulgarity means to subvert the security that the a priori value structure created through God or that civility found the “essence” of Good. It is a direct confrontation with the “bad faith” of the Other. It recognizes that in constructing personal identity, individuals are “acting” for the Other (Charmé 7).

Action becomes the way to define the authenticity of the acting existentialist. Authenticity judges a person for their experience, not knowledge. Sartre “says more about what authenticity is not than he does about what it is” but actions are more clear method of assessing value towards the Other (8). Humanism attempts to transcend human subjectivity by reaching this point of honesty in acting and action for an existentialist. Though this “desire to be God” and transcend subjectivity is impossible, Sartre argues that this assessment of action is the only way for individuals to construct value in relation to themselves and the Other. Action is the only way to prove that we are not simply “acting” authentic but that our created essence is the result of our experience within our existence, both within and without.

‎"Laughter is proper to man

because man is the only animal

who takes himself seriously."

Stuart Zane Charmé's Vulgarity and Authenticity outlines these relationships to the Other as reflecting “Sartre's own response to the issue of civility” as “expressed in two major ideological directions” in his life. Sartre's “early philosophy of existentialism rejected civility in favor of the isolated individual who withdraws into a somewhat narcissistic dream of hermeutical omnipotence and self-apotheosis”(11). Later in life, “his Marxist turn, on the other hand, represented the quest for a revolutionary community in which authenticity would arise with the death of etiquette, manners, and the values which marginalize certain groups as Other” (12). Sartre attempted to “describe a future for humanity that might include both existential authenticity and a new form of communal existence” (13).

Conclusion

Jean-Paul Sartre's atheistic existentialism reconciles man's lack of meaning without God by determining value through one's actions. These actions define an individual's “essence” in relation to the “existence” that preceded it, embracing absolute and creative freedom. Though the look of the Other may lead one to question turning “nothingness into being,” an individual's adjustment to this responsibility of choice and the conformative freedom of relating to the Other. The impossibility of transcending private subjectivity makes Humanism the means Sartre suggests through which the individual can reconcile the problems of Descartes' cogito and Kant's universal values without the a priori ethics of God. Existentialism's “existence precedes essence” means that an individual can embrace absolute freedom to create one's essence through action while acknowledging how existence of the Other determines how we act. This reflection through the self and through the Other exhibits the freedom of his choices by making “being out of nothingness” because “Man is nothing but what he makes of himself.”

Works Cited

Charmé, Stuart Zane. Vulgarity and Authenticity: Dimensions of Otherness in the World of Jean-Paul Sartre. Amherst: The University of Massachussetts Press, 1991. Print.

Kadir, Kazi A. Sartre & God. Karachi, Pakistan. Al-Ilm Agencies, 1975. Print.

King, Thomas M. Sartre and the Sacred. Chicago, 1974. The University of Chicago Press. Print.

Sartre, Jean-Paul. “Existentialism. ”Basic Writings of Existentialism. New York: The Modern Library, 2004. Print.

Sartre, Jean-Paul. Existentialism and Human Emotions. New York: Philosophical Library, 1957. Print.

Machine Culture of the Gilded Age

2011-12-05T23:30:00.000-08:00

Machine

"Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless."

-Thomas Edison

The industrial innovations during the Gilded Age created a paradoxical tension between Man and Machine. While man is the sum of his “feelings, passions, perceptions” and a machine is an “artificial inanimate mechanism,” the ideas of how each affected each other came into question and blurred some of the distinctions between the two. Both highlighted contradictory truths about their possibilities. The power of machines expanded the powers of man but also adopt the flaws of their creators and consumers. A contradiction emerges when we can no longer determine where the consequences of machines begin to work against human nature, given that they are a artificial creation of a humans that are undoubtedly part of nature themselves.

Thomas Edison's moving picture camera allowed the body to become the subject of study. Through the mechanistic camera we learned much more about how mechanistic the body itself is. The camera also expanded man's ability to perceive things, bringing images from around the world to a screen. Technology is exciting because it is an extension of many of man's natural abilities. Though man is different from machine because he has “free will, consciousness, and rationality,” it is also recognized that he is much like a machine because he is “mechanistic and predetermined by instincts and habits.” In many ways our observation enabled us to hone the potential of the body. Body image becomes a more prevalent element of American society as audiences begin to see body builders and boxers in Edison's videos. We learn to embrace the idea of controlling our bodies like a fleshy machine that must be conditioned properly in order to function to the fullest capacity.

"If I find 10,000 ways something won't work, I haven't failed.
I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward."
-Thomas Edison

The excerpt from Dagobert D. Runes' The Diary and Sundry Observations of Thomas Alva Edison has Edison explaining his Sunday on July 12, 1885, as a day of leisure where he spends his day pursuing a variety of intellectual tasks having been freed from the duty of physical labor. In many ways machines have “liberated the body from harsh labor for existence” and “enhanced, augmented, and expanded” the body's power. He notes that we have even “electricity employed to cheat a poor hen out of the pleasures of maternity. Machine-born chickens! What is home without a mother?”

"I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill."

-Thomas Edison

Even though Edison recognized how technology removed human beings and other animals from nature in a way that protected them from the “pain, discomfort, and inconveniences” of the “forces of nature,” he also seemed to recognize that it somehow “separates and alienates us from nature.” In the Gilded Age many people feared how technology would dehumanize individuals and society.

One word: Terrifying.

Ignatius Donnelly's dystopian novel Caesar's Column exhibits the anxiety of the era towards technology's degenerative tendencies on humans. Technology changes the power that men have and how dramatic the effects of their actions change as a result of this disconnect.
Jack London's “The Apostate” (1906) is an account of a factory that demonstrated how brutalizing the effects of a machine could have on degrading the human body. Routinized systems suppressed the conscious being in man and treated him as no more than a machine. The machines that should liberate the worker, Johnny, instead enslave him to an occupation controlled by the machine. Monotony mutes the pain of others as Johnny ignores a boy next to him who is whimpering while “it seemed to him as useless to oppose the overseer as to defy the will of a machine.”

Jacob Riis' photographs of industrial life exhibited how work weighed on the psychological and physical health of workers, even child laborers, at the time. An individual's purpose becomes dangerously linked the function they perform in labor. Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times exhibits the absurdity of using man as part of machine. His madness from overwork shows the disconnect from humanity created by man's own invention. Ultimately, the workings of the factory stem from the human choices of the omnipotent President of the Electro Steel Company, who gives directions via screen to the workers but is completely removed from his actions by the functions of the machine. Consequently, he ignores the effects the assembly has on his human work force, using them as means to an end rather than as ends in themselves.

Captain Alfred T. Mahan's The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783, published in 1893, exemplifies how technology transforms the ability of a nation towards growth of industry even in overseas trade. However, a problematic human problem arises when technology increases the ability to wage war as well as trade. Imperialism and colonization represent the use of technological advantage to create a separate between citizens and the consequences of their actions. He argues how seapower can control the colonies “in peace, the influence of the government should be felt in promoting by all means a warmth of attachment and a unity of interest which will make the welfare of one the welfare of all.” However, “in war, or rather for war, by inducing such measures of organization and defence as shall be felt by all to be a fair distribution of a burden of which each reaps the benefit.”

Henry Charles Merwin's “On Being Civilized Too Much” in 1897 worried that industrialization would detach man from his instincts. He argues that the dullness the machine brings to man through industrialization could end in “the possibility of an impending disaster stemming from a loss of visceral reactions to the world.” F.W. Taylor's “Principles of Scientific Management” demonstrates how the machine caused management of production to become a such scientific process that the worker became dependent upon the “help of those who are over him” to understand his work. These feared that technology will make us either dull or dumb, losing either our empathy or intelligence through a subservience to these supposedly civilized devices. Almost every advance in technology was met by critics that deplored the effect that each invention would have on the country's moral character, deploring things as tame as the bicycle to be a public menace and a “tool of Satan.”

Theodore Roosevelt's “Conservation Message” in his address to the 60^th Congress' first session in 1907, exhibits this recognition that economic prosperity and industrial innovation not only threatened to detach man from his fellow human beings and his own human nature but from coexisting peaceful with nature and its natural resources as well. His speech bridges the tension between the goals of development and preservation. He asserts that the federal government has an obligation to “conservationism.” Conservation embraces the “application of science and engineering to the responsible development of natural resources” while preservation, preferred by the likes of the Sierra Club's founder John Muir, laid more importance on the “aesthetic and spiritual virtues of the unspoiled wilderness.” Thomas Cole's “The Course of Empire” paintings exhibit the fragility of nature's relationship to human advances in technology and its destructive problems. The paintings may seem a bit like an exaggerated doomsday warning but it best represents Roosevelt's argument about conservation and consumerism that “Optimism is a good characteristic, but if carried to an excess it becomes foolishness.” He argues that consumption cannot consider resources inexhaustible and that technology must play a role in enabling conservation.

Anna R. Weeks' The Divorce of Man from Nature displays the kind of realistic optimism that Roosevelt's policies required. She recognized a need to address “burgeoning urbanization with civic responsibility.” While she recognized that there was a moral importance to a “spiritual relationship between man and land,” she also hoped for an “ideal socialist, globalized, technology based future.” She outlines a tension between the difference of living in relationship with the advantages of technology in the city versus the spiritual connection fostered with the land with farmers. She argues that technological advances and the culture that connects men in the cities can be spiritually beneficial just as much as the relationship that a farmer has to the land he works. She says “Cumulative modern invention and cumulative psychic light are intensely unifying the race.” She asserts that technology can change the function of our society for the better, affirming that “Electricity, aluminum, and the thought force promise to serve us far more in the future than as yet.” She equates the future's technological infrastructure as being comparable to a “new Eden” with “roads, the bicycle, the telegraph, the telephone, the ocean cable, pneumatic tires, air ships, electric cars, and telepathy” which will “keep us near one another and near our needs.”

Cowboy Culture of the Gilded Age

2011-12-05T23:24:00.005-08:00

Outlaw

Encouraging individual freedom has been one of the defining features of American culture. The country's creation experienced the violent birth pains of a rebelling against England, forming an American ideal about rebelling against authority. The American Civil War showed us another aspect of this rebellious reaction to the constraints of law and society, as both sides erupted in violence that attempted to address what each side perceived as a dangerous threats to the social order. The outlaw archetype of violating the law for the greater good of society against authority framed both the arguments of John Brown and Jefferson Davis in asserting their right to transcend and defy the law in order to express and act upon their support for ideals of freedom. Economic, political, social and personal freedom/rebellion have become major and often mythologized element of the American character. During the Gilded Age, “Cowboy Capitalism” becomes a great but conflicted mythology supporting the American rebellious and resourceful spirit.

The Boy Scouts of America Handbook does not present itself as a rebellious document but it is still appeals to the sense of the rugged individualism that we associate with the cowboy. The Boy Scout Handbook provides useful skills that find commonality between the two different worlds that the adventuring cowboy negotiates his time learning skills to use on the frontier to survive in the wilderness or using in modern society's social and technological resources. The handbook appeals to numerous archetypal examples of chivalry from history, citing Ancient Knights, Pilgrims, Pioneers like “Johnny Appleseed” and Daniel Boone, Knights of the Round Table, the Founding Fathers, and Abraham Lincoln. While these provide us examples of America extolling the importance of self-reliance and a resourceful relationship to nature in all parts of modern society, it remains unclear how the cowboy myth became so closely with the moral virtues of America's chivalrous knight while also connecting American individualism to the the concept of the “outlaw.” The handbook acknowledges that their examples of chivalrous men are not the only heroes in the struggle between right and wrong. The handbook outlines the idea of the continuance of the chivalrous knight's “Struggle for Freedom” as being a “revolt against oppression” for countries like France, Germany, and the United States.

Andrew Carnegie's “Gospel of Wealth” affirms capitalism's support for the “intense Individualism” reflected in the cowboy character. Carnegie equates the change from previous approaches of work represents “not evolution, but revolution.” He argues that this change can improve the structure of society but it is imperfect. He argues that those who criticize capitalists for not perfecting man's ideal, favor the destruction of “Individualism, Private Property, the Law of Accumulation, and the Law of Competition.” Despite his “outlaw” status, the cowboy archetype abides by these values of American Capitalism even if he may break the country's actual laws from time to time. The cowboy's rebellious attitude is summed up by Carnegie's question “What is the proper mode of administering wealth after the laws upon which civilization is found have thrown it into the hands of the few?” He debates between different methods of how to deal with wealth between families but resolves the question by asserting that free markets will create conditions that encourages individuals to take responsibility for their work and wealth. He argues that man is “destined” to “solve the problem of the Rich and Poor,” and says the Gospel of Wealth echoes Jesus Christ by bringing “Peace on earth, among men good will.”

Owen Wister's “Evolution of a Cow Puncher” describes a man toughened by pioneering. With guns, booze, and smokes, the cow puncher he describes embraces individualistic vices just as easily as Carnegie might assume he would embrace capitalist virtues. Wister's description of this “evolution” is difficult to discern from Carnegie's “revolution.” The description of the reality of a cowboy's work is much less glamorous as our dramatic mythology makes the cowboy myth out to be however. While the cowboy is painted as a revolutionary figure in American culture, Wister's description of a cowboys skills and work as a tiresome and busy adventure without the glory and valorization we have given him. Even with the cowboy acknowledging that the American was a “bad man,” his work is less antagonistic as we would like to believe. He may spend time avoiding “the provincial eye” or the “nobleman,” cattle herding and traveling embodied the American ideal of self-government and common law. The cowboy transforms from an aristocrat to a democratized English lord in touch with his instincts as soon as he “smelt Texas.” He is “fundamentally kin with the drifting vagabonds who swore and galloped by his side.” However Wister even tells us not to lament the loss of the cow puncher as a descendant of Anglo-Saxon chivalrous knight for “He has never made a good citizen, but only a good soldier.” Frederick Jackson Turner's “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” demonstrates the need for growth in American capitalism that required expansion into the frontier and questioned what this change would do to the American moral character. America faced this question as the frontier closed off: what would the cowboy do with this spiritual connection to nature now that he could no longer expand?

W.E.B. DuBois's “Souls of White Folk” acknowledges this desire to be disconnected from judgment for our character, hiding “high in the tower” from “above the loud complaining of the human sea.” The “triumphs” of the cowboy and the expansion of the American territory are built upon wars taking away from Natives and foreigners in the name of expanding civilization. Letting the “noblemen” run the country leads to “Rubber and murder, slavery in its worst form” as Glave writes American imperialism shows us in 1895. DuBois notes that American imperialism and American capitalism has made the white man “wretched” in his failures that stem from his triumphs. Individualism and pride, DuBois notes is fine, but he says the white man should not be surprised when after asserting proudly that “I am white!” that DuBois will respond just as proudly, “I am black!”

Teddy Roosevelt and this guy, Charles Eastman founded the Boy Scouts of America during the Gilded Age.

Charles Eastman's perspective as a Native American reflects the reasons behind his efforts to found the Boy Scouts of America. He assess the conflict between Native Americans and the settling white men as a “misunderstanding as to the selfish greed of the white man.” He argues that civilization itself has been mistaken for “struggle for existence” as a struggle with fellow men instead of a struggle with the forces of nature. The desire for both groups to find a simple system instead of the complexities of modern civilization has created. He argues that his identity as an Indian connects to the simple sense of “right and justice” while civilization's progress can be more “along social and spiritual lines, rather than those of commerce, nationalism, or material efficiency.” Cowboy mythology connects to this same ideal of connecting with nature in the way that the Native American's relationship had been.

William Dean Howells' “Editha” illustrates the complications of the American rebel spirit's conditioning of the character of men. While Editha encourages her fiancee to become a “manly figure worthy of her love and sacrifice” the “timid attachment to sentimental prejudices” causes George Gearson to become a “stranger who slightly frightens her.” Though Gearson longs to become a moral character, originally considering to become a minister and pacifist becomes a military hero because he is a “moral coward.” His “moral complicity” with the nationalist desires is his downfall in his relationship with Editha and with national life. Howells highlights how sensationalism encouraged the Spanish-American war by affirming the conflict as part of the American spirit. Roosevelt embraces the image of the cowboy that makes him a war hero and eventually president. The dehumanization of foreign societies in later conflicts during the Roosevelt administration would further complicate the notion of imperialism's corrupting cowboy attitude and the effect it had in defining the goals of the country. John Gast's “American Progress” (1872) exemplifies how the connection to chivalry extends to defending Manifest Destiny as a pure woman. This functions as a moral justification for even the darkest points of American expansionism. Self-government becomes a problem of perception of others' wrong doing. When Editha asks him whether war for the sake of liberation from oppression is not glorious, Gearson replies “I suppose so” and asks, “But war! Is it glorious to break the peace of the world?” She responds “That ignoble peace! It was no peace at all, with that crime and shame at our very gates.”

Valuing individualism in the name of liberation from oppression causes the cowboy/outlaw/social bandit to become a lauded figure in Gilded Age society. Edwin S. Porter's “The Great Train Robbery” shows that the cowboy figure's lawlessness was at least entertaining to the audience in 1903. Andy Adams' outlines the relationship between The Rebel and John Officer in Log of a Cowboy's “The Wild West: A Visit to Dodge City.” The outlaw's rebellious consumption is his means of asserting power. He gambles, drinks, smokes and totes his gun in front of an officer who can't arrest him for his lawless behavior as a bandit because he is only consuming legally in front of the officer with his ill-gotten gains and escapes a fight toting his carbine and riding his horse. His actions are as conspicuous as the Frederic Thompson's “carnival spirit.” In his futile attempt to find the culprit in the papers, John Officer burns the articles and laments, “Good whiskey and bad women will be the ruin of you varmints yet.”

Visual Culture of the Gilded Age

2011-12-05T22:44:00.000-08:00

Visual

As industrialization and innovation increased productivity and the possibility of new products, consumer culture became increasingly more public and concerned with the role of seeing and being seen in the social and economic marketplace of the Gilded Age. Social relationships became more defined by a concern for one's own appearance and using appearances to assess others. Though products became more efficient through mass production, individual consumers became more concerned with uniqueness compared to producer goals of creating maximum efficiency. Beyond consumer goods, the Gilded Age saw a dramatic increase in the amount of spectacles and entertainment available. Technology created new visual art forms such as films. Prosperity propelled new potential places for people to see each other at parks, public performances, spectacles in the city and in other carnival-like atmospheres. People were seeing more of the potential possibilities that a capitalist consumer society could provide for them.

Frederic Thompson's account of creating “carnival spirit” at amusement parks gives us a good example of how American consumerism steered society towards creating successful visual communication and how it transformed the relationship between “performers” and their audiences. The spontaneous feel of a carnival creates an illusion of chaos while actually requiring an careful planning a manufactured experience. Thompson's “Amusing the Millions” suggests that visible displays of “decency” and “speed” along with “enthusiasm” are important to the success parks and carnivals as spectacles. P.T. Barnum acknowledged that his role in society was a performance of sorts for the public saying

“I am a showman by profession...and all the gilding shall make nothing else of me.”

Visual culture in the Gilded Age revealed a paradox in the American experience. Consumer culture obscured the reality of the country and created illusions about society using the very technologies that had been “promised to reveal hidden realities.”

Thorstin Veblen's “The Economic Theory of Women's Dress” vilifies “conspicuous consumption” of commodities, specifically women's dresses, for exalting a “barbarian” feature of a “culture of adornment.” Veblen scorns the Gilded Age leisure class culture's valuing unnecessary goods for looks rather than their usefulness. Though “wearers and buyers of these wasteful goods desire to waste,” Veblen argues that the display of waste is meant to indicate the ability to pay. Veblen outlines “expensiveness,” “novelty,” and “ineptitude” as the three principle reasons why conspicuous consumption of clothing becomes wasteful and inefficient. Issues of patriarchy and social status are overshadowed by a natural desire to be on display. Emulation, imitation, and a comparative culture makes visible culture a “gilded” means of consuming.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman argued in Women and Economics: A Study of the Economic Relationship Between Men and Women as a Factor of Social Evolution, that the culture of consumption traps women in the role of consumption rather than allowing them to be creative. She notes despite the evolution of labor, society's rules still “carefully maintain among us an enormous class of non-productive consumers.” She argues that the “personal selfishness” in a “market for sensuous decoration and personal ornament” is deadly to “true industry and true art.”

Although consumer society propelled growth in the country's economy, Jacob Riis' photographs of tenement yards illustrated the side of capitalism's effect on those who could not afford to pay for the luxury of waste like the leisure class. The creation of the camera enables Riis to highlight the reality of living in the city in spite of the grand spectacles that promised the grand possibilities within the city.

Thomas Edison's invention of the first working motion picture camera further accelerated the ability of visual culture to observe reality objectively. Edison's invention had the effect on expression, education, and entertainment that made telling truth from tale more transparent. It created a society that looked upon itself more than ever, reflecting with more self-awareness. The observation of the world around us became more possible as a result of using Edison's movies to examine some of the most basic elements of our lives with a more substantial and objective tool of visualization than was possible to the naked eye.

While Edison hired William Kennedy Laurie Dickson to film real people to observe reality, Dickson and Edison learned quickly how to use visual efforts to embellish for the sake of spectacle. Edison's notorious electrocution of an elephant to demonstrate how dangerous Nikola Tesla's AC current was to promote Edison's more dangerous DC current system. This act demonstrated how dangerous Edison's technology had become to obscuring how we look to tell truth.

Temple University Founder Russell Conwell's “Acres of Diamonds” speech argues that the resources for success could be found in one's own community. He starts the speech with an anecdote he learned in Baghdad about a man who sold his home to search for diamonds. The new owner finds diamonds on the property and Conwell encourages his audience to “dig in your own back-yard!” when looking for opportunities, success, and fortune. Conwell's commentary on why we glorify generals exemplifies the strength and subtleties of symbolic culture, arguing that the statues of generals honor not only the men we see but also the numerous but effectively anonymous group of men they represent as soldiers in a shared struggle.

Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois struggle over issues of representing African-Americans is similar to Conwell's question of how the emerging visual culture emphasizes individuals who symbolically represent groups. DuBois' Souls of Black Folk exemplifies how the elite and educated “talented tenth” of the black community ought to use education as a means of setting the example of how black intellectuals present themselves to American society. Double consciousness exemplifies how the culture of “looking” creates social and economic inequality. Washington's criticism of DuBois in his Atlanta Address in 1895 shows how the struggle to adequately represent a complex community through individuals becomes a consequence of this culture of looking. Washington's “cast down your bucket where you are” attitude echoes Conwell's idea of looking carefully enough at our surroundings to make the most of our situation. The Plessy v. Ferguson decision in 1896 demonstrates how shallow the possibility of succeeding in American society was for its most marginalized members. Segregation exhibited the worst side of a culture which defined aptitude and ability based on appearance. Racist mythology deceived us by spreading the belief that appearance was an issue that could somehow reveal the truth about someone's nature. “Separate but equal” became an effort to create the illusion of equality rather than achieving it. Nevertheless, the mythology of American civilization's promise of material prosperity continued despite its rotten, racist core.

Theodore Roosevelt's The Strenuous Life made the American Dream into a ideal Americans could visualize for society around the world. Imagery of the prosperity of civilization became a major propaganda point for pushing imperialist invasions in the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Hawaii. Political cartoons produced an agenda driven effort to portray these territories as uncivilized societies which required American intervention. Racialized caricatures manipulated the American public into intervening for its own interests without regard for the people they intended to colonize.

William Jennings Bryan condemned the US occupation of the Philippines in 1900 at the Indianapolis Democratic Convention and pointed out that though the war was sold under the façade of building up their society while colonization would refuse to educate Filipinos for fear of revolt. He highlights that the war would bring profit to “army contractors...ship owners...those who seize upon the franchises...officials whose salaries would be fixt here and paid over there.” Meanwhile, the illusion of shared sacrifice and success in the war will “bring expenditure without return and risk without reward” to the “farmer...laboring man and to the vast majority of those engaged in other occupations.” Bryan warns his audience “be not deceived.”

Jean-Paul Sartre on Subjectivity

2011-12-01T23:18:00.000-08:00

“Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself”

Jean-Paul Sartre's essay “Existentialism” from Existentialism and Human Emotions explains the problem that stems from Sartre's assertion that “consciousness brings nothingness into being by questioning being.” Sartre's atheistic existentialism argues that God's existence is not relevant to discussing human values, using subjectivity as the starting point for evaluating how we find meaning in existence. For atheist existentialists “existence precedes essence.” Instead of a definable human nature predetermined by God, existentialists acknowledge the absence and nothingness in living with freedom and possibility that his absence highlights. Finding meaning in freedom requires individuals to continue define their essence in response to the conditions of their existence. A tension arises between defining one's essence in relation to one's existence which is already an unstable concept due to the nature of self reflection and subsequently defining one's essence relation to the existence of others. Subjectivity becomes a dilemma for an individual because ultimately “man is nothing else but what he makes of himself” (Sartre 345).

Subjectivity: Private Subjectivity/Transcendent Subjectivity

Sartre argues, “The word subjectivism has two meanings, and our opponents play on the two. Subjectivism means, on the one hand, that an individual chooses and makes himself; and, on the other that it is impossible for man to transcend human subjectivity. The second of these is essential to the meaning of existentialism”(346). Subjectivity arises from the perceptions people have of existence as defined by the individuality of Descartes' cogito. The problem becomes that self reflection becomes the only certainty individuals have in defining their meaning and existence. “I think; therefore, I exist” becomes the philosophical starting point for Sartre because private subjectivity shows a person what is possible within themselves (357). Sartre's writings Creative Conformity: Descartes and Being and Nothingness would outline “Cartesian Freedom” as two kinds of freedom “(i) creative or productive freedom and (ii) conformative 'freedom'”(Kadir 51). The tension between those that believe in God and atheist existentialists described in “Existentialism” stems from the ambiguity of God's existence combined with a need for absolute morality. This disagreement arises because “The freedom which Descartes ascribes to God, Sartre reserves for man”(52).

"I have no need for good souls: an accomplice is what I wanted."

The existentialist “thinks it very distressing that God does not exist” (Sartre 349). Without a god there can no longer be an a priori Good. Existentialists argue that the framework of God as a concept to transcend human subjectivity in creating “secular ethics” around the concept of God. Without god, atheist existentialists argue that there is no essence to compare to for the meaning of existence, existence finds its essence in private subjectivity.

"You must be afraid, my son.

That is how one becomes an honest citizen."

Sartre argues that the loss of God is why anguish occurs when the existentialist is posed by the impossibility of transcending human subjectivity through private subjectivity. We understand that our reflection through private subjectivity could be flawed in a way that makes us blind to or otherwise unable to accept our actions' consequences. Taking responsibility for freedom requires acknowledging that one's actions can be wrong despite our belief that “we can never choose evil” (346). We act in “bad faith” and lie to ourselves about the consequences or we accept our subjective reality acting with “anguish, forlornness, despair” like Abraham (347). Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling exemplifies how this anguish transforms Abraham's action from a question of ethics to a transcendent religious belief. Sartre argues “every man ought to say to himself, 'Am I really the kind of man who has the right to act in such a way that humanity might guide itself by my actions?' And if he does not say that to himself, he is masking his anguish”(349).

"If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company."

"Man is condemned to be free;

because once thrown into the world,

he is responsible for everything he does."

Absolute Freedom?: Three Objections

Sartre addresses three objections to existentialism directly in an attempt to explain how humanism transcends human subjectivity. Critics argue that existentialism makes constructing moral values impossible given the arbitrary nature of subjective perspective. Sartre mocks the idea that acknowledging freedom of choice means “So you're able to do anything, no matter what!” (Sartre 360). Sartre compares making moral choices to “making a work of art” in that it is clear there is no definite painting to be made. There is no a priori rule to art but “we never say that a work of art is arbitrary” (361). This is why Sartre rejects the first definition of Humanism as honoring man as a higher value. He rejects the idea that we can think of man as an end because he is always in the making. Man's good creations are not evidence for the good nature of his a priori essence but rather a reflection upon what he has made of his freedom and choices in his existence.

The second objection Sartre imitates is that with existentialism “You're unable to pass judgment on others, because there's no reason to prefer on configuration to another” (360). Sartre's definition of Humanism makes clear that reflection on others is necessary to construct subjective value in a society. By choosing who we associate with we are making choices about what we do with our freedom. There is choice with consequence, though subjective reality might make us blame circumstance. Sartre says by recognizing that “existence precedes essence” a free human being realizes that he is obliged to want freedom for others (363).

"Commitment is an act, not a word."

Sartre outlines existentialism as a constructive philosophy to define Humanism. His second definition of Humanism reflects the idea of how to transcend human subjectivity by arguing that being a humanist requires “acknowledging that man is constantly outside himself.” Sartre's philosophy acknowledges the difficulty in defining our relationship to the Other but ultimately finds Humanism as a hopeful promise for cooperation. The concept of “passing-beyond” individual subjectivity and transcending into the human universe allows for the “particular fulfillment” of “liberation”(366). A man who can make freedom for himself can make freedom for others. Existentialism is an optimistic “doctrine of action” which should not be seen as in despair over how the existence of God affects human essence. Man's existence provides the possibility of defining man's essence on his own and through his efforts with others.

"For an occurrence to become an adventure,

it is necessary and sufficient for one to recount it."

Works Cited

Kadir, Kazi A. Sartre & God. Karachi, Pakistan. Al-Ilm Agencies, 1975. Print.

King, Thomas M. Sartre and the Sacred. Chicago, 1974. The University of Chicago Press. Print.

Sartre, Jean-Paul. “Existentialism. ”Basic Writings of Existentialism. New York: The Modern Library, 2004. Print.

Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality

2011-11-19T09:31:00.000-08:00

Why does man, according to Nietzsche, “suffer of man, of himself?”

Nietzsche argues that man suffers of himself because of the genealogy of the ascetic ideal in morality. The history of the ascetic priest’s role in bringing about a “slave revolt in morality” has continued formed morality around the ascetic ideal. The battle between master morality and slave morality creates ressentiment for master morality that Nietzsche argues is the origin of the ascetic priest’s values of “selflessness, self-denial, self-sacrifice” (Nietzsche 59). The consequence of the ascetic priest's ideals is that it denies life and changes the goals of reflecting upon the self.

The ascetic ideal's monopoly on morality causes the will to power to become an inward struggle rather than the struggle against others. By giving meaning to suffering, ascetic ideals redirect ressentiment for nobility against slave morality, creating “bad conscience.” Through “guilt” and “bad conscience,” the slave’s “will to power” necessary for life affirmation instead forces ressentiment to affect the inner struggle of an individual which requires the life-denying ascetic ideal to find meaning. By tracing the genealogy of slave morality to its historical origins, Nietzsche argues we can assess why the ascetic ideal is so powerful in making man “suffer of man, of himself.”

First Treatise: “'Good and Bad,' 'Good and Evil'”

Nietzsche argues that man has forgotten why the “usefulness of the unegoistic action is supposed to be the origin of its praise”(Nietzsche 11). He argues that initially nobles defined the world as “good and bad.” A noble does what he wants and considers himself “good” as he asserts his will to power and takes his political superiority as evidence of his virtue, labeling others as simply “bad” as almost an afterthought to his virtue. The virtues extolled by the “good” do not appear to equate valuation with usefulness. Nietzsche argues that the ascetic priest's “powerlessness” makes him an enemy to values of nobility. Out of this powerlessness the ascetic priest's “hate grows into something enormous and uncanny” and the “spirit of priestly revenge” threatens the values of the nobility (16). Under the leadership of the ascetic priest, who competes with nobility for power and prestige, “spiritual revenge” is brought upon the oppressors (17).

H.L. Mencken wrote "It is inconceivable that Mr. Roosevelt should have formulated his present confession of faith independently of Nietzsche." Bourdeau pointed out "the strange similarity which exists between the ideas of Andrew Carnegie and Roosevelt, and those of Nietzsche: Carnegie deploring the wasting of money on the support of incompetents, Roosevelt appealing to Americans to become conquerors, a race of predators."

Nietzsche says “The slave revolt in morality begins when ressentiment becomes creative and gives birth to values” (19). The concept of the afterlife in Christian morality creates ascetic ideals as a means of a will to power for the slave while holding off ressentiment as revenge in afterlife. A slave does what he has to do and is told not to do what he wants to do. He does what is useful and sees the master's label of “good” virtues as lacking virtue. A slave then has doubts and questions about existence on earth and finds meaning in his suffering. It defines his purpose against the master's oppression, defining his enemy's will to power as “evil” and thus the slave's suffering as “good.”

The ascetic priest's goal is not to end the people's oppression or suffering but to enact revenge upon the nobility, albeit with good conscience. By beginning the slave revolt in morality, “good” becomes not asserting oneself in the egoistic way of their “evil” enemies. The fight of ressentiment eventually becomes an internal struggle of self control and asceticism on behalf of the people themselves. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy of suffering, where people reject wealth and strength in the world for the rewards that poverty and meekness promise in the afterlife. The ascetic ideal however reflects a difficulty to create a “synthesis of an inhuman and a superhuman”(32). This inability to recognize either as a part of nature results in the life-denying to give people a feeling of choice, responsibility, and freedom.

Second Treatise: “Guilt, Bad Conscience”

“To breed an animal that is permitted to promise” Nietzsche explains how the ascetic priests denial of the nature of man changes the dynamic of punishment and revenge (35). “Bad conscience” may successfully bring the nobility through a “slave revolt of morality” but it also implements the problems of the ascetic priest's revenge that prevents people from becoming like the nobility, for even their “good” qualities are “evil” under ascetic ideals. In this way, the slave's “will to power” is "driven back, suppressed, imprisoned within" by “bad conscience.”

Adolf Hitler probably read very little of Nietzsche despite Also Sprach Zarathustra becoming a part of Nazi propaganda about the "overman" or "ubermensch," creating a common misreading of Nietzsche's philosophy.
Nietzsche's sister is largely to blame for the misuse of his philosophy in Germany and Italy.

In 1932, Elisabeth Forster-Nietzsche received a bouquet of roses from Adolf Hitler during a German premier of Benito Mussolini's 100 Days, and in 1934 Hitler personally presenting her with a wreath for Nietzsche's grave carrying the words "To A Great Fighter". Also in 1934 Elisabeth gave to Hitler Nietzsche's favorite walking stick, and Hitler was photographed gazing into the eyes of a white marble bust of Nietzsche as seen above.

“Bad conscience” arises because the people's ressentiment for the previous nobility is turned against their own “egoistic” actions. The individual's reflection upon themselves becomes a struggle against their will to power and makes denying life the meaning of existence for the self. “Unegoistic” actions become “good” and the ascetic ideal becomes the only viable method of exerting the “will to power,” with the promise of self-mastery and reward in the afterlife. In essence, the ascetic ideal becomes the only way to affirm life by denying its conditions. Nietzche argues that “By devaluing life, the ascetic priest attempts to gain a sense of power over life.” (Maudemarie Clark xxxii) However, it is impossible to gain such power over life because “from the highest biological standpoint, conditions of justice can never be anything but exceptional conditions, as a partial restriction of the true will of life—which is out after power” (50).

Monica Crowley, one of Nixon's research assistants, notes in Nixon in Winter that Richard Nixon "read with curious interest the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche [...] Nixon asked to borrow my copy of Beyond Good and Evil, a title that inspired the title of his final book, Beyond Peace."

Third Treatise: What Do Ascetic Ideals Mean?

In “How Does the Ascetic Ideal Function in Nietzsche's Genealogy?,” Lawrence Hatab explains that the concept of “life affirmation goes far beyond life enhancement; it aims for a global affirmation of all life conditions, even those that run counter to one’s interests.” It is important to make distinctions between the dichotomy of life enhancement and suicidal nihilism and the dichotomy of life affirmation and life denial (Hatab 111). The ascetic ideal may enhance life but not necessarily affirm life. Nietzsche's argument that man "will rather will nothingness than not will" becomes the paradoxical problem the ascetic ideal poses in forcing ressentiment and bad conscience against an individual's will to power.

The ascetic priest's morality gives self reflection and suffering meaning through the ascetic ideal. Nietzsche writes “If one disregards the ascetic ideal: man, the animal man, has until now had no meaning”(117). The ascetic ideal gives purpose to the self reflection that makes man suffer. The effort to fill the void of meaning left in the denial of the will to power. The ascetic ideal affirms life by affirming the reality of suffering but it denies life by asserting suffering as a purpose or virtue. Through giving life meaning the ascetic ideal saves the ability to will through guilt and bad conscience but also denies life's conditions. Stemming from the ascetic priest's genealogical ressentiment against the master's will to power, the denial of “egoistic” actions causes man to suffer over his will to power in a way that no longer affirms life.

Nietzsche (right) renounced and criticized his friend, Richard Wagner (middle), in The Case of Wagner: A Musician's Problem for his anti-semitism after lauding him as a hero for "fulfilling a need in music to go beyond the analytic and dispassionate understanding of music" in The Birth of Tragedy.

The ascetic ideal traps self reflection by making self-denial necessary to affirm the meaning of life. The individual's inward effort to deny the ascetic ideal causes him to suffer of meaninglessness because other external efforts of finding life affirming meaning have lost legitimacy as “egoistic.” The effort to deny the will to power results from a confusion by making life affirmation synonymous with life enhancement. Man suffers because the ascetic ideal's genealogical history of denying nature makes him believe there is no other viable value to which he can will himself. The ascetic ideal forces an individual acting in self reflection to find either meaning in suffering or to suffer from a lack of meaning. Though man has the affirmation of a will through self reflection, he suffers because the ascetic ideal denies any alternative value in nature as possibly providing life affirming purpose.

Kierkegaard's Sickness Unto Death and the Fear and Trembling of Abraham

2011-11-19T09:15:00.000-08:00

"Is despair an excellence or a defect? Purely dialectically, it is both.”

-Søren Kierkegaard

Søren Kierkegaard writes under the pseudonym Anti-Climacus that despair is the “sickness unto death.” Despair emerges from a “misrelation in that relation which is for itself also reflects itself infinitely in the relation to the power that established it”(43). Humans fear death because they misrelate the limitations of their finite existence with the infinite possibilities that exist before God. This misrelation without God leads an individual to either neglect or wrongfully focus attention on the existence of a self which they realize is either finite or infinite. This misrelation, while a defect that manifests itself as despair, also reveals the existence of a self, which can be turned into an excellence.

To Kierkegaard, consciousness of self means that “consequently to be able to despair is an infinite advantage and yet to be in despair is not only the worst misfortune and misery—no, it is ruination.” (43). While despair confirms our existence as spiritual beings, Kierkegaard outlines that despair is a “sickness of the spirit” that manifests itself in three forms: “despair not to be conscious of having a self, despair not to will to be oneself and despair to will to be oneself” (42).

“Despair not to be conscious of having a self” is ignorance of existence of the spirit. Kierkegaard considers this a misrelation of the finite to the finite. He says pagans and non-Christians enjoy earthly pleasures that are balanced by the earthly fear of sickness and death; their despair stems from an inability to see the world and themselves as infinite possibilities of the self. While Socrates argues that sin is ignorance, Christians believe that we do not know sins until we accept Christ and have faith in God. Even though in ignorance a person can be happy, Kierkegaard argues that they are still in despair because they have misrelated their existence and do not know the truth of the existence of a self (73).

The Sacrifice of Isaac by Caravaggio (1590-1610)
Oil on canvas made in 1603.

“Despair not to will to be oneself” is a misrelation between the self as it currently exists to the previous concept of lacking consciousness of an eternal self, desire for an idealized future self, or a wish to have a completely different self. An individual relates their seemingly “temporal” self to a comparison of their “eternal” concept of themselves, whether past, present, or future (81). The comparison never resolves the despair because they never consider their current self as worthy of the eternal self of which they are now conscious. “Despair not to will to be oneself” either concerns itself with finitude or “despair over the earthly,” where the self cannot understand the unknown concept of eternal beyond life on earth. “Despair over the earthly” would be why one fears death or any other problems with existence on earth (87). “Despair over the earthly” leads one to fear their concept of a finite self as a weakness, and believes itself therefore unworthy of the eternal or God. Conversely, one can also despair over the infinite existence of an eternal self wishing for finitude or at least, another self.

The Sacrifice of Isaac by Rembrandt (1606–1669)

Oil on canvas made in 1635

“Despair to will to be oneself” is to accept despair as a reality for the self but attempts to alleviate despair by acting upon the self. In despairing to will to be oneself, a self will “bestow infinite interest and significance upon his enterprises” despite the fact that their finitude makes them essentially “imaginary constructions” (100). The self pays attention to itself becoming its own “imaginatively constructed god.” However, even in the effort to strengthen the self through this process the self nevertheless is in despair. Kierkegaard outlines an even more intense form of this despair that becomes “demonic” as the self reflects upon itself in a way that rejects the nature of existence (103). The demonic self blames eternity for harming his quest to become the “infinite abstraction of the self” which he believes has now become so “concrete.” The self wills its despair to define its existence and in defiance rejects the God which offers him forgiveness (105).

Despair is a problem of either necessity eliminating a self’s ability to see possibility or possibility undermining a self’s conception of necessity. Understanding the synthesis between these concepts of self requires belief in God in Anti-Climacus’s religious opinion to understand that “actuality is the unity of possibility and necessity” (66).

However, this unity reveals the paradox in the human condition stemming from despair. Reflection upon the self reveals that despair is the result of misrelation to the synthesis of the self reflecting upon itself. The despair continues even when a self recognizes that it exists “before God.” Realization of self acknowledges the freedom given to the self but also leads us to reflect on the possibility of our misuse of this freedom, which without God will lead us to despair. However, just because despair reveals this synthesis does not mean that the synthesis itself is the cause of despair.

Kierkegaard implies that the “sickness unto death” is man’s creation. God only reveals to us that we are living in the sin of despair but he did not create the sickness. Kierkegaard acknowledges that despair is default for self-conscious beings but he argues that this consciousness makes them realize that it is a sin to be in despair before God. However, this realization and existence of sin is not an absence of virtue. To not acknowledge this sin would be a defect but Kierkegaard argues that with faith in God, Christians can overcome this sickness and make it an excellence. He argues that sin is not action but rather a state of mind that can be corrected. He argues that in order to do this we must reject the sin of despairing over sinfulness, we must reject the sin of refusing to believe in forgiveness and we must reject the sin of rejecting God’s teachings.

Sacrifice of Isaac by Adi Holzer (1936-present)

Handcolored etching made in 1997.

Anti-Climacus's religious viewpoint is that being in despair over the self can only be resolved in embracing the absurdity of faith in infinite possibility through God. He says, “If only the abstract idea of despair is considered, without any thought of someone in despair, it must be regarded as a surpassing excellence. The possibility of this sickness is man's superiority over the animal and this superiority distinguishes in quite another way than does his erect walk, for it indicates infinite erectness or sublimity, that he is spirit” (43).

Although viewpoints and ideas between Kierkegaard's pseudonyms differ, Johannes de Silentio's example of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac embodies Anti-Climacus's argument about how God helps us turn despair into an excellence. The infinite misrelation between the possibility of teleological suspension of the ethical and necessity of an absolute to god could have led Abraham to despair. He could choose to ignore his responsibility or despair over the consequences of defying the universal or despair over his despair to defy God for himself. Instead, Abraham embraces the absurdity of the task he has been asked to perform and acknowledges his actions as sin through his “fear and trembling.” He has faith in his absolute duty to God, becoming a knight of faith. Instead of despairing over actuality's absurd possibility and dreadful necessity, Abraham's acknowledgment of his sin combined with his faith in forgiveness of the self before God allows him to overcome the defect of despair through embracing the eternal excellence that will heal the “sickness unto death.”

Occupy Philadelphia's Reaction to Mayor Nutter: The Politics of Permits, Policing, Sexual Assault, and Civil Disobedience

2011-11-14T20:30:00.000-08:00

While it is clear that Mayor Michael Nutter's comments about reevaluating the city's relationship with Occupy Philadelphia has sparked media attention for the movement, it remains uncertain what the confrontation between city government and the Occupy movement will look like going forward.

Occupy Philadelphia hosted a press conference on Monday, November 14 at 1 p.m. at Dilworth Plaza to respond to Mayor Nutter's allegation that the movement was no longer cooperating and communicating with city officials.

Nutter said in a news conference on Sunday that, “The people of Occupy Philly have changed and their intentions have changed. All of this is not good for Philadelphia. We must change our relationship with them.” He said that "it is abundantly clear that 'Occupy Philadelphia' is in violation of the terms of its permit which requires it as an organization to observe our city ordinances ," posing safety hazards and sanity issues along with reports of thefts and violent assaults at the protest, . Nutter said that “misconduct is not free speech. The behavior that we're now seeing is running squarely against the needs of our city that also represents the very real 99 percent. As Mayor of Philadelphia, I represent the 99 percent also.”

Jody Dodd spoke on behalf of the movement's Legal Collective and attributed the failure of communication to the city's lack of sufficient information about the terms of the occupation's permit, affecting the General Assembly's decision to stay stationed at Dilworth Plaza.

“The original members of the Legal Collective have been joined by additional people committed to working for economic and social justice,” said Dodd. “We have not changed. The mayor's attitude has. We do, however, agree with the Mayor that we can and will continue to maintain open lines of communication to further the work of Occupy Philadelphia.”

On Sunday, November 13, Mayor Nutter announced he would be increasing police presence at the Dilworth Plaza after arresting a man for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman in a tent at the protest.

Amanda Geraci spoke on behalf of the Women's Caucus, responding critically to the mayor's approach to addressing the problem of sexual assault. Geraci said, “We are concerned with the contradictory statements that the police and the mayor have made to the media about their support for the occupy movement, while simultaneously withholding support for situations of physical and sexual violence. The recent demonizing and vilifying of the Occupy movement in the media is a scapegoating of the problems and violence that plague our communities and cities daily." She also noted that in the last two weeks there had been 28 other sexual assaults in the city and asked rhetorically why Mayor Nutter had not held press conferences for any of those incidents.

Geraci added that the city's solution to problems at the protest reflect what they perceive to be the flawed solutions and expectations of the Philadelphia Police Department's broader strategy in the city.

They argued that just as in the city neither increasing police presence nor expecting people to police themselves is a viable solution to crime problems. She cited examples of “stop and frisk” policies as unfairly

With regards safety and security Geraci said the movement is “met with statements from police, such as follows; ‘That’s not our job. Get your men to handle it.” Geraci noted that compliance with the police in leaving the plaza was not entirely necessary, citing Rosa Parks and Philadelphia's own Cecil B. Moore as examples of those who fought injustice and inequality using civil disobedience as a tactic.

Mayor Nutter argued that by blocking the renovations at Dillworth Plaza, “Occupy Philly is now purposely standing in the way of nearly 1,000 jobs for Philadelphians in a time of high unemployment. They are blocking Philadelphians from taking care of their families.”

Mayor Nutter argued that groups such as the “Radical Caucus” are “bent on civil disobedience and disrupting city operations.” He called the actions of the group “intolerable” and accused them of “not acting in good faith.” He said, "We do not seek confrontation with Occupy Philadelphia.” Mayor Nutter asserts that he supports the Occupy Philly issues related to “unemployment, poverty, bank lending, homelessness, the rights of people to express themselves.

Philadelphia Police Officer Joesph Sposa disagreed with the idea that police and protesters could not cooperate while noting that confrontation would be beneficial to the movement's media coverage. He said, “I support the Occupy movement's message about the abuses of Wall Street but these people are expecting a direct confrontation for publicity, that's why all these reporters showed up today.” He noted how this reflects the way media coverage of crime in the city lives by the rule of “if it bleeds, it leads.”

Though the General Assembly has voted to stay at Dilworth Plaza, Protester Michael Baus noted that even though Occupy Philadelphia voted on Friday to stay, leaving the plaza remains a choice for individual protestors to make for themselves. Baus had no prepared remarks but announced on the microphones that he understands there will be differences of opinion at the protest, saying “We as the people who are staying also hope that we get that cross support of the people who are going to leave. This is a movement, and in a movement you are going to have discrepancies among the people who are your allies.” When asked whether he planned on staying he said “I plan on staying. I don't think I'm going to get arrested.”

Gimme A Brake! The Social Significance of Cycling

2011-09-28T18:11:00.000-07:00

In 1884, Mark Twain wrote

“Get a bicycle. You will not regret it--if you live.”

Get it? "The Breaks," or The Brakes?

In an unpublished essay titled “Taming the Bicycle,” Twain details his daring efforts to learn to ride a large-wheeled “penny-farthing” bicycle invented by James Starley in 1871 (Levinson).

In 1885, Starley's nephew John Kemp Starley invented the first “safety” bicycle called the Rover (“Icons of Invention”). Starley's creation of a better-balanced and chain driven bicycle stirred further innovation in the 1890's based on safety and mass production.

Through the Gilded Age, the public perception of the bicycle went from that of a dangerous play toy for rich daredevil men to a popular, practical device for the working class that everyone could use.

Bicycles were expensive at first and not available to masses. Robert Smith notes that “any of the nearly two-thousand men employed in cycle plants in 1890 would have had to work nearly half a year at the prevailing wage to purchase one of the machines he helped assemble” (Smith 26).

However, in many ways the high prices of bicycles financed the research into the design of bicycles before mass production began. Early bike enthusiasts bought bikes before innovations including John Boyd Dunlop's invention of the pneumatic tire and the subsequent inventions of brakes and gears, preventing unsafe bicycles from getting in the hands of the masses too early. Although safety features cost extra on bikes, bicycle prices began to drop in 1893, as a result of public pressure and overproduction on the part of the manufacturers (25).

Bikes became not only a popular recreation and a practical machine but it would also help stimulate many business innovations of the era. Bicycles provided an energy efficient alternative to horses and brought rapid individual transit before the mass production of affordable cars. The innovations in mass production including mechanization, vertical integration, and aggressive advertising—all ideas that the automobile industry would adopt soon. Many automobile makers were originally trained in bicycle plants, taking ideas about assembly line production and planned obsolescence. Major bicycle manufacturers spent between $4 million to $9 million a year to advertise bikes in newspapers designed to market the “identity” of a cyclist (Furness 17).

Though early models of the bicycle were marketed towards the upper class (costing around $100 to $150), the bicycle had become affordable to working people by the turn of the 20th century (Smith 17).

In 1895, suffragist Frances Willard wrote in her book, A Wheel Within a Wheel: How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle:

“Tens of thousands who could never afford to own, feed and stable a horse, had by this bright invention enjoyed the swiftness of motion which is perhaps the most fascinating feature of material life” (Willard 11).

The president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union emphasized how important the bicycle had been in reviving her health and political optimism, using a bike as a metaphor for politics of action, stating "I would not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into momentum"(“A Whole Philosophy of Life”).

While the bicycle may have created friction against industry involved with horse and buggies and arguably drew business away from other entertainment industries, it expanded possibilities for cities to provide ambulances, policemen, postmen, and other problems with bicycle solutions. Bicycles created demand for suitable roads. The League of American Wheelmen lobbied for paved roads with the financial assistance of Columbia bike manufacturer, Albert Augustus Pope, creating pamphlets and magazines (such as the “The Gospel of Good Roads” and Outing) about legalizing biking, building roads, and implementing safety features (Furness 18). Businesses such as farmers, hotels, and inns benefited from tourism created by bikes journeying into rural areas (Smith 54). The bike boom brought about change by connecting communities closer together not only through building roads but by emergence of amateur social cycling clubs and professional bicycle races (“Bicycling” 46). Bicycle culture created industries for accessories and uniforms associated with biking clubs. The social benefit of bicycles to America would counteract complaints from even the bicycle's harshest critics.

At the onset of the bicycle craze, physicians accused the bicycle of producing “chronic disease” while priests condemned it as “diabolical devices of the demon of darkness” (Smith 1). Cycling soon proved to not only to be beneficial for strengthening the lungs, improving circulation and building muscle tone but it also changed America's conception of moral propriety and social rules (67). The bicycle was touted as an alternative exercise for women to horse riding in 1890 (Tyng 61). Not only did the bike provide for good exercise but many people argued that it also encouraged temperance because it deterred men from drinking so they could control their bicycle.

Though bicycles were originally intended for use by men, women began to use bicycles and it changed their fashion choices from clothing like the restrictive corset to more comfortable clothing such as bloomers. Though some would criticize bicycle fashion as a moral decay and the bloomer would eventually disappear, “rational dress” would be welcomed by most as a “reform that had been long demanded by common sense” (Smith 109). Susan B. Anthony affirmed the progress the bicycle had brought about for women, stating in a New York Sunday World interview on February 2, 1896: "Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel...the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood” (Bly 10).

While the bicycle enabled greater freedom for the working class and for women at the time of its invention and mass marketing, the bicycle's freedom on the roads became some what of a liability given its unique status. Many people considered bicyclists menaces on the road. Taxi cab drivers and “teamsters” (previously used as a term for horse-and-buggy drivers rather than truck drivers) tried to have cycling defined as a “hazardous occupation”(Smith 198). Bicycles would be given the same rights as other vehicles in 1897 along with the restrictions and responsibilities that those laws imposed (197). I

In 1931, George Bernard Shaw would joke about bicycle hysteria, remarking, “newspapers are unable, seemingly to discriminate between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilization”(Moyers 3). Despite having literally paved the road for the possibility of other vehicles, especially the automobile, the bicycle became a marginalized vehicle in the increasingly populated roads and its presence on the road began to decrease.

The bicycle continues to remain a fixture of American culture with approximately 16 million bikes being sold in the United States every year (“Facts and Figures”). Approximately 66% of the 130 million bicycles sold globally are made in China (Panday). While the bicycle is still popular, its role in broader society has changed dramatically. The bicycle is still viewed as a luxury item of conspicuous yet pragmatic consumption. Riders pride themselves for reasons beyond the superfluous waste when compared to their Gilded Age counterparts, though they still benefit from many of the capitalist innovations in bicycles. The status and identity a bicycle provides no longer only has to do with fashion and the results of marketing but rather an embracing of the values it achieves beyond money. The bicycle is still the symbol of self-reliance to its current enthusiasts, representing an environmental and safer alternative to the automobile.

While bicyclists relish in their hobby, the majority of society today looks upon cyclists in a different light. Today, less than one percent of all commuters use bicycles to commute to work (Furness 30). Motorists consider bicycles a nuisance and an obstacle in the way of their road. Our society may revere bicycles as a form of recreation and exercise today, especially as a childhood right of passage but many no longer view cycling as a legitimate adult form of transportation. Zach Furness notes in One Less Car: Bicycling and the Politics of Automobiles how we perceive bicycles as a “childish” device. Furness cites an example of this trope in The 40 Year Old Virgin, where Steve Carell's character, Andy Stitzer, rides a bike to work. Andy Stitzer's coworkers, friends, and girlfriend consider his bike evidence of his childish inability to grow up, proving he is unmanly (Furness 111). Ultimately, his girlfriend buys him a bike, embracing his quirkiness that stems from his innocence. The example of Andy Stitzer shows us how the bicycle has become stigmatized as outside the norm of society for adults.

Just as bicyclists brushed off criticisms from detractors in the Gilded Age, bicyclists reject the judgments from those that deem bicycling unworthy of their status on the streets. They have embraced their antagonistic role in the road while also asserting that they can abide by the “grown up” rules designed to ensure their safety. Bicyclists have successfully petitioned government to build bike lanes in many cities. Nevertheless, bicycles face a danger especially in urban areas. In 2009, 630 pedalcyclist deaths accounted for 2 percent of all traffic fatalities during the year. Seventy percent of those deaths occurred in urban areas (“Bicyclists and Other Cyclists”). When Mark Twain warned that you would enjoy a bicycle “if you live” he was commenting on the dangerous design of the penny-farthing he rode; Today, after all the possible safety innovations created for and required of bicycles to legally ride, the threat to their lives is mostly the external threat posed by automobiles.

Many bicyclists consider themselves activists with a duty to highlight the injustices that car culture perpetuates. Cyclists have even used their bicycles as a method of protest. One example of this kind of protest is the recent series of naked bike rides that have occurred all across the country to promote awareness of how cars pose a threat to their safety, both on the road and environmentally. These naked protests also share the spirit of disregarding dominant concepts of social propriety as their predecessors in the bicycle craze, while emphasizing the idea of positive body image that can be achieved through cycling.

Through bicycle activism, the bike has come to represent more than just sentiments about road safety, healthy lifestyle, and fashion; the bicycle has become a physical manifestation of individual power that accepts individual responsibility. At the same time, the egalitarian nature of bicycle culture welcomes both the amateur and the professional. Although the bicycle was designed for the individual, the roads bicyclists demanded demonstrated the possibility of collective effort in producing social benefits and bridging social connections.

“It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle.”

-Ernest Hemingway

Works Cited

"'A Whole Philosophy of Life' : Wisdom from the greatest book ever written about learning to ride." Bicycling. Nov. 2006: Gale Biography In Context. Web. 28 Sep. 2011.

“Bicycling.” Outing, an Illustrated Monthly Magazine of Recreation (1885-1906); Feb 1890; 15, 5; American Periodicals Series Online. Web. pg. 46

“Bicyclists and Other Cyclists.” Traffic Safety Facts 2009 Data. Washington, DC: NHTSA's National Center for Statistics and Analysis, 2010. Web.

Bly, Nelly. “Champion of Her Sex.” New York Sunday World. February 2, 1896. Web. 28 Sep. 2011.

"Facts and Figures.” League of American Bicyclists. 2011. Web. 28 Sep. 2011. <http://www.bikeleague.org/media/facts/#americans>

Furness, Zach. One Less Car: Bicycling and the Politics of Automobiles. Temple University Press. Philadelphia, PA. 2010. Print.

“Icons of Invention: Rover safety bicycle, 1885.” Making The Modern World. 2004. Web. 28 Sep. 2011. <http://www.makingthemodernworld.org.uk/icons_of_invention/technology/1880-1939/IC.025/>

Levinson, Cythia. “The Amazing Bicycle Tamer.” Cobblestone. Peterborough. May/June 2009; 30, 5; Web. 28 Sep. 2011.

Moyers, Bill. "Big Odds and Small Acts of Rebellion." Vital Speeches of the Day. 77.1 (2011): 3-10. Military & Government Collection. EBSCO. Web. 28 Sept. 2011.

Panday, Amit. “The Business of Bicycles.” Dare. Web. <http://www.dare.co.in/opportunities/manufacturing/the-business-of-bicycles.htm>

Smith, Robert A. A Social History of the Bicycle. American Heritage Press. 1972. Print.

Tyng, Emma Moffet. “Exercise For Women.” Harper's Bazaar (1867-1912); Aug 9, 1890; 23, 32; American Periodicals Series Online. Web. 28 Sep. 2011.

Willard, Franics E. A Wheel Within A Wheel: How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle. Woman's Temperance Publishing Association. Chicago, IL.1895. Web. 28 Sep. 2011. <http://books.google.com/ebooks/reader?id=CUAfAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&pg=GBS.PA11>

Lifelong Concert List

2011-07-26T15:28:00.000-07:00

This is a list of all the concerts I've attended thus far in my life and the people I've attended them with

Eric Clapton

with Eric/Vonnie/Augie Zullo, Dad and Mom

MCI Center
Washington, D.C. - June 21, 2004

Set 1:

Let it Rain

Hoochie Coochie Man

Walk Out in the Rain

I Want a Little Girl

I Shot the Sheriff

Me and the Devil Blues

They're Red Hot

Milkcow Blues

If I Had Posession Over Judgment Day

Kindhearted Woman

Got to Get Better in a Little While

Have You Ever Loved a Woman

Set 2:

Badge

Wonderful Tonight

Layla

Cocaine

Sunshine of Your Love (with Robert Randolph)

Got My Mojo Working (with Robert Randolph)

Phil Lesh and Friends, Benevento Russo Duo, GRAB

with Will Kammerer, Jesse Richards, Dad

Toyota Pavilion at Montage Mountain
Scranton, PA. - July 11, 2004

Sitting On Top Of The World
Loose Lucy
Shakedown On 9th Street
Mississippi 1/2 Step Uptown Toodle-O
The Weight

(set 2 with Trey Anastasio)
China Cat Sunflower
Magnolia Mountain
Jam
Terrapin Station
Jam > Space
Morning Dew
The Wheel
Fire On The Mountain
Donor Rap/Intros
Going Down The Road Feeling Bad

Rock The Bells 2007

with Will Kammerer, Tom Wolfe, Peter Wolfe, Caton Sollenberger, Alex Telenson, Ben Dufendach, Joe Lapp, Mark Price

Randall's Island

New York, NY - Sunday July 29th, 2007

Rage Against the Machine
Wu-Tang Clan
Public Enemy
Cypress Hill
Rakim
Mos Def
Talib Kweli
Pharoahe Monch
Immortal Technique
Hosted by Rahzel, Supernatural and Hi-Tek and featuring Mike Relm

Bob Dylan

with Ryan Hilton, Tucker Good, Megan Alder, Jessa Boehner and Isaac Hancock

Hershey Park Pavilion

Hershey, PA - June 24, 2007

Cat's In The Well
It Ain't Me, Babe
Watching The River Flow
It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)
Lay, Lady, Lay
Rollin' And Tumblin'
My Back Pages
Honest With Me
Spirit On The Water
Highway 61 Revisited
Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)
Nettie Moore
Summer Days Like A Rolling Stone

(encore)

Thunder On The Mountain

All Along The Watchtower

George Clinton and P Funk

with Alex Telenson, Ben Dufendach, Megan Alder, Peter Wolfe, Isaac Hancock

Rams Head Live

Baltimore, MD - Friday August 31, 2007

Ghostface/Brother Ali with Rhythm Roots All Stars

with Ben Dufendach and Alex Telenson
Sonar

Baltimore, MD – November 17, 2007

DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist

with Ben Dufendach and Alex Telenson

Sonar

Baltimore, MD – January 23, 2008

KRS-One

with Ben Dufendach and Alex Telenson

Sonar

Baltimore, MD – May 22, 2008

Rock The Bells 2008

with Alex Telenson, Ben Dufendach, Megan Alder, Holly Keene, Will Kammerer, Jessa Boehner

Merriweather Post Pavilion

Columbia, MD- July 27, 2008

A Tribe Called Quest

Nas

Mos Def

The Pharcyde

De La Soul

Rakim

Method Man and Redman

Raekwon and Ghostface

Immortal Technique

Dead Prez

Murs

Rothbury 2008

with Alex Telenson, Ben Dufendach, Phil Lemley, Alex Hilton, Ryan Hilton, TJ Schmitz, Megan Alder, Paul Lawyer, Holly Keene, Alex Witt, Peter Wolfe, Mark Price, Corey Adamo, Jake Donmoyer, Justin Hemler

July 3

Perpetual Groove

July 4

The Beautiful Girls

The Wailers featuring Elan

Snoop Dogg

Yonder Mountain String Band featuring Jon Fishman

Primus

July 5

Citizen Cope

State Radio

The Black Keys

Busdriver

Dave Matthews Band

July 6

Taj Mahal

Trey Anastasio

JJ Grey & Mofro

Atmosphere

Phil Lesh and Friends

Common

with Alex Telenson, Levi Stewart, Aaron Jacobson

Liacouras Center

Philadelphia, PA – ?? Homecoming 2008

Old Crow Medicine Show

with Alex Weigard and Michael Schatz

Electric Factory

Philadelphia, PA - September 18, 2008

Nas

with Alex Telenson, Michael Schatz, and Aaron Jacobson

McGonigle Hall

Philadelphia, PA - September 26, 2008

Man Man

with Alex Weigard, Dan Lomask, and Beth Cozzolino

Starlight Ballroom

Philadelphia, PA – October 31, 2008

Wu Tang Clan

with Alex Telenson, Rebekah Waybrant, and Levi Stewart

Trocadero Theatre

Philadelphia, PA – December 19, 2008

The Black Keys

with Alex Telenson and Michael Schatz

Electric Factory

Philadelphia, PA – February 5, 2009

Del Tha Funkee Homosapien and Mike Relm

with Jesse Hulstein

First Unitarian Church

Philadelphia, PA – May 3, 2009

Girl Talk/Lupe Fiasco

with Caitlin Weigl and Beth Cozzolino

Drexel Gym

Philadelphia, PA – Spring 2009

CAKE

with Megan Alder, Rachel Small

Artscape Festival

Baltimore, MD - July 18, 2009

Phish

with Ryan Hilton, Megan Alder

Merriweather Post Pavilion

Columbia, MD- August 15, 2009

Set I:

Crowd Control

Kill Devil Falls

The Sloth

Beauty of a Broken Heart

Axilla I

Foam

Esther

Ha Ha Ha

Party Time

Tube

Stealing Time from The Faulty Plan

Strange Design, Time Turns Elastic

Set II:

Tweezer

Taste

Alaska

Let Me Lie

46 Days

Oh Sweet Nuthin

Harry Hood

Encore: Good Times Bad Times

Tweezer Reprise

Immortal Technique and Jedi Mind Tricks

with Alex Telenson

Trocadero Theatre

Philadelphia, PA – Friday September 18, 2009

Phish

with Alex Telenson

Wachovia Center

Philadelphia, PA - November 24, 2009

Set 1:

Chalk Dust Torture

Bathtub Gin

Cities > Camel Walk

The Curtain With

The Wedge

The Moma Dance

Reba

Golgi Apparatus

Stealing Time From The Faulty Plan

Set 2:

Possum

Down With Disease

20 Years Later

Harry Hood

The Mango Song

Mike’s Song

Simple

Slave to the Traffic Light

Weekapaug Groove

Encore: A Day In The Life

The Word (John Medeski, Robert Randolph, and North Mississippi Allstars)

with Alex Telenson, Phil Lemley, Benjamin Dufendach?, Paul Lawyer, Levi Stewart?

Electric Factory

Philadelphia, PA – December 31, 2009

Dr. Dog

with Alex Weigard and Beth Cozzolino

Electric Factory

Philadelphia, PA – May 13, 2010

JJ Grey and Mofro

with Alex Telenson and Kohe Brooks-Burke

World Cafe Live

Philadelphia, PA – November 20, 2010

Alexi Murdoch

with Nate Meyers and Derek Brudahl

First Unitarian Church

Philadelphia, PA – Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Dr. Dog

with Zack Auron, Annie Fogarty, Malcolm Bates, Margaret McLaughlin

Festival Pier at Penn's Landing

Philadelphia, PA – Saturday, September 3, 2011

Kid Cudi

with Tucker Good, Aaron Jacobson, Kris Varga, Sameer Anand

Liacouras Center

Philadelphia, PA – Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Stand-up Comedy
Jon Stewart with Dad, ATel and PStone
Whitest Kids U Know with Katie and Rachel

How The East Was Lost: How John Brown's Armed Abolitionism and Martyrdom Created Cognitive Dissonance in the North and South

2010-11-22T21:35:00.000-08:00

John Brown's Harper's Ferry raid was a watershed moment in defining the limitations of inalienable rights after the American Revolution. While the cultural, religious, and economic differences heighten tensions in the relationships between the North and South, Brown's raid becomes an exemplary embodiment of the ideological and regional struggle. Brown's martyrdom represents the realization of the hopes of the North and the fears of South. Brown's paradoxical “patriotic treason” highlights a cognitive dissonance between the values of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Brown's raid highlights the ideological inconsistency in both regions' irrational response of violence, which heightens the distrust that brings about the American Civil War.

‎"The nation which indulges toward another a habitual hatred or habitual fondness is in some degree a slave..."

-President George Washington, Farewell Address

"If some men will kill, or beat, or constrain others, or despoil them of property, by force, fraud, or noncompliance with contracts, it is a common object with peaceful and just men to prevent it."

-President Abraham Lincoln

While Northerners had condemned slavery, declaring it a threat to Union and a sin against humanity, John Brown's armed insurrection declared black liberation as an inalienable right. Brown argued he was compelled by the law of God to eliminate the sin of slavery. While many abolitionists saw slavery's extinction as necessary, they could not envision the means to achieve this goal without infringing upon state sovereignty protected by the Constitution.

"When I hear music, I fear no danger.

I am invulnerable. I see no foe.

I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest."

-Henry David Thoreau

John Brown's vision of a utopian society provides a clear foil to Northern ambivalence towards the question of slavery. His constitution reflects his individual interpretation of the role government ought to play in society. His Provisional Constitution for the state of Virginia ambitiously asserts the priority of individual and human rights over state sovereignty. Brown asserts the ability to confiscate property from slaveholders and enforce religious doctrines. He envisioned an ideal society where all property is held common between those he deems qualified for membership (68).

"I know only two tunes.
One of them is Yankee Doodle and the other isn't."
-General Ulysses S. Grant

In the pursuit of these religious and moral ideals, John Brown was adamant about his right to self defense in response to the violent forces that maintain slavery. He argued that he did not wish to overthrow the United States government violently but was asserting his right to bear arms in order to protect the inalienable rights of the slaves he sought to free. Brown objected to the argument that the struggle against slavery was a struggle against the United States. He claims he sought the nation's salvation, not its destruction. Slaveholders were traitors, not freedom fighters. Brown argues only through armed resistance will “the desired end may be effectually secured by the means proposed; namely, the enjoyment of our inalienable rights”(22).

"Coffee- the favorite drink of the civilized world."

-President Thomas Jefferson

"If this is coffee, please bring me some tea;
but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee."
-President Abraham Lincoln

The raid reveals divisions within the North over these violent means to eliminate slavery in the South. The Democratic New Hampshire Patriot argues that the raid “shall serve to recall the public mind from prejudice and excitement to a clear and honest consideration of the dangerous tendencies of pernicious doctrines.” The paper questions whether the violence at Harper's Ferry was a “fair and natural consequence” of black republicans' rhetoric in response to the events in Kansas. They attacked William Seward's assertion that the economies of the North and South were incompatible because they were dictated by a “doctrine of 'irrepressible conflict'” as the most troubling “sum and substance of their political faith” (107). John Brown's massive business failures and family fatalities could arguably be attributed to the effect slavery had on free labor. Seward's Republican nomination opponent, Abraham Lincoln, later argued that the effects slavery had in stoking problems in interstate commerce and domestic tranquility that required the use of force, fulfilling the promise of the Declaration without subverting the Constitution.

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.

This world in arms is not spending money alone.

It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

This is not a way of life at all in any true sense.

Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

-President Dwight Eisenhower

The Albany, New York, Evening Journal article “From the Philadelphia Press,” argues that “whatever sympathy the fate of John Brown awakens, will be occasioned by his bearing through an ordeal so trying, rather than any complicity of feeling in his lawless enterprise” (109). While the majority of the North is unwilling to endorse Brown's methods, Henry David Thoreau argues Brown's “commitment to justice and equality” forced him to use civil disobedience to act upon his own conscience (111). He criticizes newspaper editors that characterize Brown as “insane” or acting out of “revenge” against the South. Thoreau pleas not for Brown's life but rather his “immortal soul,” arguing that the North will not have their revenge until slavery is no more.

"I just feel like marching, always, when that tune is played."

-President Abraham Lincoln

"Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees..."

-General Stonewall Jackson

Arguing against the insanity defense, Brown cites the Golden Rule as justification for his actions at trial. He cites the Bible stating “remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them,” even if he must forfeit his life to “mingle my blood...of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicket, cruel, and unjust enactments (87). Brown's prophecies affirmed the South's greatest fear: bloody conflict.

"Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit

from revolutionists and rebels -- men and women who dare to dissent

from accepted doctrine.

As their heirs, we may never confuse

honest dissent with disloyal subversion."

-Dwight Eisenhower

Southern fears of revenge weighed heavily on Governor Henry Wise's decision to approve the Virginia jury's conviction Brown of treason, murder and inciting a slave insurrection against Virginia, sentencing Brown to death. Having earned respect for Brown's eloquent defense, he was left with the decision of either declaring Brown insane and commuting Brown's sentence or going forward with Brown's execution, making him a martyr.

"I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell."

-General William Tecumseh Sherman

"I do not think this army could survive without music."
-General Robert E. Lee

Arguments about state sovereignty rang hollow to Northerners who watched slave owners willingly invade free states, calling on the federal government to enforce the Fugitive Slave Law and the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision. The federal government's relinquishing of power in the Brown trial, despite the fact that the raid was on a federal armory and was enforced by the Marines, undermined states rights arguments from the South. The Mason Report investigating the suppliers of money, guns, and ammunition attempted to use federal powers to implicate Republicans.

"To be interested in the public good we must be disinterested, that is, not interested in goods in which our personal selves are wrapped up."

- General George Meade

"I have always thought 'Dixie' one of the best tunes I have ever heard. That tune is now federal property and it is good to show the rebels that with us in power, they will be free to hear it again."

-President Abraham Lincoln

The Petersburg (Virginia) Express called the raid “The Harper's Ferry Conspiracy” and implicated Republicans with sowing seeds of rebellion against the South through their thefts of slave property. Security and Southern state sovereignty became a call to arms in prevention of an abolitionist invasion (108). These pressures force a conviction for Wise because despite “general appeal of sympathizers with the crimes” he could not pardon Brown's acts “without exciting bad men to action of rescue or revenge”(129).

Henry David Thoreau condemned popular sovereignty as the judgment of sanity.

He asked,

“How then can they print truth? If we do not say pleasant things, they argue, nobody will attend to us. And so they do like some traveling auctioneers, who sing an obscene song in order to draw a crowd around them”(116).

Like music, in the triad of inalienable rights—life, liberty, and property—we can determine the quality of relationships as major or minor according to what we consider “home” but everyone only needs to hear that one inconsistent note for Americans to feel the dissonance.

"America will never

be destroyed

from the outside.

If we falter and lose our freedoms,

it will be because

we destroyed ourselves."

-Abraham Lincoln

Works Cited

John Brown's Raid on Harper's Ferry: A Brief History with Documents- Jonathan Earle

Musicians, Know Your Rights: Copyright Law - Is Your Sample Protected Under Fair Use?

2010-11-07T22:47:00.000-08:00

Fair Use is “designed to balance the rights of the copyright holder with the public's interest in dissemination of information affecting areas of universal concern, such as art, science, and industry."(137) It is the only defense for using someone's copyright/trademark/right of publicity without their consent. Although individuals retain property rights to their work, the courts have decided that preventing parodies which criticize other works would stifle the objective of copyright laws to “stimulate creativity and authorship.”

The commercial purpose of using copyrighted material can compromise a fair use defense unless the secondary use “serves public interest by stimulating creativity as copyright law intended.” Copyright laws are meant to prevent someone from selling someone else's work or idea. Commercial productions and commercial campaigns can suffer from the dilution of their intellectual property through copying and makes the court less likely to acknowledge parody rights. The secondary use must do more “than paraphrase or repackage the original, by adding value to or 'transforming' the original copyrighted work.”

In order for a parody to qualify as fair use it “must copy enough to conjure up the original” (142). The parody's “transformative” quality lies in using the original as the target of the work's criticism. The nature of the copyrighted work is irrelevant for parody since it must be in the public consciousness to “conjure up.” The quality and quantity of portion used of a copyrighted work is weighed against the necessity for the work to reference the original work to criticize it. A parody usually serves a different function in a market than the original work it ridicules and therefore it does not have an impact on the market value of the original. Because parodies by necessity must use intellectual ideas to criticize or comment on ideas, it is important to know the distinction between using someone's work to shed new light on a public discourse and stealing work for the sake of expediency.

The Supreme Court says...

Notwithstanding the need for monopoly protection of intellectual creators to stimulate creativity and authorship, excessively broad protection would stifle, rather than advance, the objective. First, all intellectual creative activity is in part derivative. Few, if any thoughts or inventions today are wholly original. Each advance stands on building blocks fashioned by prior thinkers. Second, important areas of intellectual activity are explicitly referential. Philosophy, criticism, history, and even the natural sciences require continuous re-examination of yesterday's theses.

Parody and Fair Use

Material that mimics or makes fun of a copyrighted work may be protected by the fair use defense. The decision often turns on the third factor – the amount and substantiality copied.

To be effective, a parody must copy enough to conjure up the original. Even more extensive use might be ruled fair, provided that the parody builds on the original, using it as a known element of modern culture and contributing something new for humorous effect or commentary.

The nature of the work is essential “in separating the fair use sheep from the infringing goats in a parody case, since parodies almost invariably copy publicly known, expressive works.”

This has turned attention “to the pervasiveness of a parodist's justification for the particular copying done,” recognizing “that the extent of permissible copying varies with the purpose and character of the use.”

Parody is a difficult case. Parody's humor, or in any event its comment, necessarily springs from recognizable allusion to its object through distorted imitation. Its art lies in the tension between a known original and its parodic twin. When parody takes aim at a particular original work, the parody must be able to “conjure up” at least enough of that original to make the object of its critical wit recognizable. What makes for this recognition is quotation of the original's most distinctive or memorable, which the parodist can be sure the audience will know. Once enough has been taken to assure identification, how much more is reasonable will depend, say, on the extent to which the song's overriding purpose and character is to parody the original or in contrast, the likelihood that the parody may serve as a market substitute for the original. But using some characteristic features cannot be avoided.

Souter wrote that while 2 Live Crew's copying the characteristic opening bass riff and first line of Orbison's lyrics may have gone to the “heart” of the original, thereafter the rap group's lyrics and music departed markedly from the original.

Considering the fourth fair use factor the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work, the Supreme Court noted that a parody is unlikely to act as a substitute for the original because the parody and the original usually serve different market functions. Here a rap version likely appealed to a different audience than Orbison's song.

Kennedy says “the parody must target the original, and not just its general style, the genre of art to which it belongs, or society as a whole.”

Points of Law to Remember for Fair Use

Purpose and character of use

-commercial or non commercial?

-secondary use serves public interest by stimulating creativity as copyright law intended,

-secondary use does more than paraphrase or repackage the original, by adding value to or “transforming” the original copyrighted work

Nature of Copyrighted work

-Out of print work?

-factual or fictional?

-Copying unpublished?

Quantity and quality of portion used

-Depends on the “transformative” nature of the use

-small passages could kill the essence of a book

-full use could be acceptable if used for criticism

Effect on the market value of original or potential derivative versions

-must not take away from copyright holding creator to profit from covers or remixes

Make Music, Not Noise

2010-10-27T09:31:00.000-07:00

Musicians, Know Your Rights: Appropriation and the Right Of Publicity

2010-10-24T21:17:00.000-07:00

How does violating by Appropriation differ from violating Right of Publicity?
Appropriation is the unauthorized use of someone's name or likeness for financial gain. Appropriation emerged as one of the first privacy torts developed in 19th Century courts partially because they “resembled property rights” (315).

The courts' early decisions had difficulty quantifying mental harm to award monetary damages. A New York court in a 4-3 decision ruled in Roberson v. Rochester Folding Box. Co. case, that Abigail Roberson's argument that the use of her image to advertise a New York baking flour company violated her privacy and caused “unwanted publicity” that caused “embarrassment and humiliation” was not sufficient to award monetary damages for the use of her likeness without her permission (315).

The decision reflected courts' hesitancy to recognize damages for intangible harms. The New York legislature responded to public sentiments that sided with Roberson's plea for privacy, passing a law “prohibiting the commercial use of a person's name or likeness without permission.”

Courts are not likely to award damages for public figures claims of “mental anguish” but they may a “property-like right when the name or likeness of a celebrity or other public person is used for financial gain without authorization”(316).

The courts have struck down sales of items using celebrities images for commercial gain because it infringes upon the celebrity's right of publicity and their ability to use their image to sell products.

The Georgia Supreme Court blocked the “sale of plastic models of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.” maintaining that his publicity rights could be inherited by his children.

The U.S. Court of Appeals has twice held that Elvis Presley's right of publicity could be exploited exclusively by his heirs” and remains their their property to control (316).

That means Lisa Marie Presley is the only legal Elvis Presley impersonator!

Maybe Elvis also signed his publicity rights to the Republicans when he visited President Nixon?

So how did this happen?
Next week in "Musicians, Know Your Rights":
I'll address the issue of what happens
when we try to use the musical and lyrical ideas created by performers
instead of their likeness.

In addition to preventing the creation of products that would infringe upon a person's right to profit from their likeness, celebrities have the right to prevent use of their likeness in commercial advertisements promoting products without their consent. Johnny Carson succeeded in suing a portable toilet business advertisement that used Ed Macmahon's introduction to The Tonight Show: "Here's Johnny!"

What I find most difficult to understand in this point of law is when a likeness can be considered an infringement upon their identity rather than as taking someone's actual copyrighted material. Bette Midler was awarded “$400,000 after Ford Motor Co. ran ads in which a singer imitated Midler's distinctive style and voice,” concluding that “to impersonate her voice is to pirate her identity”(316).

In what way can Midler's style and voice be distinguished from someone else in her genre? What kind of intent to imitate needs to be shown to prove that a likeness was intentionally exploited? Can advertisers argue that their commercial work has merits as a parody?

Tom Waits, whose raspy voice was imitated in an advertisement for Frito-Lays corn chips, won a judgment of $2.5 million for misappropriation.

The Ninth Circuit held he had a property right “to control the use of his identity as embodied in his voice”(316). Misappropriation cases try to define an advertisement's wrongful use of someone's likeness to create the illusion of that person's endorsement or involvement in the commercial. Courts struggle define when use of a public figure is characterized by malice or ill will that can be proven. What if a commercial publication uses an public figure's image for a purpose that is satirical in their editorial content?

The difference between appropriation and the right to publicity seems to balance the difference between private and public life. Appropriation protects the rights of private citizens to be left alone by commercial interests while the right to publicity protects public persons rights to their identity and commercial interests. The individual interests of either merit asking for consent and respecting our people's desire to protect their private and public interests.

All citations from Samuel A. Terilli, Jr. and Sigman Splichal, "Privacy Rights in an Open and Changing Society," Communication and the Law 2010 Edition.

Sonni Shine & The Underwater Sounds and The Slackers perform at TLA

2010-10-09T22:07:00.000-07:00

Sonni Shine & The Underwater Sounds opened for The Slackers at the Theater of Living Arts in Philadelphia, PA on October 09, 2010.

Sonni Shine & The Underwater Sounds are a Philadelphia-based reggae/soul/dub/rock group.

The group consists of

Sonni "Shine" Schwartzbach- vocals, guitar

Sean "Tank" Youngman- drums
Kenny "Blade" Shumski- bass
Billy "Shadow" Campion- guitar
Erica "Car Bomb" Corbo- keys

The Slackers are a New York City band, formed in Brooklyn in 1991. The band describes their sound as "a mix of ska, rocksteady, reggae, dub, soul, garage rock, and jazz."

The group consists of

Vic Ruggiero - keyboards, vocals

Jay "Agent Jay" Nugent - guitar

Dave Hillyard - saxophone

Glen Pine - trombone, vocals

Marcus Geard - bass

Ara Babajian - drums

Weekend Forecast

2010-10-08T17:31:00.000-07:00

Tonight:

DJ Taaj, DJ Sylo, DJ Smoove, Tayyib Ali, Paris Artelli, and Asaad

Tomorrow:

Sonni Shine and the Underwater Sounds with The Slackers at the TLA

<a href="http://sonnishineandtheunderwatersounds.bandcamp.com/album/sonni-shine-the-underwater-sounds">Sonni Shine & The Underwater Sounds by Sonni Shine & The Underwater Sounds</a>

Sunday:

The Roots opening for Barack Obama in Germantown