Bradley's Old Fashioned Weblog

That Damn L-Train

March 13, 2011 Bradley Farless2 Comments

Friday morning I had an adventure with the L-Train. Sort of an adventure. Well, mostly it was just a pain in the ass that made me late for class. There was something wrong with the 7 train, so all of the people that normally take the 7 to get into Manhattan were taking the L. I didn’t know this, of course, until after I was already in the station and on the platform. I don’t have to take the L. I could just take the bus from Avenue B to Union Square. The L is usually a bit faster though. Sometimes I’ve stood around for 20 minutes waiting on a bus, only to see three of them show up at the same time. The L is usually more reliable. Usually. But when it fucks up, it really fucks up.

So, like I said, I swiped my card, walked through the turn-style and then down to the platform. I stopped for a moment to take in the huge crowd of people. They were packed in tight from the edge of the platform back, with barely enough space for people to squeeze through behind them. That should have been my first indication that something was wrong, but I rarely ever take the train that early in the morning. This was at 8:30 AM. I have one class per week that starts in the morning and it only meets once per week. Anyway, I took my position at the back of the crowd and waited.

About 10 minutes later, a train arrived. The doors opened and people came flooding out, trying to push through the crowd. Before they’d finished getting out, people were fighting to get in. You know how it is. The person running the train is playing the “Please stand clear of the closing doors” message before people even finish walking off the train. Before I’d even managed to take one step forward, the people boarding were fighting to hold the doors open while they got onboard. I got to the front and realized I couldn’t squeeze in, no matter how I tried, so the doors closed and the train left.

Ok. That was disappointing, but I could just get the next train right? Wrong. About 10 minutes later another train approached the station. Then it left the station, without even stopping. Damn. By this point, I was thinking I should have just taken the bus. I’d have been at Union Square by then. But I thought that by the time I got out of the subway and got to the bus stop, and rode the bus, another train would come and I’d waste even more time. Besides, I wasn’t sure I could manage to get some sort of pass and I didn’t want to pay again. I didn’t have an unlimited card. So, I just waited.

15 minutes later another train finally showed up. People streamed out of it, and then the crowd surged in. I grabbed the pole in the middle of the train, between the doors and listened to a girl next to me screaming about some asshole who threatened her. She had stepped off the train to let people out, and when she tried to get back on, someone stupid got confused and thought she didn’t have a right to get back on ahead of him. Morons.

So, I was finally underway. Maybe I wouldn’t be too late. Or so I thought.

The train pulled into the next station, 3rd Avenue, and the conductor got on the intercom and told us that the train would be bypassing Union Square and not stopping until 8th Avenue. What the fuck? So, I managed to get ONE station before having to get off the train and walk anyway.

When I got to Union Square I got in line at the ticket booth just in time to watch an old man scream at the guy for not letting him back into the train station for free after he had a problem with the L Train. He screamed “Fuck you!” and then stomped over to the turn-style and paid again to get into the station. That wasn’t very reassuring. When I got up the counter, I presented my case, and for being courteous I was let into the station without having to pay again. A small blessing.

So… to get from 1st Avenue to Union Square took me almost an hour Friday morning. Thanks to the L train. And the fun and games didn’t stop there. By the time I got to the school I was thirsty, but all I had was a 20 dollar bill and the café and cafeteria wouldn’t give me change, so I had to leave the campus again, back the way I came, to go to a convenience store to get a drink. What fun.

Luckily, when I got into the classroom, no great fuss was made about my being late. Word of the 7 and L trains’ problems had preceded me. I think from now on I’ll just take the bus, or walk, to Union Square. The L train is too much of a pain in the ass to even bother with.

When Is It Ok To Limit Free Speech?

March 11, 2011 Bradley Farless4 Comments

Before you start reading this, let me give you some background information on why it was written. I’m taking a 100 level (introductory) American Government and Politics course at CCNY. We were given an assignment that involved writing a 5 to 6 page essay paper on one of three topics. I chose the third topic:

3) John Stuart Mill argues that government must never censor its citizens, no matter what their opinion. Yet despite having a Bill of Rights, in the U.S. our civil liberties are subject to some limitations. Do you agree that our freedom of expression must sometimes be constricted? Why? To answer this question, you must 1) describe what the Founders wanted to achieve by adding a Bill of Rights to the Constitution, 2) detail the limitations that the Supreme Court has developed over time on either our freedom of speech OR religion, as well as their reasoning for these limitations, and 3) argue, in light of Mill’s theory, whether or not these limitation are legitimate.

Information that’s quoted in the essay is either linked to within the essay, or can be easily looked up, in the case of amendments. The excerpt of John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty” that was used to write this paper (as provided) is linked to at the bottom of the post.

Section titles have been added to make it clearer for reading on the web.

(If you came across this while researching for your own paper, please keep in mind that professor’s know how to use Google too, so don’t cut and paste my work and claim it as your own, unless you want to run the risk of being expelled for plagiarism.)

Introduction

The First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States reads, “Congress shall make no law […] abridging the freedom of speech”. Freedom of speech is the ability for citizens to express ideas or opinions without fearing government retribution. Free speech is incredibly important, and powerful. When there are public disturbances or revolts in other countries, free speech is often the first thing to be taken away from citizens, most often accomplished in modern times by shutting down the country’s Internet access and/or directly controlling information sources. The First Amendment is one of the ten amendments that compose what is known as the Bill of Rights, and, since its adoption, has been one of the most contentious and well-known of the rights American citizens possess, often leading to Supreme Court cases which have determined the constitutionality of certain types of speech. Despite the importance of free speech, many of these Supreme Court cases show a clear record of limiting of free speech, when it is in the best interests of the public at large. To understand why the right to freedom of speech is important, but why it should sometimes be limited, it’s important to understand the origins of the Bill of Rights, to examine Supreme Court cases where the right to freedom of speech was at issue, and to balance it against John Stuart Mill’s ideas as expressed in his book, “On Liberty.”

Why Were The Bill of Rights Added and How Does It Relate To Free Speech?

The right to freedom of speech is not guaranteed in the Constitution. It was a right, added later, by the Bill of Rights, which is a list of the first ten amendments, approved by Congress and ratified by the States. The Bill of Rights itself was a compromise. As the Constitution was originally written, the majority of the Founders believed that a Bill of Rights wasn’t necessary, or that it would be redundant, since the rights of individuals were protected by the state constitutions and, as in the case of James Wilson, that “the federal government could exercise only those powers that were expressly delegated to it-and those powers did not extend to violating individual liberties” (James Madison and the Bill of Rights, Jack N. Rackove: http://www.apsanet.org/imgtest/JamesMadison.pdf). According to Jack N. Rackove, the director of the American Studies Program at Stanford University, James Madison in particular felt that a Bill of Rights was not only unnecessary, but dangerous. Madison feared that by enumerating the rights of citizens, it would imply that other rights were not protected, or by improper wording, it would create loopholes that would allow for the violations of the very rights the amendments were meant to protect. This is evident by his later proposal of what became the Ninth Amendment, which states: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” This implies that common sense should be used when determining whether or not someone has an inherent right to do, say, or be protected from something not expressly mentioned in the Constitution or Bill of Rights, which could include protection from misuses of free speech. It wasn’t until after the Constitutional Convention, when the states were in the process of ratification, that the necessity of a Bill of Rights became apparent. One of the main arguments of the Anti-Federalists was that if the Federalists were really interested in protecting the rights of the citizens from a powerful national government, those rights would be enumerated and clearly defined (A More Perfect Union: The Creation of the US Constitution (Introduction), Roger A. Bruns: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_history.html). When it became obvious that ratification of the Constitution was in jeopardy, James Madison eventually gave in to popular opinion and peer pressure and admitted the need for a Bill of Rights. Notably, Thomas Jefferson wrote Madison a letter in December of 1787, in which he said that a Bill of Rights is “what the people are entitled to against every government on earth”. Madison began promising that after ratification (if elected to Congress) he would see to it that amendments were added to the Constitution that would be “the most satisfactory provisions for all essential rights,”(George Mason’s “Objections” and the Bill of Rights”, Robert A. Rutland: http://www.apsanet.org/imgtest/GeorgeMason.pdf) though he maintained that it was a “nauseous project” (Rakove). As the Virginia Representative to the First Federal Congress, he drafted and proposed the amendments that became the Bill of Rights as we know them today. From Madison’s strong objections to having a Bill of Rights in the first place, we can infer that when he was finally forced to write them, he took great care in what he selected as essential rights that every person should possess, and most people in the US today would likely agree that the right to free speech is one of, if not the, most important, because the ability to speak freely about all things, including politics, keeps the public informed regarding what our government is doing, both good and bad. We couldn’t form a more perfect government without knowing knowing the imperfections of the then present government, and we can’t elect proper representatives today without having free access to information and the freedom to exchange ideas about their merits and deficiencies. Given the then recent history of the country, it seems obvious that the desire for federally protected free speech was geared more towards freedom of political speech and expression, the peaceful exchanging of ideas without fear of retribution. The founders of the country were generally well educated, and it would go beyond reason to assume that they’d want the First Amendment right to freedom of speech to imply that speech of a hurtful or obviously dangerous nature could be construed as Constitutionally protected under the Bill of Rights, and that line of thinking has been upheld by the Supreme Court in future generations.

Supreme Court Cases That Restricted Freedom of Speech

Supreme Court decisions have upheld the idea that free speech is important and protected, but that it sometimes must be restricted. Schenk v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919), is an important example of restricting free speech for the greater good of the country. During World War 1, Charles Schenk distributed Socialist Party of America propaganda to potential military draftees, urging them to oppose the draft, since he felt it constituted a violation of the Thirteenth Amendment against involuntary servitude. The court ruled against him, since his efforts created a situation that could undermine the safety of the country in a time of war. In the unanimous opinion, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. wrote that “when a nation is at war many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight, and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right.” He went on to say that (emphasis added) “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. […] The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.” This set a precedent for judging when free speech is acceptable by whether or not it creates a clear and present danger to the public well-being. In other words, it is partially the government’s responsibility to prevent the misuse of free speech, when it is clearly harmful or creates a dangerous situation. Furthering that line of thinking is the outcome of Chaplinsky v. State of New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568 (1942), which introduced the ‘fighting words’ doctrine, which limited free speech for the sake of social stability and preventing breaches of the peace. In November of 1941, Walter Chaplinsky was arrested and charged under a New Hampshire law that makes it illegal to use intentionally offensive speech, directed at others, in a public place (chap. 378, para. 2 of the NH. Public Laws). In the unanimous decision, Justice Frank Murphy indicated that there are some types of speech that fall outside of the first amendment’s federally protected right to free speech. He wrote that “There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech […]. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or “fighting” words those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.” This decision both promoted the limiting of free speech for the purpose of preserving social stability and preventing subsequent illegal activity, as well as supports the idea that free speech, as protected by the first amendment, is solely for the purpose of the exchange of ideas that contribute some value to society. The Supreme Court case Yates v. United States, 354 U.S. 298 (1957) also helped define when free speech should be limited. In this case 14 people, members of the Communist Party USA in California, were charged with violating the Smith Act, but they argued that simply advocating a change in government wasn’t the same as actively attempting to overthrow the government. The Supreme Court ruled that the Smith Act did not prohibit “advocacy of forcible overthrow of the government as an abstract doctrine.” In other words, it wasn’t a violation of the first amendment to advocate doctrines, but it would be a violation to use free speech to advocate immediate calls to violent action. These three Supreme Court cases show a continuing theme of limiting freedom of speech when it is necessary for the prevention of harm to the general public, or in some cases, to the government, or both, and support the idea that free speech, as protected by the first amendment, has a certain limited scope and is open to restriction.

Balancing The Limitation of Free Speech With John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty”

In his book, “On Liberty”, John Stuart Mill said that, in regards to the limiting of free speech, “The best government has no more title to it than the worst” (Mill, 22). He goes on to say that “We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still” (Mill, 23). Mill goes into great detail about how preventing free speech creates an assumption of infallibility, presuming that our idea is the only right one and is therefore the only one that should be heard. He argues that, throughout history, ideas have been proposed, and that only through the test of discourse have any ideas been proven more correct than others, or that they are erroneous. Mill says that wisdom can only be gained by defending a position against all comers, and that only after that defense of position can a man truly believe that his opinion is the correct one, even though he may at a later time be proven wrong by successive generations. Throughout his work, however, we see that Mill is simply arguing for the free exchange of ideas. At no point does he say (in the excerpt provided) that using free speech to create panic, injury, or danger is acceptable. Based on his arguments in “On Liberty”, one could guess that he would consider such a use of free speech to be wholly criminal, and a perversion of what he argued so passionately for.

Closing

The creation of a Bill of Rights to accompany the US Constitution defined explicitly our right to free speech, guaranteed by the First Amendment. However, nowhere in the First Amendment or elsewhere in the Constitution or the amendments does it say that we have the right to use free speech to endanger other people, the country, or to cause hurtful verbal injury to another person. It can be inferred by examining the Constitution and Bill of Rights, considering the situation the Bill of Rights was written in, and other writings of the times what was actually meant by the term free speech and over the years successive Supreme Court cases have reinforced that idea. It is safe to say that free speech has its limits, and those limits are well justified in being instituted.

Birthday Fun and Vintage 1981 Advertisements

March 6, 2011September 4, 2021 Bradley Farless4 Comments

So, today is my 30th birthday. I guess that means I’m old now. It’s one thing to be in your twenties, but when you’re in your thirties, well, I remember thinking that was really, really old when I was a teenager. Somehow it doesn’t feel old now though, now that I’m the one pushing past 30. I think I’ll write a different post about what I’ve learned about life over 30 years. For now I just want to talk about the day.

This is the first time in years that my birthday hasn’t been on a weekday, so I didn’t have to go to any job or classes. Instead, I went with my mom to Chinatown to buy lobster and shrimp for my birthday dinner. Walking through Chinatown always brings back memories of Singapore, especially when I walk past the small restaurants and they have the ducks and chickens hanging in the windows, and I see people ordering cuts of meat over rice, like the “chicken rice” and “duck rice” in Singapore’s hawker centers. The sounds, the sights, the smells, all very Chinese, obviously, and I couldn’t help but think of my wife, who isn’t here with me to celebrate my birthday this year. We had a lot of good times together in Singapore, and I’m looking forward to when she’ll join me here so we can make more happy memories together. Her absence damped my spirits.

Like I said, being 30 now means I’m old. I got a card from my dad and the text says: [Front] “You’re 30! You’re Mature! You’re Responsible!” [Inside] “And To Teenagers Everywhere, You’re Old!” So, in the spirit of that oldness, my mom gave me a booklet called “1981, Remember When…, A Nostalgic Look Back In Time”. A lot of cool and interesting stuff happened in 1981. There was an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan, a civil war started in El Salvador with many human rights abuses being committed by the US-backed government, Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer got married, and the US Department of Agriculture decided that ketchup counts as a vegetable (WTF?). One of the best parts of the booklet, though, are the advertisements from 1981 that it includes. I scanned some to share here:

This one is a little crazy, isn’t it? In 1981, it cost 400 dollars to get a 19 inch color CRT TV. Nowadays, when you can find a good sale, you can get a 32 inch 1080p flatscreen TV for 350 dollars. With inflation, the difference is even higher! And check out that slammin’ stereo. That bad boy even played 8 track tapes!

Personal computers were just starting to become affordable. This Sinclair ZX80 even ran BASIC, and according to the ad you could be writing complex programs in a week. With confidence even! The first computer I ever used was a Commodore 64. I remember it loaded up in DOS, and through trial and error I figured out how to start the computer games we had for it, which ran on 5 inch floppies. One was a Superman game that really pissed me off. Anyway, the Nintendo was a lot better for gaming.

Anyway, my day was enjoyable, overall, but now the day is mostly over and I have some Anthropology homework that’s due by midnight!

Boba Fett Spotted Playing Accordion on the L-Train Platform at Union Square

March 2, 2011 Bradley Farless7 Comments

Ya. Really.

Look to the left…

Look to the right…

Play Zelda on your accordion all damn night!

This guy is awesome. A quick Google search shows that he’s been doing this for over a year and he’s had a lot of Internet exposure (obviously) on YouTube and other blogs by people that have spotted him ‘in the wild’.

When I came down the stairs to the L Train platform and heard the accordion music, it sounded vaguely familiar and a little strange. It wasn’t until I got home and Googled the guy that I realized it was Zelda music. There are a lot of acts in New York’s subway station, but this is the best one I’ve seen so far.

Just to elaborate on that a bit, going through the subway is becoming more and more like taking a journey through a road show. On my commute home today, I got to hear a speech from a pregnant woman on a train about how she’s trying to find help and was looking for handouts. I got to hear an elderly black gentleman strum some country chords on a guitar, I heard some gospel music being sung, and then there was this guy. Out of those acts, though, Boba Fett is the clear winner.

Oh, and as if this wasn’t bizarre enough, I saw a squirrel today on CCNY’s campus that was carrying around a shopping bag. I guess consumerism is finally starting to rub off on New York City’s wildlife.

Founded on God, or Founded on Freedom?

February 23, 2011 Bradley Farless6 Comments

Someone I know was complaining on Facebook that people are forgetting that the US was “built on God but we can’t even pray now.” I’m taking a US Government and Politics class right now, so this is fresh in my mind, and I think that people are forgetting what the country was founded on. It wasn’t founded on God. The country wasn’t built on God. In fact, there is no mention of God, Christ, or Christianity in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, and there are reasons for that.

The only mentions of religion in the US Constitution and Bill of Rights are in Article 6, Clause 3, which says no religious test will be required to hold an government office, and in Amendment 1, which prevents the establishment of a national religion or government restriction of religious practices

Article 6, Clause 3 (emphasis added):

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

Amendment 1 (emphasis added):

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Some of the foundering fathers were Protestant Christians for sure, and likely they didn’t expect the encroachment of non-Protestant Christian religions in US society, but they did see the necessity of ensuring that the government couldn’t make any decisions regarding religion, which I think includes not allowing the government to give any indication that it sponsors one religion over another. The reason for this is that they were quite aware of the abuse of the system in England, where the English monarch was also the head of of the church. This gave the government far too much power over people. It’s better for people to be able to have the freedom to make their own choices in regard to religion, without having any one brand of religion forced down their throats by the government.

The Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892. During a religious revival, “under God” was added in 1954, but, since that implies state sponsored religion, it’s a violation of the 1st Amendment and shouldn’t have been added in the first place.

God shouldn’t be mentioned in any government run institution and it shouldn’t be mandated by government that people are obligated to make oaths or pledges to or by God. That treads on ground the founding fathers implicitly said was outside the government purview, and denial of those powers is explicitly enumerated in the Constitution. References to God shouldn’t be present in government buildings, courts, classrooms, or government offices, since it violates the Constitution.

The US wasn’t founded on God. It was founded on the principles of freedom and republican democracy. However, I think our government is being too aggressive in telling students that they can not pray if they want to in a school. To me, that impedes practice of religion, since praying in school voluntarily isn’t hurting anyone, or implying sponsored religion. People should be free to worship, and the government should never imply that it sponsors a particular religion, but it also shouldn’t be preventing people from having an opportunity to pray, meditate, have an out-of-body experience, mentally prepare for the day, review notes, etc.

Redefining Racism

February 22, 2011 Bradley Farless4 Comments

Did you know that there’s no such thing as ‘race’? Not in the traditional sense of the word anyway. I did some reading and watched a video lecture for an anthropology discussion assignment and that’s the idea that was being presented, just from two different angles. I thought the topic was fairly interesting, so I’m trying to combine my answers to the questions that were asked into a coherent post here. I apologize if it seems a bit disjointed.

In his essay, The Concept of Race in Physical Anthropology, C. Loring Brace presents evidence showing that people are biologically the same, and that we merely have physical differences that developed based on what part of the world we’re living in, or where our ancestors are from. He presents an argument of biological populations versus the idea of clines, which says that there are merely gradations of characteristics that flow from one place to the next.

Brace discussed how old travelers would move over land from place to place and they would slowly see people’s appearances change. He said that the idea of ‘race’ didn’t come into common usage until people started colonizing new areas. When you’re going on foot, the gradations of appearance are subtle and you hardly notice them, but when you get on a boat in one place and get off the in another, the difference in appearance is obvious right away. It also gives you a feeling of ‘us’ and ‘them’. You can read more of the details by clicking the document icon at the bottom of the post to download the .pdf of his essay, but his argument against racism is that there is no biological foundation for ‘race’. We’re all the same species and merely have adaptations suited for the areas we came from. Brace stated in his essay that he found traits that crossed groups of people popularly identified as ‘races’.

Brace states that “‘race’ is whatever people think it should be”. Since ‘race’ has no biological foundation, the concept of race is culturally relative and is entirely dependent on the observer. That observer’s concept of race will be affected by what part of the world they’re from, the culture they grew up in, and popular ideas of the time. So, a person’s concept of race is completely arbitrary, and will be whatever they think it should be to fit their own world perspective and/or goals. An example is how Hitler, and many other Germans at that time, considered Jews and Gypsies to be distinct races.

The popular concept of ‘race’ is limiting because it can cause people to narrow their focus to trying to find differences and similarities between ‘races’, instead of across all people, everywhere. It can also be dangerous, in that it can be used as an excuse to commit atrocities toward other groups of people, or to place those people in positions of ‘justified’ subjugation.

Stuart Hall, on the other hand, argued in the video lecture embedded above that race is a floating signifier, or a badge. Hall states that ‘race’ is based on shared history and experiences and that our biological features merely act as a floating signifier, so that we can identify each other, and ourselves, with that same shared history. In the case of “blacks”, he used the heritage of the insult of prolonged slavery as the example of the shared history attached to the floating signifier of “black”.

As a floating signifier, we use ‘race’ to assign certain qualities to a group of people, thereby assuring ourselves of our own place in the social hierarchy and creating social stability. In that way, Hall’s ideas align with Brace’s, in that ‘race’ is “whatever people think it should be”, because according to Hall, what people want ‘race’ to be is a stabilizing force in society that lets them know who they are, or how they should be.

(We were then asked to apply Hall’s theory of race formation to the USA.)

Applying Hall’s theory of ‘race’ formation to the US is difficult, because the country is young and there are still large scale immigrations of new people from other parts of the world. A lot of people in the US put a great deal of value on remembering where they came from and holding onto and passing down those traditions, and brush aside new experiences in the US as inconsequential to who they are as a ‘race’. So, if the question is about whether or not an American ‘race’ might eventually form, then it’s possible, a long, long time in the future, if people stop seeing mere physical appearance as the only indicator of ‘race’, but for the near future I think the US will continue to be a collection of ‘races’, the same way that it’s a collection of States.

Another classmate, Henry M., had this to say about applying Hall’s theory to the USA:

In the US, it seems that racial formation is a part of popular culture. In many debates, the “race card” is more often than not misused as a sole basis and foundation for argument without really knowing the history behind it. By perpetuating this misunderstanding, the “code of common sense” Hall talked about is also made immortal by the very people fighting against racism

To which I replied:

One day, when the traditional idea of people being members of different physical races fades away, a new argument will arise to perpetuate traditional distrust and dislike along the same lines. I don’t think it matters whether the idea is one of physical differences or cultural differences, so long as there are people, or actions, perpetuating the stereotypes. The ideas of racism are so embedded into our culture that it would take generations of an aggressive education policy to even start stamping it out. I think one way to achieve that goal is to stop spending billions a year on foreign wars and instead pump that money into public education. How much better could the US be if tertiary education was not only free, but a legal obligation to complete?

The ideas are fascinating, and I’m surprised by how much I’m enjoying being back in school. It’s nice to have some intelligent conversation and good education to broaden my horizons.

What do you think about these ideas?

What’s Really Important on Valentine’s Day

February 15, 2011September 4, 2021 Bradley Farless6 Comments

On the way home from class tonight, I passed a flower shop that still had quite a few nice bouquets of roses and other flowers set out. Instead of making me smile, I frowned and kept on walking by. It’s not that I have a problem with Valentine’s Day, since I love having an excuse to get my wife a gift, but this is another holiday I’m spending apart from her. It’s not that I want to focus on the negative, but it’s hard to see these opportunities go by, knowing that it’s a holiday lost, that I didn’t get to spend with her. There’ll be another Valentine’s Day next year; we’re both still young, but this one is passing us by without us being able to share it, together.

It’s strange how we become accustomed to certain things. We get comfortable and assume that someone will always be there. We begin to take things for granted. It’s only when that person is absent that we realize just how big a part of our life they really are. I love my wife, I always have, but now that we’re separated, especially today of all days, I realize just how much I rely on her and enjoy her company. My wife is my inspiration, my motivation, and my joy in life. Everything loses its luster when she’s not with me to share the experience.

Next year, we’ll be together for Valentine’s Day, and I’m looking forward to doing something extra cheesy, a walk through Central Park perhaps, or maybe we’ll do the touristy thing and ride in a horse drawn carriage. Or maybe we’ll go exploring in the main New York Public Library. Whatever it is we do, we’ll do it together, and being together will be the best gift of all. That and a nice dinner.

So, NYC Bus Drivers Only Stop When They Want To Now?

February 13, 2011 Bradley Farless1 Comment

I went up to Target today with my mom to give her a hand with her bags. On the way back, we got to 14th street just in time to see a bus pull off, so we walked from 2nd Avenue to 1st Avenue, and right as we got there a bus pulled into the stop. My mom was tired, so we got on the bus and used our transfers.

About halfway between Avenue A and Avenue B, I pressed the strip to light up the ‘Stop Requested’ sign at the front of the bus. Instead of slowing, the bus driver accelerated. People yelled at him to stop, but he kept going anyway, right on past the bus stop. I guess he just didn’t feel like stopping there tonight.

After everyone shouted at the driver to stop, and he ignored us, he got on the bus intercom and told everyone to hold still, because he was going to take our picture. Why was he taking our picture to start with? And why are buses equipped to take still photos of passengers in the first place? Isn’t video enough? Does a bus driver have the authority to arbitrarily take photos of passengers? And what systems are in place to prevent abuse?

The next stop was in a dark part of 14th street and would have left us having to cut through a back alley in the projects to get back to where we wanted to be, so we had to stay on the bus until it turned down Avenue D and stopped at 12th street. That still left us having to cut through the projects, but at least the area was more lighted. People have been shot and killed in that area fairly regularly over the last few years.

The driver wasn’t done being a jackass, either. When he pulled into the stop at 12th street, he positioned the rear door so that a pole and a pile of snow were right in front of it. Besides the fact that I was hauling a heavy cart out of the bus (which caused me to slip and almost fall on that snow, by the way), my mother has bad knees, so it created a very dangerous situation for her. A guy in the bus was nice enough to hold the doors for my mom while I was struggling with the cart, since the bus driver tried to shut them on her while she was getting out.

We pay good money to ride these buses. They’re constantly jacking the fare up. Wouldn’t it be nice if they’d raised the level of courtesy and customer service they offer riders as well? Or at least stop at designated bus stops when the ‘Stop Requested’ light is lit.

Luckily, there was a red light, so after getting out of the bus and onto the sidewalk, I took a photo of the back of the bus and then used the plate number and bus number to file a complaint with the MTA. I wonder if I’ll even hear anything back on this?

Oh, and the kick in the ass of it all is that we wound up having to walk further than if we hadn’t gotten on the bus in the first place.

The Olmecs and Potential African Influence

February 11, 2011 Bradley Farless6 Comments

We’re covering research methodologies in my Introduction to Anthropology class right now, and to introduce us to a particular concept, which I’ll mention later, our professor had us read up on the Olmecs and then watch a video by a gentleman by the name of Dr. Van Sertima.

If you’re not familiar with the Olmecs, they were a civilization in Mesoamerica from roughly 1500 to 400 BCE and there’s a lot of controversy about whether or not they were a mother culture to the later Mesoamerican cultures, like the Toltecs and Mayans. A lot of artifacts have been found, showing how the Olmecs’ culture diffused down and out into the other cultures, but nothing showing that the other civilizations’ cultures influenced the Olmecs in the same way. You can read more about the Olmecs, and the “mother culture” / “sister culture” debate by clicking here, and by reading a New York Times article about it by clicking here, which closes by comparing the effect the Olmecs had on later Mesoamerican civilizations to the lasting effect Greek and Roman culture had on Western civilizations.

After reading up on the Olmecs, we were presented with the following video to watch:

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-3924842503305971166&hl=en&fs=true

The video is about 46 minutes long. If you don’t want to watch it all, here’s the relevant information:

This video is a recording of a presentation given by Dr. Van Sertima, where he presents evidence that the Olmecs had contact with Africans. He goes on to prove this theory by first showing that it was possible for Africans to reach Central America using ocean currents. He stated that there have been numerous trips made on small boats, some without sails, that have safely made it across the Atlantic, so it is possible. He talks about the similarity between the depictions of one of the Olmec gods and one of the gods of Egypt, who Africans would have also had contact with. He also noted that Olmec pyramids had a base that matched the size of the base of the Giza pyramids, and that Olmec rulers took to wearing purple, which was popular among Egyptian nobility. He also points out that some of the Olmec monumental heads (pictured below) have distinctly African features, and that the helmet the monumental head is wearing looks Egyptian in design.

Dr. Van Sertima stated that he had been working for years to get the scientific community to at least acknowledge the possibility that Africans and Olmecs had contacted each other at some point, but everyone gave him excuses about why it couldn’t possibly be true, including things as ridiculous as saying the stone head must have fallen over, causing the lips and nose to flatten out. One of my favorite lines was when he said that every other civilization in the world was traveling and establishing trade routes, so why would the Africans be the only ones that were sitting around doing nothing? My first thought was that they weren’t as developed. In some cases, Africans still aren’t as developed as other countries today. However, in my Art History class we had just covered Sub Saharan African art, and I remembered reading that there were advanced cities in what is now modern day Nigeria as early as around 500 BC, and that remnants of goods from as far away as China have been found there. That doesn’t necessarily mean they went there to get them, but it does speak volumes for the level of trade and advanced culture they’d developed.

So, do I think Dr. Van Sertima is right? Well, it’s definitely possible, but given how much he emphasizes that Egyptian cultural traits are evident in Olmec culture, rather than African, I’d say that it’s more likely an Egyptian ship with African slaves got blown off course, possibly caught in a current, and wound up in Olmec territory. It’s possible that, at some point, Africans sailed to Central America, but if that were the case, why would they have left the Olmecs with Egyptian styles of royal dress (use of the color purple) and why would the Olmecs have adopted an Egyptian god, rather than an African one? I could argue against that by asking why, if the Africans were only slaves, does the monument resemble an African? But, maybe the Africans aboard the Egyptian ships doubled as warriors when they landed in Central America, and the Olmecs admired their apparent strength? Anyway, it’s all speculation, but an interesting topic to speculate about!

After discussing these topics in class, our professor asked us what we can learn about anthropological study from Dr. Van Sertima’s methodologies. The best answer was something Dr. Van Sertima said: “…history leaves its mark on everything.” What does that mean? Well, you can’t put all of your eggs in one basket and rely solely on documents and written records. You have to think bigger. Also, it’s important to remember that any written records you come across, including your own, will likely be biased, either consciously or unconsciously, and that you have to take that into account when trying to decipher past events from the evidence we have left to us.

One Week Into The Semester And…

February 7, 2011September 4, 2021 Bradley Farless4 Comments

I’m actually looking forward to going to class tomorrow. When I was in high school I couldn’t wait to get done and get out. Now, the fact that I’m spending my time learning about new and interesting stuff, and more or less getting paid to do it, is completely awesome.

The Campus

The CCNY campus is a lot better equipped and well maintained than I expected from a public school. If you’re not familiar with it, City College of New York is part of the City University of New York system, but it’s all a public school, unlike NYU or Columbia. It’s not perfect, of course. One glaring example is the fact that the escalators don’t work between the 1st and 5th floors, but I suppose I could use the exercise. It does have a really nice library, lots of computers for student use (not that I really need them since I bring my laptop) and wifi throughout the whole school (or at least in every building I’ve been in). There’s even a gym and shower facility in Wingate Hall that has aerobic and weight machines and an indoor track. That opens for use tomorrow, so I’m debating whether or not I should bring a workout outfit.

My Classes

My ‘History of the Visual Arts of the World’ is basically an Art History course, and it’s looking like it’s going to be far more interesting than what I’d thought. I took the class because it’s a requirement, assuming I’d be studying particular artists, brush strokes and other boring crap like that, but it’s more like learning history through pictures, or sculptures as the case may be. It also helps that the professor is interesting. He has a weird, dry sense of humor that I can appreciate, and, oddly enough, he’s an Iraqi, which makes him even more interesting to me, since I served in Iraq on a combat deployment.

My Art History class ties in oddly well with my Anthropology class, since both are starting with things that happened in the past and moving forward into the present. I keep noticing that we’re discussing one thing in Art History and then touching on the same subjects in Anthropology. It’s a bit confusing, because I can’t remember which class some bit of information came from sometimes, especially since I take those two classes back-to-back on the same day. Both professors encourage discussion and don’t jump down your throat if you give an incorrect or incomplete answer. They guide you to the right answer and then move the discussion along. That active engagement in the class helps the time to go by faster, and it also helps with retaining the information that was discussed in class.

I only have World Humanities 1 once a week, so I only have one class to judge the course by, but the professor seems like a really cool dude. I was actually supposed to have gone twice by now, but I missed the first day because I hadn’t registered for the class yet. I wasn’t alone though. I’d say a good 40% of the class wasn’t there on the first day, by a show of hands, when the professor passed out copies of the syllabus. We’re starting off with The Odyssey, by Homer, and so far in class we’ve talked about castration, eating children, baby gods popping out of heads, murder, war, and the differences between gods during those days and the gods that are commonly accepted today. One girl in the class had a particularly hard time understanding the fact that Greek gods weren’t omniscient and omnipotent and kept asking questions, like she either has a hard time learning or wants to make sure she stands out. The professor really seems to know the subject matter and how to make it interesting. I’m pretty sure I’m going to enjoy this course.

My American Politics and Government class seems like the dud of the semester. I can’t really be sure, since I’ve only sat through two lectures, and the first discussion group isn’t until Tuesday, but I wasn’t very impressed with how the material was covered during our second lecture. The first lecture was just a discussion of the syllabus. We were told to read four source documents and when I went into the lecture I was expecting to be amazed and given a new way to look at the material that would give me a better understanding of what it meant, and what the people that wrote it were thinking at the time. I suppose my Art History and Anthropology professors set a high standard, and my experience in the PSC just didn’t measure up. Instead of broadening my understanding of the material, the professor just restated what was already in the document, which I already knew, since I read the document before going to the class. Oh well, they can’t all be winners, and there’s still time for this class to turn around.

Course Work Load

Again, kind of early to tell, but based on the first week, I think I’m going to have plenty to occupy my time. There is a LOT of reading involved. I’m having to set aside time to sit in the library and just study and read the textbooks and other documents where it’s quiet and I can concentrate. I’m also a week behind on the Odyssey, since I wasn’t in class the first day and didn’t know what book we were covering first. It doesn’t help that the professor wants us to use a particular version that was sold out in the campus bookstore, not available in the campus library, not available in the New York public library, and sold out at most Barnes & Noble locations. I finally found a B&N in Greenwich Village that has just one copy left, so I put it on hold and I’ll pick it up tomorrow. I’ll have to knock out 8 chapters of the book by Friday. I think I can handle that. I like to read anyway, and The Odyssey is an interesting story.

I’m hoping to find time in the week to still go out and exercise, either on the street or in the school’s gym, and still maintain my other hobbies like surfing the web and blogging. This week was so packed that I hardly found time to post a blog entry. Regardless, I’m going to make sure I study first and play later.

The Verdict

Overall, this is turning out to be a really positive experience. I’m meeting new people, learning a lot of new things, and I’ll finally finish my bachelors and then move straight into a master’s degree. Good times.