Italo Calvino Mimic

Cities  &  Lies

1

Some travelers stumble upon Lucia without having looked for it, while others deliberately set a course for this metropolis and rarely, if never, fail to find it. However, when they return from their expedition-- away from the herds of people and children and animals, away from the many markets and impressively tall buildings-- not a word about what they saw is spoken. For Lucia is the most crowded, visited city in the world; it very clearly rests on the travelers path, and one would have to consciously avoid it to prevent himself from finding it. Yet a description of its image-- the way its streets were specially designed to handle large mobs of people, the way its many fascinating objects catch the tourists gaze while unattractive oddities get quickly swept away by mysterious figures—has never left Lucia’s vast boarders.

   
   There are very few residents of the city, despite its enormous size and reach into every crevice of a being’s mind. Most people simply pop in and out, find whatever it is that they were looking for and leave. Many consider Lucia to be a paradise for this reason; it always seems stocked with whatever a traveler wants-- the only condition being that where they got it from must never be revealed. While this rule may be considered unwritten, there are the rare few that say somewhere in Lucia, all of these rules are written out on a plaque, hidden inside the unspoken city. It is one of the things that was swept away by the mysterious authorities of Lucia, for nothing can ever be truly removed from its realm; all the rejected oddities become the foundation of the buildings, the pedestals on which the attractive, eye-catching things stand. And so the visitors to this paradise walk on the ugliest things of the earth, the things that not even an unspoken city can accept. They ignore the crumbling ruins of bad habits, wrong words and actions; the things the city was built to mask. Tourists like to think that they have escaped their flaws, and that visiting Lucia allows them to erase their mistakes from existence. The thought of an organized, mass-execution of identity, a concentration camp strengthened and fueled by every punishment it gives, crosses nobody’s mind except the mysterious street-sweepers. Even with the layers of deceit that Lucia brings upon the world, there still lies one that not even the most piercing spear of objectivity can penetrate. Lucia is a city unspoken, present, and known; its foundations are unspoken, unknown, and present; while its immortality is unspoken, believed, yet not present. Lucia-- the city that is a bottomless incinerator for things that should not be seen (a description that everyone thinks yet no one will hear), is not as bottomless its visitors desperately want to believe. Its buried secrets shake under the weight of a thousand others, and one day the great skyscrapers of Lucia-- monuments to secrets, cover-ups, and lies-- shall topple, leaving what seemed to be an increasingly perfect world in anarchy.

   Some travelers stumble upon Lucia without having looked for it, while others deliberately set a course for this metropolis and rarely, if never, fail to find it. The city of secrets, hidden in plain sight. Those who never find Lucia are said to be enlightened, and so they gain followers-- others who endeavor never to enter Lucia’s false gilded walls. Yet the walls around the city are not the extent of Lucia’s effects-- for even the secrets removed outside of the inferno become a part of it. The memories buried deep inside one’s mind, all the regrets of a lifetime-- they become the colonists for Lucia, constantly expanding its boarders, allowing all minds to be a part of this bank where souls are exchanged and deposited. Lucia engulfs the world with its mad hiding scheme, a doomsday bomb for society built by itself. There are not many words for the visual image of Lucia, for from one angle the city looks splendid, while another may cast it in a sinister light. Some may see the city as unimportant, inconsequential-- its existence doubtful. And indeed, if everyone thought this way, Lucia would not exist. Travelers ask themselves if Lucia is a constant, or a plaything of time, with a fate locked on death like any mortal. The storm goes on in people’s minds, but is never argued, never uttered. Lucia remains, basking in the vast confusion as if it is warm sunlight. 

--This story is part of a chain of chapters. Here's the link to Violet's blog, which contains the last one in the series: 
https://violetmyles.wordpress.com/2015/04/06/broken-cities-1/        --

Blog Debate- Response to BCP Argument

*Disclaimer*: What is written here in no way represents my actual opinions. To rebut this argument was simply the assignment, and it had to be done.

                This essay was very good, but there are a few issues with the contentions made. For one thing, women not being able to buy birth control pills over the counter has nothing to do with gender inequality. Birth control pills let a woman’s family know what is going on. She is, after all, the bearer of the child. If a family has issues with their daughter having sex, then this is a family issue, not the fault of pharmacies for keeping their contraceptive pills off the counter. But why can’t women keep the same level of sexual discrepancy with their family as men? No matter the gender, family should know if there is a chance of gaining a new member, right? Unfortunately though, with males it is difficult to regulate their buying of sexual contraceptives. Condoms are not prescriptions, by definition. If there was a “spermicide pill” that men could take, then surely it would also be a prescription, and a doctor would have to explain to them the possible dangers of these pills.        

                People cannot be forced to tell their family things when there is no other good reason to do so, and women are not forced to tell their families anything. This is because there are other effective methods of preventing birth, some of which are sold over the counter. Some of these OTC  options are female condoms, contraceptive sponges, and of course the morning-after pill.[1] If one really does not want to get a prescription for the pill, then they can always go for something else. A woman can feel in control and free with all of these other options.

                Another problem with OTC birth control pills is the cost. If the pill were to go on the shelves, it could be unaffordable for many women on Medicaid whose prescriptions are now covered.[2]  This would lead to less people using birth control and as a result there would be more accidental births. And, as Dana said, the pill is also used to treat other ailments in women. Not being able to afford these benefits would be unfair, and could even be viewed as sexist. People being able to afford the pill is crucial, but so long as changes aren’t being made to Medicaid or other health care providers, the pill should be kept off the shelf to keep it that way.

                But what really matters in the end is health. Throughout Dana’s argument condoms and birth control pills were compared. Frankly, though, this is comparing apples to oranges as one is a medication, with possible dangers and side effects, while the other is a physical object that goes outside your body. You’d have to try to hurt yourself with a condom to get the same dangers the pill has. It increases the risk of breast cancer (especially among younger women, such as the 50% of high school students mentioned earlier), cervical cancer, and liver tumors.[3]  Not all people would be willing to talk with their doctor about these possible side effects if the pill were to become OTC. While nearly all drugs have these kinds of risks, birth control is different. It may be an old fashioned idea, but bringing a human being into this world is an important thing that should be taken seriously. If birth control should fail, or not be used correctly, the consequences could change the users and the user’s family’s life forever. In short, it is a big deal, one that people should know as much as possible about. In conclusion, the pill should be kept off the counter for several reasons. For one, it keeps it affordable, giving everyone equal access to birth control. Secondly, there are other OTC methods for women’s contraceptives, making it unnecessary to put it on the counter. And finally, doctors should let couples know the possible dangers of these pills and inform them of the responsibility of what could happen if they were to fail.

---

[1] How to get Birth Control Over-the-Counter,2014, http://bedsider.org/features/78

 

[2] Reeves, 2010 http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2010/06/23/needprescription-birth-control-pills/

 

[3] Oral Contraceptives and Cancer Risk http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/oral-contraceptives

 

Blog Debate- 1st Argument

Prompt 220: How well do you think standardized tests measure your abilities?

                These days you’ll see many students stressing about standardized tests. People spend years preparing for them, as they most definitely shape what high school and college you’re going to, and perhaps even what job you’ll have in the future. Another thing you’ll hear students talking about is whether or not this is fair. Do these tests do an effective job at gauging ones intelligence? I personally don’t think so. We learn in school for almost twenty years, and we spend about a week (at most) taking these standardized tests. There’s no way that such a short time period can even scratch the surface of what people learn while they’re at school.     

               For one thing, most of these tests only question about three subjects: math, reading, and writing. At GS, did we not spend our freshman year learning 5 other subjects at the same time? While perhaps all of these subjects were encompassed by these three main things, I still believe it is an egregious oversimplification. Secondly, these tests do not measure any real-world abilities well. Sure, you can hire the person who scored a 2400 on his SAT, but what do you know of his problem-solving skills? His multi-tasking? His ability to work well with others? Nothing. These tests are fundamentally flawed in the fact that they only test you on things you can recite from memory. More complicated things, the real skills that are required for healthy living, are never even looked at.
             
                Humans are so much more than computers. We have personalities, awareness, and emotions. There are infinitely more aspects to life than arithmetic, being able to correct a sentence, and filling in bubbles on a scoring sheet. While scoring well on a tests means you have someone whose good at those things, it by no means gives any indication of how he/she performs doing anything else. After all, we don’t even know the full picture about how the brain works! Right now, we say intelligence is how smart someone is. But what is “smart”. Explain to me the scientific difference in a “smart” person’s brain and a “dumb” person’s brain. And if one person excels at sports, yet the other is a keen reader, then which one is “smarter”? It’s a ridiculous question. If being smart means you think quickly, and do well in a certain thing, wouldn’t that make them both smart? The mind is too complicated to measure it in one dimension, on one scale. Intelligence cannot be tested when we don’t even understand what we’re testing. Such a narrow test as these standardized tests only shed light on the smallest point of a person’s abilities (if even that).
              
               Standardized testing, perhaps all testing in general, is simply inadequate when trying to judge the full scale of a person’s skills. When you test on a certain thing, you get an idea of the person’s ability to do well in that thing. But standardized tests don’t want to admit that that’s all they’re good for. They believe that a person’s abilities in all aspects of life can be measured with three subjects, and that a person’s path in life should be pivotal on a person’s performance on one day. That is the problem with these tests. “Intelligence” these days is becoming an outdated term, because it has too narrow a definition. If someone is not good at something, then surely they must excel at something else. Secondly, as we have heard our soon-to-retire headmaster say, intelligence is not fixed. It can grow in any direction, and a person’s ability to do something may change over time. In general, these standardized tests are trying to get a sense of an entire quilt with a pair of tweezers. Sure, you’ll get a get a really good idea of what that particular thread looks like, but you’re just kidding yourself if you think you know the entire quilt, the human being, based on that thread.   

 

Death Penalty Arguments Response

     While it might be because of the order that we read the articles, I now find myself in favor of abolishing the death penalty. Where I stood before reading these two pieces was very ambivalent. I had heard both sides of the argument, but I wasn’t quite sure I wanted to take a firm stance on the issue. Now, though, I am leaning more towards the side of Bruck’s opinion rather than Koch’s. I found Bruck’s argument more convincing because it appealed to my sense of ethics. While Koch argued very well the possible ways that the death penalty can be considered morally right, I wasn’t totally convinced. It may not have been as much convincing as it was just my moral views, but I agreed more with Bruck’s views. Both arguments however had good logical appeals, and included some humor with them as well. The two major fallacies I noticed in these essays were Straw Man and Faulty Analogy. For example, when Bruck said, “[Koch] suggests that we trivialize murder unless we kill murderers. By that logic, we also trivialize rape unless we sodomize rapists.” I personally think the analogies made by both sides were fine, but a true stickler might say otherwise. Overall, both sides made very persuasive arguments, so it’s not by convincing but simply by personal inclination that I favor Bruck’s angle.

Analysis of Obama Immigration Speech

               Overall, I found the speech that Obama made regarding his propositions for immigration laws effective. Using various emotional and logical strategies, Obama made his ideas seem very reasonable, and at the same time made himself more relatable to all types of audiences.

                An example of appealing to all audiences would be the way that he opened his speech. He talked about America-- what a strong, developed country it is, and how we should all be proud to live in it. He accomplished two things by saying these things. First, he instilled a patriotic pride into his viewers, making them feel good about themselves. This complementing could be described as an emotional, or pathos, argument. The second way this argument works is, again, related to its patriotism. There are many rumors around that argue Obama doesn’t care about America, and that he’s not a “true American”, as if there even is such a thing. He attempts to dissipate these rumors in his opening, not by directly addressing them but by acting in the opposite way people say he does. If they say he’s a Muslim, he acts as Christian as possible (he quotes the Bible near the end of his speech). In doing this, he not only puts rumors at ease but also makes himself more relatable to the people who created the slander. One could say that, by acting like an ideal American, he argued through his character, or ethos. Using these two things lets Obama bridge the gap in-between him and his audience. He seems to relate to them, so they in turn relate to him. Because of the double-effectiveness of this patriotic approach, he uses it quite frequently. While a good argument for its target, I found it a little excessive as someone who doesn’t relate to a patriot. But then again, it doesn’t really matter what I think, it matters what most of the country thinks. Therefore, I found that acting patriotic was beneficial to convincing his audience that he had good ideas to propose.

                Another strategy I found effective was his use of imagery and repetition of sentence structure when talking about immigrants. He asked rhetorical questions, all basically asking “Are we a horrible, cruel nation, or are we America?” Image-creating phrases were used, such as “ripping a child from her mother’s arms”, and other family-related atrocities. While this could be argued as being an overly-sentimental appeal, it still could resonate with the soft spot in all of us. The majority of Americans have families, and would feel the most sympathy for the immigrants, just what Obama intended.

                Those are the two major arguments I noticed in this speech. The president weaved these sometimes-not-so-subtle appeals into his main point about immigration. Contrasting to the way Obama brought himself closer to his audience, the way he argued his proposals was very logical. I also noticed that he acted very maturely when he talked about congress, and how they had not let any of his bills pass. He made himself seem like the bigger-man in the whole situation, congress just being an annoying obstacle in innocent Obama’s way. But in a way this kind of over-maturity is ridicule, just in a less noticeable form. The only difference is that if Obama had made a personal attack on congress, a backfire would most likely have occurred. This is because most people know the fallacy of arguing against an opponent’s character when the opponent’s ideas are being argued, and would have called him out on that.

                The conclusion: I think this speech is effective for most people. There is a good balance of ethos, logos, and pathos arguments, hitting as many demographics and ethnicities as possible. Of course, there will always be the extremists, who couldn’t be convinced with any amount of bible-thumping. But still, for the moderates, people on the fence, or even those who already support him, Obama made a good argument for his immigration law proposals. 

Food at GS

              To describe my experience of the food at GS in 400 words is a little difficult. Not because it wouldn’t be able to fit all the rantings I have about how bad it is, but because I really haven’t thought about it that much. For me, the food has always been above par, or at least right on it. I’ve never been one of those hypocritical complainers talking about how bad the food is as they shove it in their mouths. I’ve just gone in, sat down, ate my food, and got out. That’s how it’s been for the past year and I have yet to be disappointed. In other words, it’s difficult, and maybe pointless, to write a 400 word paper expressing “meh”.

                But, maybe there is more to talk about here. Maybe the dining hall is more than just a place where animals get what they need then leave. After all, we’re humans, so practically everything we do has some sort of social aspect woven into it. Remember the whole “soy-nut butter” incident of last year? Part of me sometimes wonders if the protesters were having more fun yelling about it than they actually cared about bringing peanut butter back. We, as teenagers, are like unlit fuses of confusion and frustration. Any kind of change in the usual routine that lets us release these things will light that fuse, and so it did last year. Let’s think about what would have happened if this situation went down at a typical office. You can no longer get butterfingers from the vending machine. How would the workers have reacted? Maybe at first, politely asked the boss to bring them back, to which he would say something about the budget and shoo you out of his office, and that would probably be the end of it. Adults, more pessimistic about their worldview as they realize their age, wouldn’t have the same, self-centered rebellious spirit as teenagers would. They would suck it up and order something else from the vending machine. That whole incident of last year demonstrated that here at GS, we are free-thinking, non-passive beings who do not view the “boss” as the controller of our lives. This is the danger of liberal, Quaker teenagers.

                This brings me back to the complainers. Just as the peanut-butter protestors didn’t care as much about the issue as they said they did, maybe they don’t really dislike the food as much as they say. By exaggerating and sharing their ideas with others, they can all insult the food to their heart’s content—but still have to eat it. In this way, the dining hall is a kind of social punching bag that never takes any offense and will always be there for another zinger. It allows us to decompress, not just by giving us nourishment, but also giving us the enjoyment of making fun of it. We can all pretend we’re in this awful situation where we eat nothing but junk all day, and make ourselves the hero of our own tragic story. It gives us the motivation to continue, to rise up, and to rebel.

                So, all in all, I am appreciative of the dining hall. I thank it for the spirit it gives, and for playing its role as the perpetual villain we create to make us feel better about ourselves. I thank it for every bland dessert, and for every soggy piece of tofu. For every bone I find in the chicken, and for every food I’ve never heard of on its menu. And finally, for every time I go looking for a utensil and find none, eventually having to use a bendy plastic fork to try and cut a cold turkey meatball. Thank you.  

Religion In Class Essay- Mindfulness

          When comparing the poem “Mindful”, by Mary Oliver, and the bag scene from the movie American Beauty, one similarity comes to mind. In both of these artful expressions, key focus has been placed on the mundane. The normal, day to day commonplace of life holds a special meaning for both the poem and the movie. I believe that is because the writers wanted to show their audience what mindfulness really is. We always pay special attention to the beautiful things. The things that come rarely are always looked at more closely than everything else. This gives life a sputtering quality, sleeping during every normal day and jarring yourself awake for every special one. Living life in this way, like most of us do, makes us miss more important things than we realize. What is argued in both the movie scene and the poem is that every moment has a special meaning to it, and that being aware of every moment can make it more meaningful. Being mindful makes life more fulfilling and satisfying, just as slowly chewing and swallowing food is shown to be better than swallowing it whole.

                 Paying attention to every moment, though, is difficult. We are all so conditioned to conserve our energy, to ignore certain things and sleepwalk through life. Sometimes, especially when I’m tired, I find myself in a dreamlike state where nothing seems real, and I’m only drifting through a scene already played out in my mind. This kind of living is what makes us miss the truly important things.

                I would like to appreciate a simple thing, as the man in the movie scene did. But during regular life, it’s hard to see the true meaning behind every moment. How can the present be important? What was the point of staring at that bag?  But you have to realize that this moment will never happen again, and that once that bag floats away, you’ll likely never see it again. Every moment is like life. During its existence, it tries to effect as much as it can and be as loud and energetic as possible. But, even though it doesn’t know it, it is transient. Soon, the moment disappears, replaced by another, and another, until the day we ourselves perish. That’s why every moment and every person you encounter must be appreciated.