international - Buzzsaw Magazine

Transcription

September 2006
BUZZSAW HAIRCUT
“With the wind in our sails, and a girl at every port.”
THE
INTERNATIONAL
ISSUE
Comment:
The International Issue
ook again at the cover of this issue.
The proportions of the continents,
if you didn’t notice already, are a bit
skewed in favor of North America.
The true area of the United States is about
one-fifth the area of Asia, less than onethird the area of Africa and just over half
the area of South America. Our map,
however, plays off the ethnocentric world
view that Americans are sometimes accused
of possessing.
Of course, all people have a tendency
to view the outside from the perspective of
their own national or cultural background.
To an extent, this is inevitable; it would be
impossible to detach ourselves entirely from
our own identity when interpreting our
place in the world. Nevertheless, Americans
are often considered the textbook example
of this global egotism. And whether or not
that generalization is fair, it’s undeniable
that most of us could stand to be more
aware of the world outside our borders.
With that in mind, we begin this academic
year with the International Issue.
Much of this issue deals with
populations that most of us, either by
choice or circumstance, don’t often see.
But even though we may not regularly
interact with, for example, the immigrant
cooks who prepare our food, they are far
from irrelevant. In “The Summer People,”
Colleen Goodhue reflects on the ambition
and the struggle of the Brazilian immigrants
with whom she worked. And following the
idea of cultural isolation by choice versus
circumstance, Chelsea Theis, in “Not On
My Watch,” asks why it is so difficult for
student activists to move their peers to
action against horrific violations of human
rights such as the crisis in Darfur.
L
We’ll introduce you to a highly
marginalized group of Moroccan matriarchs
who make a great effort against traditional
prejudices to provide for their families in a
rural village. We offer the first part in a series
on refugee and immigrant populations
living in Central New York—our own
backyard, as it were. Maybe you’re already
familiar with these stories, but if not, then
we offer them to you as a brief window to a
new and unexplored place.
There’s always something to learn by
stepping outside one’s own experiences.
In anthropology, it’s called the emic
perspective—absorbing the unfamiliar
and observing it from a place within its
original context, thereby taking away a new
understanding of human interactions.
It is as Omar Bajwa said in regards to
interfaith dialogue during our conversation
with him and Michael Faber (see page 14:
“Defying Intolerance”):
The first stepping-stone is that you
understand that [others are] human beings –
that they have beliefs and rituals and practices
that are different than yours, and there’s a
beauty to that, and it should be respected for
what it is. And then the second step, ideally
– the mature response – is then that merging
[towards] some sort of common vision.
And because one of Buzzsaw’s main
goals is to encourage dialogue on campus,
we’d love to hear anything you have to add
to this discussion.
The Editors
BUZZSAW
HAIRCUT
Gabrielle Montanez
Managing Editor
Matthew Farrell
News + Views Editors
Karin Fleming
Emily McNeill
Upfront Editors
Erika Vonie
Ministry of Cool Editor Andrew Frisicano
Harrison Flatau
Sawdust Editor
Art & Photography
Editor Nimrat Brar
C.J. Knowles
Advertising Director
Josh Elmer
Head Copy Editor
Anthony Derrick
Copy Editors/
Jennifer Konerman
Fact Checkers
TJ VanSlyke
Website Design
Mary Beth O’Connor
Advisor
Abby Bertumen
Founders
Kelly Burdick
Bryan Chambala
Sam Costello
Cole Louison
James Sigman
Buzzsaw Haircut is funded by the
Ithaca College Student Government
Association, the Park School of
Communication and a generous
grant from Campus Progress.
Visit them at
www.campusprogress.org.
Our Press is our press.
Binghamton, NY
Any uncredited image printed by
Buzzsaw Haircut was obtained
royalty-free from the Wikimedia
Commons project at
commons.wikimedia.org.
Views expressed in this magazine
are not necessarily those of the
editorial staff or of Ithaca College.
If you don’t like our opinions, tell us.
Feedback and contributions
should be sent to
[email protected].
Cover by Nimrat Brar
Table of Contents
News+Views
4
Current events, put through the Buzzsaw blender.
Upfront
7
Selected dis-education of the month.
Ministry.of.Cool
23
Music, entertainment and other things cooler than us.
Sawdust
30
Satire, stories and everything else.
les:
Featured Artic
?
Polly Voo Franzyobal tongue.......8
e
Esperanto as th
gl
out A Husband
h
it
W
n
a
om
W
A
...............16
archs...
Moroccan Matri
osexual
My Favorite Hom
3
om history........2
sitc
Gays throughout
Need more
Buzzsaw?
More content. Updated features.
A blog. Constant babble about
day-to-day life. And more.
Write us.
Our magazine exists to inspire thoughtful debate and open
up the channels through which information is shared. Your
comments and feedback are all a part of this process.
Reach the editors by e-mail at:
[email protected]
Photo by Emily McNeill
NEWS • NEWS • NEWS • NEWS• NEWS• NEWS • NEWS • NEWS • NEWS • NEWS
S
U
C
U
T
B ZZ
THE ISRAELI/HEZBOLLAH
CONFLICT, SUMMER 2006
“If the soldiers are not returned, we will turn
Lebanon’s clock back 20 years.”
Israeli Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz
“What fruit, other than one of pain, frustration, financial ruin and fanaticism, can stem
from this rubble?”
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora
“And then, most disgraceful
of all, we leave the
Lebanese to their fate like
a diseased people and spend
our time evacuating our
precious foreigners while
tut-tutting about Israel’s
‘disproportionate’ response
to the capture of its
soldiers by Hezbollah.”
“The Israeli Air Force launched more than 7,000 air attacks
Robert Fisk, The Independent, July 19th, 2006
on about 7,000 targets in Lebanon between 12 July and 14
August, while the Navy conducted an additional 2,500 bombardments. The attacks, though widespread, particularly concentrated on certain areas. In addition to the human toll – an estimated 1,183 fatalities, about one
third of whom have been children; 4,054 people injured and 970,000 Lebanese people displaced – the civilian
infrastructure was severely damaged. The Lebanese government estimates that 31 ‘vital points’ (such as airports,
ports, water and sewage treatment plants, electrical facilities) have been completely or partially destroyed, as have
around 80 bridges and 94 roads. More than 25 fuel stations and around 900 commercial enterprises were hit. The
number of residential properties, offices and shops completely destroyed
exceeds 30,000. Two government hospitals – in Bint Jbeil and in Meis alJebel – were completely destroyed in Israeli attacks, and three others were
“By conducting a raid
seriously damaged.”
that was likely to proAmnesty International
voke a brutal Israeli
reprisal, Nasrallah may
have gambled that the
fury of the Lebanese
would soon turn from
Hezbollah to the Jewish
state, thereby providing
a justification for ‘the
national resistance’ as
Lebanon’s only deterrent
against Israel.”
Adam Shatz, “Nasrallah’s Game,”
The Nation
On an Entirely Different Note...
Someone, probably an aide, asks Bush something, evidently
whether he wants prepared closing remarks for the end of the
2006 G8 Summit:
Bush: “No. Just gonna make it up.
I’m not going to talk too damn long
like the rest of them. Some of these
guys talk too long.”
VIEWS • VIEWS • VIEWS • VIEWS • VIEWS • VIEWS • VIEWS • VIEWS
If Not Now, When?
Bush seemingly immune to public acccountability
ne of the more grotesque instances
of the American media failing to
do their job occurred recently, following an August 21st speech by
President George W. Bush, in which he dismissed all hope of getting American troops
home in the near future.
Weighing in on the hotly-debated possible timetable for American troop withdrawal from Iraq, Bush brazenly proclaimed,
“We’re not leaving so long as I’m the president.” At
By Brandon Guarneri
first glance,
the quote is consistent with his “stay the
course” mentality. But prior to this strangely
ominous, open-ended commitment, which
apparently doesn’t even hinge on progress in
Iraq, Bush had claimed that troops would
stay until a stable democracy is installed,
and the Iraqis can protect themselves. An
arduous task, sure, and clearly one not supported by the majority of Americans, but at
the very least, the troops had something to
aspire to, a goal to achieve, a light towards
which to run.
Now, however, Bush has committed an
apparent Freudian slip of epic proportions.
Leftist conspiracy theorists have long since
concluded that the American plan for Iraq
is nothing short of a permanent military
base, and here was Bush practically admitting it. It was shocking, however, to see the
lack of media coverage on his word choice.
All any news outlet had to do was question his language. They’ve been so willing
to simply regurgitate buzzwords like “cutand-run” without offering critical analysis
of why they’re used and who they benefit,
I suppose it’s something of a pipe dream
to assume that they’d suddenly spring into
action now, cape flowing in the wind, demanding that Bush explain himself.
The president could easily have countered potential questions by explaining
that, yes, obviously, we would leave Iraq
if tangible progress was made – but here’s
where the gigantic opportunity was missed,
because Bush’s statement implies that there’s
O
little to no chance that any real progress will
be made in the next few years. He’d have to
explain himself. Forgetting the recent trend
where the administration discloses the arduousness of the mission at hand, the Bushies have been infamous for their infatuation
with rose-colored glasses. This disconnect is
glaring, like a rash scratched raw.
If only the media had held Bush to
task, we’d have a perfect example of the
administration being forced to disclose
how much they’ve twisted the truth to
maintain support for a war that they lied
us into in the first place. Instead, the media reverted to lap dogs with glossy coats
and dull, useless teeth.
They reported on the speech because
they had to, but by ignoring that one incredibly telling comment, they’ve failed us.
Oceania was at war with Eurasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.
At least they will be, until we start asking questions. •
Brandon Guarneri is a senior writing major
who wrote something for us to print here that
we felt was too profound for the masses. He
can be reached at [email protected].
President Bush asks Congress for a $74.7
billion provisionary wartime budget in March
2003 to finance Operation Iraqi Freedom and the
global war on terror. Not exactly a short term
investment, now was it?
VIEWS • VIEWS • VIEWS • VIEWS • VIEWS • VIEWS • VIEWS • VIEWS
Editorial: Defining Terrorism
Does the War on Terrorism have an achievable objective, or is it an abstract conflict with a perpetual, faceless enemy? News+Views Editor Matthew Farrell looks for a definition of “terrorism” and a clearer picture of
what, exactly, we’re looking to defeat.
Terrorism - The calculated use of violence (or threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimidation or coercion or instilling fear.
WordNet ® 2.0, © 2003 Princeton University
Terrorism - The actual or threatened use of violence,
directed by groups or individuals against noncombatants, to achieve political ends. Under U.S. law,
international terrorism involves the citizens or terriIf terrorism is exclusively violence that targets civilians then why do we contory of more than one country, and noncombatants
sider the al-Qaeda attack on the USS Cole a terrorist attack? What about
include unarmed or off-duty military personnel as
Hezbollah’s 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut? Was the Sepwell as civilians. Terrorist activities include, among
tember 11 attack on the Pentagon not a terrorist operation?
other violent acts, assassinations, bombings, suicide
bombings, hijackings, and
skyjackings.
ter·ror·ism (tr-rzm) - The unlawful use
Funk & Wagnalls New
or threatened use of force or violence by
Terrorism - The systematic use of violence to create a
World Encyclopedia
a person or an organized group against
general climate of fear in a population and thereby to
people or property with the intention
bring about a particular political objective. Terrorism
If noncombatants can inof intimidating or coercing societies or
has been practiced by political organizations with both
clude off-duty soldiers,
governments, often for ideological or
rightist and leftist objectives, by nationalistic and relithen was it an act of terrorpolitical reasons.
gious groups, by revolutionaries, and even by state instiism when Israeli comman The American Heritage® Dictionary of
tutions such as armies, intelligence services, and police.
dos raided Beirut in 1973
the English Language, Fourth Edition.
Encyclopædia BritannicaWorkspace
and assassinated three Palestinian leaders? Would
If terrorism is limited to “unlawful” acts
This seems to be a pretty comprehensive definition of
it be a terrorist operation
of violence, does that mean lawmakers
terrorism, but it suggests that nearly every armed inif the U.S. bombed an alhave the final say on what acts of viostitution in history has been guilty of terrorism at one
Qaeda hideout while bin
lence are considered terrorism? Whose
time or another. Does the war on terror really include
Laden was “off-duty?”
law do we refer to? Ours or Afghanicrooked police, every authoritarian regime in the world,
stan’s? The UN’s or Iran’s? Israel’s or
organized crime and neo-Nazis, as well as militant IsPalestine’s? The French Resistance durlam? Is declaring war on every form of violent intimiing World War II was “unlawful.” Was
dation imaginable a sound foreign policy?
that terrorism? What about the American Revolution?
The “War on Terror” is a blank check for the Bush Administration.
There’s no clear criteria to judge how well we’re doing, because there’s
no clear objective. There’s no clear enemy, so Bush can do what he
wants domestically and internationally to whomever he wants as long
as he manages to keep it muddled up somewhere in his abstract war. Is
Iraq part of the “War on Terror?” Will Iran be part of it soon?
What if instead of declaring a “War on Terror” after September 11,
we declared a war on al-Qaeda or even militant Islam? At this point I
think it would be clear that we’re losing. Al-Qaeda still operates freely
in parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and with Hussein out of the way,
they’ve found a new front in Iraq. Osama bin Laden and Zawahiri are
still at large. As long as we’re engaged in a “War on Terror,” however,
there is no losing or winning, because there is no clear, achievable objective to measure our progress against. Do we really want to commit
to a war with no conceivable end? •
Matthew Farrell is a junior TV-R major, and anywhere you meet him,
guaranteed, it’s going down. He can be reached at [email protected].
UPFRONT
THE
INTERNATIONAL
ISSUE
in this issue:
“polly voo franzy?” p. 8
“refugees: part I” p. 10
“The Summer People” p.10
“‘Not on My Watch” p. 12
“Defying Intolerance: A Dialogue” p. 14
“A Woman Without A Husband” p. 16
Polly Voo Franzy?
Esperanto as an international language
he language of Esperanto does not
garner much respect from… well,
pretty much anyone. Most people
would probably rank its importance as a language somewhere between
Middle English and Klingon. But beneath
that goofy-sounding name lies a language
that may have a place in this crowded, multilingual world.
Esperanto is a constructed language.
This means it has not evolved through
By Greg Ryan use over centuries,
but was deliberately
crafted - vocabulary, grammar and all by a single person or group. It was created in 1887 by a Polish eye doctor, in
hopes that its use would inspire global
peace and understanding. Today, an
estimated 2 million people worldwide
can speak Esperanto, a number far exceeding that of any other constructed
language. Still, it is English that is
overwhelmingly considered the international language, with 1.9 billion
speakers worldwide.
According to supporters of Esperanto, however, the language offers a
number of advantages to English and
other “natural” languages. For starters, Esperanto is easier to learn than almost
any other language. There are few irregular verbs in Esperanto, and all nouns are
derived from a small set of root words. It
can take four to 20 times longer to learn
a “natural” language than it would take to
learn Esperanto.
The language also allows people of different cultures to converse with one another freely, regardless of their native tongue.
Because it is neutral, there is no bias favoring the native speaker. Ronald Glossop, a
T
longtime Esperanto proponent and former
professor at the University of Southern Illinois at Edwardsville, says it is this potential
for linguistic equality that gives Esperanto a
fundamental advantage over English.
“Esperanto places everyone on a level playing field,” Glossop said. “Native
speakers of English have an advantage over
people using English as a second or third
language, yet there are more people who
speak English as a second or third language
than there are native speakers of English.
There’s a psychological advantage to that.
When language
oppression is seen
as a tool of
imperial power, the
value of a neutral
international
language becomes
clear.
I can go anywhere in the world and speak
to people in English. Other people don’t
have that advantage.”
Of course, English was not always the
global lingua franca. Before English ruled,
Latin, Spanish and French had their turns
as premier international languages, all due
to the imperial ambition of their speakers. In each case, the weaker nations and
peoples of the world were forced to abandon their native language in favor of the
language of their conquerors. Similar situ-
ations have occurred on a smaller scale in
regions around the world. When language
oppression is seen as a tool of imperial
power, the value of a neutral international
language becomes clear. Language diversity,
as it were, is threatened by the cultural subjugation of the powerless by the powerful.
Although not possessing much power
themselves, Esperantists have become
an unlikely ally of these endangered languages. In 1996, the Prague Manifesto, a
document laying out the ideals of the Esperanto movement, declared Esperantists to
be defenders of language rights. The
Universal Esperanto Association has
backed this claim up on numerous
occasions, including petitioning the
European Union in 2002 to ban job
postings that require applicants to be
native speakers of a given language.
Some Esperantists have also called
for the implementation of Esperanto
in the United Nations and the European Union. Besides the obvious
case for linguistic fairness, the use of
Esperanto would save both bodies a
good deal of money. The United Nations spends almost $100 million a
year on translation services, which,
according to Glossop, also account for
a third of the European Union’s budget.
And there’s always something lost in translation. When applied on an international
scale, the erosion of meaning through
the translation process can have significant consequences in terms of the interpretation of a ceasefire agreement or the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
However, neither body has ever formally
considered the use of Esperanto.
There do exist a number of legitimate
UPFRONT • UPFRONT • UPFRONT • UPFRONT • UPFRONT • UPFRONT • UPFRONT
Saturday Night in Esperanto:
Mary: Saluton! (Hello!)
John: Saluton. Kiel vi? (How are you?)
Mary: Bone, dankon. Estas plezuro vidi vin.
(Great, thanks. It’s nice to see you.)
John: Bonvolu, ni dancu! (Please, let’s dance!)
Mary: *nods* Mi satas danci. (I like dancing.)
John: Vi estas tre bela. Cu mirajtas kisi vin?
(You are very beautiful. Can I kiss you?)
Mary: *blushes* Bone. (Okay.)
John: Mi volas kunigi kun vi! (I want to make
Illustration by Nimrat Brar
love to you!)
Mary: Lasu min pensi... Konsentite! (Let
me think...It’s a deal!)
The Next Morning:
John: Havu tason da kafo? Matenmango?
(Have some coffee? Breakfast?)
Mary: ... Kiel vi nomigas, ree? (What’s your
name, again?)
concerns about Esperanto. The language is
very similar to European Romanic languages, placing doubt on its claim to be a “global” language and putting people who speak
non-European languages at a disadvantage
in learning it. Alternatives to Esperanto also
exist, such as the constructed languages Ido
and Interlingua; Esperanto is simply the
most popular of these languages.
Not everyone familiar with Esperanto believes its claim to be a defender
of language diversity. (In fact, evidence
suggests Orwell based his Newspeak on
Esperanto; the structure of the two languages is similar, and he once lived with
an aunt who spoke Esperanto.) Christopher Culver, an American student
studying in Finland, was an enthusiastic
speaker of Esperanto for nearly 10 years.
He stopped using the language in 2005
when fellow Esperantists insisted he stop
trying to learn other national languages
and instead focus only on Esperanto.
“I began to generally realize how weird
it was that the Esperanto movement would
have me speak with my fellow Americans in
Esperanto, even though we share the same
native languages, and in spite of
all the rhetoric of the United
Esperanto Association about
protecting the languages of
the world,” Culver said.
Don Harlow, an official with the Esperanto
League of North America,
refutes the idea that Esperantists advocate the domi-
nance of Esperanto to the exclusion of
other languages.
“The use of Esperanto would protect
language diversity better than other languages,” he said. “With English, the only
way a native person can achieve native fluency is to be immersed with active speakers
for years. Esperanto only requires a study of
a few months. You don’t need to surrender
your own language to be fluent.”
Glossop, when asked why he first decided to learn Esperanto, said the idea
struck him in 1979, when he was doing
research for a book on the causes of war.
“I was brainstorming what would make
division more likely, and I thought about
the Canada-Quebec situation at that timethe Canadians spoke English, the Quebec
French. I realized this was a big problem at
the global level. The problem was language.
With an uncommon language, there is a
tendency for unity to fall apart. So I wanted
to be a world citizen. Esperanto was a way
to be that world citizen.”
It is doubtful Esperanto will be taken
seriously enough to become an international force any time soon. But it is likely
that the idealism of Esperantists will remain and, consequently, that the Esperanto movement will live. •
Greg Ryan is a junior journalism major that
speaks only in Klingon at Star Trek conventions. Email him at [email protected].
With Open
Arms?
The first in a four-part
series on immigrant and
refugee communities in New York State
n May 1st 2006, 400 activists crowded the
Commons to participate in a national recognition of
immigrant rights. Like the rest of our nation, Ithaca
is compromised of immigrants from across the globe.
But crossing physical borders is only half the battle. They
are facing ever-changing global standards for citizenship
and also must struggle to adapt to new communities and a
culture sometimes very much at odds with their accustomed
By Meagan Murray way of life.
The distinction between refugee
and immigrant has largely been determined by the United
Nations. At a 1951 convention, the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees released an official definition
for a person to qualify for refugee status; any persons in fear
of being persecuted because of race, religion, nationality,
social status or political opinions qualify for UN refugee
aid if they are unable to protect themselves in their original
country of residence.
According to the 2006 World Refugee Survey for the
U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, there are
12,019,700 refugees worldwide. This number may be
difficult for people in wealthy countries to conceptualize, due
partly to the fact that only 4 percent of refugees are located
in “host” countries with per capita incomes over $10,000.
The United States is home to 176,700 refugees.
The number of immigrants globally – and within the
United States – is nearly impossible to accurately document,
partly because immigrants frequently fail to obtain proper
documentation due to stringent application procedures in
their host nations. According to 2005 data from the Census
Bureau, nearly eight million immigrants had come to the
United States since 2000.
Loosely characterizing both documented immigrants and
refugees into the category of “foreign-born persons,” their
current population in the U.S. is now around 12.4 percent
of the national population, according to the 2005 Census
Bureau statistics.
O
10
“Foreign” continued on p. 11
Illustration by Nimrat Brar
The Summer People
Working With Brazilian Immigrants
ike most of the Irish Catholics in my town, the only
interaction I had with the Brazilian immigrants that
flocked to Massachusetts was getting frustrated at
them while trying to order an iced coffee at Dunkin’
Donuts. They should learn the goddamn language if they’re
going to come to our country,
By Colleen Goodhue I thought. Until this summer.
I spent my summer vacation flirting my tips up at a seafood
restaurant near my home in Massachusetts watching one-boat,
two-house, four-car families pay their friends’ tabs in shows
of bravado. For the summer people, August means golf at the
country club, afternoons out on a sailboat and locally caught
Surf and Turf at my restaurant. Through the swinging doors,
August means something totally different. The kitchen is
staffed entirely with Brazilian immigrants who get no summer
vacation. August means the kitchen is 20 degrees hotter and
the picky summer people are back.
Richard worked as the sauté chef and pseudo-kitchen
manager. He was in charge of relaying information from
the waitresses to the cooks and dishwashers which was
especially important seeing as they often didn’t speak the
same language. He was 26 years old and worked there six
days a week from noon to 10 p.m., after helping at his father
Carlo’s auto body shop.
Richard was the most “Americanized” of any of them,
because he was more immersed in the culture as a young boy.
His family came over when he was still a teenager. He was
constantly flirting with the waitresses and teaching us phrases
to tell the dishwashers (phrases we would later find out did
not mean “please wash the knives”).
L
“Summer” continued on p. 11
Continued from “Foreign,” p. 10
New York State holds over 20 percent of the foreignborn population. In Ithaca alone, foreign-born persons, not
including the college population, make up one-sixth of the
city’s population.
The presence of immigrants and refugees in Ithaca is wellknown. However, this substantial population is struggling
for access to needed services. In December 2005, the local
Refugee Assistance Program was shut down when federal
funding dried up and it could no longer support payments.
David Turkon, a professor of anthropology at Ithaca
College, says that it is obvious the loss of a central support
center has hurt the local immigrant and refugee population.
“You know, a lot of these people come in as undocumented
or documented, but they don’t speak the language, they don’t
understand the legal system; they’re very easy to exploit in
the labor market … [The closing of the Refugee Assistance
Program] left a real void in Ithaca in terms of helping out
new arrivals.”
Turkon fears that, without a center to welcome refugees and
immigrants, educate them about their basic needs and connect
them to other local families, there is a disconnect within the
Continued from “Summer,” p. 10
All of the dishwashers were hired by Richard. He
would drive to their houses and bring them to work. He
spoke to them in this frantic sort of Portuguese, trying to
explain every detail of the kitchen as quickly as possible.
We assumed that he was friends with them before or they
met him through a network of Brazilians in town looking
for jobs. Over the course of the summer we went through
four or five dishwashers, but not because they were fired or
quit. They would learn other jobs in the kitchen, learn some
English, and move on.
Paolo was the dishwasher when I started. At first, he
only knew the words for the different silverware and the
only words we knew in Portuguese were “please” and
“thank you,” so there was minimal conversation. By the
end of the summer, he was making salad and dessert and
had learned so much English that at the end of the night
we could all sit down for a pizza and talk while waiting for
the restaurant to close.
He often mimicked Richard’s charisma, calling every girl
“honey” and responding to every request with, “Everything
for you, baby.” One of the head waitresses would scoff at him.
She told me that they were all trying to charm me into being
their ticket to a Green Card.
My best friend at the restaurant was a red- and baggy-eyed,
middle-aged pizza chef named Milton. Our friendship, at first,
was based solely on the fact that I always brought him ice water
when it got hot, and he would teach me phrases in Portuguese.
During lulls at work, we started talking. He worked mornings
at a pizza place, nights at my restaurant and got up at the crack
of dawn to deliver papers. I tried to not complain that I was
immigrant and refugee population. Newcomers feel separated
from and unable to relate to the already established foreignborn community.
The key to successful integration, he says, is to urge new
migrant members to establish their own sense of responsibility
and community with their new residence. He calls this
“capacity building” – the ability for people to empower one
another. If this were achieved, local refugees and immigrants
might feel more established in the Ithaca community.
Cecelia Montaner-Vargas of the local Tompkins/Tioga
Catholic Charities, one of the numerous local and national
agencies dedicated to helping immigrants and refugees, agrees
with Turkon. And, she adds, people encounter immigrants
and refugees more often than they would think.
“If you think about it, they are the people who are working
in the restaurants, supermarkets, everywhere; we see them
but we don’t really see them,” she said. “It will take … a few
minutes of your life to walk through the food services at Ithaca
College and find that many people who cook your food are
from Burma, Thailand, Laos, all over.”
“Foreign” continued on p. 21
missing “Project Runway” by working that Wednesday.
At the end of my last day, I was talking to Milton, telling
him about how I couldn’t wait to get back to school. He
started telling me about his two college-aged daughters: the
reason he’s here. He needs to send money back home to his
family, for school. He hasn’t been home in eight years because
he doesn’t have his green card yet. He said he probably won’t
get it for six more years. At the end of it, he won’t see the
family he’s supporting for 14 years.
I got home from work that night and cried. I told my
mom how selfish and spoiled I felt, and she told me that
all immigrants have to struggle like that. My great-great
grandfather was an immigrant like them. He spoke the
language, but met with “Irish Need Not Apply” signs when
he searched for employment. When he finally got a job, he
worked seven days a week, taking only Sunday mornings
off so he could go to church. He died very young, after
working diligently to provide something for his family. And
it wasn’t just for his children; it was for all of them after
that, children he would never meet. And I wanted to thank
a man I had never met for working so hard so that I could
have the opportunity of a life so full of possibilities that I
can hardly comprehend.
When Milton and I finished talking, Richard came out
and put his arms around me and kissed me on the cheek and
said “Don’t you forget about me honey, okay?” I won’t. •
Colleen Goodhue is a sophomore Television and Radio major
who enjoys schmoozing with the kitchen help during her shift.
Email her at [email protected].
11
“Not On My Watch”
Students battle genocide and complacency
used to think change was a bad
thing. Then I went away to
college, leaving two friends whose
lives revolved around sports and
video games and came home to find them
wanting to make a difference in the world.
They had been dragged to a protest, and
the experience sparked something in them.
By Chelsea Theis Now they can’t
stop fighting for
their idea of a better world.
This summer when they asked me to
help them obtain signatures for a petition
at a local fair, it was the prospect of fried
dough that made me agree. I hadn’t
even thought to ask them what cause I
was helping with before I was handed a
clipboard over the front passenger seat. A
stack of postcards forced the clip open to
its widest point. They read:
Dear President Bush,
During your first year in the White House,
you wrote in the margins of a report on the
Rwandan genocide, ‘Not on my watch.’ I
urge you to live up to those words by using
the power of your office to support a stronger
multi-national force to protect the civilians
of Darfur.
Stopping the genocide in Darfur was
I
It was a lot more trouble to get people to
sign than I had imagined. Oddly enough,
I wasn’t having trouble with the adults,
it was with the kids from my generation.
I walked up to one group, and a “No!”
was blasted at me before I even opened
my mouth. For some reason, I thought
opening my mouth would help. You won’t
be contacted further. You don’t have to
provide a mailing address or e-mail. You
don’t even have to pay for postage. What I
was literally pleading for seemed so simple.
Sign a name, possibly help save a few lives.
No. No. No. That’s all I kept hearing. The
response from the people of our generation
was quite appalling, especially when signing
carried no further responsibility.
The postcards we were trying to get
signatures for had to do with the Save
Darfur Coalition project, Million Voices
For Darfur. Launched in January, the
point was to get a million postcards signed
to send to
President Bush
to urge him to use his full power of office to
support a stronger multinational force that
would intervene to help protect Sudanese
civilians. Since February 2003, the genocide
has taken over 400,000 lives, as well as
displaced millions who are now completely
dependent on humanitarian aid.
The
million-signature
milestone
has been surpassed, with the millionth
postcard signed on June 29 by Senate
Majority Leader Bill Frist, Senator Hillary
Clinton and other members of Congress.
Senator Frist said, “The American people
have spoken in enormous numbers. They
understand that genocide is going on in
Sudan.” But how many young people in the
U.S. make up those “enormous numbers?”
How many really know what’s going on
in Sudan? Why is it that mass hysteria
can grip us in response to something like
“Snakes On A Plane,” but when it comes
to an issue that truly needs our attention,
the attitude by so many teens is, “Why
should I care?”
Senior Kaitlin Hasseler, president of
Ithaca College’s chapter of Students Taking
Action Now: Darfur, says that education
is the most important aspect of getting
“I want to think it’s
because they don’t know,
not because they
don’t care.”
“If it’s not in the
news, how are we
supposed to know
about it?”
a noble cause for my jock-turnedpolitical activist friends to adopt. They
had been the ones to make me aware
of the horrific mass killing of Sudanese
people, an important issue that many
people still don’t know much about.
students to care. STAND’s priority is to
create awareness about, take political
action on and raise funds to relieve
the genocide in Darfur. It’s a student
movement that is present on over 200
college and high school campuses across
the United States, in addition to a national
STAND movement in Canada. Students at
Georgetown University, where the national
office is located, formed the first U.S.
STAND chapter in 2004. The National
STAND Coalition helps coordinate all
This was made quite clear once I started
asking for signatures. Sure, I’m from a slightly
back water type of place, but there are enough
liberal-minded people here willing to tell ol’
Bush what’s up. At least enough compassionate
ones. Or so I thought.
12
One million Americans signed a petition calling for
stronger action in response to the genocide in Darfur.
That’s just one out of every 300.
U.S. Darfur action in order to increase the
impact American students can make on
U.S. foreign policy, and particularly the
situation in Darfur.
Students have been key components
in social justice movements throughout
history. Many American students brought
attention to the apartheid government
in South Africa through the use of
divestment campaigns and helped bring
an end to apartheid. With the genocide
in Darfur, American students could once
again pressure business and government to
take action. Students in the U.S. are lucky
enough to not have to be put in direct
conflict - this isn’t Tiananmen Square. If
students don’t know, are they able to help?
Junior Phil Byers, from Rochester,
NY, says that the only reason he knows
about Darfur is because there were a few
Sudanese people who attended his church
back home. “If it’s not in the news, how are
we supposed to know about it?” he asks.
Hasseler points out that there has been
more media coverage of Darfur lately,
which helps promote awareness. However,
she connects this boost of media attention
to the worsening of the situation there. On
August 31, the United Nations Security
Council approved the deployment of a
peacekeeping force, but the Sudanese
government rejected the proposal. The
African Union peacekeeping force, which
is small and strapped for cash, may pull out
when its mandate ends at the end of this
month. In some ways, increased awareness
may have come too late.
So what about the people who know and
aren’t doing anything? Dean of the Division
of Interdisciplinary and International
Studies, Tanya Saunders, says, “I think
there are many students who are genuinely
concerned but may not know what action
will make a meaningful difference.”
This is why STAND is doing what
they can to spread the word. “We get a lot
of ‘Dar-What? Is that a person? Is that a
place?’ It’s important we let people know
it exists,” Hasseler says. STAND puts
on events throughout the year to spread
knowledge of the issue, including the
option to donate unused meals from meal
plans and coordinating transportation to
larger events, such as the Global Day for
Darfur: Rally and Concert in New York
City on September 17. Almost 40 Ithaca
College students attended.
While STAND does encounter student
apathy, Hasseler remains optimistic. “I
want to think it’s because they don’t know,
not because they don’t care,” she says.
Small steps can make a big difference,
and Hasseler knows it’s about the small
victories. STAND hosted a screening of
Hotel Rwanda in Textor Hall last year at
which they showed footage from Darfur,
followed by a discussion. It was so heavily
attended that there was standing room
only. Hasseler says these mass turnouts
and the fact that the National STAND
Movement is completely student run are
inspiring. “To see students so passionate...
it gives me hope.” •
Chelsea Theis is a junior journalism major
who really, really, REALLY wants you to sign
her latest petition. E-mail her about it at
[email protected].
13
Defying Intolerance: A Dialogue
A Jew, a Muslim and Buzzsaw discuss the Middle East
W
ith the war in Lebanon, Gaza and Northern Israel this summer, the world’s attention was once again drawn to the ongoing conflict between Israel and its neighbors. Upfront editor Emily McNeill sat down with Michael Faber, Ithaca College’s Jewish chaplain, and Omer
Bajwa, the Outreach Coordinator for the Muslim Educational and Cultural Association at Cornell University to talk about this summer’s
war and the future of the Middle East peace process.
Buzzsaw Haircut: What were your thoughts
as you watched events in Israel, Palestine and
Lebanon unfold over the summer?
Michael Faber: I can only say I had a lot of
conflicted thoughts. First of all, the caveat is
that I’m not an Israeli. I’m an observer from
outside, even though I’m invested in all that
goes on there, but it appears to me that the
actual strategic tactics adopted by Israel and
the army were a mistake. And there are a
number of factors that gave rise to that error
in thinking.
There’s no question that much of the
world has seen this as a proxy war between
the United States and Iran. The United
States favored Israel’s strategy of, strictly
speaking, an air war, because the United
States wanted to see how well it went as a
prelude to the possibility of conducting it’s
own air war against Iran. So that was the
external pressure.
The internal error was that it’s been a
long time since Israel has had to fight a fullout ground war like that. They mistakenly
thought that an air war would be adequate,
partly, maybe, because of the pressures from
the United States. The head of the army was
the head of the air force, and they thought
they could do it that way. It was a terrible
error with way more loss of civilian life. So
they bungled it. And of course they bungled
it in more ways than one – not just strategically. Whatever “moral superiority” they
may have started with by being attacked,
they certainly lost by the number of civilian
casualties, which I think is unacceptable to
most of the Israeli public, too, not just to
outside observers like me.
14
Omer Bajwa: I would reiterate much of
what Rabbi Michael said, which is that I
am, again, also an outside observer. My basic thoughts were just very frustrated. I was
very frustrated, very disappointed. It’s an
immensely complex region with immensely
complex politics on both sides. I would agree
that it pretty quickly became apparent that it
was a proxy issue with the United States and
the Iranians, and it’s very unfortunate that
innocent Israelis and Lebanese people got
caught in that crossfire. I think it’s tragic, the
way that belligerent countries use proxies or
their “allies” to do these things. So that’s the
first thing.
And the other thing that I will say is, I
didn’t travel to the region, obviously, but I had
friends who sent me emails and blogs from Israel and from Lebanon and from Syria, and,
[from] talking to them, I think moderates on
both sides ended up being very marginalized.
People became entrenched; whatever negotiating middle ground there was, people just
fled from, and that’s very disappointing, because whatever progress they were making on
both sides, I think is gone.
BH: You both talked about how you in
America are detached from the conflict.
What role do you think Diaspora Jews and
Muslims have in the peace process, and is the
fact that you are detached from it possibly
a benefit that Diaspora Jews and Muslims
have a responsibility or take advantage of?
MF: My simple answer is that I think it’s
the role of people outside the region who
have the room to live much more relaxed
lives [to] be the real force of moderation.
What people live with [in the Middle East],
and the intensity of their feelings and passions, is very, very close to the surface and
is always boiling over, and we don’t live that
way, so it’s hard for us to understand that
that is overlaid on top of everything there,
and contributes in some ways to the conflict.
So in some ways, maybe one of the kinds of
moderation we can bring from the outside,
those of us in the Diaspora, is dispelling the
lightning move to the most passionate kinds
of feelings that really give rise to violence.
OB: In terms of the worldwide Muslim
community, I think you can break it down
into three general categories or reasons why
Muslims are interested in [this conflict]. The
first is partly the most problematic. There
is an overwhelming Muslim population in
Palestine, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, and
because it is such a salient issue for them, the
discourse from that volatile, emotional, political issue flows out into the global Muslim
community. That’s a problem because, for a
long time, many Muslims have made it the
de facto, grand cause that Muslims need to
work for.
The second issue is, because there are so
many Muslims there, [Muslims elsewhere]
feel sympathy for them. Islam has this notion of a global body of Muslims, wherever they’ve dispersed. Muslims worldwide
should be mindful of that.
And the last thing is, I would hope that
Muslims would really look at it this way:
that, really, it’s a human rights issue. The
human rights and basic rights of Israelis are
being infringed upon, and the human rights
and basic rights of Palestinians and Lebanese, you know, there are problems there.
But Muslims aren’t thinking of it that way.
Either it’s that they are my Muslim brothers and sisters, or that Jerusalem is sacred to
us and so that’s why we have to go liberate
it. But I think that, really, Muslims should
have the intelligence, the tolerance and the
compassion to speak out about it as a human rights issue. It’s because of concern for
the human rights of both sides that we want
some sort of resolution, not just because it’s
a Muslim religious issue.
BH: It would be easy to argue that religion is
one of the causes of all this violence and suffering in the Middle East. But do you think
that religion can also be – or is already – a
force for peace? What would this look like?
MF: Well I have very iconoclastic views on
that, because I think that for a long time
in our world – or most of the time – our
religious leaders fail us. I really believe that.
“The mistake that
Israelis make or Jews
make, the mistake that
Arabs or Muslims or
Palestinians make, is
to focus on the
behavior of the other
and complain about how
terrible [it] is.”
What passes for religious understanding often baffles me, and I say that about rabbis,
about ministers, priests, imams, Buddhists,
Hindus. From where I’m coming from in
my own spiritual work that I’ve done all
my life – very disciplined work both in Jewish practice and in being a serious student
of meditation – I’ve come to see that often
what passes for religious understanding is
really religious misunderstanding. But yes.
The ultimate religious vision that any human being is genetically and humanly capable of having, if we were trained to reach
for that vision of life, it would be impossible
to be living in conflict. But that’s not what
our religious teachers mainly train us to do.
They train us to be ritually correct, to follow
the law in the correct way, to do what’s right,
to follow the tradition in the right way and
all of that. Life is about seeking the ultimate
vision of what life is and what the possibilities are, not whether I’m washing my hands
right or making the blessing correctly. That
has its importance, too, but the real important stuff that religious sensibility can really
teach, I don’t see a lot of it coming from our
teachers. So ultimately, yes, if that was where
we were coming from then religion could
end this conflict instead of fuel it.
OB: Just picking up on the rabbi’s comment, I agree very much with [him] that
I think one thing that is missing from so
much of the religious leadership across the
board, throughout the world, is this sort of
compassion for the unity of humanity. If
you look at whatever message it is, I think
it’s the fact that human beings have to live
in some peaceful sort of coexistence in the
world, and it shouldn’t be taking blood in
God’s name.
But the other thing that I would add is
that I think so often the conflict has been
misunderstood by many different parties
to be this sort of primeval, religious sort of
battle that’s been going on – this epic battle.
And one of the things, as a student of history, that you look at is that Jews and Muslims
lived wonderfully together. Obviously I don’t
want to paint a rosy picture, but there is a lot
of historical documentation that there’s this
period in Islamic Spain, where the Muslims
were for 800 years, where you had this flourishing of Jewish culture and literature and
theology and thought alongside Christians
and Muslims.
MF: It’s called the Golden Age.
OB: Exactly. It’s called that for a reason. And
that lasted centuries, and the current conflict
is basically less than a hundred years old, and
it’s because of political agendas on various
sides of the issue. I think that religion has a
lot to offer, but I would second that political
and religious leaders have really, across the
board, failed to meet these challenges.
BH: In what ways do you feel that Jewish
and Muslim perspectives on the Arab-Israeli conflict are being misrepresented
or misunderstood?
OB: I think the way that it’s being misrepresented is that there are multiple views within
the Jewish community, globally, on what
does Israel mean, what does it stand for?
How do they interact with Zionism – is it religiously inspired, is it secular? And so that’s
the one thing I would say [about Judaism] is
to acknowledge that there are differences of
opinion within the Jewish community, that
they themselves are trying to work out what
Zionism means being an Israeli, being a devout Jewish person and what not. So I think
that is perhaps missing.
On the Muslim perspective, I think the
way that it’s been misrepresented is that
the Palestinian issue has become this grand
cause for Muslims globally. In fact, there
are a lot of Muslims who think that way,
but I think the way it’s been perpetuated in
the media is that this is [what] all Muslims
all over the world are continually obsessed
about – that they will not rest until the state
of Israel is destroyed and it ceases to exist,
this whole Hamas and Hezbollah rhetoric. And I don’t think that’s true. There are
Muslims that believe that, but there are just
as many Muslims who say, “We have an attachment to Jerusalem because it’s a holy
place for us, but in terms of Israel and Palestine and the surrounding areas, those are
political entities that have to be [dealt with]
in political ways.
I think Muslims should be concerned
with human rights issues and [have] compassion for all peoples in the conflict, and that’s
not seen; it’s just this obsession with, “down
with the state of Israel.” I personally believe
that the state of Israel has a right to exist in the
region, and I think there are a lot of Muslims
who think that way, when they really sit down
and think about it, but you don’t hear that
view. You just hear about angry mobs rioting
in the streets, and, yeah, that does happen.
But that’s [all that] gets media attention.
MF: Speaking as a person who’s acutely allergic to propaganda, I think there’s been a
lot of messy propaganda coming out of both
sides of the conflict. The way I can tell that
“Interview” continued on p. 22
15
Matriarchs in Rural Morocco
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HUSBAND
While studying abroad in Morocco, McNeill spent two weeks in Loutichina
speaking with women and their families as part of her research into how women
in this relatively conservative community dealt with suddenly inheriting a
position of increased responsibility and influence. Originally interested in how
authority in the home might spill over into the rest of
by Emily McNeill
society, she soon found that poverty and traditional
gender roles produced a situation far less romantic than she had imagined.
n the house of Fatna Elouafi,
the day starts early. Just before
six on an April morning, the
sun is still hidden behind the
foothills of the Middle Atlas Mountains.
Elouafi squats next to the fire in the kitchen
of her five-room adobe house. She is making
reif, a thin, oily bread and a breakfast staple
of Loutichina, a village just outside Boujad
in central Morocco. Elouafi’s 19-year-old
daughter Fouzia is awake as well. They
begin a day of household work that will
stretch past sunset until the last cup of
tea has been served. Then Fouzia will lay
out blankets and pillows on the floor for
herself, her mother, her nephew and her
two brothers.
For the women and girls of Loutichina,
every day goes something like this, but the
Elouafi women bear an extra burden. Fatna
Elouafi’s husband died eight years ago,
leaving her as the head of both the household
and the farm. Since then, as she puts it, she’s
had to be both a man and a woman.
The Elouafi family is one of at least 14
families in Loutichina which, due to death
or immigration, are headed by women. In
IN
a poor community, these households are
among the poorest, and in a society in which
women bear a disproportionate amount of
responsibility, these women are among the
hardest working.
****
Loutichina is a village in the Boukhrisse
Commune, about a 20 minute drive from
Boujad. The forest, which used to darken
the hills completely, has been made sparse by
decades of deforestation. What is not forest is
covered primarily in wheat, barley and endless
acres of wildflowers. One-story adobe houses
are scattered throughout the area, sometimes
standing alone and sometimes in groups of
two or more. There are two mosques, three
small shops and a school.
The population is poor. Most people
work in agriculture, growing wheat and
grazing sheep and goats. Due to climate
change, the area is fast becoming semi-arid.
Although this was a good year for farmers,
there have been droughts recently and there
is talk of encouraging the population to
grow alternative crops like olives, cacti and
medicinal plants.
Poverty and a lack of opportunities in the
16
Photos by Malika Heiller and Emily McNeill
village have led to significant migration.
Today, a number of houses stand empty, a
reminder of the families who have left for
the city. Some of these families come back
every so often to care for their crops, but
others are gone for good.
****
Sitting in the house of Abderrahim
Bghibgh, the sheik, or tribal chief, I
watch his mother make tea. Hajja, as she
is called in reference to her completion of
the pilgrimage to Mecca, pours herself a
sip, tastes it and drops in another chunk
of sugar. She pours tea back and forth
between the pot and a glass, mixing in
the sugar, then pours herself another sip.
At last it is ready. She raises the pot high,
letting the air between it and the glasses
cool the steaming liquid as it pours. She
fills five glasses and distributes them to me;
my translator, Latifah; Hajja’s two visiting
sisters and finally herself.
As we drink tea and snack on peanuts,
cookies and bread and butter, I talk with
the older women about Elouafi and the
other female heads of households in
Loutichina. A woman without a husband
is deprived of everything, Hajja says,
including happiness. They are very poor
and must work alone.
I ask whether they are respected. Of
course not, says Aicha Asaam, Hajja’s sister,
and a widow who lives alone. Latifah, a
young woman who teaches at a private
school in Boujad, explains to me that in
the countryside, a woman’s husband is
very much a part of her social status and
perception of self-worth. Her face is her
husband, she tells me.
These women are nothing without
husbands, Latifah says, because they had
nothing but husbands. If they were literate
or worked outside the home or had some
sort of skill, things would be different,
and perhaps they could earn the respect of
their community – and of themselves. For
now, though, they are at the bottom.
Later, walking down a dusty road in
the warm afternoon sun to visit two more
widows, I ask the sheik the same question.
He has a different answer. He respects
them, he said, peeling a grain of barley
and eating the soft white flesh. They take
care of their families, they work hard like
men and they have courage.
****
I came to Loutichina, without knowing
much about the village or these women,
looking for this courage – for female
agency in unexpected places. I came,
somewhat naively, looking for triumph
in the face of tragedy, for that something
– beauty perhaps – that is found in places
of struggle. I did find it in the courage
of which the sheik spoke. These women
know that they are on the bottom of the
social ladder, and they often feel hopeless.
Yet they plow through life anyway, feeding
their families, running a household,
sending their children to school.
But there is much more here than
some romanticized vision of female power
tucked away in a poor Islamic village.
Female-headed households are places of
female agency, yes, but in terms of what
these households say about rural Moroccan
society, and the place of women within it,
Researchers and
international
organizations have
pointed to the
undervaluation of
women’s work and the
inequality between
men and women in the
number of hours worked
as factors in the
feminization of poverty
and the subordinate
status of women.
that is not their dominant characteristic.
Poverty – a scarcity of time and money
– and traditional attitudes about the role
of women keep the authority that female
heads have within their households from
translating into influence within society or
the ability to change their condition.
****
Female-headed households in Loutichina
fall into one of two categories; households
headed by widows and households where a
husband has emigrated. Both categories are
becoming more prevalent in Morocco as
emigration increases, and widows become
more likely to live on their own as opposed
to joining their husbands’ families. In
Loutichina, as in Morocco as a whole,
widowhood is the more significant cause
of female headship. There are at least 12
households headed by widows and two
headed by women whose husbands have
emigrated. (There were no divorced female
heads, nor were there any who had never
been married. Women in these situations
nearly always live with their families.) What
is common among all the female heads of
households in Loutichina is the increased
responsibilities they bear since taking
control of their households. Regardless
of financial situation, life on a farm in
Loutichina requires long hours of work
that is often very physically demanding. For
women who are caring for young children,
the work load is even greater.
While women who become heads of
their households due to immigration face
many of the same challenges as widows,
they also have some clear advantages.
The two women in Loutichina whose
husbands had emigrated were better off
financially than the widows, according
to their own statements and those of the
sheik. Moulouda Aisam’s husband, who
works construction in France, sends back
2000 dirham every month, which she
says is sufficient to provide for her family.
Khadouj Kamili’s husband, who works
in agriculture in Spain, sends money
irregularly, but she estimated the amount
at 1000 DH every two months, which
she also said was sufficient. (Kamili’s
mother-in-law was present at the time
of the interview, and thus her responses
should be viewed with some skepticism, as
mothers-in-law have a significant degree
of power over daughters-in-law in rural
Moroccan society.)
Their vision of the future is also
brighter than the widows’. Whether or not
their husbands will indeed bring them to
Europe, both Aisam and Kamili said they
were happy that their husbands emigrated,
partly because they hoped it would mean
they would also be able to emigrate. While
many of the widows in Loutichina see no
opportunity for their situations to improve,
Aisam and Kamili, whether realistically or
not, believe this opportunity exists.
The widows face a much more
challenging situation. Most have very
limited income from selling carpets, goats
or chickens and, when the crop is good,
a little wheat. Because their friends and
family tend to also be very poor, most of
the widows do not have any regular source
of assistance. They must simply try to make
17
ends meet with the little that they have.
****
Tajenia Bakhtowi is one of the poorest
people in Loutichina. She lives in a small
house behind a patch of cacti, next to the
main road that runs through the village.
She is a petite woman who is quick to
give affection and just as eager to receive
it. Bakhtowi is a mother of three. Her
husband, a man much older than she, died
8 years ago. Even before he passed away,
she was responsible for most of the work.
Still, since he died, she’s felt more alone
and more vulnerable. He used to help her
with their problems, she says, but
now she has no one.
If her husband used to
provide some companionship
and support, he was never able
to provide enough income. They
lived in poverty when he was alive,
and they live in poverty now. Her
income comes from selling carpets
(about 400 DH a month – roughly
$40 US) and a little money from
looking after someone else’s goats.
It’s not enough, she says. Not
enough to give her daughters an
adequate diet, to buy clothing or
to have their own goats. While
many homes in Loutichina have
solar panels now to power electric
lights and black-and-white TVs,
Bakhtowi’s does not.
I’m not proud of myself,
Bakhtowi tells me. I’m facing
problems, especially financial
problems. Sometimes I don’t
like myself, because I wake up
and don’t know how to deal
with my situation.
****
Just down the street from Bakhtowi,
Suma Barazowi lives in a house with her
son, daughter-in-law and grandson. Her
husband died 14 years ago, leaving her
to care for the farm and three children
under the age of ten. On a warm, April
afternoon, Barazowi, the sheik and I sit on
handmade carpets on the floor, drinking
tea and eating bread and butter. The sheik
and Barazowi have been talking for awhile
in dialect that I don’t understand. Now,
he turns his attention to me, and his voice
gets softer and more serious. He speaks
slowly so I can understand, and, though
I don’t catch every word, the gist of it
18
is clear. It’s a theme he’s repeated a few
times today, as we’ve traveled from house
to house visiting the women. What I see
around me, Barazowi has made for herself
– the carpets, the bread, her home. She has
no money, he says, and no one to help her
but Allah.
Everyone in Loutichina would be quick
to agree that Barazowi works hard to care
for her home and her family. But the way
they view that work says much about the
status of women in this community, both
economic and social. Next to “occupation”
on Barazowi’s government-issued ID card
Photo by Malika Heiller
is the Arabic word bedoun, meaning
“without.” The same is true for the ID
card of Barazowi’s daughter-in-law. On
her son Mohammed’s ID Card, though,
his occupation is listed as felaha, “farmer.”
In reality, the family shares the agricultural
responsibilities. In terms of hours
and nature of work, Barazowi and her
daughter-in-law are farmers, too. But they
protest when this apparent inconsistency
is brought to their attention. Like their
government, they see Mohammed as a
farmer and themselves as unemployed.
****
According to the gendered division of
labor in Loutichina, women’s responsibilities
encompass a wider range of tasks than men’s.
Women and girls are involved in almost all
agricultural work, from caring for livestock
to grazing sheep and goats to cutting and
transporting wildflowers and grass for
animal feed. In fact, according to statistics
from a 1995 report by the FAO, more than
50 percent of agricultural work in Morocco
is completed by women. But while women
share agricultural responsibilities with
men, they are exclusively responsible for
household tasks like cooking,
washing and weaving.
The inequality in the
amount of work done by men
and women in Loutichina is
part of a global phenomenon.
Researchers and international
organizations have pointed to
the undervaluation of women’s
work and the inequality
between men and women in
the number of hours worked
as factors in the feminization
of poverty and the subordinate
status of women.
Women throughout the
world work longer hours
than men, and their work
disproportionately falls in
sectors that do not provide
economic compensation, yet are
vital to the survival of families
and communities. According
to the United Nations Human
Development Report of 1995,
women in developing countries
shoulder 53 percent of the work
burden, based on hours worked
in productive activities. (Productive
activities are defined as distinguishable
from personal activities, such as eating,
which cannot be delegated to a third
party.) Women spend 66 percent of these
hours in non-market oriented activities,
meaning in work that is not economically
compensated and is not acknowledged
in statistics of national income. If their
unpaid, productive work were to be valued
at prevailing wages, it would account for
$11 trillion of global output, out of the
officially estimated $23 trillion. Women’s
work is significant (and undervalued) in
market-oriented activities, too. Globally,
wages for women remain lower than those there were, these women don’t have extra shoulder. Rabea lets herself disappear into
of men doing identical work.
time to devote to study. We’d rather work the space where she sits by the door.
It is no surprise, therefore, that heading than read, Bakhtowi says.
In a situation that often appears to her
a household in an area like Loutichina
As it is, these women feel they have few to be hopeless, Bakhtowi places her hope in
does not give women greater status. If the options to climb out of poverty. To pursue her children. The greatest expectations rest
involvement of women in economically any other economic activity takes capital on Fatimah. In Bakhtowi’s eyes, she is their
productive activities were the primary that they don’t have.
ticket out of poverty and the only chance
determining factor in their status, then
So what chance do they have to they have. If she can succeed at school
women in developing countries would improve their lives? Their children. For and get a good job, she could bring her
already have a status equal to or greater Tajenia, everything is riding on her oldest family to Beni Mellal. But while Fatimah
than men’s. Yet it is not just the quantity of daughter, who is studying in Beni Mellal. and Nebila represent possibility and hope,
work that a woman does, but also the value If she succeeds, they have a chance. If not, Rabea represents the reality of the present.
given to that work by society and herself life will stay pretty much the same.
She is not in a position to invent herself in
that determines her status. Even though
****
the way that her sisters are. Maybe that’s
women like Barazowi are taking on more
Rabea, Bakhtowi’s middle daughter, why around me, she seemed to let herself
responsibilities, their contributions are not brings in a tray of tea to supplement the fade into the background.
recognized economically and socially
****
in urban areas of
and do not provide an opportunity Ta ble 1 : Illiteracy
Girls in rural Morocco are much
(% )
for them to improve their socio- Morocco by age and sex
more likely to go to school than
Age Group
Males
Females
economic status.
their mothers were. According to
****
2004 statistics compiled by the
10-14 years
2.8
4.2
While the work that female heads 15-24 years
Haut Commissariat au Plan, 30.6
8.4
18.5
of households do in Loutichina 25-34 years
percent of 10-14 year-old girls
13.7
32.9
is economically and statistically
in rural Morocco are illiterate,
35-49 years
23.2
52.0
undervalued, they do not have
compared to 81.4 percent of 35-49
50 years and
43.8
81.1
the opportunity to pursue other,
year-old women and 98.5 percent
more lucrative economic activities. older
of women aged 50 and older. Yet
18.8
39.5
Much of the reason for this is a Total
these statistics still put rural girls
scarcity of time and money, but it
behind rural boys (15.9 percent
is also because they lack marketable Table 2: Illiteracy in rural areas of
illiteracy for 10-14 year-olds) and
age and sex (%)
skills. The women of Loutichina are Morocco by
urban boys and girls (2.8 percent
Males
Females
experiencing the consequences of a Age Group
and 4.2 percent, respectively) in
15.9
30.6
way of thinking that, in this village, 10-14 years
terms of illiteracy.
31.6
63.7
is just starting to change. They were 15-24 years
The first time I visited
raised to have a family, not to study 25-34 years
Loutichina,
with a group of 26
43.4
81.4
or to be economically independent. 35-49 years
other
American
students, we had
63.6
94.2
(Fatna Elouafi’s father even paid a 50 years and
a
discussion
with
a small, multi78.3
98.5
school headmaster not to accept older
generational group of women.
her.) Yet widows like Bakhtowi
The only ones who had been to
Total
46.0
74.5
and Elouafi, whose husbands were
school were the youngest. The
decades older than they, were
older women who had not sent
married into situations that were Compiled by the Haut Commissariat auPlan,
their daughters to school said
?option=com that, if they were raising daughters
destined to make them widows. 2004,http://www.hcp.ma/index.php
Brought up to be wives, they were _content& task=view& id=320& Itemid=68
in today’s cultural environment,
soon left without husbands in a
they would send them to school.
society where economic and social security tajine of chicken, green olives and French
Although sending girls to school is much
is located within marriage.
fries. While Bakhtowi’s eldest daughter, more culturally acceptable now than it was
Would their lives be better if they 15-year-old Fatimah, is away at school in when Elouafi’s father bribed a headmaster
were educated? According to them, there Beni Mellel, and her youngest daughter, 9- to keep her out, poverty sometimes makes
is no question that they would. Many year-old Nebila, goes to a school down the educating girls impossible. Illiteracy and
of the women regret that they were not street, Rabea stays at home to help with schooling statistics and my observations
educated. As Elouafi put it, it would have the housework and look after the goats. in Loutichina suggest that, in households
been better to study than to marry. But, She is quieter than Nebila and doesn’t where children need to be kept at home,
for the most part, they feel that it is too eat with us but rather sits off to the side girls are still much more likely to be kept
late to pursue an education. While in drinking a glass of tea. Nebila is shy, but out of school than their brothers. While
theory, they would like to take a literacy flirtatious, catching my gaze for a second illiteracy rates for rural girls are lower in
course, there are none offered. Even if and then burying her face in her mother’s younger age brackets, the rates for girls
19
20
remain roughly twice those of boys. In
Boukhrisse Commune, 10.4 percent of
females over the age of 10 have attended
primary, college or secondary school
compared with 31.2 percent of boys.
Because female-headed households
are more likely to be poor, daughters in
female-headed households are particularly
vulnerable to illiteracy and a lack of
education. In turn, the education (or
lack thereof ) of girls in Loutichina will
affect the circumstances of future femaleheaded households. If current trends
continue, the number of female-headed
households in Loutichina can be expected
to increase. Girls like Fouzia and Rabea
could someday find themselves heading
households, and their lack of education
will be a disadvantage as it has been for
their mothers.
****
Although children in female-headed
households are vulnerable to poverty, they
also may benefit from the tendency of
women to invest more resources in their
children than their male counterparts. In
Loutichina, it is clear that their children
are what female heads of households value
most. I am never proud of myself, Elouafi
told me, only of my children. When they
are happy and well-fed, I am happy. This
idea was repeated by every one of the
mothers I interviewed. Happiness and
satisfaction are found not in their own
well-being, but in that of their children.
This tendency of women to focus
resources on their children has led a
number of researchers and international
organizations to conclude that targeting
women is one of the most efficient
approaches to development. Some specific
approaches to development have also been
shown to be more effective with women
than with men. Microcredit organizations,
for example, have found that women are
much more likely than men to pay back
loans. The prevalence of female-headed
households, and the fact that their number
is increasing, is in itself a reason for the
international community, and researchers
and development organizations in
particular, to focus on women.
****
Both the social and economic
undervaluation of women’s work and the
inequality in education between boys
and girls are symptoms of a patriarchal
system that, in Morocco, has recently
started to be challenged more fiercely
and effectively. The past few decades
have brought increasing opportunities to
women in Morocco and worldwide. In
Morocco, women are now represented in
Parliament, in business and in academia.
The 2003 family law reform significantly
improved women’s legal status within
their families. But while the gains made in
women’s rights in Morocco are significant,
they are not universal. Morocco’s most
vulnerable women, those in poverty and
especially the poor in rural areas, have in
many ways been left behind.
Why, in Morocco and around the world,
have poor women missed out on the benefits
of women’s advancement? Part of the answer
Poverty – a scarcity of
time and money – and
traditional attitudes
about the role of women
keep the authority that
female heads have within
their households from
translating into influence
within society or the
ability to change their
condition.
lies in the nature of poverty. A scarcity of
resources – including money, education or
other skills, and time – leaves little room
for change. To change from a subsistence
lifestyle requires a surplus of some kind,
whether it be a surplus of capital or of time.
Women in Loutichina have no extra time
or money with which to take advantage
of increasing opportunities within their
society. Even though today Morocco offers
more opportunities to women than ever
before, the poorest women are unable to
take advantage of them.
The relative isolation of rural society
also prevents rural women from benefiting
from advances in women’s status. In urban
areas, vulnerable women, including female
heads of households, have greater access to
services that can improve their situations,
such as literacy or job training. They also
have access, although limited according to
economic circumstances and education, to
a job market that is steadily opening up
to women. The women of Loutichina, on
the other hand, have access to neither job
training nor the job market.
Women in urban areas in Morocco
also benefit from a cultural environment
that is more accepting of independence
in women. There are a number of factors
contributing to the cultural divide between
rural and urban areas in Morocco, not the
least of which is poverty itself. Poverty,
along with geographic isolation, limits the
contact that rural areas have with people
and organizations that are embracing new
ideas about the role of women.
***
Night falls on Loutichina, and the sky
is a magnificent dome of stars. Outside the
sheik’s door, there is no artificial light to
overwhelm the heavens’ brilliance. All is
quiet. The world appears at peace.
Inside, light from a kerosene lamp
floods the room where we sleep. Bouchra,
the sheik’s 14-year-old daughter, is finally
done with her evening chores, after
spending all day outside with the goats.
She leans on a pillow against the wall,
watching an Egyptian movie on the blackand-white TV. Next to her, her brother
Hicham, two years her junior, reads his
French textbook. The sheik lies with his
head on a pillow watching the TV.
The clock strikes 11:30. The sheik turns
to me. Do you want to sleep now? I nod.
Sunrise is just about six hours away. I’ll sleep
through it, but I know Bouchra will be up
soon after. We stand up. Bouchra takes my
arm and a flashlight, and we step outside
together into the arresting beauty of a clear
night in the countryside. I brush my teeth
in the yard as she waits with the light.
Inside, she and the younger of the
sheik’s two wives spread out homemade
carpets and blankets on the floor. Bouchra
waits until everyone is settled. Then she
turns out the light. •
Emily McNeill is a junior journalism who
never once got sick of couscous during her time
abroad. E-mail her about it at emcneil1@
ithaca.edu.
Part of Montaner-Vargas’s job at Catholic Charities involves
working with the local refugee families to help them settle
into the community by guiding them through the process of
obtaining social services and legal help.
More importantly, she introduces the families to vital
organizations in the area that can better help them assimilate
within the community. By introducing them to the English
as a Second Language program and local agencies such as
the Tompkins County Workers’ Center and its Living Wages
program, Catholic Charities helps new families learn more
about their rights as employees and citizens.
Still, both she and Turkon believe a center working in
cooperation with the local immigrant and refugee population
would be the most beneficial to the local community.
In the past, Turkon has worked with Sudanese refugees
in a settlement center in Arizona; he is currently working
with a Sudanese community in Syracuse, New York. His
specific experiences with the “Lost Boys” of Sudan, who are
unaccompanied minor refugees, reinforce the difficult life of
migrant communities.
Because of ongoing civil unrest in Sudan, specifically the
genocidal armed conflict in the western region of Darfur, these
young orphaned refugees were forced to flee their country. In
2000 and 2001, the U.S. welcomed 3,800 Lost Boys into its
borders through a lottery system. Today, this number continues
to grow. Many Lost Boys have settled into numerous centers
established for them in over 30 U.S. states.
The Lost Boys of Syracuse are currently without a center.
These boys, along with the several hundred other Lost Boys
displaced throughout the U.S., have been relocated to an area
that lacks a community center and are often dispersed amongst
church-affiliated humanitarian groups.
While Turkon acknowledges the honorable efforts
of these organizations, he fears that without a central
population which houses both the youngsters and their
elders, these boys will continue to remain disconnected
from the rest of their community.
Today, a group of organizations in Tompkins County
are collaborating to keep this problem from worsening.
Joining forces, groups including the Tompkins County
Workers’ Center, Tompkins/Tioga Catholic Charities,
Interfaith Alliance, the Latino Civic Association, the Ithaca
Asian American Association, and private contributors such
as David Turkon have prepared and proposed to the local
community a new settlement center: the Samaritan Center
Resettlement Program.
The proposal states that the combined resources from the
contributing partners will aid both immigrants and refugees in
legal help, language education, social services related to basic
and medical needs, and finding employment.
Right now, estimated funding for the three-year pilot
period stemming from September 2006 to September 2009
is $100,000. While all the mechanical needs are in place, one
problem remains – funding.
Perhaps due to recent uneasiness over illegal immigration,
companies have been slow to fund the Center. While major
industries and corporations in the area have strayed away from
providing fiscal aid to the Samaritan Center, the members of
this project are not giving up. By working from the bottom
up and getting the word out through local bake sales and
fundraisers sponsored by the anthropology department,
dedicated advocates like Turkon and Montaner-Vargas are
determined to work toward public support for a new refugee
and immigrant center in Ithaca.
Being a naturalized
citizen to the U.S. herself,
Montaner-Vargas hopes the
citizens of Ithaca will commit
to accepting immigrants and
refugees in the community.
“This country was founded
by immigrants. If you talk to
almost anyone, you find they
are not too far removed – we
are all in the same boat.” •
Meagan Murray is a junior
journalism
major
who
smuggles illegal immigrants
across the Canadian border in
the back of her 1973 Gremlin.
Email her at mmurray1@
ithaca.edu.
21
propaganda is propaganda is because it’s always not focusing on one’s own behavior or
one’s own nation’s behavior, but the other,
and saying, “Look how terrible they are, and
look at what they have done.” I had a revelatory understanding a few years ago that it is
wrong for me to talk about, “Oh, those nasty Palestinians and look at what they have
done.” The mistake that Israelis make or
Jews make, the mistake that Arabs or Muslims or Palestinians make, is to focus on the
behavior of the other and complain about
how terrible [it] is.
I realized a couple of years ago that the
only thing that I as a Jew, as a Zionist, or if
I were an Israeli, as an Israeli, have control
over is our own worldview, our own philosophy, and our own behavior – our own moral
stance. And there’s no way that it’s my job to
change the mind of the other side, because
I don’t have control over what the other side
believes or thinks or acts on. That was the
mistake of the occupation. The [Israeli] government announced shortly after the war [in
1967], “We’ll give land back.” And the response at Khartoum was, “No negotiations,
no recognition, no peace” – the three no’s
that Israel has cited, and Israel said at that
time, “We don’t have a partner. We can’t give
the land back without any guarantees.” Ben
Gurion [Israel’s first prime minister] came
out of retirement and said, “Screw that.” Let
them say no all they want. Just give the land
back as a gesture of good will, basically because if you don’t, sometime in the future
this occupation will hang as an albatross
around the neck of the state and completely
compromise our morality as a state. Sure
enough, that’s what happened. The nation
22
succumbed to the sin of pride. And I have
no doubt that the nation of Israel, the Jewish
people, have atonement to do. To use religious language, they have repentance to do
and they have atonement to make for that
terrible mistake they made, thinking there
could ever be such a thing as a humane occupation of other people.
BH: A number of events this week have
pointed to the possibility of renewed negotiations between Israel and Palestine. Do you
think the time is right for these to begin, and
what do you think are the key steps to making effective negotiation possible?
MF: From where I’m coming from, the time
is always right. It should never be said that
conditions aren’t right. If you wait for conditions to be right, they’re going to be waiting
another hundred years.
OB: I would second that. The time is now.
If people sit around thinking it could be better tomorrow or the day after, it will never
happen. They’ll want the imaginary, perfect
scenario, so I think it behooves everyone to
really make it happen.
MF: And it is really the case that after a time
of intense warfare and conflict is exactly the
time when negotiations can begin. Everybody’s weary, everybody’s hurt, everybody’s
spent, so now let’s talk.
BH: Do you have any final thoughts?
MF: In some ways, the human situation is
hopeless. But in other ways, there’s always
hope. To cling to hopelessness is to cling
to despair and to open the door to doubt
and anger, so I think that people of goodwill always have to come from the place of
hope that our brothers and sisters in this
world will every once in awhile open their
eyes and really look at what’s there. If they
would really see what’s there, there would
be very little room left for conflict to be the
dominant mode of human behavior in the
world. I live with hope, and we all should,
I think, to make ourselves available to the
moment when there’s an opening and we
can seize that opening to reach out across
the divide and embrace the other and know
the other as ourselves, so that an end can be
put to violence.
OB: I think that a lot of the violence that
we see, not only in this conflict, but I would
say in most, if not all, the conflicts in the
world, have discernible causes. It’s not some
mystical, faith issue that goes back; there are
discernible reasons on the ground that have
to be negotiated about, and compromises
have to be made. But I think that message
of hope is wonderful, because so much of
the violence and animosity that comes out is
because of the lack of hope, which is despair.
There’s this desperation, and people lash out
in whatever ways, be it in ethnic conflicts, or
in political conflicts. So I think it’s a wonderful, life-affirming message to end on, that
people of goodwill and people of conscience
need to keep working to keep that hope in
the world. •
MINISTRY OF COOL
My Favorite
Martian Homosexual
H omosexuals!
It remains a controversial word,
no matter how far as a society the
United States likes to think it has come.
Still things
By Douglas Evasick
are much better
now for gays and lesbians than they were
only forty, thirty, even ten years ago.
As hard as it is to believe, there is an
entire generation of people living today
who were young at a time when being a
homosexual was considered a disease. For
the most part it was never discussed in
public life and when it was, it was never
in a positive light. However, television
consistently
has been an accurate
reflection on this society’s attitudes
and beliefs toward the gay community.
Despite what conservative activists say,
TV is actually more conservative than
liberal; conservative advertising dollars
drive the revenues for most of these shows
and their parenting stations.
Despite the fact that TV has been
around since 1939, gays were not
portrayed at all on sitcoms for over 20
years. During the ultra-conservative ’50s,
television wouldn’t touch the subject of
homosexuality with a ten-foot pole, and
by the ’60s sitcoms were still ignoring
gays and lesbians as best they could.
Stephen Tropiano, a gay man himself who
teaches courses on the history of gays on
television, says that in ’60s sitcoms “there
were no gay men or lesbians living next
door to the Ricardos and the Kramdens,
or waiting to be rescued on ‘Gilligan’s
Island.’ Gays were invisible and gays
had to accept it, because no one was
sympathetic toward their cries.”
The ’70s can be viewed as Suzanna
Danuta Walters puts it: “the medieval
1970s.” A lesbian herself, Walters came
out during the decade and remembers
the ’70s as still being heavily steeped
in homophobia. She remembers losing
friends, being told she could never have
children, being taunted and learning to
expect less from life than straights. More
importantly she remembers not having
very much to connect with in popular
culture. There were “no advertisements
that featured gays, no gay TV stars,
few out gay actors…no gay glossy
magazines.” As for TV, it appeared to be
just as desolate when it came to featuring
gays. “I can remember vividly scouring
the TV guide for any television program
that might give me some indication that
I existed.” While African Americans and
feminists seemed to finally be gaining
ground, it appeared as if gays were still
left behind.
Change came slowly.. Not surprisingly,
the always-groundbreaking “All in the
Family” became the first sitcom ever to
not only feature a gay character, but tackle
homophobia and misconceptions of gays
as well. During a particular episode, a
friend of Mike and Gloria’s (the sonin-law and daughter of renowned bigot
Archie Bunker) invite their friend Roger
over for lunch. Roger, who behaves as the
stereotypical gay man does, becomes the
focus of Archie’s intolerance. Through
various discriminatory jokes and
denigrating slurs, Archie seeks to make
Roger feel as unwelcome as possible.
The plot twists, and it turns out that
not is only is Roger not gay, but Archie’s
bar buddy Steve, a ruggedly handsome,
former all-American football player, is.
The moral-of-the-story point was clearly
stated in the title of the episode, “Judging
Books By Covers.” In the end, while
Archie is shocked and surprised by this
turn of fate, he never grows or matures
as a person, instead remaining a meanspirited bigot throughout the rest of the
series’ run. What is important, though, is
that this was not only the first television
depiction of a gay man on a sitcom, but
it was also the first time an openly gay
character was actually handled kindly
and with some respect by the writers
and, therefore, the characters. That was
revolutionary enough for the times.
A liberally-minded spin-off from
“All in the Family” appeared soon after,
starring Beatrice Arthur of “Golden
Girls” fame. “Maude” dealt with many
controversial topics, such as abortion,
so it didn’t take long for homosexuality
to come up. In a 1974 episode entitled
“Maude’s New Friend,” her new friend
Barry is gay. They enjoy hanging out, but
Barry calls Maude out on the fact that
while she is tolerant of gays, she might not
be too accepting. Maude is angry with
Barry, but accidentally calls him Mary in
23
MOC • MOC • MOC • MOC • MOC • MOC • MOC • MOC• MOC • MOC • MOC
the heat of the moment. She realizes she
does have certain assumptions and learns
to get over them.
A more controversial episode came in
1977, even using a controversial term for
its title, “The Gay Bar.” Maude’s neighbor,
Dr. Arthur Harmon, is totally against the
opening of a gay bar in town, because
he feels it is disgusting and would taint
the entire community. Dr. Harmon’s
claims against gays are just as ignorant
and hateful as Archie Bunker’s were, even
though, as a doctor, he is expected to be
more educated. By the end of the episode
the gay bar opens, but only because it is
built outside the town’s boundaries and
therefore can’t legally be stopped.
What’s important to note about these
shows is that while the gay characters
might be given respect by the writers, they
receive terrible treatment and judgment
from many of the shows’ characters. Also,
while these shows purported to teach
audiences a lesson about tolerance of gays,
it doesn’t seem that the people (Archie,
Arthur and others) learn anything at all
— they are allowed to remain the same
and keep their prejudices.
However, there was one occurrence
during the early ’70s worth mentioning
where a gay character being gay was
not seen as a problem. “The Mary Tyler
Moore Show” was the first show to feature
a single career woman as the lead of her
own sitcom, and Mary’s show included
her single working gal pals, such as Rhoda
and Phyllis. In an early episode, before
both characters spun off onto their own
shows, Phyllis tried to set Mary up with
her brother Ben. Instead, it appears as if
Rhoda and Ben are hitting it off, though
it is later revealed that Ben is actually
gay. For the first time, being gay doesn’t
offend any of the characters involved. It’s
also the first time where someone being
gay is not considered wrong, or even all
that different.
As the ’80s got under way, gays
continued to make advancements on
television sitcoms. Unlike the ’70s,
however, where the steps were substantial,
the ’80s saw only baby steps. AIDS became
the new topic for dealing with gays, and
the center of medical shows and made-forTV movies like 1985s “An Early Frost.”
Sitcoms tried to avoid the topic, since
it wasn’t something that could generate
24
laughs. Instead, they kept on using the
same tired one-episode plot devices for
dealing with gays, such as mistaken identity
— coming out and pretending to be gay to
get something that for some reason cannot
be achieved while being straight.
The smaller progress that marked
the ’80s came in other ways as well.
One example is that many new sitcoms
featured casts full of women, such as
“Kate and Allie,” “The Golden Girls,”
and “Designing Women.” In fact many
viewers read the shows as very lesbian
themed from the start, since they featured
females living together in close quarters.
They also all had very direct episodes that
involved one-shot lesbian appearances.
In “Golden Girls,” a former college
roommate of Rose comes to visit after her
lover dies. She develops a crush on Rose
without Rose suspecting a thing, since she
has no idea that her former roommate is
a lesbian. Rose’s eventual realization and
response is not of disgust like Archie and
Arthur, but one of compassion bordering
on complete understanding. “I don’t
understand these kind of feelings,” she
says. “But if I did understand, if I was,
you know, like you, I would be very
flattered and proud you thought of
me that way.” She shows that she still
cares for her friend, even if she doesn’t
completely understand her lifestyle.
“Roseanne,” a show that broke family
traditions by featuring a strong female
lead, helped bridge the conservative
’80s with the so-called Gay Nineties. It
chronicled the day-to-day goings-on of
what looked like a real-life, blue-collar
family, and it would go on to depict
lesbians and gays in ways that had never
been seen on network television. The
real life Roseanne said, “My show seeks
to portray various slices of life, and
homosexuals are a reality.” During its
final season, Roseanne’s mother came out
of the closet at a Thanksgiving dinner
and admitted that every time she had
to have sex with Roseanne’s father, she
had to look at a Playboy magazine in the
supermarket beforehand. This revelation
made “Roseanne” the first show ever to
feature a lesbian grandmother.
The show was breaking a lot of ground
for gays and lesbians even before granny
came out. Roseanne also had a boss
named Leon at the diner, who happened
“I’m gay, the
character’s
gay. It’s just too
controversial.
Nobody wants to
deal with it.”
Ellen Degeneres
CMOC • MOC • MOC • MOC • MOC • MOC • MOC • MOC• MOC • MOC • MOC
to be gay. He also didn’t fit the stereotype
of a young and sexually attractive gay
man, and he was eventually shown being
married to his companion (in and of itself
not a common occurrence on sitcoms).
Another cast member who came onto
the show in 1991 was Sandra Bernhard,
who played Nancy, an outspoken
bisexual comedian. She came out of
the closet on the show, and when she
invited Roseanne to come with her to a
gay bar in the episode “Don’t Ask, Don’t
Tell,” the show opened itself up to lots
of controversy. During Roseanne’s trip
to the bar she ends up kissing another
woman, which forced Roseanne, as well
as her husband Dan, to look at their own
prejudices. Dan admits that he likes the
idea of two women kissing, but
the thought of two men disgusts
him. Roseanne is challenged
for her more accepting views
on gays by Nancy, the woman
she kissed, who states, “And
we’re supposed to admire you
because you went to a gay bar?
I’m supposed to think you’re cool
because you have gay friends?” In
the end, though, “Roseanne” was
a smash hit sitcom that helped
bring out more down-to-earth
gay characterizations than ever
before. As a result, it helped kickstart the Gay Nineties sitcom
style.
Another standard sitcom dressed up in
’90s zeitgeist was Michael J. Fox’s “Spin
City,” which aired in 1996. A show
about a mayor and his wacky workers
and public relations people, “Spin City”
was groundbreaking for gays because
it featured the first continuing AfricanAmerican gay man on a sitcom. Carter
Heywood was hired by the mayor in
reaction to a homophobic comment the
mayor made towards a TV reporter who
had asked him if he was going to march
in the gay pride parade. Carter was a
prime example of how far gays had come
in sitcoms by the ’90s. He was gay, but
not a stereotype. And Carter being black
just made it sweeter.
But when it came to Gay Nineties
sitcoms, the climax was most defiantly
the coming out of Ellen in 1997. When
the show first came on the air in 1994
as a mid-season replacement, its premise
was similar to hits like “Friends” and
“Seinfeld,” with Ellen and her friends
hanging out and not doing much
more. By 1996 there was word that
Ellen might be coming out and it soon
snowballed into a huge media frenzy.
Ellen appeared everywhere from “Oprah”
to Time magazine declaring that she was
a lesbian. It of course all lead up to the
big coming-out episode, strangely titled
“The Puppy Episode.” Airing on April
30, 1997, it was viewed by over 36.2
million Americans. The plot revolved
around Ellen reuniting with an old friend
and meeting his new co-worker Susan,
played by Laura Dern. Ellen is attracted
and this upset many critics and viewers of
the show, who were not quite ready for a
sitcom to be all gay all the time. The series
also had to put up warning labels and a
rating of TV 14, for any episode that
showed acts of intimacy between Ellen
and another woman. Ellen complained
about the network’s uneasiness for dealing
with the show on Entertainment Tonight,
saying, “I’m gay, the character’s gay. It’s
just too controversial, nobody wants to
deal with it.” ABC President Robert A.
Iger mirrored Ellen’s statement by saying
the show “became a program about a
character who was gay every single week,
and…that was too much for people.”
These feelings were reflected in the show’s
ratings, which dropped drastically during
the fifth season and by the spring
of 1998 people already knew the
show would get the ax.
That “Ellen’s” cancellation
came so quickly after its star’s
coming out just proved that
people were still not ready for
a gay to star in the leading role
of a mainstream sitcom. They
needed their gay people to be
supporting characters, whose
sex lives were still not discussed
during the 22 minutes of laughs.
“Ellen” proved to be the greatest
indicator for the Gay Nineties
hypocrisy. Basically, society will
accept gays, but they don’t want to have
to deal with gays all the time — especially
on the sitcom.
In the fallout from the coming out of
Ellen and her show’s cancellation, a flood
of gay oriented shows debuted between
1998 and 2001, “Normal, Ohio,” “Some
of my Best Friends,” and Ellen’s new
show, aptly titled, “The Ellen Show.”
All of them were canceled as quickly as
they appeared. Yet one show that came
out the year of Ellen losing her show not
only remained on the air, but became
a critically acclaimed, Emmy-award
winning ratings smash, that would prove
to be the brightest beacon of light for gays
on sitcoms and for the mainstreaming of
gay culture in general. Featuring two gay
men opposite two straight women in the
four lead roles, “Will & Grace” actually
became a hit by not taking too many
Existance was limited
to 22 minutes an
episode... Next week the
fag would be gone and
all was forgotten.
to Susan, but once Susan asks if Ellen is
a lesbian, Ellen becomes defensive and
backs off. But she eventually realizes
that she is in fact a lesbian and comes out
to Susan and, mistakenly, everyone else
at an airport by revealing the news over
the airport loudspeaker. The episode was
immediately recognized as a milestone,
not only for television, but for the gay
community as well.
Of course there were critics of Ellen’s
coming out including, many right-wing
organizations who blasted the show and
its network ABC’s approach to “familyfriendly programming.” Yet, for the most
part season four of the series ended with
great success. It would be the fifth season
that trouble would rear its ugly head.
The fifth season didn’t put Ellen back
in the closet. In fact, she started dating
other woman and lived a gay lifestyle,
25
“My show seeks to portray various slices of
life, and homosexuals are a reality.”
Roseanne Arnold
risks, even if gayness did lie at the heart
of the show.
The four main characters are Will
Truman and Grace Addler and their
obnoxious friends, Jack McFarland and
Karen Walker. Despite being a gay man,
Will is desexualized and made more
masculine than gay. He also yearns for
a stable relationship and is not extremely
sexually active. His characterization has
been seen by critics as a bid to make Will
appeal to heterosexual America. Jack on
the other hand is the exact opposite: he
is the sissy and campy gay stereotype
who can’t get enough of men. The
writers give him
three-dimensional
development, but
he’s so gay
26
that people don’t relate to Jack as much
as they laugh at him. Homophobia and
heterosexual stereotypes against gays are
still present, however they are used for
laughs by the gay leads.
The show never lets its gay men stray
far from their relationships with their
female companions. There is never any
gay sex shown or implied during a scene,
and very few homosexual kisses. Yet,
Grace has been with lots of men, and has
been shown kissing them, as well as being
intimate with them in bed. The show
once again proves that gay equality is for
white men. There are usually not many
other gays shown, and when they are they
are actually stereotypes and are therefore
ridiculed on the show (shockingly, by
the gay characters). When an Asian
gay man is shown with Jack on
the show, Jack says, “Look how
funny he talks!” In another
episode featuring lesbians,
they are the stereotyped
ugly lesbians who are fat,
wear flannel, and, as a
result, are made fun of by
Jack throughout the episode. What “Will
& Grace” proves is that while the show is
progress, it is certainly not perfection.
With “Will & Grace” off the air, the
future of gays on sitcoms is uncertain,
a situation further complicated by the
uncertain future of the sitcom itself.
Most of the big sitcoms from the past
ten years, “Seinfeld,” “Friends,” “Frasier,”
and “Everybody Loves Raymond,” have
all gone off the air, and nothing has really
risen to replace them. In fact, “Will &
Grace” was one of the last new sitcoms
to really break out. Reality TV is the
wave of the future, and, for better and for
worse gays have been integrated. Many
have been the stars of shows like “Queer
Eye For the Straight Guy” and “Boy
Meets Boy.” Even if sitcoms go by the
wayside, gays will live on through various
other TV shows. But to think things
can’t get any better is preposterous. Just
as minorities are lacking from sitcoms,
minority gays are scarce as well. There has
yet to be a successful mainstream sitcom
on network TV that mainly features
gay characters, with straight characters
regulated to side roles.
Still, from
starting as one shot appearances with
Archie Bunker slinging slurs at them, to
leading a show with a female companion,
gays have made increases in visibility and
acceptance in not only sitcoms, but in
American culture as well. All one can
hope, and more importantly work for, is
a future that is paved with tolerance and
acceptance in all forms of media. •
Douglas Evasick is a junior journalism
major who apparently watches way too much
TV. E-mail him about it at devasick1@
ithaca.edu.
Raw from the Saw
Richard Buckner
Meadow
(Merge, 2006)
You learn a lot driving across America. At
least that’s what we believe. Post-Kerouac,
the drive for manifest destiny transformed
(for the sane) into a drive for self-discovery, found only after a supposedly unique
experience surveying the barely populated
rural expanses and grimy crime-ridden
urban centers of “America the Beautiful.”
The myth arrogantly proposes an equal exchange between understanding and tourism: that momentary witness is enough to
imbue a lifetime of understanding, a lasting
salvation from the mundanity of New England or California or the Mid-West.
On Meadow, Richard Buckner doesn’t
make claims to conquest or salvation. The
fractured phrases of Buckner’s baritone
immerse us in swirling poetry that flows
through scenarios of heartbreak, regret,
loss, and, sometimes, hope. The stories are
rarely explicit, Buckner rarely finishes a
sentence, instead painting circles of dense
emotion illuminated by melodic phrasing
and twisted syntax.
Richard Buckner consistently rises above
his “alt-country” tag, delving honestly into
the nuances of relationships with painful
accuracy. These songs are where Richard
Buckner exorcises the guilt, frailty and endless failure of all humans, especially himself.
Richard Buckner reads his script and eats
the apple every time. And when he drives
by a diner called the Second Chance he
knows, there are no second chances — only
in music. •
Andrew Frisicano
The Mars Volta
Amputechture
(Gold Standard Labs, 2006)
When I saw The Mars Volta open for The
Red Hot Chili Peppers last summer, a Chili
Peppers fan so disliked their music that he
chucked a bottle of urine at them midsong. This is not a band that will appeal to
most people, as the weirdness of their third
album shows. Songs alternate between tension-building minimalism, guitar-acrobatic
explosions, complete chaos, skronky jazz,
and white noise. Chief songwriter/arranger
Omar Rodgriguez-Lopez crafts intricate
guitar and horn parts with the twisted
musical complexity of Frank Zappa. Chili
Peppers guitarist John Frusciante plays on
most of the album, but his playing bears no
resemblance to the melodic beauty of his
Chili Peppers work—he pierces and shreds
under Rodgriguez-Lopez’s mad-scientist direction.
As on previous albums, the lyrics alternate between high school goth poetry and
goofy nonsense (“The kiosk in my temporal
lobe is shaped like Rosalyn Carter”), with
some Led Zeppelin mysticism thrown in.
It’s ridiculous, but damned if Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s vocals don’t sell the hell out of
the whole thing. Nonsense aside, there’s a
fiery passion in his voice throughout that
gives the pyrotechnics an emotional anchor. He runs the gamut from a cracked
croon to the kind of castrato banshee wail
that makes drunk Chili Peppers fans furrow
their brows and ask each other, “Is that a
dude or a chick?”
This is dense, difficult stuff, but for those
who aren’t afraid of song titles like “Day of
the Baphomets” and five-minute Spanish
guitar interludes, it’s worth it. •
Paul Neet
Girl Talk
Night Ripper
(Illegal Art, 2006)
In a generation of mash-ups and
sampling, Girl Talk (a.k.a. Greg Gillis)
oversteps the cliché sound with his third
release, Night Ripper. Now I know you’re
all saying: “Please, no more with the Jay-Z
and Linkin Park combo,” but please, give
me a chance.
Sampling close to 200 songs on the album, Gillis creates his own melting pot of
music, combining songs like Elton John’s
“Tiny Dancer,“ Notorious B.I.G.’s “Juicy,”
and Nirvana’s “Scentless Apprentice” all
in the same breath. Because of Girl Talk’s
constant desire to switch genres and songs,
you’ll still be picking out samples you
haven’t noticed after the 11th listen. This
schizophrenic style of mixing and mashing gives a brilliant update to today’s club
scene, or just for the everyday dance party
in your local parking lot. But even if you’re
not one for the moving and grooving
hoopla, Girl Talk’s technical genius, fitting
on average eight or nine samples into one
track, should inspire you to hear him out.
And if that doesn’t intrigue you, you’re
probably better off with Linkin Park and
Jay-Z anyway.
Even though Gillis does separate his
album into 13 individual tracks, the whole
Night Ripper album can stand as a single
entity on its own. Which is more than I
can say about Greg Gillis himself, who
very rarely ends a performance standing,
or conscious for that matter. If all this
does intrigue, then check out his live show
where you’re basically promised that you’ll
have a good time. •
Matthew Duelka
27
The Mountain Goats
Get Lonely
(4AD, 2006)
Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton
Knives Don’t Have Your Back
(Last Gang Records, 2006)
I almost wet my undies when I opened
my mailbox to find Emily Haines’ solo album, Knives Don’t Have Your Back. Ever
since I saw her shimmy behind the keyboard with her synth-pop foursome Metric and sway and croon with fellow band
members in the Canadian super group Broken Social Scene, I’ve been infatuated.
After having worked on the album on
and off for the past four years and enlisting the help of Justin Peroff (Broken Social
Scene), Jimmy Shaw (Metric), and Scott
Minor (Sparklehorse), I assumed Haines’
record would be flawless. However, what I
discovered was that Emily stepped out of
the spotlight from her bands to reveal her
unexpected darkness.
With simple piano chord progressions
littered with light string and horn arrangements, Haines orchestrates beautiful ballads
of sadness and reality, not to be confused
with the stereotypical piano songstresses
of our generation. Whereas Fiona and Tori
would intricately pound out their frustration, Emily uses her hauntingly hushed
voice to exhibit her emotional state. With
topics ranging from her deceased father to
her depressed friends, this album is a real
downer. Standout track “Our Hell” mixes
ambient beats and a trudging melody, with
layered vocals to generate an ambiguous
message. The meaning can be perceived as
finding solace in the company of the miserable.
While Metric can camouflage her despair
with fun beats, Knives provides an authentic view into the soul of Ms. Haines. Cheer
up Emily, at least you’ve mastered the art of
a successful solo career. •
Scott Pollack
28
When I first heard the title of this album, it gave me a mental picture of some kind of twisted
indie-rock, Ying-Yang Twins hybrid. But fear not -- John Darnielle’s latest is less of a booty jam
than a poignant exploration of loneliness (obviously), despair, and general existential crises.
Following 2005’s superb The Sunset Tree, Get Lonely is less overtly autobiographical, but no
less haunting. The music is still mostly spare guitar, piano and percussion that imbue the songs
with a hushed melancholy, as in the gorgeous “Song for Lonely Giants.” When the drums flare
up on the bouncy “Half Dead” or the throbbing “If You See Light” they provide appealing
contrast but never take away from the album’sbittersweet aesthetic.
As in most of the Mountain Goats’ catalog, the focus is on Darnielle’s lyrics. Here he employs his trademark narrative thrust to heartbreaking effect, along with pitch-perfect imagery
(“I think I hear angels in my ears / like marbles being thrown against a mirror”) and mundane
statements that seem somehow profound (“Some days I don’t miss my family / and some days
I do.”)
Darnielle’s voice complements his lyrics perfectly. His falsetto sounds like it could break at
any moment, and I dare even the most emotionally frigid bastard not to tear up a little at the
title track when he sings, “And I will get lonely, and gasp for air / and
send your name up from my lips like a signal
flare.”
It might not be the most pleasant listening
experience you’ve ever had, but for anyone
who’s ever been hurt, lonely, or just plain unhappy, the Mountain Goats feel your pain. Get
Lonely provides whatever you need in catharsis or commiseration; you’ll never feel so good
about feeling so shitty. •
Bryan Kerwin
Hard Candy
David Slate
(Lions Gate, 2005)
A fourteen-year-old girl seduces a thirty something intellectual in David Slade’s directorial debut, Hard Candy. We become unwilling (or not so unwilling) voyeurs as we squirm
under the forced intimacy of excruciating close-ups and painfully personal dialogue between the coquettish Haley and Jeff, a successful photographer. The two chat on the Internet and decide to meet after a Lolita-like exchange in which both flirt and tease each
other. An uncomfortable coffee house scene follows in which Haley, dressed like an urban
little red riding hood, playfully seduces Jeff and is invited back to his retro-chic home. The
plot turns upside down as roles are blurred while unanswered questions and unexplained
motivations don’t so much intrigue as disturb.
The only constant in the film is the constantly evolving dynamic between the two
characters. The camera hugs the two adversaries’ faces, forcing claustrophobia onto the
audience. The topical content of the film, underage porn and the exploitation of young
women, serves as a plot device rather than a central message for the audience. The film is
not so much about exploitation as it is a cautionary tale of vengeance and a psychological
thriller that uses topical issues as a jump-off point to delve into the deepest pools of the
human conscience. •
Meredith Farley
SAWDUST• SAWDUST• SAWDUST• SAWDUST• SAWDUST• SAWDUST• SAWDUST
I Refuse to Write about Soccer
eing that this is the “International”
issue, I figure that everyone is wondering, “Harrison, what is your
opinion of soccer?” Well I’m here
to tell you that I will not talk about soccer.
If there is one thing that really irks me, it
is soccer. It is such a pathetic excuse for
a sport that I
By Harrison Flatau refuse to waste
any time on it.
Yellow cards, red cards and corner kicks
will not be discussed.
I refuse to comment on a sport who’s
biggest act of violence is a head butt. Pussies. In fact, I hate soccer so much that I refuse to talk about how much I hate soccer.
Recently President Bush revealed his
new proposal for dealing with Iraq…
God I hate soccer.
Where do they get off calling soccer
“football” in Europe, Asia, Africa, South
America, Australia and North America
(except in the US)? Don’t they know that
we invented a sport called football, the
real football, and since we call it soccer
they have to call it soccer, too?
How come the players can’t do something, instead of just passing that stupid
black and white ball around? Pass, pass,
pass, wait; he’s going for the goal, will he
shoot? No. He passed.
“But Harrison, it’s the most popular
sport in the world,” my detractors will say.
Well if that is the case then why isn’t it
popular in America? America is the
most popular country in the world.
Soccer is not popular in America.
Therefore, soccer is not popular
in the world. Case closed.
And where do they get
off creating so many profes-
B
29
sional soccer leagues. That shit is confusing.
In America we have one professional league
for each sport. Our leagues are so powerful
that they battle for the world championships all by themselves. We don’t have to
include every country in our playoffs just
so that nobody’s feelings get hurt.
Some others will ask me, “What about
the Americans that play in Major League
Soccer or on the national team for the
Olympics and World Cup?” Those people are not Americans. No real American
would devote their lives to this sport. It
is quite obvious that these people immigrated to this country to undermine the
American government and recruit children into their evil organization.
The worst part of soccer (which I still
refuse to talk about) is how low the final
scores are. Would you rather see a soccer
match end at 1-2 or a basketball game end
at 110-98? Exactly.
I swear I am not going to devote this
column to soccer. There is no way that I
will use 800 words on this abomination
of a sport.
Hey. I just realized what sport is manlier
than soccer. Polo. Think
about that. Polo is a
sport where rich people
ride horses and hit a
ball with a stick. And
that is manlier than soccer. For shame soccer,
for shame.
When was
the last time
you heard
of a soc-
cer player involved with a steroid scandal?
How can soccer be a real sport if there’s
no doping? Guess what sport has more
doping scandals than soccer? Cycling. Yes,
that’s right. People who ride bicycles for a
living are more likely to take performing
enhancing drugs than people who kick a
ball. That just proves that you don’t have
to perform anything in soccer.
Everyone thinks that Terrell Owens is
the biggest pre-Madonna in sports today.
Terrell Owens isn’t even top ten; he’s not
even top fifty. Guess what group takes every spot above T.O.? Soccer goalies. These
people are so pampered that they have to
wear flamboyant shirts and gloves to protect their hands. They also get to use their
hands during play. Imagine that a group
of players got together in say, basketball,
and demanded that they be able to run
with the ball. Now imagine that they all
played center. So now every center in the
NBA can run with the ball. Massive riots
would, of course, ensue, but not in soccer.
Goalies get to use their hands whenever
they want just because they think they are
better than the other players.
Soccer is so beneath me. Soccer is so
beneath me that in order for me to get
to it I have to dig to China – where they
play soccer.
But the worst horror in soccer is never
discussed in public. Nobody ever talks
about the kids who play as a goalie in
youth leagues and get kicked in the face
with a ball. And after these kids finally get
over the sting of the ball they open their
eyes only to see everyone in the stands
laughing at them.
“But Harrison, I’ve never heard of
any people getting kicked in the face
with a ball.”
Well, it happened to me! •
Harrison Flatau is not a sophomore. He’s
not a writing major either. Definitely don’t
email him at [email protected].
Image by Harrison Flatau
SAWDUST•
SAWDUST•
SAWDUST•
SAWDUST•
SAWDUST•
SAWDUST•
SAWD
The State of American Sports
T
30
here’s a crisis brewing in America, and it has been the elephant
in the United State’s proverbial
room for quite awhile now. It’s
not the outsourcing of jobs, nor the fact
race relations aren’t improving at the pace
they should be. It’s the fact that we’ve
been getting our asses kicked in sports by
inferior nations for some time now. OK,
the World Cup is one thing. It’s a wellknown fact that the U.S.A. has sucked at
soccer for some time. Plus the “We don’t
really give a shit”
By Adam D’Arpino excuse works well
for us. We like
fast food, SUVs and sports that don’t end
in 0-0 ties.
However, recently other countries have
been moving in on our turf. The great
Charles Barkley was once quoted as saying about fellow baller Sam Cassel, “Everything that could have possibly [gone]
wrong with a man’s face went wrong with
his.” In the same vain, everything that
could have possibly went wrong with the
United States basketball team went wrong
at the Olympics in 2004. We were annihilated in the preliminary round by 20
points at the hands of Puerto Rico, which
happens to be a Commonwealth of – you
guessed it – the fucking United States of
America. Embarrassing: on all accounts.
We were then given the second best loser
award after avenging a loss to Lithuania,
a country I can barely locate on a map,
let alone envision the land of opportunity losing to in hoops. It was our first
bronze since 1988. A far cry from the
dream teams of the ’90s.
We didn’t fair much better in the World
Baseball Classic, which was held earlier
this year. The States didn’t even qualify
for the final round of four. And who won
you might ask? The answer would be Japan. That’s right, the same Japan that
bombed one Pearl Harbor some 65 years
ago. At some point as Americans we have
to ask ourselves, “How much of this can
we take?” I mean, what would the Babe
think?
Lately, the U.S. hasn’t even been able to
dominate the quasi-sports world. Japanese
born Takeru Kobayashi has dominated the
last six Nathan’s Fourth of July Hotdog
Eating Contests. Are you serious? In a
nation where thirty percent of the adult
population is clinically obese, we can’t
even win an eating competition? In my
humble opinion, there’s no better way
to honor the birth of our nation than to
watch people who will likely die of heart
attacks in their late forties shove hotdogs
down their throats to the point of vomiting. But if an American can’t
even win, why bother? It’s
downright disheartening.
You might be one of
many asking themselves, “Is
there no hope to maintain a
sense of dignity in our country?” I say to
you, don’t give up on America. There is
still hope that through hard work, focus
and brutal
trials and tribula-
tions in genetic engineering we can stay
on top of the sports world. •
Adam D’Arpino is a sophomore english major and all he wants for Christmas is the
United States to win a World Cup. Email
him at [email protected].
Illustration by Nimra Brar
DUST•
SAWDUST•
SAWDUST•
?
SAWDUST•
SAWDUST•
Buzzsaw Asks Why…
SAWDUST•
SAWDUST
I feel accused when looking at campus bulletin boards
he bulletin boards in the many residence halls on campus are filled with different fliers, from safety tips from the local RAs to
advertisements for a variety of campus activities. However, each time I look at one of these random boards, I do not feel inclined to
go join in on the poker night fun or store my microwave away beneath my bed. Instead, I feel accused of a serious crime I haven’t
committed and will never commit.
A specific paper stands out from the rest. Emblazoned in bold black font on a pure white background are the words “men” and “rape”.
.”If you take a step closer you can see the main part of the message, “can stop”, squeezed between the big bold words in a smaller black circle.
The effect is simply to catch your attention with the accusation “men rape.”
Men Ending Rape, the organization responsible for the fliers, was co-founded by Keith Edwards, a speaker with a background in
education. Edwards’ program “She Fears You” is a presentation delivered to college and university students across the country about rape
and sexual abuse. The event came to IC Monday, Sept. 11.
The idea is a good one; educating college students, especially males, about sexual assault is a noble pursuit. However, the layout of the
poster doesn’t reflect the organizations stated goal. The first sentence on the organization’s website, menendingrape.org, reads: “The fact
that men rape is obvious, but the fact that men can end rape is often an after thought (sic).” Ironically,what the website decries is directly
reflected by their poster, i.e. quick glance reading “men rape,” secondary inspection “men can stop rape.”
Josh Elmer
T
Buzzsaw Presents: A Comic
31
“Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new,
and there you will find things only evil and inhuman,
such as his command to spread by the sword the faith
he preached.”
Byzantine Emperor Manuel II
((This quote brought to you by Pope Benedict XVI))
32

international - Buzzsaw Magazine

Transcription

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