Spring 2015 (Public Service Announcement)

Since the time frame named above is certainly more in reach than it was earlier, I figure now would be the best time to announce my first spring trip.

In March, I will be going to Cuba with several of my classmates. This has been planned for far in advance of the recent political news. The new US relationship with Cuba does not change our travel as Havana has not had a US Embassy since the 1960s. We are prepared for basic needs - food, water, shelter, language - as well as prepared to be questioned about why there are so many notebooks in our bags. As this is technically a education-based immersion program, we are going to be writing about our experiences and observations for class upon our return.
I'm really looking forward to this trip - it is the first time I have ever been to the Caribbean, let alone outside of the United States. We are always looking for any advice for this foray. If there is a tidbit of knowledge you find important, helpful, or just an interesting fun-fact, please let us know!

Thank you!
CLE

(The above picture is from the John F. Kennedy Library. It is a photograph of Ernest Hemingway and his cat, Cristobal, in Cuba.)

Mission Statement for a Better Future

I haven't had much time to clear my head and think. Events, both domestic, personal and international, are coming too fast to really contemplate them and their connections.

I made one revelation this week, however. I was explaining to a dear friend of mine (who shares a name with a great Wes Anderson female) why I want to be a journalist. It's been something I've been considering since the untimely death of James Folley. 

Internationally stationed journalists are predominately freelancers, people who go to far off and oft dangerous locales not only on their own dime but at their own risk. Some do it to get the break-through story. Some do it to travel. Some do it for the love of writing. I have decided that I want to be a journalist in order to teach. Today, the average news consumer half-retains an evening program's "A Block" (a.k.a. everything before the first commercial break). That information has been tailored to (a) fit the time limits, (b) be digestible to the everyman, and (c) get out fast. Journalists and their companies alike compete with social media scourges that have the potential to add fuel to the fire. There isn't much time to investigate a story for a few minutes before it has exploded across Twitter, Facebook, what-have-you. We miss a lot of vital information. I miss a lot of vital information.

Anthony Bourdain wrote "I remember the moment I first realized I've been living my whole life in black and white. It was like discovering a color I never knew existed before". The moment I heard this in the very beginning of Parts Unknown Thailand, I knew I had felt it before. I am a huge proponent of knowledge and consider teachers on par with the divine. With so much misinformation and lack of understanding in the world, it seems my only path is to give people that awe-inducing moment. I want to be the bringer of the revelation. I want to teach by understanding and communicating the truth as people see it. 

Understand this: fact is one thing. Perspective is another. What you and I see are likely to be vastly different. There is beauty in acknowledging that truth. Some say they do, but even I question if I do understand what I just wrote. We would like to put opponents immediately on our "enemies list" and deepen the "us versus them" divide. If we persist in this worldview, we will never know a solution to any crisis or conflict. It makes the checkpoints to success denser in numbers and increasingly difficult to pass.

I would like to fill that chasm in a little in my life time. I would like to be the modern Dame Freya Stark; I would like to think she would agree with her contemporary, T.E. Lawrence, who wrote to his parents from Karkemish, "Foreigners come out here always to teach whereas they has much better learn".

Eliminate the assumptions and guesswork, a relationship becomes easier. If people went knowing their intention was to whole-heartedly learn, to not judge until saddled with enough information, the world might back a little off the edge of destruction.


I felt the need to write tonight and this is what has spewed forth. I don't know if this is a particularly noble cause, but it doesn't matter. Knowledge is power, and its pursuit is what drives me. I figure if I can put that energy into something mildly beneficial, I could get through to someone somewhere.

Maybe I'll find what I'm looking for spring 2015. I'll take a trip and have the chance to write lengthy, literary journalistic piece(s). All the best to hope, I guess.

CLE

Observation

I feel the need to write, but not about anything that's currently trending. 

This evening, the nightly news made a point to mention the Kurdish forces in their blurb about the ongoing ISIS conflict. It was reported that Iraqi and Kurdish forces are sharing bases in order to jointly halt ISIS fighters. The dispute between the Kurds and the Iraqis was briefly alluded to. 

While this story has been pushed to the background with the revelation of situations of Ferguson, Missouri, I see this tidbit as potentially important. The act of cooperating is progress here - or at least it is in my mind. A common enemy is the most potent of binders. ISIS falls into that role. My question: Can the conflict with ISIS bind the Kurds and Iraqis, potentially changing the way both groups interact - especially when Iraq begins to reconstruct, should the fighting end anytime soon?

Thoughts are welcome.

Best,

C.L.E

Media-Literacy and Integrity (Among other things)

note: I do not claim any allegiance to any journalistic, international, or governmental entity. I myself claim to be an observer and skeptic. Interpret the following as you will.

I consider myself an advocacy for media-literacy. In fact, I'm pretty much an advocate for literacy of all kinds. Understanding what the hell is happening is the first step towards analyzing and/or solving said thing (if said thing is bad...). At least in my book.

In light of recent and horrific current events, I find myself struggling to keep up with the facts as much as the perspective diaspora. Truth: the world would not function if it weren't for varying views of this semi-aquatic space-ball. Still, it seems opinions are interfering with the facts in a "religiously secular" kind of way.

At today's end, I find myself with a massive headache induced from both staring at my computer screen reading articles and the amount of information to be processed. I don't pretend to comprehend the "mini-war" (Jeffery Goldberg, The Atlantic) in Gaza, the politics surrounding the downing of Malaysia Flight 17, or what stick has made it's home in certain heads-of-states' posteriors. I do try, however, to put the pieces together.

On some level, media perpetuates a lack of understanding in it's viewers. Viewers are consumers. It makes sense that what is consumed has been tailored towards those consuming. Last week, I had a pretty heated soliloquy in the car (my father as solitary witness) about the lilting bias of news reporting on what would devolve into the latest Gazan-Israeli crisis. The United States, to my knowledge as a born-citizen, is a supporter of the Israeli state. If this is so, why does American news outlets appear to dispel negative views of Israel. Wouldn't logic state that a country's media supports what the government supports? Or rather, the government represents a collective consciousness?

In the most extreme of categorizations: the illogic of reporting with a negative-slant towards what policy-makers deem as all good and well can be subordinate; the logic of mutual support between media and politics can verge on propaganda. The questions that remain are (1) where does the US fall on the spectrum and (2) how does this affect the comprehension of viewers?

To this writer, the news and the government seem to be divided on hot-button issues. This seems to vary by outlet and issue. Regardless, this indecision is what makes us great and very, very confused. Being able to foster a wealth of viewpoints and the discussions thereof shows that viewers care about that media-literacy I mentioned in the beginning. On the other hand, the surge of op-ed writing - some with rather dangerous notions (I cite this morning's Wall Street Journal debacle) - in conjunction with global news organizations makes for tough or slow-going for anyone trying to discern fact from agenda.

While watching the news tonight, I realized this and had to write it. Note that this is fly-by writing and unedited beyond word choice and redundancy. Anyone who wants to discuss this piece, feel free to contact me. I am always a fan of more knowledge, and more articles in my queue to read.

CLE

Back From the Dead with an Agenda

"London Skyline" by kyarithe (artist)

Have you ever had one of those weeks were all you do is reevaluate your life's decisions? Those teensy bits and bobs that have so far faded into the woodwork and been long forgotten (no matter how integral to your person they are)? 

It's been one of those in suburban Philadelphia, persisting to the near 2 month mark. June, July, and I'm fairly certain August will amount to much of the same. All inter-cranial analysis aside, I feel like I've grown up some. Especially in terms of how I was going to approach specifically this blog when I decided to return to it (if I ever did). Out of unfocused wanderings occasionally emerges a worth while existence. Don't get me wrong, I'm not there, but I think I'm close. 

Now exists solid proof that no part of high school is particularly fantastic (I'm talking pure academia folks, brick-and-mortar white tower and all). I think people grow up when they know what they want to do, what makes them happy or fulfills their life in some way. Thus ends my waxing-philosophical, I swear. I've decided to write about what I find interesting, whatever that may be, in the hopes that one day some teenager like myself may find such a trove of useless knowledge. We can hear about Kim Kardashian and whoever the heck else during the primetime television hours. Where else are you going to read about James Joyce's daughter or pre-war Canadian postcards or an animal that is not a cat?? 

Case in point: I don't see myself being a teacher in the conventional classroom sense, but I do love telling people things. I talk a lot, like anybody would if raised by my family. I figure I should put my vast depths of random interests to good use. So, expect no true theme. Expect digression and a little niggling feeling of "what the hell". 

I hope it works out.

CLE

Recommendation of the Week: Stuff You Missed in History Class by HowStuffWorks.com (podcast for total history nerds)

Reconfirming Life

Exam week has come and gone -  in all technicality. I have been mis/fortunate enough to have two sit-down exams and a host of turn in projects.

Here's the short-list of what I've accomplished in the last week:

1. A website on Afghanistan, like the whole she-bang, for history (Click Me!!)
2. A four page paper on James Joyce's poem, "A Flower Given to My Daughter"
3. Maps showing the London settings in Great Expectations and Mrs. Dalloway
4. Journalism profile on my friend (really, I tried to make it about Syria... I might post it. It's gonna need a lot of revising though!)

That's the short list. Rest assured, the fair few of you, I will return as soon as... As soon as I get the time. Which will be soon - hopefully!

For now, enjoy Gustav Klimt's Allegory of Sculpture.

All the best,

Carie L.

Letter to Readers

Hello! I am your friendly blogger, Carie, here with a special announcement.
Because of the impending doom that is the end of the school year, I will be on temporary hiatus through the first week of June.
This is kind of a half-assed affair here. If I get the time and am so inclined, I will perhaps post something. Not that I post regularly or anything, but just fair warning that it could be a fair few weeks before something appears again.

Thank you so much and I hope you all stay sane!

CLE
p.s. I have a new favorite artist: Edmund Dulac.

Edmund Dulac; Illustrations for the Rubaiyat (1930s)