Thematic Statements from Poetry

1.) Sonnet 130 - Any seemingly mediocre person can be loved by another.

2.) The Passionate Shepard to His Love - A lover may go to any length for the person they care about.

3.) Death Be Not Proud - Although death is inevitable, so is the rebirth that follows.

4.) To The Virgins, to Make Much of Time - Life is too great to waste precious time.

5.) The Author to Her Book - No matter how precious, there will always be critics.

6.) To His Coy Mistress - Time is short, and so lovers must make the best of it.

7.) Sound and Sense - The best writing flows freely, but not randomly.

8.) The World Is Too Much With Us - Humanity is much too ignorant to the natural world.

9.) She Walks in Beauty - The truest beauty is comparable to nature.

10.) Ozymandias - Even the things that once seemed all-powerful eventually decline/die.

11.) When I have Fears that I may Cease to Be - There's no sense in worrying about the end all the time; relax and take in the world.

12.) The Children's Hour - Children can brighten a parent's day with their unforgettable innocence.

13.) Annabel Lee - Love can outdo the great power of death.

15.) O Captain, My Captain - The greatest victories are often marred by the sacrifices that made it possible.

16.) I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died - Death comes inevitable and unbiased.

17.) Dover Beach - Do not waste the wonderful world on petty things

18.) Dulce et Decorum Est - People suffer horrible fates in the name of a country's frivolous beliefs

19.) Mending Wall - Putting up borders does not help people and will only come crumbling down.

20.) Mirror - A reflection can show the true self, whether it's good or bad.

FOX News: “Fair & Balanced” or “Fear & Bias”

FORGED in 1996 by baron-tycoon Rupert Murdoch, head of the all-powerful News Corporation, the Fox News Channel has been the country’s most watched cable news network for the past ten years.  With slogans such as “Fair & Balanced” and “We Report. You Decide”, this company should be well-known for providing accurate facts, with unbiased and reliable reports.  Interestingly enough, in the experience of myself and apparently many others, this is not the case.  There are many claims that the company has not only a political bias but is also a force for promoting sensationalism, fear, and even aggression.  

When this action project was first described to the class, that we would be asking a large corporation or organization some kind of big question, there were many ideas that came to mind.  Out of these thoughts though, one that was just begging for some investigation was finding for myself whether the accusations against Fox News were valid.  Being a left-leaning individual, and having personally observed programming I would call both conservatively biased and fear mongering, I knew I would have to go into this with a neutral and clean slate.

My question was going to be aimed at finding if the company admits to any bias, if so what it is, or if not how they defend their claimed impartialness.  In addition I would try to get an explanation for the allegations against them of fear and sensationalism, while doing my best not to provoke or accuse.

I began my quest at their website, in pursuit of contact information I could use to get my questions answered.  To my dismay, I soon realized that this would be no easy task.  Most sites have a “Contact Us” link at the bottom of their webpage, which I found on the site.  However, I found that this brought you to the same seemingly oversimplified page as the “FAQ” link.  On this page you have 5 options:

•          I have comments, questions, or tips for a news story.
•          I'm having trouble playing videos online.
•          I'm having problems commenting.
•          I'm having difficulty with my user account.
•          The TV channel's audio or video isn't working.   

None of these choices were relevant or provided actual contact information regarding questions about the company.  I now decided to resort to the rest of the internet, via Google, to find an actual email or phone number I could use to reach them.  Several less-than-reliable sources pointed me to the emails yourcomments@foxnews.com and comments@foxnews.com.  And so, I sent my first two emails off to these addresses, beginning with the former.  I wrote this email as if I knew nothing of the media world and simply asked if Fox News has any kind of political bias in their reporting.  Soon after, I used the latter to point out that it seems to me they carry a conservative predisposition and probed for a defense against the statement.  Neither has received a response since being sent 6 days ago. 

               After giving what I deemed a fair waiting period, I went on the hunt again for a better contact source.  From the News Corporation website I was able to find a FOX News Channel phone number (212-301-3000) for their location in NYC.  I found this number again on a blog, along with another (212-301-5226) so I thought I’d give them both a try.  After an awkward exchange of “Hello?” 5 or 6 times, I explained that I was looking for a department head to which I could ask a few questions.  The man on the other end then informed me that I had probably called the wrong extension, and being nervous and all, I apologized and hung up.  The other line turned out to be for the business department or something of the sort and so I moved on.  On a forum about Ron Paul I found another number apparently for contacting Fox News (888-369-4762) and made a third phone attempt.  This led me to a number of different automated options one of which I could “press three” if I had any comments or questions that were not answered on foxnews.com.  I jumped on the opportunity and was informed that I might not be able to speak to an actual representative, but if I left a message they would respond when possible.  I decided that would have to be acceptable but was then informed that the user’s mailbox was full and no message could be left!  Scrolling down on the forum that gave the number, I found a post from 2007 of someone who called the number and came to the same problem.  (???) 

                Later on, with continued searching I found the numbers of Thom Bird, the Fox News Senior Producer (212-301-3250), as well as Ian Rae, Executive VP News (212-301-8552).  I called Mr. Bird and unfortunately got only an answering machine (which sounded friendly enough, at least!) so I decided to send him an email.  It went as follows:

No response so far, but I have higher hopes for this one than previous attempts.  Finally, I tried calling Ian Rae as well but received an automated response that the number was no longer in use.  As of now, it seems that I have failed my mission, but perhaps proved another point.

This undertaking is one which was fueled much by my own opinion and bias against FOX News.  I’ve seen many examples of them distorting information or making cynical comments towards the political left.  As one instance, a few months ago you may remember a story of Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez who fired shots at the White House saying that President Obama is “the anti-Christ”.  It was said that investigators asked around the nearby Occupy DC camp if anyone recognized the man.  Fox immediately began promoting the incident labeling the man the “Occupy Shooter” while having no known connection.  Another simple example I’ve seen is Fox turning a headline such as “Jupiter’s Core May be Liquefying” to “Jupiter is Melting, Scientists Say”.  Just a subtle change like that makes a big difference to the reader’s perception.  They also pick and chose photos to show different people in different lights, good or bad.  Many people have pointed out the obvious biases FOX News has, and I could go on and on with examples, however that’s not being fair in itself.  With a little investigating you can also find observable tweaks made by other news sources to fit what political agenda they may seem to have.  A good example occurred just last week when NBC edited a phone call in the Zimmerman case – however they at least apologized after being called out.  So, with it seeming that everyone has their own way of twisting the story, who can we really trust?  The answer’s not easy, but we have to remember to take everything with a grain of salt.  Besides that, I have to say that I think FOX News is at the absolute extreme of being unreliable.  They’re truly hurtful, especially to their diehard followers who a study showed to be less informed than those who don’t watch news at all.

I would also like to point out that CNN, NPR, and MSNBC, all have user friendly methods of contact for questions which I am currently testing. 

With this adventure, it seems that I’ve spilt perhaps too much of my own frustration onto the matter, but I maintain that my investigation shows a bit about the nature of the company.  It certainly doesn’t help their case that it’s so difficult to reach them.  I will of course post updates here if/when I get any responses so let’s cross our fingers!  This project definitely smells of The Grapes of Wrath with its search for the answers to big questions.  Not exactly comparable, but it can definitely be related to the plight of the “Okies” and their torment under a powerful but blind beast.  Under the foot of distant banks that seem to value livestock over men, each step down the ladder feels helpless.  Those at the very bottom ask why it’s like this, and in this project our questions are similar as we probe to investigate the perhaps unreasonable methods of giant corporations and organizations.




EDIT:  As of over three weeks since the project, no responses have been heard from FOX News. At the time of the project I also sent a message to NPR and received an answer after 5 days.

Invisible in Plain Sight - An Essay Reflection

             In this essay written by Chinua Achebe in 1977 titled “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness” he presents a motion about the famous novel which no one else had really touched on at the time.  He maintains that the book, while being a well written classic, is inescapably racist towards Africans.  Chinua goes about explaining this in a very rational way.  He first introduces us to the kind of character he suspects led to Conrad’s writing, this trait being the ignorance to look down at African culture as being peculiar and superstitious while in reality, anyone, whether hailing from England or the Bronx, has their own strange culture and traditions.  Many good points are made about the way Europeans have set up the “dark continent” of Africa to be their polar opposite. 

Chinua is reasonable enough to credit Joseph Conrad as having good style and talent but he is taken aback by the way such a prejudice novel is welcomed by professors with open, arrogant arms.  Indeed while reading Heart of Darkness myself, there were many passages that are nearly despicable when referring to the native “savages” – especially when out of context.  That’s just the thing though: in the context of the story, I didn’t feel all too shocked by the nature in which they were described.  This goes to show Chinua’s great point that western readers are predisposed to accept these likely exaggerations just because they’re the familiar stories of cannibals and wild tribesmen that we’ve grown accustomed to.  At the very least, one should not blindly agree to these rulings.  As Mr. Achebe wrote, “I will not accept just any traveler’s tales solely on the grounds that I have not made the journey myself.”  Among the other enlightened points brought up by this author, another piece of observable evidence is the manner in which Conrad writes of their language.  The only points in the novel where the natives’ communications aren’t simply incoherent grunts, they have been given a few English words to say, stereotypical of what a ‘wild jungle man’ would say.  It may be argued that any racism can be blamed due to the speaker within a speaker style (Inception!) but this is battled with evidence from some of Conrad’s personal writings of meeting different peoples.  These seem to solidify the accusation of Conrad as being prejudice, however wonderfully he may organize it on paper.

In the essay, Chinua did a very good job of using intelligence and wit to cover several tracks with which debaters might pursue.  One flaw I must point out though, due to my own vested interests, is that Chinua mentions that Marco Polo failed to mention the brilliance of the Great Wall of China in his travel writings which is after all, “the only structure built by man which is visible from the moon!”  This is a ridiculous but unrelated common misconception so obviously does not discredit Achebe in any way and I merely bring it up as a lecture to readers of this post, and also to perhaps demonstrate that even the most convincing of words should be taken with a grain of salt.  Getting back to the essence of the essay, Chinua Achebe has undoubtedly raised a reasonable suggestion about the nature of Conrad’s famous book and I think reminds us to try to see all things first through an unbiased lens, however embedded a belief may be.  

Essay Analysis: “Surviving Edna: A Reading of the Ending of The Awakening.”

In Robert Treu’s essay discussing Kate Chopin’s famous work, he played with the idea that perhaps Edna did not in fact die at the end of the novel.  Treu spends most of the paper criticizing readers’ general conclusion that Edna has committed suicide even though the book never directly says so.  It is of course reasonable that someone’s train of thought would lead to that end, but it’s much less reasonable to completely dismiss any other possibility.  Treu is not the first critic to have gone with this idea; he quotes the Russian theoretician Mikhail Bakhtin at several times and basically explains that Edna’s actions throughout the book do not really add up to her committing suicide.  The author of the essay also offers that if she did die, than it was less suicide and rather a sort of accident.  One of the main arguments Treu goes with is that The Awakening has built such a (as Bakhtin calls it), “heteroglossia”.  This has to do with the style in which we are not limited to a single perspective but instead Chopin manages to embody a few without necessarily yielding too much to a single idea.  This allows for the prospect of Edna’s survival to become much more believable considering the irregularity.

                Death is a predictable and simple way of closing such a story which Chopin would’ve had no reason to do and the author of this essay does not think she would take such an easy way out.  She certainly proves that she hasn’t done so by leaving out any confirmation in the story such as a funeral scene or something to that effect.  This leads me to imagine what it would be like if in The Great Gatsby, the book had simply ended after the scene where they heard gunshots and discovered a bloody scene at the pool from which they took (the murdered) Gatsby to the house.  In class, I recall there was some slight debate over whether he was really dead or what exactly had taken place (until those who had read ahead solved the issue).  This is the kind of discussion which brings about the idea that authors are no longer in control of their stories. 

When I first read through the article I thought it seemed kind of silly and perhaps the writer wasn’t very convincing.  However, for some reason upon my return to its text I’ve grown much attached to Treu’s message and all the suggestions mentioned in the article.  I don’t quite agree that Edna has survived the ending of the book but I also don’t think Treu necessarily believes that either.  The fact that he is mostly just trying to keep every idea open makes this something I can certainly get behind.  It can be dangerous to make inferences about a story or an author’s intentions. 

Chopin ends the book with a memory of Edna’s past and the vagueness this scene should allow for all possible theories to be considered.  At one point, Robert Treu mentions the painting “Las Meninas” by Velazquez which depicts an artist who is working on a canvas that the viewer can only see the back of.  The artist has paused from his work and is looking directly at the viewer.  This creates the question of whether the artist is painting the people who are in the reflection of a mirror in the background, or the viewer themselves, or perhaps nothing at all.  This open-endedness is very similar to what Kate Chopin created with her novel and is no doubt an important part of literature and its ability to be criticized.

  “The birth of the reader must be requited by the death of the Author.” (Barthes 1986, 55)

" Las Meninas"

Vicious Wallpaper – Is it out to get us? (Should we hide our kids?)

                Who would ever know that something as generally unmemorable as wallpaper could affect someone so violently?  The short story of The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a well-orchestrated tale where such a simple thing indeed seems to drive the narrator mad.  At first it seems that the color and patterns are just mildly irritating to the normal, but perhaps a little unwell, female speaker of the story.  As pages go by, it is obvious that there is much more behind her disgust towards the paper as it develops into a disturbing antagonist who moves and taunts her in the night.  To me, it seems easy to jump to the idea that what she sees in the walls is in fact a distorted reflection of herself.  The way that the layers of the pattern hold back the creeping woman behind is not unlike the bars on the narrator’s window and the manner in which she is entrapped in the bedroom for what surely feels like eternity.  With no exit, anyone would start to lose their mind.  As the room becomes her only home and the idea of leaving it becomes less and less favorable, she probably begins to fear the outside world.  Thus, seeing the creeping woman out the window is related to her containment and this growing obsession with staying in the room.  I remember hearing cases of solitary confinement prisoners where they would often be sitting in a tiny bare room in pitch blackness for 23 hours a day.  Such an environment can quickly bring someone to insanity.  Of course, the narrator’s cell is a little more pleasant than one of these, but the effect can be very much parallel over time.  It seems pretty incredible that her husband could do such a cruel thing to his wife, yet she is so gone that she only sees it being out of love.  It’s often very hard for people to accept that a particular problem may in fact be psychological and in this case they refused to properly address the situation until it was too late.  The fact that they wouldn’t even say what was really going on and she instead lightly referred to her condition as mere nervousness (a name probably given by her doubtful husband) says a lot about their denial.  Even when there’s what seems to be an end in sight, such as moving out of the house, failing to acknowledge issues like this can potentially be very dangerous.  

Essay Summary: "Under the Granite Outcroppings of Ethan Frome"

                In the one hundred years since Edith Wharton wrote the book Ethan Frome, there have been hundreds of essays written on various aspects of the story.  In a particular essay written by Helen Killoran titled, “Under the Granite Outcroppings of Ethan Frome” she manages to take a pretty different look into the morality of the story compared to many previous critics.  Specifically, this essay contrasts with the views of Lionel Trilling’s “The Morality of Inertia” where, in the same distaste as many other critics, he describes how the book is so terribly immoral he could not teach it in his class.  Helen Killoran disputes that Trilling unfairly only looks at Ethan as not making moral decisions and thus dismisses the book.  The backbone of her argument is that Zeena is the true moral compass of the story and so the book cannot be struck with the title of being a “dead book”.  

With some difficulty at first, after reading her essay I soon found myself agreeing with many of Killoran’s conclusions.  Trilling is indeed false in many of his hurried claims that the book is without morals.  It’s not hard to see how he drew this idea since Wharton does a good job of misdirecting the reader away from Zeena for the most part.  There are many complaints against Zeena but none of them have to do with moral flaws.  While hypochondria may be an inconvenient disorder, it is not necessarily immoral.  Perhaps Killoran’s greatest argument for Zenobia having the strongest morals is her relation to the views of stoicism.  Except for her and Ethan’s one larger quarrel, she always acts in a rational manner.  Zeena is wise to everything going on but as she always has, simply endures until she has chosen, with reason, an exact moment to act.  This is seen when she suddenly demands Mattie be sent home and gets her a train ticket which is not really immoral. 

Killoran uses many examples to convince the reader of Zeena’s morals.  Even if a few ideas seem a bit of a stretch, some are very eye-opening with much sense they make.  Besides that, the sheer volume of suggestions she uses has me certain she is right.  Originally, I thought the length of her essay was a bit of an overkill, but now I see that every word brought up a crucial point in her argument.  Trilling had incorrectly focused his critique of morals on Ethan without seeing Zeena’s incredible potential.  A book with as many lively interpretations as Ethan Frome could never be considered the “dead book” Trilling calls it.  

Shakespeare Sonnet 130

It seems that this sonnet must also be one of the more well known perhaps because of it's peculiarity for the time period.  It's easy to believe that this is a parody of classic Italian sonnets because of the way he takes the over-the-top compliments of corny poetry and turns them into statements of distaste for the Dark Lady.  He describes her in several unpleasant ways.  Her eyes are dull, her breath smells bad, her hair is like wires.  I can't imagine he intends to win her over with such statements.  However, it is only at the couplet that we can maybe see how Shakespeare turns things around.  He claims that his love is still in fact just as great as any who has been spoken of with such ridiculous comparisons.  With this, I think if the lady examines it closely enough she can see the wonderful wit and humanity in Shakespeare's writing.