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Obama thoughts

{ April 27, 2008 @ 4:35 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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While talking about the upcoming election with friends awhile ago, I heard something alarming. Two of them—both Democrats—said that they would not be voting for Sen. Barack Obama, even though they liked his politics. Instead, they weren’t going to vote for him because of his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.

“I don’t want a president who listens to someone who’s racist,” one said.

The media, it seems, has had a field day examining the controversial pastor and Obama’s ties to him. News outlets have jumped at the chance to cover past remarks Wright has made; they have jumped at the chance to cover Obama’s response to these remarks; they have jumped at the chance to scrutinize the two’s relationship and Obama’s opinion of him.

On March 16 in The New York Times, a story ran with the headline “Obama Denounces Statements of His Pastor as ‘Inflammatory.’” On March 6, Jodi Kanter said in The Times that “some black leaders are questioning Mr. Obama’s decision to distance his campaign from Mr. Wright because of the campaign’s apparent fear of criticism over Mr. Wright’s teachings, which some say are overly Afrocentric to the point of excluding whites.” CNN ran extensive coverage of the issue. Fox News, not surprisingly, ran even more.

And while it could be argued, I suppose, that it is worthy to discuss a presidential hopeful’s opinion of “reverse-racism,” I could never imagine such scrutiny about other politicians’ religious pasts. For others—who enjoy non-controversial middle-names and cookie-cutter, idealized-“American” religious histories—I could never imagine such analysis.

Has the media ever dissected George W. Bush’s former pastors? What if they held views that were misogynistic? Racist? Would the media—or the American public—even care?

Obama’s middle name is Hussein. He has taken controversial steps as a presidential hopeful—not wearing an American flag lapel pin, for example. And, as a result, the media has taken every opportunity to fill space and time by giving extensive and incessant coverage of his religious past.

After making a heated speech about Sen. Hillary Clinton, one which quickly made its way onto heavy rotation at CNN and Fox News, Wright was officially taken off of Obama’s campaign.

So even though, for now, Obama’s ties to Wright have been publicly severed, I’m not convinced the media will stop making the issue seem significant.

Sidelines on Gawker.com

{ April 24, 2008 @ 3:51 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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I was incredibly amazed and proud when my paper’s staff found out that our editor-in-chief’s recent opinions column about MTV’s reality tv-show “The Paper” had been picked up and analyzed on Gawker.com, a highly influential and high-trafficked blog that I read daily.

I still don’t know how, exactly, blog-giant Gawker stumbled upon Sidelines’ content, but I was excited nonetheless.

http://gawker.com/382169/high-school-journalists-are-so-immature-says-college-journalist

The writers over at Gawker are infamously sassy and snarky. I was relieved, then, that they seemed to agree with the content of the column (that, or their sardonic comments were so cleverly hidden I saw right past them).

The comments on the article, though, royally ticked me off. Aside from random, generic “yo-mama” degradations of the writer, this one in particular sent me into an almost-rage:

“Andy lost me at Middle Tennessee State.”

You know what? I am so tired of blanket stereotypes of the South, of intolerance and prejudice against any-and-all people who might proudly call Tennessee his/her home. As a journalism student, every single professor that I have had has been incredibly accomplished. Pulitzer Prize winners. Former directors of AP Bureaus. Former writers and, even, higher-ups at The New York Times. Filmmakers whose films have been featured at Cannes. Most have been published authors. Most are intimidatingly successful and intelligent.

My fellow students, too–although there are obviously exceptions, as Yale and Harvard can probably attest to, as well–are erudite, motivated, liberal, wonderful people. I’ve known MTSU students who have gone on to work at Rolling Stone, at newspapers across the country, at too many places to name. I just secured an incredibly competitive internship at my absolute favorite publication in the country in NYC (where, omg, I’ve like lived in before, cuz, like, I’ve actually seen the world outside of Tennessee, as have most).

I just wish that whole elitist mentality would go away along with racism and sexism. Geographyism, I shall call it.

Please, just get over yourself.

Thanks. [/endrant]

Still thinking about…

{ April 24, 2008 @ 3:36 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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As the features editor for my university’s newspaper, I do my best to come up with creative, engaging content. Since we have such a small staff, and since my main journalistic passion lies in writing, I usually end up writing a large portion of my section’s content.

But I still manage a team of about a dozen writers who aren’t exactly pillars of reliability. They are college students, after all.

This past semester, a student died in his dorm room. This kind of event always puts Sidelines into high gear. The death—determined by police to be the result of the student’s diabetes—was covered extensively on our front page and throughout news.

When something like this happens, though, I always hope to have a corresponding feature—an in-depth look at what happened.

Earlier that same semester, a female student was beaten nearly to death in her dormroom, allegedly by another student. I thought—I hope—I handled it well in my section. I was able to obtain exclusive interviews with the victim’s good friends (the people who had been waiting in the hospital with her day and night) as well as her parents. I was able to get information that the police refused to release to our paper or any media outlet.

But when this male student died, I assigned the story to someone else (a hard thing for me to do with an important story. I’m a bit possessive).

The writer was late on his deadline. I told him to write an in-depth piece, to talk to friends, dormmates and fellow students.

What he sent me, however, was a compilation of excerpts from the student’s MySpace page, on which he kept a detailed diary of his life. The excerpts were good. They were engaging. They showed that this student had a rough time during college, but that he was just beginning to find his place. His health, he wrote, had been improving. It made for a compelling feature.

But the writer wrote nothing, aside from a short introduction.

There was thirty minutes to the paper’s production deadline, and I had no more content. So I ran the story.

The next day, the paper’s Web site was inundated with angry responses. “This whole feature seems so out of place,” one student said. “All that’s been done is copying and pasting this guy’s Myspace and Facebook into the paper.”

“I’m kind of weirded out at the though of someone copying my blog posts and putting them in a newspaper,” another said. “That just makes me uneasy.”

“I guess it was his [the writer’s] decision to copy and paste Jeremy’s blog into the newspaper,” a family member said. “Since I just read here that someone else said it bothered him that his blog could be printed in a newspaper, it validated how exploited I felt, as a member of Jeremy’s family, when I saw this entire page in the paper today. Then I thought, well, he himself posted it on the Internet. But I don’t think his intent was the same as this article today.”

In my opinion, that family member was right. There was nothing illegal about republishing his public journal, but I literally felt haunted by my decision to allow this “article” to run in my section. It was lazy; it was slightly exploitative; it disregarded the feelings of his family members; it didn’t illuminate any newsworthy information.

On the upside, though, I’ve learned my lesson as an editor: be as clear as possible when communicating with writers about expectations for assignments; and when a story doesn’t meet your standards, just run AP.

My battle with Crohn’s disease

{ April 21, 2008 @ 8:42 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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Published in today’s issue of MTSU Sidelines:

I’ve already memorized each poster on the wall of this doctor’s office.

I know the one with the detailed picture of the gastrointestinal track like the back of my hand.

Liver. Gallbladder. Pancreatic duct. Transverse colon. Ileum.

I’ve already pointed out each disorder on the poster that I suffer from. Already stood up close to look at the images of strange bumps, ulceric wounds. Already pointed out each one that I have.

A breeze is hitting the window. The colors outside are just starting to turn green with early signs of spring. The people walking throughout Nashville’s Hillsboro Village look happy, energized by the budding warm weather.

But in this room, the air conditioner is turned down perpetually too low. Aside from a lonely, sophomoric painting of a sailboat, the room is drab. Everything is a putrid shade of cream.

And all there is to do is wait.

This visit to the Vanderbilt Digestive Disease Center isn’t out of the ordinary. It’s a new doctor, one whom I’ve only met a handful of times after growing too old for the pediatric wing.

But I’ve grown so used to the waiting, the bad news, the pleas to try this new medicine or join that new medical research study. I’ve become so inured to it that these visits barely make me nervous.

My mom sits next to me, her eyes slowly closing and opening, her hands folded politely on her lap.

She’s used to all this, too.

The quiet hum of the sterilized hallways, the intermittent yelps from patients who just had some blood drawn, the hurried footsteps of doctors and nurses walking past the door-the sounds almost feel like home.

My doctor finally walks in, a nurse trailing behind him. He’s carrying a folder of my records, images from my colonoscopy the week before.

I barely remember what he told me after that procedure. Trying to fight off the remnants of sedation, I struggled to listen to his words.

Something about strictures-things are worse-couldn’t even finish-steps need to be taken-bad, bad, bad.

Maybe it’s just that I’ve had this disease for so long I’ve forgotten what it’s like to feel normal. Maybe I’ve forgotten how to feel pain. Because I don’t, at the moment, feel all that terrible. I’ve felt worse. Things could always be worse.

I wasn’t expecting it at all.

My mom and I were even smiling, joking about how hungry we were, where we were going to go out for lunch after the appointment.

But the doctor’s not smiling.

After taking a deep breath, he looks so squarely into my eyes that I can’t help but look down.

“Sarah,” he tells me, “you need an ostomy. Now.”

• • • • • •

I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease when I was 10 years old. I wasn’t getting any taller or gaining any weight. My stomach pain was becoming intolerable.

My family knew something was wrong.

We chose to ignore my Murfreesboro pediatrician-the one who said I was just being dramatic.

Several intrusive tests later, I was given a more concrete answer.

Crohn’s disease-named after Dr. Burrill B. Crohn, the Mount Sinai Hospital physician who pinpointed the effects of the disease-is a chronic disorder that causes inflammation of the digestive or gastrointestinal tract. Crohn’s and a related disease, ulcerative colitis, are the two main disease categories that belong to a larger group of illnesses called inflammatory bowel disease.

I have both.

Both illnesses have one strong feature in common: They are marked by an abnormal response by the body’s immune system. The immune system comprises various cells and proteins, which normally protect the body from infection. But in people with Crohn’s disease, the immune system reacts inappropriately.

Researchers believe that the immune system mistakes microbes, such as bacteria that are normally found in the intestines, for foreign or invading substances. The intestines launch an ongoing attack-and in the process, the body sends white blood cells into the lining of the intestines, where they produce chronic inflammation.

Because Crohn’s is a chronic disease, sufferers go through periods during which the disease flares up. These episodes are followed by times of remission-periods in which symptoms disappear or decrease and good health returns.

In the worst cases, Crohn’s and colitis can result in the need for ostomy surgery, in which entire parts of the intestine or colon are removed-in my case, I was told, permanently.

A small bag is put on the outside of the skin to function as the colon. It has to be emptied every few hours.

For some, such a surgery is a lifesaver. Most learn to live full, normal, happy lives with an ostomy bag.

But I’d rather survey my options.

And although considerable progress has been made in IBD research, investigators still don’t know the cause. Studies indicate that the inflammation in IBD involves a complex interaction of factors: the genes the person has inherited, the immune system and something in the environment.

Maybe I got it because my mother’s sister had ulcerative colitis and my dad’s father had Crohn’s disease. Maybe I got it because I am an American Jew of European descent, an ethnic group that is four to five times more likely to develop IBD than the general population.

But I’ve never spent too much time trying to figure out why I got this disease. I’ve been too busy trying to figure out how to conquer it.

Crohn’s sufferers are everywhere. They’re hidden behind whispers and discomfiture. It’s a disease that a lot of people feel ashamed to claim as their own.

My good friends all know about my health problems, of course. Colleagues eventually find out.

And then there are acquaintances, people you feel squeamish admitting your health problems to. Teachers. Employers. Boyfriends.

And strangers-the ones who don’t need to know.

Take, for example, family acquaintances-people who, much to my humiliation, often get an earful about my disease.

I was visiting my mom at work a few weeks ago when she decided to tell a colleague about my impending ostomy surgery.

Just as my cheeks promptly turned a bright shade of red, the woman proudly lifted up the bottom of her shirt to reveal an ostomy bag.

Like her, I’m tired of feeling embarrassed. Or ashamed.

• • • • • •

The starchy, hospital bed sheets feel like sandpaper against my skin. I’m no stranger to hospitals, but I am to this one.

I’m in an unfamiliar city-Cleveland, Ohio-surrounded by unfamiliar faces.

They wouldn’t let my mom leave the waiting room. And even at 21 years old, it’s one of those moments where you just don’t want to be alone.

My room divider isn’t completely closed. A woman lies across from me, her stomach moving up and down with deep breaths, her hand clutching her sheet.

I watch a doctor come in and greet her. He asks about her medical history. She tells him she has an ostomy bag because of diverticulosis. High blood pressure. Liver problems. Arthritis.

I’ve been waiting in this recovery room to start my procedure for at least an hour. Waiting is putting my nerves on edge-each second that goes by, each time the thin room divider rustles with a passing doctor, my heart thumps a little louder.

But I’m still waiting.

Back home, my personal physicians have strongly recommended a colostomy surgery. They say my Crohn’s has caused too much damage. There’s really no other choice. A simpler procedure could work, they told me. A surgeon could perform a stricture dilation procedure, gently stretching the many narrowings that proliferate my intestines.

But they decided that my case is too bad. It’s gone too far.

So, in March 2008, I went to the best hospital for gastroenterology in the country, the Cleveland Clinic, for a second opinion. There I was told that I’m not a lost cause. A simpler procedure could be possible.

My new doctor is a native of China, his English riddled with a heavy accent. He doesn’t boggle his words down with flowery sentiment. He simply told me that I’m “too young” for an ostomy and that, while this simpler procedure can be risky, I’m safe with him.

“With other doctors,” he says, “chance of perforation during the procedure is 15 percent. With me, one percent.”

But I have a hard time trusting doctors.

Alone and scared, my thoughts are becoming more and more frenzied. The thought of something going wrong in a city that isn’t my home, the thought of having to return to Vanderbilt, to hear my doctor say, “I told you so,” the thought of emergency surgery, of the knife slipping, of my intestines perforating.

I just want to get it over with. I want to stop waiting.

A nurse finally comes to wheel me away, apologizing for making me stay in the recovery room for so long.

My doctor is already in the room waiting for me. He already has his latex gloves on.

He sees that I’m crying-the waiting really did get to me-and tries to ease my fears.

“I’ve already done three of these procedures today,” he says.

I ask him what’s the worst that can happen.

My intestines could perforate, he says. Then they would take me to emergency surgery.

“But only one percent. One percent.”

As he speaks, another doctor injects me with sedation. My eyelids get heavy. My body gets heavier. I can feel myself falling asleep, but I try to fight it. I’m too nervous. I want to be awake if something goes wrong.

My doctor back home told me this simpler procedure was nearly impossible for someone like me. The strictures were too severe.

I can hear a radio playing. The doctor and nurses are listening to Coldplay.

I stop for a moment, barely awake, to think how odd it is that Coldplay is going to be the background music for something so terrifying.

And then-all I see is black.

• • • • • •

I’m staring at the same poster of the gastrointestinal tract in my doctor’s Vanderbilt office. Waiting… waiting… waiting…

My stomach growls. I stand up, walk to one side of the room, lie down on the examination table. Stand back up. Read a flyer about a medical research study.

Waiting… waiting… waiting…

The procedure in Cleveland couldn’t have gone better. My strictures have been temporarily widened. I will have to go back in three months to do the procedure over again-and every three months after that, indefinitely, until a better option becomes available or it stops working.

But, for now, I’ve staved off getting an ostomy bag.

Aside from the persistent rumblings coming from my stomach, my gut hasn’t felt this at ease in years.

That trip to Cleveland for a second opinion made me feel somehow guilty. My doctor at Vanderbilt told me I needed an ostomy. He told me that the stricture dilation procedure wouldn’t work.

But I found someone who disagreed.

I’m not nervous about impending bad news. After all, there’s nothing my doctor can tell me, when he finally decides to open that door, that can undo what the doctors at the Cleveland Clinic already did.

I just don’t want to be the one to tell him. Doctors don’t like to hear that they might have been wrong.

Someday, I might have to get an ostomy surgery. If so, I hope I could learn to live with it, just like I’m learning to live with Crohn’s.

But that’s not going to happen today.

For now, I’m just seeing how many times I can make a full circle in my doctor’s swivel chair without touching my feet to the ground.

Then the door slowly opens, and my doctor takes a seat front of me. He says that I look great. Healthy.

I have a tendency to ramble when I get nervous. I mumble something about the upcoming presidential election, about the traffic, the unseasonably cold weather.

Then I tell him about Cleveland.

“Well,” he says, his eyebrows furrowing, “it’s a shame you had to go all the way out there to do something we could have done here.”

My new medicine, he says, must have improved the strictures enough that the procedure became possible. Because when they last saw me, it just wasn’t.

He scribbles a signature on a prescription pad, a refill for one of my many medications. He wants to see me again in a couple of months to determine when I’ll need my next procedure.

I reach out to shake his hand. We’re both forcing smiles.

He’s a good doctor. One of the best in the region.

But at Cleveland, it’s only one percent. One percent.

The never-ending gay marriage debate

{ April 18, 2008 @ 2:01 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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“I, personally, am not a homosexual, but…” and so goes the intro to most defenses for homosexuality. I am straight, but that is hardly relevant to my compassion for homosexuals. To be tormented with the idea of living life as you are and facing hell after death or living life as it is expected and facing hell on earth hardly qualifies as an easy decision for those that are, in fact, born “different.” Being gay is not a choice, and to say it is undermines your own ability at decision-making.

My good friend Zach, who only definitively came out recently, wrote:

“I have known there was something different about me as long as I can remember. I feared everyday that someone would find out that I was gay, so I lived my life to conceal who I am. Whatever it was that tipped people off – they figured I was – so, everyday I was tortured at school. I was called a faggot in the halls, pushed into lockers, hit, had pennies flicked at my head and had someone hold me over the railing of the stairway on the second story of my school and threaten to drop me.

“It got to the point where I stood in my empty house holding a handful of pills. Thankfully, I was too afraid of hell to take the pills, so I put them back in the bottle and spent the night crying in bed. I finally came out of hiding when I was 19. It was taken relatively well, except by my grandparents who told me I was going to hell and told me that they were going to go to the doctor to find out how to deal with me when I got AIDS.

“It has taken time, but through the years I have come to the point where I love who I am, and I wouldn’t want to change a thing about myself.”

Two Novembers ago, Tennesseans voted on a constitutional ban on gay marriage. Is it any surprise the ban won with flying colors?

Before you jump to a conclusion because it just seems wrong or it just says so in the Bible, remember that the same gut feeling of general discomfort and the same book were what once prevented Jews from swimming in the community pool, women from voting and blacks from riding in the front of the bus. What years ago was considered “just the way it should be” is now inhumane and unarguably not the way anyone should be treated.

The most common claim is that allowing gay marriage somehow dilutes the institution – because Britney Spears didn’t water it down enough already. Call me crazy, but I’m of the opinion that adultery, marrying for money, marrying for a good drunken laugh or treating your spouse badly because you would rather be with someone else all dilute the “institution” more. Even more, not all religions hold homosexuality as sinful, and since America is a country with – hallelujah! – a separation of church and state, religious beliefs hardly hold any credibility in this neverending argument.

Even if one believes a homosexual to be a sinner, state laws provide and high courts have ruled that sinners, such as murderers, tax-evaders, wife-beaters and adulterers – even if they are still in prison – have the constitutional right to marry.

So, for those of you vehemently opposed to gay marriage, let me ask you where the solution lies. Do we attempt to change a homosexual’s programming for the sake of social uniformity – a process which, over the years, has seen a success rate of somewhere between 0 and 0.1 percent? Do we pretend that a “legal-union” is to par with or has the same emotional, mental and economical benefits as legal marriage? Or, do we simply deny an entire group their civil equality so those opposed don’t have to deal with what goes on in same-sex couple’s bedrooms? Believe it or not, you don’t have to watch.

Marriage, undoubtedly, holds people together. Imagine a world without it; something tells me that promiscuous sex, dysfunctional relationships and sexually transmitted diseases might become more common. Everyone deserves the chance for the American Dream: the chance to experience dysfunctional relationships protected with the legality of marriage.

Don’t ride the fence on this issue. “I love gay people; I have lots of gay friends, but I don’t think gay people should be able to get married.” I hate to break it to you, but you don’t love them and they aren’t your friends if you don’t think they deserve equality.

Blue Velvet revisited

{ April 15, 2008 @ 8:49 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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I remember Blue Velvet from my childhood. I remember my parents watching it, and after I inquired if I could watch it with them, my dad forbid me from seeing the film until “I’m 50.” Blue Velvet, then, entered that list of taboo-films on my “until-I’m-50-list,” joined by American Beauty and Last Tango in Paris. I find it funny, then, that at 22-years-old, these three films are now three of my favorites. But I can’t deny that watching Blue Velvet, especially, was extremely disturbing. Even though I think it’s a fabulous film, certain scenes did make me think that perhaps my dad was right.

            Considering Laura Mulvey’s “gaze” helps me understand why watching particular scenes of Blue Velvet is so disturbing. Mulvey, writing in 1975 in “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” says that mainstream cinema reflects male culture, has been structured around three explicitly male looks or gazes. There is the look of the camera in the situation being filmed; there is the gaze of men within a film narrative, which is structured so as to make women objects of their gaze; and finally there is the look or gaze of the spectator, which is constructed, more often than not, as male.

            The scene in which Jeffrey watches Frank “do things” to the Blue Lady employs the idea of the gaze in several different ways. First, there is the gaze of Frank to the Blue Lady. She is there for his amusement, an exercise in his depravity. Then, there is the gaze of Jeffrey toward Frank and the Blue Lady, who arguably has much less degenerative intentions, but whose gaze is disturbing to witness nonetheless. And then there is the gaze of the viewer, in this case, a female, who finds herself drawn to the other female on screen who is the object of a doubly-debauched gaze.

            Watching this scene, I felt sickened. Uneasy. It’s hard to watch it without subconsciously picturing yourself in the Blue Lady’s position. Even more, the scene is a perfect example of Mulvey’s famous theory, which is, in most films, hard to explicitly point out. 

Beliefs

{ April 9, 2008 @ 10:10 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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Beliefs are powerful.

They are so powerful, in fact, that wars are fought in their name, countless lives are relentlessly taken for their sake and people are shunned daily just for owning one.

What is life without belief, though?

During each humdrum daily activity, we develop an opinion – which gas station we prefer, which person we find attractive, how we like our coffee. In the absence of belief, there is only mediocrity and, without disparity, our country would just be kind of creepy.

However, if we celebrate opinions, why then are we so quick to attack what is different from our own?

I have met my share of irresolute people. To be safe, they never firmly uphold one thing to be true and, instead, float from one idea to the next in the hope of approval.

I have also met several wannabe dogmatists who, without fully understanding the implications, act out the part wholeheartedly – be it for the sake of a parent, a friend or personal qualifications. Both are equally irritating. Rather than being eager to learn and construct their own set of beliefs, some people opt to hide behind a mask.

The concept is kind of tempting – there is nothing easy about voicing a conviction. Nay-sayers will obstinately lurk in the shadows. Every revolutionary change our world has encountered had its opposition; in the absence of the liberty to criticize, we would revert from our unique Democracy to a culture of silence. As an American, the right to personal belief is one of our most dearly beloved liberties.

It’s tough to simultaneously applaud strong convictions while completely opposing what is different. Who decides what is good and bad? I, too, am guilty of falling into this trap. It would be unfair to advertise a completely open mind if you are still quick to judge what opposes your truth.

In the dictionary, “open-minded” is defined as the antonym for “opinionated.” Why can’t we have both?

We are only in college, after all. Looking back at what, 10 years ago, I held as absolute truth proves how much I’ve shifted, learned and matured. If we emerge into the world a tabula rasa, collecting and shaping our belief system as we age, then why are we already tearing each other apart in our 20s?

Shouldn’t we be sharing and constructively criticizing our peers rather than hatefully attacking one another?

I have a strong aversion for people who are narrow-minded. On the other hand, I also have an aversion for uber-conservatives, Adam Sandler and wannabe Playmates. I cringe at the sound of anti-gay propaganda and the need for prayer in schools. I have strong convictions. So who am I to talk?

There is a fine line, though, between disagreement and personal attack – a line that is so often crossed.

We should learn to censure the belief, not the believer.

Had I been born with ultra right-wing parents, I am sure I would be singing a different tune. Given that our beliefs are not sent down from the sky and instead have definitive roots, I see that there is no use attacking the advocate. It has the same effect as cheesy “Yo-mamma jokes”; little is gained but a chunk out of the bully’s decorum.

All of our beliefs have contributing sources, and thus, we are always altering, subtracting, and adding to our own doctrines.

An opinion is an opinion, whereas a fact is a fact. This nursery-rhyme-esque statement seems difficult to comprehend for some. Though beliefs are shaped from chosen truths, the two are not to be disguised for the other. It’s a dangerous intermingling.

“Lost,” season 4

{ April 7, 2008 @ 5:15 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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There comes a time in every season of “Lost” where we start to feel the first prickles of frustration, a time when a simmering feeling that not much has been discovered blossoms into a full understanding that, really, not much has.

The glory of the season’s opener has started to wane, and, in true “Lost” fashion, we find ourselves asking the same dreaded question: are we ever going to find out what’s really going on?

Now on a three-week hiatus because of the writers’ strike, the flurry of excitement over—finally!—getting some answers in this fourth season, of seeing at least a tiny, glimmering hole of light at the end of the long tunnel, has been replaced by questions, questions and more questions.

So until “Lost” returns, all there is to do is dissect the season’s many victories and failures.

“Lost” has always been heavily debated among critics and the general public, and this season is no exception. It’s one of those shows that you either love—usually in a borderline unhealthy, message-board-frequenting and clue-obsessing kind of way—or you loathe.

Or maybe you loved it until the second season, when you jumped ship after realizing that watching “Lost” is quite a commitment. Answers will not be spoon-fed. Sometimes, it won’t make a lot of sense. A lot of the time, you’ll leave an episode with less information than you thought you had in the beginning.

But to the true Lostie, that’s what makes this show the best one on television.

 

With the season’s first episode, “The Beginning of the End,” flash-forward segments replaced the show’s quintessential flashbacks. It seemed like a daunting task for the show’s creative forces—primarily Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cruz and J.J. Abrams, the show’s core writers and producers—to undertake, but it’s been a welcoming reprieve to a formula that was starting to get stale.

“The Beginning” introduces the season’s primary theme—the Oceanic Six. Through a series of flash-forwards, starting with Hurley Reyes (Jorge Garcia), we learn that at least six people eventually escape the island. Even more, they’re famous. They’re hounded by fans. And they’re haunted by their decision to leave.

Along with Hurley, Kate Austin (Evangeline Lilly), Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox), Sun Kwon (Yunjin Kim), Sayid Jarrah (Naveen Andrews), Ben Linus (Michael Emerson) and baby Aaron have escaped.

But it’s not definite which of the aforementioned characters make up the Oceanic Six—some, like Sayid, who now appears to be working for Ben, follow a different course post-island.

At least we can finally stop wondering if they escape at all. Now, we just need to know how they escape—and why some of them seem so desperate to return. (”I don’t think we did the right thing,” Hurley tells Jack. “I think it [the island] wants us to come back! And it’s going to do everything it can. ”).

And because no “Lost” season is complete without welcoming new faces—how can a show that takes place on a deserted island find so many opportunities to introduce new characters?—we meet a group of potential rescuers, who may or may not be there to save the plane-wrecked gang.

We meet Daniel Faraday (Jeremy Davies), a physicist with a penchant for crying and neuroticism. We meet Miles Straume (Ken Leung), who can apparently speak with the dead. We meet Charlotte Lewis (Rebecca Mader), an anthropologist who is captured and taken hostage by Locke’s group. Then we meet Frank Lapidus (Jeff Fahey), who was supposed to be the pilot on Oceanic 815. Oy.

It’s almost impossible to watch “Lost” these days without taking notes. You gotta keep up, or you’re gonna get left behind.

But unlike season three’s Nikki (Kiele Sanchez) and Paulo (Rodrigo Santoro), who were promptly killed off after viewers protested their addition to the show, this new group of characters fits. This group can actually act. They offer new back-stories and possibilities for plot development (it appears, at the moment, that the foursome is working for the nefarious Charles M. Widmore).

This season has largely been written by the show’s creator, J.J. Abrams, who brings the same tight, crisp, witty style his previous shows (“Alias,” “Felicity”) are famous for. The dialogue has never been sharper or funnier (when Jack asks Juliet why the Others need therapists, she responds: “It’s very stressful being an Other, Jack”).

After an entire season of one-liners, the Sayid- and Hurley-centric episodes, both marvelously performed, feel especially gratifying.

This season has really given the core cast of characters a chance to reclaim center stage. These are the people (not the Others, not the Dharma Initiative) that we tune in year after year to watch.

A particularly affecting moment of the season—and the entire series—is Jack’s desperate confrontation with Kate. He tells her that he uses his “golden Oceanic ticket,” a consolation prize from the airline, to fly across the world every Friday.

“I want it to crash, Kate,” he says. “I don’t care about anyone else on board. Every little bump we hit, turbulence… I actually close my eyes, and I pray… I pray that I can go back.”

The camera zooms in on Jack’s face, consumed by an overgrown beard. His eyes fill with tears of frustration.

The camera shoots back and forth from Jack to Kate, her smooth hair and made-up face a sharp contrast to her rough-and-tumble appearance on the island.

And this, folks, is what “Lost” is all about. Supremely acted, brilliantly edited and filmed (the series’ primary cinematographer and director of photography, John S. Bartley, always makes the show look like a multi-million dollar movie)—“Lost,” even in its fourth season, is still going strong.

With two confirmed seasons left in “Lost’s” run, it’s time for some answers. We can only hope that, when the series returns, the build-up will start to pay off.

But those that learn to love “Lost” learn to love its masochistic quality, the exquisite pain of guessing, of wondering, of dying for answers.

Because in the world of “Lost,” nothing is black or white. But you can sure learn to appreciate its myriad grays. 

I kinda hate Paris Hilton.

{ March 25, 2008 @ 3:09 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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“I’ve become a cartoon,” the notoriously eloquent Paris Hilton told The Sunday Times in July, “Nobody gets that how I am on “The Simple Life” is a character. I play dumb like Jessica Simpson plays dumb. But we know exactly what we’re doing. We’re smart blondes.”

Not that I believe for a second that Hilton is shrewd – catching up on her reading and pondering the state of the world when the bulbs stop flashing – but her claim that it’s an act disturbs me more. Faking stupidity in the hope of notoriety is sadder than actually being an idiot.

Dumb-blonde jokes about Hilton and Simpson have become stale, and adding to their criticism would accomplish little. Both are millionaires, both widely-believed to be gorgeous, and both appear about as intelligent as a well-trained poodle.

However, according to them, they’re laughing all the way to the bank.

Hilton is the poster-girl for a celebrity-obsessed generation. Her eminence far outshines many that actually earn their iconic status – listing the reasons I find her fame worthless would take up far too much space.

And yet, she continues to find ways to piss me off.

Christina Aguilera has shocked the country with her provocative videos and attire, angering feminists and spawning several drrrrty wannabes, but I can’t recall her ever not seeming in control. She never faked dumb or talent and, instead, challenged stereotypes of women and the tolerance of uptight grannies.

In October’s issue of Jane Magazine, Aguilera calls Hilton’s smart-blonde affirmation “sad,” adding that “it’s not moving anything along for women.”

Hilton might be a multi-millionaire, but the rest of us only make 75 cents to every man’s dollar. Had she achieved her fortune through savvy-business skills rather than from posing with a Chihuahua and dancing on bars, I might be able to shrug it off.

According to an article in the Khaleej Times, Hilton says, “I haven’t accepted money from my parents since I was 18. Since then, I’ve worked on my own. It feels good that I don’t ever have to depend on a man or my family for anything.”

Hip, hip, hooray, Ms. Hilton. Except, I get this pestering feeling that without your grandfather, your “royal” last name or your very public tumultuous romances, you would be forced to wise up to achieve any kind of success.

If women keep dumbing themselves down to fulfill a feminine expectation, the rest of us not born into an uber-wealthy family will find ourselves in a tough spot. Whether it’s an act or not, playing dumb just makes you look stupid.

Even though she does stylishly oppose the Canadian seal hunts and encouraged youth to vote in the 2004 election, she routinely wears fur and has never even registered to vote. Hilton’s political faux-awareness does little for her dumb-blonde image, or for aspiring heiresses everywhere.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Hilton is a complex icon for post-feminism. She surely avows her right to riches – her cars, clothes, and entertainment empire rivaling any man’s – but, perhaps, she just makes blondes everywhere look bad.

After the bra-burning, the approval of birth control, and other landmarks of the women’s movement, maybe what’s coming next is an army of spray-tanned, bleach-blond, Chihuahua-toting Gloria Steinems.

Is Paris the front runner for the next post-post-post-eighth-once-removed wave of feminism?

God, I hope not.

Teachers

{ March 19, 2008 @ 2:42 am } · { Uncategorized }
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My right brain definitely wears the pants in my head.

I cannot remember ever understanding math. Ever enjoying it. Ever having an “a-ha” moment that wasn’t inspired by an answer from the back of the book. Am I just math intolerant or was I just never given the chance?

I have had a few good teachers during my education thus far – and by good teachers, I do not just mean the work was easy and I got an A.

I’m talking about teachers that truly and intensely affected my life. Psychology, English, Journalism – the ones I remember made me want to be a writer; made me want to think about the world around me beyond the superficial.

And then there are those that I dread, whose lectures make me struggle to keep focused while my hand throbs uncontrollably from copying down page after page of notes from a prefabricated, perfectly formulated lecture.

I do not learn anything from them. I memorize a lot of useless dribble, but it never once sinks in why I should care about it, why the material should mean more to me than a decent grade on a test.

Teaching is, in my opinion, one of the most underrated, vital and profound professions in the world. We don’t have enough teachers, and yet, half of the ones we do have want us in and out of that class as quickly as possible, want good grades on tests purely for their own good-graces, want to have as little interaction with their students as possible.

Doesn’t anyone teach the teachers how to teach?

And not only are some of them lackluster, some are, it seems, thriving on a twisted power trip.

I had several teachers in high school – a few in college, too, actually – who got their jollies watching cheeks turn red in embarrassment, from making public any screw-up, unintentional and minute, one of their pupils made.

During an in-class essay once, I referred to a literary character as a “tableau rosa,” meaning a blank slate. Ignoring the fact that I was merely attempting to correctly use a Latin phrase in a high school English class, this devil-spawn of a teacher read my essay aloud, pointing out my misspelling of the phrase, telling her students not to attempt to sound smart if they can’t spell the word right.

Even more, some teachers have the audacity to write into a college newspaper purely to criticize an aspiring journalist, purely to ruin his or her confidence.

I just do not think that is what it is all about.

I guess I am just a dreamer. I know every single professor I come across won’t have the ability to change my life or point me in a new direction. Heck, I don’t even expect them all to teach me something I’ll remember in five years. However, I suppose I just expect them all to try. Just like teachers demand that their students give it their all, we expect the same from the people we’re paying a fortune to learn from.

I want to be asked to think, to discuss, to analyze. I want to be told how to be better, how to be more educated, how to go into a career with confidence.

I don’t want to be made to feel like an idiot for an honest effort. And I definitely don’t want to leave the class armed solely with the ability to write notes at a mile a minute and to ignore throbbing hand muscles.

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