"Home"

"American people, throughout the modern period have been ambivalent in their attachment to place... ...Americans have felt little awareness of being rooted to place or region, little sense of love for the land."
Lane, Belden. The Ephemeral Character of Place: Problems in Articulating an American Sense of Sacred Space. pp. 219

 I'm not sure I agree with this point.
At my high school, a boarding school called The Conserve School (which no longer has a four-year program), I felt an extreme love for the land. It was located in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, in a very small town called Land O' Lakes - not where they make the cheese and butter. Conserve is situated on 1200 acres, most of which is heavily forested with a few hiking/biking/ski trails and seven lakes. As the school had an environmental focus, we spent a lot of time outside the classroom and bonding with nature. Outside of class, we were encouraged (and sometimes forced) to explore the woods and our boundaries withing the wilderness. The trails, when no one was around, were a home for me - especially after a light rain in the sunset.

This leads me back to the very beginning of the article where the author quotes Aldo Leopold:
 "I am glad I shall never be young without wild country to be young in. Of what avail are forty freedoms without a blank spot on the map?"
 Aldo Leopold. Sand Country Almanac. 

Aldo Leopold himself enjoyed the wilderness of Wisconsin - granted, he did spend more time in the southern portion where it's dominantly prairie lands. I think the point is, though, is that through nature, it is much easier to connect and find a a real home.
 

Unfortunately, respect for nature is not as high anymore. Natural habitats are being destroyed for resources and space for growing urban centers. This, I believe is hurting many people's chances of finding a real home.
For example, another environmentalist, John Muir.

Muir agrees with Leopold that the wilderness is essential to developing a place to call home.
"It is impossible to overestimate the value of wild mountains and mountain temples as places for people to grow in, recreation grounds for soul and body."
John Muir. The Hetch Hetchy Valley

John Muir found a home in Hetch Hetchy Valley, which is located in the Yosemite National Park. He praised this valley as one of the last untouched places on the map. It wasn't long, though, before the head of the National Forest Service, Gifford Pinchot, decided to dam the valley. Since then, it has been completely flooded, creating all sorts of environmental problems - but that's beside the point. The point is, that one of the most beautiful places in our country was destroyed.


I think what I'm trying to say is that without the wilderness, it's impossible to find a real home. In an urban setting, there's no space for silence, contemplation, and growth. In order to find a real home, one must return to nature.

"Lawn Vigilantes" and Anne Hutchinson

This'll be a short post. Also, if you haven't read it, please refer to the previous post-

Maybe, these lawn vigilantes are not unlike John Winthrop in regards to Anne Hutchinson.
Perhaps he would have been one such to keep everything neat, pristine, and entirely symmetrical in order to keep up the appearance of the block.

Hurray for metaphors!

Lawnmowing and Freedom

"Lawns and yards may indeed exist to fulfill some innate human love and need for beauty but more likely they still announce the dignity and responsibility of their owners. Proper householders keep their livestock from their neighbor's land and eradicate crabgrass before it overruns abutting lawns."

Stilgoe, John. Conclusion, pp. 542-543

This point of this reading isn't necessarily about lawns or the way that people should keep them, but I think the freedom to keep ones own grass the way they want it is very important too.

In suburbia, there are generally certain "guidelines" for a person's lawn - official or not. Most members of a neighborhood usually frown at an unkempt lawn; one that hasn't been mowed in a few weeks, one with dandelions blooming, the crabgrass beginning to creep in. 

There are even what I like to call "grass vigilantes" when it comes to the appearance of a lawn - for instance, my mother hurt her leg a few years ago and wasn't able to move around, and I was away at boarding school. She had recently moved to a new town and didn't know her neighbors. Obviously, as she wasn't able to move around very well, the lawn went unmowed for about a week. One morning, as if by magic, the grass was cut. While this was a nice gesture, it could have easily be done as an insult.

In AP Environmental Science (or APES), our class, in addition to the AP syllabus, read the book Second Nature by Michael Pollan. I believe it's the first chapter that deals with this kind of censorship on the freedom of speech (or freedom of grass).

I think that people should be able to keep their lawns however they feel like keeping, and if that happens to be the (rather lazy, but admirable) idea of restoring it to natural prairie, they should be able to without their neighbors "vigilante-ing" all over their property.
They're creating their own landscape. Everyone's personal tastes differ, and lawn vigilantes shouldn't impose on those who like things a little chaotic.

Just sayin.

Anne Hutchinson - Threat to Male Superiority?

I think so.


Anne Hutchinson seems to be a foil in character for the Pastor John Winthrop. She seems to threaten everything he wants in his Puritan society, especially order.  It is for this reason that I think Anne Hutchinson was persecuted so harshly and excommunicated from the Church.

The two main things Anne seemed to threaten:

-Chaos
"[John Winthrop,] committed to one model of religious social order struggled against [Anne,] who professed commitment to no order but that order revealed directly by God and thus one beyond the control of any individual or community." (Westerkamp, 493)
By holding this belief, she takes away any of his power over her female followers.

-Male Power
John Winthrop also had a personal vendetta over Hutchinson's power over her husband - he felt that his masculinity was being threatened by her success.


Historians debate whether or not she believed in everything she herself preached, but I think she did. Would she really be willing to lose her whole home and community for something she didn't? She was obviously educated enough to form her own opinions, evidenced by the fact that she "ran intellectual circles around her opponents [during her trial]. They quoted the Scripture, she quoted back". (Westerkamp, 489)

Glee! and the American Dream.

So, I have a not-so-secret confession to make - I love Glee. I love the characters, the over-the-top melodrama, but most of all, the music.

Several of us, me included, all gathered in the Hoyme lounge to watch the season premiere on Tuesday. We joked about how we should all post about Glee in our commonplace blogs, and had a semi-serious discussion about how all  the characters in the show embody the "American Dream."
This got me thinking.
If you're not familiar with Glee, almost all stereotypes are portrayed in their small club - Two Asians, one Goth, one handicapped student, one homosexual, two.five cheerleaders, three football players, and one African American. For participating in Glee Club, they chose to be outcast from the rest of the crowd, being dubbed "Lima Losers" (Lima is the name of the city they are from - possibly stands for "Lost in the Middle of America").
Despite what others think, most of them feel free to express themselves the way they choose. The cheerleaders and football players, however, conform as best they can.

I spent some time thinking about how this might relate to what we were talking about to be talking about in class - the Puritans. Someone (Enich, I believe), mentioned how the Puritans and the members of the Glee Club were similar in that they abandoned the rest of society, whether it be the Anglican church or the stereotypes, in order to be free to exercise their own beliefs to religion/singing.
In this act, they isolate themselves, completely in the Puritan's case, from the rest. The Glee-clubbers are ridiculed publicly for their decision. In the beginning, this affects many of them; some of them even quit for a period of time. Eventually, they realize that together, they have a distinctly unique community where they genuinely appreciate each other. They aren't afraid to be themselves when they're with each other.

That said, I cannot wait for next Tuesdays episode :)

"Landscape is a Point of View"

"Inevitably, though, the paths we choose to approach [landscape] - words, pictures, music, dance, gardens, sports - lead us only to points of view which are full of vision, but short of whole sight."
"Landscape is a Point of View", Gregory Conniff

I believe this quotation shows why each person, community, or religious sector has their own image of freedom. Our own histories, or landscapes, provide each and everyone of us with unique experiences which give us our own independent views. No two visions of freedom can be exactly the same, and that can make us uneasy with ourselves - which the article goes on to mention.
I think this article is very important when studying about different settlements, especially the Puritans. Their idea of freedom is much different (and what I think is very skewed), but given their surroundings, it makes perfect sense to them.

...I hope this made sense.

Shakespeare!

After reading the second chapter of Takaki's "A Different Mirror; A History of Multicultural America", I was pleasantly surprised of the reference of Shakespeare's Tempest.

While I have not read the Tempest, I do appreciate the work of William Shakespeare quite a bit.
I do have to confess that I'm not huge on history, and that... well, I'm not the most excited about it. I am, however, very interested in literature, especially that of Shakespeare. I was really glad to read about how great literature, especially that of Shakespeare, was influenced by the discovery and settling of the New World. The references kept me awake through the chapter.

Poetry - Oh Noetry!

After reading the poetry for Monday's class, I was a bit surprised. I think I was expecting the poems to be pretty similar, but they were all vastly different from each other. They only thing I could find in common about them was that they were all in free verse. Each poem had a very distinct tone, view of America, and imagery. Some of the authors viewed America as free while the others were disillusioned.

The last poem, Sailing to America by Gregory Djanikian, was my favorite. It was more of a story than reflections of America - and I like stories. The imagery was imaginative, and it came from a child's tone of voice, rather than an adult. The way I interpret it is that they have not yet made it to America, but it is their final destination after seeing the rest of the world.

The Great Textbook Wars and Musical Theatre

Thursday evening, I had the absolutely wonderful opportunity to see Wicked at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis. The musical takes place in the mythic land of Oz, where Dorothy finds herself in the popular book "The Wizard of Oz", by L. Frank Baum. The story is about the life and times of the Wicked Witch of the West, and how she came to be so "Wicked".

A few of the lyrics to one song in the second act, "Wonderful", stood out to me, and I thought they related quite a bit to the reading "The Great Textbook Wars."

"A man's called a traitor - or liberator
A rich man's a thief - or philanthropist
Is one a crusader - or ruthless invader?
It's all in which label is able to persist.

There are precious few at ease
With moral ambiguities
So we act as though they don't exist!"

In this song, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz is explaining to Elphaba how history is greatly influenced by those who write it. The Wizard is trying to silence the Animals, animals that can speak and function in society. He tries to make them out as evil and the one enemy the public needs to fear.
If the textbooks had indeed been rewritten by one party to show a much less diverse view of the American culture, many ideas and facts could be skewed just like this.

The American Dream

"At a time like this, the American Dream becomes kind of a lingua franca, an idiom that everyone - from corporate executives to hip-hop artists - can presumably understand."
The American Dream, Cullen, pg. 6

I think this passage depicts the fact that, despite all backgrounds, the "American Dream" is rooted deeply in all of its citizens. Even though there are many versions, and the ideals of a corporate executive might be drastically different those of a from a hip-hop artist, they will all still hold the basic principles of freedom.
The concept of the "American Dream" is so strong that even other countries recognize it. Especially in the late 1800's and early 1900's, there were thousands of immigrants who came, seeking their own version of the "American Dream".

Reflections on Terry Tempest William's "Commencement"

Last year, in high school, we were asked to read this same passage for my public speaking class. We spent a lot of time talking about the letter that Senator Bennett sent in response, particularly when he asks her: "What would [you] be willing to die for?"

Her response is, of course, the freedom of speech.

In class, we reflected on what we believed in, and what we would be willing to give our life to.
My response: Imagination.
Without imagination, we wouldn't be able to evolve in a way where freedom of speech would be even possible. But, that's just my two cents on the subject.

I'm not entirely sure if this is what you're looking for, but I was excited about reading this. I really enjoy this reading.

Post #1

This is my first post. Just making sure everything works.
Have a wonderful day!