IMHO #2

The story: Anxiety disorders like Aubrey Huff’s largely misunderstood

http://www.contracostatimes.com/bay-area-news/ci_20498254/anxiety-disorders-like-aubrey-huffs-largely-misunderstood

My reaction: Anxiety, depression and other mental disorders are misunderstood all of the time, and have a huge stigma attached to them. Tens of millions of Americans have chronic mental illness conditions, some mild, some very severe, but it’s still not treated like a major issues in the United States.

That is, only when the drug companies aren’t trying to sell medication to correct it without actually addressing why the condition exists or persists (I mean this mainly for anxiety and depression – medication is still useful much of the time, and some other disorders only get better with medication. However, psychotherapy and mental well-being is rarely addressed).

What I like about this article is that attention is being focused on mental illness because an athlete is currently suffering from it. Sports stars and celebrities often shine attention on an issue that is otherwise left dorment. I believe mental illness is one of those.

It’s obviously not as a bad as it was 50 years ago, or even 25 years ago. There is a strong stigma, however, that makes it hard for people to get help, whether it’s through psychotherapy, medication or a combination of the two. For some reason our society refuses to address the fact that mental illness is just like any other ailment. It can be treated and many people can live normal and very productive lives. But for some reason people see it as a weakness, as if the person chooses to be afraid or sad or angry. People are ignorent, and our society doesn’t do much to correct it. That ticks me off.

This article about Huff will hopefully shed some light on what it’s like for people who suffer from anxiety. Money, success and even power have no real bearing on mental illness. Making $11 million a year doesn’t cure depression. People are so ignorant and they choose to stay that way. It’s sad; sad for them, and sad for the person suffering, especially considering statistically they have a family member with a mental illness.

We have a long way to go in accepting mental illness as a legitimate disease, but I’m hoping articles like this on people in the public arena will get our society to think more about the issue, just like we did with AIDS, smoking-related cancers and countless other diseases.

Letter to the Editor

http://www.mercurynews.com/sal-pizarro/ci_20516120/pizarro-festive-farewell-san-jose-state-professor-terry

Dear editor,

I’m glad that the Mercury News took the time to cover the retirement celebration of San Jose State University professor Terry Christensen. He has been a major part of San Jose’s political scene for many decades, and his work at SJSU has helped thousands of students over the years have a better understanding on how local politics work. Mr. Christensen is a wonderful teacher and a great human being who has been helping our community for 40 years. He deserves the attention that the school has bestowed upon him, as well as your coverage of his retirement. Although he never ran for public office, Christensen has always been a vocal community member and political science wizard. Let’s hope SJSU can hire instructors just as talented and joyful as Terry Christensen.

- Jonathan Roisman

Copy Edit the World, Part 3

From left to right:

1. CD Review is spelled incorrectly.

2. The headline says the award is for $25,000, but inside the story it says it’s worth $250,000.

3. Construction is spelled incorrectly in the headline of the front page of the Spartan Daily.

Metaphors and Similes

Metaphors:

1. Our country is a shining example of hypocrisy.

2. Her room felt lifeless and abandon, like a decaying prison cell.

Similes:

1. The burned out buildings were as black as coal and unrecognizable from their prewar condition just weeks before.

2. His eyes were full of life and looking like a squirrel with a giant acorn.

Japanese Interment Camp essay

The Japanese internment camp memorial created by the artist Ruth Asawa at the Robert Pekham Federal Building is a lasting symbol of the American government’s effort to quarantine over 100,000 Japanese-Americans, who were seen as a possible threat to the United States during World War Two.

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States’ entrance into World War Two, the U.S. considered people of Japanese-descent a possible threat to the country. There was already a lot of anti-Japanese sentiment in the country in the first-half of the 20th century, but Pearl Harbor pushed it over the edge.

Many of the Japanese in the United States were American citizens. They were forced to sell their land and many of their possessions before being moved into constructed camps on the western coast of the United States. The government forced them to live there, starting in 1942, until 1945, when World War Two ended.

Ruth Asawa is an American artist who is of Japanese descent. She was a teenager during the war, and was forced to live in an internment camp in Southern California and later Arkansas. She later became a sculpter and constructed dozens of pieces of art around the country, with many of them in the Bay Area. She created the Japanese internment camp memorial in San Jose to show what it was like for an average Japanese-American citizen’s life during World War Two.

Asawa’s sculpture shows the process of what happened to thousands of Japanese-Americans. The sculpture begins with their arrival to the United States and shows what their early life was like in California. They had farms and owned and homes for many years, and most were U.S. citizens. Once the war began, however, the sculpture depicts government officials and military personel forcing them off their land and into the newly constructed camps. The Japanese-Americans could only take what they could carry and were forced to adapt quickly to their new lifestyle.

The Japanese were taken by trains to the isolated camps and were guarded by U.S. soldiers and were not allowed to leave. They lived in barracks and worked as farmers and laborers inside the camps. The only way they could leave was for men to join the U.S. military during the war. Some of these newly-created soldiers were looked down upon by their community for leaving their families and fighting for the very people who were holding them as prisoners.

One of the last images that is on the sculpture shows the U.S. Supreme Court upholding the legality of the internment camps in 1944. It would take two generations for the United States government to apologize for their actions against their own citizens during World War Two.

There were about 3,000 Japanese living in Japantown in San Jose, and they were forcibly relocated to Wyoming during the war. San Jose State’s gymnasium was used as a temporary holding area for some of the local populace, many of whom were students at the school.

The internent camps were build out of fear and paranoia that American citizens of Japanese descent would betray their government during a war. While it’s an uncommon event in our history, it’s definitely something I can see happening again in the United States, or any country the world. It just takes the right amount of circumstances to push people to the brink of paranoia before they act irrationally. It wouldn’t shock me if our country did something similar again within the next century.

Fish out of Water

I remember when I went to my first punk concert. I’m a fan of a lot of rock music, from alternative to pop-punk, but I had never really been into heavy metal or punk, and I felt way out of my element when I went to a punk show.

The show was in a very small building in Chinatown in Fresno that acted as a youth center for the local community. It seemed to focus on the Chinese population of Fresno, but at night it was used for the local punk scene that was very active. Five or six bands played very loud music that was unintelligible to me, but the hundred or so people cramped inside a room no bigger than a one bedroom apartment were having the time of their lives.

Each band only played a few songs for about 15-20 minutes and there wasn’t even a stage. Mosh pits were common, and I even got hit in the face while standing in a corner, trying to avoid the carnage. This concert was nothing like I had been too before.

What I noticed about the event was that a lot of the people at the concert weren’t there just for the music. The punk scene was a lifestyle for a lot of people. Many of them dressed the same and felt like they were among friends. This wasn’t some arena concert show where 15,000 strangers showed up for four hours to watch U2, but rather a place where dozens of people knew each other very well.

I don’t want to stereotype and say that these people, mostly in the 14-20 range, were social outcasts, but they definitely didn’t fit the mold of someone I was used to hanging out with. There was nothing wrong with them, but they weren’t the middle-class suburbia type of people, although I suspect some of them came from there. Many of them tight clothing and tattoos and mohawks; it was the type of thing of thing you see teen movies about high school. It felt odd to actually see it all in person.

I felt like a fish out of water. It was a real experience for me because I realized that music had the power to bring people together. I knew that was possible before, but to see it in action was pretty amazing to me.

Word #11

This week’s word: impudent

Taken from: A recording from beloved Vice President Spiro Agenew (sarcasm).

“A spirit of national masochism prevails, encouraged by an effete core of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals.”

http://www.hark.com/clips/rvkfzsbcrh-agnew-impudent-snobs

Definition: Not showing due respect for another person; impertinent. Adjective.

Used in a sentence: Spiro Agnew and Richard Nixon were both impudent politicians who got what they deserved.

IMHO #1

The story: California College Postpones Plan to Charge Much More for Some Popular Courses by Ian Lovett

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/07/us/california-college-drops-plan-for-2-level-course-pricing.html?_r=1&ref=education

My reaction: This is a good decision by Santa Monica College. Having a two-tiered enrollment system is unfair because it gives students with more money a much greater advantage in getting classes. People come from different economic situations, and while it’s impossible to guarantee equal success, it’s within the United States’ power to make the playing field as level as possible.

The State of California is in severe debt. All three public higher education programs (UCs, CSUs and community colleges) have had their funding cut year after year. The schools have to do more with less, because as they have their budgets slashed, they’ve also had to take in more students and layoff more teachers. It’s a terrible combination. I understand that funding is scarce and finding revenue is important.

What SMC was proposing was flawed for a number of reasons. They’re putting a priority over a select few who have more money than thousands of other students. It’s sends the message that if you have more money you deserve priority. While that’s pretty much true in life, it’s still the wrong thing to do. Lower-income students who try to compete with wealthier students will force them to take out more loans just to have an equal chance of getting classes they need. Life isn’t fair, but public education should be.

This story brings up the bigger issue of lack of funding for public education in California. The administrators, teachers and students across the state should be advocating for more funding so that they don’t have to cut classes, raises prices and layoff teachers. I’m aware they’ve been trying to do this for years, but we’re afraid to talk about the elephant in the room: the unions for all of the employees.

The pensions have bled the state dry, and everyone needs to address the issue that some of the people working for the state need to rework their contracts. I’m a big supporter of teachers, but I think their union isn’t helping the issue. Either is raising fees and tuition for college students. The state should be ashamed, and so should SMC for trying to give wealthier students an easier road to graduation while they walk over the rest of the students.

Word #10

This week’s word: tweeter

Taken from: Joe Bonamassa’s cover of Ike and Tina Turner’s song “Funkier Than A Mosquito’s Tweeter.”

“You know you’re funkier than a mosquito’s tweeter.”

Definition: A small loudspeaker designed to reproduce high-pitched sounds in a high-fidelity audio system. Noun.

Used in a sentence: The sound system’s tweeter was considered state-of-the-art.

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer

I read the short story “Our Lady of Peace” in ZZ Packer’s Drinking Coffee Elsewhere. I enjoyed it a lot, and I thought that Ms. Packer did a good job constructing a story that moved along at a quick enough pace to keep the reader engaged.

The author’s main strength is use of adjectives to help define a setting or person. She’s also good at constructing dialogue. The conversations that the protagonist, Lynnea, had from the very beginning with the complaining white girl to the students in her classroom, felt authentic. I could see people in real life having these conversations.

I like how Ms. Packer describes objects and buildings. An example was when she described the school she worked at. Ms. Packer writes, “The front of the school was deserted and the four skimpy trees that dotted the dirt-packed school lawn evaded any pretense of bright New Endlandesque fall colors, heading straight to dried-out beige.” That one sentence helps paint a picture of where she teaches, or at the very least, the geographic area she doesn’t.

Ms. Packer’s strength is crafting a story quickly that hold substance and style that are her own. With the use of dialogue and scene description, the reader is able to quickly understand the issues surrounding the main characters and how they intend to solve them while doing it at a fast pace without  lacking important information.