This morning, two board members of the Social Service League of Lawrence speak out alongside AM 1320 KLWN host, Clenece Hills. Talking points surround the non-profit, its strides during the past 153 years of service and the organization’s future plans.
Click Above to visit SSL’s Facebook Page!
Vintage and/or used clothes shopping is a trend surrounding millennials and society in general. Whether you’re a minimalist, enjoy sifting through one man’s treasures or simply want to help out with a local non-profit, the Social Services League of Lawrence is undoubtedly a shop to mark down on your next red-letter, shopping day.
The organization, orchestrated in Douglas County in 1886, continues to succeed based on the same goals with which it began. SSL takes clothing and accessory donation year-round and turns the items over to members of the community in need.
Heard of ATC? Perhaps Ditto? What about SSL!? Click for more info!
From baby clothing to prom dresses, the organization focuses on what needs are at hand while also serving locals with products they desire or, perhaps, desperately deserve.
Manager Lisa Purdon touches on this subject and says, “When introduced to new forms of generosity, people, especially the youth, are given the inspiration to volunteer.” Purdon continues by pushing personable and purely present variable of the local community.
Director’s Board Vice President, Meg Davis, looks beyond the legacy with comments on the future of the organization and goals at hand.
“This spring, and it took a lot of work, we were able to give away a few hundred prom dresses,” says Davis.
“It is so worth it to be able to have young girls come in and pick from so many items for such a special occasion in an adolescents’ life.”
The organization will continue to involve the local community through creative events such as: fashion shows, eyeglass sales, handmade jewelry and more. Preservation is always a key goal for SSL; however, the need for supply and demand always rest against one another.
With the popularity of vintage fashion at hand, the importance of the organization’s overall goal seamlessly coincides with its service. Behind every service, of course, are the individuals who work diligently to provide.
Click to get involved now!
“Volunteers are always needed. The more we streamline the process for volunteers, the more money the organization can make and, ultimately, the more people we can help. The donors in Lawrence crate a place where ‘recycling’ and simply helping one another is palpable,” said Purdon.
This organization’s teamed up with a number of other notable non-profits around the city, one of which, the Willow Domestic Violence Center, can be read up on by viewing previous posts on this site.
If you are interested in volunteering for the Social Services League of Lawrence, visit any of the hyperlinked images above or simply go to:http://www.facebook.com/socialserviceleague 905 Rhode Island St. Lawrence, KS
(785)-843-5414You can also follow SSL via twitter @socialserviceleague
Surrounded by a technology-addicted society, it is difficult to disconnect—even for the most studious-oriented learners. Fortunately, the following five, free apps allow students to harness smartphone ‘addiction’ to his/her academic advantage.
*Note: These apps will likely be most helpful for those individuals in secondary and/or higher educational levels.
Sync with Facebook and beat friends’ or classmates’ high scores
Bright design with simple interface
Cons:
Again, there’s something to be said for writing materials by hand
Study materials must be manually added and/or edited
School is hectic at times, granted, but the key to controlled chaos is to simplicity. From cluttered work-space to daily distractions, every student can use a helping hand with school and study habits. Smartphone software can help students sustain success in school.
Searching for a way to help out your local community and have fun at the same time? Look no further; the annual Eudora Heritage Festival is just around the corner. Hosted by the Midwest Cultural Foundation, this event will include numerous ways to help the non-profit host and the community it supports.
Assistant Event Planner Debbie Carden will speak with Hank Booth on AM 1320 KLWN about the annual celebration on Wednesday, Aug. 3 at 8:45 AM. The event itself takes place the following Saturday, Aug. 6 beginning at 10:00 AM and located at 1630 Elm Street in Eudora, KS.
The nationally syndicated performer Travis Martin is one of many notable performers to partake in the event. The Kansas area is, of course, known for it’s delicious BBQ; naturally, Eudora’s yearly BBQ Contest will also be a part of this red-letter day for the city.
These are just two event examples of the be numerous local bands, food vendors and even $10 hot air balloon rides taking place at the Eudora Heritage Festival of 2016. Many of the events are free for all; however, some will cost a small fee, with all profits going directly to support the local non-profit, Midwest Multicultural Foundation. For more information, visit http://www.facebook.com/MidwestMulticulturalFoundation.
Interested in being a vendor or performing? Refer to the link above to sign-up as there are still slots available for yourself and/or your business. Thanks for caring about your community and I hope many of you are able to attend and have a great time in Eudora this next weekend!
Student Cole Eisenmenger, 22, wore a sports a graphic art, baseball tee, cargo shorts, and Birkenstocks. He flips shoulder-length, hazel hair from his face, that reveal dark brown eyes and a sincere look.
“Some people may look at my long hair and judge me or call me a hippie,” he said with a chuckle. “Which is totally fine, because I’m doing something I see as positive for the world. And that’s what really matters, in my opinion.”
“These communities take in children whose parents can’t take care of them, or even just pick them up off of the street and take them in. It’s an orphanage, essentially,” Eisenmenger said. “But they do so much despite how little they may have. Some of the communities are 100 percent self-sustaining. It’s incredibly inspiring.”
Although this was not his first mission trip, it was his first based on spiritual and musical connection, both with the children and with himself.
He also says learning music is an important part of understanding and implementing music therapy properly.
Students in music therapy are trained to learn and research how music and its elements, such as: pitch, harmony, melody and dynamics. These elements are used to change people’s behaviors for the better.
“My other goal, other than helping the overall state of the communities, was to use music to bring the children joy,” Eisenmenger said.
Eisenmenger described music therapy as “manipulation of different aspects of musical elements” including pitch, harmony, melody, dynamics.
“These aspects are used towards a non-musical goal, be it social, emotional, academic, or, such as this case, spiritual,” Eisenmenger said.
As he began to play the guitar, Eisenmenger says, a group of 15 or so kids stormed into the room because they heard music.
Eisenmenger brought egg shakers, drum sticks, buckets, and gathered other instruments so the children could join. Children crowded the room, played along, and began to sing with him.
“I started playing a lot of Bob Marley, which they all knew by heart. It was really powerful. For 20 or 30 minutes, we all became one,” Eisenmenger said. “And, it was all because of the power of music.”
Eisenmenger said he achieved both main goals for the trip. He helped improve construction for the orphanage, and created a connection with the children. What’s more, it inspired him to return after he receives his diploma next May.
“I absolutely want to return to make at least a short-term career there with music therapy,” he said.
The recurring revenge theme for underrepresented populations in Quentin Tarantino Films
The theme of revenge is one of the oldest recurring subjects in literature; it is used in numerous works of art from Greek mythology to Shakespearian tales. A thin line exists between justice and revenge, but the biggest difference between the two is that the desire to seek revenge is actually a natural instinct towards certain situations. It is true, in reality, that seeking forgiveness within one’s own heart is better than to become consumed by seeking vengeance upon others. In fantasy, however; not only is anything possible, but also the lines between justice and morality become more than blurry—they become non-existent.
Although the spiritual activist Gandhi once said, “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind,” that hasn’t stopped the media from promoting revenge, or audiences from enjoying every second. During the past 16 weeks, I have gathered research and investigated the connection between diversity and revenge in the media. More specifically, I’ve studied and will elaborate on the recurring theme of revenge with regards to underrepresented populations in renowned director Quentin Tarantino’s four most recent films: Kill Bill Vol. 1, Kill Bill Vol. 2, Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained.
Quentin Tarantino, probably best known for his film Pulp Fiction, is one of the most famous directors in Hollywood, and perhaps of all time. He is known for many recurring elements within his movies including: foot fetishes, lip close-ups and, most of all, tons of blood and gore. “His filmic signature is the signature of what it’s like to be alive right now – the frenetic energy, the black humour, the Shakespearean bloodbaths, the mishmash of themes and images and dialogue,” (J.S. Porter, InRetro). The underlying theme of a movie is undoubtedly the most important aspect to Tarantino’s work, as it is the heart of the ultimate impact said piece will have on an audience member. It is for this reason that the theme of underrepresented populations receiving revenge was the choice trend for media advocacy with regards to Quentin Tarantino’s four most recent films.
While Tarantino has many other films that give a subtle whisper to the means of revenge, Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Kill Bill Vol. 2 mark the first two of the four most recent and revenge-centered films, which each include a member of an underrepresented population as the plot’s protagonist. The plot of Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2 center on the character Beatrix Kiddo and her journey to find vengeance for the man and his assailants responsible for shooting her and, as she later finds out, for stealing her baby.
The theme of these movies is immediately evident with the first screenshot of the Kill Bill Vol. 1. Before the credits or movie begins, a black screen reveals white text and a very famous quote, “Revenge is a dish best served cold.” As the plot thickens and the audience is shown the act and aftermath of the domestic violence lain upon Kiddo, the opening quote ties in with Tarantino’s tale.
While it certainly isn’t legal for victims of domestic violence to go about killing their abusers, these two action-packed, rage-fueled and blood-galore films invoke emotions of justice anyway. “Nowadays, with the use of elaborate legal systems of trial and punishment, personal revenge is often perceived as ‘barbaric’ and unnecessary. On the other hand people can often sympathize with revenge plots, if it is obvious that the ‘law’ provides insufficient retaliation,” (Suzanne Klatton, MA Thesis). In other words, audiences set aside their legislative beliefs if an act is seen to be unjustifiable by the law, or is simply too horrific to not take action in to one’s own hands.
In the second film, Kill Bill Vol. 2, Bill speaks with his brother about Kiddo recently awaking from a four-year-long coma. His brother, Bud, states, “That woman deserves her revenge, and we deserve to die.”
Not only does this quote reinforce the audience’s desire to root for her bloody vengeance, but it also shows that the abusers are, in fact, aware of the punishment they deserve for their past actions.
The third most recent film in his installments of revenge-seeking plots is Inglorious Basterds. “The film tracks two separate, though converging, plotlines: the revenge conspiracy of Shoshanna, who, after her escape from the almost comically evil SS officer Hans Landa, recreates herself as a cinema owner in Paris; and the deployment in occupied France of the ‘Basterds,’ a squad of American Jewish Nazi-hunters led by an officer nicknamed ‘Aldo the Apache,’” (Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic). This film was the first of Tarantino’s to ‘recreate’ history.
A critic from Rense eloquently explains, “Tarantino manages to resolve the clear discrepancy between the cinematic ‘Jewish innocence’ and the Jewish nationalist ‘murderous reality’. He does it all through a fantasy,” (Gilad Atzmon). In that, he took historical events that ended horrifically, and created a satisfying fantasy of what could have, should have or would have happened according to the director.
Inglourious Basterds is, in a nutshell, about Jews dealing out justice to the Nazis who are trying to exterminate them. “Through a cinematic fictional plot, history has become a homogenous continuum in which Jewish past and Israeli present are unified into a relentless expedition of suicidal vengeance,” (Atzmon). Tarantino blurred the lines between fiction, non-fiction and vengeful desire in this piece that will forever represent the emotion behind the Jewish community because of the Holocaust.
It takes the blood and horror of the actual historical event, and plays role reversal. As Aldo the Apache, leader of the Basterds states, “We will be cruel to the Germans, and through our cruelty they will know who we are. They will find the evidence of our cruelty in the disemboweled, dismembered, and disfigured bodies of their brothers we leave behind us.”
Undoubtedly Aldo, the Basterds, and Shoshana are all seeking the utmost revenge on Hitler and the Nazis: torturous death. Not only are swastikas carved into Nazi foreheads, but we also see a character known as The Bear Jew cave a German soldier’s head in with a baseball bat. The carnage in this film is abundant, to say the least. While this may sound disturbing, Tarantino’s presentation and approach to said subject is a form of gory eloquence that spatters across the screen.
As an audience member, Tarantino certainly doesn’t disappoint. “There’s just nothing quite so satisfying as seeing some of history’s greatest injustices fixed through two hours of big screen slaughter,” (Scott Harris, Next Movie). The film ends with the mass-incineration of Hitler and a movie theatre full of Nazis, and Shoshana proclaiming on the projected screen, “This is the face of Jewish vengeance!’’ While carving swastikas into Nazi’s foreheads and scalping SS soldiers sounds as though it would be quite controversial as a movie, the film has become a classic and is revered for its courageous premiere of rewriting history through fantastical fiction.
The most recent film by Tarantino also focuses on revenge through the recreation of history as well. Django Unchained, stars Jamie Foxx as a slave and Leonardo Di Caprio as a slave owner. Django sets out to reclaim the love of his life from Di Caprio’s property, and to reclaim the freedom of the land our constitution promised for all people.
After Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino declared that he would continue with a trilogy of revenge-based films tied in with his own version of what should have happened in history. “Perhaps the best thing to be said for Django Unchained is that it shows that Inglourious Basterds was no anomaly. Tarantino leaped forward in that film – in his ability, skill, meaning and purpose – and he gives nothing back with Django. He has found that elusive spot that all artists strive for, complete spontaneity and absolute control,” (Mick LaSell, SF Gate). Similar to his previous revenge films, Django’s character does indeed get his bloody revenge on the white southerners, and the movie ends with him and his love rejoicing on horseback for their bright future ahead.
Due to the success of his previous two films, he will complete a trilogy of ‘recreated’ historical revenge films with his newest project, but has yet to reveal the minority group chosen to receive revenge. “He also knows where the good scenes are, and by now he’s developed a repertory company of actors who can pitch their performances right on that Tarantino border between real and unreal, farce and tragedy,” (LaSell). Although there hasn’t been a reveal yet, the audience can be sure it will be as satisfying, if not more so, than the previous three.
The distinction between reality and fantasy is most important when discussing Tarantino’s use of revenge in filmmaking. Although his previous four films have done extremely well with regards to the every day audience, there has been quite a bit of political controversy surrounding his work. Specifically, the political issues surround his two most recent films, Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained.
Certain movie critics and political journalists have criticized these films for, not surprisingly, racial reasons. “The racial situation in America has swung so far to the other side of the pendulum that Hollywood is now making racially inflammatory movies to cater to the bloodlust in an emerging market of anti-White racial snuff films,” (Hunter Wallace, Occidental). It has been argued that the portrayal of white and black people is one-sided and static in the two most recent of Tarantino’s vengeance fueled films. “There isn’t a ‘racial double standard’ here: it is a single standard that blacks and Jews are noble beings and Southerners and Germans are savage beasts who occupy another rung of the racial ladder somewhere below them,” (Wallace). Django Unchained certainly stirred up more controversy than the two previous films before it, but why?
The lack of controversy over Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2 and Inglourious Basterds shows no comparison to that of Django Unchained. The three previous films don’t put the entirety or even a large sector of American whites in a negative light. In fact, white southerners are actually the heroic gang of Nazi killers in Inglourious Basterds. However, when Tarantino unleashed a film about blacks getting their revenge on whites for their enslavement, controversy turned into a divide.
Many critics argue about the film’s historical inaccuracy, one-sidedness and purposefully imposed ‘white guilt.’ The amount of controversy over Tarantino’s three movies prior to Django Unchained simply doesn’t match up. But the only difference between this movie and the previous three is the fact that blacks are staked against whites, and, in this version, blacks prevail over their abusive oppressors. Once again, the underrepresented population is set as the protagonist, and the oppressors of history are ultimately turned into victims by the oppressed. This most recent installment of his revenge-driven films may have been the most controversial thus far; however, controversy is not something that will get in the way of Tarantino’s filmmaking.
A notion that I’ve previously quoted and mentioned throughout this paper is the difference between reality and fantasy. Criticism of these films about revenge for underrepresented populations isn’t justifiably supported. Art isn’t something one can put limitations, boundaries or political institutions on. Quentin Tarantino is in the art of making films, and therefore has the right to create whatever fantastical re-envisioning of history’s horrors that he desires. Not only does he have the right to continue this cinematic art form, but he also has the inspiration to do so in a manner with the utmost balance between reality and fantasy regarding historical accuracy.
Hunter Stockton Thompson was a countercultural icon that bridged the gap between fiction and journalism. Famous for his work with Rolling Stone and for books such as “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” this quirky writer had a tone so unique; his writing was given its own genre called gonzo journalism. It is a journalistic style still in use today. This profile delves more extensively into the life of Hunter S. Thompson, gonzo journalism and the legacy he left behind.
“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”
The late Hunter Stockton Thompson (born 1937 in Louisville, Ky.) believed, “There is no such thing as Objective Journalism. The phrase itself is a pompous contradiction in terms” (Maria Popova). It was this belief that helped Thompson to construct a new journalistic genre contradictory to the very core of said topic’s definition. “That once-radical, now-ubiquitous style of New Journalism that does away with claims of capital-O objectivity,” is known today as gonzo journalism and “instead inserts the author into the story as an active first-person narrator,” (Popova).
On February 20, 2005, Thompson died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at age 67; however, the firsthand, personal reporting approach, which first made Thompson so radically iconic, now lives as the literary legacy to the original gonzo journalist.
Thompson, like his works, did not waste any time beating around the bush. He found writing his forte and was inducted into the local Athenaeum Literary Association for his fiction and poetry while still attending high school.
“I was not proud of what I had learned, but I never doubted that it was worth knowing.”
As talented as young Thompson was, his run-ins with the local law eventually caught up to him. At age 17 a judge gave Thompson the ultimatum between prison and military. Choosing the latter, the young man enlisted in the U.S. Air Force in 1956. Here, he continued to develop his craft and wrote a weekly sports column for the base for his two years of service.
Upon discharge in 1957, Thompson worked a number of newspaper jobs, but found satisfaction in none off them. He began freelancing from Puerto Rico and South America for The New York Herald Tribune, the National Observer and various other publications.
An article entitled, “Hunter S. Thompson, The Art of Journalism No. 1,” from The Paris Review foreshadows, “The vocation quickly developed into a compulsion,” (Douglas Brinkley, Terry McDonell). Before the ripe age of 25, Thompson completed his first (and only) novel, The Rum Diary. Based upon his experiences in South America, the colorful adaptation was not actually published until 1998.
Thompson got his foot in the door of journalism with his foreign correspondent work, but it was the publication of his first non-fiction book Hell’s Angels in 1967 that first established his reputation. This work, arguably the first to emulate true gonzo journalism, was supported by over a year of Thompson’s travels with the infamous gang.
This firsthand account supported Thompson’s gonzo strategy, which, according to an interview from the Quietus, aims to, “place the journalist at the very heart of a story, until he becomes the central protagonist” (Ian Johnston). His first book set the tone for future pieces and forced the public to take a second look at things, but gonzo journalism would need more propellant to solidify itself as a new genre.
It was the publication of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in 1972 that fortified the vitality of Thompson’s presence in American journalism. The Encyclopedia Britannica describes, “First serialized in Rolling Stone, it documents the drug-addled road trip taken by Thompson (as his alter ego Raoul Duke) and his lawyer (Dr. Gonzo) while also discussing the end of the 1960s counterculture.” The success of the excerpt caused the magazine to offer Thompson a job as its national political reporter.
“I feel the same way about disco as I do about herpes.”
As Thompson paved the pathway to possibility by bridging the gap between fiction and journalism, this opportunity from Rolling Stone, “brought Mr. Thompson’s rule-breaking style to a broader audience, where his outrageous voice helped refocus the nation’s customarily straitlaced political dialogue” (Michael Slackman).
Thompson had the perfect blend of rage and fantasy to resonate with cultural frustrations. “At his peak Mr. Thompson reached out in his writing to a generation made cynical by the Vietnam War and the Watergate political scandal and that was prepared to respond to Mr. Thompson’s visceral honest[y],” (Slackman). This mixture left an heir of drama and reveal lingering at the end of Thompson’s articles.
Along with this journalistic style come natural questions of virtue and validity. One of the most fundamental ideas of journalism is the idea of objectivity and the ability to account without bias. Slackman quotes an Associated Press interview conducted in 2003, in which Thompson states, “Fiction is based on reality unless you’re a fairy-tale artist. You have to get your knowledge of life from somewhere. You have to know the material you’re writing about before you alter it.” Thompson did not argue for bias in order to get his personal outlook across or simply to make for better readership; he argued for it because he believed it to be a necessity.
Hunter S. Thompson was a bold, innovative journalist who never ceased to test the boundaries of every rule. He refused to believe that journalism was something objective or that stories could be told from the outside looking inward. This defiance was replaced with wholehearted subjectivity.
Thompson became enveloped in first-person accounts. This made them all the more edgy, and, for Thompson, perhaps, all the more destructive. Thompson’s firsthand, semi-fictional style was so consistently successful it became the genre, still known today, as gonzo journalism.
Attention! It’s time for LNP’s first ever Reader’s Choice Poll! It’s up to YOU to decide which article I’ll post next! Poll closes Thursday. Just choose between the two topics below–it’s as simple as that! I can’t wait for your feedback!
As always, thank you for visiting. I’ll post the winning article on Thursday evening.Be the change,Terran Rae Smith
Father of Mine: Reflective Analysis of Moral Development
By Terran Rae SmithPreface: This is dedicated to both of my parents. To my mother, thank you for constantly striving to improve under the unfortunate and harsh conditions life has given you. To my father, I thank you for helping me to see through the ailments, and into my mother’s beautiful heart.
2006: Dad, 47, and myself, 13
I am told that my mother was once vibrant, charismatic and breathtakingly beautiful inside and out. I don’t remember her this way because my mother began abusing prescription pills during my infancy, and developed many mental illnesses as the addiction continued throughout my childhood. Today, only a glimmer of that happy, outgoing woman I’m told about remains.
My mother suffers from a number of mental illnesses, some of which include: Bi-Polar Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Hypochondria and Munchhausen Syndrome. Because of her illnesses, she was very abusive, manipulative and made unethical decisions, to say the very least. Although my father divorced her when I was nine, my mother fought for custody of me until the day I graduated high school.
Other than my father and I, my sister and the rest of my family have been estranged from my mother for over eight years. She has been able to maintain a lifestyle of lounging and pill popping by using the technology of today to her advantage, much like the following topic discussed in chapter two of Rushworth M. Kidder’s, How Good People Make Tough Choices. “Widespread, designed for great speed, often decentralized, [our] systems are increasingly susceptible to misuse or manipulation by a single individual making a single wrong decision” (Kidder 24). My mother receives Social Security, Disability and other government paid leisure because she knows how to manipulate, at all costs, anyone and anything until she gets what she wants.
2006: Dad, 47 and myself, 13
My mother is abusive, clinically insane and is the most unethical person that I personally know. Seeing the woman I didn’t want to become did teach me what not do to in life, but seeing my father forgive and empathize with my mother truly shaped my character as a person, and gave me the strength and wisdom to forgive her as well.
After my parents divorced, my father raised my half sister and I as if we were both his own. During one of the many custody battles my mother pursued, my father purchased a car and a house for my mother simply out of the kindness of his heart. This woman had committed adultery, drove our family to bankruptcy to feed her addiction and abused his children. For the rest of my family, that was enough. But my father saw something that no one else did: the illness.
To be completely honest, I once hated my mother with my entire being. But my father’s actions and explanations taught me a lesson synonymous with one of Kidder’s. “Most wrongdoing arises instead from immorality—a violation of the precepts of morality,” (33). My father helped me to understand it is because of my mother’s long-time drug use and mental health that marred her moral judgment. Since graduating high school in 2010, I’ve forgiven my mother’s actions and, although we continue to be estranged from one another, my heart is and always will be filled with love for her.
Today, the strongest person I know turns 55 years old. Michael Scott Smith watched the mother of his children succumb to addiction, raised two daughters as a single parent and still manages to be hopeful helpful and sympathetic to the woman who tore his life, family and heart apart. He is my father, my warrior—my best friend. Without his guidance, I would not be able to, as Kidder puts it, “ identify, systematically and deliberately, the values [I] and [my community] hold” (33). Today is his birthday. From his perspective, it’s just another day and another year put on his tab, but from my perspective, July 6th not only celebrates the birth of one man, but also the birth of two parents. For that is exactly the role he has and continues to play in my and my sister’s lives.
2009: My Mom and I
My mother may have made a lot of unethical decisions in life, but my father’s altruistic actions and wise words taught me to look beyond the surface and to realized that she is not an unethical person, or, more importantly to myself, an unethical mother. “She’s not a bad person; she just has a lot of bad problems,” my father says when my frustration reaches its limit. “She may not be able to show it sometimes, but she loves you and your sister so much, Terran,” he says. There is more to my mother than repercussions from poor decisions; behind the mistakes, pills and sunken eye sockets, lies the woman my father fell in love with—my mother, Stephanie Joy Smith.
Please take a few minutes to view the info-graphic below. 61 million Americans, including myself, have mental illness. Some wounds are invisible, but that doesn’t mean they can’t still heal ❤
SOURCE: How Good People Make Tough Choices by Rushworth M. Kidder
The following is an opinion-based analysis of two opposing arguments proposed in the PDF file located above.
By Terran Smith–
Immigration is, arguably, one of the founding principles of our nation. However, in modern society, illegal or “undocumented” immigration is a very hot topic in politics. Although liberals and conservatives both have strong points to contribute to each side of the matter, the debate continues with passionate ferocity. Kurt Finsterbusch’s Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Social Issues presents each side of the immigration debate from two credible, unrelated sources. Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, holds the stance that immigration is a threat to the American lifestyle of today. The polar perspective, advocated by an editor named Jason L. Riley of the Wall Street Journal, bears the encouraging notion that immigration is, in fact, beneficial for the American way of life in the present and the future. Valid points are made from each narrator’s perspective; however, I found the reasoning behind Krikorian’s overall outlook to be the more relevant and longstanding than the opposing excerpt.
One of the recurring themes Krikorian mentions is modern society’s accountability as the key elements preventing prosperity and perpetuating problems from immigration. Unlike many arguments, (both for and against immigration), Krikorian refreshes his side of this prolific political problem by focusing on the modernity of America as the main obstacle toward immigrant assimilation, rather than the weak and, arguably ignorant, blow of blame towards the immigrants themselves.
The American identity is essential to the core of our nation. Because the country was built on shared beliefs rather than shared blood, assimilation has always been an important American value that’s held as necessary to become a part of the unified culture that is this country’s shared identity. As ‘modern’ as Americans may consider themselves, Krikorian claims that societal advances, from technological to multicultural, are all actually making the process of assimilation more difficult for immigrants. Krikorian addresses the obvious inquiry of how immigration economically impacts America’s market individually and overall. While the number of employed persons increases the technical ‘size’ of our economy, the fiscal outcome has shown lowered wages for native employees of equal skill levels, which results in a largely populated economic pool with lowered profit.
Jason L. Riley makes many thought-provoking points while proposing the idealistic assets of immigration today. Riley focuses on the fiscal aspect of this argument for much of the piece. Economic predictions may be helpful when investing in the stock market; however, educated guessing is not, in my opinion, a concrete argument. The fortuitous future Riley believes immigration will provide our economy depends greatly on one of Krikorian’s main issues with modern immigration—achieving assimilation. After he presents the overall necessity for linguistic assimilation for work-related functioning, Riley defends this key conflict component with the lack of evidence that Latinos are against English assimilation. Using the absence of information as evidence for an argument makes me question the accountability of the author, and, unfortunately, takes away from previous persuasion towards said writer’s argument.
I often find myself torn between both sides of the the issue of modern immigration to America; however, in this specific instance, Mark Krikorian undoubtedly made a stronger argument by: focusing on well-rounded representations of unique American characteristics as a society, addressing both sides of the topic without losing focus or merit, and, most importantly, explaining the origin and solution of a social issue without placing blame on the subject or the opposing side at hand.
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