The intense culture of Iroquois Indians included a set of six different languages,
Mohawk, Seneca, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Tuscarora (Lewis and Redish). At the Great
Council and different religious events, mostly Mohawk was spoken. Children had different
games and toys, including cornhusk dolls and a game where a dart is thrown through a
moving hoop. For art and medicine, masks were created to frighten away evil spirits and
illness. This sacred form of recreation lead to the the False Face Society, a clan of
medicine men said to have special powers wearing their self-created wooden masks
(Iroquois).
It is obvious that the Iroquois Indians participated in a variety of activities,
many of
which for recreation. Our attempt to revive Onondaga Lake begins with an idea of
displaying all of these Iroquois traditions in order to educate children, and open minds
of adults and students. Hopefully, we bring more activity and publicity to Onondaga
Lake. It would be wonderful to cause the history of Onondaga Lake to come full circle
and bring back the excitement-filled atmosphere of the past. Our primary goal is to
provide at least one annual day of activity for visitors of Onondaga Lake.

The Iroquois lived in Longhouses which were about 25 feet by 200 feet
The longhouses could house a family of up to 60 people.
Family was matrilineal, meaning that women owned property and determined kinship
When married the husband moved into the wife?s longhouse and the children were part of
the mother?s clan
There were three clans, turtle, bear, and wolf, each headed by a clan mother.
Everyone within the longhouse cared for each other as though the children were their own
and that the person living with them were like their brother or sister.
The Iroquois League was created to maintain peace
This was accomplished through The Great Law of Peace which stated that Iroquois should
not kill one another
The leaders in the Iroquois council were nominated by tribal clan mothers, yet they were
all male.
Without any modern technology, the Native Americans of this area has to survive based
solely on instinct, especially when it comes to food. The Native Americans developed a
hunter-gatherer style of obtaining food. Although this means of gathering food may not be
consistent in the sense that there is always food available in one place, they found many
natural crops and new methods of cooking so there was always food available. The crops
that were the basis for their diet were corn, beans and squash. Corn, beans and squash
are commonly referred to by the Onondagas and the Oneidas specifically as the 3 sisters.
These foods were the three foods first ?given to us from our mother earth.? The Onondagas
live near the finger lakes area of present day New York. That allowed the Onondagas for
the spring and summer months to fish in the streams. The fall and winter allowed for the
hunting of deer, turkey, rabbit and game found throughout the area. The Cayuga tribe,
Mohawk tribe, and the Tuscarora tribe were primarily agricultural people. The women
planted crops of corn, beans, and squash and harvested wild berries and herbs. The men
hunted deer and elk and fished in the rivers and on the shores of Lake Ontario. The
tribes? recipes included cornbread, soups, and stews, which they cooked on stone hearths.
The Iroquois were a hunting, fishing and agricultural people. The young men hunted and
the women and elderly men did the gardening. Children served as lookouts to keep birds
and other pests from the fields. By this cooperative effort, everyone contributed to the
production of food in the Iroquois village. Livestock included pigs and other
domesticated animals.

For the festival, each tribe would create a traditional dish, one that is representative
of their history and one that they would like to be associated with from the general
populace. There is also a sense of decorum that is expected to be done when eating and
preparing food. For example, hunters and gatherers are taught to take only what is
needed. It is a lesson to learn not to deplete all of your resources and leave none for
the people who are following you tomorrow, or to save for your grandchildren of the
people not yet born. These are the messages that we would like to convey to the audience
through the food. The food isn?t merely corn, squash etc. There is a meaning behind each
piece of food and the Native Americans do not take anything for granted, a value which
should be conveyed to the people attending the festival.

If the festival is successful, it could become an annual event which would continuously
reunite the recreation of the area with the history of the people. The point of the
entire festival is to bring people back to Onondaga Lake. Since swimming and fishing was
banned from the Lake, they lost a lot of business. The Lake also has been separated from
its roots. The foundation for the Iroquois Confederacy was formed on the shores of the
Lake. The festival will revive the Lake, bringing back people, culture and recreation in
one epiphenomenon that will reunite the people and the area in which they live.


1-Show images of Native American recreational activities.

2-Address a detailed timeline of Native American history around Onondaga Lake and the
decline of recreation around the lake.

3-Play the Sacred Bowl Game.

According to legend, directly on the shore of Onondaga Lake, the warlike Onondaga
chief
Tadodaho was persuaded by Hiawatha and Deganawidah (the Peacemaker) to accept the Great
Law of Peace, thus creating the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, also known as the Iroquois
Confederacy (Onondaga Lake).

4- Show pictures and representations of this event.

The last of the grand resorts around Onondaga Lake, Maurer's Long Beach, closed down in
1938 (Williamson 10). By the mid twentieth century, Onondaga Lake had transformed from a
resort area filled with activity, water sports, boating, concerts, games and amusement
parks, to one of the most polluted lakes in America (Williamson).

5- Show pictures of Onondaga Lake and these activities.

The beginning of the resurgence is now. As a Superfund site, the government has
invested millions of dollars to clean up Onondaga Lake. Our project attempts to bring
the lake back to its roots, to honor history and bring back recreation around Onondaga
Lake.

Iroquois Indians played the Sacred Bowl Game and invented the sport of lacrosse
(Iroquois, Lewis and Redish). The strong and powerful nation of the Iroquois Confederacy
hunted, gathered crops, survived and thrived around the Onondaga Lake. Unappreciated
culture and traditions began around Onondaga Lake.

The Iroquois practiced year-round festivals (Iroquois).

6-Show list of festivals and more pictures.

Slide 1 -The Iroquois lived in Longhouses which were about 25 feet by 200 feet
The longhouses could house a family of up to 60 people.
Slide 2 -Family was matrilineal, meaning that women owned property and determined kinship
When married the husband moved into the wife?s longhouse and the children were part of
the mother?s clan
There were three clans, turtle, bear, and wolf, each headed by a clan mother.
Everyone within the longhouse cared for each other as though the children were their own
and that the person living with them were like their brother or sister.
Slide 3 -The Iroquois League was created to maintain peace
This was accomplished through The Great Law of Peace which stated that Iroquois should
not kill one another
The leaders in the Iroquois council were nominated by tribal clan mothers, yet they were
all male.

As well as games there will be a section that will be devoted to the traditional dances of the iroquois such as the eagle, bear, rabbit and stomp dances. All of the dances will be preformed one after the other with a few minutes between. during this break one of the dancers will explain the signifigance and origin of the dance to the spectators. An example would be the rabbit dance. In this legend two hunters saw hunreds of rabbits dancing around a larger rabbit. when the hunters returned to their village they showed the elders the dance the rabbits preformed and the elders were impressed so they named the dance after the rabbits to show their gratitude. Also before the dances that spectators can participate in there will be a demonstration of how the dance is supposed to be preformed. volunteers will then be able to preform along side the professional dancers. Here is a clip of one of the most popular dances and is also a dance that the audience can join in.
It's called the bear dance. once all the dances have been completed there will be a longer 30 min break before the dances are repeated. Dancing will start at around noon and will continue until the festival ends with this fromula.

essay 3

Richard Dojan

04 November, 2007

Valery's Ankle and Canadian Self Image

"Valery's Ankle" is an essay film about how the Canadian self image, one of peaceful and clean people, is in stark contrast with the way that they play and watch their national sport, hockey. It is a 33 minute film using using mainly archived footage of hockey violence, but there are also some recreations of some of the violence in the old footage. Any essay film is very closely related to a documentary, however it differs from a documentary in a few, but large ways. The main difference between the two is that a documentary is supposed to be non-biased while a film essay is more like a written essay in which the author tries to argue his thesis about the topic on which he is filming. There are other smaller differences, but this is the main difference as films such as these do not try to keep the illusion that they are doing nothing but providing information as a documentary would. Brett Kashmere the narrator and writer of the film was born in the Canadian plains and played hockey himself for over a decade. After a many years of not paying to close attention to hockey he decided to create a film about the 1972 Summit Series between Canada and the U.S.S.R. specificly in game six where Canadian player Bobby Clarke intentionally slashed the ankle of the star Russian player Valery Kharlimov. This incident is what many people believe allowed the Canadians to win the next 3 games and win the Summit Series. The goal scored in the closing seconds of the final game that sealed the Canadian victory is one of the most remembered moments in Canadian history, but the slash which is what caused that to happen has been blocked out by what Kashmere calls "Cultural Amnesia." Hockey is of course a violent sport with all of the protection, speed, allowance of body contact and the fact that the hockey stick itself is a weapon, but Kashmere believes that many Canadians players take this violence to far. Even though hockey is a violent sport played by a people who pride themselves on their peacefulness and civility, but instead of taking those properties onto the ice it seems as if Canadians players let out a dark side of them once the game starts.
The film opens with a speech made by Bobby Clarke a few years after the incident in the 1972 summit series, between Canada and the USSR, in which he intentionally broke the ankle of the star Russian player Valrey Kharlimov. During the speech he mentions how he became a hockey player and how he believes in hard work and thats how he got to where he is now. Soon after it shows the infamous and intentional two handed slash to Valery Kharlimov's ankle under orders of the Canadian assistant coach John Ferguson. Throughout the rest of the film there are numerous pieces of archived footage and stills that show savage attacks and fights committed throughout the history by Canadian players. Initialy the film was supposed to be about nothing but the slash of Kharlimov's ankle, but during the making of this film Todd Bertuzzi sucker punched a rookie player injuring his neck as he hit the ice. With this incident many sports television stations began showing hundreds of other violent acts committed during hockey games and this led Kashmere to expand his original idea for the movie. Now he shifted his focus to more the amount of violence committed by Canadians and how the general public permitted this as well as the way the executives at the National Hockey League (NHL) used this violence to promote hockey to usually non-hockey areas such as Los Angeles or Tampa Bay. The majority of the film is about this and how it is in contradiction to what is the Canadian identity which is that of a peaceful and civil people. Kashmere argues that this violence is not needed to make it successful as womens hockey is popular and there is no tolerance for fighting or body contact. Kashmere does not try to force his opinion upon the viewer, even though he does give it, however he does provide the viewers with something to think about and discuss with the other people who watched the film.
Having grown up in rural Canada and having played hockey for over 10 years has given him an understanding of how the game is looked at by Canadians, and how it affects their lives. Even at an early age Kashmere saw violence linked to hockey. Back when he played and also now when he watches younger people play he sees the parents being violent, getting in fights with other parents or even the officials. All this violence that a child sees gives them a sense that this kind of behaviour is fine and become permissive about it or may even act upon their own violent tendencies on the ice. While there were violent and even deadly acts committed since hockeys inception Kashmere thinks that there was an influx of violence because of how the NHL markets hockey to certain parts of the country. "In order to sell the game in certain non-traditional hockey markets—like California, like Nashville, Tennessee, or Carolina—they underline the rough aspects to attract fans that otherwise have no relationship to a game played on ice." (Stylus) Kashmere explains that hockey does not need violence to be an entertaining sport. He gives womens hockey as an example explaining that there is no body contact allowed and there is a strict ban on fighting and womens hockey is still popular. Kashmere also points out that fighting is not allowed in any other sport, but they are still more popular than hockey. Hockey is the only major sport that allows brawling to occur, even fighting sports such as boxing have rules and they must wear gloves so that they can not cause as much damage to the other person. At one point during the film there is a sequence of intense, violent scenes which Kashmere hoped would be the equivalent of getting punched yourself. “Such images are indeed able to usurp reality because first of all a photograph is not only an image (as a painting is an image), an interpretation of the real; it is also a trace, something directly stenciled off the real, like a footprint," (Sontag 350).
According to Kashmere and most other Canadians they would say that they are a non-violent peaceful people, but there is a darker side that many people do not realize or choose not to. In his essay film Kashmere explains Canadians as a whole can usually be described as culturally diverse, civil, kind and tolerant. Once Canadians take to the ice however it seems as if all of that politeness is defenestrated. While Canadians are not the only players that are being violent it is the dual fact that many of the more infamous attacks on other players are preformed by Canadians and because the Canadians are seen as extremely polite people off of the ice. One of the more recent and brutal attacks committed by a Canadian was by Todd Bertuzzi. Bertuzzi approached a rookie, who had checked him earlier, from behind and punched him in the back of the head causing the rookie to fall to the ground and injured his neck. Kashmere brings up this idea of "Cultural Amnesia" which is when an entire community of people selectively forget about something that is unpleasant for them to think about such as the slash on Valery's ankle.
The violence that is in modern hockey is not something new; even since the early 1900's there have been numerous horrible attacks and even deaths on the ice. in 1904 alone there were 4 deaths caused by either fighting or violent stick work. when hockey was first made an official sport in the late 19th century there were only seven rules and these were rather rudimentary ones. because of the lack of rules it is believed that physical intimidation was prevalent and fighting was a large part of this. eventually the fighters on a team came to be known as enforcers and their role would be to protect their teammates who were better at puck handling from the other teams enforcers. As this continued to happen players developed an unwritten code on fighting. most fighting today is consensual and is usually between two enforcers only rarely are there spontaneous fights. one of the main reasons proponents for fighting give is the fact that without the enforcers there will be an increase in other no legal and often more dangerous attacks. opponents however say that in women and European leagues where fighting is punished severely there is not the hazardous stick play that players are worried about.
“I am not a preacher of non-violence. But violence belongs in war, not in sports. As do most Canadians, I like tough, physical hockey and played it. As do most Canadians, I don't like the cheap illicit stuff - the knees, the checks from behind, the charging, the goon tactics when a team is down.” (Moore). This echos the thoughts of many fans of not only hockey but any sport that has physical contact. A majority of sports fan think that violence in sports is healthy and keeps the players honest and it also provides some entertainment. without violence in sports there would be no football or rugby which are two of the worlds most popular sports.
Violence in hockey is a part of the game because of the speed, padding, allowance of body contact and the fact that hockey sticks could be used a weapons, but there are limitations as to what a player can and cannot do. Todd Bertuzzi, Bobby Clarke and countless other Canadians have committed extremely violent and illegal attacks on other players either to gain an advantage in a game or for pay back and this is in direct contradiction of a Canadian self image of peacefulness.
 

essay 3 outline

1st paragraph - introduction of Brett and the film.
Valrey's Ankle is an essay film about how the canadain self image, one of peaceful and clean 
people, is in stark contrast with the way that they play and watch their national sport, hockey.
2nd paragraph - summary of the film
the film opens with a speech made by Bobby Clarke a few years after the incident in the 1972 summit series, between Canada and the USSR, in which he intentionally broke the ankle of the star Russian player Valrey Kharlimov.
3rd paragraph - Brett's interpertation of hockey violence
Having grown up in rural Canada and having played hockey for over 10 years has given him an understanding of how the game is looked at by Canadains, and how it affects their lives.
"In order to sell the game in certain non-traditional hockey markets—like California, like Nashville, Tennessee, or Carolina—they underline the rough aspects to attract fans that otherwise have no relationship to a game played on ice."
4th paragraph - the canadian self image
According to Brett and most other Canadians they would say that they are a non-violent peaceful people, but there is a darker side that many people dont realize or choose not to.
5th paragraph - history of hockey violence
The violence that is in modern hockey is not something new; even since the early 1900's there have been numerous horrible attacks and even deaths on the ice.
6th paragraph - the role of violence in sports
“I am not a preacher of non-violence. But violence belongs in war, not in sports. As do most Canadians, I like tough, physical hockey and played it. As do most Canadians, I don't like the cheap illicit stuff - the knees, the checks from behind, the charging, the goon tactics when a team is down.”
7th paragraph - conclusion
Violence in hockey is a part of the game because of the speed, padding, allowance of body contact and the fact that hockey sticks could be used a weapons, but there are limitations as to what a player can and cannot do.


thesis 1: hockey is a violent sport played by a people who pride themselves on their peacefulness and civility, but insted of taking those properties onto the ice it seems as if canadains players let out a dark side of them once the game starts.

thesis 2: Todd Bertuzzi, Bobby Clarke and countless other canadians have commited extremely violent and illegal attacks on other players either to gain an advantage in a game or for payback and this is in direct contradiction of a canadian self image of peacefulness.

Jacob's lecture

"These artists, herself among them, eschew the constricting limitations not only of artistic conventions but of the traditional institutional spaces of their production, such as studios, museums and galleries. They choose the freedom of working in real places with real people addressing everyday issues.”Jacob spent most of her lecture talking about her time in South Carolina, running the public art pieces there. At the very beginning of the lecture however she 
did explain why museums were inadequate for doing some pieces because they were to small 
and because they thought of themselves as the only ones who had knowledge of what art was. 
By not having art exhibitions in a museum the artists were freed from the constraints of what 
is typically considered art and by the limited amount of space even inside of a warehouse. One 
example would be the painting of a house in camouflage patterns and colors. This would not 
have been possible in a museum setting because of the size of the project and also more 
conservative people did not want her to do the piece at also if she had to do it in a museum 
they would not have allowed it. The second part of the quote is not easily obtainable in a 
museum, but is much easier in public places where the people are. Another art piece in 
the lecture was the one door wide house. This was built in reference to the one room wide 
houses near where the art piece was built.  the same artist created a tiny park in an empty 
lot across the street from the house and put up a billboard that has a picture of children 
looking up at a real flag pole flying the artists interpretation of the American flag. 
 

"valery's ankle"

1. What does Kashmere think about other sports with violence in it such as wrestling or boxing.
2. What about the other nationalites that are in the NHL do they have less or more violent acts than the canadians.

1. "The Russians Remember" Malcom Gray in Maclean article
2. Brett Kashmere interview with stylus magazine
3. "Violence and Sport" Smith, Michael D., Ph. D. book
4. "Kings of the ice : a history of world hockey" Andrew Podnieks book and CD

Video and Resistance: Against Documentaries

the authors start off the the articles explaining how people
thought that memory or writing
wasnt the best way to retell the past, but when photographs
were invented all the scientests thought they had something
that could represent history without any form of bias. the
authors explain how this is not true and then they continue
onto the main part of the excerpt which is how
documentaries do not actually show the truth. They go
through three different documentaries and explain how
each is not totally truthfull it is just the directors interpertation.
The authors then mockingly explain how a typical liberal
documentary on a guerrilla war. at the end the authors say
that documentaries are not concrete history "but an independent
semiotic frame through which sensation has been filtered and
interpreted." Sontag believes that a picture can give
information butshe also states that they are unable to give a
moral stand point although it can reinforce an existing one. this is consistent with what the authors' of the earlier text
said. with the picture Piss Christ there are many different
ways to interpert the picture but people did in a way that was
congruent to their beliefs.

top left: Onondaga lake from the northern side.

top right: Onondaga lake shoreline

bottom: the waters of the lake near the parking lot.

revised superfund essay

Richard Dojan

14 October 2007

The Future of Superfund

Superfund is a government backed organization that cleans up toxic and hazardous sites around the country. Since 1980, Superfund has been cleaning up factories, petrochemical plants, old mines, and military bases that have been polluting America for decades. Superfund uses about one billion dollars a yearly in its efforts to clean up and now the monetary funds that it has been using is drying up. Most of the funding came from taxes on major chemical and industrial companies but since 1995 those taxes have not been reinstituted. As a result, the portion funded by individual taxpayers has increased from 18 percent to 53 percent of the total cost. Some people believe that the specialty taxes should be renewed, but many think that Superfund should be done away with totally. Those opposed to Superfund say that the majority of the money that Superfund uses is for legal costs and not for actual cleanup of sites. Another reason for getting rid of Superfund is the lack of development in areas where there were or are polluting plants once stood because of fear of liability for the cleanup of the area. There is also the trouble with the funding for Superfund. Some democrats wish to bring back the specialty taxes but some in the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) claim that most of the companies that were taxed before have cleaned up most of their waste. They explain that it would not be fair to those companies to pay for the cleaning up of sites that they did not pollute. There is no doubt that Superfund will continue to operate with nearly 500 sites that are being worked on right now and over 1000 more that need to be worked on. The question now is where the funding for these projects is going to come from. (Christian Science Monitor, Sigman 8-12)
As of right now there are two main ways that Superfund can acquire the needed money to pay for all of the cleanup activities that it is working on. The first of which is what is Superfund is going towards right now which is using the tax revenue that most other government agencies use. The second is to reinstate the “polluter pays” tax that Superfund used until 1995 when it expired and not renewed.
Hilary Sigman, a member of Rutgers Initiative on Climate Changes, Social Policy and Politics, writes that the EPA takes into account whether or not a company will help pay for the cost of the clean up in its decision on how well and how exactly the site will be cleaned up. At sites where one company will take much of the responsibility for paying for the clean up the EPA will usually opt for a lower cost choice which usually means a reduction in the quality of the clean up at the site. Also if a company has to pay for much of what will happen at the site the company is given a more active role in deciding how the site will be cleaned up. The more a company has a say in how a site will be cleaned up the less money is spent on the site. “Less elaborate remedies are chosen for sites where PRPs are likely to bear a large share of costs …which clean up the site more permanently than other remedies, are more frequent at orphan sites than at sites with viable PRPs. By contrast, treatment remedies are less frequent when PRPs are more financially stable and thus have a higher expected share of clean-up costs.”
(Sigman 1, 18-20) This means that the more a single company is involved monetarily the more emphasis on how cost efficient the clean up will be which is not necessarily the way that will get the site as clean as possible. Sites that are orphaned from big companies receive more extensive and long lasting clean ups than those sponsored by large companies. Also, since companies are more likely to have a big interest in how a site is to be cleaned up when they are spending a majority of the money means that limiting costs is a big factor in their decision to be involved.
Onondaga Lake is currently one of the Superfund sites. Onondaga Lake is one of the most polluted lakes in all of America. There are over 167,200 lbs. of mercury in Onondaga Lake as well as large amounts of chloride, calcium and sodium because of the soda ash factory. The factory was closed in 1970, but as of right now there is a waste sewage treatment plant that dumps directly into the lake and that causes a high level of Phosphorus to accumulate in the lake. Not all of the lake’s problems are man made however. The lake’s water shed has high levels of gypsum which in turn releases large amounts of sulfate into the lake. All of these play their part in keeping the water heavily polluted with mercury (Hg). “Due to industrial waste, domestic effluent, and the bedrock geology of the watershed, Onondaga Lake has unique chemical characteristics that may directly and indirectly affect the chemistry and cycling of Hg.” (Wang and Driscoll 2261) All of these factors combined make the clean up of the Onondaga lake area extremely difficult. With the increased difficulty comes increased complexity and that brings with it increased cost for the removal of the mercury that is there now and for the prevention of excess phosphorous being pumped into the lake by the waste water treatment plant. Onondaga lake currently does not have a major corporation that is funding the clean up because there is no law requiring them to since that bill expired over ten years ago. There is little hope that the tax will be renewed anytime in the near future because the administration and the EPA themselves say that they have the necessary funds to fulfill its mission. (Adams 3039-40) This however is not necessarily a bad thing as it was shown above that the more involved a company is in the clean up process the less effectively and less fully a site is cleaned up. That site is also usually cleaned up for the short term and it is not always made sure that the future of the site will be stable. Without a large company that is paying for the cleanup the leaders of projects must make an extra effort to reduce costs because they have a set budget as opposed to an almost blank cheque they would have if a company was paying. The largest construction project to date for the Onondaga lake cleanup, two large ammonia and phosphorus reducing plants, saved over 69 million dollars by using sound business techniques. (Onondaga Lake Partnership)
Onondaga Lake has a very complicated and expensive clean up process to go through before it will be considered non-hazardous. It is good that there is no major company backing the clean up process because that means that the site will be cleaned up more fully and for the long term. There is the down side however that Superfund may not have enough money to finish the project for many years, but waiting a little bit longer may be better in the long run than a quick fix that may fall apart because of a company’s involvement.

Background on Superfund

Superfund is a government backed organazation that cleans up toxic and hazerdous sites around the country. Since 1980 Superfund has been cleaning up factories, petrochemical plants, old mines, and military bases that have been pollutting america for decades. Superfund uses about one billion dollars a year in its efforts to clean up and now the fund that it has been using is drying up. Most
of the funding came from taxes on major chemical and industrial companies but since 1995 those 
taxes have not been reinstituted. As a result, the portion funded by individual taxpayers has increased from 18 percent to 53 percent of the total cost. Some people believe that the specialty taxes should be renewed, but many think that 
Superfund should be done away with. Those opposed to Superfund say that the majority of 
the money that Superfund uses is for legal costs and not for actual cleanup of sites. Another 
reason for getting rid of Superfund is the lack of development in areas where there were 
polluting plants once stood because of fear of becoming liable for the cleanup of the area. 
There is also the trouble with funding of Superfund. Some democrats wish to bring back 
the specialty taxes but some in EPA claim that most of the companies that were taxed 
before have cleaned up most of their waste. They explain that it wouldnt be fair to those 
companies to pay for the cleaning up of sites that they did not pollute. There is no doubt that 
Superfund will continue to opperate with nearly 500 sites that are being worked on right 
now and over 1000 more that need to be worked on the funding for Superfund will most 
likely come from the average taxpayer.
 

link

Lecture on Phobia in America

As children we fear things that as adults we might find silly
such as monsters or things under the bed. As we grow older
we develop phobias, which are irrational fears of a certian
object or idea such as an enclosed space or heights or even
light. phobias cause a person to feel alone and isolated in their
mind. He then described how fear could be mental, emotional,
and physical and how humans and animals both suffer from
fear.

The study of phobias and fears in centuries old. Expression
of Emotion: Man and Animals written by Charles Darwin says
that the emotion of fear is innate and is not something that is
taught to us. That fear however and be enhanced or guided by
outside influences such as the media as Barry Glassner explains
in his book The Culture of Fear. He blames the media for
creating some diffrent kinds of fear in people by sterotyping or
emphazising different people or groups in a negative way.
Sean Quimby, the lecturer, thought that there were two trends
in American life. The first is a dogged fantasy of invasion and
the second is the gradual emergence of therapeutic culture.

Quimby suggests that America has an obsession with being
invaded. The first example that he gives is Madison Grant’s The
Passing of the Great Race. In this book Henry Osbourne
explains that the greatest threat to America is that the Aryan
race might be dying out becasue of the inter-marriage
between Aryans and non-Aryans. As his second example
Quimby used the 1938 broadcast of War of the Worlds and the
panic that followed from people actually believing that an alien
invasion was taking place. Princeton Professor, Hadley Cantrill
commented on this naiveté of the American public by saying
that it was due to Americans’ inability to distinguish reality
from fiction.

The second trend that Quimby talks about is the
therapeutic culture of fear. He spends much less time talking
about this aspect than the first and his only example was God.
He says that God is now being absorbed into this path of fear
in a way that people’s belief in a higher being helps alleviate
the uncertainty and horror of phobias.

While i enjoyed the lecture and the question and answer
session afterwards the speech tended to jump around alot and
did not present a clear thesis. Quimby gave quite a few
examples of fear in America but it did not seem to have any
real unifying themes and it did not seem to have any order in
the order the examples were presented. The lecutre also
was a bit short. It was schedculed to be an hour, but in reality
it only lasted around half an hour. It would have been a much
better presentaiton if Quimby had gone more indepth on some
topics and lengthened the presentation more.

Binh Danh exhibit

Binh Danh is recreating one of the most emotionally powerful news articles during the Vietnam war.
 the way that he redid the pictures helps to make the connection between the soldiers and
 the war stronger by using leaves that came from the jungle. viewing these photos and their 
original versions reminds me of some of the different news agencies doing the exact same 
thing for Iraq war except that they have a record for the entire war and not just one week. CNN and the New York Times both have a list of deaths from the Iraq war. the 
CNN version is more like the original Life magazine article with the faces in a year book style 
while the NYT version is artistic in that the photos of the dead make up a collage of one of 
the dead soldiers. even though Binh Danh was to young to remember the actual war it has 
affected him greatly. He is trying to convey a neutral view at the cost of war that cant be 
replaced.
i viewed the exhibit more as just portraits of people in a new and inventive way than dead 
soldiers from the Vietnam war. Sontag believes that there are two attitudes about what is 
material for the camera. the first is that anything photographed has either beauty or 
interest and is therefore art. the second is that everything needs to be photographed so 
it can be analyzed later on. Sontag states that "According to one attitude there is nothing 
that should not be seen according to the other there is nothing that should not be recorded." 
i agree with her that every photo is either art to someone or a document to be reviewed. i also believe that something 
can be both and that is what i got out of it. it is an art work that people can look at for purely 
its artistic value and be amazed at the detail that he was able to extract from the leaves. 
it is also a document that exists to be looked at later so that we dont forget these mistakes 
and remake them in future.       

first assignment

               Art is what ever we ourselves decide it is. One of my favorite art peices  found on deviantart.com in early 2004. I think the first time i saw 
this picture i stared at it for about 20 minutes trying to figure out a whole backstory for what was 
happening in the picture. I have also come back to this painting several times because it just looked 
so good. It was so memorable because the water and the clouds seemed so tumultious while the little 
girl and her mother seem so calm. Also the fading sun and  her umbrella have the same colour and is such a contrast to the grey of the sky, sea and destroyed buildings. most of the sky is covered by dark rain clouds swirling around except for a few spots where the sun shines through as it is about to go under the horizon. in the middle of the picture there are 2 women withere their backs toward us on a set of stone stairs that lead to nowhere surrounded by whirling waters and destroyed buildings. One of the women is a little girl who has a closed umbrella in her hands and is looking back towards us and the other seems to be her mother.She has her umbrella opened hiding the top 
half of her body creating a beautiful silhouette after which the peice is named. what makes this 
diffrent is that it is digitally painted as opposed to what i usually like in art which are photographs. 
this picture invokes feelings of sadness and shock. im not sure exactly what the purpose of this 
peice was or even if there was a purpose. the artist said that he wanted the work to speak for 
itself and i think that its better that way.
                                 de Duve spent most of the article trying to define what art is. he went through lots of 
diffrent point of views to try and come up with a definiton to what art was. his first conclusion after pretending to be an alien was that art is what humans call art. his second conclusion was that art is what we call art. he found that those were not adiquite to define art and finally said that art is waht each of us 
as individuals decide is art. he also says that as long as we are to true to what we really love and 
not trying to be a snob or a snob in reverse art can be whatever we want it to be. i agree completely 
with de Duve, i think that anything can be art this doesnt mean that since everything can be art nothing will be art because not every peice of art will be art to everyone else.