A Random Note

I haven't read Pollo for a while now, but I was catching up tonight and found out that Tsafrir Mor of ASU is developing an AIDS vaccine that has worked well so far in tests on mice. I posted on the subject back in September-- if you want to read a little more about the development of a vaccine.

Rock Out Censorship

As you can probably tell, I've been having a hard time coming up with posts lately. That's not to say that censorship isn't that big of a problem-- it still is and always will be a big problem (unless all of human kind miraculously learns and demonstrates the values of tolerance and respect). The problem I have been having is keeping my posts diverse. With that in mind, I want to look at censorship in music.

The way our society is now, music is much more far-reaching than literature. Most teenagers and many children don't read books outside of what they are assigned in school (and many figure out ways to pass their classes without even reading those). Few adults read, whether it's because they don't have time, they don't feel the need to or because they don't enjoy it.

Music, however, is a part of nearly everyone's life. I have met very few people who don't listen to the radio while the drive, work, clean, etc. I can't name a single person who doesn't like music of some kind. While it may be harder to find dedicated opposers to censorship of literature, the younger generations are adamant about being able to listen to what they like.

While perusing the 'net, I came across Rock Out Censorship, a liberal grass-roots organization that was founded in 1989 to oppose music censorship. Their website includes a zine and an activism section with guidelines for getting involved in the fight against music censorship. The news section hasn't had any new posts since 2001 and its hard to tell when it was most recently updated, but it's a great starting point. You can read more about the organization and its founder John Woods, who died in 2002.

More music censorship info to come...

Make Your Voice Heard

I am trying to find information on censorship of ee cummings poetry because one of my professors mentioned that some of his work was banned. I have loved ee cummings since I first discovered him in sixth grade. So far though, I haven't been able to find anything (That could be a good sign-- maybe he never was censored!). In the mean time, check out a few of his poems: i like my body when it is with your body, maggie and milly and molly and may and sometimes i am alive because with.

However, I did find this simple little page with lots of links to writing pages (Some of the links no longer work). One of the best ways to fight censorship is to write against it. Just make sure you check out some of these sites and that your writing is structured, rational and strong. Voice your opinions!

Censorship in Blogs

I'd like to thank Gatochy for pointing me to "Heroine Girl: From the Gutter to the Stars." HeroineGirl received a notice from Blog Explosion, a blog networking site, telling her she had "excessive profanities" and that her banner can't be accepted (Isn't the banner just the picture that her post links to? There weren't any profanities in it.) I browsed through her blog and although there is some cussing, it isn't anything that stands out as excessive (It seems to be pretty rare even). In fact, I enjoy her writing style and would recommend that you check it out.

As for Blog Explosion, I think their stance is ridiculous. I found their policy regarding profanity on their FAQs page:

"Each blog will be also be manually checked for profanity. Members are given the choice to view sites with profanity or without profanity. So yes some profanity is accepted BUT BlogExplosion will not allow sites that contain severe profanity, hate blogs, blogs that contain any form of racial prejudice, blogs that promote violence and death, or blogs that encourage or support any type of illegal activity. Blogexplosion strongly believes in the freedom of expression but there are limits to what most will agree is in good taste."

I definitely wouldn't call HeroineGirl's blog severely profane, nor is it in bad taste. Blog Explosion "strongly believes in the freedom of expression but there are limits to what most will agree is in good taste"!!! Good taste or not, people who truly believe in freedom of expression will not try to control the material that other people put in writing, on film, etc. Since Blog Explosion gives users the choice of not looking at blogs that contain material that may be offensive, they shouldn't even bother with controlling "profane" content. I thought the whole point in blogs was that your average person is able to publish, allowing people to voice opinions in their own unique writing styles that wouldn't be heard in mainstream media.

Profanity is only vulgar and disresepctful if we consider it to be so. It is arbitrary-- only words that WE assign meaning to. We could just as easily take away that meaning.

Death...

My dad's wife was supposed to give birth to my little half-brother several days ago and the doctors were getting antsy. She went in on Friday morning for them to break her membranes and then went home. She went back to the doctor on Saturday morning for her check-up and found out that he no longer had a heartbeat. The doctors have been inducing her since yesterday evening (over 24 hours ago) and she still hasn't delivered him, but hopefully she will be done within the next few hours. Knowing how bad I feel, I can't even imagine how terrible it must be for her to have to spend all that time to deliver her first baby, a stillborn.

I've briefly read some of Sherwin B. Nuland's How We Die, thinking that it might help, but it's hard to focus right now. Another good book that I might read is Elisabeth Kubler-Ross' On Death and Dying-- it explains the five stages of death: denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

My little sister left me a message this morning asking that I pray that Jacob will be alive when he is finally delivered because we need a miracle right now. Although I had finally managed to gain my composure, that message did me in. Here's my nine year-old sister going through denial herself, not quite ready to accept our brother's death that came before he was even born. I even caught myself thinking that maybe, just maybe, he really will be okay and there was just a malfunction with the heart monitor...

When Your Baby is Stillborn, though short, gives some information and references.
The American Pregnancy Association also has a short, helpful page.