1. Practice
2. Finish website
3. Coordinate costumes
4. Write written report
Sam, Cristina, Nick and Lauren- Practice
Cristina- finish graphics
Sam- find corny music
Lauren- add more to written report
Nick- look for corny music and figure out whether to switch slides or have them side by side
Proposal:
Lauren: Hi and thank you for joining us in celebrating the launch of Onondaga Lake’s new fun filled attraction, Lights on the Lake.
Sam: This family orientated project highlights the history of one of Onondaga county’s most famous landmarks.
Cristina: By combining history and beauty, the 2 mile long sparkling display attracts audiences of all ages.
Nick: Lights on the lake is all year round. Viewers are able to take night time drives through the festive atmosphere or relaxing strolls along the shoreline. The scenic walk is a great way shed those extra holiday pounds.
Lauren: As our fabulous website points out, it only costs $8 per car or $6 on Monday and Tuesday with a Wegmen’s shopping card. This show cannot be missed. You can even have your companies name be part of the unique experience.
Sam: That’s right, Lauren. Companies such as Allied Signal and Solvay Process Company have jumped on board to help share Onondaga Lake’s history with all of Syracuse. There is so much fun to had that you must experience it for yourselves.
Cristina: The Towering light displays, animals, amazing animations, flying fish, beautiful beach displays and breath taking architecture can only be enjoyed by those willing to fully immerse themselves in the lake’s culture.
Nick: If you visit our website, www.lightsonthelake.org, you are able to view pieces of the multi faceted, stunning production. Here (point to fish) we have two deceased fish that have entirely absorbed all that Onondaga Lake has to offer.
Lauren: Look how gorgeous they appear. Almost breath-taking. The beautiful beaches are represented by the 12 foot “no swimming” and “no fishing” signs that flash in different colors as you pass. When you can do everything on a play station who actually goes out and swims nowadays?
Sam: Very True. And speaking of fun toys like play station, Lights on the lake gift certificates make great presents for the holidays and you don’t want to miss the virtual tours that are now available to view on the website.
Cristina: We hope that you all come out to experience the sheer brilliance of all that Onondaga Lake has to offer. During the holidays Santa is known to stop by and give out gifts to the young children. These gifts include packets with safety warnings and precautions for the kiddies to take when playing near the lake. Safety is always our number one concern.
Nick: Thank you all for coming out and listening to our presentation. We hope that you attend the show. It is mounds of fun and should not be missed!
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Funk Lessons and Race Relations
Adrian Piper’s Funk Lessons sought to reveal the inner-feelings and tensions that divided certain cultures and ease those tensions through an integration of one culture into another culture. She used the rhythms, songs, and dances of lower class African- American funk music and taught them to middle or upper class white people in order to reveal and ease the racial tensions between the two distinctly different cultures. White culture and black culture remains two very different cultures and the exposure to these cultures to people of the other culture can sometimes cause interesting results. From tension to agitation, to anger and even outrage, the mixing of different cultures and the way in which Adrian Piper has presented these events has always produced interesting reactions. Piper’s work has involved members of both races and was geared towards confronting racial inequalities and culture and beginning to integrate parts of black culture, such as funk rhythm and music, into upper class white culture.
Adrian Piper began Funk Lessons in 1982 by inviting groups of people, sometimes as small as a single person and some as large as seven people, over to her house for dinner or cocktails, which is comfortable to most middle class people. This site and situation was chosen specifically because it was a place that most white middle class citizens can identify with and where most of those citizens can find themselves fairly comfortable. The participants involved in Funk Lessons were generally middle class citizens, either black or white and who generally didn’t have any experience with the funk culture that Piper would be introducing to them. After the participants arrived, Piper would play music from a group she termed “the Usual Gang of Idiots”, which included classical artists such as Bach and Beethoven, artists that the participants are most likely to be familiar with (Participation 133). Piper would then integrate funk into the music and gauge the participant’s reactions. She found that the participants were generally confused, or annoyed by the change, and this lead to the lessons on funk. She would introduce samples of funk music to the participants and delved deeper into the meanings and connotations associated with the different rhythms and songs. Piper also invites the participants to join in on learning various dances that go along with the music and helps the middle class participants learn the movements that go along with lower class black culture. The integration of black culture into the participant’s lives may seem simple and harmless enough but it sometimes produced negative reactions by some of the white, middle or upper class participants. Piper describes their reactions as having “elicited anxiety, anger or contempt from middle-class, college-educated whites: anxiety because its association with black, working-class culture engenders unresolved racist feelings that are then repressed or denied rather than examined” (Participation p.133). In Piper’s eyes, this reaction and other negative reactions from the educated and wealthy white social group are the product of underdeveloped interracial relations combined with white feelings of racism that are not often confronted in the every day lives of the white middle class participant. She believes that this participatory work of art can be seen as a means to alter or diminish the divide between the two cultures and make both sides more accepting of the other.
This piece fits the mold of a dialogical or participatory work of art because the reactions of the participants, or the middle class subjects learning the rhythms and motions of funk music, is what the focus of the artwork is on. Their reactions tell the different stories of white-black relations, middle or upper class and lower class relations, and educated and uneducated relations. The participant’s acceptance of the funk music, or refusal to accept the music showed Piper and the viewers of her art that interracial relations have much farther to go in our society. Piper states in an interview titled Mapping Mindsets that “American racism is frozen at the stage of denial and I don’t think American society is capable of moving beyond that stage.” (Mapping Mindsets p.). The participant’s annoyed or agitated reactions to the lessons are the stage of denial that Piper discusses in this interview. White culture still holds racist attitudes towards black culture, especially in the area of music where different rhythms, sounds, movements, or even lyrics are seen as obscene or unacceptable to mainstream white culture. Piper’s purpose for these lessons is not only to see the integration process of black culture into white culture but also primarily expose the “stage of denial” that current white culture is stuck in. She hopes that if people can surpass this stage of denial, they can take the next step of integrating different cultures into their own and developing better interracial relationships.
Piper’s work is one that seeks to engage the audience by getting them to look at their own racial attitudes and abilities to accept different cultures. She uses the idea of cultural integration between white and black culture only has a side note in her piece as the primary point of the piece is to make the viewer or participant to look at themselves and ask themselves if they would react the same way as the participants, thus questioning their own racist attitudes. This validates her piece as a true functioning piece of new genre public or dialogical art because she makes the true art form the audience as well as the actual lessons. The consequences of this work are yet to be seen, however. To say that this artwork will revolutionize race relations in the United States is vastly overreaching but it does serve the public and Piper’s purpose by bringing up the point. It makes people question themselves and take the step past the denial stage. Piper’s work will not have an immediate impact in today’s world because racism and discrimination is something ingrained in cultures across the nation, but it may have made the participants and the audience of the work change their attitudes if only slightly.
Adrian Piper’s Funk Lessons sought to reveal the inner-feelings and tensions that divided certain cultures and ease those tensions through an integration of one culture into another culture. She used the rhythms, songs, and dances of lower class African- American funk music and taught them to middle or upper class white people in order to reveal and ease the racial tensions between the two distinctly different cultures. White culture and black culture remains two very different cultures and the exposure to these cultures to people of the other culture can sometimes cause interesting results. From tension to agitation, to anger and even outrage, the mixing of different cultures and the way in which Adrian Piper has presented these events has always produced interesting reactions. Piper’s work has involved members of both races and was geared towards confronting racial inequalities and culture and beginning to integrate parts of black culture, such as funk rhythm and music, into upper class white culture.
Adrian Piper began Funk Lessons in 1982 by inviting groups of people, sometimes as small as a single person and some as large as seven people, over to her house for dinner or cocktails, which is comfortable to most middle class people. This site and situation was chosen specifically because it was a place that most white middle class citizens can identify with and where most of those citizens can find themselves fairly comfortable. The participants involved in Funk Lessons were generally middle class citizens, either black or white and who generally didn’t have any experience with the funk culture that Piper would be introducing to them. After the participants arrived, Piper would play music from a group she termed “the Usual Gang of Idiots”, which included classical artists such as Bach and Beethoven, artists that the participants are most likely to be familiar with (Participation 133). Piper would then integrate funk into the music and gauge the participant’s reactions. She found that the participants were generally confused, or annoyed by the change, and this lead to the lessons on funk. She would introduce samples of funk music to the participants and delved deeper into the meanings and connotations associated with the different rhythms and songs. Piper also invites the participants to join in on learning various dances that go along with the music and helps the middle class participants learn the movements that go along with lower class black culture. The integration of black culture into the participant’s lives may seem simple and harmless enough but it sometimes produced negative reactions by some of the white, middle or upper class participants. Piper describes their reactions as having “elicited anxiety, anger or contempt from middle-class, college-educated whites: anxiety because its association with black, working-class culture engenders unresolved racist feelings that are then repressed or denied rather than examined” (Participation p.133). In Piper’s eyes, this reaction and other negative reactions from the educated and wealthy white social group are the product of underdeveloped interracial relations combined with white feelings of racism that are not often confronted in the every day lives of the white middle class participant. She believes that this participatory work of art can be seen as a means to alter or diminish the divide between the two cultures and make both sides more accepting of the other.
This piece fits the mold of a dialogical or participatory work of art because the reactions of the participants, or the middle class subjects learning the rhythms and motions of funk music, is what the focus of the artwork is on. Their reactions tell the different stories of white-black relations, middle or upper class and lower class relations, and educated and uneducated relations. The participant’s acceptance of the funk music, or refusal to accept the music showed Piper and the viewers of her art that interracial relations have much farther to go in our society. Piper states in an interview titled Mapping Mindsets that “American racism is frozen at the stage of denial and I don’t think American society is capable of moving beyond that stage.” (Mapping Mindsets p.). The participant’s annoyed or agitated reactions to the lessons are the stage of denial that Piper discusses in this interview. White culture still holds racist attitudes towards black culture, especially in the area of music where different rhythms, sounds, movements, or even lyrics are seen as obscene or unacceptable to mainstream white culture. Piper’s purpose for these lessons is not only to see the integration process of black culture into white culture but also primarily expose the “stage of denial” that current white culture is stuck in. She hopes that if people can surpass this stage of denial, they can take the next step of integrating different cultures into their own and developing better interracial relationships.
Piper’s work is one that seeks to engage the audience by getting them to look at their own racial attitudes and abilities to accept different cultures. She uses the idea of cultural integration between white and black culture only has a side note in her piece as the primary point of the piece is to make the viewer or participant to look at themselves and ask themselves if they would react the same way as the participants, thus questioning their own racist attitudes. This validates her piece as a true functioning piece of new genre public or dialogical art because she makes the true art form the audience as well as the actual lessons. The consequences of this work are yet to be seen, however. To say that this artwork will revolutionize race relations in the United States is vastly overreaching but it does serve the public and Piper’s purpose by bringing up the point. It makes people question themselves and take the step past the denial stage. Piper’s work will not have an immediate impact in today’s world because racism and discrimination is something ingrained in cultures across the nation, but it may have made the participants and the audience of the work change their attitudes if only slightly.
Friday, November 2, 2007
Adrian Piper’s Funk Lessons sought to reveal the inner-feelings and tensions that divided certain cultures and ease those tensions through an integration of one culture into another culture. She used the rhythms, songs, and dances of lower class African- American funk music and tought them to middle or upper class white people in order to reveal and ease the racial tensions between the two distinctly different cultures.
“In my experience, people who think “race is over” are either European American, rich, young, or some combination of the above, I know of no ordinary African American over the age of 30 who holds this view.” Adrian Piper Interview Mapping Mindsets.
“ American racism is frozen at the stage of denial and I don’t think American society is capable of moving beyond that stage.” Adrian Piper Interview Mapping Mindsets.
“My work doesn’t address any particular audience, or race of audience. Nor does it seek to “disturb or enlighten them about forms of injustice.” It targets particular attitudes through humor, mimicry and/or the use of grammatical second person; and allows different individual viewers to sitiuate themselves in relation to those attitudes.” Mapping Mindsets.
“The Integrity in Piper’s work is this: unlike many artists whose concepts are endpoints in themselves, she understands art as an expedient vehicle to a reality beyond, to questions of existence, relations, and self-knowledge” Adrian Piper: Goodbye to Easy Listening. Diana C. Stoll.
'The union of the personal with the political often makes such work seem excessively confrontational or didactic to some viewers. I think this is because art functions for me as not only a medium of exploration but also a medium of communication between me and the viewer” Adrian Piper in Adrian Piper: Generali Foundation, Vienna.
“She answers the question herself in the piece by saying that it is an absurd question, that being able to dance isn't connected to race, but the point is the discussion, of course, and the gentle inversion of something: what is it that these people lack, and can we help them?” David Lillington in Adrian Piper: Generali Foundation, Vienna.
“In my experience, people who think “race is over” are either European American, rich, young, or some combination of the above, I know of no ordinary African American over the age of 30 who holds this view.” Adrian Piper Interview Mapping Mindsets.
“ American racism is frozen at the stage of denial and I don’t think American society is capable of moving beyond that stage.” Adrian Piper Interview Mapping Mindsets.
“My work doesn’t address any particular audience, or race of audience. Nor does it seek to “disturb or enlighten them about forms of injustice.” It targets particular attitudes through humor, mimicry and/or the use of grammatical second person; and allows different individual viewers to sitiuate themselves in relation to those attitudes.” Mapping Mindsets.
“The Integrity in Piper’s work is this: unlike many artists whose concepts are endpoints in themselves, she understands art as an expedient vehicle to a reality beyond, to questions of existence, relations, and self-knowledge” Adrian Piper: Goodbye to Easy Listening. Diana C. Stoll.
'The union of the personal with the political often makes such work seem excessively confrontational or didactic to some viewers. I think this is because art functions for me as not only a medium of exploration but also a medium of communication between me and the viewer” Adrian Piper in Adrian Piper: Generali Foundation, Vienna.
“She answers the question herself in the piece by saying that it is an absurd question, that being able to dance isn't connected to race, but the point is the discussion, of course, and the gentle inversion of something: what is it that these people lack, and can we help them?” David Lillington in Adrian Piper: Generali Foundation, Vienna.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
" what exists in the space between the words public and art is an unknown relationship between artist and audience, a relationship that may itself be the artwork" One Place After Another by Miwon Kwan page 105
The lecture by Mary Jane Jacob discussed the idea of bringing art to the masses. Art in the past seems to have been separated from the general public and has been immune to the "man on the streets" criticism and only could be viewed and criticized by other artists of the same prestige and caliber. New Genre Public Art, however, challenges that notion and brings about a new idea of art for everyone, regardless of social class, race, religion, or status as an artist. This new art form begins to serve more purposes socially than previous art forms. Art can now have an effect on race relations, politics, environmental issues, and other prominent social issues of our time. These new art forms can now effect the way the general public lives their lives and can bring about an era of change amongst social relations and politics in the communities the art seeks to serve. An public work of art must seek to engage its audience and provoke progress towards changing something. When this happens the relation between the audience and the form become the art rather than the form being the art. Public art has the potential to change norms and engage the masses which will certainly lead to even more progress artistically and lead to progress in the fight against recism and discrimination and politically
The lecture by Mary Jane Jacob discussed the idea of bringing art to the masses. Art in the past seems to have been separated from the general public and has been immune to the "man on the streets" criticism and only could be viewed and criticized by other artists of the same prestige and caliber. New Genre Public Art, however, challenges that notion and brings about a new idea of art for everyone, regardless of social class, race, religion, or status as an artist. This new art form begins to serve more purposes socially than previous art forms. Art can now have an effect on race relations, politics, environmental issues, and other prominent social issues of our time. These new art forms can now effect the way the general public lives their lives and can bring about an era of change amongst social relations and politics in the communities the art seeks to serve. An public work of art must seek to engage its audience and provoke progress towards changing something. When this happens the relation between the audience and the form become the art rather than the form being the art. Public art has the potential to change norms and engage the masses which will certainly lead to even more progress artistically and lead to progress in the fight against recism and discrimination and politically
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
I have chosen Adrian Piper's Funk Lessons as my topic for the third essay.
Do you know any other installations or projects done by Piper that might help me better understand Funk Lessons or would be nice to mention and discuss in my essay?
Would a comparison to another artist who focuses on racial issues such as Damali Ayo and how they differ be a good direction to go in with my essay?
"Class, Conflict, Race and Remembrance: Adrian Piper's Black Box." Francis Frascina. Oxford Art Journal.
"Adrian Piper: a retrospective: The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York." Kathy Battista. Make, The Magazine of Women’s Art.
"Adrian Piper: Goodbye to Easy Listening” Diana C. Stoll. Aperture
"Mapping Mindsets” in Art Papers. an interview with Adrian Piper
Do you know any other installations or projects done by Piper that might help me better understand Funk Lessons or would be nice to mention and discuss in my essay?
Would a comparison to another artist who focuses on racial issues such as Damali Ayo and how they differ be a good direction to go in with my essay?
"Class, Conflict, Race and Remembrance: Adrian Piper's Black Box." Francis Frascina. Oxford Art Journal.
"Adrian Piper: a retrospective: The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York." Kathy Battista. Make, The Magazine of Women’s Art.
"Adrian Piper: Goodbye to Easy Listening” Diana C. Stoll. Aperture
"Mapping Mindsets” in Art Papers. an interview with Adrian Piper
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Video and Resistance
This article discusses art's role in a technologically advanced world. It talks about how artists have abandoned the traditions of art and have fallen into a "role of mechanical production. with the production of photographs and documentaries as art. The author goes over the requiem for documentaries and shows how the producers and directors of these documentaries can force the viewer to believe what the director wants them to believe while hiding from them the whole truth. This is true to most documentaries as they are seeking to further their cause and not allow for any sympathy whatsoever in the opposing viewpoint.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Esssay 2: Superfund and Onondaga Lake
A green wave is sweeping the nation. New attention is being paid to environmental issues and people, now more than ever, are watching how they treat the environment. People are wondering what they can do to ensure a better, cleaner future for their children and grandchildren. The trouble, however, is getting the government and governmental organizations to follow the trend. In November of 2003 the Christian Science Monitor published an article titled “Superfund Program: A Smaller Cleanup Rag” in which they look into how a federally funded program that helps restore industrially polluted waste areas is slowly but surely going bankrupt. The fund, which brought in over a billion dollars a year, is now struggling to finish projects it had already started and is having even more trouble starting new projects. This lack of funds is leading to, as the title suggests, a smaller rag to clean up the large amounts of waste that contaminate some of our most precious ecosystems and communities.
The Superfund program has cleaned up many lakebeds, river bottoms, and streams by attacking the polluters such as the surrounding industries, chemical plants, and old deteriorating mines and allowing them to pay the bulk of the clean-up bill. The article calls this practice the “polluter pays” plan. Some of the sites, however, were unable to be cleaned because the company who had polluted them had gone bankrupt or abandoned them. These leftover sites were cleaned up using funds from a tax on all oil and chemical industries and a tax on large corporations. These taxes funded Superfund’s abandoned sites until 1995 when Congress failed to renew the tax after it’s expiration (Knickerbocker, p. 9-11). This failure to renew the tax on industry has lead to an even larger portion of the program’s burdens on the taxpayers. The amount that Superfund received from taxpayers increased from 18% to 53% after the tax on industries and chemical manufacturers expired (Knickerbocker p. 12). This increase in taxpayer money rather than money from industry and big corporations has fostered a steady decrease in the number of sites that Superfund can help to clean annually.
This decrease in funding for Superfund may very well have an impact very close to home for some. Syracuse is home to one of the most polluted lakes in the world and has in the past received funds from Superfund delegated to cleaning the toxic waste that has been dumped into the bottom of the lake by local industry. An article in The Conservationist in 1994 states that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) gave 2.7 million dollars towards the clean-up of Onondaga lake using Superfund funds. This was a great leap forward towards not only cleaning Onondaga lake, but towards building on the opportunities that a clean lake could offer. Onondaga Lake was once home to “a thriving resort industry based on recreational swimming, boating and fishing.” (Swinn, p.5) but now the people who live in proximity to the lake must live with what the industries have left for them. Swimming in the lake today is prohibited, but if enough money and time is put into cleaning the lake, beaches and resorts could bring in a lot of revenue for the city and it’s local businesses, giving the local economy a boost (Swinn p.5). This, however, would become increasingly difficult if Superfund is forced to give up it’s policy of “polluter pays” and must resort to making the taxpayer foot most of the bill.
Onondaga Lake, like many cities during the late 19th century, followed a path of industrialization. This time period saw these industries dumping untreated sewage into the lake and other industrial wastes into the lake and greatly lowering it’s water quality. The lake’s primary use following World War II was to house the waste produced by Syracuse’s ever growing industrial western shore. Important steps have been taken in the fight to clean Onondaga Lake. Many organizations, such as the Onondaga Lake Partnership, are geared toward providing a clean lake that the local community can enjoy. The partnership’s website has many tools that allow citizens to monitor the lake’s progress and even has set a list of goals that should be met and a deadline for meeting them. These goals include reducing mercury levels, reducing ammonia and phosphorus loading, and bacterial discharge into the lake (OLP). Slowly the lake’s water quality has improved allowing the catch-and-release fishing to be welcomed back to the lake attracting many boaters that had stayed away from the lake before due to it’s toxic properties (OLP). With continued steady improvements the lake will someday return to it’s pre-industrial state.
Onondaga Lake has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. I frequently run on the road that runs along the shoreline and my family holds a reunion at Onondaga Lake Park annually. The park is a wonderful place to spend a summer’s day with your family, exercise your stress away, or simply sit on one of the park’s many benches and read. What exists today, however, only scratches the surface of what the Onondaga Lake and the surrounding region could be. I visited the lake recently on a Friday afternoon. It was a sunny Friday afternoon with a temperature in the mid eighties. The day seemed like a perfect day to spend at the lake swimming, boating, or enjoy the weekend. I looked at the lake, however, and found almost no boats present. I glanced along the shoreline and noticed that something was missing from the scenery. Swimming in Onondaga Lake has been banned for some time and both the citizens of Syracuse and the city itself are losing out because of the lakes pollution levels. If the lake were clean enough to allow swimming, families and others would be able to come to Syracuse to spend their weekends and nice summer days, rather than traveling to other lakes such as Lake Ontario and Oneida Lake to the North, as my family had to throughout my youth. While the people would enjoy a nice day on the lake the city would enjoy the business that resorts and beaches would bring to the area. There is no doubt that the lake would have been a big part of my childhood had I been able to swim and if fishing on Onondaga Lake was thought to be as safe is it is on other lakes.
The lake, however, can’t reach the goals set out by the Onondaga Lake Partnership or provide locals with a good place to spend a day without federal funding. The Superfund program is a necessity in the restoration of Onondaga Lake. Goals aren’t necessary unless there is the will, or in this case the funds, available to reach them. The lake has improved over the past few decades but there is still much more that can be done and must be done for the health and future of the people of Syracuse. It is time for the government to step up and not only do what is right for the environment but also what is right for the people of Syracuse today and the people of Syracuse for a long time to come
The Superfund program has cleaned up many lakebeds, river bottoms, and streams by attacking the polluters such as the surrounding industries, chemical plants, and old deteriorating mines and allowing them to pay the bulk of the clean-up bill. The article calls this practice the “polluter pays” plan. Some of the sites, however, were unable to be cleaned because the company who had polluted them had gone bankrupt or abandoned them. These leftover sites were cleaned up using funds from a tax on all oil and chemical industries and a tax on large corporations. These taxes funded Superfund’s abandoned sites until 1995 when Congress failed to renew the tax after it’s expiration (Knickerbocker, p. 9-11). This failure to renew the tax on industry has lead to an even larger portion of the program’s burdens on the taxpayers. The amount that Superfund received from taxpayers increased from 18% to 53% after the tax on industries and chemical manufacturers expired (Knickerbocker p. 12). This increase in taxpayer money rather than money from industry and big corporations has fostered a steady decrease in the number of sites that Superfund can help to clean annually.
This decrease in funding for Superfund may very well have an impact very close to home for some. Syracuse is home to one of the most polluted lakes in the world and has in the past received funds from Superfund delegated to cleaning the toxic waste that has been dumped into the bottom of the lake by local industry. An article in The Conservationist in 1994 states that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) gave 2.7 million dollars towards the clean-up of Onondaga lake using Superfund funds. This was a great leap forward towards not only cleaning Onondaga lake, but towards building on the opportunities that a clean lake could offer. Onondaga Lake was once home to “a thriving resort industry based on recreational swimming, boating and fishing.” (Swinn, p.5) but now the people who live in proximity to the lake must live with what the industries have left for them. Swimming in the lake today is prohibited, but if enough money and time is put into cleaning the lake, beaches and resorts could bring in a lot of revenue for the city and it’s local businesses, giving the local economy a boost (Swinn p.5). This, however, would become increasingly difficult if Superfund is forced to give up it’s policy of “polluter pays” and must resort to making the taxpayer foot most of the bill.
Onondaga Lake, like many cities during the late 19th century, followed a path of industrialization. This time period saw these industries dumping untreated sewage into the lake and other industrial wastes into the lake and greatly lowering it’s water quality. The lake’s primary use following World War II was to house the waste produced by Syracuse’s ever growing industrial western shore. Important steps have been taken in the fight to clean Onondaga Lake. Many organizations, such as the Onondaga Lake Partnership, are geared toward providing a clean lake that the local community can enjoy. The partnership’s website has many tools that allow citizens to monitor the lake’s progress and even has set a list of goals that should be met and a deadline for meeting them. These goals include reducing mercury levels, reducing ammonia and phosphorus loading, and bacterial discharge into the lake (OLP). Slowly the lake’s water quality has improved allowing the catch-and-release fishing to be welcomed back to the lake attracting many boaters that had stayed away from the lake before due to it’s toxic properties (OLP). With continued steady improvements the lake will someday return to it’s pre-industrial state.
Onondaga Lake has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. I frequently run on the road that runs along the shoreline and my family holds a reunion at Onondaga Lake Park annually. The park is a wonderful place to spend a summer’s day with your family, exercise your stress away, or simply sit on one of the park’s many benches and read. What exists today, however, only scratches the surface of what the Onondaga Lake and the surrounding region could be. I visited the lake recently on a Friday afternoon. It was a sunny Friday afternoon with a temperature in the mid eighties. The day seemed like a perfect day to spend at the lake swimming, boating, or enjoy the weekend. I looked at the lake, however, and found almost no boats present. I glanced along the shoreline and noticed that something was missing from the scenery. Swimming in Onondaga Lake has been banned for some time and both the citizens of Syracuse and the city itself are losing out because of the lakes pollution levels. If the lake were clean enough to allow swimming, families and others would be able to come to Syracuse to spend their weekends and nice summer days, rather than traveling to other lakes such as Lake Ontario and Oneida Lake to the North, as my family had to throughout my youth. While the people would enjoy a nice day on the lake the city would enjoy the business that resorts and beaches would bring to the area. There is no doubt that the lake would have been a big part of my childhood had I been able to swim and if fishing on Onondaga Lake was thought to be as safe is it is on other lakes.
The lake, however, can’t reach the goals set out by the Onondaga Lake Partnership or provide locals with a good place to spend a day without federal funding. The Superfund program is a necessity in the restoration of Onondaga Lake. Goals aren’t necessary unless there is the will, or in this case the funds, available to reach them. The lake has improved over the past few decades but there is still much more that can be done and must be done for the health and future of the people of Syracuse. It is time for the government to step up and not only do what is right for the environment but also what is right for the people of Syracuse today and the people of Syracuse for a long time to come
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
SUPERFUND
The article "Superfund Program: A Smaller Cleanup Rag" appeared in the Christian Science Monitor in 2003 to stir up a little discussion about the funding cuts of the government environmental cleanup fund, Superfund. The article seeks to paint a picture of government inaction on the issue of environmental protection and weighs the positives and negatives of the environmental program. The fund, that recieved roughly one billion dollars of government money a year until 1995, sets out to cleanup our countries toxic waste sights, such as lakebeds, river bottoms, and various other sights tainted by the waste of industrial America. Recently, however, the fund has gone virtually bankrupt and the government has been uncooperative and slow to rush to it's assistance. The government's refusal to renew funds for Superfund leaves hundreds of toxic waste sights to fester and continue to deteriorate the communities that surround them.
Solutions for the lack of funding remain to be seen. A tax hike may be the solution needed to replenish the fund but is it really fair to tax the people whose once beautiful local areas have been robbed from them and replaced with the eye sores that have become these toxic waste sites. These sites not only can cause environmental problems, but can also cause health problems with people who live in close proximity to these places, and can even hurt economic development for the areas causing undue fiancial duress on a town or even city that could potentially prosper. Taxing the businesses however, has become a difficult tax to say the least. Under the "joint and several liability" clause the major corporations who have been blamed for the waste can then turn around and look for any party who may have had a hand in the deterioration of the sight and sue them for their share of the costs. This leaves much of the Superfund treasury drained due to the expenses paid out to lawyers and investigators. This leaves the only feasible solution as taxing the people who have much more difficulty dodging the government than major corporations.
While it would be ideal to have the large corporate industrialists fund the projects for cleaning up their messes it is unlikely that it will ever occur. Having a President who owns a company isn't helping Superfund's situation either. In order to change the solution from "taxpayer pays" to "polluter pays" people will have to look to the future in 2008 and head to the polls for whomever they believe will better their environment. Everyone must remember, this isn't just a health issue. It's a health issue that will plague coming generations and put a lock on our communities. Our children and their children deserve a better place than the one that we will leave behind for them.
http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com/hww/jumpstart.jhtml?recid=0bc05f7a67b1790e9e8f8b7ba403110643c6e53ab23e2e1682ed57e2e54231206c60058542b9c840&fmt=H
Swinn, B. W. DEC receives $2.7 million to clean up Onondaga Lake. The Conservationist v. 49 (August 1994) p. 38-9
Solutions for the lack of funding remain to be seen. A tax hike may be the solution needed to replenish the fund but is it really fair to tax the people whose once beautiful local areas have been robbed from them and replaced with the eye sores that have become these toxic waste sites. These sites not only can cause environmental problems, but can also cause health problems with people who live in close proximity to these places, and can even hurt economic development for the areas causing undue fiancial duress on a town or even city that could potentially prosper. Taxing the businesses however, has become a difficult tax to say the least. Under the "joint and several liability" clause the major corporations who have been blamed for the waste can then turn around and look for any party who may have had a hand in the deterioration of the sight and sue them for their share of the costs. This leaves much of the Superfund treasury drained due to the expenses paid out to lawyers and investigators. This leaves the only feasible solution as taxing the people who have much more difficulty dodging the government than major corporations.
While it would be ideal to have the large corporate industrialists fund the projects for cleaning up their messes it is unlikely that it will ever occur. Having a President who owns a company isn't helping Superfund's situation either. In order to change the solution from "taxpayer pays" to "polluter pays" people will have to look to the future in 2008 and head to the polls for whomever they believe will better their environment. Everyone must remember, this isn't just a health issue. It's a health issue that will plague coming generations and put a lock on our communities. Our children and their children deserve a better place than the one that we will leave behind for them.
http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com/hww/jumpstart.jhtml?recid=0bc05f7a67b1790e9e8f8b7ba403110643c6e53ab23e2e1682ed57e2e54231206c60058542b9c840&fmt=H
Swinn, B. W. DEC receives $2.7 million to clean up Onondaga Lake. The Conservationist v. 49 (August 1994) p. 38-9
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Fear and phobia
The lecture given by Sean Quimby on fear and phobia and it's effects on American psyche was interesting. Mr Quimby, a well dressed, confident man who will be teaching a course on fear next year at Syracuse produced many examples of how, why, and what American citizens fear. He began by talking about a child's fear of the boogey-man and monsters. He spoke of the development from monsters to things such as spiders, and then to concepts such as isolation and even the dark. He cites Charles Darwin's sutdy of fear by stating that fear is innate in humans and animals alike and everyone feels fear. Quimby used the example of Orsen Wells broadcast of an alien invasion, and the ensuing hysteria it caused, is a good example American's fear of captivity and invasion. This fear of captivity and invasion, Quimby says, is why American's fear terrorism so much.
I must state I disagree with parts of Sean Quimby's assessment of American phobia in regards to terrorism. He states that it is more likely that an American citizen dies in a car accident than in a terrorist attack. While i do not disagree that it is more likely, I do disagree with his explanation of why American's fear terrorism more. The event of September 11th struck a nerve in all Americans and will always resonate in the minds of American citizens. People fear car accidents less because they feel that they can avoid the situation of an accident, while a terrorist attack is completely unannounced and unwarranted. The fear of not knowing is what exists here, not the fear of terrorism installed by a government. I believe that something Quimby failed to recognize in this topic is the fear of the unknown. American's, more than anyone, are a people that enjoy having a degree of control over their future, and the possibility of disaster eliminates that control that American's have over their lives and futures.
I do not believe that the precaution's taken at airports, major entertainment venues, and other places are unnessary hindrances fueld by a terrible fear. It is necessary is best for all traveler's in order to ease the fear of such a disaster, and better protect American citizens and international travelers. Terrorism isn't fiction created by an author to scare us, it's real and I'll welcome anything precautions meant to protect me.
I must state I disagree with parts of Sean Quimby's assessment of American phobia in regards to terrorism. He states that it is more likely that an American citizen dies in a car accident than in a terrorist attack. While i do not disagree that it is more likely, I do disagree with his explanation of why American's fear terrorism more. The event of September 11th struck a nerve in all Americans and will always resonate in the minds of American citizens. People fear car accidents less because they feel that they can avoid the situation of an accident, while a terrorist attack is completely unannounced and unwarranted. The fear of not knowing is what exists here, not the fear of terrorism installed by a government. I believe that something Quimby failed to recognize in this topic is the fear of the unknown. American's, more than anyone, are a people that enjoy having a degree of control over their future, and the possibility of disaster eliminates that control that American's have over their lives and futures.
I do not believe that the precaution's taken at airports, major entertainment venues, and other places are unnessary hindrances fueld by a terrible fear. It is necessary is best for all traveler's in order to ease the fear of such a disaster, and better protect American citizens and international travelers. Terrorism isn't fiction created by an author to scare us, it's real and I'll welcome anything precautions meant to protect me.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Binh Danh
I visited the Binh Danh exhibit with my freshman forum class. I have never appreciated art as much as some and thought originally that i would be bored out of my mind as my classmates and I walked the exhibit. I instead found myself examing every work with intense interest. I found that the works blended my interest of history and politics with art and manner in which it was presented was moving. The "One Week's Dead" exhibit was a moving tribute to those lost as a result of American involvement in Vietnam. This exhibit makes me think of what art could come from our current involvement in the Middle East. If Binh Danh can be this creative in portraying the war in Vietnam then i hope someone can move people the same way Binh Danh did with an exhibit portraying the war in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Sontag's article and Binh Danh's exhibit are similar in many ways. Sontag wrote that in some cultures the people don't want their picture to be taken because they feel that something is taking from them in order to put their face in a picture. They believe that a piece of their soul is taken with every flash of the camera. The Binh Danh exhibit shows that a piece of someone is taken when a picture is taken but it is by no means a negative process. A piece of these young men in the exhibit exist in their representation by Binh Danh and it allows us to see what they did. It allows us to see the sacrifice that was given up to protect what we hold dear and the freedoms we often take for granted. A piece of these men exists in these photos and everyone should see this exhibit to see what was given up for their protection.
Sontag's article and Binh Danh's exhibit are similar in many ways. Sontag wrote that in some cultures the people don't want their picture to be taken because they feel that something is taking from them in order to put their face in a picture. They believe that a piece of their soul is taken with every flash of the camera. The Binh Danh exhibit shows that a piece of someone is taken when a picture is taken but it is by no means a negative process. A piece of these young men in the exhibit exist in their representation by Binh Danh and it allows us to see what they did. It allows us to see the sacrifice that was given up to protect what we hold dear and the freedoms we often take for granted. A piece of these men exists in these photos and everyone should see this exhibit to see what was given up for their protection.
Monday, September 3, 2007
de Duve
After reading about Marcel Duchamp’s famous “ready mades” I can’t disagree of de Duve’s assessment that art is whatever humans call art. Art can only be created if an artist’s intention is to create art. The first time art ever interested me was when a local Native American artist had visited our elementary school to give us a glimpse of his work and introduce us to the world of art outside of the color paintings we were creating in art class once a week. The artist, Ely Thomas, told a story of his past as well as a brief history of his people, the Onondaga Indian tribe, and showed us many samples of his work which interested all of us kids. The one piece that I found most interesting was one that Mr. Thomas had named “The Good Journey”. The painting depicts the Peacemaker gliding in his stone canoe towards a small tree on an island slightly off in the distance. The tree represents the Tree of Peace. While the painting at first glance is a great painting, it’s what’s hidden in the painting is what drew me to it during Mr. Thomas’s visits. Hidden in the sky is the silhouette Grand Council Chief of Mr. Thomas’s tribe looking towards the tree. The painting also has animals hidden in the water and sky all running towards the Tree of Peace. Mr. Thomas’s presentation was only about two hours long but my interest in his paintings and the hidden elements to his work lasted long after. These paintings differ from most others because of its strong cultural connection and it’s relevance to the Iroquois people. His paintings all tell stories or tales of the Iroquois and serve as a way to pass the stories on through the generations. Mr. Thomas’s fame amongst his tribe members and in the area show that his paintings are successful in telling the us of the proud past of the Onondaga Iroquois tribe.
The definition that caught my attention was one of the first ones offered in de Duve’s essay. The definition which states that art “seems to refer to an activity that is either integrative of compensatory, lying midway between their myths and sciences.” I believe his assessment that art is a word that’s meaning often escapes most people trying to define it and is used in many different ways, is a fair description of art. Trying to think of the human race from an outside ethnographers point of view would be very interesting but would confuse most when it comes to the world of art. The individuality of artist’s and the many time periods and progressions that art went through throughout human existence leaves art as the probably the most difficult way to explain and describe the human race. I feel as though art is a word that may get thrown around too lightly. If it were up to me to decide what gets the title of art and what doesn’t I would leave out the style of art referred to as “ready mades”. Art is something that should leave a sense of accomplishment and pride in its artist and the hard work should be seen in the art. An artist who simply takes an everyday object and inscribes his name on it is not an artist but is simply someone who can spell his own name. I also contend that this form of art may be a form of plagiarism. The company who made the urinal used in Marcel Duchamp’s isn’t getting any credit for the supposed work of art the created when they mass-produced their urinal. Unfortunately my lack of artistic ability and art education doesn’t qualify me to pick and choose what art is.
The definition that caught my attention was one of the first ones offered in de Duve’s essay. The definition which states that art “seems to refer to an activity that is either integrative of compensatory, lying midway between their myths and sciences.” I believe his assessment that art is a word that’s meaning often escapes most people trying to define it and is used in many different ways, is a fair description of art. Trying to think of the human race from an outside ethnographers point of view would be very interesting but would confuse most when it comes to the world of art. The individuality of artist’s and the many time periods and progressions that art went through throughout human existence leaves art as the probably the most difficult way to explain and describe the human race. I feel as though art is a word that may get thrown around too lightly. If it were up to me to decide what gets the title of art and what doesn’t I would leave out the style of art referred to as “ready mades”. Art is something that should leave a sense of accomplishment and pride in its artist and the hard work should be seen in the art. An artist who simply takes an everyday object and inscribes his name on it is not an artist but is simply someone who can spell his own name. I also contend that this form of art may be a form of plagiarism. The company who made the urinal used in Marcel Duchamp’s isn’t getting any credit for the supposed work of art the created when they mass-produced their urinal. Unfortunately my lack of artistic ability and art education doesn’t qualify me to pick and choose what art is.
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