Thursday, January 31, 2008

Fear of AIDS...what about it?

I'm afraid this will be brief as I am typing single-thumbed (small accident in Angel Heart's kitchen. scary knife. Three stitches. I'll live).
So, to follow up on Allysa's question, I'd like to start with another quote Allysa found in her reasearch on the movie Philadelphia.
A woman in the movie who received HIV/AIDS through a blood transfusion says during fher court testimony:

"I don't consider myself any different than anyone else with this disease--I'm not innocent, I'm not guilty...I am just trying to survive"

To what extent do you think fear of contracting HIV/AIDS "innocently" contributes to a societal tendency to pronouce people living with the disease "guilty"? In other words, could other reasons people give for having an aversion to people with AIDS or the topic of AIDS (moral concerns about homosexuality/drug use, etc.) simply be the manifestation of their fear? If fear is a significant problem, what (if anything) do you think could/should be done about it?
I can't wait to hear what you guys think!

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Integrating Research and Personal Reflection

Since Ryan and Kirsten very thoroughly covered our discussion on “Terministic Screens,” Sarah Perske and I thought it might be interesting to reflect on the research and writing process for our papers; above all, we’d like to explore the connections between the information we’ve gathered and our classroom discussions and personal growth.

For my research paper, I studied the primary text Philadelphia, a 1993 film that details the social and physical struggles faced by Andrew Becket—a successful lawyer infected with HIV/AIDS—during the last few years of his life. In the film, Beckett is fired from the law firm on account of his illness and brings a lawsuit against the firm’s senior partners for wrongful termination. Citing the 1973 Vocational Rehabilitation Act, Beckett’s attorney notes the following:

Employees with HIV/AIDS should be protected by law against wrongful termination
“not only due to the physical limitations [AIDS] imposes but also because the social stigma surrounding AIDS creates a social death that precedes the
physical one
.”


When I first heard this excerpt from the film, I was struck by the disheartening truths it revealed. Our society’s fear-driven approach towards illness—specifically HIV/AIDS—can create a situation in which patients are doubly victimized. How does this excerpt from the film resonate with you? Do you agree or disagree? Do you believe individuals with HIV/AIDS still face a social “death” in our society? If not, how has the American public worked to change the shameful fact that HIV/AIDS patients were often ostracized for their illness, and what more can we do to prevent this from occurring in the future? How do the texts we’ve read in class support or refute this statement?

Please feel free to share your opinions and thoughts regarding this quote or discuss any aspect of your own research that you found particularly convicting.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

As we only had one class this week, I apologize if my post emanates a bit from the same theme as Ryan's.
Undoubtedly, we all have different lenses through which we view the world and in turn communicate with one another. We live in a society that, as Ryan stated, is predominately tolerant of our varying outlooks. While this dissension creates barriers in our language and ability to fully understand, it is important that we continue to strive to reach one another.
I am taking Foundations in Communications this quarter and the parallels between this class and the communications class are abundant to say the least. In communications we are studying Levinas who prescribes to a philosophy claiming that humans have a need to cry out and be answered. All humans question, "Where art thou?" and are looking for the response, "Here I am" by another individual.
With this is mind and without permeating any personal boundaries, I think it would be good to hear what you have to say after the response of "Here I am." How has this class changed the way you think about illness? Or has it? Which readings do you connect with the most? Can you identify with some of the emotions we've discussed? If you have volunteered at Project Angel Heart, has it altered your view of human morality, of disease patients, of human fellowship? Especially if you have volunteered more than once, is your lens beginning to change? Can it change without suffering from disease itself? What are you thinking? What would you like to just come out and say? We've talked pretty openly in class but I think it's important to get everybody's take on the subject and this blog provides a great forum to do so. Let's try to share our lenses as best as possible.
On Wednesday we began to delve into language more deeply. We began to question not so much the mechanics of language–we didn't diagram sentences, we didn't separate words into nouns, verbs, or adjectives–but rather the nature of language. For me, I have always subscribed to the theory that language is asymptotic. I think this partly because of my schooling, and also partly because that is how our culture has taught us to think.
Think about it: in our Post-Modern society, we are taught certain values, traditions, and morals by our parents, the media, our culture, and our teachers. However, they also teach us to value what other people value as well. We are taught that there is no strictly wrong or strictly right, that all truth is relative. Ours is a culture characterized not by solidarity, but diversity. Schools now pride themselves on the different amount of backgrounds, cultures, ethnicities, and nationalities they have, and teach us that each person can follow their own set of beliefs. You like to pray to God? Great. You don't believe in God? Also great. Democrat? Republican? White? Black? Whatever? All are great. We celebrate you. And you. And Whoever, even though they are different.
My point is that while each of us are taught to tolerate, we also want to go further than that. Our generation has such a thirst for knowledge that we have this compelling need to understand everything. A disturbing statistic shows that today you can find more information in an issue of the New York Times then were likely to in your entire lifetime if you lived during the 19th century. Whether this has been brought on by innovations such as the internet, or better educational systems, or something else entirely is not the point. the point is that everyone today cannot stand not knowing. It is this thirst that I believe has driven us delve more deeply into history, into music, and into literature more than ever.
I don't know about you though, but each of these things are frustratingly tantalizing. This is made all the more frustrating in my revelation that language is so asymptotic. Because we all formulate our own realities, our own lens, stepping out of ours into another, completely different world has become extremely difficult. And by characterizing language as being asymptotic, I go the extra step and say that it is impossible. Their are only two ways to truly connect with people: either by shared experiences–walking in someone's shoes–or through communication.
However, another school I subscribe to is deconstructionism. By this I mean that I feel that language is broken. I argue that because language is so broken, so inadequate, that truly connecting to someone through language is broken. As I said earlier, we all have so many different values, traditions, and morals, and have experienced so many different events, that each word we use has a different meaning. While we have agreed on authorities like dictionaries to define terms universally, all of the connotations that go with each word are going to be slightly different unless two people have shared the exact same experiences. Even then words may not mean the same, because so much is dependent on how we react to things internally.
In the short story Slim, the narrator tells is his story in hope of connecting with us on a personal level by trying to bring us into his shoes: we see his angst and pain through his lens. But while we all read the same thing, we only get an impression of what it is like to live with AIDS, and even then we all get different impressions, which is apparent when we discuss it. Like it says in the essay "Terministic Screens":
"Our point is: All three terminologies (Watson's, Bowlby's, Augustine's) directed the attention differently, and this led to a correspondingly different quality of observations. In brief, 'behavior isn't something that you need but observe; even something so 'objectively there' as behavior must be observed through one or another kind or terministic screen, that directs the attention in keeping with its nature" (p. 49 Burke).
It is for this reason that I say that language is just as much a barrier as it is a bridge. We may keep getting closer and closer to each other by sharing our experiences, by never can really intersect. And it is at intersections that you and I can finally understand each other completely.

Friday, January 18, 2008

First of all sorry this is late. I was sick on Wednesday, so I am tentative to try and post something about the articles because I am unaware where the discussion went. Nevertheless, I thought that some very interesting points were exposed in Monday's discussions. Having been interested in societal standards and beliefs, I am curious to explore the social understanding of HIV. We talked briefly on how we have come to understand the AIDS epidemic. Africa was thrown into discussion, so was Pedro from the Real World. Each of these cases have had their own dramatic audience. So I kind of a rambling statement, I am trying to say that AIDS is very well known and found throughout the world. This of course is also the irony associated with AIDS. The first real knowledge about AIDS was established now about twenty-five years ago in the early eighties. At this time of American medical advancement, we thought that the cure would be found in five to ten years, but ten to fifteen years ago we were not close to having an answer. Opptimism still was present, so the world figured on only another ten years before a cure was found. Well guess what? That time is now and there is still no answer, only anecdotal drugs that are extremely caustic on the system are available. This brings me to my question.

A couple of years ago I was watching a Bill Maher show and one of his guests was Alec Baldwin. Baldwin said something that was disheartingly true, "If you could contract AIDS by gripping a golf club, we would have a cure tomorrow." So when considering a disease that for all intents and purposes is spread by a select number, who don't practice safe sex and who participate in intraveneous drug use, what should the course of action be? How can the American public be goaded into supporting a cause that most people are unfamiliar with the reality of? Cancer programs lack funding and yet everyone knows someone, who has been affected by cancer. AIDS is not so visible. What needs to happen for the world to take AIDS seriously and make it a front page issue? I know this is an open ended question, but just answer it with what steps you think should taken next to aid the AIDS epidemic.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

First Experiences With Project Angel Heart

I had my first shift with Project Angel Heart this weekend. On Saturday, I went to the site and spent a few hours in the afternoon driving around federal delivering the ready-made meals to clients. It certainly was an experience and really made me thankful for what we have. Even living at school in small dorms rooms, we have more than the clients I visited. We have so much to be thankful for: our health, our friends, our homes, our families, our friends, our safe neighborhoods, easy acess to healthy food, and the list continues. Even in Denver, many families live without these simple luxuries. It reminded me how thankful I am for the life I have and the opportunities I have for the future.
It also brought to light our discussion in class about how diseases can't be stereotyped. All the clients who answered the door looked relatively healthy. If I were to see them on the street, I wouldn't know that they had a life-threatening illness. Illness or disease doesn't define a person. Instead, it is their character and actions that will leave a legacy.
I'm curious how other's first experiences were? What did you do? Learn? And what did it make you realize about your own life? How does it confirm or deny what we've been discussing about disease metaphor in class?

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Preparing for our work with Project Angel Heart

I've just finished re-reading our material for tomorrow's class, and to be honest, my head is full of all sorts of possible paths to take in this initial positing on our blog. There really are so many questions that we could begin to think about together.

But I think I'm most interested in hearing more about your initial impressions and response to the prospect ahead of us: our work with Project Angel Heart. Let me share a memory as way to open up this conversation.

In my first year as an undergraduate, I volunteered for an AIDS hospice in Tacoma, Washington. I did this mostly because a friend of mine also volunteered there, and she spoke so passionately about the work she did that it encouraged me to spend some time there, as well.

The hospice was an old Victorian home that had been remodeled for four or five men with late-stage AIDS to live in and have a place to die with dignity. With its wrap-around porch and sturdy architecture, it projected a feeling of warmth, protection, and a quiet kind of respect for the men living there. The staff who worked there intentionally cultivated this atmosphere, and despite the very real and material presense of illness--and implicitly of death's approach (this was before the more successful HIV/AIDS drug treatments were available)--the space was comfortable, strangely reassuring, even.

Still, I remember completing my first few shifts feeling anxious--that churning-in-the-pit-of-your-stomach kind of anxiety. Nervous I would do something wrong or say something inappropriate, I was uncertain and felt awkward spending time there. In my mind, it seemed like such a daunting task, helping care for these men who were so close to death. What should I say to them? How would we interact? How to talk to the one man who seemed intolerably grumpy? And what about the man who never seemed to leave his bedroom? For the more experienced, these fears might have seemed naive or immature, but for me, they were real.

As I continued working, I grew more comfortable and adjusted to the social conventions of this place. Surpisingly, I begin to see our work there like any other. Despite our closeness to death, life went on. We cooked meals for the men, played card games, and had the most typical of conversations. Death didn't pervade every interaction, endowing our work with meaning at every turn. It just was.

I reflect on this experience as a way to ask you all about how you're feeling right now about working for Project Angel Heart. Do you have any reservations or anxieties? If so, what are they? Have you done work like this in the past, either with regard to this issue or involving community service in other capacities? If so, what was it like? What's your impression thus far of our attempt to forge a connection between academic writing and research and a non-profit organization like Project Angel Heart?

Please take a moment and use the comment feature to reply to this post. And be as candid as you're able. Thanks.