WTF I love him. You just don’t understand his writting. You don’t have to like his writting but dont hate him. He didn’t do anything wrong. That’s his writting style and that’s what he knows. His life was sad so that’s what he wrote about. If you don’t like him read something else.
Don’t be a hater because he’s more famous than you will ever be. You’re just a no body and you will die a nobody. Atleast he gave himself a name. Without him we wouldn’t have a lot of horror stories or detective stories.
So suck it jealous bitches

Indeed. Edgar Allen Poe was a sad man who wrote a lot of horror and detective stories, and was much more famous that I will ever be. He also fucked his adolescent cousin.

There was this children’s book I have remembered fondly from my childhood that I decided I must find again, a book passed down from one sister to another after it was given to the oldest in the mid-1960s. I’d searched for it online by title and author for months (Biquette, The White Goat by Francoise) and found nothing, until last week when I discovered it on ebay. I ordered it immediately.

By my memory this book was about a sick little girl who was ordered by her doctor to get a goat and drink goat’s milk daily until she was well, and the goat was a bad little goat that got into all sorts of trouble, including eating the little girl’s red sweater. I also remembered that the accompanying illustrations were clever, detailed, and meaningful to me. What I remembered best is the cover of the book. The book jacket was long gone, but the primary illustration was embossed on the cover, a little goat in profile, smiling, its leash trailing behind it, on a background of hunter green.

When it arrived, I found that my only memories of this book that were correct are few — it was translated from French, the little girl in the story was ordered to get a goat and drink it’s milk, and the cover of the book is indeed green. It is neither clever nor climactic, and the illustrations are dull.

But acquiring this book did one thing that makes the purchase worthwhile. I remember this viscerally: being a small girl alone in a quiet room, pulling a book off the shelf, and feeling the magic and awe at seeing a handwritten inscription to my biggest sister who was once a small girl, unable to imagine that she was ever a child, or that I would ever grow up.

One of the reasons I hate Poe so much — similarly to Fenimore Cooper, I suppose — is that Poe’s protagonists are thinly veiled caricatures of the author’s aspirational view of himself. Where Cooper wanted to be the new American hero, Poe wanted to be the new American antihero, but couldn’t figure out a way to make a hero out of someone to whom bad things happened. He settled for “deep” and “creepy,” something Robert Smith would do better 100 years later.

Sadly I can’t find a tutorial that really dissects the novel as a whole, so I’m stuck figuring out how to read it in a way that allows me to write a real paper on it. Moreover, the paper topics don’t give any room to discuss my preferred topic: Why Edgar Allen Poe is a Racist Bastard.

I swear, Cooper would have bumped uglies with Hawkeye if he could figure out how to get it on with one of his own literary characters.

Uniontown, PA, was the site for this year’s W****** Family Reunion, which is really less a reunion than it is a genealogy trip exploring my mother’s family lineage. My uncle’s baby, the reunion takes place biennially in a place that is historically relevant to the family history. All kinds of relatives, close and distant, showed up to participate, many of whom can only be considered relatives if you go back six or seven generations.

Things
Christian Klay Winery has excellent dry white wine. Try the Blanc de Lafayette if you’re ever in the area. We rolled up our sleeves and bought a case.

Fallingwater was ridiculous. It’s absolutely beautiful and extravagant, still contemporary by today’s standards, and our tour guide sounded something like this:

This kind of family reunion is really an exercise in white privilege. Don’t get me wrong, I had a good time and I don’t want to minimize the importance of knowing one’s roots, especially for my own family who have had a hand in organizing many of these gatherings, and especially with additional emphasis on “the importance of knowing one’s roots”. First it assumes you (in the present) have the time and money and access for extensive research, which secondly depends on whether your historical relatives had the privilege of accurate record-keeping, marked graves, proper burial records, i.e, rights of existence that were not available to most non-white, non-privileged people in early American (as we know it) life. Because much of genealogical research is based on record-keeping such as family Bibles and school, Social Security, military, and city records and the like, you have to assume that the infrastructure existed in the first place and secondly that your ancestry was able to take advantage of it. Moreover things are made that much more difficult if someone along the way changed your family surname to better assimilate and/or subjugate your ancestry.

That said, after some discussion, it became clear after some discussion with my father that we know nothing about his family before his grandparents. In their area of the country and in their social class, it would be incredibly difficult to trace back much further, even knowing that his lineage would have emigrated from the old country (presumably Germany, GB, or Scotland) and emigrated again from the east coast of North America to Arkansas and Mississippi River country. Chef’s family too knows little about their lineage past Chef’s great-grandparents, and what they do know is their Irish and German surnames and very German settlement in this area of Indiana.

Just some thoughts. I have no strong feelings or judgments on these facts, but it is what it is.

If I were so inclined, I could join the Daughters of the American Revolution. Why I won’t.

I have some really cool relatives, past and present. I won’t go into details because I want to preserve familial privacy.

We spent part of Saturday at Fort Necessity, the site for the first engagement for the French and Indian War/Seven Years’ War, which is apparently the only battle that George Washington ever surrendered. There isn’t much at the park except a replica of the original fort and a refurbished historical tavern that sits on National Road, but I did go through the park center’s small museum which explains the events during the Battle of Jumonville Glen.

It’s been awhile since I’ve been to a historical museum, even one of this size, so I was surprised to see a few unexpected truths especially considering the many grossly inaccurate mythologies that surround American historical narratives. First, they represented the warring factions — French, British/American, and Native American — as equal players in a world war, as opposed to lumping the Native American players as unequivocal add-ons to French political interests. Secondly, they also included a comprehensive display on how the battle was one of the first in a colonial disaster, emphasizing the destruction done to global native populations as the British built a world empire from the Caribbean to India.

Finally, despite the impressiveness of the above, what I found most interesting was a little meta-narrative on the museum and reproductions themselves. The museum ended with a historical display on previous incarnations of the Fort park, and how these representations supported a jingoistic view of American history in lieu of accuracy by representing Washington as a war hero instead of this battle as one of his greatest embarrassments, building a massive fort replica instead of properly representing the fort as the travesty it was, and even displaying previous versions of commemorative brass plaques that codified these purposeful inaccuracies.

I strongly identified with Sybil Vane’s observation on that “squeamish conflict between the kind of idealism and awe a city full of landmarks and history can inspire… and the cynicism she feels when she considers what goes on in [national landmarks] and what it has come to mean for her” when she wrote this last week, because look, I love history and I even unintentionally got a history minor in college when I discovered I’d fit in enough classes to qualify for one, but I’m tired of the willful ignorance that goes into history displays when the opportunity to represent historical nuances fully, with all their messy details, is cast aside in favor of another cherry tree fable. I can only hope this is a national trend.

Big ups to the Fort Necessity National Park for including commercial titles like “Lies My Teacher Told Me” and “A People’s History of the United States” in the gift shop.

I don’t know if it’s the whole state or the county we stayed in, but we were goddamned if we wanted to buy booze. Liquor is not for sale outside of a bar or tavern, and the area beer stores only sold by the case. You could, however, drop into a bar and buy a six-pack, thus with the full bar, sweet karaoke gig, and copious bottled options, the Holiday Inn seemed to be the coolest hangout on that side of town. Sadly.

I did discover, however, that my mother is very fond of Yuengling, and if prompted will break into spontaneous cheerleading during unrelated conversation.

It could be a Southern thing, but there are a whole lot of nicknames circulating my family. Personally the most amusing is that my sixteen-year-old, 6’2″ 220 lb. nephew is still referred to as Baby James.

It was a good trip, better than I expected it to be, and I got to re-meet some relatives I haven’t seen since I was a kid. Also, lots of excellent wine.

My online searches have been really unfruitful. All I can find online are fictional narratives for older kids, like these, and essays on how to scan your children’s books for racism, sexism, and intolerance, which is something I already do anyway and nevertheless doesn’t address the immediate need at hand. I need something more explanatory for an advanced reader in the second grade, and preferably, something extra inclusive that deals with racism against all people of color.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

UPDATE: I refined my search and came up with the series Asian Americans of Achievement, which isn’t quite what I’m looking for, but it’s a start. I also want this one for myself.

I’m dropping money on this book on pay day.

UPDATE II: Lubu has a fantastic round up on Asian-American resources thanks in part to Rethinking Schools.

For awhile I seriously researched moving to the New Orleans area in the wake of Katrina to take a teaching job, until I realized that I was only looking for a hefty do-gooder resume item and a nice lump of cash. Obviously I found my knee-jerk capitalism gross — and embarrassing — and realized that I would be nothing more than a small-time natural disaster profiteer. It was an unworkable plan in the first place, and only attracted me because of the benefits.

Never did I realize the argument could be made for this kind of gross action on an international scale or that the right wing would be so angry at the truth in telling it. It’s a free market, right?

A grieving father won a nearly $11 million verdict Wednesday against a fundamentalist Kansas church that pickets military funerals in the belief that the war in Iraq is a punishment for the nation’s tolerance of homosexuality.

Albert Snyder of York, Pennsylvania, sued the Westboro Baptist Church for unspecified damages after members demonstrated at the March 2006 funeral of his son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who was killed in Iraq.

The jury first awarded $2.9 million in compensatory damages. It returned later in the afternoon with its decision to award $6 million in punitive damages for invasion of privacy and $2 million for causing emotional distress.

U.S. District Judge Richard Bennett noted the size of the award for compensating damages “far exceeds the net worth of the defendants,” according to financial statements filed with the court.

Church members routinely picket funerals of military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, carrying signs such as “Thank God for dead soldiers” and “God hates fags.”

Considering the decision far exceeds the Phelps’ family’s net worth, I finally see the silver lining on America’s tighter bankruptcy laws.

Meanwhile, the Phelps family, who largely make up the membership of this “church”, maintain that this is a 1st Amendment issue. Forgive my elementary understanding of constitutional law, expressing one’s political opinion within the letter of the law, whether your opinion is stupid or not, largely depends on whether you protest a public or private event. The funeral of a fallen soldier, although she or he is a public servant, is still a private event in my opinion, and regardless of partisan views, many still believe a funerary event is a socially inappropriate time to protest the politics of the dead and their families.

Which reminds me — I finished Jon Krakauer’s “Under the Banner of Heaven” some weeks ago, a book on the Mormon religion in America, and specifically on some of its violent roots during its founding years. The book’s last chapter took an interesting rhetorical turn relating to the “just following my religious beliefs; how dare you oppress me” line that gets dragged out when religious beliefs tramp on the rights and autonomy of others, as it clearly does in the case of the Phelps family. The last portion of the book covers the trial of a “divinely inspired” murder, and in the legal arguments in defense of the murderers, the legal team could take two tacks: 1) the defendents’ religious beliefs make them legally insane, or 2) the defendent’s religious beliefs, by protection of the constitution, allow them to victimize others. Obviously neither of these defenses worked. Essentially arguing that one’s specific religiosity, especially one in which the individual personally communes with a god, makes one insane [regardless whether that god commands fundamentalist, unpopular and/or violent acts], damn near the entire world’s population fits the definition of insanity.

Which leads us to another interesting reality: because most of the world believes in some kind of higher power, our real beef is whether a religious organization fits a certain social authenticity. The good, authentic Samaritans can safely deny the rights of marriage, bodily autonomy, and privacy to average citizens, and the bad ones are forbidden from funeral protests and outright murder.

[picture by CNN/Getty Images]
[Cross-posted at Unsprung]

Lynch is an appropriate subject for both Halloween season and the PBS and NPR lovers among us. As the third-generation funeral director in a small Michigan town, and as a single father and poet, Lynch wrote several critically acclaimed books of poetry and prose on the nature of death, dying, and the body.

We’re among the first couple generations for whom the presence of the dead at their own funerals has become optional. And I see that as probably not good news for the culture at large.

Love me some Thomas Lynch, love me some PBS.

See the trailer for “This Is England”, which, if I’m correct, is still available for cable users with IFC On Demand (they release movies that are being shown in limited theaters available for rent through your cable box):

Dennis writes:

A hard-hitting, naturalistic “social drama” reminiscent of the work of Ken Loach and British “angry young man” films of the early 60s (with a slight whiff of “A Clockwork Orange”) “This is England” is set against the backdrop of the Thatcher era, circa 1983. The story (reported to be loosely auto-biographical, based on the director’s Midlands upbringing) centers around a glum, alienated 12 year-old named Shaun (first-time film actor Thomas Turgoose, in an extraordinary performance) who can’t seem to fit in with any of the cliques at his school. Shaun presents a real handful to his loving but somewhat exasperated mother (Jo Hartley), a working-class Falklands War widow who does her best to support herself and her son. After a particularly bad day of being bullied about by teachers and schoolmates, happenstance leads Shaun into the midst of a skinhead gang.

Shaun’s initial apprehension is quickly washed away when the sympathetic and good-natured gang leader Woody (Joe Gilgun) takes him under his wing and offers him an unconditional entrée into their little club… The idyll is soon shattered, however, when the gang’s original leader, Combo (Stephen Graham) is released from prison. Combo’s return causes a rift that divides the gang; his jailhouse conversion to racist National Front ideals doesn’t settle well with Woody and his supporters, and they break off on their own. Shaun decides to stay on after forming an instant bond with the thuggish Combo, who easily parlays the impressionable Shaun’s grief over his father into a blame-shifting hatred of immigrants, with tragic results.

Dennis covers the strength of the performances, but it bears repeating: for a little indie flick the cast performances and cinematography were fantastic. Loved the soundtrack. Some of the story lines take some suspension of disbelief, namely that a worried widow mother wouldn’t have greater issues with her young son taking up with a significantly older fringe group of teenagers, and skinheads at that. But as I commented at Hullaballoo, the most unsettling thing for me and Chef when we watched it was how similar some of our experiences growing up in Indiana were to those in the movie — screwing around, breaking things, causing trouble, trouble that would eventually lead to real trouble. That said, I thought the director/writer was a little forgiving with the scenes involving the younger skinheads and exactly what skinhead culture was, and if his goal was to posit them as merely punk and/or rude boy enthusiasts (pre-SHARPs, if you will) in contrast with the National Front skinheads we’re more familiar with, that’s one thing, but regardless how much I loved the movie I thought the treatment of the beginning scenes with the younger skinhead group was a tad pastoral.

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On a slightly related note, Chef read Bill Buford’s “Among the Thugs” while we traveled and from what pieces I read I also highly recommend it. Buford follows European football enthusiasts around and explores their culture of violence, xenophobia, and outright racism, some of which includes involvement with the National Front. It’s next on my reading list.