The PDF linked below is of a report prepared by Robert Goodis for a class in 2008. It has been reformatted, but has not been formally reviewed since submission for academic credit. Because of it’s relevant topic, it is being made available under both the personal & academic writings section of this blog and the section reserved for The Goodis Center.
In the drafting process, this paper was entitled Police Use of Weapons and Force in the United States of America: A Review of Human Rights in Law Enforcement and Relevant Policy. This PDF bears the official title, Human Rights and U.S. Policy Review: Law Enforcement Use of Conducted Energy Devices.
This is an essay I wrote in 2009 for a sociology class entitled Historical Sociology of Punishment at Bard College. The paper discusses religion and religious conversion in prisons, including the general trends in the U.S. and abroad, as well as theoretically correlated and causal social factors. The primary discussion focuses on conversion to various denominations/sects of Islam in prisons. This paper addresses established theories and empirical data, and puts forth a uniquely formulated theory I developed during the research process.
A quick excerpt:
“Ultimately, the exact causes behind the trending of religious conversion to Islam in prisons remain undetermined. That Christian and Islamic denominations are the predominant religious strains found in prisons surely affects the probability a prisoner will convert to one of these two faiths rather than to any other religion encountered in prison. In reference to the general phenomenon of religious conversion in prisons, sociological and political implications are relatively well-established and clear, regardless of the religion to which the prisoner converts. Specifically investigating the trend towards conversion to Islam in prisons, however, many questions remain. In theory, a prisoner may be more likely to convert to Islam than to Christianity because of personal conditions and characteristics and/or because of social connotations affiliated with Christianity – a repulsive force to prisoners who would wish to distance themselves from the morality that has cost them their freedom….”
This paper was not revised or reviewed after submitting it for a class. It is around 5500-6500 words in length.
While I will try to keep my personal posts based upon reliable and accurate information, I encourage readers to investigate all of these matters on their own. Do not take the words of this blog to be the truth. This is not the gospel – it is just something to think about. At the same time, I wouldn’t be posting it if I didn’t think it weren’t worth discussing (which is why I’ll also play Devil’s advocate as needed). Comment, reblog, critique, discuss at-length, or just read it and shrug.
Human rights are a contentious and volatile subject. Throw in culture, politics, war, famine, genocide, civil rights, and everything else tied to human rights – all the things that make the world go round – and you’re bound to come across a variety of different viewpoints.
Basically, I’m poking the bear.
Why?
Why not?
Let’s see what happens…
I invite you to join me.
“Bears are lovely creatures that often hibernate and are, for the most part, non-violent. However, when poked, bears can become quite angry. As such, it’s always best to not poke the bear.” – Wikipedia
These are just a few quick points that need to be made. Consider them, if you will.
From the New York Times article, ‘You Have Atomic Bombs, but We Have Suicide Bombers.’ from 19 October 2009, by David Rohde: “One evening, Abu Tayyeb declared that the Taliban treated women better than Americans did. He said women in the United States were forced to wear revealing clothes and define themselves solely as sex objects. The Taliban protected women’s honor by not allowing them to appear in public with their faces unveiled.”
From a CNN report,U.S. won’t join landmine ban, administration decides, from 24 November 2009, by Charley Keyes: “The United States is the only member of NATO that will not sign the landmine treaty, Goose said. Russia and China also have not joined the 156 nations that have endorsed the ban, he said.”
The United States has claimed to triumph human rights. These articles are just a faint glimpse at our failures to support human rights and human advancement. It is time for change.
These videos were prepared by the Brave New Foundation. These are the six parts to the recent documentary, Rethink Afghanistan.
I cannot personally make any guarantee as to their claims, and I remind any viewer that these films are made as a part of a campaign with specific political goals. That said, this documentary is very well-done and thought-provoking.
Part One: More Troops + Afghanistan = Catastrophe
Part Two: Pakistan: “The Most Dangerous Country”
Part Three: The Cost of War
Part Four: Civilian Casualties
Part Five: Women of Afghanistan
Part Six: Security
DVDs of the full documentary can be purchased here.
These videos are not affiliated in any way with Robert Goodis or The Goodis Center. As a personal statement, I have decided to include them here to encourage thought and discussion on important matters. Please refer to the website of the Brave New Foundation’s Rethink Afghanistan campaign for further information and discussion at http://www.rethinkafghanistan.org/.
While I personally agree with the approach of this series, I find it problematic that there is little given in the way of positive or constructive criticism. It is certainly true that we need to rethink and reconsider our current wars, but it is unfair only to condemn the efforts and not to suggest any way to achieve a positive result for the parties. In my personal opinion, acknowledging that I do not have first-hand knowledge of this matter and that I have not put in any extensive amount of research, I think it is naive to suggest that a humanitarian effort could be safely carried-out in Afghanistan without security forces. Still, I see no reason, as the film points out, to send in more combat troops. Further, I find it atrocious that we still carry out air-strikes in Afghanistan, after their repeated catastrophic effects, and that we are one of the few remaining nations in the world that continues to use landmines. The American people and the American soldier need a better cultural understanding of the area, and they need to be in dialogue with the locals to find out what they need and what they want. I think it would be a mistake to turn our backs on the situation, but I also think that a stronger military presence is not the right approach.
The logic offered by some of the strategic generals – that a troop surge in Afghanistan would give insurgents a way to quit with dignity – makes sense. But non-aggressive alternatives need to be tried first, especially given the improbability that any surge would actually work. This war, in the way it has been executed this far, needs to end. It is time for a new strategy. It is time to start making allies and building a supportive community. It is time to show our support for the people of Afghanistan.
This is a short essay I wrote in my junior year in high school, analyzing the writings of David Goodis, famous noir author, from a primarily biographical perspective. It’s unrefined and unrevised, as are most of the papers on this blog. It’s just here because it has some interesting information about an interesting man.
These are two very casual response-pieces (about 4 pages each, double-spaced with headers, lacking any form of bibliographies or academic formalities) I wrote for an intro-level philosophy course as a first-semester freshman in college. In addition to being casual, they were written in a hurry and never revised or reevaluated during or since the writing process. Don’t look at these as ‘academic’ essays; rather, consider them random thoughts du jour. That said, here they are:
I hurriedly wrote this paper in October of 2008 for my Introduction to Human Rights class. It’s not a perfect paper by any means, and I never bothered to go back and revise after first writing it. I’m just posting this to offer a quick-read on the subject of human rights, dealing with the role of states in and the universality of human rights. The paper draws on a lay-understanding of Hannah Arendt and Walter Kälin. It is about 5 pages long, double-spaced (about 1,500 words).
Here is an essay I wrote during my senior year in high school, in PDF form.
Please note that I never even bothered to go back and make any corrections after the paper was graded. Also note that I am neither a literary expert nor an expert on Judaism or Jewish mysticism nor an expert on philosophy. This is a lay-paper, written when I was in high school with a very narrow approach to these topics. It is only posted here to offer a basic introduction to the subjects of Franz Kafka and Kabbalah (and for fun!).
Abstract
Kafka and Kabbalah
The ideas of Kabbalah, Talmud, and Tanakh, contradictory to some interpretations of existentialism for their philosophically Jewish nature, are prevalent throughout the text and subtext of Kafka’s writing. While his intent remains moot, these influences prove necessary to properly interpreting and understanding The Trial and lead readers to question whether Kafka intended to promote Jewish or existentialist philosophy and with which of the two he aligned himself. This essay shall prove, through evidence in religious context, that Franz Kafka wrote his literature not existentialistically but rather, with Jewish undertones. Based on common Jewish methods of education through literature and common Jewish symbolism, diction, and themes, Kafka’s unfinished novel, The Trial, shows an intrinsically didactic Jewish nature, even though he wrote the piece long before he began studying Jewish thought. Beliefs such as the futility of theurgy–futile for its ultimately isolating and corrupt pretenses–and the requirement of action and punishment play a large role in both the Jewish scriptures and Kafka’s writings. These philosophical details, along with other such Jewish concepts, run rampant throughout The Trial in both the indirect and direct forms—as exemplified by Kabbalah, Talmud, and Tanakh. While Kafka presents such strong Jewish influence in his writing, however, he also battles subtly the very philosophy to which critics most commonly attribute his works: existentialism. Kafka’s supposed moral ambiguity rather presents itself, through the Kabbalistic lens, as a social commentary on the effects of such ethical bankruptcy as the existentialist influence suggests. This uncommon perception of conceptually Kafkan traits not only implies Kafka’s literary genius, but also leads the educated reader to realize the true philosophical intensity and sheer intellect of the man.
