Reflexivity

Just read a piece, How to Tame a Wild Tongue by Gloria Anzaldua, about Chicano identity and language.
“Los Chicanos, how patient we see, how very patient. There is the quiet of the Indian about us. we know how to survive. When other races have given up their tongue we’ve kept ours. We know what it is to live under the hammer blow of the dominant norteamericano culture. But more than we count the blows, we count the days the weeks the years the centuries the aeons until the white laws and commerce and customs will rot in the deserts they’ve created, lie bleached. Humildes yet proud, quietos yet wild, nosotros los mexicanos-Chicanos will walk by the crumbling ashes as we go about our business. Stubborn, persevering, impenetrable as stone, yet possessing a malleability that renders us unbreakable, we, the mesitizas and mestizos, will remain.”
A link to an education course (Arnetha F. Ball, Stanford) premised upon Anzaldua’s dialogic claims neglects the “at home” (meaning domestic US) language of American Deaf Culture. It is a common omission, glaring in the fact that even the prestigious (?) Associated Press fails to recognize the difference between “deaf” and “death”.

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The Burlington Free Press didn’t cover the historic debate held on the campus of the Austine School for the Deaf last night between Bernie Sanders (Independent), Pete Diamondstone (Liberty Union), and Rich Tarrant (Republican), moderated by Dr. Anne Potter, Director of the Austine School. As far as anyone at the school could determine, a political debate of such stature has never been held on a deaf campus before, and certainly never been moderated by a Deaf person.
The Brattleboro Reformer announced the event, but apparently didn’t cover it? Perhaps they are holding the story for the weekend edition? The debate was recorded and will be shown on Brattleboro’s public television channel.

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So Dr. Breuer challenges Nietzsche. I wrote about the first six chapters a few days ago: my enthusiasm hasn’t dimmed.
“We are each composed of many parts, each clamoring for expression. We can be held responsible only for the final compromise, not for the wayward impulses of each of the parts” (300).
“’One must have chaos and frenzy within oneself to give birth to a dancing star.’” (179-180). [oft-quoted, even by the Deaf community!]

“The key to living well is
first to will that which is necessary
and then to love that which is willed” (282).
“A tree requires stormy weather if it is to attain a proud height…creativity and discovery are begotten in pain” (179).
The notion of eternal recurrence (249-251) deserves its own post in the phenomenology thread (good section in wikipedia on Nietzsche’s view, emphasizing the thought rather than the physical reality of an eternal return). There’s something of the dialectic/dialogic in there (see p. 84, too). It has convinced me that it is time to read the copy of Thus Spake Zarathurstra that I picked up in Berlin last summer.
More on interpretation (I extrapolate): “ a series of meanings folded into” [an object, fill in the blank] (247). “accommodating to [interlocturs'] rhythm[s]” (245), “a philosopher’s personal moral structure dictates the type of philosophy he creates…the counselor’s personality dictates his counseling approach…” (182),
On blogging (!): yearning for an audience, the loneliness of living an unobserved life.
On dreams: “’I wonder,’ Nietzsche mused, ‘whether our dreams are closer to who we are than either rationality or feelings’” (242).
On the unconscious: “Consciousness is only the translucent skin covering existence: the trained eye can see through it &emdash; to primitive forces, instincts, to the very engine of the will to power” (239).
On life: “Life is a spark between two identical voids, the darkness before birth and the one after death” (238). “Living means to be in danger” (199).
SAM: “Death loses its terror if one dies when one has consummated one’s life! If one does not live in the right time, then one can never die at the right time” (247).
“Live when you live!”
Did he ever!
On memory: “Could there be such a thing as an active forgetting &emdash; forgetting something not because it is unimportant but because it is too important?” (231).
On good questions: They help one think differently. (223)
Dionysion passion: No need to live without magic, but you might ”have to change your conditions for passion” (222).
“…where philosophy falls short. Teaching philosophy and using it in life are very different undertakings” (209).
On volume: “If no one will listen, it’s only natural to shout!” (195).
On time and will: “The fact that the will cannot will backward does not mean the will is impotent! Because, thank God, God is dead &emdash; that does not mean existence has no purpose! Because death comes &emdash; that does not mean that life has no value” (190).
Nietzsche’s mission: “to save humankind from both nihilism and illusion” (140). [soon followed by this next, which I frame slightly out-of-context but what the hell]: “We’ll have to invent our procedure along the way” (141).
“What matters
is what you will tell yourself

and what I will tell myself” (110).

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The title of the exhibition, “El/le”, has many layers of meaning in Turkish, and it is for this reason that we have preferred to retain this title without translating it into another language. The word “el” refers to both “hand” and “stranger”, but the phrase “el/le”, its mirror image, can be interpreted as “by hand”, “to touch” or “with a stranger”
(Quoted from the Exhibition Brochure.)

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Check out the hands gesturing in this Deaf Dergisi (magazine).
It is British Sign Language that influences Turkish Sign Language. I’ve almost learned the alphabet; it requires “seeing” the letters in a different way, but once you see them they do make sense. I’ve learned a few signs as well. Many are similar but some are quite different. Again, I think I could learn the logic if I was immersed for awhile.
There are some terrific homemade films of Deaf Turks telling stories, some crazy photos, and all kinds of info about community events.
There is even a feature film, Kiskanc Asik (”Jealous Love”), starring Deaf Turks and TSL.

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Not only one sign! MANY! In Turkish sign language! Recep works for Information Technology at Sabanci University. He works with a team on the web design of about 50 webpages for the university. We had breakfast together, then he took me to his office to show me pictures on top of pictures, plus weblinks to information about Turkey in general and the Deaf Turkish community in particular. I need many more pictures in my blog. Wow. I was not able to show him very much, and (thinking with Deaf eyes) I realized how text-heavy my site is.

As usual, he (the deaf person) made all the accommodations for me, the less-flexible non-deaf person. Recep (the letter “c” is supposed to have the mark at the bottom that indicates the “ch” sound) knows some American Sign Language. I am thinking Turkish Sign Language is a relative of British Sign Language (which has no relation at all to ASL) and also some English. We began with gestures, then combined gesturing with writing, and at his computer had the most fluid conversation combining photos, websites, gestures, some written notes, and his Moonstar Turkish-English dictionary. Unfortunately, Moonstar only runs on PCs, not on Apples. Although there is a website I can access for English-Turkish at www.sozluk.web.tr translation; I don’t know if it is as sophisticated as Moonstar &emdash; I was impressed with it. Working a phrase at a time we could communicate very well, supplemented with facial expression, gestures, and some signs.
I was teasing myself yesterday when I posted about “a sign” &emdash; thinking I had already been given one: time to move on! Gizem had pointed Recep out to me but I hadn’t been able to catch him that first time; I knew this might be my only chance to connect with the Deaf community here. Who knew he would turn out to be so generous and friendly?! I guess perhaps I am as much a “novelty” to him as he is is to me. We certainly share a love for teasing (!) and much curiousity about how other people experience the world.
As has been happening for some time now, I feel myself blessed.

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The protests at Gallaudet started on April 3Oth. I made my first post on May 6.
Today, the NY Times features this story, Protests Continue at University for Deaf, on its email edition of headlines.
Most of my news has been coming from the Indiana DeafTimes. The Deaf community there has developed a petition and sent representatives to support the strike. Also, they’ve establised an IndyDeafUnity weblog. Here’s a more established blog with a commentary.

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I’m at the Vermont Deaf-Interpreter community forum. Of course I’m the only person strange enough to bring my laptop. Nice to see folks I haven’t seen for awhile: Will, Missy, Nora, my old partner in crime Melody, Keri, I saw Elizabeth in Brattleboro yesterday: “You’re in the area!” Marge just said hi, she’s surprised how many people are here: “I didn’t know if it was going to be large or small, maybe only three people? So many!”

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I know Lynn Jacobowitz. Her statement is disturbing in itself, and coming from her, even more so. She is not one to enter confrontation without conviction and a careful weighing of the consequences. Clearly there were problems with the search process if the Board was fooled into believing they were not participating in a handpicked anointment.
This may be a vital leverage point in the current struggle, along the lines of Amanda’s comment about the labor issues. This may be the point that the Deaf community can win while they continue to clarify the language and cultural issues which must be separated and fully addressed.
The Student Government has issued a petition (3724 of a targeted 10,000 signatures already).
A poll is being conducted on the Faculty, Staff, Student and Alumni (FSSA) website from Gallaudet. At the moment:
What do you think of the protest? (1492 voters)
Justified 870 58.7%
This protest is stupid. 209 14.1%
Not enough justification for the protest 168 11.3%
I disagree with this protest 123 8.3%
Neutral 112 7.6%
and
Should Jane Fernandes Step Down? (416 voters)
Yes! Dr. Fernandes is the wrong choice for Gallaudet! 251 60.3%
Dr. Fernandes should have a chance to run Gallaudet. 85 20.4%
Dr. Fernandes should step down, but who’s more qualified? 48 11.5%
No! Dr. Fernandes is perfect for Gallaudet! 18 4.3%
I’m neutral about all this. 14 3.4%
I’m interested that only a third of voters completed the second (more difficult?) question. Despite this discrepancy on the website, the FSSA (with only 66% of its members showing up: 145/220) passed several no confidence measures earlier today:

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Stamp Out Audism is a site promoting many materials but not necessarily providing tangible evidence of audism. This doesn’t mean there isn’t audism at Gallaudet, in fact, I believe there is plenty of it. But non-deaf folk need to have it explained in terms they can understand.
Someone told me about a weblog called “Trim the Ferns” or something like that, against both Jane Fernandes and her husband, but I can’t locate it via Google. It sounded mean too. Hate works (negative campaigning rules politics), but clearly-presented, sharply-argued explanations are better in the long run. One makes fewer enemies and might even convert some from the other side.

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