Honesty is the Best Policy?

      Recently I finished reading the Odyssey for a class and one of our main topics of discussion was the morals and values depicted in the Homeric epics compared to our contemporary society. We kept discussing how the Odyssey seems to praise cunning and trickery as exemplary qualities while today we typically consider such traits as negative qualities. But I couldn’t help but wonder if we actually believe that.

     I’m sure we’ve all heard the phrase “honesty is the best policy” and I’m sure we’ve all shook our heads and acknowledged this.

Then why do we lie all the time?

     We’ve all probably been guilty of telling those little white lies around holidays or birthdays. Most of us lie when we check the box about having read the terms and conditions and agreeing to them. Then there are those everyday phrases like “I’m fine” or “I never got that message.”

If we consider honesty so important then why do we lie so often and why do we accept and tolerate these lies?

     I suppose the reason why people tell so many “little” lies is because we want to avoid confrontation. When your friends asks you why you didn’t text them back you’ll probably tell them you didn’t get the message rather than telling them you just didn’t feel like talking to them. Obviously you don’t want to hurt your friend’s feelings (or start a fight) so you tell a small fib. When we feel emotionally distraught, but don’t want to talk, we say we’re fine even though we aren’t. Lying seems to be a mechanism to avoid unpleasant situations.

     What may be more important than the amount of times we lie is how often we accept being lied to. We’ve all probably had a friend or family member lie to us and known it, and we’ve all probably had moments were we’ve accepted or ignored it. It often seems like we accept the small lies told to us by family and friends because the lies are small and usually harmless.

     Though small lies have a habit of growing into big issues. Remember that lie you told your friend about not receiving their message? Well, eventually your friend found out that you’ve gotten every single message and chose to ignore them. Needless to say your friend is extremely mad at you because you’ve betrayed their trust. So, what started out as a little harmless lie to avoid hurting your friend’s feelings actually hurt them more than if you’d just told them the truth.

     That scenario is small scale and doesn’t really have repercussions that affect a large quantity of people, but what if we consider lying politicians? It isn’t a secret that many politicians lie to us, make promises they have no intention of keeping, and purposely omit important information. This often makes voters upset and angry, but they vote for them anyway. Why? Most likely because we anticipate that politicians are going to lie to us or that it is the nature of a politician to be somewhat dishonest.

This seems incredibly dangerous.

     We expect dishonesty and so when they’re dishonest we still accept them and don’t really care about their deceit. This suggests a very dangerous form of apathy towards dishonesty. We accept people’s dishonesty, vote them into positions of power where they can go against some of their platform, and then we get upset when they make decisions that impact us negatively. Then a lot of times, we vote for them again because why should we expect any better?

But shouldn’t we expect better?

     Shouldn’t we – based upon those lovely mottos that are nearly pounded into our head – expect honesty from others? Shouldn’t we hold ourselves to these same expectations? Shouldn’t we, if our society really considers honesty to be an important moral value, not accept lying (no matter how small) and condemn the action?

     I realize that lying in many ways is bad habit and that we often tell lies without realizing. But even small lies can turn into disastrous situations that hurt people and large lies can only get bigger. Though, I think we are capable of breaking our habit of lying and with honesty create a kinder and more sympathetic society. 

Not Completely Nonexistent

     Some people may find researching their online identity rather long and possibly arduous but when I looked through my social profiles I found what I expected to see. I saw a blank Twitter and Instagram account, few and far between Facebook posts, a flourishing Pinterest, and a very active Tumblr. I’ve never been a fan of social media sites like Facebook and Tumblr and while I like keeping up with other people’s Instagrams I don’t actually upload anything to my own. But when I look at my Tumblr and my Pinterest I see my very regular usage and what makes up the majority of my online identity.

     I suppose I like to keep my online and offline lives mostly separated. Personally, the idea of broadcasting my daily life on the internet where nothing is truly deleted is unappealing at best. Actually, most of the time when I post on Facebook it’s because I feel it’s expected of me and not because I really want to share what’s going on. I’d much rather record my life in a private journal where most people aren’t going to see it. So, when I look at my Facebook profile I see a very bare representation of who I am. I went to Bradly-Bourbonnais Community High School, I was in band and Scholastic bowl, I go to Augustana College, and I like to read. That doesn’t say much about me.

     I had expected to have this ambiguous idea of my personality and interests after looking through my profiles but once glance at Tumblr and I realized that wasn’t the case. My Tumblr is full of reblogs on social issues, college life, art, music, fashion, and a varied collection of posts that display all of my interests. Without saying a word I’ve defined myself. I’ve told the internet that I’m a college student who is interested in promoting awareness on mental health and social issues. I’m a musician and artist and that I have a passion for fashion design. I run an entire separate Tumblr blog entirely dedicated to my fashion illustrations and people can tell it’s a big part of my life. I’ve made maybe two text post about myself that don’t actually say anything about me at all, but from just     scrolling through my posts I can see what kind of person I am.

     And for some reason, this doesn’t bother me. I hate posting on Facebook because I think it’s too invasive but my Tumblr spells out my entire life and it doesn’t worry me. Maybe, I don’t mind Tumblr because most of the people who look at my blog don’t know me in person and will probably never meet me in real life. I’ll never have to feel judged because I’ll never talk to them. But I know the people who are friends with me on Facebook, I see and talk to these people on a daily basis. Perhaps by not posting on Facebook and choosing instead to tell people about what’s going on in my life face to face, I’m trying to control the information that affects my offline life. I suppose I don’t like to share information that I could easily tell people in person.

     What it comes down to I suppose is that my online identity or “e-dentity” reflects my nature as an immensely private person. I don’t enjoy sharing personal events where anyone could see them and I wouldn’t be able to every fully delete and therefore when you look at most of profiles you won’t have any idea what I’m up to. However, I find it very easy and comfortable to share my interests with everyone whether or not I know them. So my Facebook will probably always be a very bare place and my Tumblr will probably always be overflowing with my interests, but that’s what I’m comfortable with. Maybe in the future I’ll branch out and share my art on a wider scale but I doubt I’ll ever be comfortable sharing the intimacies of my daily life.

Manipulation and Sexism...and Cannibalism?

This post contains mild spoilers for the TV show Hannibal.    

http://pop-break.com/2014/05/30/binge-watch-hannibal/

      Personally, I’m not a big fan of television and I it takes a lot to keep me hooked to a program. But from the first moment I saw Hannibal, I was hooked and I’ve watched both seasons endlessly. The dynamic characters, the complex relationships (both platonic and romantic), and creatively disturbing murders intrigued and engaged me in a way I’ve never experienced by a TV show, and that’s probably what kept me re-watching episodes. Though the more I watched, the more I was bothered by the treatment of characters, specifically Will Graham and Alana Bloom.

     The thing about Alana Bloom is that in a show that does so well depicting numerous intelligent and successful women, it also at times degrades Dr. Bloom, a well-respected psychiatrist, to little more than a love interest. It is incredibly frustrating to watch a well-educated and highly respected woman have her entire character completely drowned by the intertwined relationships between Lector, Graham, and herself. One moment she will be fighting to protect the well-being of others from characters like Crawford and the next the she will go silent and almost complacently accepts actions she finds fundamentally wrong.

http://www.fox8.tv/shows/hannibal/cast/dr-alana-bloom

     Her relationship with Graham demonstrates this. Graham has romantic feelings for her and she knows that she can’t pursue a relationship with him because she has too great of interest in him professionally and isn’t looking for a relationship. She tells him this, maintains an awkward friendship with him, and tries to protect him from those who wish to exploit him. But the writers decided to complicate things and turn Dr. Bloom into a bit of a hypocrite by placing her into some kind of sexual relationship with Lector. This reduced Dr. Bloom to a means of complicating and straining the relationship between Graham and Lector. Dr. Alana Bloom is a woman of means and intelligence and to see her objectified and degraded is more than distressing to me because I fear for how her character may be depicted in the future.

http://pop-break.com/2014/05/30/binge-watch-hannibal/     

     What frustrated me about Will Graham – or perhaps for him – was how almost every character on the show manipulates and exploits both his character and his empathy. His boss and head of the Behavioral Science Unit (BSU), Jack Crawford, continually forces Graham into looking at crime scenes and using his empathy to get into the heads of serial killers when it is apparent that Graham is mentally unstable and is suffering because of his work. When Crawford sends Graham to see a psychiatrist, I, at first watch, thought it was out of genuine concern for Graham’s well-being and mental health, but after a few watches I realized that Crawford sent Graham to a psychiatrist to protect himself from backlash and further his own agenda. It almost disgusted me that Crawford could reduce Graham to little more than helpful tool to catch dangerous people in order to better his own reputation.

https://sites.sonypicturestelevision.com/aboutspt/viewPR.php?id=165

     It wasn’t even just Jack Crawford that exploited Graham (or tried to exploit him), others, like Hannibal Lector, a renowned psychiatrist who also happens to be a serial killer and cannibal, manipulated Graham until he barely knew who he was and made him almost suffer a mental break down. Crawford sends Graham to have unofficial therapy sessions with Lector. Lector uses the sessions to manipulate Graham and eventually use him as a scape goat for his crimes as the Chesapeake Ripper. Lector’s manipulation was apparent from the beginning and surprisingly didn’t upset me as much as Crawford’s exploitation, but perhaps that’s because of my pre-conceived notions of Lector. I expected Lector to be cunning and use people, which is what happened, but I didn’t expect Crawford to use Graham and push him to the point of breaking and then throw him aside.

     This show included human cellos, diabetic mushroom gardens, human beehives, and countless other horrors but nothing bothered me, or repulsed me, more than the treatment of Will Graham. But I kept on watching and I will keep on watching because the complex web of character relationships – minus the triangular relationship between Bloom, Lector, and Graham – and story of how an evil man hides in plain sight and uses his knowledge of psychology to manipulate others, incite corruption, and cause the nearly inevitable downfall of those we’d consider heroes. Despite the abuse and reduction of characters, Hannibal proves to be intriguing, engaging, and more than just a bit morbid.   

Firestone: Extreme and Absurd or Progressive and Rational?

     I was really excited when I realized that one of the articles we were reading for class was on a prominent leader in the feminist movement, Shulamith Firestone. But as I read on I had a sense of unease, disheartenment almost, at the extremity of Firestone's actions. Was standing on the desk of the editor-in-chief of Ladies Home Journal and tearing up copies of the magazine in the editor’s face really necessary? Was there another, more diplomatic, way to handle the situation?

     I found myself wondering what she would think of me since I am a supporter of today’s feminist movement. The only conclusion I could come to is that she wouldn't think much of me at all. She’d say I don’t go far enough with my actions, I’m not supporting the right groups, I’m not angry enough. The more I thought about her, the more I disliked her. She seemed rigid, harsh, and unsympathetic to any ideas or feelings apart from her own. Firestone seemed so caught up in being aggressive and trying to force change that she couldn't take a step back and try compromise in order to possibly create more progress.

     What really bothered me about Firestone are some of the opinions she had concerning family and the role of gender. She essentially attacks the concept of the traditional family and undermines women who have chosen to raise a family. Firestone calls pregnancy “barbaric” and childhood “a supervised nightmare” but this seems absurd to a lot of us. Something else absurd to most is her vision of the world where women are freed by artificial reproduction and children are taken out of an abusive situation into loving one. Unlike Firestone, I was raised in a loving household where I was treated equally to my brother. I was never verbally abused by my father, in fact my father speaks out against acts of sexism he witnesses. This being so, I have no idea what Firestone went through and her family life is probably what shaped her opinions on family and motherhood. Since she was abused, it only makes sense that she want to prevent further abuse and oppression.

     The other statement of Firestone that had a negative effect on me was her statement on the ultimate goal of feminism, “The end goal of feminist revolution must be, unlike that of the first feminist movement, not just the elimination of male privilege but of the sex distinction itself: genital difference between human beings would no longer matter culturally.” When I first read this it seemed like she wanted to eliminate the entire concept of sex distinction. In other words gender wouldn't exist. Eliminating gender can eliminate a central part of most people’s identities. This bothered me because being female is a big part of my identity and I've had a positive experience with my gender identity. But I've only had a positive experience, I haven’t faced oppression, and who’s to say that oppression now is the same as the oppression Firestone faced.

     I've come to realize that perhaps she didn't mean that society should eliminate gender, so much as it should eliminate the significance of gender. In other words, gender shouldn't affect culture, it shouldn't affect the distribution of power, and all genders should have equal advantages or equality period. She wants a world without oppression, where women are free to make their own decisions regarding their bodies, and most importantly she wants a world where “love flows unimpeded”.

     I find that I can’t disapprove of Firestone’s actions because where would women be – where would I be – without her? She was strong-willed, passionate, and determined to make a change and I’d say she made one. While we don’t live in the world she envisioned, we are certainly a step closer to it because of her actions. 

7 Ways You Should Be Using Those Thanksgiving Leftovers

We've just gotten through Thanksgiving and I’m sure you have leftovers. But the question is, what do you do with the leftovers? Do you make a sandwich or do you eat the leftovers as they are? Honestly though, how many times can you eat a turkey sandwich before you vow to never eat turkey again?

In my family, we have a problem with leftovers. It seems that no matter how much food we send home with relatives, we always have container after container left in the fridge. After several years of most of the leftovers going to waste, my mom and I went about trying to think of different ways to use up the leftovers. Here are 7 ways my family uses up those leftovers that you'll want to try.

Potato pancakes

Potato pancakes are a great way to use up leftover mashed potatoes from Thanksgiving or any occasion when you find yourself with too much mashed potato. My mother and I love frying these up after holidays and enjoying them either eggs at breakfast or as a side dish to dinner. We used up our potatoes in different recipes this year so we couldn't make any, but there is always Christmas!

Recipe: Potato Pancakes

http://best-foood.blogspot.ca/2013/12/cheesy-mashed-potato-pancakes.html

Turkey Tetrazzini

Ok, so I love tetrazzini. Love it. It’s just plain delicious and a great way to use up all that leftover protein. There are a variety of different proteins you can use in tetrazzini; we love chicken but you can also use turkey, ham, bacon, or portobello mushrooms.

Recipe: Turkey Tetrazzini

Mashed Potato Crust Quiche

This recipe is another great way to use up those leftover mashed potatoes. Quiche is a highly versatile dish that can be served essentially any time of day whether it be breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner. In this recipe we've (my mom and I) have made a cheese quiche, but you can add just about anything to a quiche like onion or broccoli.

Recipe: Mashed Potato Crust Quiche

Shepard’s Pie

Shepard’s pie is a great dish to use up almost all those Thanksgiving leftovers. It is quick, simple and delicious. My mom and I made up the shepard’s pie ahead of time and then popped them in the oven when we wanted it. This is also the one recipe that I don’t have an official recipe for. We tend to estimate on all the measurements in this dish. But I’ve managed to rough out some estimates for you.

Recipe: Shepard's Pie

Egg in a Nest with Stuffing

Nom, nom, nom. This recipe is a great way to use up all that leftover stuffing in a delicious and quick breakfast. These are also great if you’re hosting a brunch. This also doesn’t have an official recipe because it is only stuffing and an egg. Luckily, I’ve compiled a recipe of rough measurements for all of you who get a little nervous having to eye-ball measurements.

Recipe: Egg in a Nest with Stuffing

http://www.jillianharris.com/food-friday-thanksgiving-leftovers-menu-2/

Variations on a Turkey Sandwich

I don’t know about you, but I get tired of a plain old turkey sandwich. White bread, turkey, and maybe some cranberry sauce gets really boring after a while. So I present to you a few variations on the turkey sandwich that are sure to bring life to this leftover classic.

Recipe: Variations on a Turkey Sandwich

Pumpkin Bread Pudding

I’ll admit, deciding to use this recipe in this post was tough. Mainly because this is my secret bread pudding recipe and I’ve refused to divulge this recipe to every family member that has asked. Normally I use a French or Italian sweet bread but pumpkin bread is festive and my mom always makes too much. I also didn’t make bread pudding this year so I don’t have a picture but instead behold delicious pumpkin that I use in this recipe (I could be persuaded to share the recipe for pumpkin bread.) 

Recipe: Pumpkin Bread Pudding

Pumpkin Bread Pudding

A loaf of pumpkin bread cubed (or any kind of sweet bread will do)

½ cup of butter melted

½ cup of raisins (or you could use dried cranberries)

6 eggs

¾ cup of white sugar

¼ cup of brown sugar

1 tablespoon of vanilla

3 cups of milk

1 tablespoon of cinnamon

Pinch of nutmeg (or pumpkin spice)

Pinch of salt

Heat oven to 375˚

In a large bowl, combine bread cubes, melted butter, raisins, cinnamon and nutmeg; mix well, and transfer to a 2 quart baking dish.

In a pot heat the milk on low, stirring constantly, until it is about to simmer (bubbles will be starting to form around the edges).

Using the same bowl from before beat the eggs. Stir in both types of sugar, vanilla, and salt until sugar is dissolved. Slowly whisk in the warm milk. Pour egg mixture over bread cubes, sprinkle with nutmeg and brown sugar, and set aside for 10 minutes.

Bake in pre-heated oven for 25 to 30 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.

Variations on a Turkey Sandwich

Variation 1:

Two slice of pumpkin bread

Cinnamon butter or cranberry sauce

Leftover turkey

Variation 2:

 Two slice of sourdough bread

Cranberry sauce

Swiss cheese

Leftover turkey

Variation 3: 

White or wheat bread (or whatever your bread of preference is)

Blackberry jam

Stuffing

Leftover turkey