3rd element for "the rake"

When i think of a mom-and-pop store, i think of the CY market that used to be close to my house. It was sadly put out of business by the food lion across the street and Publix and Kroger a few miles down. It was in a run down, old looking wooden shopping center which is still there. Very antique like. The CY Market had the best slurpies around. You could also get any candy bar known to man, a soda, or a snack. I think its sad how mom-and-pop stores can barely stay open thanks to giant corporations such as walmart and kroger.

There is a coffee shop in Nashville called Cafe Cocoa and it is owned by a couple and isn't a chain or franchise. Starbucks is about to put them out of business. There is a Starbucks around every corner in Nashville, as there is in every other city. And to compensate for the business they lose to Starbucks, their prices must be risen, and Lord knows coffee at Starbucks is already expensive as it is. How will places like Cafe Cocoa stay open unless locals choose to give it their business despite location and price? It seems nearly impossible. But I know people who try. My high school English teacher tries his hardest to support all the mom-n-pop stores in the area that he remembers from his days growing up in Nashville that are still around. But he makes private high school teacher's money and has 3 kids. How will he afford it? That 50 cents more you spend on a latte at cafe cocoa every morning starts to add up. I guess its a corporate world.

It seems that sooner or later mom-n-pop stores will become a thing of the past. But some make it. Some even do so well that they become chains, building more shops and restaurants around town, or around the country. Maybe it is about the product having to be supreme to the other places. There is a woman named Barbara, who lives in my hometown of Franklin, who has opened a Southern home cooking restaurant our of her own home. She gets more business than she can handle! Her food may be more expensive than cracker barrel, but it is so good that people keep coming back for more. What sets her apart? Excellence? I've seen excellent businesses go down the drain. Location? Maybe. She does run her business out of Franklin, where most people can afford a nice Sunday afternoon meal every week. Most people more often than that. But I'm sure there are businesses in the hood that are considered "mom and pop" businesses and thrive as well.

I think personality has a lot to do with it. Who wants to go into Walmart when you could go into a cute little southern decorated market and be greeted with a, "Hey there! How ya'll doing?" When was the last time you heard that when you walked into Kroger?

3rd element for "the rake"

2nd Element for "The Rake"

I cant think of a worse feeling than helplessness. Utter helplessness. Really, when you have no hope at all, no help at all, what do you have? I guess hopelessness and helplessness go hand in hand because if you don't have help, you tend to lose all hope. Both feelings are a lack of something vital. You always need help, especially in adolescence. To be young and feel helpless is something I cant even imagine. It's almost as though you cant feel helpless if you have a good support system at home. When your support system constantly fails you, that is when you feel helpless. And when you're young, your strongest support system should be, and usually is, your parents.

I know if my family was to fail me and treat me like the author's family treated him, I would feel helpless too. It would make me so bitter; towards my family, towards everyone. If I was being physically and verbally abused daily, I know I would feel helpless as well. If my mom didn't stand up for me when my stepfather (if i had one) stared to abuse me or my sister, I would feel helpless, like there was no way out of the hell I was living in. If your own mother won't help you, then who will?

1st element of "The Rake"

I was most disturbed astonished by the hairbrush scene. It is so vivid in my mind how the situation played out. To me, child abuse is something especially hard for me to handle, or even think about, and has been so ever since i can remember. It is harder for me to witness than even someone being murdered or raped. (I'm talking about in movies/tv mostly since I don't think i have ever seen any of these things first hand). Child abuse has always been very heavy on my heart. Im not really sure why, considering i had a lovely childhood-free of abuse of any kind.

The hairbrush scene with the mother, grandfather, and stepfather was the most powerful, and most awful scene in the essay. The innocent child walking into what is already a very unstable enviroment, with the mother sobbing on the floor and the stepfather and grandfather intensely arguing, is ended horribly bu the boy being hit in the face with a hairbrush by his abusive stepfather. My heart aches just envisioning this event. How could anyone do that to an innocent child? All it does is instill fear into the child and teach them to live in fear. A home is supposed to be a safe haven, not a place where you fear for your safety. Parents are supposed to love and care for their children, not smack them around

On Sunday night my roommate and I got back to our dorm at The University of Memphis from a trip back home to Nashville. While sitting in our room watching television, we heard lots and lots of sirens, but we didn’t think much about it. We here sirens like this just about every night of the week and they always sound like they are right outside our dorm building. I even said, “There’s Memphis for you.” Mind you, this impression of the city comes only after a very short month of living here. When I woke up the next morning, I put two and two together and realized that those sirens were from the police cars and ambulances that came to the scene of Taylor Bradford’s murder. Needless to say, this tragedy did nothing for us when it comes to what we think of the city/university. I myself have never even heard a gun shot outside of a shooting range. When I talked to fellow classmates of mine, almost all who are from Memphis, all of them said hearing gun shots is not a rare occurrence here. I was startled at that fact
Out of about 6 or so weeks that I have lived here, I have gone home about 3 or 4 of the weekends. Yes I miss my family and loved ones, but another reason is my family never hesitates to let me come home. They would much rather me come home then go out at night anywhere in Memphis where they feel my life could be in danger. The recent tragedy on campus had all of my family in a frenzy. They even wanted me to come home and get away from the campus on Monday for fear of what might happen. The fact that they called and the first thing they asked me was, “are you alright?” was something I was not used to whatsoever. I could hear the genuine concern in their voices. They were truly worried something had happened to me, something I am not sure they have ever felt before. And even after they knew I was alright, they continued to call and make sure that I was feeling fine, safe, and secure-something, if you ask me, no college student should have to wonder about. Those should be rights as a college student. We are paying money to feel these things with confidence, and now that confidence has been taken from us. Actually, that is something citizens everywhere should have a right to, college student, billionaire, or homeless person. I do understand that that is not exactly how the world works, but this is something we need to constantly be striving for. I’m not sure that is what has been done thus far.
It is up to people like you to really make changes like these. I encourage, ask, and beg of you to find ways to make Memphis a better, safer city. Not just for me, not just for the Bradford family, not just for all the students at The University of Memphis, but for every man or woman, poor or rich that are residents of this city. Safety should be the number one priority of a city. If you don’t have safety in your city, then what do you have? Yes, I have only been in this city a little over a month, but I think you will agree with me in my skepticism of Memphis’s safety. It is no mystery that Memphis has been labeled the most violent city in America. Now is the time to change that, and it is up to. Please don’t let me lose hope in a city like this with so much character and cultural significance because I don’t feel safe.


Thank you for your time,

take a walk, write an essay

Okay so here I am underneath the roof of this little cove area by Patterson Hall. It is dusty and dark under here and gloomy outside. I'm kinda nervous because I'm sitting in front of 2 windows and there cold be a class in there, but the blinds are closed, so I doubt I'm visible to them. Tho loud sound of passing trucks is greatly distracting to me. So far I am distracted and nervous. Another distraction is the train for sure. But the main affect this setting has on me is a sense of gloominess. Actually, that has been pretty much a continuous feeling in my last month at Memphis, overwhelmed and gloomy. I am still trying to figure out how in the world I affect my surroundings, being on campus. How do I affect this place when there are like 20,000 other people here? I just blend in with all the other people wearing Tiger t-shirts and worrying about their safety. But I have to believe that somewhere, somehow, I am leaving my mark and affecting my surroundings. Atleast I hope I am. How awful would it be to have absolutely no affect whatsoever? Then i would just be dead weight, something nobody wants around. I would be just a complete waste of space. I guess since I am one of the only people out here under this area, I have to be affecting my surroundings somewhat since humans to tend to affect their surroundings, i just haven't quite figured out how yet.

New School: New English Class

Ok, so this essay was such a shock to me. First of all, never in my high school career have i had to write an essay that has to be a certain length. My English teachers in college always said "as many words as it takes to get the assignment done," whenever we asked how long our assignments were required to be. The only time I have ever written a paper that was longer than this essay was when we wrote our research papers yearly in high school. They had to be something like 2500 words i think. So for our first essay written in this class to be almost the same length was, obviously, somewhat of a shock.

My process was to read the essay, write about what i thought in the context of the assignment, and to write the paper. The only problem is, I procrastinated, of course. This is such a problem for me. I wait til the last day to do anything and everything I dont particularly want to do. And that always bites me in the butt. Like i woke up to go to the library and print out my document i had saved from my roomate's computer and saved it to the UM drive, but i ended up saving the wrong draft....ladadadada.....i hate making excuses. Especially when this is no one else's fault but my own for not starting on it earlier.

I dont know if this experience has changed me in the procrastination area, although i hope it has. I mean, i have procrastinated many, many, MANY times, and always said i would try to stop, but honestly, I never do. When it comes to the subject of the text changing me, well i hope it has. I found myself really liking what i read/wrote about. I found the essay way more interesting than the stuff we read in high school that was written 500 years ago. It was powerful, yet subtle and any time i can learn more about not judging others, i am on board because I really want that for myself. I think being judgemental is just about the sin of all sins if you ask me. At first, i was somewhat shocked by the fact that Griffith really wanted us to identify with Graner and realize that could very easily have been us. But I soon realized that he's absolutely right.

This experience has changed me as a writer in that I no longer have to abide by the no "I, you or we" in papers. I found it much easier to get my point across and felt much more connected to my paper, and more proud of it for some reason, being able to use these words.

Prime Directive, final copy

Meg Mulvihill
September 26, 2007
The Prime Directive
Wendy Sumner-Winter

Self-reflection, it is what haunts us after we have done something we know we shouldn’t have, or it could be us looking back at something we have done with pride. Either way, we are forced to examine ourselves and reflect on what happened. In order for a person to self-reflect, they have had to something of significance or importance to themselves, something that has come back to their mind after the fact, for one reason or another. People usually self-reflect because they are ashamed of themselves for certain behaviors they wish they could go back in time and change. Such is the case with David Griffith.
At a Halloween party, Dave Griffith, after having a few beers, posed for a picture with a man who was dressed as Charles Graner, the man who posed for disgusting pictures with prisoners from the Abu Ghraib prison. The ironic part about this is that Griffith had thought about the incident at the prison earlier that same night. The morning after, he is horrified and utterly ashamed at what he has done. This self-reflection brings him to realize that he is essentially just like Charles Graner, a fact that startles and scares him immensely.
The fact that the story takes place on Halloween has so much significance in its self. Halloween is the one night a year that one can become someone else and it’s fine because everyone else is doing it too. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. There’s no judgment. Judgment is replaced with freedom. People do things on Halloween in character, things they wouldn’t do themselves. Throw some kegs into the mix and you have people loosening up and doing things as a Prozac pill or Cracker Jack kid, that they never would have done themselves. Griffith is no exception. In the heat of the moment, he made a decision he wasn’t thinking through, a decision he probably wouldn’t have made out of costume. At on of the parties, the discussion is opened that the situation in Iraq could benefit from the Prime Directive, the moral code from Star Trek, which basically says no one may “interfere with healthy development of alien life and culture.” (128). The partygoers discussed the fact that if George Bush had followed the rule, the problem in Iraq would never have come to fruition.
While the group discussed atrocities that have gone on in Iraq, Griffith is astounded when the controversial activities that happened at the Abu Grahib prison are not mentioned. But while reading it, I was not astonished. Even typing that sentence bothered me. Controversial? There is nothing controversial about what happened at Abu Grahib. Controversial to me means that it is questionable, or a word pertaining to something that has two sides. This, on the other hand, is not questionable or controversial. It is clearly and blatantly cruel and heartless and un-American. The reason why I even thought to use the word controversial is because somewhere, deep within my young American, patriotic (or should I call it brainwashed) mind, I wanted to stick up or be on the same side as those Americans, simply because they are American and so am I. And that is exactly what the media wanted us to think. They really didn’t even want us to hear about it obviously. I barely even remember hearing about in the news. As my family is not a cable-subscribing one, we don’t have CNN or Fox News, which covered the incident more closely. But even using the word “incident” seems wrong to me when describing what happened there. What happened there was caused by Americans, they were the ones who tortured the prisoners and took pictures. And because they were Americans, the media didn’t expose the story in the way that it would have been if it were any other country that had done this to Americans.
After this thought crossing Griffith’s mind, he expresses his confusion and disappointment when he walks past “people playing drinking games” and “grinding to Outkast”. Honestly, I can see where he is coming from. I have been there before where you think of something so significant and then every detail around you seems unimportant and stupid. It causes you to judge yourself and others; something I’m not sure gets you anywhere. When he thought of the Chingy video with the voluptuous video girls and booty shaking, he stepped out of context for me. I understand that it reminded him of the naked bodies in the pictures of Abu Grahib, but videos are of themselves, they are not meant to offend anyone.
When Griffith sees the man dressed as Charles Graner, I felt as though he and I had the same reaction: how could he? It seemed so morbid to me. It made a mockery of what happened there and how horrible Graner’s actions were. But even as I find myself saying this, I realize that is not what Griffith wanted us to take away from his story, he wanted us to realize that, in the words of Dostoevsky, “we are no better”. Griffith learned that he was just as capable of doing something as atrocious as Graner as anybody else is. The fact’s truth horrified him, as it would anyone else who had any trace of a heart. As much as I hope that I will never do anything like what either Griffith or Graner did, I cannot promise it. Humans instinctively are influenced by their surroundings, whether they will admit it or not.
“Educated, metropolitan people could never do such things; we are too aware, too aware of the ways in which we must respect one another’s differences” (…) (135) This is the exact thought that I think to myself when I lie to myself by denying the fact that I could never bring myself to do something so horrible. That’s something only white trash, no moral possessing, no money having, no church going, no Holy Spirit having, gross people would do. But how many times have I let other my surrounding get the better of me and let myself make decisions I knew I would regret? How many times have I made a decision not thinking anyone would find out about? The answer is I do these things probably everyday. Maybe they are not on the same level of atrocious as the pictures of naked bodies being tortured, but who’s to say I will never do something equally disgusting?
“When we deny we have anything in common with Graner and the others who are pictured in the photos, we allow all that is most despicable and ugly in our nature to thrive.” (136).
Griffith’s writing is extremely personal and descriptive. Although he tells us very little more about his wife than she lives in another state, Griffith makes it quite clear that he loves her and respects her opinion very much, as any husband should. His use of foreshadowing in the opening paragraph sets the tone for the rest of the essay. “The world seems rife with omens,” intrigues the reader by using the haunting sound of the word “omen” to reel them in. It makes us think: what kind of omens? What will happen on this Saturday before Halloween? It also eases the reader into the dark, almost slow tone of the essay. While Griffith’s work can be considered somewhat slow, it cannot be considered boring. His usage of somewhat ordinary sentence structure and descriptiveness works into the pace of the paper and keeps it interesting. The content itself is captivatingly vivid. His constant questioning of himself helps the reader to easily relate to him. It makes him more or less real.
It didn’t take much self-reflection for Griffith to know what he did was horribly wrong. In his words, “I posed with Graner, and by doing so, humiliated those victims all over again.” (136). He had become Graner himself, and he knew it. He humiliated the victims just as Graner did. They are no different just because one did it as a sick joke, which he didn’t think through; the point is he did it. One is not better than the other and never will be.