Sometimes, I forget that the people inside are people outside of our classroom. It is eerily easy for me to operate as if our classroom exists in a vaccuum. We enter the prison, head straight to the room, and we don't see the inmates until they're just outside our door. Class goes on every week, just as we planned, and we say goodbye. The people inside go back to... to where? to what? to whom? While back to the van we go, ready to decompress and listen to the latest handful of #1s on the radio. As group we spend so much collective energy planning the class amidst discussions of the prison industrial complex, and thus attempting to address the experiences that the people inside are coming to class with.

 My thoughts on the image of Polynesius's burt and rotten body held on a post for all to see and how it relates to the PIC.

Again, the image of burnt flesh,

the rotten poison spread over Thebes

from that vile pillar of reign springs to mind.

If poison be the medicine we use to remedy,

how can we expect ever to rise from our sick bed?

Our bedsores fester and groan,

with our only relief a moment

of placebo induced safety

until the poison we believe so fervently can heal,

continues to slurp away at our body;

our only fortress once all is said and done.

I'm not entirely sure what to write about this week. We had two really intense experiences, the first was the tour of the facilities, and the second was the beginnings of a really incredible conversation cut short. The tour was incredibly informative, incredibly uncomfortable at times, and at other times imbued with a sense of hope and almost relief that perhaps it isn’t as bad as we think. Yes there are many issues with the PIC in general, most notably for me, the lack of rehabilitation resources for substance abusers and mentally divergent individuals.

Though we spent only half an hour working in the book group after our tour of the prison on Friday, we ended up in an intense and interesting conversation about Brothers and Keepers--particularly about the passage in which John writes about his mother. Wideman discusses his mother's struggle to hold both her son's humanity and the fact that he broke the law and is living as a convicted criminal because of it. She must see him as a whole, incorporating both of those elements of his personhood. Our discussion made me realize that I often go into the prison expecting a certain response from the people inside.

When I read this book's front inside flap, I saw this story described as "science-based fiction" I thought that it could contain more elements of fiction that I am used to. Instead, this short piece (novella maybe?) read more like an article in a science or news magazine. The fiction aspects were the years in the future, until 2393 with only a slightly altered 20th and early 21st century. I thought that like All Over Creation, there would be distinct characters who would narrate the changes that occur to the world as we know it. I did notice that there was a slight narration by the authors and in that, there were some opinion shown, such as when describing that the American conservatives and GOP members who would not listen to the pleas made by the scientists.

My initial reaction when starting The Collape of Western Civilization, by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, was of confusion. Without reading the description I had no idea what the book was presuming to explain. Of course, the objective of the authors to alert readers to the serious state of crisis the Earth is currently undergoing became clear as I read on. I find this book's message alarming, however I cannot say I particularly enjoy reading it. The first page of every chapter displays a map and reminds me of a history textbook... Many of the scientific explanations are difficult for me to process without expending excessive amounts of time rereading them...

Previous draft: /oneworld/changing-our-story-2015/seeds-and-potatoes-metaphors-%E2%80%9Call-over-creation%E2%80%9D%E2%80%94first-draft

Sasha Moiseyev-Foster

Changing Our Stories

Professor J. Cohen

October 30, 2015

Seeds and Potatoes as Metaphors in “All Over Creation”

Seeds are the source of life over most of the planet. Without seeds, there would be no plants, no animals, nothing but the microscopic bacteria that first gave rise to multicellular organisms on Earth. Similarly, in her novel “All Over Creation,” Ruth Ozeki endows seeds with power over the plot, and thereby uses them as a multifaceted metaphor for the characters’ self-image and emotions, as well as the  overall story itself.

Though I have only read the first couple of chapters, the novel "The Collapse of Western Civilization" by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway has been successful at leaving me unnerved. The book talks about the destruction of the Earth but what seems to be the most daunting factor is the pure ignorance society possesses in this science fiction novel. The authors unfold the storyline of small groups of people, corporations, who oppose any means of environmental protection. Yet these small businesses become masses of people, the government even, fighting against beneficial actions and efforts to save the planet. And for what? Wealth and ease. It is truly discomforting to read about those who risk the lives of human beings and animals for their own comfort.

Sheila asked me to post this excerpt from Jack Morris's October 4, 2015 letter, which she read @ the end of her talk last Wednesday night: