Thanksgiving

My thanksgiving followed the tradition of my typical thanksgiving, but for once my uncle Garry was not there. We go to RYE, NY and have a marvelous feast with friends (that I consider family).

This event for my family is mostly valued on its antibody experience and is enhanced by the body centered experience of feasting together. When I mean the antibody experience, I mean talking. We also do a lot of hugging and kissing, my family is a bunch of old hippies. the food enchances the sense of being together because we all eat the same food,at a table together.The food though delicious and healthy is not very important, we could have been eating pizza in a small apartment and the being together would make our event special.
Other pleasures practiced were watching my cousin’s play on television (it was taped), but I wouldnt neccesarily call it a pleasure because of the viewing. rather the joy and pride it instilled in my cousin. Other pleasures were also game playing. A game we really enjoy and heartbreaking-ly reminds me of my uncle is exquised corpse. One folds a paper in thrids and one person draws the head and then adds some connecting lines to the next section and fold over the head so it is not visble and passed on to someone who then draws a torso, who then fold it over with connecting lines and the last person draws waist down and you end up with an exquisite corpse. We also played a similar game but instead you do the same principle with words.
These games do not involve physical contact but it creates mental contact as the game goes on the ideas begin to intertwine. I find it a good represntation of how were are all borthers and sisters whether we like it or not. I enjoy this game because when there is no desire to talk one can communicate with art, and it symbolizes unity because you cannot play exquisite corpse if there are less than 3 people ! I belive physicality is important, but emotional closeness can be just as strong. I belive physicality is i9mportant when emotions for other beings are just not strong enough. My uncle helped me out this thanksgiving because after all the partying was done and I had nothing to occupy my brain I had a breakdown. The wise words he shared with me were helpful in the long wrong, but what ultimately help me sing my sorrows was his touch. Him holding me is what kept me together but let me share my broken train of thought. Anti body communication is also very important because if a relationship can not share what bothers them there issues clash until a broken thoughts splint everyone painfully and there is a crash, many times this also comes from a loss of physicality. I belive both are just as important for PERSONS HEALTHY MIND.

A weird background element that I belive resembles the fear of death is photography. At one point in the evening there were 4 people taking pictures and there were only 12 people at the party. The desire to capture a memory a moment so one can re-live it for ever. The fear of losing the past. I feel it connects to death because we want to reach for a sense of filling up loss. Death was also very connected to this event because of the recent loss of my uncle, so from time to time thoughts of him would come up and half fill the space empty because of his abscence.

II recently lost my Unlce to 3 types of cancer, and H.I.V, it was very hard for me and my family and was the first death I have encountered in mylife time that really pertained to someone I LOVED WITH ALL MY HEART. It was hard but to tell you the truth I have dealt with it really well. The reason in being so I belive is either because I am blocking it out (which I don't belive is the case) or is it because recentley I have come 2 terms that life ends and that that is what makes it so great and valuebale. If life went on forever there would be noneed for the sense of time. I also think its important that it to accept it because there is no other way and if people dread it if dying a slow death it only makes it that much harder.

What I find the saddest is when one has to die in a hospital it such an uninviting enviornment, with its bright florecent lights and white walls. Plastic chairs, and blasting ac at all times with windows that don't open. When my uncle was first admitted to the hospital for the first month he did nlt even have one doctor assigned to him. It is such alon unfamiliar place but for many people the end of there life is surrounded by such an enviornment.

The hardest experience I encountered with death was the last to days of my unclres death because not only was his soul trapped inside his body but you could see his body withering away. My uncle was a very loved man and had around 5 people in his room all the tim and people coming ang going and though he couldn't really speak make eye contact and the only movements he made were myscle spazms he was able to hear. And he must have gotten a million calls and peoples goodbyes. I've never heard of someone who was able to say goodbye before they died. Even tough he died of a young age I belive he was given this gift because he was an amazing man. In the end when he died I think its because he finally excepted that it was time for him to go. Since this experience I have had a diffrent outlook on death. I no longer see it as something horribly gruesome but something hard and important that is just part of life.

I do not belive in typical funerals but memorials, and I don't belive in wearing black, but wearing bright joyeux colors.

I belive in reincarnation, not really sure if it actually happens but I love the idea so I have faith in it. I also know the human body is something that withers away like any living matter eventually does. But soul is not a physicality but an energy, a force so whether each persons aurora transfers exactly to some other living matter I don't know. But I do think that auror at least infulences our world.

Food OUTLINE !

OUTLINE

Overarching Thesis: In the United States capitalism has fostered the success of the elite, which they increase with nightmarish industrial atrocities and maintain through tatemae. Thus creating inferior social practices for the dominant population.

Argument #1: Food production and consumption in the United States is centralized around the producer’s fulfillment versus the consumer’s interest. Which has caused major mass industrializations, resulting in un-healthy and dangerous results for the consumer and workers(of industry).

Chunk #1(capitalism elite): The government supports and facilitates the corporations.

• “The Bush administration and the .. health.”
SOURCE: Fast Food Nation read on section pg. 7
• “Fast Food chains have accepted … gave job training to the poor.”
SOURCE: Fast Food Nation pg. 72
• “ a study of campaign contributions … any other congressman.”
SOURCE: Fast Food Nation Pg. 210
• “while the real value of the wages paid … a fast food hamburger”
SOURCE: Fast Food Nation pg. 73

Chunk #2(industrial): The CEO’s (not farmers or cooks or butchers) sole interest is to expand as far as possible, to receive the biggest profit for the cheapest cost. (quote corn man foodinc.)

• “Simplot, Lamb Weston … rivals.”
SOURCE: Fast Food Nation pg.116
• “but the extraordinary … who grew the potatoes.”
SOURCE: Fast Food Nation pg.117
• “it cost about 1,500 … single potato”
SOURCE: Fast Food Nation pg.117
• “The line is so fast … when you cut yourself”
SOURCE: http://www.hrw.org/en/node/11869/section/5
•
• -Nebraska Beef meatpacking line worker, Omaha, Nebraska, December 2003

Chunk #2b/3a(tatemae): A façade is created by the corporations to brain wash the consumers with the illusion that they are receiving the highest quality.

• “ a corporate memo…a trusted friend.”
SOURCE: Fast Food Nation pg.50
• Propaganda examples
SOURCE: http://www.mcspotlight.org/company/publications/nutrition_balance.html
• Farm images on lables

Chunk #3(inferior social practices): The American population has been tricked through the dominant discourse, now becoming inferior with how they nourish themselves .

• “The growth in children’s advertising has been … advertising strategies.”
SOURCE: Fast Food Nation pg.43
• ‘the labor structures of … workers.”
SOURCE: Fast Food Nation pg.78
• “a memo sought to explain the underlying … like a good parent”
SOURCE: Fast Food Nation pg.50
• “translate into … 5 times a week.”
SOURCE: Fast Food Nation