Conspiracy theory?

"What has become of critique when a book that claims that no
plane ever crashed into the Pentagon can be a bestseller? I am ashamed to
say that the author was French, too.6 Remember the good old days when
revisionism arrived very late, after the facts had been thoroughly established,
decades after bodies of evidence had accumulated? Now we have the
benefit of what can be called instant revisionism."

Latour brought up a very important point, instant revisionism. In our days, with all the technology we have, the instant revisionism starts seconds after an incident happens. I was watching the news once and they were covering a house fire that was still going on. Three possibilities of the reason behind the fire were listed while the fire was still going on. They were not based on facts, but rather predictions. The major problem "especially in the news"is that before the facts are out, specialists and analysis start filling the viewers mind with different types of information that are based on " it could be this, or that, or maybe this!"

Now, does believing in conspiracy theories make me stupid? I'm not sure. We find it easier to believe what the government wants us to believe. It is fed to us through the media, books and movies. Many "conspiracy theories" came out after 9/11. Do I believe all of them? No, but I'm sure that there is more to the story than a group of Muslim terrorists attacked the US because "they hate our freedom".

Jesse Ventura comes to my mind when we talk about 9/11 conspiracy theories. He worked on proving that 9/11 was an inside job and that the "facts given by the government" do not equal "science". Little he knows that facts do not equal science 90% of the time.

WARS WARS WARS.

“Wars. So many wars. Wars outside and wars inside. Cultural wars, science wars, and wars against terrorism. Wars against poverty and wars against the poor. Wars against ignorance and wars out of ignorance.”

The opening paragraph to Latour’s article sets the tone and a common understanding with the reader as to what is about to be addressed. The wars referred to in the passage are “outside” and “inside,” meaning within certain groups and among different groups (possibly nations). The cultural wars focuses primarily on differences and conflict between those values considered to be liberal (progressive) and those considered conservative (traditional). These wars can be about many different subjects ranging from abortion and censorship issues, to the separation of church and state and other issues. The name “culture wars” was refashioned by James Davison Hunter in his 1991 publication of Culture Wars: The struggle to Define America. This specifically looked at the dramatic realignment and polarization that transformed American Culture and its politics. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_war) As described in this publication, culture wars can reside inside of one nation (like America) or between clashing cultures (America and Iraq).

Science wars refers to intellectual exchanges between ‘scientific realists and postmodernist critics’ over the nature of scientific theory. This “war” took place primarily in the US in the 1990s, but has spread to other parts of the world, especially Europe. Topics of these science wars included: scientific objectivity, cultural anthropology, scientific method, feminist studies, media studies, and many more. Science wars in my mind focus mainly on the validity of humanities sciences and the social sciences alike, as compared to the hard sciences (biology, chemistry, physics, etc). It’s not like scientists duking it out over which theory is more correct, it’s more like scientists and well-informed public people questioning the validity of what is being announced as a science or fact.

         We all know about the war against terrorism and the war against the poor (99%) but the part of this segment that really caught my eye was the “war against ignorance and wars out of ignorance” part. I would agree that the largest threat that mankind has, is to itself. If the public and general masses are uneducated and uninformed, they are ignorant and do not know exactly what they are fighting for… or against.

      The relevance of this on our learnings in class is with the debate over outlawing Female Genital Mutilation in African and other countries. I feel that people who live in the United States and other first world countries are so gun-hoe against the acts and pro-abolishing the tradition are a bit ignorant. They realize the dangers and risks that come with FGM, but not the cultural backing of it. Many polls have shown that even if the procedure was made illegal, over 80% of women would still seek to receive it illegally, which brings new dangers and horrid black market possibilities. Many people are fighting for the rights of women who do not want those rights, they are ignorant to the facts of the culture and the possible banishment and punishment that comes with those who do not follow cultural norms. Education is key and I think that if progress is to be made on this health concern, it should simply be a possibility for safer and cleaner places and procedures to be carried out, not for it to be abolished all together. 

I thought this image was an excellent resource, showing clearly how tradition carries on and cultures vary, among even the closest of Aftican countries.

masquerading as critique

“Remember the good old days when

Revisionism arrived very late, after the facts had been thoroughly established, decades after bodies of evidence had accumulated? Now we have the

benefit of what can be called instant revisionism. The smoke of the event has

not yet finished settling before dozens of conspiracy theories begin revising

the official account, adding even more ruins to the ruins, adding even more

smoke to the smoke. What has become of critique when my neighbor in

the little Bourbonnais village where I live looks down on me as someone

hopelessly naıve because I believe that the United States had been attacked

by terrorists? Pg 228

I have not been Latour’s biggest supporter throughout this semester but after reading this paper I have taken a new liking to what he is saying due to that fact that he even critiques his previous work and takes responsibility for maybe being wrong. Latour poses the question, what exactly has happened to critique? Latour caught my attention of how critique has changed (run out of steam) when he used the example of 9/11 and the Twin Towers as Jean Baudrillard claimed in her published book that acts of terrorism did not occur (how ridiculous) and posed a conspiracy theory in replace of 'facts'. This is a great example of what Latour meant by saying that critiquing has started to go down the wrong path, a dangerous path. "What has critiquing come to when you are thought to be naive because I believe the United States had been attacked"

Although conspiracy theorists like Baudrillard are usually seen in a negative light they often spread fear among their audience and give "facts" in support of their one-sided argument, this enacts fear of the world around them. Latour makes the monumental point that Critical Theory died a long time ago. He states in his concluding paragraph that we need to get back to becoming critical again in a way that generates more not less, being associated with multiplication and not subtraction. In a nutshell (mom) Latour is stating that Critique should be helpful and not add negativity to ideas or in his example of 9/11, an event. I agree that critique needs to get on the right path and off this dangerous path of destruction because I was a 'victim' myself of dangerous critiquing recently when I was discussing the events that unfolded on 9/11. "Bush planned it are you crazy, we went after the wrong guy".... I am the crazy stupid one for believing in fact and not these conspiracy theories that masquerade as critique. 

Welcome Reality

Here's a dramatization [because we're dealing with war(s) here], here's my theatrics for you Ben. This reading was like having surgery: comfortably drugged where things are light and humorous, surgically removing disconnected tissues (issues), having a pit/void wide open, filling it back in with the tissues (issues) reconnected and connected in new ways, and finally comfortably walking away from the surgical table, groggy but energized, feeling like a million bucks, like waking up from a bizarre dream and asking yourself what just happened, but then it hits you: the eureka moment. And you realize the surgery went flawlessly and that you are a changed (better/healthier) person. [Reading Latour in general, is like surgery, sometimes there are complications though.]


As one could get from my little anecdote, I thoroughly enjoyed this article. Here's part of my war story. I should have read this many years ago when I was first exposed to post-modernism, science studies and even conspiracy theories where my own fabric of reality was shaken. Making me question everything. Once I got my fingers wrapped around what the notion of social construction meant, it was like a gun in my hand pointed backwards (I know better now because of Latour to grant the gun so much agency but for the sake of more of theatrics). Deconstructions and social constructions, threatened a critical part of my identity which lies in science and the empirical.


Today in a culture where Hollywood films with tag lines such as "Everything is suspect... Everyone is for sale... And nothing is what it seems" (p. 230) that pique the interest and sentiments of the people, it is ever so important to reclaim reality, facts, science and critique. Latour offers us a new arsenal: using critique that deals with "matters of concern". Believing in reality needs to be cool again. 


"Whatever the words, what is presented here is an entirely different attitude than the critical one, not a flight into the conditions of possibility of a given matter of fact, not the addition of something more human that inhumane matters of fact would have missed, but, rather, a multifarious inquiry launched with the tools of anthropology, philosophy, metaphysics, history, sociology to detect how many participants are gathered in a thing to make it exist and to maintain its existence. Objects are simply a gathering that has failed-a fact that has not been assembled according to due process." (p. 245-246)


Again Latour is arguing here for a more connected science. In order to be realistic about science studies one must identify how and what some thing is connected and associated to. One can not take something out of context and analyze it as an individual entity. This is what Latour is talking about when he talking about objects. Objects (and facts) are taken out of their associations to other things and analyzed independently. How to analyze something as a thing, one can use the humanities to uncover the actors/participants in what makes up that thing. These participants define what a thing is, makes it real, and gives it context. 


I'm thinking that I want to write a paper called Constructing Risk From the (De)Constructions of Risk. This paper would be about: in my developing field of repertoire and expertise - statistics and how it deals with uncertainty, risk and how it gets confused with uncertainty, and just in general how risk discourses pervades our culture (as someone said that we live in the "Risk Society") and how statistics is put holding hands with risk in these discourses. I think there's a lot of work to be done in making statistics more connected and "thingy" by gathering and explicating associations. Risk has everything to do with all of these conspiracies and mistrust in science. As Latour said some thing to the fact that there will always be a level of uncertainty in the scientific process, that is to be certain. 


Here's a really interesting quote from a statistician dealing with matter of fact and matter of concern. Uncertainty seems to be an object in this quote. Not a thing. Uncertainty in this case is its own entity devoid how it is uncertain. I've stared at this quote for an hour and haven't come up with anything conclusive but something how this guy nuances statistics, is really interesting. So I open this up to you bloggers to give me a billion subtle thoughts about this quote!


"... it is only the manipulation of uncertainty that interests us. We are not concerned with the matter that is uncertain. Thus we do not study the mechanism of rain; only whether it will rain." - Dennis Lindley

Reality isn't Real or Something

“Reality is not defined by matters of fact.” 231

This sentence from Latour easily makes it into the top 3 phrases/ideas that I’ve come out of this course with. It is a statement that I find not only incredibly true, but relevant in any controversial argument or situation or, for that matter, any situation in a life.

Latour is dealing directly with science when he makes his claim that reality ≠ facts and, if I may just take one more step here, that neither reality nor facts equal truth (or Truth or “truth” or…). I believe that this idea can be imposed upon things other than science though, such as my life (for example):

In class we’ve discussed a number of debated issues, recently GMOs, global warming, and sexual identity. Latour would definitely question all of us in asserting a point because we first need to scrutinize our evidence that we bring forth to defend our position, where the information is coming from, and also (this is important) where we are coming from- our worldview (our reality) will influence how we see the “facts” that we are presented with and how we will repeat them to others. This has everything to do with IDENTITY- another huge, HUGE, concept that we dealt with throughout this entire course.

Once we establish that our “facts” were handpicked by us (our person, lets keep in mind, is controlled by our “identity”) to perfectly present our (correct?) point of view, we can then determine how our “reality” is not really “reality” (as in “right,” “correct,” ‘straightforward”). This is what Latour is saying: that our reality might be created out of “facts” but it’s not created out of facts. It’s a self-made creation and no ones reality is the same.

The idea that “facts” can create any number of realities is easily provable by using the scientific discussions we had in class as an example. Our discourse surrounding GMOs, global warming, and sexual identities was all about rhetoric. One person could one day tell the whole class how GMOs “are actually, like, really bad for you” and then the next week that same person could write a blog post about how GMOs are “kind of ok and are probably really helpful in the long run- especially (maybe only) in terms of body function- cancer saving cells anyone??” (I can prove that because the “one person” was me.) The “facts” involving GMOs and all the other controversies in this class don’t prove shit, and we know it (now). It’s been shown to us time and time again but I don’t believe that this means that all of us can walk around the U denouncing anyone for saying anything concrete because it’s all “nothing, man, like it’s all conceptual, it’s your own reality.” Just because you believe criminals should be punished doesn’t mean you have to believe in the death penalty (THANK YOU MICHAEL CRICHTON/KENNER). We can acknowledge that our world is being manipulated by manipulated information and, in some cases, even wrong information. Facts that aren’t factual, or aren’t telling the whole truth, are determining policies and grant money and etc but once that is acknowledged, you can see right through it. It’s important to realize that you’re not being given the entire argument (almost ever) so you can take it upon yourself to indulge in our Information Age to discover the real story and construct as close to the “whole truth” that you can get at. 

As a matter of fact....

“But this meant accepting much too uncritically what matters of fact were . . . Reality is not defined by matters of fact. Matters of fact are not all that is given in experience. Matters of fact are only very partial and, I would argue, very polemical, very political renderings of matters of concern and only a subset of what could also be called states of affairs.” (231)

After reading Latour this semester, I wasn’t his biggest fanboy. However, after reading this essay I lightened up on the guy and appreciated what he was saying and trying to illuminate in the selections from Pandoras Hope. This being my first CSCL class, much of the semester I was thinking exactly what this essay addresses, “What’s real if nothing is actually real?” Granted that statement has many holes in it, but you get what I am saying.

Having a scientific mind and desire to discover and know things, the idea that science could be unraveled through intense critique worried me. The way Latour describes facts as critical and political entities with aspects of them misconstrued or misrepresented rung very true to me, especially in the debate regarding GMOs. The science behind GMOs (much like the science behind global warming or any controversy for that matter) is molded to best support the interest of the financer. Latour says we are accepting facts without truly thinking about them and analyzing them. I couldn’t agree more with this statement. Opinions are often formulated without education or rational thought. The mob mentality (of both the educated and uneducated) is a prevalent force. Finding facts that blurs what the realities of GMOs are detracts from the actuality of GMOs. Science becomes skeptic with many different issues because science can be used to dissuade people from acceptance, but also use their empirical power to promote approval. As Latour said, facts are commonly used to take away from reality, but what happens when we add reality to facts? This is the question we must answer.

Acceptances of fact, whether they support or refute your position, without careful assessment can, and will, lead society down a dangerous path. Blind belief causes controversy because each side of the argument has “facts” backing up their position. Like Latour says, facts are not the only thing that factors into an experience, or a thing. The evidence supporting the basis that reality is made up of more than facts is that we are debating on whether there is actually a reality. If reality were purely factual, there would be no question as to what reality encompassed. However, realizing that whatever reality you choose to believe is made up of a multitude of interacting and compounding parts, of which formulation and acceptance of facts is just a small part, will allow identification of what Latour calls matters of concern. 

The real meaning of "conspiracy"

One passage that really stuck out in my mind was this:


"What’s the real difference between conspiracists and a popularized, that is a teachable version of social critique inspired by a too quick reading of, let’s say, a sociologist as eminent as Pierre Bourdieu (to be polite I will stick with the French field commanders)? In both cases, you have to learn to become suspicious of everything people say because of course we all know that they live in the thralls of a complete illusio of their real motives. Then, after disbelief has struck and an explanation is requested for what is really going on, in both cases again it is the same appeal to powerful agents hidden in the dark acting always consistently, continuously, relentlessly" (pg. 228-29).

I think this largely summarizes not only what we have worked on in this course, but more specifically what we have talked about in the last few weeks with global warming/climate change. Often times I think we view scholars and academia as information to believe- the right information. The example used in this passage is Bourdieu. In academia, we see Bourdiau as a sociologist, not as a conspiracy theorist. The topics he writes on are backed up by other theorists, making it more believable and more credible to readers like ourselves. An example of this is State of Fear. Crichton uses and manipulates statistics in a way that makes it very believable. He uses "real" statistics that most readers would believe, because we grow up in a society where the statistics are always "right".  

On the contrary, conspiracy theorists are viewed much more negatively. I think back to the Greenpeace vs. Heartland debate, and I see both those organizations as conspiracies. They both present one-sided arguments, and lead people to become suspicious of the world around us. A lot of people either strongly agree or strongly disagree with each of those organizations immediately based on prior beliefs. I feel like the rhetoric used by conspiracists is a lot less convincing than scholars because the extreme views are more apparent right away.   

In conclusion, scholars and conspiracy theorists are often times saying the same information, just with different rhetoric. Conspiracy theorists are seen as much more extreme, but scholars seem more knowledgeable, and, to most people, more believable. Scholars are more subtle in their beliefs, and that is done on purpose to make it seem more believable. But, in both cases, as the passage states disbelief is struck at some point. Generally, with conspiracists this disbelief happens sooner than with scholars because with scholars, more conscious thought and decoding of the rhetoric is needed to realize the true motives that they have. But, in the end, disbelief happens either way and there is suspicion of the "facts" and motives. The comparison between State of Fear and Greenpeace/Heartland I think is a good example of what Latour talks about in his passage because SoF is seen as more acadmic, more backed up, where Greenpeace/Heartland seems more conspiracy- like. Regardless, they both have motives that they want readers to believe.

Despite being wordy, a bit confusing and very... Latour-ish, this article really hit home for me.  In the past couple of years, my dad, who has a lot of influence on me in terms of how I see the world, has changed a lot of his perspectives.  It's no longer MSNBC or CNN stations on the T.V. but instead he often retreats to watching the Alex Jones channel on youtube.  I will confess, I watch a lot of the conspiracy theory documentaries, such as End Game and Loose Change, and I am beginning to doubt a lot of the things that are pushed in our faces by the media everyday. While I do not think that you can take every conspiracy theory word for word, I think that a lot of them deserve more credit and attention than they get.

"Now we have the benefit of what can be called instant revisionism. The smoke of the event has not yet finished settling before dozens of conspiracy theories begin revising the official account, adding even more ruins to the ruins, adding even more smoke to the smoke. What has become of critique when my neighbor in 

the little Bourbonnais village where I live looks down on me as someone hopelessly nai¨ve because I believe that the United States had been attacked by terrorists? Remember the good old days when university professors 

could look down on unsophisticated folks because those hillbillies naı¨vely believed in church, motherhood, and apple pie? Things have changed a lot, at least in my village."

This segment from Latour essentially summarizes the paradigm shift and overall change in attitude of the public towards events in our lives and the general mechanism of how we react to major changes and traumatic events.  In some respects, I believe Latour is being very negative in this passage, somewhat concluding that the newfound instant revisionism is always jumping to conclusions and is often incorrect. I believe major traumatic events, such as 9-11, need this instant revisionism mindset to criticize the "why" they happened before worse things result from them, such as the war in the Middle East.  While I realize there are a multitude of factors that play into why we went to war in the Middle East, it is without a doubt that the 9-11 "terrorist" attacks sparked a widespread panic and  fear that mobilized citizens and gained support for one of the most pointless wars in history.  It is true that jumping to conclusions can definitely leave a lot of facts out in the dust, unanalyzed, but I believe conspiracy theories are not all hogwash and arise because there are holes in the stories that the media and government tell us.  Having people to critique the information that is spewed into our televisions and on our radio is just another system of checks and balances.  It prevents the people in power from only promoting and circulating information that they know their constituents want to hear.  I believe that there has been a huge attitude shift in the people of the United States, and we are on the brink of something quite dramatic.  A statistic I read a few days ago stated that gun sales have been at an all time high, with Americans buying over 5 million guns last month.  This to me indicates a revolution is in the works.  People are becoming more critical of this "reality" that is shown to them on the nightly news.  They are becoming more critical and are sick of being lied to. 

  The second part of this passage, where he discusses the change in attitudes of the "sophisticated/intelligent" towards the "unsophisticated/uneducated." This part kind of confuses me, because I believe the change he is discussing potentially isn't a bad thing.  Being in college, I have definitely encountered way more atheists than religious, and the religious that I have encountered are the ones that turn people on the fence off to the entire concept of religion entirely. I personally haven't put much thought into the issue, but I don't believe that "traditional values" are completely inconsistent or incompatible with being educated. 

Applying this change in mindset of instant revisionism to a common problem brings about the anti-vaccine lobby that had a lot of attention when Michele Bachmann was still a potential candidate for the GOP.  To assert that vaccines are the "cause" of autism or that they are "bad" because of the preservatives they contain or other ingredients, is very much jumping to conclusions and having the instant revisionism mindset.  Looking for answers, ignoring the facts.  After reading several journal articles by many neurologists and other researchers investigating autism, I am convinced that it is not the vaccines that are administered to young children, but rather the lack of a specific enzyme in the systems of these children, making it impossible for their bodies to filter out the heavy metals and preservatives that they encounter, some which are in vaccines.  This is where instant revisionism can be dangerous, because it causes a scare in people that forces them to make a decision or a judgment about something, ruling it to be "dangerous" and avoid it entirely.  

Criticisms are important because they keep those in power in check and they are a fundamental component of science.  Always question, always search for answers.  A later point made by Latour in this article regarding "critical barbaricary" is important to note, because it sets a standard or a paradigm for critics to operate within to have their thoughts be worthwhile or have a meaning.  It is important to maintain standards when criticizing anything, because criticism without warrants or facts hurts the entire skeptical institution.  To maintain a reality, it is important to seek facts and to construct your world viewpoint from those facts, to avoid being clouded by influential nonsense. 

Blog Post #9 (Due Sunday 29 April 11:59 PM): 'Do you see why I am worried?'

'Clearer?  Did Robin say this article ("Has critique run out of steam?") was Latour being CLEARER?  Get real.  What about Heidegger, Serres, Wittgenstein, Whitehead and all those other dudes I've never read?...'

Be cool, as Jules tells us in Pulp fiction; nobody will get hurt.  You don't need to know Heidegger (but if you do, you can use him.)  The argument is clear without the references.

Ethics.  Protection.  Care.  

Remember this, from our syllabus?


We all know that the carbon-cycle geophysicists at East Anglia University suppressed the data questioning global warming. Well, no they didn't really—but because of the stories circulating in

popular media, a lot of people are sure they did. Questions of how findings are presented, written, circulated and used, are matters of ethics. So are the issues of who pays for scientific work and who profits from it. So are issues of what gets built and used. No science or technology (or any human activity) is 'innocent.'

Well, nothing IS innocent, but that doesn't mean that all beliefs and all actions that follow from them are equivalent.  Not at all.  Nor does it follow that we can't really know or decide.

So near the end of our work, it's good to return to the Big Question of why any of this matters--through the lens of Latour's article.  

Basically, Latour (and Ben and Robin) are worried about how critical work might create a sort of cynical hipsterism in which we decide that it doesn't matter if you 'believe in reality,' because there's no solid reality to believe in.  'Whatever....'  We're also worried that smart political manipulators (like Frank Luntz, the primary architect of the New Right strategy—more central than Grover Norquist, sneakier than Carl Rove) can USE 'critique' to undercut all rational, scientific issues they don't like.  (Note how he does it in The Wall Street journal, p. 226.)

--> Explain it to Mom (or somebody like her who matters to you).  (1) Find a small section of Latour's article—a sentence, a paragraph, a recurring idea, but something that's coherent and tight enough that you can work with it.  (2) Translate it into English.  This is the 'Mom' part. You aren't really writing to Mom, because it's a blog post for all to see, but think about what some specific, normal, ordinary, smart-but-not-science-studies-oriented person would need to get this concept in consciousness / culture / science / philosophy (if your Mom is a philosopher, think of somebody else), and explain it.  Work like Bruno—using Coke cans, gegenstand, C-Span, George W, Heidegger, Twin Towers Truthers—whatever you need to make it make sense. (3) Apply it to a real problem.  Welcome to use our work or yours.  A Poster Project point.  Any of our readings or cases.  Anything you just found (Elissa just sent me an article about a class action lawsuit against Nutella.  Apparently it's not health food, and apparently you can sue if you believed the ads and fattened your kids up on hazelnut chocolate.  'Who knew?'  Precisely the point: what do we know and how?....).  

In sum: extend and clarify the position Latour offers on 'critique' and its problems.  'Do you see why I'm worried?'

Trans Interviews!

Hey All :)
So here are the interviews that we (the Ghosts) did for our poster project...enjoy!

1. Do you consider yourself transgender, transsexual, both, or neither? What does this mean to you?

I consider myself a trans man, but honestly sometimes I forget that I am trans because I feel like I was born a male just a little different from cisgendered males…Until it comes to certain more personal things then I am kind of forced to remember that I am a little different.

 I guess, neither. I consider myself male. I've met many people that enjoy having a stereotype or label but I don't. I'm just me. I'm male. I rarely think about my past or growing up as female.

I consider myself genderqueer.  For me, this identity resides under the "trans" umbrella.  There are many ways of being trans and queer.  Some come with surgical and hormonal body changes, others are signified by fashion and visual presentation choices.  I believe that both gender identity and sex are multiple.  If no two individuals have the same DNA or life experience, the binary is shown to be a social construction.

2. When did you start to identify with the gender you currently identify with?

2007 Fulltime.

I started taking T on December 29th 2007. People would ask me when I wanted them to start referring to me as male...I just told them when I tell you. When my voice starts to change...physical changes start to happen. I didn't want to confuse people if I still looked like a girl, sounded like a girl if my friends started referring to me as a he. I was more worried about other people and their comfort level than my own. After 7-9 months of being on T, a situation happened at work...my friends came in to work to visit me...they had already started to refer me as he...however my co workers had not...we were having a conversation and before you knew it my friends were saying he and my co workers were saying she...I have never been more confused in my life. Lol, neither were they. No one knew who they were talking about and that's when I realized I needed everyone to start the change with me. That's the day I decided to move forward. I had a conversation with Management and they started saying he and it slowly trickled down to my coworkers and before you knew it, there were no "she's" to describe me, only "he's". Of course it took a few months and when they would accidently slip up I would just give them a look and they'd apologize...I wouldn't get mad. I felt bad for making them possibly feel bad or embarrassing them.

About twelve years ago, I began to perform in drag.  Being a drag queen, coupled with writing academically on gender studies, provided me with a constructive outlet from which to explore and define my identity.

3. Is having a sex change something that you want to have done/have done? Is it important to you?

I would like to have chest surgery as soon as possible but unfortunately sexual reassignment surgery is not covered by insurance and it is expensive. It is very important to me to have chest surgery in order for me to feel more comfortable in my body. I don’t know how I feel about having bottom surgery. For one it is very expensive and the results are horrible.

I mentioned above about T...I had a full hysterectomy in January of 2011. That was my first and only major surgery I have ever had. I want more surgeries in the future. I would at the very very least like the top surgery. Bottom surgeries...only if I have enough money and everything "works" normal. If it doesn't, then I'll just have to work with what I have...but DEFINITELY having top surgery in the future.

I have thought about surgery, but have not come to the decision that it is necessary for my emotional and intellectual survival.  I have made the decision that I do not want to take hormones.  If it ever became financially possible for me, I would probably elect to have surgery.  Whether one identifies as trans or not, a person always has parts of their body that they would like to alter.  My idea of an esthetically pleasing body (for myself) would include top surgery.  However, I was lucky to be born as I am and can get by with a more 'androgynous' body type.

4. How do you relate to the GLBT community? Are you part of any sort of groups or organizations?

I don’t feel like I relate to the GLBT community as much as I did when I identified as a lesbian. Mostly I think it is because a lot of people in the community don’t actually know what being trans is all about and honestly I receive more negativity from inside the GLBT community than I do outside of it. I perform as a drag king at the Townhouse in St. Paul. I also do traveling Gender Show and Tell shows at various colleges speaking about myself and how I came to be a performer.

I am not a part of any organization. I do go to Pride every year but that's really it.

I am the "Q" in the LGBTQ community.  There are still some people/groups in our communities that do not respect queer identified people.  They believe that there are only two types of people: gay or straight/ male or female.  When a person situates themselves outside of these boundaries, sometimes others feel threatened or confused.  

5. Have you experienced any sorts of discrimination in housing/employment/in general or do you feel pretty accepted in your community?

For the most part I feel pretty accepted in my community. There is a big trans population here in Minneapolis/St. Paul so I think that helps.

I feel accepted as much as I think I could be. Not everyone knows and I keep it that way. Especially at work and in my neighborhood. I'm not sure what they would do and I'm not about to find out. I suppose you could say I'm "stealth". I have just recently changed my name and sex on my driver’s license so that helps tremendously. Still waiting for my birth certificate so I can legally change it at work. Everyone who does know are very supportive and ask me questions if they have any...I have always welcomed any questions they might have, even if it could possibly be offensive or embarrassing. It's the only way they learn...it's preventing ignorance. I want questions asked.

Every day is a learning and teaching day.  I think that it is very important to fight for social justice and gender equality at every moment- even if it means explaining for the 100th time what being ' a genderqueer boi' means to me.  At times, in the past, I faced discrimination from individuals in the gay and lesbian community- and on a rare occasion from other 'trans' identifies people.  (Mostly the assimilationists.)

6. Do you feel accepted/supported by your friends and family in regards to your current lifestyle?

I feel accepted and supported by my friends. My family is a different story but perhaps one day they will come around.

Friends, yes. Family, kinda, they support me but still have trouble with the pronouns. I don't push the subject. I don't get mad. Cripes, I don't even look at them or react to the "she" when it comes to my family. Why? I guess I just think they've known me for my whole life and 27 of those years I was a girl...I cut them slack. They do know how important it is to me so they do try. They try so hard. The majority of the time they just say my name and not a pronoun. Hey, whatever works!
On a side note, it's not a lifestyle. It's not really even a choice. This would have been the last thing I would have ever chose for myself or my worst enemy...it sucks to be this way. I would give anything to be "normal". Sometimes I do feel like a freak, that there's something wrong with me, I think why would anyone ever love me or be with me? I'm not what I see in the mirror, I'm not what I feel on the inside...how can you explain such things? Why would anyone ever choose to be this way? Whenever a conversation would arise on this topic of lifestyle and choice of being gay, lesbian, bi or trans I always ask them...what's your favorite color, least favorite? What foods do you love/hate? Why do you feel that way? What makes you straight? They answer, then I ask them WHY do YOU FEEL that WAY??? They get confused. What makes you love the color blue and hate orange??? Idk, they say. I tell them that's exactly how I feel...that's how boys feel who like boys...they just feel that way. There's no explanation. It makes you who you are supposed to be. I believe and so does my mom, that you're born this way. Just like anything else...some love spinach, others hate it. Some like rap music, some hate it....just like everything.

YES.  I am lucky to have found a very supportive group colleagues and friends.

7. Looking back at your past relationships, do you find yourself attracted to a particular gender over others? Have you ever been attracted to/dated others in the trans community?

Well before I started transitioning I identified as a lesbian so I only dated women. After I started transitioning I realized that I was queer and that I liked a person for a person not because of their gender. So yes I am attracted to and I have dated other people in the trans community.

I have always been attracted to girls...in school I made myself say I like a boy so no one think otherwise. Kids are cruel. I didn't need more things to be teased about. I have always been drawn to male bodies. Not that I wanted to be "with" them, but more I want to "be" them. I want to have their body. I have never dated or been attracted to anyone being trans. It's only been straight or bi women. I love girls. 

I find myself sexually attracted to liberal social ideologies (or rather, to those who possess these thoughts.)  I do not see the body- out of social context, so i have never just dated someone based on how they look or what their genitalia may or may not be.  :)

Trans Additions

Trans Poster Project Additions

Since not everyone was able to watch the news stories in class today here are the links, they address a lot of the issues and multifaceted subject.

Here is the link to the Good Morning America news story about Jenna the Miss Universe Canada.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/347175/abc-good-morning-america-transgender-miss-universe-back-in-competition

This is the "Pregnant Man" Thomas Beatie's most current interview from NBC news describing the family's normal life.
http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/pregnant-man-s-family-life-is-normal/6ofmgwz

GMO's, a reaction to new knowlege...

My previous opinion of GMO's was one formulated out of passivity from knowledge of other topics, mainly economics and agriculture. In fact I had never heard of the acronym GMO or had even given a second thought why some could have unforeseeable dangers. The new thought that was then implanted into my head was that dangers of consuming and even producing these GMO's could appear in the long run. These dangers are unpredictable at this point but they would most likely manifest in being harmful to our health or our was of living.

Considering this Poster in conjunction with my previous thoughts may not change my mind on GMO's as a concept but it introduces to me how they could be implemented. On one hand we have a great leap forward in using GMO's to solve one of the world's problems. Potrykus has developed rice that produces beta-carotene, which is a necessary nutrient to prevent blindness. On the other hand the question remains: do we really need the new GMO to solve this problem when this problem had not existed before the 'green revolution'? Shiva is making this claim. It turns out there are many pitfalls to this genetically modified rice. But to avoid using golden rice and still solve the problem would require yet another revolution back to traditional meals. This is the problem.

I agree with Triforce on this one to a point. India's problem of childhood blindness caused by a lack of beta-carotene in the diet can be best solved by reverting to the traditional diet. The real crime lies with the struggle for technological advancement. Scientists who are only trying to do good, like Potrykus, are being hindered by activists like Shiva here. While it is, arguably, best for the people of India to revert back to their old, traditional diet, it is significantly less feasible for them to do so.

What's in your serving size?

As a person who pays  thorough attention to everything on food labels, what caught my attention about the 7 Deadlies' poster presentation was when they talked about how much Golden Rice a person must eat in order to gain the benefits from the vitamin A within the rice. Therefore we must look at food labels, serving size and vitamins as inscriptions devices and circulating reference.

Why are these inscription devices? Because it is how we are taught to make sense of food around us. It is the way we are given information about food products in order to ensure that people know, or at least are given the ability to find out, what is in their food.

Ingo Potrykus makes the case that by developing Golden Rice, millions of people's lives will be saved from vitamin A deficiency. What he fails to recognize with his claim is the serving size. Probably the most important piece of the puzzle. I cannot deny that this man is trying to do good by people, however he is also trying to sell a product, and not only that but he is keeping important details out of his claim.

This is extremely bothersome for me because he knows that people will believe him because although the inscription device, serving size, is always available to the public,  it is very rarely used as a gauge of how much a person eats. Someone may eat or drink more or less of any given product without a glance at how much a healthy amount is or how many nutrients (vitamins, minerals, calories, fats, sugar, sodium, etc.) are in any given product. For example, most bottles of juice are served in a 15-16oz bottle when only 8 oz is a serving size. The food label only gives the amount per serving, meaning that it is double what the label says for an entire bottle. Yet most people will drink the entire bottle without realizing only half should have been consumed. Though we are focusing on Golden Rice not having enough nutrients in one serving as opposed to getting too many nutrients from another product, Potrykus makes his claim without needing to point out anything that has to do with the amount of vitamin A in just one serving size.

Yes, Golden Rice may contain more vitamin A than white rice, but as Emily stated in class, a person must eat five whole servings to get the same amount of vitamin A that is in 5 or 6 carrots. The ratio of food is completely unbalanced. Not only that, but it is also uncertain that the vitamin A will be absorbed from such a substance because human bodies do not simply absorb any vitamin that you take in (as dietary supplements often want you to think). Instead a person must consume other nutrients, in this case certain fats and proteins, in order to take in such vitamins. Disturbingly, many people with the vitamin A deficiency in India do not have access to such nutrients and are not being helped to the extent they need.

Ingo Patrykus is not the only person making claims like these, but food companies do this all the time. Like cookies that say they have added calcium, well a person probably shouldn't be getting calcium from cookies and even if there is added amounts, that doesn't mean it's going to be absorbed.

Back tracking just slightly, the names given to vitamins and minerals are inscriptions that are used for people to understand in order to make sense of food and nutrients they need in order to maintain a healthy and balanced diet. These inscriptions hold a lot of power because they are what we rely on to survive and so claims reference these inscriptions and so they get circulated and they hold meaning. The products are bought and consumed with the notion that they will get the nutrients that these products claim.

I would say that Ingo Patrkus' claims are dangerous to the public because it doesn't tell the whole story and it doesn't necessarily fix what is wrong in the first place. He is making people believe that it is as simple as changing the type of rice they eat. However there is Vandana Shiva's side that if the people of India had access to their old traditional diet, vitamin A deficiency amongst the population would not be a problem. She understands that it is not as simple as providing one type of rice that has a little more vitamin A than the type they already have. There needs to be a distinction between potential advantages of providing a product such as Golden Rice, and making it clear that it is not going to solve the entire problem. Rather that is will aid in the process of potentially getting more vitamin A within the diet.

I found the comparison of amount of rice to carrots to be very striking to me. Even on the best of days the proposed gmo solution would not be as good as simply having the farmers grow the crops they grew for generations. I write simply, but the issue is anything but simple. While it would not be particularly difficult for India to properly feed all of the people in the country through agriculture, it would be extremely difficult to overcome the influence of those few who would lose in such a situation. I have nothing against gmos , esspecialy after I had a perfect example of some of the delicious foods they are present in. But in this situation they are a less efficient bandaid to a much larger problem. I really do think that in the situation of malnutrition we have to take a step back and look at the underlying structures that contribute to if not cause the problems. In the situation we were presented it would seem that using golden rice would simply further the loss of traditional crops and just shift the malnutrition to the next vitamin that would be displaced by the mass production of select crops. I find it interesting how much the whole discussion of fixing malnutrition is framed in the language and techniques of globalization and how little mainstream solutions are offered that would break from this framework.

The other issue that came to mind in all three cases was money. I mentioned this in class but I just really want to write about it again. In all three cases there are strong financial interests that are at the heart of the problem. In all three cases the discussion the issues will eventually return to a rather calculated discussion of costs. How much would restoring more traditional crops to India cost the multinational agri companies there and the people in Europe and US facing higher costs? How much would increased regulations and pollution taxes slow economic growth? How much would American businesses lose if they were forced to disclose the presence of gmos to the mob? Some form of these question I can confidently say has been in play durring the larger discussions of these issues, and the mere fact that they are being so seriously considered in a dry mathematical, cartesian sense in my opinion gives the pro money side a huge advantage.

Some more good old GMO's

Of the three presentations presented, the one of GMO’s caught my attention the most (like many of my peers in the class it seems). Growing up in a family where science comes first and there is nothing more reassuring, exciting, and absolute than good old fact and advances in technology, this is a topic I have heard a lot about. The fact that so many of the things we use daily are genetically modified can be scary, but can be positive all the while. So much in life has been altered and advanced through technology to better the quality of life for so many people that I think people who are completely skeptical about GMO’s should keep an open mind to the different opportunities. My best friend from highschool’s father worked for a bio-agricultural engineering company working with corn and other crops (much like the people who helped to develop Monsanto, but not that exact brand) and through being around him and hearing about the work he is involved in, I can’t help but to see an ultimately positive direction that the world is headed in with the help of GMO’s.

One thing that I think is necessary for the growing GMO field is public awareness. This is needed through both the education on the consumer’s end and the labeling and promoting through the individual company’s end. Labels are needed in supermarkets and on the fields alike, and companies should make it easier for the consumer to look up with information they need to know via the internet or another available resource.

The topic of synthetic insulin, or human insulin, used for diabetics as an alternative to pork or beef insulin, is an example of a beneficial GMO to the human race. (http://www.livestrong.com/article/231364-the-pros-cons-of-the-use-of-gmo-insulin/) This is of great interest to me, and with out advances like this one, the low cost and faster growing rate would not be available to offer all that is possible to those affected by diabetes. The downside is, like in almost any medical procedure of course, a negative reaction to the synthetic material. The huge pros of this invention has far outweighed the risks though, and new finds like this one will continue to emerge as GMOs continue to be produced.