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Tuesday, September 18, 2018

CH203.1002--Essay: The Freedom To-From Illusion--A PERSONAL NARRATIVE

CH203.1002
Dr S Pasqualina
University of Nevada, Reno  18 Sept 2018
James Langelle

Essay: The Freedom To-From Illusion, a Personal Narrative

     Course evaluations, normally reserved for the end of a semester, would probably differ considerably from what could be said about class content after just a few weeks of lectures. Consider Core Humanities 203, the University of Nevada, Reno for the Fall 2018 semester. Content currently places emphasis on the writings of social theorist Isaiah Berlin. As a topic in the subsequent discussion section associated with lectures, following primary source reading assignments, it is not difficult to place Spaniards marching across Mexico,. Puritan preachers wives being abducted by savages, or Founding Fathers guilty of profiteering from the slave trade. But where does the to-from paradox apply personally, individually?
     Everyone has a personal experience of being included or excluded from a particular status, whether it be economic, social, ethnic or intellectual. My own personal experience involving a to-from duality can be found not in the constant reminder of slavery in America, but in another form of unwilling servitude, that being conscription. Popularly known as “the draft” in and about the middle of the last century, millions of young American males who had just graduated high school and turned 18 years of age were required to register with the Selective Service for possible duty in the armed services. It is useless to go into a brief history of the origins and evolution of mandatory service save to say it was listed in the Declaration of Independence as a grievance against the King of England. It was also common knowledge that it was a root cause of the War of 1812. We find throughout American history the necessity for the draft to further the cause of freedom at the expense of those who were forced to serve unwillingly.  Did the average citizen of age have the freedom to resist? In many ways, affirmative. Desertion was one and it served its purpose in the course of many wars, from colonial to Gettysburg.




     The most striking example of the disservice served by mandatory service came about in the Vietnam Era, the “Quagmire.” In 1965, I had received a notice of 1A, the highest classification making me eligible for induction. In 1965, the war in Southeast Asia was escalating at an alarming rate with US Marine Battalion Landing Teams wading ashore from Chu Lai to Red Beach in Da Nang. My generation had just graduated high school, myself from Reno High. Our band, the Uncalled 4, all five of us, played rock and roll at various venues in northern Nevada. My lead guitar player received his draft notice in the summer of ‘65,  my older brother received his about the same time. But he knew the Marine recruiter at the quonset hut on Evans Avenue where now stands a college dorm. The recruiter backdated his enlistment into the reserves so that he didn’t have to go into the Army. My lead guitar went and we were truly the uncalled for. I was next in line and to describe it as freedom to or from would be a genuine injustice for all of us who served, like it or not. I signed up for active duty with the same Marine recruiter in the quonset hut on Evans Avenue.
     During Tet of 1968, I landed in Da Nang with the 27th Marine Regiment, the last combat unit LBJ would give to General Westmoreland, we hadn’t any more troops to spare. “Back-in-the-world” as we called it,  students were burning their draft cards, the women were burning their bras; staging love-ins, die-ins, hippies were carrying fake coffins of dead soldiers up and down the streets of Haight-Ashbury. Those who didn’t beat the draft either went in, went to Canada, or went to Leavenworth. There was no freedom-to or freedom-from.  LBJ huddled with his advisors like Rusk, McNamara, LeMay, Taylor, Ridgway and Bradley. In Berkeley, friends of mine were tossing bricks through the windows of the math buildings, breathing tear gas and getting busted for protesting. Over in the ‘hood Stokley and Eldridge were discovering their own form of “freedom-from.”  Following Khe Sanh, Hue city and other memorable highlights of the year that historians liken to “defining,” the Quagmire gradually became so overwhelming for the President that he recused himself from running for another term. It paved the way for Richard M. Nixon, and in the fallout, expiration of mandatory military service. American youth would be free from the draft. The military would become all volunteer. The interim saw a lottery system and a congressional filibuster over just how to phase it out, but by the time the last chopper lifted off from the US embassy rooftop in Saigon, we would have the freedom to do what we wanted with our lives at the age of eighteen.
     In the early weeks of lectures of CH 203 we are constantly reminded of the injustice of slavery in America. Nobody talks about that other great injustice, unrelated to ethnic background although the rich could always find loopholes to avoid the draft. The poor from Appalachia, the blacks from Watts, the farm boys from Nebraska, bubbas from the South and rednecks from Arizona, these are America’s forgotten slaves. They just don’t fit well enough into the lecture, into some sophisticated social dialogue so that constant ethnic unrest can be achieved. Where are they today?

Primary Source Listing:

“Take the rag away from your face, now ain’t the time for your tears…”
Bob Dylan, The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll, 1964

Friday, September 14, 2018

JOURNALISM 108--"You Do You"--Comments and Responses-- U OF NEVADA, RENO,..FALL 2018

ATTN TACNET CD VIA AMBUSH PATROL JC SUBJ TELETYPE TRAFFIC--

(LZ Railbird)--Following docs recorded in cmd chronology--


Part B: Documentation
Colors in my You Do You Challenge
Spring Rain--#ADCBA7
Frosted Mint--#CAFFF5
Paco--#2E0B0E
Suva Gray--#827D80



What would you do differently in this image if you had more time and/or skills? The image is a screen capture from an MP4 created using a Canon HD Vixia HF R62. The colors were translated from the color picker located at https://html-color-codes.info/colors-from-image/. The Hex Codes were translated into the names of the colors at http://chir.ag/projects/name-that-color/. The overall setup could have been staged at KNPB-TV (where I work) using a studio green screen and the control room to edit but the home version required a bit more of an effort to achieve even rudimentary results. In maintaining the theme of simplicity, it was edited on a Microsoft paint program.

What does this statement mean to you? There was a time when journalism was not web based and the reporter had to fend for himself with whatever means was available to him. That is partly the reason I chose not to create the Challenge at the KNPB studio. State-of-the-art equipment; lighting, cameras, editing rooms and final cuts, all readily available, would have been a takeaway from the process of basic media technique, much of it lost to modern technology.
"Self-confidence allows me enough self-doubt to question new things."
Edited by  JCL on Sep 11 at 8:20pm

Yesterday Sep 13 at 10:16am
Hi James, I think that this photo is very creative. I like how you were able to have the light in the photo match the word color. I think the quote compliments the photo as well. Great job!

8:01pm Sep 14 at 8:01pm
Hello Janessa, Thank you for the comment. I readily admit that being photogenic is not one of my resume high points. Therefore it is necessary to adjust the lighting, take and retake, choreograph and rechoreograph and rehearse and re-rehearse for one simple image. Try to hide the flaws created by age, hair color and just plain not cut out to be a leading actor like Cary Grant. But it is true that self-confidence can create an environment to doubt something that is not authentic, a make-believe, a Wizard of Oz world evolving as a result of social media and its propensity to elevate even those with zero talent into the spotlight. Journalism is real and eventually it will separate the professionals from the amateurs.

Yesterday Sep 13 at 4:34pm
Hi James,   I liked your photo because the green light matched your text color very well. Plus, the image clearly matched the quote, and they were so nice together! 

8:10pm Sep 14 at 8:10pm
Thank you Ran, The green light was not my first choice but on trying other colors in the image, none of them worked. The font is called "Bohemian typewriter"  and the size (probably) "35." That Remington typewriter in the photo is a gem and I searched every thrift shop in Reno and found it in the last one, The Thrift Depot, on East 4th Street. It is in mint condition minus only a ribbon. The tag was $80 but got it at a discount of $56. The  girl's comment when I carried it over to the counter was,
     "Is that thing finally going away?"


Yesterday Sep 13 at 9pm
Hey James. I like what you said about journalism but I also don't consider it a detractor. If anything it is a sign of the change we have seen in our society. While the internet has fundamentally changed our news source and quality. It also allows for some great minds to emerge out from under the constrictive and damaging monopoly that the corporate monster used to hold.

7:48pm Sep 14 at 7:48pm

Hello Malachi, Thank you for the insight. Newton Minow, in 1961, labelled television a "vast wasteland."  That was about the time series such as "Rawhide," "I Love Lucy" and "Leave It to Beaver" were popular; westerns and wholesome family sitcoms. Minow has yet to comment on the current trend of reality television. He has yet also to comment on what we see on the internet with blogging, fake news and social media.
"When television is bad, nothing is worse," Minow said in May of 1961. Almost nothing is worse.

ATTN TACNET CD VIA AMBUSH PATROL JC SUBJ TELETYPE TRAFFIC--