Shades of Scarlett Deep in Thought

Hey everyone,

I wanted to let you know that although my dad is not any better, he is not any worse either.  That's a good thing. He was able to walk on his own around the track. He took Abby with him (our dog).  Abby is a Weimerauner (sp??) and she believes she is human...and she loves to walk with her dad. When dad was in the nursing home for rehab in January, she lived with him in his private room. She learned which patients and which staff would feed her. She got pretty fat haha!  Anyway, John (shark99) and I are going to drive to TN next weekend to visit mom and dad.  I miss them so much. And I keep reminding myself that if he turns for the worst like he did two weeks ago and doesn't make it, I will never forgive myself for not being there. University is not even close when in comparison with the importance of my dad...I love him so much!  Thank you for all of your prayers and tmails.  As Mimi says on her blog, prayers do work miracles.

Scarlett

I watch American Idol every week.  I voted for Carrie Underwood every step of the way last season and was thrilled that she won.  I don't, however, understand the individuals who go on the show dressed in the worst possible forms of fashion.  The other side is these people actually think that they can sing! Ok...I admittedly cannot sing.  My singing must be limited to the shower when no one is home.  But these people think that they are the next American Idol and they are actually infuriated when they are told that they cannot sing.  These men and women get on the show, sing, are told no, and then run out screaming the "f" word this and the "f" word that and yelling that Simon, Paula, and Randy will be sorry when their record breaking CD comes out.  Yes, your record breaking CD might be released- it will be the record for the lowest sales!!

The other perspective on this issue is that American Idol purposefully puts the worst and most flamboyant auditions on live TV- it makes for good entertainment.  Perhaps this is true but whether it is or not- one thing does remain- they can't sing...

Today my husband watched The History Channel as usual.  As a historian, I love the show and since he has his Masters in Political Science, he shares my enjoyment of their programs. Today he watched portion of a documentary of the Aryan National Front- a neo-Nazi organization that publicly expresses their hate for all non-whites, Jews, and others who don't share their beliefs.  It is truly sick how they indoctrinate their members at an early age.  If you don't agree, you aren't really white and you are a disservice to the caucasian race. 

Here's what I want to say about this (I have to get back to reading for my senior seminar class): everyone is equal.  The only difference between Black, White, Asian, Arab, or Native American (and so on) is the level of pigment in one's skin.  African-Americans and Africans have an increased level of pigment because of the hot climate in which they are accustommed to living.  That's it people! I'm no better than the next person! Why can't we all just get along.  There are trashy, ignorant people in every race.  Those types of people are not in just one race.  I have recently seen examples of overt racism and I have researched it over the last year or so.  I abhor it even more than I did a year ago.  I cannot understand racism.  I don't see color as a reason to like or dislike someone.  That's all...

Anybody want to clone me so that I can read twice as fast???  Ahhhh the joys of the life of a historian.

John seems to hate Valentine's Day and we're trying to save money so I cooked a really fancy dinner and bought him the sweetest card I could find.  And for his part, he bought me a pink hippo.  He bought me a four inch tall gray hippo who he duly named "Mrs. Hippo."  Now I guess we have "Grandma Hippo."  My husband is so cheesy but it came right from his heart!

I officially ordered my books for the Royal Music School of London today.  I also made the mistake of downloading the syllabi for my level 1-8 exams (8th level being the last of the program).  For the first level practical exam in November, I have to not only perform three classical pieces (not really that big of a deal) but I also have to be able to listen to 4 bars of several songs and tell the London musician what timing is the music set to.  Ok...I know what timing is- there's 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 6/8, 9/8, 12/8 and so on.  But I have never had to listen to a song and tell you what the timing was without seeing the sheet of music.  Oh I'm gonna die!

So I called my teacher from when I was a child (she enrolled me in this school thus she is responsible for this mess!!).  She laughed and kept telling me I was worrying for no reason and that she'd help me through it (from six hours away??!).  Then she informed me that once I get to the 4th level and up, I have to sing!!  haha yeah right!!  Apparently the London person will play 4 bars and I will have to sing it back in perfect timing without missing a beat.  I informed her that I am the world's worst singer and there's a reason I don't try out for American Idol.  She reassured me that they don't care if you can sing, they just want to make sure you pay attention to detail in the song. 

This program is sounding harder than basic training every day! But if I want to open my own studio and teach piano while I research and write history for the rest of my life, I'd better get studying I guess!  Ah...the life of a musician and a historian...studying will never end!

The third professor is different than any I have met and it is a true joy to spend time with him every week.  It's strange because I didn't enjoy his class all that much.  I did well and got my A but I felt like I didn't learn much.  This semester I ran into him on campus and we talked music.  I've played for 19 years which is basically most of my 23 years (well I turn 23 this summer).  He loves classical music and truly has an appreciation for music and those who make it.  But aside from this, we've become friends.  We just talk for an hour or so once or twice a week.  We both look forward to our conversations and I've learned to be comfortable with being myself around someone who is obviously my academic superior.  I even caught myself laughing lately.  It is just nice to have someone to talk to.  He has also proven, however, that professors are real people with real life problems, with real life emotions...

Hey everyone,

Dad is doing better if you can actually say that.  He made it home ok today.  His color is very gray and pasty.  He was short of breath and was unable to say more than a couple of sentences at a time.  His heart is beating with more regularity because of the pacemaker but it isn't helping as much as we would have liked. Mom doesn't really know what to do...there isn't anything to do. But I just wanted to say that he is home and for now, it is calmer but not over. Dad's doctor said that it will be 4-6 weeks before we will be able to tell if the pacemaker is going to work but that even if it helps, it will not prolong his life.  Please continue to pray...it isn't getting easier on my family and I.

My dad is dying. How does one deal with that? My sperm donor was an abusive bastard to say the very least. When my mom remarried, he adopted all of her children. He's my dad now and I would do anything, anything at all to see him grow old with mommy. I wanna give her everything she didn't have for 16 years. But I can't. 

When I came home from Iraq, I was brought home early because he was dying of cancer. But the doctors gave him a medicine that would fix his cancer but would irreparably damage his heart. We knew then that he would have a few years before it would get really bad. Later that same year, he had a heart attack and simultaneously, his lungs built up with fluid (this is called congestive heart failure) and they prescribed Lasix (spelling??). Well that put too much pressure on his kidneys and last year he went into renal failure (kidneys failed). He had just lapsed into intensive Type II diabetes and although he is Type II, he now has daily insulin shots.

Right after Fall 2005 semester finals, I got a call from my sister. My dad was given two weeks to live unless he had triple bypass open heart surgery. The damage from the cancer meds isn't going to change and cannot be fixed. But they help the cholesterol blockage in his arteries which was up to 70%. He also has atherosclerosis which is hardening of the arteries.  His kidneys were doing worse than before. Thus they had to try to get them to temporarily stabilize so that they could do surgery. So they took him off of Lasix but that didn't actually help. His kidneys got worse. The night before the surgery the doctors told mom, my sister, my brother, and I that they might cancel the surgery. We convinced them that we were willing to risk it. If his kidneys completely stopped functioning during surgery, he would die they told us. But on the other hand, he can't live without his heart and to give him even a few more months, he would have to take the chance and do the surgery. It was an agonizing four hours but he made it and through the ups and downs of the last month and a half, he's improved...until a week ago.

His heart stopped beating enough times per minute and when it did beat, it wasn't beating the right way. That's all the doctor told me. I don't know what that means. How can it beat but not the right way? So the doctor said there was only one more thing to do that could help him- put in a ventricular pacemaker. He got out of surgery four hours ago. It took twice as long as it should have to put it in because of complications. He couldn't even feed himself. Mom had to which she of course didn't mind. The doctor was so solemn afterwards. It's not going to buy him time he said. It's just going to help him live a little bit more comfortable the next few months.

He isn't going to live much longer. There is nothing else they can do and I know that, mom knows that. Knowing that doesn't make it easier. I don't want to watch him suffer and die slowly. I would rather him die of a heart attack and go quickly. Do I want to lose him- no never... But I cannot stand to watch him suffer, to hurt, to constantly be in excruciating pain. It's too hard to explain how I feel. It's too hard to deal with...I don't know how...

One of the most difficult feats of a research project that will ultimately become published as a magazine article, as PhD dissertation and finally as a book is distinguishing your personal research from other historians. It is sort of pointless to publish a book with the same thesis and argument as every other historian in the field. My mentor asked me this question on Friday so I have been pondering this since then. How is my research different? What makes my arguments stand out??

Here's the thing: with respect to her white population, Mississippi has long been regarded as the most racist state in the nation. It has a high concentration of white supremacists who have long attempted to wrongfully keep the black population as second class citizens. It is wrong and so immoral but unfortunately that's the way it is in Mississippi. It has been that way since before the Civil War. Years of segregation and overt racism has retarded the development of Mississippi. Mississippi's schools are some of the worst in the nation. They are badly funded. The average level of education in Mississippi is horribly low. Many of the African-Americans who lived before my generation never went past high school and some only finished the eighth grade. I am not blaming them, however. Whites in Mississippi purposefully under-funded black schools for the better part of the 20th century. Even now that segregation is illegal, most of the schools in certain counties are primarily black and still not funded. Without a decent education, how can they obtain a decent job?

With respect to the schools, for some reason Mississippi's state government sits back and does nothing to rectify the situation that many of them created. Countless government officials including a couple of senators were members of white supremacist organizations such as the Citizens' Council and the segregation watchdog agency known as the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission. They are still in power!! My thesis has always been that the Councils and Sovereignty Commission has short run successes in maintaining segregation and using various tactics such as economic pressure to chase black "agitators" out of the state. But in the long run, were they successful? In a way no. Segregation is illegal. They were forced to comply with the federal rulings. But has the economic status of blacks in Mississippi changed much? Not really. They may not be slaves or sharecroppers but how do they really compare to the average American family with respect to income, etc? I bet a great many of them live way below the poverty line. That's because on a whole they work low level jobs that don't pay worth a damn.

Yes I am going to have to now research this to make my point. But is it not worth looking into? I need to conclusively prove that Mississippi's development (with respect to economics, education and a host of other factors) is much lower than the rest of the nation. I may be wrong but I may be right. Other historians have not broached this topic. Even the most recent books do not address this issue. Historians who analyzed the Citizens' Council during the 50s-70s perhaps were not afforded the luxury of a contemporary analysis of the long term impact of segregation. But I can do it, I think.

So...now I have to do more research. Ultimately it will mean that I will have to fly down to Mississippi and travel statewide (especially in the Delta) and research records, past and present, of these factors that determine Mississippi's development. Day by day this is becoming a more complicated research project. But then nothing is ever black and white simple is it?? Nope, I didn't think so...

So all day Saturday John (shark99) had to teach a Shelter Operations and Simulations course at the Red Cross.  As the sweet wife I am, I accompanied him but since I desperately needed to work on something homework related, I brought along my Citizens' Council project.

For those of you who don't know who the Citizens' Council was, they were the racist bastards in Mississippi who formed a white supremacist resistance movement to counteract the Civil Rights movement.  My focus for my PhD will be American studies: African American History Jim Crow to the Civil Rights movement.  This research endeavor is only one of three I am currently working to complete.  The other project is James Farmer and CORE: The Rise of the Sit-in Movement as Non-Violent Resistance to White Supremacy.  Although I abhor the Citizens' Councils and their members and associates and although I admire Farmer and his fellow CORE members, I love both research projects equally as it only brings me closer to the past, to learning history, to having an idea of the who, why, and how of the past... 

So on Saturday, I brought my laptop and my plastic file folder bin that weighs a ton because it holds all of my primary sources.  I had a very thick file that contained a stack of documents that had not been entered into my very lengthy bibliography.  For a period of about 6 hours, I typed, typed, and typed again.  I have a 15 page bibliography now (if that tells you anything about how heavy my plastic file folder box is...).  I have literally several hundred letters, memos, pamphlets, financial docs, flyers, newspaper articles, etc from the Citizens' Council.  Even though Saturday's work was not necessarily interesting, it was useful to finish it because now I can sit down and read through that specific stack of material, take notes all over them with my post-its, and the file them individually, wherever they might fit into my research. 

Now that I have bored all with tales of my infinite research, I am off to shower, and read for class (again), and then I have to drive to school and meet with my faculty mentor about the research symposium in April (where I have to actually introduce my research to a panel of faculty...).  See everyone later!!