I open the door and step out into the world. Pulling the door closed behind me, the dust and cat hair on my un-mopped hardwood floors swirl in the sunlight.

� � �

Amble with Christ
16 December, 2004

Christ and I walked along the river this evening. It's a daily rite between He and I, you see.

Though it was raining, we somehow managed to stay dry as we ambled, talked of life and things that do not really matter.

"I once knew a man," He said, "who was missing a toe. He told me he cut it off during a blizzard and ate it, as it was the only thing available to him to consume. He needed his strength, you see."

My eyes widened at this story.

"Why, my Lord," I professed, "I smiled at that very man on the street corner this afternoon!"

� � �

Scholarship Essay
25 October, 2004

There's no word in the language I revere more than teacher. None. My heart sings when a kid refers to me as his teacher and it always has. I've honoured myself and the entire family of man by becoming one.

-- Pat Conroy, The Prince of Tides

When I was seven years old, I conjured the dream of one day becoming a teacher. I didn't fathom what kind of instructor, I just knew that I wanted to stand before the eyes of students and educate and inspire them. By the time I was thirteen my mind was made-up, and I decided I wanted to be an English teacher, thanks to the pristine intellect I received from my middle school English teacher.

High school was difficult for me: the death of a close family member, personal health issues, and the typical adolescent struggles. I will be honest and state that I did not apply myself in high school; I did what I could to get by.

After graduation, my friends went off to college and four-year universities, while I did nothing. I took all of my savings and journeyed to Port Huron, Michigan where I found work as a house-sitter. For six months, five of those in the harsh Michigan winter, I was in complete solitude. While in that extensive seclusion I realized that I still had the yearning to become a teacher. I came back home to Iowa, settled myself in a small apartment and enrolled at Clinton Community College.

My career goal for the future is quite simple: to become the best damn educator that I can become, and I mean this with complete and total conviction. Teaching is something that I have an absolute red passion for, and it is my hope that I will one day become a teacher who teaches for little-to-no pay in underprivileged communities. Teaching is not about dollar signs (Lord, how we all know that!), it's about inspiring and enlightening, not just the students, but the teacher as well.

My reasoning for submitting this scholarship application is in the hopes that I will receive some financial assistances in furthering my education, so I can continue my schooling without interruption, and achieve my ultimate goal in academia.

� � �

An Exploratory Study: Music and Violence
28 October, 2004

Part One

When I was ten years old, I attended an underground rock concert with my babysitter in downtown Chicago. Five un-known bands took the stage and played a few songs for only a few audience members. Being only ten years old and having my heart belonging to the likes of New Kids on the Block and Madonna, I was not, in the least bit, interested in this loud, heavy metal music that overflowed my babysitter's heart. But then a band by the name of Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids took stage, and I was instantly enthralled in what was before me.

When controversy began circling musical context and its influences on teenage violence, most notable after the Columbine killings and fingers being pointed towards Marilyn Manson, I was instantaneously furious. The two boys that tormented Columbine High School were not Manson fans; "Harris and Klebold were not Marilyn Manson fans -- [...] they even disliked [his] music" (Manson), yet the finger was still pointed towards him. Recently, while pirating Marilyn Manson MP3s off of the Internet (another controversy on the rise), I came across a remake of Eminem's "The Way I Am" featuring Marilyn Manson. A section of the lyrics sparked curiosity in me, and caused me to look further into the argument over Manson and Eminem's music:

When a dude's gettin' bullied and shoots up his school
And they blame it on Marilyn and the heroin
Where were the parents at? And look where it's at:
Middle America, now it's a tragedy
Now it's so sad to see and upper class city havin' this happenin'
Then attack Eminem cause I rap this way

As someone who has been listening to Marilyn Manson for over ten years, and as a person who's become an avid listener of Eminem, I can honestly state that I have not been influenced in the slightest by either one's music or lyrical content. It's for this reason that I have decided to further investigate if lyrical content, or freedom of speech, influence persons, most notably children and teenagers, to be more acceptable to violence.

Part Two

Nani Power, a 30-something suburban mother of two, states candidly, "Examining what may be wrong with our educational system, family structure or teenagers is difficult. Blaming the rebellious verses in a song written by a ghoulish, somewhat androgynous and outlandish performer is easy" (Power). She goes on to state that it's right-wing Christians who use Manson's lifestyle against him, when in fact his lifestyle has nothing to do with the type of work he produces. No one cared that Jack London, Earnest Hemingway or Edgar Allen Poe were depressed alcoholics. Thomas Jipping, a senior fellow in Legal Studies at Concerned Women for America, argues that "two-thirds of America's teens believe that violence in television and music is partly responsible for school shootings" (Jipping).

Power asks, "But do [songs] have the power to warp innocent kids into killers? I don't think so. If anything, I would maintain rock 'n' roll has prevent more acts of violence than it's caused." Jipping rebuttals with at least four different cases where music did influence violence in teens. One of the cases he uses is Kip Kinkel, who murdered his parents in Springfield, Oregon, and who was a fan of shock-rocker Marilyn Manson. Anthony DeCurtis, a music critic noted mostly for his work in Rolling Stone magazine, states that Manson's "songs are laced with nihilism [...] and blasphemy" (DeCurtis), not violence that would constitute murdering one's parents. Manson himself testifies: "Even if they were fans, that gives them no excuse, nor does it mean that music is to blame" (Manson).

Fight the Good Fight Ministries, a non-profit Christian organization, uses Biblical verses to argue their point:

Jesus Christ warned that while the good man draws from the good stored up in his heart, the evil man draws from the evil stored up in his heart and produces evil fruit as a result:

"The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart." (Luke 6:45)
("Exposes")

Manson too uses Biblical references to withhold his standing: "It is sad to think that the first few people on earth needed no books, movies, games or music to inspire cold-blooded murder. The day that Cain bashed his brother Abel's brains in, the only motivation he needed was his own human disposition to violence" (Manson).

Currently it seems that Manson has been let go of the dispute over his music, however, Eminem has not. The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) argues that his albums threaten "[his] fan base of easily influenced adolescents who emulate Eminem's dress, mannerisms, words and beliefs" (Kim). Avary Kent, who was interviewed by Jim Derogatis, states that Eminem's music "says something about our culture at this moment" (Derogatis). Eminem defends himself over GLAAD's comment through the song "Sing For The Moment":

These ideas are nightmares for white parents whose worst fear
Is a child with dyed hair and who likes earrings
Like, whatever they say has no bearing
It's so scary in a house that allows no swearing
To see him walking around with his headphones blaring

I must question GLAAD: were the current clothes, mannerisms, words, and beliefs of today's adolescents spawned from Eminem, or where they around before his break into pop culture? Perhaps they go as far back as that hooligan Elvis Presley who shook his hips on national television despite being told not to.

But Eminem is not just shaking his hips on the television, or even influencing adolescents to dress a certain way, act a certain way, say certain words, or even change their belief systems. He's primarily under fire because of the violence that's very apparent in his lyrics. Both "'97 Bonnie and Clyde" and "Kim" caused a wide range of explosive protest because of the amount of violence in their lyrics. Two-thousand's "Kim" begins the story of Eminem murdering his ex-wife Kim and her new husband and step-son, and stuffing their bodies in the trunk of a car, while 1999's "'97 Bonnie and Clyde" ends the story with Eminem and his daughter, Haley, going to the ocean shore to dump their bodies into the water:

[Kim runs away]
You can't run from me Kim, it's just us, nobody else
You're only making this harder on yourself
Ha-ha! Got'cha!
[Kim screams]
Go ahead, yell, here, I'll scream with you
AGH! SOMEBODY HELP!
Don't you get it bitch, no one can hear you
Now shut the fuck up and get what's comin' to you
You were supposed to love me!
[Eminem slits Kim's throat]
[Kim chokes on blood]
Now bleed, bitch, bleed!
Bleed, bitch, bleed, bleed!
Bleed!
("Kim")

And don't worry about that little boo-boo on her throat
It's just a little scratch, it don't hurt
Her was eating dinner while you were shweepin'
And spilled ketchup on her shirt
Mama's messy isn't she? We'll let her wash off in the water
("'97 Bonnie and Clyde")

While neither song is based on actual events, activists still find the songs to be violent and inappropriate. Eminem's defense is that he's only getting his feelings and emotions out. "[T]hat was the way I felt at the time" he declares ("Exposes"). Phillip Parr comments, "It's a fantasy; if it was real, he'd be in jail right now" (Derogatis).

Eminem makes fun of the controversy and candidly states his feelings in the song "White America":

So, to the parents of America,
I am the damager aimed at little Erica, to attack her character
The ringleader of the circus of worthless pawns
Sent to lead the march right up to the steps of Congress
And piss on the laws of the White House
To burn the casket and replace it with a parental advisory sticker
To spit liquor in the faces of the democracy of hypocrisy
Fuck you, Ms. Cheeney
Fuck you, Tipper Gore
Fuck you with the freest of speech
This divided state of embarrassment will allow me to have

Part Three

For the most part, those who say music does influence violence have only examples of adolescents who have killed and the music that they listened to, but there is no psychological, concrete evidence that support that music does cause violence.

Because I did not find concrete proof, I still withhold my opinion that music does not cause violence. Michael Green, president of the Recording Academy, stated that music was a great influence but was never a cause of teen violence ("Exposes"). And even though Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys has stated that their lyrics have had "a lot of really negative effects on people" ("Exposes"), negative effects do not indicate violence.

Bibliography/Works Cited

Ha, ha ... No, no, no ... I don't think so.

� � �

Parental Advisory: Explicit Content
30 November, 2004

Fuck you with the freest of speech this divided state of embarrassment will allow me to have.

-- Eminem, "What America"

The First Amendment to the Bill of Rights affirms that "Congress shall make no law [...] abridging the freedom of speech." In simple terminology that means Congress can not pass a law or regulation that lessens the amount of freedom in speech. Speech encompasses various modes of communication (oral, written, symbolic, video, the Internet), including song lyrics. Bowdlerizing lyrical content is in direct violation to the First Amendment, which gives everyone, lyricists included, the right to speak their mind. However, activists, such as Tipper Gore, are trying to place barriers on what is and is not acceptable in music lyrics.

"Words like 'bitch' and 'nigger' are dangerous," says Gore (Gore 110), but Frank Palumbo, a pediatrician, insisted to the U.S. Senate Subcommittee in 1997 that "no studies have documented a cause-and-effect relationship between explicit or violent lyrics and adverse behavioral effects" (Palumbo 55-4).

Palumbo goes on to say that "we have to acknowledge the responsibility parents, the music industry and others have in helping to foster the nation's children" (Palumbo 58). It must be asked: do music industry executives have the time or resources to be in every home in the nation, monitoring what children listen to? No, they don't; that is why it's the parents' responsibility, and theirs alone, to oversee their children's listening habits.

But as the Federal Trade Commission reported in 2001, "[m]ost teens and pre-teens make music purchase decisions without consulting their parents." The same report, only forty pages after making this statement, shows data that an adult is involved in 77 percent of underage music purchases (Nuzum).

James Fitzpatrick, a public high school teacher and author, states that "[...] parents are seeking some way to minimize [explicit musical] influence on their children [...] There is no place for this 'music' in a [...] home. Do try to keep you kids away from it" (Fitzpatrick 61).

And it's that simple: If a parent does not want their child to listen to a certain genre of music, then it should be kept away and never brought into the home. Of course, kids who are determined enough are going to listen. "There are too many places [...] for them to gain access" (Fitzpatrick 61), but if the child has been raised in a home where morals and ethics have been taught coherently, the child will not be a menace to society, no matter if they listen to Mozart or Marilyn Manson. Fitzpatrick jokingly says that he knows "of some kids who were Billy Joel fans and who ended up with lives in turmoil" (Fitzpatrick 62).

Tipper Gore argues that "children must be taught to hate. They are not born with ideas of bigotry.--They learn from what they see in the world around them" (Gore 113). The world around "them" is congested with hate and violence; it's shown every night on the nightly news. Marilyn Manson elaborates by saying that "the first few people on earth needed no books, movies, games or music to inspire cold-blooded murder. They day that Cain bashed his brother Abel's brains in, the only motivation he needed was his own human disposition to violence" (Manson). And if children are "taught to hate," who's doing the teaching? Children spend, generally, eighteen years with their parents. That gives the parents ample time to insure that good, moral thinking has been sowed into their children. It all traces to self responsibility, not explicit content in music.

Self responsibility can be achieved by monitoring what adolescents listen to. This can be achieved thanks to the persuasion that the Parents Music Resource Center, one of the largest pro-music censorship programs in the country and led by Tipper Gore, had on the music industry. The now infamous "Parental Advisory: Explicit Content" sticker is placed on albums with graphic content. The stickers are placed voluntarily by record companies as they are not required by law (Hull 17), and are seen as a joke to most mainstream music listeners.

And mainstream listeners want albums with the parental advisory sticker. According to Billboard.com, Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP has sold over seven million copies, 1.76 million in its first week, and Marilyn Manson's Antichrist Superstar album sold over five million copies in its first two months after being released following the Columbine shootings. Domestically sold "sticker-ed" albums have become an annual 12 billion dollar industry. In 1998, rap sold more than 81 million albums, outselling America's previously top-selling format: country music. Rap sales increased by 31% from 1997 to 1998.

So what is it about rap that appeals to millions of people? It's an alternative to pop music, and it says something about current culture (Derogatis).

Yvonne Bynoe, author of Stand and Deliver: Political Activism, Leadership and Hip Hop Culture, clearly states that "young people listen to the beats of rap songs but no to the lyrics" (Bynoe). While the rhythm of music plays an important role in why most listen to rap, lyrics are a "political thing. [...] [It's] about the media, the culture, our time, the politics--everything that's going on right now. [...] Beating your girlfriend--that's what's going on in the world right now. Little five-year-olds knowing how sex works--that's what's going on in the world right now. [...] [It's] just reflecting the bad that's going on in our world and putting it into music so that younger people can catch on [...]" (Derogatis).

And a prime example of this is rapper Eminem, who flagrantly expresses world issues and the controversy that circles him. Basically, he's singing, or "rapping," the current history books. His newest hit, "Mosh," is in direct fire against Bush and his warmonger ways:

Let the president answer a higher anarchy
Strap him with an Ak-47, let him go fight his own war
Let him impress daddy that way
No more blood for oil, we got our own battles to fight on our own soil
No more psychological warfare to trick us to thinking that we ain't loyal
If we don't serve our own country; we're patronizing a hero
Look in his eyes, it's all lies
The stars and stripes, they've been swiped, washed out and wiped
And replaced with his own face, mosh now or die
If I get sniped tonight you know why
'Cause I told you to fight

The video to this song expresses even more abhorrence towards the current Iraqi situation and the Bush administration.

As for the controversy that surrounds hip hop and other "explicit" music, Eminem has a statement to make against that via his song "Sing For The Moment":

It's why we sing for these kids who don't have a thing
Except for a dream and a fuckin' rap magazine
Who post pinup pictures on theirs walls all day long
Idolize their favorite rappers and know all their songs
Or for anyone who's ever been through shit in their lives
So they sit and they cry at night, wishing they die
So they throw on a rap record and they sit and they vibe
We're nothing to you, but we're the fuckin' shit in their eye

His other brazen song, "White America," is by far one of the most anti-censorship songs, and is directed specifically towards pro-censorship advocates. Eminem, in his sarcastic and cocky nature, makes fun of the controversy set against, but makes his point very obvious:

So to the parents of America
I am the damager aimed at little Erica
To attack her character
The ring leader of the circus of worthless pawns
Sent to lead the march right up to the steps of Congress
And piss on the lawns of the White House
To burn the casket and replace it with a parental advisory sticker
To spit liquor in the faces of this democracy of hypocrisy
Fuck you Ms. Cheney; fuck you Tipper Gore
Fuck you with the freest of speech
This divided state of embarrassment will allow me to have
Fuck you!

Wendy Blatt states that "it has been suggested that the lyrics of many rap hits, and/or the aggressive behavior of many rap groups [...] encourage violence, drug abuse and sexual promiscuity" (qtd. Gore 112). Organizations, like the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), argue that Eminem's albums and lyrics threaten "[his] fan base of easily influenced adolescents who emulate [his] dress, mannerisms, words and beliefs" (Kim); they have issues with his vulgar language. But if the main concerns for the Federal Trade Commission, the Parents Music Resource Center, Tipper Gore, and the like is the decline of adolescent mannerism, they should know that "[a]fter more than four decades of academic research on the subject, no one has been able to prove that music makes good people do bad things" (Nuzum). Nani Power, a suburban mother of two and avid fan of Marilyn Manson, questions: "But do [the songs] have the power to warp innocent kids into killers? I don't think so. If anything, I would maintain rock 'n' roll had prevented more acts of violence than it's caused" (Power). Eminem has stated that his music is his first means of getting his feeling and emotions out. "[T]hat was the way I felt at the time" he declares ("Exposes"). A student interviewed over Eminem's controversial music comments, "It's a fantasy; if it was real, he'd be in jail right now" (Derogatis). And if Eminem were in jail, yes, the world would be much quieter.

So the FCC won't let me be
Or let me be me, so let me see
They try to shut me down on MTV
But it feels so empty without me
(Eminem, "Without Me")

Imagine a world where people are told what to play, what to sing, and even what to listen to in the privacy of their own home. If censorship continues to grow chaotic, a world like that will exist. Dwight D. Eisenhower explains that "as long as any document does not offend your own ideas of decency[,] that should be your only censorship." Censorship is a personal issue, not a government issue.

Bibliography/Works Cited

Ha, ha ... No, no, no ... I don't think so.