And All I Ever Wanted Was to Come in From the Cold...
Well, Lit theory essay written, blogs implicated as an arm of neo-imperialism and agent of Orientalism (How do I get away with making arguments like that?)
My horrid 5 page monstrosity of an essay for Language, Culture, and Education I'll do a little later.
Except for my 2-3 page statement of purpose my Detective Fiction story is done. I'm actually gonna share it with you all because I'm kind of proud of it.
But before that be advised this contains profanity, tragic episodes in American history, and general liberal tendencies.
I'm always up for discussion, however, provided you are civil and you know your stuff. :) I'm a fan of divergent points of view.
American Testimonials, Inc.
Okay, now that you’re here, I’m gonna get one thing straight before we start: This isn’t one of those goddamn CSI-ified murder mysteries.
There aren’t any vases (you know you should say it Vah-ses in order to have your head properly stuck up your ass), the butler didn’t do it, and your damn DNA samples aren’t going to be processed in the forty three minutes of your show and some odd pages of this here story.
And the corpses - when we can find the corpses, of course - ain’t at all pretty.
No.
They aren’t skinny white girls pulling double shifts as waitresses and aspiring snuff film stars…tragedy that anyone has to pull a double shift like that, though it is. But really, we don’t go for the glamour bit.
Moreover, this isn’t Marlowe’s or any of those other louses games. Those types go for real small potatoes. Got it? Here, we don’t put blondes into consumable categories and victims don’t belong to families so rich that they can pay to slough off their sorrows in a medicated slumber in order to shrug off their pain of existence…which always seems a little like excessive boredom to me.
One more thing…if you’re looking for Humphrey Bogart and people being chased by crop dusters in brilliant Technicolor, I’ll be blunt: Leave.
Our organization has no need of you.
We’re looking at real crime.
Okay, okay. You’re still here. Guess my little harangue didn’t scare you too much…hah. Don’t worry I do that to everyone - just wanna make sure no one has the wrong idea about this gig. Apologies, apologies.
So, you’re our newest detective here….sorry, can’t pay you all that much when no one really pays us to find out anything…really, most people want to make the cases we take disappear. Ignorance is bliss, you know?
Okay, Big Shot Detective, now let’s try a case so you understand what it is we do here and who exactly we’re looking to bring to justice…if you can.
…here’s a good one - rather recent, too. Alright, alright, I get it…just the facts…
Ah.
You’re that kind of person.
Okay, here’s the facts, Big Shot: April 16th, 2007. Blacksburg, Virginia. 32 people killed at Virginia Polytechnic Institute….You probably have heard it called Virginia Tech. Maybe just VT.
Oh, okay, you remember it. Good.
Why is it an open case, you ask? Well, that’s a silly question…we haven’t caught all the perpetrators yet.
…Maybe I misunderstand you, but you are saying that this guy, Seung-Hui Cho did it and we’re done? You sure you wanna work here, buddy? Yeah, Cho did it…but he didn’t do it…if you know what I mean. I mean he pulled the trigger and all…you’re right, but well -
What do you mean “that’s the facts” - Calm down…don’t go spouting off about mental illness and all of that stuff. You’re unmuddying the issue.
…No! Of course you don’t want to unmuddy the issue, pal. You put a term on it and bam! everyone can go off and pretend case closed! Solution! Got the bad guy! You know that guy Hegel? Here we think he got it right with history and all…if you don’t ask why and you give me some bullshit mental illness theory…your case isn’t ever going to be solved. Moreover, you’re just gonna keep on synthesizing history together in your own nice dialectical process.
“Do you really think it’s worth it to delve into the minds of criminals like Cho?” What the hell kind of question is that? Aren’t you listening? These cases never get solved because no one asks why the hell are kids these days turning out like this and why the hell do we not ask questions like that? What are we doing to them? That’s how you solve something…you answer those questions and -
Really, pal, you’ve got to know that kids like Mitchell Johnson turn into Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris and they turn into Seung-Hui Cho. Dialecticals. Circles. Spirals. These things keep happening because we like closure and the feeling of security and we like to leave our stories incomplete and pretend that once you stick a “The End” on them they’re Disney gold…
…Okay, okay. Maybe cases like this aren’t your cup of tea, if you know what I mean. Let’s try something else…more intellectual perhaps?
Okay, I know, you’re a straight to the facts kind of operator.
Alright, facts. Something not too recent, then…how about 1942. Good year?
…eh, you may not care about the history, you’re just wanting to go out and bust some evil.
So, 1942, result of Executive Order 9066 by dear old Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
…You’re giving me a blank stare. I suppose that means you don’t have much familiarity with this one. Yeah, that’s right, World War II…Pearl Harbor…the Holocaust…and internment camps.
Good, so you’ve heard about the internment camps right here in the good ol’ U.S. of A.
You’re still giving me a blank. “Japanese Relocation Act” ring any bells? “Manzanar” at all a familiar name?
No, no…calm down there. We are aware that it’s perfectly impossible to hunt down and bring to justice all of the people responsible for the imprisonment of over 120,000 U.S. citizens of Japanese descent and all. Absolutely impossible! Herculean task!
And anyways, we know who the bad guys are and they’ve escaped…mostly because they’re dead or the founder of the New Deal and the only president in history to run for four consecutive terms…a bit hard to try to defame that reputation even a little, if you ask me.
Oh! You’re asking what the case is. Gotcha…sorry, sorry, apologies.
Here… - here it is. Well, perhaps that is to say, “Here it’s not.”
…Why of course they’re high school history books! What did you think we were going to have you do, go dig up FDR and all the interns and citizens that turned a blind eye to this, and all of the people who took those that were imprisoned’s land without giving them due compensation? Preposterous! Absolutely silly. That history is thorny enough that it will keep coming back without our help.
…I am coming to the point, thank you very much. It’s in these history books. Find where it is mentioned that the United States followed the same patterns during World War II as Hitler did. You’re educated…and you may not have known.
See. Missing person’s case, this one is. Over 120,000 people have gone missing somewhere between history and these books…
Hold yer horses, I’m getting to the case!
The case is to find them. Detectives find missing people, right? This is just a grander scale. Go to middle America and ask Joe Schmoe where the Manzanar detainees went…when Joe Schmoe can tell you, well then, follow the clues. This case has been open for years, though.
Okay, so maybe the prolonged disappearance of 120,000 people or more didn’t catch your interests so much. A pity.
Alright, alright…I hear ya. No missing person’s cases. Murder makes you a little queasy…okay.
What?!?
You want theft?!? Are you out of your goddamn mind?
Okay, so be it…I’m going to get those cases….they get convoluted fast, though, just warning you.
Property theft, then? You think you can handle that, Big Shot? Okay. “Just the facts” this time, here we go, so listen up:
December 29th, 1890. Armed confrontation between the U.S. Military’s 7th Calvary and the Lakota Sioux Indians.
31 members of the Army killed. Mostly due to friendly fire…most of the Indians were unarmed women and children.
An estimated 300 Lakota Sioux were killed. Some estimate it was actually double that many.
Eighteen Congressional Medals of Honor awarded to the troops.
…Why that face? It’s the facts.
Yeah! You wanted property theft, I told you it was complicated. Let me finish telling you about Wounded Knee, than I’ll get right to the property theft. They’re all related, I promise.
What do you mean it sounds like a war battle?
Oh. Oh, I see…well, around here, pal, we’re pretty particular about language. Personally, I don’t know how anything with only fourteen armed combatants on one side can be called “battle”… “Blood bath,” maybe…“Mass murder”…also a good term. Most of us just stick to “massacre” because -
Of course this has to do with property theft, I already told you that.
Hold on, hold on….see, this one is complicated, pal. We got not just a few missing persons, but a whole sovereign nation that got lost somewhere between life and that tripe crap they try to sell you as history in school…then we got more than a couple of murders, more than a of couple kidnappings, germ warfare…oh, and mass genocide - although someone should pin that rap on Columbus too…
Yeah, yeah, hold it. Do you know anything about this case? Maybe you’re thinking property theft couldn’t be all that hard…come on pal, the government sold out on a treaty - and not for the first time by any means - and then stole the Black Hills from them and set them on reservations. Heh, I’d like to see Congress ask a Native American what they think about this Immigration debate…I mean, hey, what other than property theft could be the motive for all that other crap?
Yeah, buddy, I hear you and here are more facts: The government struck the word “apology” from their statement regarding Wounded Knee, haven’t built any monument that wasn’t to the Army, and haven’t given monetary compensation for their property damages….not that any dollar amount could actually be put on everything that they got taken from ‘em. And what we can put a dollar amount on - a steep, cool $712,404,323 ones owed by the Feds - hasn’t been paid because they just want the return of their property.
Oh, and there’s bodies, too. We know where they are - the Smithsonian and museums across the country - we just can’t get them back. That’s another theft division of ours entirely, though.
Woah, buddy, I told you property theft was a complicated affair. Don’t blow a gasket, they just want their homes back, their sacred places. That’s it.
Of course we have other cases…don’t you see all of these files here? You want more property theft we have the Cherokee Nation, the Mexican land claims in the whole west coast, the Powhatan tribes…really, the entire frickin’ country is a case of property theft.
Yeah, we got conflicting claims, too…Spain wants Florida back, France says Napoleon had it all wrong and defrauded them out of everything, Britain crying foul, Mexico wanting the West Coast back, while the whole while we have a whole slew of counter claims saying that the Native Americans discovered the Europeans.
We got more missing person’s cases throughout the entire goddamn country, too. Homosexuals kidnapped, hate crimes perpetrated, don’t forget the women, either…or the years of slavery…all the things that make the evening news for one night if they make them at all…and the textbooks…let’s not speak of the textbooks. Let’s not speak of education (although, between you and me we are speaking about it by not speaking about it, if you know what I mean)…there are missing persons and disappeareds and outright conspiracies that represent thousands and thousands of unsolved cases, my dear Detective.
You’ll learn though.
Yeah, don’t worry, we got more, too…we even got the ones we can do nothing about. Nothing but give testimonials, anyways. Take this Iraq thing. We can point to the bad guys - boy, even God looks like a criminal due to constant invocation in this American jihad…and here Hegel comes again…here our great country is acting out the Crusades with smart bombs.
But there are the bad guys…well, the one’s we know of. Really, that’s a crime we can implicate a lot of others in shit we don’t know about. I mean, how about all the ambivalent citizens? How about everyone that voted for this guy? …It’s not like they didn’t know what was on his agenda. How do I say…well, subtlety and a whole lot of other words ain’t in his vocabulary. How ‘bout the election in 2000 where the people voted in the other guy and some electoral college nonsense Bush-whacked us….just think, the tree hugger Gore woulda made a lot less gore for us. Pardon the puns, I was getting worked up there, a bit.
And that’s just now, you know? None of the other crimes are going away, mind you.
See? We got all sorts of cases, pal. Dialecticals…we think we don’t have to pay the interest on all our free land and missing people and manufacturing of murderers…it just isn’t American…so we’ll always have cases.
We’ve probably gotten several thousand new ones within the span of the pages I’ve been talking to you for….and you already know about the old ones…just to let you know, they never do get “cold.” That’s a Hollywood sort of thing. They’re all here, now - the cases, I mean - as you can see with your own two eyes.
They’ve been through several hands without resolution. But resolution is inherently problematic in and of itself, ya know? Well, you’ll find that out. They all do.
These are cases of a lifetime, pal.
…Literally, pal, a lifetime.
I wish you good luck, Detective.
:0 Finals! >.
My horrid 5 page monstrosity of an essay for Language, Culture, and Education I'll do a little later.
Except for my 2-3 page statement of purpose my Detective Fiction story is done. I'm actually gonna share it with you all because I'm kind of proud of it.
But before that be advised this contains profanity, tragic episodes in American history, and general liberal tendencies.
I'm always up for discussion, however, provided you are civil and you know your stuff. :) I'm a fan of divergent points of view.
American Testimonials, Inc.
Okay, now that you’re here, I’m gonna get one thing straight before we start: This isn’t one of those goddamn CSI-ified murder mysteries.
There aren’t any vases (you know you should say it Vah-ses in order to have your head properly stuck up your ass), the butler didn’t do it, and your damn DNA samples aren’t going to be processed in the forty three minutes of your show and some odd pages of this here story.
And the corpses - when we can find the corpses, of course - ain’t at all pretty.
No.
They aren’t skinny white girls pulling double shifts as waitresses and aspiring snuff film stars…tragedy that anyone has to pull a double shift like that, though it is. But really, we don’t go for the glamour bit.
Moreover, this isn’t Marlowe’s or any of those other louses games. Those types go for real small potatoes. Got it? Here, we don’t put blondes into consumable categories and victims don’t belong to families so rich that they can pay to slough off their sorrows in a medicated slumber in order to shrug off their pain of existence…which always seems a little like excessive boredom to me.
One more thing…if you’re looking for Humphrey Bogart and people being chased by crop dusters in brilliant Technicolor, I’ll be blunt: Leave.
Our organization has no need of you.
We’re looking at real crime.
Okay, okay. You’re still here. Guess my little harangue didn’t scare you too much…hah. Don’t worry I do that to everyone - just wanna make sure no one has the wrong idea about this gig. Apologies, apologies.
So, you’re our newest detective here….sorry, can’t pay you all that much when no one really pays us to find out anything…really, most people want to make the cases we take disappear. Ignorance is bliss, you know?
Okay, Big Shot Detective, now let’s try a case so you understand what it is we do here and who exactly we’re looking to bring to justice…if you can.
…here’s a good one - rather recent, too. Alright, alright, I get it…just the facts…
Ah.
You’re that kind of person.
Okay, here’s the facts, Big Shot: April 16th, 2007. Blacksburg, Virginia. 32 people killed at Virginia Polytechnic Institute….You probably have heard it called Virginia Tech. Maybe just VT.
Oh, okay, you remember it. Good.
Why is it an open case, you ask? Well, that’s a silly question…we haven’t caught all the perpetrators yet.
…Maybe I misunderstand you, but you are saying that this guy, Seung-Hui Cho did it and we’re done? You sure you wanna work here, buddy? Yeah, Cho did it…but he didn’t do it…if you know what I mean. I mean he pulled the trigger and all…you’re right, but well -
What do you mean “that’s the facts” - Calm down…don’t go spouting off about mental illness and all of that stuff. You’re unmuddying the issue.
…No! Of course you don’t want to unmuddy the issue, pal. You put a term on it and bam! everyone can go off and pretend case closed! Solution! Got the bad guy! You know that guy Hegel? Here we think he got it right with history and all…if you don’t ask why and you give me some bullshit mental illness theory…your case isn’t ever going to be solved. Moreover, you’re just gonna keep on synthesizing history together in your own nice dialectical process.
“Do you really think it’s worth it to delve into the minds of criminals like Cho?” What the hell kind of question is that? Aren’t you listening? These cases never get solved because no one asks why the hell are kids these days turning out like this and why the hell do we not ask questions like that? What are we doing to them? That’s how you solve something…you answer those questions and -
Really, pal, you’ve got to know that kids like Mitchell Johnson turn into Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris and they turn into Seung-Hui Cho. Dialecticals. Circles. Spirals. These things keep happening because we like closure and the feeling of security and we like to leave our stories incomplete and pretend that once you stick a “The End” on them they’re Disney gold…
…Okay, okay. Maybe cases like this aren’t your cup of tea, if you know what I mean. Let’s try something else…more intellectual perhaps?
Okay, I know, you’re a straight to the facts kind of operator.
Alright, facts. Something not too recent, then…how about 1942. Good year?
…eh, you may not care about the history, you’re just wanting to go out and bust some evil.
So, 1942, result of Executive Order 9066 by dear old Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
…You’re giving me a blank stare. I suppose that means you don’t have much familiarity with this one. Yeah, that’s right, World War II…Pearl Harbor…the Holocaust…and internment camps.
Good, so you’ve heard about the internment camps right here in the good ol’ U.S. of A.
You’re still giving me a blank. “Japanese Relocation Act” ring any bells? “Manzanar” at all a familiar name?
No, no…calm down there. We are aware that it’s perfectly impossible to hunt down and bring to justice all of the people responsible for the imprisonment of over 120,000 U.S. citizens of Japanese descent and all. Absolutely impossible! Herculean task!
And anyways, we know who the bad guys are and they’ve escaped…mostly because they’re dead or the founder of the New Deal and the only president in history to run for four consecutive terms…a bit hard to try to defame that reputation even a little, if you ask me.
Oh! You’re asking what the case is. Gotcha…sorry, sorry, apologies.
Here… - here it is. Well, perhaps that is to say, “Here it’s not.”
…Why of course they’re high school history books! What did you think we were going to have you do, go dig up FDR and all the interns and citizens that turned a blind eye to this, and all of the people who took those that were imprisoned’s land without giving them due compensation? Preposterous! Absolutely silly. That history is thorny enough that it will keep coming back without our help.
…I am coming to the point, thank you very much. It’s in these history books. Find where it is mentioned that the United States followed the same patterns during World War II as Hitler did. You’re educated…and you may not have known.
See. Missing person’s case, this one is. Over 120,000 people have gone missing somewhere between history and these books…
Hold yer horses, I’m getting to the case!
The case is to find them. Detectives find missing people, right? This is just a grander scale. Go to middle America and ask Joe Schmoe where the Manzanar detainees went…when Joe Schmoe can tell you, well then, follow the clues. This case has been open for years, though.
Okay, so maybe the prolonged disappearance of 120,000 people or more didn’t catch your interests so much. A pity.
Alright, alright…I hear ya. No missing person’s cases. Murder makes you a little queasy…okay.
What?!?
You want theft?!? Are you out of your goddamn mind?
Okay, so be it…I’m going to get those cases….they get convoluted fast, though, just warning you.
Property theft, then? You think you can handle that, Big Shot? Okay. “Just the facts” this time, here we go, so listen up:
December 29th, 1890. Armed confrontation between the U.S. Military’s 7th Calvary and the Lakota Sioux Indians.
31 members of the Army killed. Mostly due to friendly fire…most of the Indians were unarmed women and children.
An estimated 300 Lakota Sioux were killed. Some estimate it was actually double that many.
Eighteen Congressional Medals of Honor awarded to the troops.
…Why that face? It’s the facts.
Yeah! You wanted property theft, I told you it was complicated. Let me finish telling you about Wounded Knee, than I’ll get right to the property theft. They’re all related, I promise.
What do you mean it sounds like a war battle?
Oh. Oh, I see…well, around here, pal, we’re pretty particular about language. Personally, I don’t know how anything with only fourteen armed combatants on one side can be called “battle”… “Blood bath,” maybe…“Mass murder”…also a good term. Most of us just stick to “massacre” because -
Of course this has to do with property theft, I already told you that.
Hold on, hold on….see, this one is complicated, pal. We got not just a few missing persons, but a whole sovereign nation that got lost somewhere between life and that tripe crap they try to sell you as history in school…then we got more than a couple of murders, more than a of couple kidnappings, germ warfare…oh, and mass genocide - although someone should pin that rap on Columbus too…
Yeah, yeah, hold it. Do you know anything about this case? Maybe you’re thinking property theft couldn’t be all that hard…come on pal, the government sold out on a treaty - and not for the first time by any means - and then stole the Black Hills from them and set them on reservations. Heh, I’d like to see Congress ask a Native American what they think about this Immigration debate…I mean, hey, what other than property theft could be the motive for all that other crap?
Yeah, buddy, I hear you and here are more facts: The government struck the word “apology” from their statement regarding Wounded Knee, haven’t built any monument that wasn’t to the Army, and haven’t given monetary compensation for their property damages….not that any dollar amount could actually be put on everything that they got taken from ‘em. And what we can put a dollar amount on - a steep, cool $712,404,323 ones owed by the Feds - hasn’t been paid because they just want the return of their property.
Oh, and there’s bodies, too. We know where they are - the Smithsonian and museums across the country - we just can’t get them back. That’s another theft division of ours entirely, though.
Woah, buddy, I told you property theft was a complicated affair. Don’t blow a gasket, they just want their homes back, their sacred places. That’s it.
Of course we have other cases…don’t you see all of these files here? You want more property theft we have the Cherokee Nation, the Mexican land claims in the whole west coast, the Powhatan tribes…really, the entire frickin’ country is a case of property theft.
Yeah, we got conflicting claims, too…Spain wants Florida back, France says Napoleon had it all wrong and defrauded them out of everything, Britain crying foul, Mexico wanting the West Coast back, while the whole while we have a whole slew of counter claims saying that the Native Americans discovered the Europeans.
We got more missing person’s cases throughout the entire goddamn country, too. Homosexuals kidnapped, hate crimes perpetrated, don’t forget the women, either…or the years of slavery…all the things that make the evening news for one night if they make them at all…and the textbooks…let’s not speak of the textbooks. Let’s not speak of education (although, between you and me we are speaking about it by not speaking about it, if you know what I mean)…there are missing persons and disappeareds and outright conspiracies that represent thousands and thousands of unsolved cases, my dear Detective.
You’ll learn though.
Yeah, don’t worry, we got more, too…we even got the ones we can do nothing about. Nothing but give testimonials, anyways. Take this Iraq thing. We can point to the bad guys - boy, even God looks like a criminal due to constant invocation in this American jihad…and here Hegel comes again…here our great country is acting out the Crusades with smart bombs.
But there are the bad guys…well, the one’s we know of. Really, that’s a crime we can implicate a lot of others in shit we don’t know about. I mean, how about all the ambivalent citizens? How about everyone that voted for this guy? …It’s not like they didn’t know what was on his agenda. How do I say…well, subtlety and a whole lot of other words ain’t in his vocabulary. How ‘bout the election in 2000 where the people voted in the other guy and some electoral college nonsense Bush-whacked us….just think, the tree hugger Gore woulda made a lot less gore for us. Pardon the puns, I was getting worked up there, a bit.
And that’s just now, you know? None of the other crimes are going away, mind you.
See? We got all sorts of cases, pal. Dialecticals…we think we don’t have to pay the interest on all our free land and missing people and manufacturing of murderers…it just isn’t American…so we’ll always have cases.
We’ve probably gotten several thousand new ones within the span of the pages I’ve been talking to you for….and you already know about the old ones…just to let you know, they never do get “cold.” That’s a Hollywood sort of thing. They’re all here, now - the cases, I mean - as you can see with your own two eyes.
They’ve been through several hands without resolution. But resolution is inherently problematic in and of itself, ya know? Well, you’ll find that out. They all do.
These are cases of a lifetime, pal.
…Literally, pal, a lifetime.
I wish you good luck, Detective.
:0 Finals! >.