The Trask Sisters

[alohabear]

Re: The Trask Sisters

Today I happened by the festival craft fair. Many people were there embracing the Hawaiian culture, racially the besides the Kanaka Maoli and Japanese nationals, the caucasians(local and tourists)were embracing the culture the most. No fighting, no bad mouthing just happy smiling faces.

Maybe the Kingdom was stolen, but that was over 100 years ago. If the Kanaka Maoli want rights owed to them because of the overthrow they should go for it, but(IMO) they should do it as a PEOPLE. Leaders like Trask should get together with the other Hawaiian leaders in a Ho'oponopono and iron out the differences among their OWN people before going for what is owed to them, then maybe someone will listen.


Aloha

[craigwatanabe]

Re: The Trask Sisters

So what makes one of the Trask sisters more noble than that Waianae Family in which both uttered that now infamous Non Hate Crime words: F*ck and Haole in the same breath?

When you take the battle that far below the belt, I'm sorry my respect for either went out the door and I gladly put the label of ignorant on their foreheads.

As one good Kanaka Maoli friend of mine said after she said that, "No mo head dat wahine".

Poetry or not Scriv, das some really hateful words that makes Imus' Ho statement look like reciting the A-B-C's in 1st grade.

There is no place for crap literature for that. Her other stuff...okay but keep it outta da public eyes and ears. Our keiki don't need to hear or read horrific stuff like that. She should have known better as a scholar

[scrivener]

Re: The Trask Sisters

Poetry or not Scriv, das some really hateful words that makes Imus' Ho statement look like reciting the A-B-C's in 1st grade.

There is no place for crap literature for that. Her other stuff...okay but keep it outta da public eyes and ears. Our keiki don't need to hear or read horrific stuff like that. She should have known better as a scholar.

Craig, when Michael Madsen cut the ear off a police officer in Reservoir Dogs, did you take that to mean Michael Madsen hates cops? And when Christopher Penn later shot that same cop dead, did you think Penn was a cop-killer? Or did you perhaps think Quentin Tarantino, who wrote the script and directed the film, was the real cop-hater?

No, you thought none of those things because you understood that film is not life. You get that there's a separation between the creator of a work and the narrator/actor/persona in that work.

Haunani-Kay, by putting these feelings onto paper, is not guilty of hate-speech. I agree that it's not a very good poem; however, whatever it is, it is not necessarily meant to be taken as the exact, literal feeling of the person who wrote those words.

As for "no place for crap literature like that," I can't disagree more. America is the best place in the world for crap literature like that and great literature like John Steinbeck's, and every sort of literature in between, because when artists create art, while the overwhelming majority of it is going to suck, the good stuff, the stuff that captures perfectly a moment, a feeling, a thought, or a personality is the stuff that keeps us the people we are.

What kids are going to even see that poem? It was published in an anthology by a mainland house and almost nobody bought the thing. I bought it, and I've got it signed by the writer. It is a reminder to me of the day I learned to connect with a writer and not with an image given me by writers or broadcasters.

Besides, if kids are reading thoughtful literature, even of this sort, wow! What a wonderful springboard for turning the kids on to other great poetry, or to open dialogue about what causes someone to feel feelings like this. If more kids read poems like this, I guarantee the crime rate would go down.

[LikaNui]

Re: The Trask Sisters

I agree that it's not a very good poem; however, whatever it is, it is not necessarily meant to be taken as the exact, literal feeling of the person who wrote those words.

I find it hard to believe that what Trask really meant was that she wanted to be friends with that woman.
Correction: I find that impossible to believe.
Her level of anger, hatred and violence cannot be construed in any other way than anger, hatred, and violence.

If more kids read poems like this, I guarantee the crime rate would go down.

Surely you jest? There have been dozens of murders and mass-murders and other sick and violent crimes that have been committed by kids who claim they got the idea from a movie or a TV show or from some other "art form".
There's no doubt that Trask is intelligent, there's simply well-founded doubt about her sanity.

[scrivener]

Re: The Trask Sisters

Surely you jest? There have been dozens of murders and mass-murders and other sick and violent crimes that have been committed by kids who claim they got the idea from a movie or a TV show or from some other "art form".

I jest not. Lika, if kids started reading literate poetry, they'd be smart. Reading makes you smart. Reading helps you succeed in school. People who succeed in school are far, far, far, far less likely to commit property crime. You think this poem is hateful? It isn't nearly has hateful as portions of Macbeth, the Canterbury Tales, Les Miserables, and just about every opera I can think of (which I grant you is not very many). Kids who read Slaughterhouse 5 or Catch 22 in elementary school do not, I'd wager, end up commiting "mass-murders and other sick and violent crimes." In fact, who are the kids who say they read violent poetry and that's what led them to committing the crimes you name?

[timkona]

Re: The Trask Sisters

Pzarquon wrote - They're intensely provocative, frequently wrong, but articulate and decisive and brilliant.

Frequently wrong AND brilliant ...... at the same time.

Perhaps that is an oxymoron.

[LikaNui]

Re: The Trask Sisters

Well, you got me there, Scriv. The kids crimes were blamed on movies and TV and music, and perhaps comic books and paperbacks and for sure there have been copycat crimes of things kids saw in the news.
However, I cannot, in good conscience, cite a crime committed because of poetry, as you noted.


But there's always a first time.
Like you, I'm a strong advocate of reading, for kids and adults. Clearly, Trask's "poem" is not on my 'recommended reading' list.
And I have to say that upon reading her "poem" my first thought about Trask was in the words of the great and wise philospher Don Henley: "I'd like to find your inner child and kick its little ass."

[scrivener]

Re: The Trask Sisters

Like you, I'm a strong advocate of reading, for kids and adults. Clearly, Trask's "poem" is not on my 'recommended reading' list.
And I have to say that upon reading her "poem" my first thought about Trask was in the words of the great and wise philospher Don Henley: "I'd like to find your inner child and kick its little ass."

I'm glad we can agree on the reading.

Now, really. Look at the poem. Do you not feel the same way toward racists? I am not a hateful person, but when I have heard of some of the things people have done to other human beings because of some idea of superiority, it has filled me with the kinds of feelings (the KINDS of feelings) expressed here. This is not a poem about Auntie Myrna drinking coffee at the McD's. It's about some hateful, scornful, racist woman. Seems to me that if this kind of violence were called for maybe it'd be toward people like that. In any case, worth discussing.

[PoiBoy]

Re: The Trask Sisters

I jest not. Lika, if kids started reading literate poetry, they'd be smart. Reading makes you smart.

Eh I guess my folks were stupid according to you. Thats why their accomplishments baffle scientist today.
Not a very well thought out statement.

Good thing haole came to Hawai'i too.....to teach the natives how to read. Make them civilized and smart.

[MonkeyMan]

Re: The Trask Sisters

Anybody got any other ideas that might help me learn to be a better racist??

Start a KKK chapter?

[scrivener]

Re: The Trask Sisters

Eh I guess my folks were stupid according to you. Thats why their accomplishments baffle scientist today.
Not a very well thought out statement.

Please. Where did I ever say that not reading makes you stupid?

[MonkeyMan]

Re: The Trask Sisters

Eh I guess my folks were stupid according to you. Thats why their accomplishments baffle scientist today.
Not a very well thought out statement.

Good thing haole came to Hawai'i too.....to teach the natives how to read. Make them civilized and smart.

Ohhh, ooh!! I heard dat guy TimKona starting one club! You should go join!

Eh, where you wen' learn for talk Engrish so good?! I like go dakine school!

[PoiBoy]

Re: The Trask Sisters

Please. Where did I ever say that not reading makes you stupid?

Didn't need to. It certainly implys that.

quote you " Lika, if kids started reading literate poetry, they'd be smart. Reading makes you smart."

#1 reading poetry does not make someone smart.(you are wrong)
#2 by saying "If kids started reading literate poetry, the'd be smart" then backing that statement up with "reading makes you smart." You imply that people that don't read would not be smart. You also imply that kids that don't read literate poetry are not smart.
not smart=stupid

It can easily be interpreted as such.

Please work on your statements.

[scrivener]

Re: The Trask Sisters

#1 reading poetry does not make someone smart.(you are wrong)
#2 by saying "If kids started reading literate poetry, the'd be smart" then backing that statement up with "reading makes you smart." You imply that people that don't read would not be smart. You also imply that kids that don't read literate poetry are not smart.
not smart=stupid

It can easily be interpreted as such.

Please work on your statements.

If you insist. Let us take the first part of your post. "Reading poetry does not make someone smart." This is incorrect. There are a great many ways to be smart, as Howard Gardner puts forth. I'm an ardent fan of Gardner, but even without theories of multiple intelligences, I would think that my posting record on HT is pretty clear: I hold valuable all kinds of intelligences. Reading poetry certainly DOES make you smart, as does playing sports, performing in plays, participating in church activities, and fixing cars. Anything (well, just about) done thoughtfully and with passion makes you smart. You can disagree if you want, but I'll come back at you with documented research that supports literacy as a critical key to staying out of trouble.

As for your second statement:

If Jane Fonda is a woman, but you are not Jane Fonda, does that mean you are not a woman? No. A statement such as "if A then B" is not logically equivalent to "if not A then not B." Take a look at this truth table and you will see:



If it's been a while since you've looked at symbolic logic, the table basically breaks down like this. Columns 1 and 2 show all the combinations of two statements being either true or false. Column 3 is a conditional statement: If A then B. In our case, if you read, then you become smart. When A is true and B is true, A --> B is true. When A is true and B is false, A --> B is false, and so on.

Columns 4 and 5 show the different combinations for the inverses of the two statements A and B. In our case, ~A means "You didn't read" and ~B means "You didn't become smart." Column 6 is the conditional statement "If you didn't read, then you didn't become smart." As you can see, columns 6 and 3 are not identical, meaning they are not logically equivalent.

One way to look at it is this: Your mom says that if you clean your room, your uncle will give you ten dollars. You get distracted and you DON'T clean your room, but when your uncle comes over, he gives you ten dollars anyway because you're his favorite nephew. Not cleaning your room did not result in your not getting ten dollars, right? Because unless you put an "IF AND ONLY IF" statement in there (symbolically, A <--> B), "If not A then not B" is not logically sound.

As a bonus, I put column 7 in to show you what a logicaly equivalent statement looks like. Column 7 is the conditional statement "if not B, then not A." As you can see, it is identical to column 3, and therefore logically equivalent.

Here's a pretty good article on truth tables, and here is a VERY good article explaining Modus tollens, the logical reasoning behind column 7. Oh, and here's an article explaining the fallacy of "if not A, then not B." Sorry, I wrote all that above but couldn't remember the name of the fallacy, which is "denying the antecedent." It's been a few years.

I hope this helps.

[Miulang]

Re: The Trask Sisters

Ahhh, logic. Too bad homo sapiens has this very inconvenient habit of defying logic at the most illogical times (except maybe for Spock, but he was only half-human). I bet there are people in this world who are still trying to prove that 1+1 does not equal two (yes, I was a victim of "modern math").

Miulang