Browsing: Points of View

The Big Apple. The city that never sleeps. Gotham City. The Melting Pot. New York, New York. This legendary city serves as a backdrop for writers, musicians and artists and their works, both recent and classics. They describe its glimmer, its expansiveness, its overcrowding, its remarkable skyscrapers, its diverse population, all of this and more. For many years growing up, these descriptions entranced me. It is the city where dreams come true. I was fixated on this metropolis, and it was my goal to make it there one day.

There are so many different kinds of relationships one has to master. There is the parent-child relationship that seems to take at least 18 years to figure out, and the sibling relationship that changes incredibly rapidly as time passes. There’s the boyfriend-girlfriend dynamic that looks different in every couple, and the boss-employee relationship that can either be dreadful or great, depending on your efforts as a worker and the personality of your superior. For students, there’s the always confusing professor-student relationship that depends entirely on how high on the food chain the particular professor considers undergraduate students to be.

Austin’s 24th annual South by Southwest was nothing short of a roaring success. The atmosphere was complete with excessive foot traffic, eclectic garb and the guarantee that, long after the event is over, your ears will ring for days on end.

When I think of the rights that are unique to American citizens, one of the first things that comes to my mind is the right to free speech. Since the birth of the United States, citizens have been able to share their thoughts without restriction from the government, excepting of course the Sedition Act put into effect in 1918 that was quickly shot down in 1920 after the end of World War I.

It really is the little things in life that make the difference. It’s amazing how just a short chat and a food run with a good friend will brighten a day clouded by disappointing news.

Cultural identity is just one of many issues that have posed challenging for Deaf people in America. The issue does not present itself within the Deaf community; rather, it lies in the interface between the Deaf and Hearing cultures. The ignorance of the American society at large has rejected the idea that the Deaf people have their own culture because their language is simply a manual replication of the English language.

Ever since my first CD and first concert (it was DCTalk, and yeah, I’ll admit it,) I’ve been a self-prescribed music critic. Whether or not my tastes are good at any point in time is completely subjective, but I’ve heard and seen a lot, maybe just enough to at least know what is pleasing to the ears.

I had a column due this week. And when I sat down to write this particular column I could not think of anything. I sat at my desk, head slightly down, starring at the screen and my fingers tapping the keyboard impatiently, waiting for a piece of opinion to miraculously fill my head. Waiting to feel passion for a particular topic so that I could beat out my anger on my computer and shout it, figuratively, for the entire world to see (or at least all those who pick up the Lariat and read the opinion page).

It is no surprise that the American public takes guilty pleasure in celebrity happenings, from their plush lifestyles to their frequent tangles with the law, alcohol, drugs and extramarital affairs. Tabloids and gossip blogs are not bereft of juicy material with big names like Christina Aguilera, Charlie Sheen and the infamous Lindsey Lohan stumbling down the streets of Hollywood this year.

I don’t remember the last time I got a piece of information from AOL. When I think AOL, I think two things: “You’ve got mail!” and screeching beeps coupled with a long waiting period until you can use your dial-up Internet. I don’t think of AOL as a major news provider — and recent events tell me that I never will.