Shaun Hoggan

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Archive for July, 2007

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Cultural Norms Skit, Second Draft

July 12, 2007 By: Shaun Category: Humanities 115 No Comments →

  • Skit practice on the 16th of July
  •  Acting it out for class on the 23rd of July!!!

Scene 1, covers values VIII

Charlie Telling Madeline how to prep for meeting the family.  She should wear a black shirt. 

Charlie is nervous; Madeline seems fine and feels confident that all will go well.  How strange can the family be anyway?

Charlie and Madeline exit on one side of stage

Scene 2, covers values I, II, III, IV

            The rest of the team enter on the other side of the stage as Charlie and Madeline exit. 

Team starts chanting 3.14 equals PI….

Charlie and Madeline enter scene

Introductions are made and eye contact is avoided at all costs with Madeline.  Madeline attempts to make eye contact….

Audible background conversations compare and contrast how different Charlie is and strange abnormalities with Madeline. 

Scene 2.1 covers values II

In preparation for eating dinner group with sanitize their hands with hand sanitizer. 

Scene 3 covers values I, II, IV, VI, VIII

Every one gathers around in circle or ground and start eating with dinner conversations regarding current news events.  Belinda who is the one with the longest hair is considered the most wise.  Comments are made by short haired people and group consensus is not achieved.  Belinda says the same things and automatically everyone agrees with applause. 

Scene 4 covers values V

Night hike with natural torches Madeline pulls out flash light which sends entire group into frenzy because of the artificial light

Scene 5 covers values III, IV, VII

 Evening hike.  Round sphere is encountered and entire groups starts to worship the sphere while Madeline discovers it is an ordinary ball and begins to play with it. 

Entire group in disgust throws Melinda down a cliff to the dismay of Charlie who recalls the last time he brought a girl to meet his family that something similar happened. 

Team member character development:

Kristtina

Cheryl is married to Shaun

  Charlie son of Cheryl and Shaun is dating Madeline

  Denise is sister to Charlie 

Balinda possesses great wisdom

Joanne

Allie

Margaret

Sherrie

Azeeta

 

Winter of the Holy Iron, Cultures in Conflict

July 10, 2007 By: Shaun Category: Books, Humanities 115 No Comments →

Winter of the Holy Iron by Joseph Marshall III is about two cultures identifying themselves within the new western world who find unresolved conflict when looking into the telescope of the future.  Marshall, a Lakota descendent, authors a fictional novel where he paints a vision of his ancestry through strong character development and relationship building with the books characters and the reader.  Despite Marshall’s well written story surrounding the injection of the “Holy Iron,” otherwise known as a modern day flintlock rifle, the common thread and conflict is not found within

Marshall’s written words, but rather the message he sends through the words he does not write.  The message of conflict between two cultures and their differing belief systems is where in lies the true conflict and message of the book.  This conflict of cultures which the author describes and his intentions of discussing them in his book is what this paper will discuss. 

Superficial readers of Winter of the Holy Iron would argue that the book is about a Lakota war leader named Whirlwind who is faced with many choices and forces conflict among his fellow tribesman in his Lakota village when he brings home the recently shot victim, a Frenchman named De la Verendrye.  Those readers would indicate that the real meaning behind the book was intended to paint a picture of a moment in time when simple lifestyles of the Lakota people were suddenly complicated by new technology from the eastern world.  The questions which need to be asked in contrast to this simplistic viewpoint is: Why did Marshall, a Lakota descendent, who was raised by his grandparents, and whose first language was Lakota write a book about the eastern French civilization intermixing with western native American Indian culture?  Evidence of why Marshall may have written this book could be pointed out when reading between the lines of the text when

Marshall writes regarding Bruneaux.  Henri Bruneaux was cast as a stupid large oaf who never thought past his own individual passions and desires.  Bruneaux was a man of impulse who only took what he wanted and left all else to waste in his wake of terrible destruction.   Why did

Marshall describe his own people, through the mouth of Bruneaux, as savages and nothing more than beasts which should be exterminated?  The reader should identify that

Marshall had animosity towards cultures, other than his own.  This animosity was likely taught to him, and perhaps even learned through life experiences which may have paralleled the thoughts, actions, and behaviors of Bruneaux.  Yet at the same time,

Marshall admits faults of his own culture through the described weaknesses of Bear Heart. Bear Heart was a clear rival to Whirlwind. 

Marshall compares and contrasts them many times in the book and makes it clear that Whirlwind is superior to Bear Heart when he was chosen to receive the war lance and become the new war leader of the Lakota tribe.  Bear Heart is shown to have similar characteristics to Whirlwind except for his short temper and lack of thoughtful judgment which Whirlwind excels in.   Because Bear Heart was not chosen over Whirlwind, he continually stirs up the tribe against Whirlwind and his supporters and ultimately takes many of the tribe’s people with him as he ventures off to seek future security in the new gun technology, which he has recently been educated about by the actions of Verendrye.  

Marshall implies this separation is destroying the future culture of the Lakota and defines the main tribe as the one which Whirlwind remains within.  De la Verendrye is the healing salve between the two cultures, but only after a long period of discovery by the Lakota people in observing him in a weakened state after being shot by Bruneaux.  De la Verendrye risked his life and sacrificed his time to learn the language of the Lakota people.  This sacrifice by De la Verendrye ocours prior to the timeline of the books story line with another tribe called the Dakota.  Because of the sacrifice which he made, it makes him unique among both the Lakota and the other cultures which will interact among Indian cultures.  Even after common languages were established between De la Verendrye and the Lakota people, there was still conflict among viewpoints and just simply how the two cultures viewed the world around them.  Joseph Marshall wrote the book with passion.  His knowledge and descriptions of the Lakota people in how they loved, fought, built, survived, and how they viewed the world around themselves.  When dissecting the level of detail of the Lakota people with which he writes, the reader can see that

Marshall loves his culture and its roots.  His deep respect for the trials his culture has gone through is felt within the feeling of his book. 

Marshall, being a modern day person and having the insight of a modern day world, would have clearly felt the pressure of another culture squeezing his own and the oppression which is coupled with such looming and surrounding omnipresence.  Would

Marshall stand from a pulpit and preach against the conflicts of the Native American culture?  Perhaps he would, but in doing so his message of conflict and the destruction of culture it caries would only be heard and understood by his own culture and those who the message was intended for would not see the value in the message.  Rather than standing from a pulpit and preaching regarding the conflict of two cultures, Marshall has made a story with passion, desire, and intent with a clear focus to send a message of why two cultures who have so much individually, find conflict in living together peacefully. 

links for 2007-07-10

July 10, 2007 By: Shaun Category: del.icio.us No Comments →

Find a penny pick it up and all the day you will have good luck!

July 09, 2007 By: Shaun Category: Running No Comments →

What to people do with their spare change?

Having seen a broad spectrum of uses for loose change it is easy to understand that there are as many uses as their are coins in the world. Among some of the more interesting uses seen are:

-Storing them in a jar or bottle
-Flicking them across a school room at that boy or girl to get their attention
-Dropping them on the ground at the fast food drive in
-Putting them in a donation jar at the cash register
-Adding to the waiter or waitresses tip
-Squeezing them into a collectors book
-Rolling them into paper wrappers from the bank
-Donating them to the salvation army and Santa during Christmas
-Heavily used by the tooth fairy
-Dropped out of the car door when parking
-Vacuumed out of the car seats when cleaning the car
-Spun around on the table when playing finger games
-Stored in the living room couch
-Used to fill up the coin holders in cars that come with them
-Collected
-Retrieved in the ground by metal detectors

A financial adviser who I know who spends their time getting others out of debt made an observation of those who have lots of money laying around their home who all typically have financial difficulties. I have seen this in homes where I know there are financial difficulties and more often than not they will have small piles of change laying all around their home. The kitchen counter is one of the more popular locations.

Personally I am an anti coin guy. I am a believer that coins are there to increase the price of goods purchased from merchants. If an item costs 5.96 and we give the merchant 10 dollars we get 4.04 back. Is is likely we will save the $4 in our wallet or purse but what happens to the .04 cents? If the money gets lost, the item we just purchased cost 6.00 which effectively is an increase of the goods purchased. If this happens frequently than what amount of money is discarded every year in the US?  According to CIA.gov the estimated US population in July 2007 is 301,139,947. If everyone in the US discarded one penny per month that would equate to ~$36 million annually in lost coins in the US alone.

Today while running 3.5 miles I found a quarter and a penny which looked like they were discarded out of some ones car. The good news is that have added an additional .26 cents to my net worth. The bad news is that the poor schmuck who discarded this money is .26 cents poorer today.

links for 2007-07-09

July 09, 2007 By: Shaun Category: del.icio.us No Comments →

Sunglasses at Night

July 08, 2007 By: Shaun Category: Running No Comments →

Tonight while flying back to Salt Lake City I sat next to two women, a mother and daughter, who both were wearing these dark sunglasses which covered half of their head. As I have observed, these large, square shaped, with rounded corner glasses have become more popular over the last year. These are the type of glasses which will be seen on a VH1 program ten years from now where the show will whisk the audience back in time and highlight all of the silly and crazy trademarks of the decade.

It is not all that unusual to see a couple of women sporting a pair of fancy new sunglasses but what stood out to me as strange was the flight started out at 8:50PM when it is obviously dark outside. The flight gave me some time to catch up on a book I have been reading about Native American culture so I did not pay too much attention to the ladies on my right hand side. Upon landing and peeking across the two seats out the window to see the lights of the airport I noticed the two women were both still wearing those fancy glasses. I pondered for a little while why they were still sporting those huge glasses while it was dark out. Were they superstars who did not want to be recognized? Did they just have an eye surgery which prevented them from being exposed to extreme light without damage to their eyes? Were they hiding from some one else who was also on the plane? Were they aliens with strange pupil shapes and they did not want anyone to notice? Anyone’s guess is as good as mine. I still remain perplexed why both of them felt it important to keep their shades on after it was completely dark out. This is one of the mysteries I considered while jogging 3 miles tonight.

links for 2007-07-07

July 07, 2007 By: Shaun Category: del.icio.us No Comments →

links for 2007-07-06

July 06, 2007 By: Shaun Category: del.icio.us No Comments →

Donny World

July 05, 2007 By: Shaun Category: Extracurricular No Comments →

Shaun and Dave At Donny WorldDonny World is located in Briones Valley California.  We spent most of the 4Th there where we enjoyed sliding down the massive slides in Donny Pascal’s back yard.  Here is a shot of Dave and I just about to reach the bottom of the slide.  Amber has more shots on her site at www.asistersvoice.com

Ahhh… The Sweet Smell of Summer!

July 05, 2007 By: Shaun Category: Extracurricular No Comments →

Looking at the thermostat today and seeing 105 degrees assures me that summer is finally here. I think that if I could live in this type of weather year round I will have died and gone to heaven.

 

The fourth of July has come and gone. The day was spectacular! It was a good time to reflect on the wonders of freedom and the options which are opened up by its liberating choices. Dave’s family came along for an early monring ski run. It was nice to see his kids behind the boat with smiles on their faces. I had a few good runs and Monica got a great shot of me which I have included in this post.

Shaun Hoggan SkiingShaun Hoggan Reaching

 

 

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