July 5, 2017
Dredged up this txt file from one of my λ folders in iA Writer. I have a trove of similar writings scattered about, and, as with this one, I can’t be 100% certain of the actual creation date. The file says it was created on July 5, 2017 at 11:39, but the words themselves could have very well been drafted in something like Apple Notes and copied into iA Writer at a later date. Because this is the only timestamp I have to go off of, I’m backdating this post accordingly. This same logic will apply to other posts—if I can find a plausible creation date, I’ll go with it. Otherwise I may catapult old musings into the present, likely referencing the fact that they have fermented a bit.
As you can see, I’m currently uploading this on September 14, 2023… a full 6 years later. It’s an effort to pad out my site archive with the chronological evolution of my writing style and perception of the world. I’m being indiscriminate with what makes it onto the site. The main criterion is that posts should be interesting enough should someone land on them—said reader should be curious enough to begin to read, even if they give up. It’s easy to slip into the abyss of these ligature-less letters.
The Romance
The romance began when twenty one pirates licked the moon and it rained silver spoons onto the desert floor. A monkey howled with a twinkle in his eye as he sat in the corner, wheat on rye. Buttered barley and crispy oats. The man with the purple hat lay sideways among the stars and quietly wondered where his thirteen daughters were. Perhaps a piglet yawns or writes an email in the corridor but who would know save his feminine friend with lipstick as red as tomato soup. Soup thick with tongues chafing and liquids splayed across a tense surface eaten by the clasped flesh of a rotten peel. The backseat kind where you keep your millions and a crawfish looking for a thrill. His mind spilled into your palms and the boy wept. Why is it so that a room with thirty colors could be so bland. As bland as the rumbling of a pebble in a firm breast. Take half off of that shirt which hath been forgiven the stains of romance—for what is romance but the careful footwork of a severed bicycle pedal.
Twice came the oceans and they choose to forever scrape a charcoal dream across the sky. Always wonder, always wonder why.
More Time
If there were more time in the day I would bury a fur coat and mark it with a curly shaped rope which once ceased the breath of a small spade. Many moons have called and swords dance in between serrated teeth. Sometimes when bags choose to open and out whips the scent of a caramel whisper, she will clench dolphins and ride her golden letter into the black of night. The sparrow clips its wings and drowns in a cloud of desperation within a world of blue and sun shines upon those who eat themselves from broken piers. Take hers over your shoulder with a grain of saffron and sparkling bronze. She listens… she listens.
He Was Born
He was born on a rainy rock. Please, please he bellowed. A lip rubs his cheek and a binocular hangs off a distant stick. Shut the door and batten the rubber touch of appetite. Thick grows the mind with ivy spiraling into nothing. Nothing. For every waking child pumps into a drum of viscosity with the sound of a trodden rodent. If so many are meant to love, why does the sky have but two? Lift into the bony breath of a siren the word of your mother and spin a top laden time and time again with the kindred twigs of fermented memories. Drive into the canal and remove from within a writhing remembrance of things to come. A kitten screams. And when it reaches the surface, a man tastes his knuckle and hears the salt. A shaven salt.
Poetry
August 30, 2016
The following are class notes taken during Professor Purvi Parikh’s Modernity and the Death of God.
16 08 30
Religion is acknowledgement of a guiding entity separate from that of the individual, be it a collective soul, nature, God, gods, goddesses, idols, or doctrines.
Hi! I enjoyed learning about Religions of India last year with you and decided to declare a Religion Studies minor, which is why I am taking this class. I am a Media & Communications major and hope to incorporate this knowledge into my future work as a journalist and documentarian. — ███ Littrell
16 09 01
Assumptions of modernity:
Modernity has a long history of being defined in different ways:
Kant’s idea of immaturity relates complacency with doctrine.
16 09 06
Religion:
Approaches to religion:
16 09 08
Conceptual, normative, and explanatory issues complicate religion.
Protestant Reformation:
(16th century)
Dichotomies:
Secularism is necessary for direct-access democracy. There are two forms:
- Common ground—based on beliefs.
- Independent ethic—based on reason.
Seek the overlapping consensus.
Citizenship: equality, freedom, individualism.
16 09 13
Secularism does not ensure tolerance.
16 09 15
Secularization and religious revival.
Secularization Theory:
- Structural differentiation
- Privatization of religion
- Decline of religion
Rise of new religious movements in the 1980s.
De-privatization of religion.
Public role of religion in modernity:
- Start new debates.
- Take public stands.
- Critique modern values.
- Don’t impose norms or agendas.
- Mobilize on the basis of issues.
- Outcome dense matter. (?)
16 09 22
Talal Asad asserts that religion is constantly changing and is an important part of public debate, contrary to popular secular belief.
16 09 27
Asad asserts that human rights are inherently connected to civil rights.
16 09 29
Sabr (صَبْرٌ): Endurance, perseverance, persistence.
Agency, freedom, resistance to subordination.
16 10 04
Perspectives on agency:
- Conventional: Capacity to act from one’s will in the absence of authority.
- Saba Mahmood: Capacity for action enabled by subordination.
16 10 06
- Peace of Westphalia (1648)—The result of warring among Christians brought state sovereignty and religious freedom.
- Ottoman Empire (1299-1922)—The decline of the Ottomans led to English state recognition through secular statehood.
- Treaty of Versailles (1919)—Developed nation-states and the notion of the minority.
16 10 13
The Impossibility of Religious Freedom:
Lived religion, religious vs secular, public vs private, dogma, pluralism, mainstream vs personal, thought vs action, orthodoxy vs orthopraxy, first amendment, high vs low iconography, credibility, authority.
16 10 18
Religious freedom is impossible because it would require a universal definition of religion.
16 11 03
16 11 08
- Wendy Brown—Tolerance is not freedom
- Depoliticization, personal ethic vs political discourse, post-9/11
- Substituting emotional vocabulary for political problems (?)
School
March 1, 2016
Edward Snowden broke the law. He broke the ethical code of his employer, government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, as well as the National Security Agency, for whom he was working under contract. He leaked secrets that cost him his personal freedom to assure the freedom of the general public. Were his actions justified? Though Snowden was disloyal to his company, his ultimate duty was to serve the citizens of the United States, which he did successfully by informing on issues of privacy. Accountability is key here. The federal government is accountable to the state government, the state to local governments, and all ultimately to the people of the United States. While this concept is not quite so linear in actuality, it is clear to see that citizens rest on the bottom of the breakdown—or
perhaps the middle of the web—meaning everyone is accountable to the public in some form or another. Political Scientist Donald F. Kettl brings up an important point, which is “Who is to watch the watchers? […] There is no absolute standard for accountability, and a large number of hands tussle over what it ought to look like.” While no absolute standard exists, representative democracy does cater to we the people and it would be impossible to make an informed vote if information were being withheld, as in the case of Snowden. Snowden’s actions were completely justified and indeed professionally ethical due to his ultimate goal of serving the public and watching the watchers by keeping the triad of governmental branches in check.
Professors Cox, Buck, and Morgan quote Verne B. Lewis, asserting that “The ideal of democracy is that the desires of the people, no matter how they are arrived at or how unwise they may be, should control the actions of the government.” How can the desires of the people be wholly expressed with the fear of violated privacy? At minute 00:38:09 of the documentary Citizenfour, Snowden covers himself with a blanket to block the view of potentially snooping image-capture devices. Journalist Glenn Greenwald remarks he has been bitten by the paranoia bug and is disturbed by the capabilities of modern surveillance technologies. In the Hong Kong hotel room, the people being filmed acknowledged that
everything said between them would eventually become public record—but what of everyone else? What of protest planners, business leaders, ideological dissenters? Even the kid updating her Instagram in the local coffee shop deserves privacy.
What is truly immoral about the events leading up to the Snowden leaks are the lies that were told on public record. If Snowden did wrong, his actions were a trifle compared to the wrongdoing and corruption within the federal government. At minute 00:10:11, a clip shows Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper testifying before Congress on March 12, 2013, regarding the NSA’s data collection practices. When asked by Senator Ron Wyden, “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?” Clapper responded, “No, sir.” Upon further questioning, he added, “Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently, perhaps, collect, but not wittingly.” Clapper
later stated that he gave the least untruthful answer he could, as the bulk collection of metadata (rather than call content) was classified at the time. Again, it is impossible to make an informed decision to vote or deliberate otherwise without being properly informed. Perjury is a basic immoral principle which undermines one’s ability to assess a situation and act accordingly. Kettl brings up the Rule of Law which holds every member of society accountable under a mutually agreed upon code of regulations—this assures that the government does not overpower the people. Through his leaks, Snowden exposed Clapper’s lie, doing so with a modesty that framed his actions as morally permissible rather than an act of martyrdom.
Snowden had plenty of options when it came to whistleblowing. He could have chosen the dissension tactics of exit, voice, disloyalty, or a combination thereof. Since he remained an employee of Booz Allen but shared confidential information in a public forum, it is quite obvious that a combination of voice and disloyalty had been achieved, the result of which being leaks. He did not take the confidential files and email them out to people or send them to a news outlet or recite them on television or a personal blog. Instead, he used encrypted communications and secure storage to transfer classified documents, later meeting with Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras in Hong Kong to facilitate responsible disclosure. He left the
discernment of presentation to the journalists while keeping his personal story to a minimum to avoid bias. If there is a respectful way to break the law, he has accomplished it—though he did not see himself as a criminal, but as a whistleblower acting in the public interest. Being a government contractor does not mean he is any less obligated than a public servant to protect the privacy of the public. A counterargument may be that Snowden was unethical because he failed to uphold his company’s code of ethics. Perhaps it is not he who failed the company but rather the company who has failed him. At minute 01:07:53, Snowden explains that typical NSA employees have access to TS, SI, TK, or Gamma classified documents (or a combination thereof). As a contractor, he held a Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) clearance, a designation within the broader Top Secret category. Over 1.4 million individuals held Top
Secret clearance as of 2012, though fewer had SCI access. This included viewing classified intelligence reports and live drone feeds across the globe. While not unique to him, this level of access raised concerns about the extent of classified information available to government contractors compared to full-time NSA employees. This disparity in access challenges the very framework of governmental accountability.
While Snowden did break the law and violate Booz Allen’s ethical code, his actions were justified in pursuit of the greater good. He risked his personal freedom to inform the world about the unjust covert actions of the US federal government and, as a result, spurred a global conversation on privacy issues in regards to advancing technology and terrorism. While some government documents must be kept private for national security, those concerning governmental processes that directly affect citizens should be open to public debate and revision. Bureaucrats, as well as elected officials, are morally fallible. This is why it is imperative that the handful of policymakers, executive actors, and judicial authorities be checked by outside forces—and what better force than a contractor who is being paid and granted express security access to the dirty truth.
Written for Dr. Michele Deegan’s Public Administration at Muhlenberg College.
School
April Littrell