THE HUMANIST

Fiction, Poetry, Essays

ANTHOLOGY

If there’s one thing that links humanity together, it is the human experience. These experiences streamed and segmented, translate into a voice that wafts incessantly onto the infinite boundaries of the universe. This voice radiates from the center of space, like a child's voice calling, in search for his lost mother.

Our short lives are of value to us all humans. As our prescribed biological timer wanes, a new strand emerges and we move closer on the verge of some revelation or two. Soon, thereafter, we imprint a vestige of our existence in the language of our discoveries, revelations and realization. These are the languages spoken in this anthology.

And thus, it is a great honor for us to share our discoveries, the revelations and realizations that make up the strands of our experiences.

Jae Woo Jang

Managing Editor

EDITOR’S NOTE

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CHAPTER 1∏

ARE WE ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE?

That the universe is fine-tuned, built only for us, paving the way for our species to thrive in dominion, brings a lot of assurance for many as it substantiates the promise it holds about our uniqueness and our place in the cosmos – and yet it also implies that life could be rare...

Jae Woo Jang

I bade farewell to Voyager 1 the last time I caught glimpse of it on the pages of the National Geographic. Launched four decades ago, it was still a golden-winged moth far beyond the ebb of its glory days. As it moves away from earth after completing its mission, the Voy-ager will continue to tear through the exigency of dark-ness and towards the promise of light. A decade from now, the Voyager will cease transmitting information back to earth and will continue to drift towards the laby-rinths of the cosmos. It would be the last time we see of it and the vestige it carries of the good in each of us and the evil into which we often relapse. But at the Voyager’s core, is the Golden Disc, and into that immensity of

space, it will unravel and transmit, if intelligent life exists out there which would listen, through radio waves, our story, our images and languages, our history, or at least some of it though lamentably devoid of the imprints of the majority whose lives were squandered in quiet des-peration.

Yet, the Voyager and the Golden Disc is not just a wedge of a life lived in our planet or a repository of intel-ligence, or our penchant for self-destruction but it is also a parcel of our insatiable appetite for wanderings and perilous journeys and the endless quests for understand-ing. In the complex thicket of the cosmic haystack, the Voyager broadcasts our lives to those who can hear it, and for four decades since it was launched to search for lives other than our own, its radio signals aimed at every possibility, we have yet to receive a rejoinder. Is life so rare and unique that we can only hear our own voices, our own prayers and lamentations?

That the universe is fine-tuned, built only for us, pav-ing the way for our species to thrive in dominion, brings a lot of assurance for many as it substantiates the prom-ise it holds about our uniqueness and our place in the cos-mos – and yet it also implies that life could be rare. On

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The Search for Intelligence Beyond the

Fine-tuned Life

SECTION 1∏

the other hand, if the universe were fine-tuned for life to develop, then it must mean that life abounds. This springs upon the claims that the fundamental constants in our universe have been so exquisitely fine-tuned to a precision which laid the foundations for the development of life as for instance the speed of light or the strength of our gravity, just to name a few; Thus, on these intrinsic values, scientists claim, depend our evolutionary history and future. There are abundant contentions that the mathematical and astrophysical constants observable in the universe are assumed to be naturally attuned for life - at least the life that exists on earth as the laws of physics, which account to hundreds of factors that hold the uni-verse together cannot be merely attributed to chance. To put it more simply, fine-tuning implies that the constants in physics, the laws of nature and the preliminary condi-tions that were present during the inception of the uni-verse were laid out just right to allow life to emerge.

Hence, the right amalgamations of the laws of nature – electromagnetism, gravity and the nuclear force bind-ing protons and neutrons together in an atom - must have paved the way for complex life to evolve.  

The mathematician Gottfried Leibniz posed an analo-gous question: What would our universe look like if cer-tain factors in astrophysics were a bit different? This co-nundrum had motivated many scientists to explore the

specific cosmological con-stant that necessitates the emergence of life on earth. The theoretical physicist Brandon Carter stresses that our universe had been initially fash-ioned or ‘fine-tuned’ to lay down cosmological founda-

tions for life to thrive, reminiscent of the conditions pre-sent in our planet. Because life is so sensitive to the changes of these cosmological constants, the philosopher John Leslie reminds us that the existence of intelligent life- forms outside our own, or even finding any living species outside of our universe, would have been very rare in that all these astrophysical constants must be pre-cisely akin to the ones which caused life to appear on earth. Simply put, if certain constant values in the uni-verse were minutely off a favorable parameter, then life

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would not have proliferated. Perhaps the only thing that may have existed is a shaded girth of a black hole and nothingness.

The fine-tuning argument is substantiated by Astro-physicist Martin Rees who put forth the significant con-stants and the Standard Model of particle physics which was initially proposed by the theoretical physicist Shel-don Lee Glashow. These consider the relations between the intensity of the gravitational force, electromag-netisms, space time and the binding force of nuclei. Rees emphasizes that if any of these initial constants were slightly off of bounds then our universe would have de-veloped very disparately – hence, theoretically, life would not have emerged. These specific values seem almost im-possible to replicate as the relationship between electri-cally charged particles and the gravity that play upon them, also known as the N-variable, should be 39 orders of magnitude stronger than the gravitational force in the universe. Had a minute difference between the two op-posing forces existed, stars would have collapsed and life would not have existed. Simply put, these two opposing forces are trapped in a perpetual tug of war which nei-

ther should win nor lose. And if loses or wins one, the universe precipitates in disarray.

Similarly, imagine if the ratio of the binding forces of an atom was a slim 0.1 higher than its original value of five, the formation of atoms will not properly fall into place. A slightly different constant value of the ratio of these two forces may cause the random decay of protons and neutrons or the sudden increase in the intensity of hydrogen bonding. The intricacy of this constant fetters the durability of the atoms that make up the sun, earth and life as a whole. This is as if we are stacking a castle using a deck of cards- if these cards were slightly off an acclivity, then the whole stack- of- card castle would im-mediately collapse. The same physics apply to us and the atoms that built the flotsam of life.

The problem with the fine-tuning argument, however, is that it basks in arrogant generalizations about the uni-verse we barely understand. It also blindly argues for an orderly universe using only constants and parameters which, when altered, will be improbable for testing and replication as we cannot replicate the immensity of events and factors that unraveled the face of our uni-verse. The evolution of the universe and life on earth fall

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within the bounds of these ‘fine-tuned’ parameters and it is safe to say that life has fine-tuned itself within these re-quirements and not the other way around. In addition, as these constants and parameters if altered cannot be duplicated in a laboratory setting, it is absurd to assume that if the cosmological constants are disparate, life as we know it would not have evolved. What that will result to is most probably a universe with different constants strung together by diverse parameters and laws of phys-ics. The argument likewise neglected to consider the emergence of life on earth and only ruminated upon the astrophysical constants that thwart the universe off the

trivial events that have considerable impacts on life’s in-ception. Proponents of fine-tuning failed to consider the implications of their arguments on evolutionary biology and the volatile events which pose threats to life as a whole. If fine-tuning were true and our place in the cos-mos were determined as unique, then even a slight change in the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would have not resulted to the decimation of life and an asteroid impact would not have caused the end of the di-nosaurs’ domination on earth.

Now, if our universe was so fine-tuned for life, why can’t we find any other life besides our own? The con-tinuous failures in our search for life, or in the despera-tion of waiting that an alien life will reveal itself to us, in-dicate one proof- life is not as abundant as what our fine-tuned universe is supposed to propagate. Rather than waste energy on the belief that our planet is the sole re-pository for nurturing life, it is best to analyze our cur-rent understanding of the solar system and the earth’s evolutionary history as an alternative view of how intelli-gent life forms arose on earth. Our knowledge about the cosmos is still yet very minimal – and limiting our views on the formation of intelligent life within the constraints

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of our understanding will only stunt the development of knowledge needed to search for life outside our own.

Beyond the fine-tunings that its supporters preach as manifest in the universe, the laws of nature which replete our planet and beyond it unveil events that are random: The intermittent, unpredictability of volcanic eruptions, decimated matters in space finding their ways to the bosom of the earth, climatic changes and waverings in ocean temperatures that have discernible effects on our weather patterns. Thus, we question if there is a determi-nistic intention, an initial purpose, to everything. These arbitrary occurrences and the changes in the environ-ment unfolding after another, whose causes are unex-plainable, are in fact spurred by chance. The collapse of the molecular clouds, the mass of our terrestrial planet and other astro-biological factors that paved the way for the emergence of life on earth are filters through which earth had uniquely winnowed in order to host sentient creatures. It’s as if a billion-faced dice is rolled and for a single factor, change occurred in our planet in which each face accounts to a different set of outcome. This dice is then rolled a billion times to reveal the results of minute factors. Hence, the probability, the sequence of

random events, of the emergence of earth is almost, to an extent and possibly, as improbable as one over a bil-lionth billion chance. Stephen Jay Gould explored this idea of randomness in evolution in his book Punctuated Equilibrium in which he contends that evolution, based on his studies of fossilized ancient snails, itself occurs at punctuated patterns of change when there lacks a neces-sity for change.

This contrasts with the Darwinian gradualism in which evolution is gradual and constant. Either way evo-lution occurs, it is often characterized by randomness, ne-cessity and unpredictability - hallmarks of adaptation and coping mechanisms. If biology were fine-tuned, life wouldn’t have achieved complexity through a slow, grad-ual, sometimes punctuated, and excruciating process of change. The fine-tuning argument therefore, is too deter-ministic in a universe woven by chance, volatility and ran-domness. The Chaos Theory in mathematics offers a more acceptable explanation of how the intricate and im-mense strings of results came about from a minute cause. It posits that initial causations, as for instance, roll-ing two marbles at the same point of origin using the same amount of force and other variables, lead to differ-

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ent outcomes, as the marbles land at two different places. This refutes the argument of determinism, the core of

fine-tuning argument, which is often misinter-preted by theologians who claim that our uni-verse had to be initially fine-tuned for life here on earth- or else the changes in the astrophysical con-

stants would have greatly altered the fate of the species. But the essential message upon which the Chaos Theory stands is that outcomes are random - even if change is spurred from a definite goal, results fall through dispar-ately. In fact, the very essence of which this theory is founded upon is the idea of unpredictability. From this basis, our view of the cosmos must lean within the idea that the emergence of life occurred from chance result-ing from astrophysical and astrobiological factors.

This only means that a seemingly insignificant phe-nomenon can have substantial effects and a careful con-sideration of this is important in our understanding of the origin of life as understanding how life came about

on earth is an invaluable aid in our quest for other intelli-gent life beyond ours in a universe which still comes as arcane to us.

Our understanding of how life began in the midst of chaos originated with the Big Bang that transpired ap-proximately 13.7 billion years ago. With the inception of the universe came the expansion of space and time. All that amalgamation of energy, like a pressurized fireball spewed force in all direction creating what we now know as matter, energy, time and the laws of nature. Although why this transpired is still unknown, we know that from this, gas was dispersed, molecular clouds and the first stars began to emerge amidst the ghastly darkness of the universe. Dense clouds of matter and the first generation stars swirled like a cauldron of boiling milk within a bil-lion years into the cosmic expansion.

Molecular clouds often hover like giant amorphous bubbles that brandish the reminiscences of stellar dusts and matter as dense as a hundred thousand magnitude of a sun’s mass. However, on rare occasions, probably out of chance, these molecular clouds are prone to dan-ger. Many first generation stars, which usually were 100- 300 times bigger than our sun, often collapse from the su-

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pernova explosions which discharge matter across the gal-axies; if unfortunate, some of these materials splinter through a molecular cloud for it to fall apart. From here, the molecular cloud should surpass a series of differen-

tial rotation, turbulences and excessively high concentra-tion of dense matter.

The universe is in fact chaotic- destruction of mat-ters leads to another obliteration matter. These cosmic wraths of gargantuan scale may eradicate the earth or the solar system within minutes. However, nature’s deba-cle may pave the way for other beginnings and its ran-

domness may present another opportunity. But most of the time we are left to bask under the blankets of un-knowing.

The nuclear fusions, which occurred within the scorching hot cores of the first generation stars, had transmuted light elements such as Helium and Hydrogen into heavier elements such as Iron and Titanium. These counts as important process in that some of these ele-ments are very essential to the composition of our sun and our earth. When that star exploded, these elements scattered across the universe- transporting new heavier materials that earthly life requires. This debris may have landed into the depths of the gravitational collapse of a molecular cloud which sometimes generates small enough fragments of accretion disk - later shaped into a solar system. In the case of earth, this happened approxi-mately 9 billion years after the big bang.

The area around the newly emerged star, an accre-tion disk, feeds onto the development of the Protostar – the early stages of a sun. As this infant star emits light for existence, its gravitational energy paves for an eternal in-crease of its core’s temperature, which we can often deem as the sun’s age - the older it is, the hotter its core

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becomes. Because the core requires fuel such as deute-rium, hydrogen or helium for releasing heat, the mass of the sun also inevitably decreases after some time. This is in fact critical to the development of life on earth as the primary role of the sun is to produce elements that en-rich the composition of its planet. The hotter the core, the heavier the elements produced by the nuclear fusion. Thus, Carbon burns to Neon and Oxygen to Sulfur.

All these variety of dust particles and nearly formed heavier elements shroud the accretion disk with dense matters. The accumulation of this dust stimulates static electrical forces to enable the formation of tiny asteroids. Some of these materials may get drafted out into the uni-verse while some may merge into many tiny planetesi-mals which later may collide, by chance, with others to fuse together into terrestrial planets in a star system.

After the sun developed its own magnetic force, which is known as a T-Tauri stage, the planets have fi-nally established their orbital routes. Following this, the heavy rock bombardment on earth, which is hypothe-sized to account for the formation of the moon, had gradually waned approximately 9 billion years after the Big Bang. From here, the earth developed its own atmos-

phere through the accumulation of nitrogen, carbon di-oxide, hydrogen and other gases which were the result of the evaporation from the impact of planetesimal and earth. Simultaneously, the silicate material in the earth’s mantle are noted to release the trapped H2O onto the crust as the ices in the comets melted from the impact against the earth- delivering water and creating vast oceans, factors significant in the emergence of earthly

life.

The crude steps enumerated above are actually the result from several billion filters and chances which in some gash of luck we had been so fortunate enough to

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thrive upon. Out of chance, the supernovae explosion may not have occurred near enough for it to disrupt the molecular clouds. If such external threats did not exist, the collapse of the molecular cloud would have been very rare which in turn could stifle the formation of an accretion disk. The filter continues on as the asteroid belts or the small planetesimals that have been com-pleted destroyed themselves into debris of dust due to ex-cessive collision against each other while some planetesi-mals may have burnt into the wraths of the sun’s gravita-tional pull- never merging to become a sizable planet to create its own magnetic field and its atmosphere.

Hence, to certain degree, the emergence of life heaves its chances on the timing of each factor.The enigma on the emergence of life, however, still needs to be deci-phered as we delve deeper into the biological processes which lead to biogenesis. We observe that protein is the most essential building block to almost all life; they ce-ment our prototype, the manual instruction book of us, in the sequence of DNA. Amino acids are vital constitu-ent in the production of this protein and scientists can trail the most simplistic formation of DNA from its basic composition of protein. Yet, there is also a possibility

that other life forms may not share the same DNA as ours. Organisms living in arsenic and hazardous environ-ment, which defied our knowledge of RNA and DNA proliferates in the California Mono Lake. Explanations to this case is not concrete but the most promising as-sumption posits that maybe two different type of bio-genesis must have occurred in the past- which means that life on earth could have randomly started more than once and each time differently.

Based on our current knowledge of the earth, we have created a gauge, an alternative framework, which identifies possible habitable zones in other solar systems. But efficient it may seem, the farther we may stray from our endeavors to seek intelligent life. We must acknowl-edge that the evolution of intelligent life-forms depends on the necessity of it and most often a rare occurrence of accident. The act that our ancestral herbivore homi-nids during the late-Miocene, for example, had chosen to partake of a carcass of dead animals during harsh chang-ing conditions, allowed the brain to grow as a result of ample protein intake. And possibly from countless dan-gers posed by other predators, our ancestors might have found the necessity to critically use their brain to evade

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threats. Hence, randomness is manifest in the emergence of the intelligent life forms which then adds another de-gree of rarity of sentient existence in our universe as such necessity may not easily occur.

But what do these volatility and randomness mean for our search for intelligent life beyond our turfs? And what do these imply about the existence of life in the uni-verse?

The necessity for intelligence must be present in the gradual development of higher thinking. In the case of humans, random accidents and unintended results had shaped human intelligence- the one that best suited earth. However, with an extraterrestrial life, the nature’s demand and the environmental factors may affect the type of intelligence it may acquire. The study of the Chaos theory insinuates that the same or even similar re-sults of two occurrences are rather rare- thus, even our framework for the possibility of life will get trampled upon by other cosmological facts that are to unravel in the future. All these sequence of random accidents some-what substantiates the rarity for intelligent life and the dif-ferent set of outcomes these accidents can ensue.

Hence, Voyager 1 drifts towards these accidents hop-ing to stumble upon life that can discern the longings of humanity trying to find just a streak of it in another form. But what if a lone hunter in the darkness of a for-est only hears his own cry? We search for a needle in a haystack but what if it’s not the needle we are looking for? In our search for intelligent life in the universe, we have to look beyond the needle, maybe beyond the hay-stack of our understanding of who we are - and more of what we’re not.

Images Taken Online

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CHAPTER 2∏

BICYCLE

“When my face was still free from the corrugations of wrinkles, the adults of each household, the mother or the father in their mid forties, would thank me for tossing the newspapers right in front of their brass gates by flinging their arms in the a i r. –Gomapda , fo r the newspaper! Cycling boy, they gave me a new title.”

Theo Rommel Salcedo

My grandmother once told me to buy myself a motorbike and asked me why I was tiring myself out by cycling up the hills with stacks of Koryu Gazette and boxes of Hana Milku. But I refused. Halmuni, it’s okay with me. I'm okay without an Oto bayi. That will just eat up gas. I would rather buy you Yinsam instead. I heard ginseng root drinks will make you strong and maybe it can even improve your eyesight. My grandmother said that nothing could fix an old bone. Spend your money on something more useful.

Buying an Otobayi, that was her last piece of advice before passing. Then, at her funeral, kept on thinking what my parents would have been like if the car crash didn’t do them in. Bad eyesight, my grandmother used to say, it runs in the family.

Since then, my day begins by cycling down the steep, rugged pavements down the narrow alleys of Jilbo Village, dodging through the crooked lampposts with

rusted sides plastered with clumps of brown-stained advertisement posters and political propagandas. No one bothered to peel them off or peruse through any of the random telephone numbers floating by the corners of the posters left hanging like dried catkins in the middle of cold winter. The same happens to the derelict buildings and empty shops adjacent to the houses; they diminish into that gloomy backdraft as if they were unwanted memento we relegate into our subconscious. We mourn the forgotten but we don’t want to be reminded of them either.

This is what you deserve when you live at the outskirts of Wando: The lampposts sprout like weeds throughout the village and in order to thread through the walkway, one needs to dodge the steel obstacles and pass through the gaps between the piles of stone facades and the hedge bush that masked cheap doorsteps and dilapidating doors. Beyond that, a few minutes away by bicycle, skyscrapers pierce the skyline like shards of broken glass.

Still, every morning at four o’clock, including Sundays, I mount on my bicycle, weaving through the maze, to retrieve the morning news and the packages of fresh milk that arrive on the dock of Wando. Usually, two bulky men, probably still in their high school, would

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Bicycle

SECTION 1∏

sail their tug boats to deliver the newspapers and milk from the mainland to Wando Island. According to them, the ride merely takes 30 minutes but sometimes when the tides get too strong, delays often occur. So, some days, I would just stand there or sit on the concrete stairs till noon to wait for the newspapers to come.

And whether they were punctual or not, they would, eventually, pile the goods on the dock and help me stack them, chug them inside the basket I clipped onto the bicycle grips. Then, I would cycle uphill, through the sandy plains and the sodden mud of the swirling roads, and find a small, wooden stockroom feebly standing near the coast. I found this stockroom abandoned when I was young; the first few days after I became the ‘delivery boy’ inside were just rows of small wooden plank lined up in the sides of the room. I would leave a big stack of newspapers and bring only a few so that I wouldn’t have to burden myself with the whole sack.

As soon as the vague outlines of the sun started to peek out of the horizon, I had started to deliver the papers and the boxes of milk at each of the house in Jil-bo with its streets fogged with the scent of morning meals, ferments, Kimchi, seaweed soup and dried squid. Most days, the voices of mothers intermingle with the squeaks of my bicycle wheels. Pali, pali, eat quickly,

you’ll be late for school. Let’s go, Gaja! Why are you too slow? Things they say before the sun hits the pavements with its glassy obelisk ripples. As soon as the sun does that, the heavy thumping of footsteps dissipates replaced by an inaudible rustle and the streets looked deserted.

When my face was still free from the corrugations of wrinkles, the adults of each household, the mother or the father in their mid forties, would thank me for tossing the newspapers right in front of their brass gates by flinging their arms in the air. –Gomapda, for the newspaper! Cycling boy, they gave me a new title.

And in some mornings Mrs. Lee, in her mid-fifties, with her curled hair, in her white bathrobe, would call me in. Her living room smelled of Dwenjang, fermented soybean paste she kept in clay jars on top of her sink. Ttara wha! Come with me, Dong-Il. For you, I make Misukaru. Very good for you. You be healthy with powder soy drink. – I have to hurry back to the dock Mrs. Lee, ajuma. – Aishh,, silly child. Ani, you come in, pali! You have fifteen years old only. You must go to school, and finish and better work you will find. – I don’t know ajuma, I have many things to do. –Silly child, more thinking about and every day, you come. I make food and drinks for you. I couldn’t count how many times I dropped by at Mrs. Lee’s house.

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A few years later, she moved to Seoul.

And now, probably after 50 years of this work, the lamp post looked less like one and an emaciated person standing in the street wearing white trousers and polo shirt with its flapping collars would look the same, as what my memory told me, as a lamp post.

Mrs. Lee’s house is now occupied by a woman, probably in her past forties, who wore a coffee stained pink robe in the morning. Eun Ji, complained that my throwing of the newspapers onto her porch every day rouse her husband from sleep. – Ajushi. I didn’t sense respect in her voice by her calling me uncle, only annoyance. My husband coming late from work in the early morning, always tired and sleep he needs more. So don’t make noisy. Try to leave the milk on the porch quietly and make no squeaking with your old bicycle, ah-shii!

For fifty years, I have done the same thing, tossing the newspapers onto porches, over thegates, placing boxes of milk on doorsteps. Maybe, I did it too long, and time bestows old men like me with some cloak of invisibility. I assume, the more a person sees you, the further he becomes unaware of your existence. My wife told me that when she left. I can’t feel you here any

longer. You see, I wanted children and you’re not so keen on working on it. You spend more time mounting your bicycle! Then, she packed her bags.

I just finished delivering all my newspaper that late morning with a new resolve: I should do my job more patiently, remain unseen if my presence irked people. But in the afternoon, on my way home, small but painful drops of rain started to trickle down from the sky, like pointed needles pricking my skin. Runnels of water, mixed with leftover food and plastic bags, poured down the cracks of the pavement and along the gutter. It was about to rain harder. The sound of thunder reverberated in the distance and the rain thickened as it began to pour harder.

I cycled uphill toward Mrs. Lee’s old house, but I still had a good fifty meters away. The stores that lined the roadsides closed early; the rain first damped mist upon the display glass of clothes shops and began its assault on the pavements. I pressed the pedals upwards against the deluge of water, feeling the creak of my knee bones and the stab of pain on my back.

Like some flash of flood lights, a truck darted towards my direction. Its headlights were oversized silver swords piercing the corners of my eyes slivering through

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my field of vision. I felt the bicycle wobbled under my weight as the sudden force of metal and mass hurled me forward. I was weightless for a moment. A formidable force sent me floating in mid-air for a few seconds. The thought that ‘it was all over’ quickly paralyzed my body, as if I was programmed to accept it. Within seconds I was rolling down hill, scraping against the pavement, crashing onto aluminum plastic cans and onto the steel lampposts. I could only let out a throaty cry. Then, I found myself entangled behind the rows of hedges and bushes that lined the façade of Mrs. Lee’s old house. I lay there silently.

I heard the sound of my breath like flints of stones grinding. Every time I inhaled, contracting my diaphragm, something heavy would press down on my chest I tried shoving it off but I could only let out a guttural whimper. I lay flat on my stomach. I could feel the web of twigs etching scrapes on the surface of my skin, on my neck and face. The rain slowly halted and I could smell the muskiness of the sodden mud and the scent of Pajeon, the pan fried squid, the herbs in it, emanating from Eun Ji’s kitchen. I sensed her heavy footsteps towards her son’s room, the clanking metal tray she placed beside her son’s bed.

I heard the door closing behind Eun Ji. And I asked myself why I didn’t lay my last breath of hope on her. I had shut down any possibility of a future even before the closing of her door. How long would I live for? Twenty years or more, maybe shorter, if I got lucky. I thought about the bicycle as rickety and old as my bones and asked myself if I could still pedal myself up the hills for a decade or more. When you get old, it is often enough my grandmother told me once, while she slowly boiled a clay pot of kimchichigae on her stone built kitchen wearing her coffee tainted apron on Saturdays – that you’re left only with the will to accomplish your duties as your body yields earlier. It is a pursuit still noble. I then decided, as droplets of light rain, rested on both sides of my face and in the tiny pockets of the sides of my ears, it wasn’t that bad to be unseen, to be unnoticed, to go on without someone observing even your most trivial actions.

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CHAPTER 3∏

WHEN TO TUNE UP THE RADIO NEXT TO THE DRIVER’S SEAT

“Ernie always had this tentative voice whenever he spoke in English. But his light wails at the end of each sentence compensated for his long-drab of provincial accent. Sometimes he tried so hard that his disjointed English sounded as if a blotch of mucus had potted in his throat. “

Jae Woo Jang

This how you start a war: You give Jimin lunch money more than what Ernie receives in a month’s pay and the boy will take his place at the driver’s seat to fan the wad of bills protruding in his wallet as if he were fanning the flame of hostility that had alerted both of them ever since summer started.

They were both silent, shackled into emptiness that wedged a wheel of space between them in the front seat. Jimin always wanted to break it by turning on the radio but he’d rather hear Ernie’s ‘where to go sir, today?’ be-come heavier, sans the enthusiasm he peppered the word ‘today’ before school had ended.

Jimin’s brazen retort “Let’s go to the Korean Grocery near school” had likewise turned raspier. Each command he brandished like a whip as he called out names of Gangchum Noodle Restaurants and PC bang gaming café’s which in the end coiled into a list of chores.

Before Jimin dashed out of the car, he asked, “What time is mom coming back?”

“Pa-ib o’clock, sire.” Said Ernie.

Ernie always had this tentative voice whenever he spoke in English. But his light wails at the end of each sentence compensated for his long-drab of provincial ac-cent. Sometimes he tried so hard that his disjointed Eng-lish sounded as if a blotch of mucus had potted in his throat. That’s why Jimin often misunderstood Ernie and replied with a bland “Ok, then you wait first, I will come back in an hour. Then we go back home later together.”  

It was that summer when Jimin had misheard Ernie’s five o’clock with five thirty. He had texted Ernie to re-turn home far too late for his mother to attend her tea party with the ladies of Gangnam. Jimin knew that his mother was too wary of sharing cars with the neighbors or find a cab. So, she definitely wouldn’t have gone on a car with a first-met driver to a forty-minute drive to

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When to Tune Up the Radio next to the Driver’s Seat

SECTION 1∏

school. His mother was this mid-aged city matron who would always held her expensive thick-leathered coach bag in public, distrusting anyone who did not tote around with the same. In a sense, her personality had perhaps honed her time management skills, allowing her to conjure up her daily routine literally in a sheet of note-pad paper. But it seemed to Jimin, that his mother’s stingy, or rather vigilant character had made her very me-ticulous of others. If someone violated her time, it really slid open her brewing anger.  

When Jimin had arrived home, he suddenly realized that his mother was too late to go to her party. Some-times kids in Gangnam had random recall of the minut-est details, remembering some sticky note memos tagged in their thoughts among the heaps of disorganized re-minders stacked in their heads, some cultural complexi-ties.  

Jimin skittered into the house. And there, his mother stood like a sentry in the living room.

“Jimin Ah! At five, I tell you send the car home! What you been doing! Why you did not send car?” his mother always squalled at her highest pitch. The corners of her eyes bawled open as her jowl lunged forward as a sign of irritation. She always did that whenever she got exces-

sively angry. Jimin then coiled like a battered child in his corner and murmured his few lines of explanations.

“Ahh…Ernie never told me. He really didn’t say five, mom.”

“Ah Jin-ja! This is how many times I tell him! How many times he didn’t follow what I tell him! Ah shi! Call Ernie to the house!”

Jimin’s mother hissed another trail of curse and prod-ded her head with her scrawny hands, flipping her hair backward and forward, perhaps trying to set herself calm before she caned a table out of madness. She fren-zied around the house trying to find something and Jimin would use this time to take refuge either under the swath of grass or behind the hinges of the doors. By then, he knew best that his mother was inevitably bound to stress over his absence. And often a person had to be there ready to receive her frustrations- it was not a pretty sight at all.

The doorbell rang a cacophony. Jimin was there eye-ing his mother trudge down the hallway, flapping her gray hair that puffed with steams of anger. Jimin actually didn’t know what his mother would do to Ernie. He never imagined how she could raise her voice in front of others; maybe she could in front of Jimin but he was

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sure she valued her self-composed decorum over any-thing else. Apparently all of Jimin’s friends in school said the same thing about their mothers- all acting so stately outside. Jimin peeked through the kitchen window and resolved to see what happened. And just then, his mother tugged opened the wooden door.

There he was: Ernie, standing in front of the door, balancing in both arms the weight of the grocery bags which Jimin had purchased today, trying to force a grin in the greeting “Good evening mam, see you tomorrow”. He was like that ever since Jimin was a toddler, radiating a smile or at least a faint grin whenever he could. Proba-bly his mirth was what compensated for his stout-looking body and the loaf of fat that swelled out of his stomach. But today, Ernie looked different. Although he wore that same tattered jeans and white T-shirt, Ernie stood there as a stranger no who no longer had a hint of kinship with Jimin.

Before Ernie laid down the bloated bags, the mother had casted her wrath upon him, letting her frustration out with a bellow.

“Why you didn’t you tell Jimin, what time I finish!”

It probably had come to Ernie with a huge surprise. You can tell by the way he crested his mouth into a

shape of an arch bridge and how his skimpy shoulders sagged like loosened hawsers. You can see his empty face devoid of hope and by this time, no matter whose mis-take it was, he was to blame- he was the Filipino.

“I-m, sorri mam…” Ernie muttered.

“You just sit in the car and you can’t even get this right? You want to lose a job, no more work?”

He stood there face drooping like a long dried catkin. For Ernie, the sound of losing his job must have incised through his ear like a sharp steel of warning.

“But mam, I say Jimin the time today mam. I said it.” Ernie made his sincere explanation.

“Ohh so you say, Jimin is a liar?”

“No Mam! Sorry, I don’t say that but I just say today, five o’clock mam.” Ernie persisted. From here, Ernie looked more like a human. The everyday perfunctory steering and emotionless response that he had over this summer were somehow suppressed under his botch of passion.

“You just be quiet! You drivers never learn! Just, ahh, how many you have to make a mistake? How many you have to do wrong to learn? You just bad driver.” Jimin’s mother started to bowl from the cores of her diaphragm

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as her fingers flicked as if they were ready to stab Ernie up front.

“Ok ok, sorry mam. I never do it again po. I will not again. Please keep me this job. I have family.” Ernie’s shoulders arched even forward, hands clammed together in front of his stomach. His voice almost seemed to grunt, sounding as if he was sobbing.

It was then when Jimin’s mother took another short pause and she made her usual demand for tomorrow.

“You come tomorrow, seven am, on the dot or you try find new job.”

She slammed the door and bolted it lock even before Ernie had turned behind to walk towards the elevator.

It was 7pm when the drama finished. And there, Jimin sat back on a club chair in front of the house’s patio, recalling whatever his mother had said. The word liar stung Jimin, leaving a vestige of the definition in his head, almost as his identity.

It was then when he saw his mother tread out to the front porch, calling Jimin for dinner, breaking the stream of thoughts that trickled like a runnel with the images of Ernie. Jimin closed his memory as he headed toward the pungent fetor of kimchi inside the house. But he still

held that feeling of somberness aching inside, as if a splinter had narrowly stuck on the back of his pelvis as a scar or some sort. It wasn’t painful when Jimin had left it alone but if he thought about Ernie, the pain came again.

When his mother was still finishing the last pepper touch for the dwenjang bean soup, Jimin was already fidgeting with the chopsticks against the marble table. She always made sure people were ready to eat even be-fore she had finished cooking; it was just this meticulous personality that every sequel to her plans was to be pre-pared to come. Jimin mostly took this with irritation but sometimes some things with parents weren’t just meant to be argued.

Jimin nibbled on the brims of the Red-salted kimchi as his mother and him both watched a KBS nine o’clock news about this homeless boy miraculously getting into Harvard.

“That poor kid work very hard. Studied very hard for that.” Jimin’s mother said in her monotonous tone.

Jimin didn’t respond and just kept jostling the egg with this chopstick.

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“In this world, there are people like who work hard and study hard to be successful. But there are also some people who just try to get more money by doing noth-ing.”

She often had these thoughts, almost phrased as a streak of axiom, whenever she saw something dramatic. Some of these contemplations were mostly, if not always, targeted at Jimin’s flaws, trying to pinpoint how lax and slothful Jimin was in his grades and scores. Jimin sat there, not mentioning anything, just nodding his head like a seal, accepting whatever she said, not risking any chances of hearing his mother rant another streak of criticism in front of him.

Now, she went on with her cynics.  

“You know like, there is people, asking more money, even if their work is easy...?”

“…Asking me for raise? Ayish, is he making a joke?! That driver idiot, with his lazy, useless brain, all of them are same.”

She was barely speckling on the flesh of the roasted salmon as she continued with her complaints. Jimin grimly stared at his food as he ate but inside he was listen-ing. You just got to listen to your mothers whenever they

spoke- whether they were insults of their neighbors or chatters about the rising vegetable prices in the markets, mothers had their way of relating it back to you.

“The driver asked for a raise?” Jimin quietly asked.

“Driver asking that almost two weeks. You know that, other mom tell me, their driver said, the Ernie guy might sue us? The social security for foreign workers, the one near E-mart, everyday he go there.”

The sound of the social security struck Jimin with a force of authority. He remembered how his classmate Soo Heon had this twenty year old Arabian driver sue his employer for all the minor overtime pays that weren’t given to him on time. Social Security institution forced employers to pay even the most minor overtime pays to their drivers. It was evident that many of Jimin’s neigh-bor had driver problems.

“Then, after that, what would happen to us?” Jimin whizzed a pale question.

“You know, Social security is so stupid also, why only nice to lazy driver?  The driver work seven am to seven pm, Monday to Saturday, just like every other driver. He didn’t even pickup dad after work cuz he finished his day

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faster than him. And from that, he calls himself working hard- doing nothing but driving.”

“So, we give him money, the overtime pays?” Jimin was careful that his questions did not fume another round of ferocity that day.

“No, of course not, never to those drivers... I tell you this now, because I fire him soon. He looks nice but he is horrible driver and he backstabbed me for money. Just re-member that.”

There was a huge deal of gravity coating over her voice and it scared him there.

Jimin stood up early, saying that he would comply with his mother’s request, and headed straight up to his room. It was there again, the images of him flipping a deck of hundred thousand won in front of Ernie. It be-gan to flood into his dream like a spate of streaming wa-ter. These memories tinged his head as he swirled into his sleep.

It was that next day’s dawn when Jimin was coming back home from his summer academy. As usual Ernie with his tattered blue denim jeans and cotton-meshed polo stood in the railings to drive the car over to the lobby.

“Hey, sir, here, here.” Ernie looked much damper than usual as he stretched to carry Jimin’s bag. He drove down, abiding to all the traffic lights and car-only lanes as they took a thirty minute ride home.

Jimin sat there, twitching his fingers together, trying to keep himself too unusually still. A mesh of silence wrapped around the car, enough for Jimin to hear Er-nie’s breathing wheeze like a gush of burr. It was then when he realized how deep this wedged space has be-come between with Ernie now, probably Ernie felt the same way too.

“Ernie, where are we going now?” Jimin asked reluc-tantly.

“Ay! Home sir?” Ernie sounded surprised as if he was heading towards a wrong destination.

“Ohh right, I forgot.” Jimin felt stupid asking that question. Then, again, the silence broke free, engulfing another few minutes of bleak stares.

“Are you going home after this?” Jimin asked again to start the conversation

“Yes sir, po”

“Then, How far do you live?”

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“Ahh, Gwenpok, one, half hours by train, sir”

Ernie had made his usual prompt reply but his voice was a bit hesitant. You can hear how Ernie strained him-self from saying too much; he tried to know what Jimin was getting at. But Jimin himself didn’t know what he was doing either.

“Ok, oh and your family is with you.” Jimin was ap-palled by his awkwardness.

“Ay haha sir, I have two daughters in Philippines, big one is seven and young one is three.” There was the slight shriek of unexpectedness as Ernie spoke but he just continued to add onto Jimin’s random conversations.

“… They live at Montalban sir, near the mountains.”

“Good place to live?” Jimin talked with less stiffness.

“Haha, yes sir, great weather and banana farm sir. I will bring some next time.”

Then another reign of bleakness shed over. Jimin felt how this barrier kept them in a distance and the diffi-culty it took to somehow come together. They arrived home when the tarred evening shrouded the sky.

“Sir, when you come to Manila. Call me, Sir? Yes?” Ernie puffed the words with force before Jimin got out of

the car. This time Ernie bent to the side to look at Jimin. It was one of these unexplainable moments when some-body tries to look at you trenchantly.

“Yes Ernie, I will call you. See you tomorrow.”

Jimin cantered up the porch and felt heaved with a cornucopia of emotions. It felt as if he somehow had the reconciled with Ernie, compensating for being the bar-ren character that he was before- at least Jimin had proven Ernie that he was changing. But yet, nothing seemed to be enough to completely quilt this gap.  

It was seven when Jimin and his mother ate their din-ner together. Usually they ate in silence as they perched their chopsticks at the leafy ends of the egg roll pieces.

Suddenly, Jimin’s mother started talking in her coarse tone “I don’t know what I can do with him anymore. He is difficult, too difficult.”

That sentence bashed onto Jimin as if he had been stamped by a foot. It spewed like a sudden, unexpected shriek out of nowhere.

“I don’t think you know him much either?” Jimin raised his voice a little, just enough to show that he de-manded an explanation.

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“What you say? Oh, I know, he is useless! Always late, driving late, cannot understand! You like that driver get-ting our money.” His mother retaliated with even more force. If she came out like that, Jimin knew it was just better to settle down with peace. It was no winning mat-ter and you just had to stop it right there and then.

The next morning Jimin trudged down the stairs and found a 20 year old Mexican, Joseph Clarita, waiting for him by his car parked in the lobby. The driver greeted him with the enthusiasm that you had at the first-day of work and Jimin quickly realized what just happened. The car still smelled of Ernie’s musky heat. The moment descended into Jimin like the weight of water as the memories played to him like a reel of tape, on a rewind, of the scattered images and a montage of a person’s ves-tige which he struggled to put back together. Mostly, he got nothing out of it but you still do it for the sake of it.  Jimin told himself that was the one way ride that Ernie had made to the finish. He wondered how differently it would have ended if he had known that, that was going to be the last; was it the same ending that Ernie expected to come?

“Where to sire?” Joseph asked.

“Shinnam Mall, please.” Jimin wearily replied.

Then, Jimin asked Joseph to turn on the radio and turn up the volume - requests he hadn’t asked anyone in many years.

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CHAPTER 4∏

POETRY

Sisyphus’ Stone and Other Poems

Sisyphus’ StoneThe SlumberPortraitsBlack AphroditeOmniscienceStill Life You Wish Love

from Anonymous Authors

Sisyphus’ Stone

The stone wall had stood there, seven stories tall, made from ground calcite, Hoistered with the webbings of barbed wires chaining us like units of concrete sentries, Reining its pale shadow behind Our cottage out-house, which I had thought,Would have never corroded into grits of shredded pieces.

You built it alone, you see, seven scores ago, You insisted on toppling thickets and meshes Of brothy flesh,Conjuring up some clever spell and potions To erect a faceless child

That first perched proud tall around us.

You told me in your lamentation that This feetless child would protect his parents From all the hounds and ogres that sidled outside the visible offings. Your child morphed only to the frames of your visual appetite,And it forged a marked peripheryA dimensional divide between us and them. You could not see it with your eyes, Those witty and intelligent eyes,Those tumbleweeds and vines,That infested and strangled as human veinsagainst the rugged spine of your child,Suffocating the last holewhere the last sheer of wind, the last breathcould wheeze through our dream.

But we took them as dandelions-- We sold those times too easily to ourselves, Allowing your child, the beauty of its pollens, to encase us, Potting us into a cottage, a home,

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Sisyphus’ Stone and Other Poems

SECTION 1∏

Untouched or unscathed by the beasts lurking behind it. That is why I had never hammered that child, Just left it to dictate, the images of heaven and earthIn deference to your whims.

But when your body drifted back into the sod,Your child collapsed into an epitaphengraved with your name.

I stepped beyond the stake, the mark That beleaguered the pieces of graphiteonce used to knit together the skin of your child And the skeleton of the dandelions that embellished The shingles of our house. I took only your words that had fit in my memories And I took that step out in my pursuit for you.

You lied to me. All those words of beast and our lovely enclosure, The dandelion markings against the concrete monu-ment,The perennial protection and preservation! What a pestilence to my ear. It was only your child - not mine.

The SlumberHe looks at it with wonder now. How the flicker of the kerosene lamp and the shadow of a head on the pillow, the dark clawing tails reflected on the oak side linings of his bed,the silk blanket’s careful pleats, can be a useless waste. But what is its value to a coal miner, perhaps, caged in the stone room  of a minewearing torn leather boots, yellow hard shelled hats, and salt-peppered shirts from dried sweat  tainted with graphitemarring their only flare of vision. He thinks of it with wonder now. how the one peso copper coins that swell the pockets of his leather wallet, disrupt comfort as they jostle against his thighs when he treads along the corridors. What is its value to a girlin dire need of repose

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peddling sampaguita necklaces while she walked with holes on the soles of her feet and the asphalt feltlike a warm black bed.

Portraits

I A lamp post in the middle of the pavementSilver paint is peeled off and red rust is painted overThe light shakesI lean on the rugged metals, And the chasms of air surround me

IIA soul is pleased by other soulsWe sing ecstatic gospelTunes without rhythm Melodies that define us

IIIWe fill our pockets with gold,And we still look for stones,

Black and amorphous figure,Then our bags cram with flesh But our hearts search for more

IVIf my work were a playI’d draw the maroon curtainsTurn off the nitid stage lightsAnd hush the clappingBecause there is always a line to add

V I hold a friend, no bigger than my palms,It is stacked with piles of scribbled papers,With a thick wooden skin around it,When others try to interrupt I ignore them until we finish talking

VIA woman crouches on the floor,Massaging the Chinese cabbage With the red gochukarupepper powder and salt,Just with one tasteI am brought back home

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VIIEnsconced on a wooden arm chair,I imagine the pigeons scoop over the blue lakeWillow trees arch over the waterThe dark evergreen trees fill the forest, I savor the Jamaican Blue Mountain in my world,

VIIIMy voice vibrates like the roaring lions,I gallop along with the imperial stallions And fly amongst the king of the hawks,Out into the green open meadows

IXI am scared of ignoranceIt deceives through our perception And erases the reality, It hypnotize most humans, It makes us forget that we are a virus

XHe grins at me with,Eyes that shapes like an arched rainbow

A smile that angles toward the top edges,With a voice that vibrates in a high-pitch,But this is all very unnatural

XIWearing a green, multi-layered tulle With our school name stitched on my chest,I enter a room Filled with other students With insatiable curiosity.

Black Aphrodite

I sense you at the turn of the knob,by the cold metallic clicks of the key shrieking like guttural expletives. You’re a penumbra lurking -proximity severed by the apple's essence on your dress, scent I used to seek between the junctures of your mouth. There's a vestige of you on the floor,a dwarf blot of a torso. You still wear  the Greek goddess' black gown, one shoulder

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- strapped on the left.  It used to kindle fire,unplanned kisses obscured by the burying of the face in the neck. You were magnet, and I was iron - malleable,  newly forged,  febrile.  Today, I hardly notice your gown's cascading hem.  Today, its creases irritate,  fricatives on the carpet's surface.     Silence.  The rattling of the keys.A conundrum surfaces before the door shuts and a realization:  It's not distance and space that pull people apart. I say, "It is time." "Yes, it is time," she says. Door, mouths, hearts clam up.  Then, she quietly walks down the aisle. I didn't see her go, that black Aphrodite.                                        

OmniscienceThere’s wisdom in the elements when the imposing dew that crowns the tip of the grass blade, rappels down -dissipating in deferenceto the sun.But the dew claims omniscienceand sees the grass as a whirlpool of green,  the sky a blue French window speckled with white holes and the brunette child in polka dot dress a Lady Bug - the insect's visage the sizeof her fingers.Whichever comes closer is warped,  distorted. Head the shape of an hourglass nose stretched, abducting half of the face, the flattened forehead a miniature cobblestone pavement. There’s a lamp post across the street.

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the dew sees it as a platinum rocking chair,  or an old woman in a beige night gown, silver hair tied in a bun and back arching like the roof of a cathedral, palms together -compelled to worship  the gravitational power. At dusk, the dew is almost blind, a pinch of sardonic smileon its side.Yet a dew mismeasures a man Omniscience popping like a soap bubbleat a sleight of hand.                                              

Still LifeFramedindifference is the swelling distance behind the fogged glass of a café  when lovers’ bodies lean away and that orange mask  from an oscillating pendant lamp 

overhead -halved both faces. Sumatra in a mugturning tepid the longer it was held,  and the beaks outside ,amongst the mango’s  limbs,  glide their patience, mocking  the morning’s  first prey .

You Wish LoveI'll take my chances with you.Innocence does notspeak of a broken heart. You think of loveas a cleanly shampooed hair of scalp that smelled of Elder Flowers and lavenderor an invited guestfor whom you offeryour ritual of bodily cleansing-  love merely an etiquette

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and passion is an immaculately washed T-shirtthat reeked of perfumeor a fabric softener, and you believe that you'll be lovedas soon as you steppedout of a showerskin supple from the oppression of the soap skin that hasn't yet seen -elemental sufferings. Intimacy, in your world, is a firm handshake.The gently entwined fingers,your promise ring. You're careless about stealing a glance. You smile when caught, and you believe in love's simplicity. Sometimes, if you couldn't, you wish love were that way. 

                      

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CHAPTER 5∏

CREATIVE NON-FICTION

“The smell of fermented soybean, pepper paste, the sweat and the

scent of bodies intermingled with the smell of the steaming fried fish.

Yet, no one complained. My mother’s back was bent towards the

basin on the floor, of Korean cabbage she carefully massage with her fingers as she told stories of a neighbor’s daughter who entered

Columbia University. The world of Korean women is built in patience.”

J. W. Lee

My father keeps thick piles of vintage photo albums, their colors gently fading, chronologically arranged. Most had withstand sun and rain, dust and moisture. But there is one he treats like a treasure the one with the blue vinyl cover, the one whose face is embossed with the word 'love,' just above the carved heart shape pocket, now occupied by a photograph of him and my mother taken during their wedding. If this is his treasure, this photo album is a microcosm of my world.

At the centerfold of the album was a family picture taken on my grandfather’s 80th birthday. My grandfather, in his white Hanbok, Korean traditional gown, sat in the middle flanked on the right by women in their colorful traditional attire. Veiled behind the women’s smiles were the strains of the preparation for

my grandfather’s party: hours of boiling beef shank soup in the kitchen until it was perfectly done as anything besides perfection was utterly unacceptable. The women, especially my mother – the only daughter in law in the family – had to prepare Korean traditional dishes that required time, proper timing and hours of incising and shaping vegetables in intricate contours. Korean men and women believe that the food serve in every meal must fit for a king and thus, beef stew, rice cakes shaped in tiny colorful balls stuffed with sweet red beans, Korean side dishes, mostly fermented vegetables required much attention – from the very minute details of their presentation, the perfect pairing, to their taste.

When I was growing up, I would often chance upon the women working in the kitchen as most of the big events and preparations happened in my house. The smell of fermented soybean, pepper paste, the sweat and the scent of bodies intermingled with the smell of the steaming fried fish. Yet, no one complained. My mother’s back was bent towards the basin on the floor, of Korean cabbage she carefully massage with her fingers as she told stories of a neighbor’s daughter who entered Columbia University. The world of Korean women is built in patience. As a young girl, I refused to envision a

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MementoJ.W. Lee

SECTION 1∏

parallel world for myself and yet, there was also a part of me who wanted to give in.

At the bottom of one page of the album, I found my father’s imposing but gently fading, baby picture. My father was the center of his family’s world. This was apparent in the photograph in which my father was gently placed in the most ornate wooden chair my grandmother salvaged among her treasured furniture. In my father’s childhood days, Koreans valued males over females. But more was expected of him. This meant studying until midnight and waking up at four in the morning. Sometimes his hands would get numb from the early morning frost and he would just purse his lips and blow warm air on them before he got on his rickety bicycle. When he reached school, he had completed the delivery of newspapers and milk to more than two hundred houses. My father was rewarded with a weekly wage to support his schooling but my grandparents still pursued more stringent rules imposed only on Korean males. His father believed that every penny his son earned should be compensated with hard work.

My father applied the same sets of rules in my house. At age eight, I had earned money to buy my teddy bears by dish washing and shining my father’s shoes. When I entered middle school, I had to complete morning

joggings with my father, most of the time with my eyes half open. But as my father also understood that many of our traditionally held beliefs did not apply anymore to our cosmopolitan leanings, I was bestowed the freedom to embrace modernity.

I look at the album one more time, its cover slowly pelting off. I know it may not last for very long. But I realize, through its inconsequentiality and smallness, that my world is borne out of the same triviality. I learned that a person is patterned through the frivolity of the daily actions of those around her. These actions are what the album evoke the colors, shapes and recollections of the world and circumstances that molded me. The worn out album is my world covered in vinyl. It is who I am trapped in the faces of my ancestors. The album tells my story and the story of those who came before me.

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They wore mud stained sleeveless undershirts and dark brown paper thin trousers as they cavorted through Mckinley road to spend their Christmas Eve. They considered it lucky to be there without the prying eyes of the adults. A cool zephyr passed through the squalid alley, sweeping pieces of “Star Magazine” newspapers that were stuck behind the trash can. They were at the center of the whole place that smelled like MPG diesel. In this alley, the boys celebrated their Christmas Eve by kicking crumpled Coke cans. As the game started, the boys’ foot thumped against the rugged cement floor, arms swayed front and back, high-pitched voices that sounded like the voices of Quaker Parrots echoing throughout the alley. The ink-black raven hovered

around the walled blackness of the sky as spectators of the game.

Then a man, wearing a baggy Yankees T-shirt, held an amorphous wooden stick and hollered “Get down all of ya!” from the back of the alley. The boys immediately crouched against the floor. The man had a great damp

loaf of a body; he was buried under a casement of flesh; his hair rucked back and head shaped like an aluminum saucepan. His shoulders and arms swung forward as the skin-pee led wooden s t i ck landed on the boys’ butt. It made a splatting sound

as the man growled every hit.

Like a low hiss of a snake, the man said “Get up now.” The boys stood up, no smile, no words, as their height only came up to the waist of the man. Before the man left, he hollered “Go and bring 20 pesos each, or else, no one will sleep tonight!” The children obeyed his orders and trotted like a galloping horse toward the city road of Mckinley. This was their Christmas present from their father.

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The RavenLeonard Anderson

SECTION 2∏

The traffic light turned red. The pedestrians busily passed through the zebra crossing as the cars stopped tight before the white line started. The children, the same boys who played soccer during the night, glued their bony hands together, arched their backs forward, as they implored for money. The children knocked the shaded window glass of the cars but no one rolled their windows down. The boys were tired as the night got deeper and deeper.

The youngest boy among the group was hurt—his foot, covered with black dust, was punctured by a piece of broken glass from a San Miguel bottle, which made him scream in agony. His brothers tore the side of his shirts to rap the feet, blocking the blood from spilling. They held the injured boy, carefully laid him on the side of the concrete pavement, covered his body with scraps of newspaper. The ink black raven, the same raven that watched the soccer game, glared at the unconscious boy from the top of a telephone booth and stared at him as if he was its prey.

The remaining boys went working, numerously knocking the windows of the passing cars. Then, a glimmering white Porsche paused for the traffic light. The group of feeble eight or nine year old boys huddled together on to the car as the arms, thin as a hawser,

stretched out to make a bowl out of their hands. In the car were two boys that wore green shirts with the letters of “ISM” stitched on the left side of their breasts. Holding a mirror black cased iPhone, they faced each other as the gobbled up McDonalds, bits of French fries spewing out of their mouths whenever they talked. The somnolent boys clawed onto the windows of the Porsche. The window scrolled down, just enough to stick a hand into. Then, a blond kid glared on the boys. He picked a yellow strip of steaming French fries and threw it at the street children. It hit the boy’s brown wrinkled forehead as it bounced back on the floor. The boys in the Porsche sneered as they drove off the road.

The French fry fell into a muddy puddle; the boys cleaned it with their palms as they shared the crumbs of the thin strip of the French fry. One of the boys that huddled to get the food, looked at his injured friend with the eyes that sagged on the corners. He saw his friend lying there, head tilted on its side and newspaper that covered the torso that was thin as a candle stick. And the boy stared at the Raven, the Raven that rested its nail-like toes on the bald head of the sleeping boy. Then he knew. His friend had bled too much.

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A blue palette for a pool, I thought as I stood there on its edge as the water cascaded a smudgy image of the suns silver streaks – a brandishing a sword. To paint that blue palette with speed, time and trails of weightlessness is every swimmer’s dream – and so we claw to beat time and the pressure – of water, and from the voices of the cheering crowd. I stood there in front of the diving block, Lane 4, Heat 3, the hiss of my name fluttered by. I waited for the alarm, a signal for me to dive - impervious to the screaming, to my very own existence.

A swimmer is only conscious of time. He has it woven in his system. He is more aware of it than his struggle against the pain of propelling the remnants of his energy so he could slam his arms against the weight of water. That day, I was more aware of the pain as I

excruciatingly inch forward, to stay afloat and I knew the water’s tug signaled failure. But swimming, much like life, is a struggle to stay afloat, to beat time - unless it beats you.

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Of Time and Weight of WaterAlex Housman

SECTION 3∏

CHAPTER 6∏

BOOK TALK WITH RUBY GUO

“I’m a quiet girl from New Jersey (in the beautiful United States) studying at a specialized STEM

(Science Technology Engineering and Math) high school. I have

hopes and dreams for my future, and I work hard toward making my career goal of becoming a doctor a

reality. I enjoy running cross country and writing for my own

enjoyment. “

What books have you read more than twice? Why is it worth reading the second time or more?

“A lie is when you say something happened which didn't happen. But there is only ever one thing which hap-pened at a particular time and a particular place. And there are an infinite number of things which didn't hap-pen at that time and that place. And if I think about something which didn't happen I start thinking about all the other things which didn't happen.” In the book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon, the perspective of an autistic 15 year-old is very different. It appealed to me in that it looked at things from another angle, opening up sides of the story which I would never have tried to grasp. Thus, reading it more than once offered new insight into the psychology of the character each time.

Books you in your shelf you think no one else has?

A book titled “Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science”, by Atul Gawane, sits on my shelf. I can confidently say that I am one of the few individuals who own this book simply because of its content. The book details the true story behind many mistakes and un-certainties that doctors and surgeons experience through-out their career, and most people would rather stay igno-rant of these things, fearful of the imperfections their own doctor may have.

Books no one would expect you to have read?

No one expects a sophomore in high school to be read-ing picture books, yet “If Cats Could Talk” remains in my bookshelf. It is a small, square book filled with pic-tures of cats in different scenarios. Besides these images are short phrases and sentences describing what the cats would be saying—if they could talk. Sometimes, going back to our roots is essential. After all, aren’t pictures worth a thousand words?

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Book Talk with Ruby Guo

SECTION 1∏

Most valuable book in your collection?

Among my books, “The Diary of a Young Girl” written by Anne Frank, remains the most valuable in my collec-tion. It’s a true account of a young girl’s struggles during the Holocaust, a time when the Jews were persecuted by the Nazis across Europe. The fact that this was a true ac-count, taken straight from her diary, makes the words and emotions more real to me. The way the reader can see her growing up as the diary progresses touches our hearts, and her devastating capture speaks straight to us.

A book that could sum up your life story?

Honestly, there is no book that could completely sum up my life. Each and every one of us has our own story to tell, and there is nothing can parallel the unique strug-gles and successes we face in our lives. Each day is a brush stroke, and each person paints a different picture as time progresses.

Book that capture your life's philosophy?

“Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio” is an autobiography by Peg Kehret. It details her struggles as a child with the crippling disease of polio (which modern medicine has nearly eradicated today). The reader is drawn into the story when her life takes a turn for the worst, but we are not left disappointed. She makes a seemingly-impossible recovery from her disease, against all odds. Peg never gave up in the face of difficulty, and it is her persever-ance with which I hope to live.

Ruby Guo is the second place winner of the Gulen Youth Platform International Essay Writing Contest and placed third in the 2012 USCHS (US Capitol Historical Society) Student Writing Contest, “Making Democracy Work”. The Editor

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CHAPTER 7∏

SHOULD A JUST SOCIETY BE AN EQUAL ONE?

“Equality to a certain extent entails similarity but not ‘sameness’. This

sameness exists between a cluster of dissimilar matter, people, processes

or circumstances, which demonstrate identical qualities in at

least one respect, but not in all aspects. This is a reference to

similarities with regards one specific feature where distinctions exist in

other features ((Dann 1975).”

G. Scott Platt

The concept of ‘equality’, for the most part, often evokes a sense of vagueness and confusion. Not only is this rooted upon the notion that ‘being equal’ is difficult to define, it is also a disputed concept. The idea of equal-ity has likewise been regarded as akin to the doctrines of ‘communism’– a concept which cause, on many, appre-hension and skepticism as we have seen the collapse of this system in the last half of the previous century. Add-ing to the confusion is the plethora of definitions for the terms ‘just’ and ‘equal’ which also replete the world of politics and literature. Therefore, a logical and justifiable definition must be put forward.

As a just society can achieve equality of treatment to its citizens as long as the concept of ‘equal’ is well de-fined and is founded on freedom and respect of the

rights of individuals, I believe that the definition should not be a utopian contention or founded on Marxist doc-trines, sometimes referred to as ‘simple equality’, which calls for absolute economic parity in which similar mate-rial quantity of goods and services are provided to each individual.

This notion of equality has been considered unten-able as it borders on absolute or complete notion of equality considered by many scholars as self-contradictory (Tugendhat and Wolf, 1983 ). My initial ob-jective therefore is to offer an easily comprehensible defi-nition of equality amidst pervasive false impressions about its connotation as a political idea. This definition requires that it be differentiated from the term ‘similar-ity’ which means identical. For instance to state that hu-man beings are equal does not mean they are identical. Equality to a certain extent entails similarity but not ‘sameness’. This sameness exists between a cluster of dis-similar matter, people, processes or circumstances, which demonstrate identical qualities in at least one respect, but not in all aspects. This is a reference to similarities with regards one specific feature where distinctions exist in other features ((Dann 1975). Furthermore, development in the fields of biology and genetics only strengthened the view that no two persons are absolute equals.

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Should a just society be an equal one?

SECTION 1∏

Likewise, many governments and societies all over the world which adhere to the democratic system, strive to fashion laws and government structures so that citi-zens achieve equality under the law. This ideal has been affirmed over the centuries as a significant characteristic of a democratic government’s justice system (Thomson 1949.)  Stringent equality is required in the legal area of universal freedoms as there should be no moral justifica-tions for any exceptions. All individuals in a society must have equal rights and duties. These rights and duties should be founded on a general law, which applies to eve-ryone  - whether or not these individuals have diverse so-cial status. This is called the ‘postulate of legal equality’. The theory of equal freedom is likewise justifiably appli-cable: each individual ought to have the equivalent autonomy  to manage his life, and this he should do in the broadest method probable in a peaceful and suitable social system.

The same is true in the area of politics.   The oppor-tunities for political involvement should be equally distrib-uted and all individuals should be given ample opportu-nity to participate in shaping public opinion so as in the allocation, management, and implementation of politi-cal control or influence. This is the assumption which re-quires equal opportunity or equal political power shar-

ing. To guarantee equal prospects, social organizations must be devised in such a way that people in dearth of privileges – for instance the disabled and those from low income households, have equal opportunity to make their observations and opinion be heard so as to involve themselves completely in the democratic process.

Socially and economically, similarly skilled, talented and motivated citizens should be given roughly the same opportunities in companies and positions, free from the dictates of their economic or social rankings, ethnic back-ground or gender. This is the assumption of reasonable impartiality of social opportunity. An unequal outcome has to result from equality of chances at a position be-cause qualifications alone have been considered and ap-plied, neither the social background of a person nor his influences. This idea of legal equality or equality under the law is easily achieved as it is founded on the respect for individual liberty. We have seen that countries which prosper are those that give equal opportunity to its citi-zens before the law.

A similar emphasis on gender equality has been in-cluded as a part of the legal systems of many democratic countries. Although improvements should be made in this respect, feminism and ‘equalists’ – those who call for

46

equal treatment of diverse gender and sexual preferences – have made great strides in promoting gender equality and empowerment of women. Studies done by the United Nations support the fact that women, if given equal opportunities in any society, are able to extract themselves easily from poverty. Studies also show that women are the most marginalized in societies where pov-erty is rampant. This movement, which focuses on gen-der empowerment, has improved not only the lives of women but also the lives of their children. UNICEF has also achieved progress in this area as its research shows that rights-based approach to education will narrow the inequalities in our societies which [1]‘are deep-rooted and often gender-based’. These inequalities, according to UNICEF bar millions of young people especially girls from school and limit their advancement in their socie-ties. As we cannot utilize an absolute gender-blind ap-proach in order to achieve equality between men and women, more effective approaches to bridge the gap of opportunities between men and women all over the world must be devised. In a gendered perspective ap-proach for example, the relationship between the two genders is closely studied as well as the way societies are structured based on gender lines and the results of these relations in the society as a whole. The circumstance in

which gendered relationships materialize and the con-tinuously changing economic, political and social envi-ronment should always be identified. The ‘gendered per-spective system’ puts emphasis on making sure that gen-der is put into consideration before the construct of poli-cies, programmes, planning stratagem and assessments. This approach does not dictate total similarity but equal chances on both genders.

This is not of course the final aspect of inequality that subsists in our society as there are plenty. In many parts of the world, racial discrimination and racial inequality still persists up to this century. Furthermore, policies to eradicate racial discrimination did not come until the sec-ond half of the 20th century. Current policies to elimi-nate racial inequalities include the elimination of dis-crimination in order to promote equal opportunity to every race in a society. The idea behind this is not to treat all races as equal or similar but to treat this diversity in human nature with equal respect and be afforded equal protection under a society’s justice system.     

With the use of the aforementioned definitions of equality, a society can be adjudged as a ‘just’ society. However, the term ‘just’ here is also dependent on the most accepted definition. Justice, according to one of the

47

most prominent philosophical theorists in the modern times, John Rawls, is divided into two. The first one, dis-tributive justice [2]“concerns what is just or right with re-spect to the allocation of goods in a society.” Thus, a soci-ety whose citizens are rightly bestowed what is due them is deemed as a society steered by the tenets of distribu-tive justice. The other one is retributive justice which in-volves penalty and punishments for wrongful acts (Rawls, 1999). According to Rawls, distributive justice needs to answer three questions: What commodities need to be al-located? Between what entities are they to be distrib-uted? What is the appropriate allotment? Is it to be [3]“e-qual, meritocratic, according to social status, according to need?” Distributive justice therefore is an assertion that [4]“everyone should get what he or she deserves.”

Although there are those who dispute Rawl’s asser-tions, Rawl’s theories strengthened the contention that a ‘just’ society must be an ‘equal’ one – equality which should be based on the definitions mentioned above. Us-ing the aforementioned characterization of equality, we can conclude that this kind of society, equal and just, is attainable and a rational goal which governments all over the world should strive to achieve. We cannot also deny the fact that these contentions of equality and jus-tice are imperfect, but our ideals change as our society

changes. With this change comes also novel idea that could dispute our common held beliefs and social struc-tures. It is important to consider that these ideas with re-gards justice and equality had its precedents on the long history of philosophy, the study of morality and ethics and even the sciences and these notions have evolved and developed with our experiences. Our discoveries in the fields of social sciences, the humanities and natural sciences have further our understanding of the nature of men, the nature of other species and our relationship with them, our political and environmental structure and even our future as a species. These findings cement our belief that freedom, equality and justice are valuable for human beings and for society to survive.

 

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CHAPTER 8∏

DAVID HUME VS. THE INTELLIGENT

DESIGNER

“If design were intelligent as god applied it to his ‘creation’ of the

universe, a circular orbit is safer for a celestial body to move across

space. “If all the orbits were nearly circular,” scientist Rolling T.

Chamberlain affirms “only a few of the separate bodies moving in them would come into collision with one

another”

G. Scott Platt

That the universe is designed by an ‘intelligent creator’ as it exhibits balance and order has prevailed for centu-ries as the ‘most robust argument’ in defense of theism in the philosophical realm of old. Even in the present cen-tury, theists recurrently invoke the classic Design Argu-ment as proof of god’s existence. This argument was torn down, however, when David Hume in the last half of the 16th century put forward his criticism of the Argu-ment of Design – a treatise that sparked further acerbic debates for many centuries on the subject of god’s exis-tence (Gaskin 1993). Although many attempted to dis-pute his arguments, the finality of Hume’s critique, until today, is difficult to challenge.

Cleanthes vs. Philo and God’s ‘Work of Art’

The “Critique of the Design Argument” is presented in Hume’s book Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion in which he narrates a discourse between fictional charac-ters, Cleanthes and Philo. The discourse begins when Cleanthes brings Philo’s attention to the world around them, asserting that the world is but one great machine, with its tiniest parts attuned to each other with the min-ute particles exhibit accuracy worthy of admiration and contemplation (Gaskin 1993). Cleanthes further adds that the creator’s ‘larger faculties’, parallels the minds of men as they manifest wisdom and intelligence and thus, it is only logical that an intelligent ‘maker’ shaped them (Swinburne 1991). This argument, Cleanthes believes, ‘proves the existence of a Deity’.

As a Philo asserts that the universe does not show any relationship to a house as this is a deeply flawed analogy. The universe is a manifestation of nature while the house is man-made as he emphasizes the complexities we fail to clarify in the works of nature. Philo contends that men’s capability to understand ‘infinite’ relations is inadequate and it is “impossible for us to tell, from our limited views, whether this system contains any great

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David Hume vs. The Intelligent Designer

SECTION 1∏

faults” or merits any justifiable adulation when “com-pared to other possible, and even real systems” (Hume 1739).

Through Philo’s character, Hume contends that order and purpose are perceived only when they are the conse-quences of design. However, we see some kind of order all the time manifested in seemingly semi-conscious oc-currences like vegetation and generation. Thus, design constitutes only a tiny fragment of our understanding of ‘purpose’ and order. Assuming that the design argument is feasible, Hume argues that it is not enough   to prove the existence of a deity from the conclusions gleaned from our knowledge of the universe’s configuration which bears a distant semblance  to human design – cur-sory and sometimes unintelligent – a world which Hume states is “the only and the first rude essay of some infant deity, who afterwards abandoned it, ashamed of his lame performance” (Hume 1739).

Hume believes that god’s intellectual or mental order and faculties need to be understood in order for the de-sign argument to be decisive and reach a logical finality. Otherwise, we could not create a parallel explanation of order, or actually define it, leaving the notion too arcane

or too inscrutable. Hume also argued that if an orderly and balanced natural world necessitates a special maker or designer, then God’s mind as it is well ordered, like-wise requires a creator. Thus, this maker would similarly need another maker, and so on. The comparison with na-ture and the various things found in it, Hume adds, is in-effectual as things present in the universe are set apart from human made items as they exhibit considerable dis-parity (Hume 1739).

The Degradation of the Creator

In response, Cleanthes argues that ‘the works of na-ture bear a great analogy to the work of art (Sober 2003) insisting that the resemblance which exists between this world and human products is quite significant. Hence, god is somehow ostensible in human intelligence. Hume argues that this leads to a degradation of the creator. He suggests that we know nothing about the nature or the at-tributes of god as everything about the deity is unknown and there exists only a distant analogy among the diverse operations of nature. These comparisons do not suggest that the basis of the emergence of the universe is the

51

mind or human intelligence. The aforementioned analo-gies, according to Hume are so feeble and distant that god’s nature cannot be explained nor understood (Poide-vin 1996).

An Argument against All Odds

For a many decades, Hume’s treatise has been chal-lenged using modified arguments from the intelligent de-sign proposition. Scholars in the field of religion and phi-losophy have concocted innovative extensions borne out of the design proposition. These counter-arguments how-ever, fell apart as Hume’s critique stands robust amidst attacks from different schools of philosophical thought.

Hume’s arguments persist until today as his objections to the prevailing idea that an orderly universe exists are strengthened and supported by science. Although knowl-edge of the universe during Hume’s time is not as pro-gressive as of late, Hume exhibited deeper understand-ing of the universe we live in.

Chaotic Universe

More recent findings in astronomy, for instance, sub-stantiate Hume’s assumptions of a chaotic universe rather than an orderly one. Astronomers contend that the universe used to be crowded and disorderly; stars were more massive as they die rapidly and detonate after millions of years. These explosions result to newer and heavier elements, spawning new stars, less massive, but multiplying amidst chaos. Stephen Hawking, in his book “A Brief History of Time”, explains that the universe is congested and limited in extent, with no beginning or end (1988). However, many of us assume that the orbits of stars and planetary bodies take defined movements which have been ‘properly spaced’ so as moving matters in space may glide in ‘safety.’

Conversely, for many billions of years, planetary ob-jects have been traveling in changing paths and orbits, consequently colliding and crashing onto each other. The ‘order’ we perceive now as we gaze at the stars is just a result of planetary bodies which toppled obstruc-tive matters off their paths. Surprisingly, these orbits were random, as astronomers assert that the elliptical course is the most dangerous of all paths. Most collisions

52

in the universe result from aberrations in shape, path or movement.

The Dangers of an Ellipse

If design were intelligent as god applied it to his ‘crea-tion’ of the universe, a circular orbit is safer for a celes-tial body to move across space. “If all the orbits were nearly circular,” scientist Rolling T. Chamberlain affirms “only a few of the separate bodies moving in them would come into collision with one another” but because the orbits take an elliptical shape, conflicting in contour and dimensions, particles in space have high possibility of colliding against each other (2001). Stars do not just return to their original positions in space due to the infi-nite movements of heavenly bodies as the stars and other matters disperse into interstellar space. This results to the thinning out of the universe in which stable orbits do not subsist. Likewise, Hume reiterated that the universe has no a semblance at all on complex human made ma-chines as artifacts are designed for a purpose. On the con-trary, the universe has an unclear function (Poidevin 1996). While on the surface the universe may seem to

suggest order, it is difficult to surmise its apparent func-tion. The famous biologist J.B.S. Haldane once replied to a reporter who queried what his research on genetics sug-gested about the deity. Haldane replied that “He must have an inordinate fondness for beetles,” referring to the numerous species of these insects existing for no percepti-ble function other than for the purpose of reproduction.

Defying Anthropomorphism

Hume also showed us that it is apparently easy to compare things found in our world and yet, we have nothing to compare our universe to as it is the only one we know that infinitely exists. Thus, it defies logic to com-pare a whole to a part of a whole and vice versa. We may perceive a god present in the universe at all times, but this comparison does not provide scientific value. It is remote that theology and other social sciences can actu-ally benefit from it. Hume emphasized that the analogy between the minds of humans and the mind of an omnis-cient being is ‘anthropomorphic.’ Nature in general is mindless rather than ‘intelligent.’ It is credulous to inter-

53

pret the mind of god using the human mind as an equivalent.

As the product of an anthropomorphic philosophy al-ways results to a close look at the finite god, Hume dem-onstrates through his propositions that if the argument from design is seriously considered, most of us will come to the conclusion that the god who controls the universe entirely differs from the concept of the god/gods of or-ganized religions. As there has been a dearth of valid ar-guments on how all- knowing and perfect the designer is, we have to assume his abilities and traits manifested in the universe he designed and created. Bertrand Russell, one of greatest thinkers of the previous century, summa-rized these attributes and capabilities in a more telling fashion, ‘If I had millions of years of time and infinite power and had come up with the universe as we know it, I should be ashamed of myself.”

 

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CHAPTER 9∏

BOOK REVIEWS

Constitutional Faithby Sanford Levinson

Saying What the Law Isby Charles Fried

Reviewsby Jae Woo Jang

Viewed as another form of religion that has elicited ven-eration from the American public, the Constitution as a sacred text is the subject of Professor Levinson’s book Constitutional Faith in which he attributes America’s de-votion to the Constitution as akin to ‘civil religion’ and that this adoration of the text bear reminiscences of Prot-estant and Catholic traditions. Levinson provides his readers with the different interpretations the two relig-ious sect place towards the text - Protestants rely solely on the text and support individual legitimacy in Constitu-tional interpretation while Catholics rely both on the text and the unwritten traditions such as Declaration of Inde-pendence and Martin Luther’s King Speech to shape the law and an institutional supremacy such as the Supreme Court as the interpreter of the law. Using these two relig-ious view of the text as a backdrop, Levinson scrutinizes the veneration Americans hold toward the text sanctified almost as if it serves as a replacement of the Bible.

Levinson however posits that oaths, parallel to those of the religious oaths and the marriage vows, signifies one’s devotion, loyalty and promise to stay within the boundaries of the Constitution. It indicates an assurance that one shall protect the principles of the sacred text above any other previous or foreign loyalties. However, this reverence is only maintained if the Constitution is ‘worthy or respect’ as to serve the moral good of the soci-ety. The controversies that Levinson poses include the conflict between two moral standards that are deemed Constitutional and the contradiction between morally just actions and its unconstitutionality or legality. There-fore, Levinson proposes that interpreting the Constitu-tion should complement with the common moral stan-dards for it to serve justice. This leads Levinson to argue that although in a pluralist culture, a nation prefers its citizens to place devotion to its institutions over other loy-alties, measuring fidelity and faith to the Constitution is inherently unfeasible as he asserts that our presumed loy-alty on the text shall center mainly on the dispute that lies on our different modes of interpretations. Professor Levinson then brings the concept of ‘American Creed’ to remind his readers about the common ground unity which the Constitution initially serves and it is through a

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Constitutional Faith

SECTION 1∏

series of compromise from which the American law has spurred.

Professor Levinson’s focus of his book revolves around the implication of America’s excessive faith upon the Constitution. He deems this negative in that a veneration of the Constitu-tion indicates a static and an unchang-ing Constitution whose principles are out-of-date. Arguably to some extent,

Levinson calls for the nihilistic and secular legal teaching in law school as the conceptual scrutiny of the truth and the principle of the Constitution shall serve the future lawyers and legal academicians to understand the objec-tivity of legal studies and the Constitution which most of us had sworn an oath to. It fascinates me how Levinson denounces the ‘profession’ of one’s own excessive faith in the law in that objectivity to the Constitution may suffer. This thereby brings forth Levinson’s final argument as to compel readers to question the Constitution and its legiti-macy to which we take oath upon, despite the indetermi-nacy of the Constitution’s language. Levinson manifests predilection towards a liberal view of the Constitution - renouncing the faith and the rigidity of the Constitution as too much veneration to the Constitution may lead to

the apprehension and the discouragement of amending the text. Amongst the three major changes of the Consti-tution from the first which the framers signed , Levinson asserts that he may tentatively sign upon the text of the second in which the post-civil war amendments were in-cluded and the third in which 19th amendment was de-lineated. But regardless of where he pleges loyalty and makes his oath to, he shall construct his own view of the law from that Constitution as to best protect everyone.

When Levinson himself interprets the law, he inclines toward the Catholic view of the Constitution: written and unwritten traditions as laws and Supreme Court as the final interpreter of the law. With the sense of broad interpretation of the law and the Supreme Court to es-tablish order, Levinson criticizes Ronald Dworkin’s textu-alism and discontent of the Supreme Court decisions as the law as being a call for anarchy and social chaos. Simi-larly he denounces the weakness of Meeze’s arguments which disregards Court rulings as the final law which sharply contrasts Justice Harlan’s proposition with re-gards the Court decisions as the final voice of the law. Therefore, Levinson’s view on the Supreme Court is clear: it shall establish itself as the supreme interpreter of the law which will interpret the Constitution to achieve good consequences, worthy of public reverence.

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Professor Levinson stirs an inner revelation within each reader. He challenges each reader to consider what the Constitution is which we have blindly taken our oath to. How could one measure a person’s attachment to a nation’s law as what the court in Schneiderman v. United States stated in its repudiation of Schneider-mann’s disloyalty to the US? Levinson claims that the concept of faith upon the Constitution sets the stage for more disputes and this therefore manifests the ineffi-ciency of the government, implying that our revered text is not perfect. As inspired by Levinson’s work, I propose that the Constitution, as much valued and revered by the society, should serve as merely a guiding light in order to undergo a new set of scrutiny to clearly define the moral justice that the text calls for. The primary definition of moral good is to uphold the protection of human dignity and the secondary definition refers to the utilitarian view for the betterment of the public. However, I disagree that the symbolism of oath and loyalty attains even the slightest religious nuance. Although this etymology trace back to the history of religion, the application of these vows is often viewed with a dearth of seriousness. Profes-sor Levinson acknowledges this as true. Therefore, I be-lieve that it is erroneous to equate the reverence towards the Constitution with the reverence placed on religion.

In fact, the Constitution draws parallel with the social contract, a set of rules provided and designed by the gov-ernment for its people. As the contract should renew with the new influx of generation to place their loyalty to, the interpretation of the Constitution should ideally therefore follow the context of time as to serve justice for the society.

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Of what constitutional law encom-passes oftentimes confounds a stu-dent of law. Professor Fried, in this seminal work, sheds light on this confoundment and posits that the embodiment of the Constitutional doctrine, which both refines and de-fines the law, manifests mainly through the justification of the precedent cases as he reiterates the significance of precedence not only as a reference to abet the court’s de-

cision through the authority that came before them but as a requisite to maintaining the consistency of the law. As the law is defined through each court decision over time, the use of precedent cases bestows the court charac-ter which in turn endows coherence to the Constitu-

tional law. In retrospect, this book proposes that the ele-ment of coherence among the doctrine is significant in forging a rational Constitution and to define the rules and principles that arise from it. Fried considers Constitu-tional doctrine as a source of the continuity of laws as-serting stare decisis as the primary mode of interpreta-tion in supporting a court’s decision to bring forth the commitment and the steadiness of the law. In this book Saying what the Law is, Fried provides us with an insight of doctrine in respect to six significant features of the Constitution.

The first of these is Federalism in which Fried sug-gests that the historic expansion of the Federal govern-ment in specific reference to its enumerated powers to regulate interstate commerce has often encroached upon state rights embodied in the Tenth Amendment. On Separation of Powers, the author considers the judicial branch as devoid of political influence and views its isola-tion from the political thicket as the preservation of inde-pendence and integrity in viewing the law. His perspec-tive on the doctrine of speech revolves primarily on the need to protect the first amendment of free speech argu-ing for the protection of freedom of speech as long as its implication does not pose clear and imminent danger. Fried reveals his skepticism with regards religion as he af-

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Saying What The Law Is

SECTION 2∏

firms that government exercise liberty for and from non-secular institutions, stating his disapproval of govern-ment interaction with religion as such action may reflect overt bias over certain religious group. He further con-tends that the definitions of liberty and property should not be left for the state to define as their bounds should hold the constitutional foundation of individual choice. On the doctrine of equality, Fried laments that dearth of constitutional doctrine that is yet to emerge as the prece-dent cases have confounded the issue of equality rather than illuminate it..

This general thesis to his six facets of constitutional doctrine reveals, amidst his acknowledgement of other mode of interpretation, his reliance on the stare decisis which as a result cements his moderate view of the Con-stitution. This is illuminated in his views on the federal-ism in which he perceives each precedent case as a contri-bution in shaping the coherent relation between the state and the central government through the progression of time. Fried however cites the text to explain the role of each branch in his discussion on the separation of pow-ers, which may have deemed him a textualist, but in fact interweaves the underlying principle of the text through the application of this textual meaning in precedent cases. In another case, in his discussion on the doctrine

of religion for example, he cites the Establishment clause, the Free Exercise clause and the historic impor-tance of religious tolerance to substantiate the existence of the constitutional doctrine but somewhat neglects to fully expound on the standards and the outline of the doctrine as the precedent cases proved inconsistent and vague. A similar issue arises with his discussion of the equality doctrine where prior court decision lacked clar-ity and finality. In retrospect, Fried’s utilization of prece-dent cases to elaborate our understanding of the constitu-tional doctrine contributes to his moderate view of the Constitution, balancing both conservative and liberal ide-als. He denounces Justice Harlan’s conservative views on restrictingpornography as an invalidated attempt to re-strict the first amendment of free speech. On the other hand, Fried dismisses Justice Marshall, Hughes and Har-lan for expanding the federal government’s commerce power but concedes with Justice Breyer’s moderate view in imposing an economic standard as to when the federal government could interfere with the market. Therefore, Fried’s relatively moderate view on the constitutional doc-trine is spurred from the justification of precedent cases that clearly defines the role and the relationship of the law and the Constitution.

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It is the Supreme Court’s role, as stated by Fried, to decide what the law is using constitutional doctrine in an independent, integral and an apolitical manner. In some ways, I consider Fried a moderate who indulges a little bit on sentimental idealism on his view of the objectivity of the Supreme Court. Although Fried acknowledges that courts often avoid entering the political thicket, he fails to shed enough emphasis on the courts’ occasional role as an umpire, periodically driven by political mo-tives, as such cases are apparent in the historic disputes of the ‘midnight judges’ incident with John Adams and the recent Bush vs. Al Gore case in which Supreme Court’s decision was viewed as an exercise of politics. Yet this is the ideal that he wishes the court should con-sider as the law can only be fortified through doctrine.

Fried’s contention on the importance of precedent cases as a mode to fortify constitutional doctrine has shaped my own contentions in considering the precedent of the constitution, not just the cases, as the fundamental basis of all laws. In other words, the original intent, the philosophy that lies behind the Constitution, evoked from the thinkers Montesquieu, John Locke, Thomas Paine and to some extent Jean Jacque Rosseau, could in-deed bring additional coherence to the nuances that lurk behind the constitution. The precedent ‘philosophy’ can

provide us with the guide as to where each decision should verge towards - thereby setting precedent cases in accord to the original intent of the framers. This mode of interpretation could further deepen the basis of the Constitutional doctrine as now it acts as a compass to frame all precedent cases into cohesion. Such ideal method of shaping the constitutional doctrine could be a rational response to Fried’s propositions.

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CHAPTER 10∏

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Chapter 1!

!Bada, Jeffrey. Science Direct, "Earth and Planetary Sci-ence Letters." Last modified July 22, 2004. Accessed June 14, 2012.

!Bai, Taeil. Stanford University, "The Universe Fine-Tunedfor Life." Accessed June 14, 2012. http://quake.stanford.edu/~bai/finetuning.pdf.

Baranger , Michel. Massachusetts Institute of Technol-ogy, "Chaos, Complexity, and Entropy." Accessed June 15, 2012. http://necsi.edu/projects/baranger/cce.pdf.

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[2] See John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (revised edn,Ox-ford: OUP, 1999), p. 3

[3] Rawls p. 3

[4] Rawls p.3

Chapter 8

Chamberlain, Rolling T. (2001) “The Origin and Early Stages of the Earth,” in The Nature of the World and of Man, p. 37.

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CHAPTER 11∏

EDITORIAL BOARD

G. Scott Platt, Editor-in-Chief

Jae Woo Jang, Managing Editor

Theo Rommel Salcedo, Science and Features Editor

Contributors

Alex Housman

Leonard Anderson

Ruby Guo

Photos

G. Scott Platt

CHAPTER 12∏

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