Camera Obscura

Camera Obscura is a feature-length script about a 19th-century photographer who must document the unraveling Civil War while struggling to come to terms with deaths of his loved ones. It is a historical fiction film about memory, death, and human costs. Rutherford Holding, an adept yet recluse photographer, stands between a mobilizing country bound for war and the trauma of losing his loved ones years ago. As those around him enlist and prepare in nationalistic fervor for what is to be the American Civil War, Holding desires to evade any chance to meet death face-to-face once again. However, he pigeonholes himself in a scathingly unpopular position of a coward, unable to provide for the Union. After a visit from his mentor who offers him a chance to capture photographs of the war, Holding begins a journey that would explore the notion of the ‘honorable’ death, how it rips people apart from those they love with disgrace and antipathy. Photography was a budding medium, representing reality with unseen palpability for which citizens populating the homefront would feast their cautiously curious eyes. The image became a verge between the homefront and the battlefront. Palpability notwithstanding, the image had the ability to lie to its spectator through the means of its production. Where the camera is placed and what is in the frame are all deliberate choices of the photographer usually unknown to the recipients of these images. Holding, seeing that in order to restore honorific attention towards the dead, must combine the authenticity of the image with its deceit it produces simultaneously. The art, and ultimate significance, of post-mortem photography allowed him to ease the pain of those who lost, thereby easing the pain of his loss

The Surrogate Mother Contract: In the Best Interests of Society?

On March 31, 1987, Judge Harvey R. Sorkow upheld, for the first time, the validity of a surrogate mother-contract in his decision, In the Matter of Baby M. In broad and sweeping language, the judge deemed the contract between the natural mother, Mary Beth Whitehead, (termed the surrogate, pursuant to the contract language) and the natural father, William Stern, specifically enforceable. Judge Sorkow thus terminated Whitehead\u27s parental rights to the child she bore and permanently denied her claims for future custody or future visitation. Creating new law, the judge held that baby selling and adoption laws do not pertain to surrogacy contracts and that such agreements are not in contravention of the public policy of New Jersey. Enforcing the surrogate contract, the judge utilized a hybrid standard incorporating traditional contract analysis (the two parties voluntarily entered the agreement and were to receive consideration involving $10,000 for Whitehead and the services of carrying and bearing a child for Stern) with a test determining the best interests of the child, the latter of which is routinely applied in traditional custody cases. The case arose when Whitehead decided to keep the baby at birth and refused the$10,000. Deciding Whitehead could not renege on the bargain, the judge found that Stern\u27s right to procreate noncoitally was protected under the fourteenth amendment\u27s guarantees of privacy and equal protection; Whitehead\u27s concomitant right to raise her child was denied

China under the republic

23 pages, Institute of international education. International relations clubs, syllabus no. IXhttps://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/moore/1070/thumbnail.jp

A Politically Appointed Task Force: Can It be Effective?

Community service projects have consistently been an effective means of community involvement and an avenue in which improvement in an area may be measured. Although the roles each participant assumes may differ, the ultimate accomplishment of the project is paramount to each person involved. This paper will explore the Governor\u27s Task Force on Venereal Disease to determine both the effectiveness of the Task Force and the methods utilized to accomplish the task force goals. Primarily, this group of selected individuals will be reviewed to determine whether they were effective due to their ability to influence others, or simply through a great deal of hard work and co-operation. Data for this work was collected from individual written responses from Task Force participants, the Governor\u27s Commission on Youth, various medical professionals, several works of other authors (see bibliography), data gathered by me as participant-observer, and through interviews from selected Task Force participants. Upon compiling the data, several concepts were revealed. I found that the influence that each participant enjoyed in the community was a primary factor of the effectiveness of the Task Force. Moreover, it was the influence of the particular individual with others who could assist with this particular problem which created a positive response, and thus effective results. This paper also explores the Task Force as a politically appointed group chosen to complete a specific project. The goals, operations, and accomplishments are detailed in an effort to measure the significance of the Task Force in the community