Reflection of Machiavelli

In the Machiavelli reading, it talks about how to rule as a prince.  This reading was very confusing to me in the way it is laid out.  In one opinion it says its better to be loved then to be feared but in the other its vice versa.  Wanting to be favored by your people is a normal thing, everyone wants everyone to like them, so what do you have to do to get that?  Well the easiest thing to do if give your people money, which takes away money from the government/yourself.  Because of this you end up taking back your money, which just leaves your people even angrier.  If you want your people to like you and you can’t give them false notions, in the long run its just going to bite you back.  So the best idea is said to scare the crap out of your people and then don’t take anything away (land, money, and draft) away from them.  I think that you should be a fair prince, but a feared one also.  I don’t think they mean a scary prince as in he cuts the heads off of random people.  I think that the prince should be scary as in he lays down the law.  For example he shows people the consequences for not following the laws.  He won’t show that there is a second chance to make that up.  He is projecting that you’ll be fine and will not be screwed as long as you do what his laws are.   Making laws is a completely different story.  There are fair laws and unfair laws to the people and if the case is that there are unfair laws, why should the citizens obey them?  If people are living in a overall unhappy place, then revolt will happen.  So to maintain your status as a prince for a long time you have to be a overall fair and scary prince.  

Reflection on Starting the Government Unit.

Starting the government unit is something that i wasn't looking forward to at first.  My first idea was that we were going to repeat pretty much what happened last year when learning about the constitution.  My first idea when hearing about government is boring.  The things we have touched on so far with Haiti and ancient governments are actually quite entertaining.  I had read about Plato before and how he was a genius but i never knew how much he effect western government.  G

Plato Biography

Plato was born into a aristocratic family in around c. 428-427 B.C.  His father, Ariston, died sometime in Plato's early childhood for unknown reasons.  Ariston had traced his descendant from the king of Athens, King Codrus.    Plato was a philosopher,mathematician, and writer.  Because of his rich and informative background, Plato received the best education of the time.  He was a very smart student and was very bright.    After his amazing education, his first mentor was man named Craytlus who he was supposedly not too fond of.    He was the student of Socrates who helped him create the future foundations of western government.  Socrates referred to him as being his most committed follower.  During the Peloponnesian War Plato served in the military service for a few years then left to continue his efforts of a political career.  After the war ended his attempt of going into politics was corrupted by the new government and the execution of his mentor Socrates.   After Socrates died, Plato traveled to italy and Egypt to continue his studies.  Eventually he returned to athens and created his own school to enforce his own teachings.  For students enrolled there, Plato tried both to pass on the heritage of a Socratic style of thinking and to guide their progress through abstract philosophical truth.  His main intention of running the academy was because of his earlier intentions of becoming a politician.  He wanted to train young men to become good statesman.  However, having given them the ideas that Plato believed in, Plato thought that these men would improve the political leadership of all of greece.  Plato then died in c. 347 B.C. in Athens, Greece.

Reflection on The cave.

The Cave was a reading that i thought was hard to understand.  The cave represents a government and aspects of being a leader.  The people sitting in the front facing their shadows are the citizens.  The people behind them alluding their shadows are government heads and leaders.  The fire represents the overall idea of the government itself.  If this whole government is fake though, why did people not escape?  I think that people were pulled into the whole cave idea because of many different reasons.    One of which could be that people had been living inside this cave (government) for so long that they don't know and difference to it.  In modern times this allegory could be used for different ideas smaller then a government.  For example, magazines, fashion, and posters for women.  Self-image nowadays is that girls see these images of extremely skinny and beautiful women and become stressed and angry about themselves.  The people who write and design these magazines and posters are over editing to make sure that the posters show a false image so that people would want to be as much like them as possible.  Though in this case, they do this to make more money.  This allegory could help us with this government unit because its a simple foundation of how leaders work and how governments could be seen as.  Three things that a good leader has is bravery, persuasion skills, and wisdom.  Without all of these or even just one, a leader could be nothing.  When we learn about different types of governments and governmental leaders, we can compare them to this reading!  If the leader was a good leader he most likely had all three of those main traits.  Im excited to read more about the government unit!

The Lives of Others Reflection

The Lives of Others was a powerful movie.  Personally i don't know much about this time period they were in so i felt out of it.  I felt like i knew nothing about germany at that time.  It was a interesting stand point about how it followed the live of a Stassi and someone who was being monitored.  Wiesler was my favorite person in this film.  Just saying, the actor was splendid.  Something i noticed about him is that when he took the type writer in the end and found out he was bugged himself, how did he never check his apartment.  I mean they make such a big deal about how he's the man and how he trains people to become this roll so how could he not suspect that people working within the Stassi weren't being monitored either.  Something that stood out to me in the film in general is when they would cut to interrogation scenes and they would always focus in on the chairs.  The first time they interviewed the man in the first scene, he was asked to put his hands under him.  The time they asked CMS she put her hands under her without question.  The third time when Wiesler was being interrogated, he didn't put his hands under at all and there is a shot of him just staring at the chair.  I thought that was interesting because of how many times he had done it and taught it, he was shocked that he was put in a situation like that.  That movie was great and I am excited to start our government unit!

Reflection on Environmental unit

The environmental unit was something that effected me in different ways.  In the past, we had learned about ancient civilizations and countries, but never had we gotten so deep into how it worked.  The assignment where we had to design our own society and create resources accessible to the people.  After we went up and presented our thought our societies, questions were dropped on how we got those resources.  Most of the kids presenting stood up and had to take a minute to think.  A problem with that is obviously kids are going to think of stuff off the top of their heads but still the assignment really got us thinking about what a society is.  That activity is one that is beneficial in every way.  It gets us thinking in depth about resources, creates a way to experience handling a society, and its fun.  Another activity that is good enough to reflect on is the in class activity where we did the black plague switches.  It started off being just discussions about a homework we had just done, but then it continued until a moment you stopped us and told us that one of our classmates had the plague.  If you had told us when we walked in, we would have stayed away from this one infected classmate.  It was a example showing us how unexpected the black plague went around.  The most recent assignment, the Haiti assignment, was difficult.  I'm sure that was the whole idea but the notion of having to reflect on a serious event in a certain subject prior to that problem is hard.  My subject was social which sounded easy but was actually a challenging thing to come by.  Searching for information that wasn't a factor of economical or governmental was the hard part.  It does take a lot of work to prepare for a paper like that.  Overall i thought this unit was very interesting and should stay a part of history class.

Reflection on Heat wave Video

The Chicago Heat Wave videos were interesting.  A part that really interested me was the effects it had on different areas of the city.  The obvious was how it effected the poorer areas more and the rich less.  Like we talked about if you went up to someone who was wealthier at that time and asked them if they remembered it, they most likely wouldn't.  I asked my mom and dad about it and they said they don't remember a big deal about it but they remember warnings about the heat.  My parents lived in lincon park then like they do now and that was one of the areas that was hardly effected.  When I talked to them about it they said there was a area near lincon park that they remember having a big issue.  My dad said he remembers people sleeping by lake michigan to stay cool.  My 26 year old sister said she remembered kids staying inside because of the extreme heat.  I think that because of this event that happened that our city has become more aware of the heat.  New york didn't have as many deaths because they were more prepared in the long run.  They had that heat before and knew what to do with it and also they knew the heat was coming their way.  The heat hit Chicago unexpectedly and thats why there were so many deaths.

Christopher Columbus's Impact on the World

Christopher Columbus had many different impacts in the long and short term when he arrived to America.   One of the hardest part of getting there was finding a wiling crew to travel the waters with him.  The majority of his crew were people who had a reason to leave Spain.  So that meant a lot of criminals.  It all started out as a a shock to arrive in a new land that was thought to be india.  When he got to America he found out the large amount of resources and quickly returned to Spain to explain his findings.  When Spain found out, all of Europe started to hear of this new found land.  Franch, Spain, and England then started heading towards America.  Natives of America were slaughtered by the Europeans.  The scramble for land then began, pushing the Natives into smaller and smaller spaces.  In the future the government would provide preserves for the Natives.  But over time they would get smaller and smaller because of the Land grabs.  Yet all of the settlers from Europe was the first step of the development of the America today.  So you could say that Columbus was the founder of America in one impacts, and also the apocalypse for the Natives.
      Columbus in my eyes is a good man.  His intent wasn't to rid the Natives of America in the first place, he wasn't even trying to go to America.  His set path was to India but he never made it.  When he got to America, he found good resources and good land so his first idea was to claim it.  It did start the land grab but i think if lets say America found a large amount of land with need resources then they would try to claim it if it was scarcely habited.  

Racial Issues at Parker

The issues that have been happening at parker are a shocking to me.  Our school, which is very keen on educating people about racial fairness, had issues in small groups talking about diversity?  When everyone was told we were shocked.  But yet, they still didn't tell everyone exactly what happened.  How can we prevent something from happening if we do not know what has happened in the past?  I heard lots of outrageous stories about certain kids targeting other students and faculty members.  People were being named who I was friends with.  Also arguments were being thrown around about how it was being handled.  One of the opinions was that kids shouldn't be asked to discuss diversity without adults present.  Diversity is a hard topic for anyone to discuss without anyone overreacting or getting offended.  Another opinion is that kids should discuss it because it is the way to make progress themselves.  The way that makes sense the most is that kids should be able to discuss it and it is a hard topic but it should be guided so no kids could start rumors and such.  That was the case at the small groups, kids said something that got twisted around to a racial comment.

1. " Haiti Earthquake"  ,acessed october 28th, 2011, http://search.proquest.com/docview/458861292?accountid=3360,
About the general idea of the earthquake itself.  Written in a newspaper.

2. " A year after the Haiti Earthquake", acessed october 28th, 2011, http://search.proquest.com/docview/832014796/132B09214CF246230A0/2?accountid=3360
The differences that happened a year after the earthqauke.

3." Two months after Haiti Earthqauke",  acessed october 28th, 2011, http://search.proquest.com/docview/443537555/132B09214CF246230A0/9?accountid=3360
Two months after the earthquake the health issues that  were happening.

4.  " Emergency Shelter in Haiti", acessed october 28th, 2011, http://search.proquest.com/docview/444707227/132B0987F3A9F0E778/6?accountid=3360
The Haiti earthquake by a united nations point of view.

5. " Haiti's long term jobs after earthqauke" , acessed on october 28th, 2011,
http://search.proquest.com/docview/835109465/132B09F00F85E02C3E/1?accountid=3360
Jobs in haiti after the earthquake and how they are affect

6. " The world of the Haitian Revolution", acessed on october 28th, 2011, economiclyhttp://search.proquest.com/docview/225680103/132B0A307BE75507571/2?accountid=3360
Haitian revolution and economic statistics

Witches in Africa

In the reading about Bantu Language, the idea of being scared of witch craft caught my eye.  I had always known about back in the middle ages what they thought about witches and how it was a huge deal to catch one.  I found out in africa that there were many types of witches.  On the good side, there were witch doctors who were frowned upon a little but were known for their healing powers.  On the bad side were people thought of to posses huge amounts of evil power.  In the Zulu and Bantu tribes, there were groups of people called witch smellers.  They would host large gatherings of their village in particular and form a circle.  The villagers would not interact while the witch smellers would start to hum low and stomp their feet.  Then they would find who had caused the witchcraft in their village by the pat on the victims back and he or she would be dragged off and beaten till death.  The witch smeller's symbol was a quagga (type of zebra) tail.  Now in modern days witch smellers are illegal.  Yet the witchcraft continues all over africa.  People with albinism are thought to contain large amounts of power.  Because of that, it wasn't unusual for a witches to cut off limbs of people with albinism for luck.  Children were often accused of witchcraft if they had mental illnesses.  Some were sent to wellness centers to get rid of their witchcraft ways or some were just abandoned.  There really is no solution to problems like these.  Could this continue into the future?  Most likely yes.  The idea of witchcraft is part of belief which can be main factors in some peoples lives.  If you take away people beliefs then their individual pyramids could tumble down.  And when individual pyramids fall down then society then has no base and collapses.

Is the term civilization a dead word?

During the course of the year we have been learning about civilizations in general.  In class we mostly cover on how they function in the past.  Something that is never brought up is how is civilization used in the present.  No one refers to cities or countries as civilizations.  When you look at civilizations in the past they were smaller, less civilized, and less populated then cities now.  They are referred to as smaller colonies inside countries.  But they were still groups of people living together under similar circumstances.  So why isn't the United States of America referred to as a civilization? 

 Civilization nounthe stage of human social development and organization that is considered most advanced (Definition from Webster Dictionary)  
As a member of social development thats at one of its most advanced states why are we not referred to as a civilization?  A other way to look at this I guess is that we don't know how advanced we are going to get and what other civilizations may evolve to.  So maybe we aren't called a civilization because we aren't there yet.  It really is just a question that can never be answered.  

Hurricane Katrina p1

Hurricane Katrina was a large hurricane that hit New Orleans very hard.  Something that really surprised me was that they were warned about the hurricane 3-4 days before it actually hit.  I remember this hurricane happening and my memory of it was that it hit randomly.  My question is why would they not take a hurricane like this not seriously enough even before they knew about it.  In the film we were shown even after people were warned about the hurricane, people weren't leaving.  Locals had such a strong commitment to staying with their property.  That brings up a interesting point about what are the lengths people will go through during a disaster.  Its all depending on the person.  Some people left their houses to find safety for their families and some people left because they were forced to by the emergency evacuation.  But there were still some locals usually with ancestors from the area who decided to stay.  A lot of the footage was showing people trying to exit New Orleans.  Some people were taking cars, planes, or even bikes and scooters.  They were all carrying different items.  Some families were carrying children and necessary supplies.  While other families were walking with computers, television sets, or larger pieces of furniture.  Also the places people escaped to were interesting to me.  A majority of people who couldn't get hotel rooms, or a way out of the city went to the superdome.  The superdome was said to be the only public structure that would be able to withstand high winds and rain.  All of these people resorted to safer locations and were all together with their families as opposed to the families that waited in their households right as the storm broke out.  My opinion is that when there is a disaster, you can never play it too safe.  

Epoch 3-4- 4th blog

Epoch 3 covered a massive amount of American history.  It was well written and was full of information on the history of America.  The whole epoch ends with saying that a united world, or a global world brings a consequence of world war.  In class we talked about how in a argument about a event changing history wouldn't happen again if it was prevented that first time.  Never argue the negative.  In this point it said that because of a global world, the result leads to world war.  What if the world was never united?  what if two countries grew on both sides until finally only two major civilizations were left.  Will our world ever come together as one?  Well my prediction is that in the next 1000 years, all the leaderships and democracies will form one together.  I think this because looking at the past, countries form together as times go on into larger and larger countries.  Eventually it will become one huge unite world and that is how we will face the future.  In Epoch 4 it covers World War 2 and the Cold War.  I didn't think the reading covered it enough, just skimmed the topic briefly.  It spoke more of how it begun and how it ties into the Cold War more then it actually talks about the war itself.  In this reading the opinion was strong about the bombings in 1954.  It made a big point on the Soviets opinion against the Americans.  I think that is interesting because in English we are reading about A Walk in the Woods by Lee Blessings which is set in this time period. 

Epoch 3-3rd post

In the epoch it talks about how Greece became Rome to Middle Ages to Renaissance.  I thought it didnt talk enough about the technology booming in Asia and the Middle East.  While reading it I found that the reading would start with the Greeks, then bounce to Asia, then bounce back to Rome, then to Asian technology again.  I found myself being a little confused about that.  I think they should have written it as separate chain events leading up.  When it was talking about the Renaissance period I never knew that they invented the printing press.  When I picture this invention, i can imagine how much the literacy and writing rate went up.  Also materials were less expensive so more and more people became more involved with writing.  Which makes me think.  What if there was no invention of the printing press?  Then our written words wouldn't be as advanced.  Or would they be more advanced?  A outcome i could think of if what is was invented later, lets say at the end of the Renaissance period where they were more intelligent.  Then maybe the printing press would be invented in a whole knew way with more advanced ways of writing.  This could have also been a huge impact of ideas in this time era if it had happened.  In this epoch it covered a lot of time and changing between cultures.  The reason why i think that so much more about ancient cultures are condensed into one section in textbooks in general is because we don't know as much about them.  The textbooks which were more recent have more detail in them because of more recent communication from it.  All we know from ancient civilizations is artifacts and tales were told from long generations of stories.

Blog 2-Epoch one

After reading epoch one I have to say, I'm not that impressed with the structure of it. It was interesting but not a lot of things captivated me. I thought it was written rather simply so it was pretty much just hard facts written in paragraphs. Something that jumped out at me was the part from the reading where it was talking about Israelites and it referred to the Egyptains to be, "...possibly the most powerful empire in the world."  I have always been interested in ancient civilizations and i have been learning about them since i was in the 4th grade, but in my opinion i thought of the Roman empire being the more powerful.  When we are taught about them they are referred to as the most powerful.  The Egyptains were before of course but the romans effected us a lot also.  I can think of a lot more things we took from ancient rome then from Ancient Egypt.  Also rome was known for taking over so many regions and Egypt stayed in its general area.  In the end Rome did take over egypt too so wheres that powerful country then?  Under control of the actual most powerful country.  In class we talked about how the differences between textbooks is by the people who write them's opinion.  How most history books we read are actually mostly influenced on european culture.  Why?  Because everyone in our society came from europe so our mind thinks without even knowing it that Europe is important.  As opposed to if we were reading text books from Asia, the most information would be about asian history.  So what actually is important?  Which history?  Everywhere has important history.  So does it depend on how long of their history is?  If thats the case, the United States is the least important then.  But in our opinion as Americans, that is false to ourselves.  So there is no real answer to that question.  It's just a opinion.

History and the past

A big question thats thrown around a lot is what is the difference between history and the past.  The past is behind us.  It can never reoccur again.  It's something that has already happened and will stay that way forever.  History is something that is always growing in the past present and future.  History is something that can reoccur, that can change no matter what.  The past and history may sound very much alike but in my eyes they are not even close.