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.