Improvements

Well, This year didn't start out too well. Whether it was Ms. Gertmenian or Ms. Pugliese who graded me in the first quarter I will never know, but one thing I do know is that I didn't do so well. Interestingly enough however that was not a trend that continued on for the whole year. I got increasingly better at writing and articulating my thoughts. I think that the unusual way that this class was tought really hepled me connect the past and the present. By jumping from the Safavids to the Swat valley I was able to start to see connectinos that I didn't see before this year. Mama Pugs- Thanks for a great year...

China

Down with the old and up with the new. This cliche is so true throughout history, it is pretty much the one sentence definition of the word revolution. This revolution used violence kind of like the one in Algiers. The Red-Guards targeted the wealthy because they were against Mao and while they said that they were targeting all socioeconomic demographics, it didn't seem that way to me. I think that by destroying all of the artifacts the Red Guards were just trying to kill any memories of the old China. This 'revolution' was more like a a war that was just trying to erase history.

Cold War

My mom moved to the states from Canada in the midst of the Cold War. She says that she remembers all of the bomb drills that she had when she got to the states and how stupid they were in hind sight because hiding under a desk is really gonna save you right? Well, she said that it was really nerve racking because unlike a fire drill she didn't know if she was actually taking in her last few breathes or not.

Oil-Mania

A wise man once said that possession is 2/5 of the law. As we can see the Middle East clearly possesses so much oil that it has put itself in a good spot to play a game called monopoly. The oil companies in the Middle East is able to make deals with all of the governments because they have the power and the control of the chip that everyone wants to get their hands on. If you ask me now that they have the oil, we should get our hands on all of the water we can so that when they need that then they will come to us. No, but for real, it is crucial that we can possess oil because the Middle-Eastern oil monopolizers will just drive the price up to show quarterly growth, especially as the supplies run thin.

Post Colonialism Pop-Culture

Movies: Blood Diamond, Jarhead, The Kingdom, 3 Kings, Rendition

Tv: House of Saddam, 24(a lot of Middle-East references in the current season)

Books: The Kite Runner

Kenya

With the life expectance of 51 in Kenya it is apparent that something has gone terribly wrong with the way things are done there. While much of the country is rural, thus making it harder for medical care to be brought in, a life expectancy rate of 51 is lower than most of the other countries in the world, some of which are even less developed than Kenya. With a population of over 31 million it would seem that it would not be overcrowded. the real kicker is that it has more access to WHO resources than the rest of the continent, so why is the life expectancy so low?

The Berlin Wall

How did the falling of the wall change the culture in Germany?

What were the mental effects and the cultural effects of the wall?

My monument is really interesting because over the course of its history as it changes so do the people of Berlin and it is really cool to look from 1961-???? and see how different events have been influenced by the wall like the reopening of a major intersection last month in Berlin that brings Western and Eastern Berlin closer together.

Carpoolng to School

In the Taliban run Swat valley, today many girl will not be walking to school. We hear about the courage of the young girls who will walk for hours just to get an education. The barriers of fascism and religion tat have barred women in that part of the world from learning for so many years is finally being threatened. Unfortunately however, the Taliban extremists are jeopardizing all of the work that the brave girls and other people in the community have worked towards. With threats of murder, rape, and kidnapping and with no government to intervene, it is unimaginable what those poor girls have to go through. With no resolution in sight we will have to hold our breath and pray that the determination of some of the bravest girls in the world will succeed.

The Mysterious call--Berlin Wall

There was a phone call made just before the fall of the Berlin wall by the Socialist Party, who at the time were the communists' ruling Germany regarding the fall of the Wall. There are also those who believe that the GDR took down the all to make traveling abroad possible. At the time the populating was not allowed to travel abroad so it makes sense that they might have had an uprising that had the end result of t justification he collapse of the wall. There are many theories on how the wall fell, but there is always in the wall having been taken down.

An Unknown Shakespeare---D'Souza

In part 7 of this riveting debate between Hitchens and D'Souza at the Freedom Fest in 2008, D'Souza ends with a flurry of remarks that boil down to say: unless there was some illiterate that created a character more riveting than Hamlet then there must have been a Jesus, because there has only been one Shakespeare and I could actually have to agree with him on this one considering that there is conjecture that one man(Shakespeare) could have created so many masterpieces. I think that D'Souza is brilliant and is one of the best debaters tat I have ever, the way that he takes all of Hitchens' points and succinctly attacks them all is egregious. I truly believe that even though I am not Catholic, that he brought up questions and doubts in my mind about what Hitchens said. I was in awe at how brilliant he was, and I liked the use of the Ottomans and the Mugals...

The Riveter

World War II was fought on the battlefield by men as we know but at the same time we have learned that there is so much to a war than what you see on the beaches. When a hefty majority of the young men, a lot of the workiong population leave to go off fighting, in both world wars the women stepped right in to their position and took over the job of running the homefront. Now Rosie The Riveter was a propaganda poster designed to encourage more Americans to help the War effort and who knows how the war would have turned out without this inspirational photograph.

Pop Cluture 1940's

Enemy at the Gate- Russian WWII movie
Saving Private Ryan
BAND OF BROTHERS
The Diary of Anne Frank
Mein Kampf
The Sound of Music

Rationing

As the second world war started, the British Government imported about 55 million tons of food per year. As Germany grew stronger, it had its battleships and subs sink the vessels bound for Britain with all of their food aboard. The British started the rationing with bacon, butter, and sugar in January of 1940. A more wide spread rationing followed which was very heavily supported by the population. However as time went on this plan started becoming less popular with the people, some grocers went to the country and bought there food directly from the growers. These sort of short cuts or loop holes were becoming more commonplace. Then the government created a natural advisory committee to help the war committee with strategies and suggestions on what to do on the home front. I think that this was an excellent idea because it really helped the people running the country a better idea of what to do and what the side effects may or may not have been. Ration books started being stolen and with the help of undercover cops and spy's the government got a handle on it and soon there after created a law that made the wasting of food a punishable offense. The rationing proved to be a good way for people to eat healthily and at the same time the health of the nation grew ten fold.

http://menlomwh.blogspot.com/2009/03/black-market-and-its-many-wonders.html

Was it the right thing to do?

I thinkt that this video was a carefully planned attempt at a politically correct video about the dropping of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that also kept in mind the respect for the Japanese who had that hell thrust upon them. Firstly, I think that the video did a good job describing the state of mind post explosino with the war being won, I don't think that the Americans could have fully graspt the magnitude of what had just happened. For me, someone who was born over 40 years post-blast, I can look at this footage and learn what horror dictates modern politics and this thread that holds the world togeather. Also I think that it is going to continue to dictate the way we live because we now know about the horror that is the atomic bomb. The last thing that the video showed that impressed me was this concept which is still widely explored which is: did we do the right thing taking all of those Japanese lives to save the American lives that we did? I don't know.

Put it in Its Place

I think that chronological order is important in a textbook, but I believe that in the case of World War II since it has so many facets, it should be broken down by subject matter rather than date. I think that there should be 4 chapter covering the events leading up to, the war, and post war events/life. To start with events leading up to the war I think that there should be a chapter about the Holocaust and the Japanese/German/Russian rise to power. Also I think that the chapter should be divided with the holocaust on one side and the rising powers on the other with each separate topic laid out chronologically. For the chapters on fighting the war I think that it should be divided with one chapter on Europe and one on the Pacific. The last chapter should be about the events post Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Within all of the chapters I think that chronological order sounds like a good way to lay it out except for the first one.

Elliot Horovitz

My step-grandfather on my mothers side fought in the European campaign in WWII. He was originally motivated to join the Air Force because he loved flying and he saw it as an opportunity to do what he loved. As he entered the war he quickly found out that there were many strings attached to this opportunity. For instance the part where he had to bomb targets in Germany and its outer limits. So I thought that I would ask him how he felt about killing people who he didn't know and who he had no idea what they had done to deserve to die. He said that the army didn't tell him exactly what every person did but they made it clear what it was that we were targeting. I couldn't wrap my head around it so what he did was he said that he felt that it was his job to bomb the military bases from the air and the marines would liberate the camps from the ground. I felt that what he did was obviously the right thing to do but part of me still thought that it might have been for the wrong reason, so was that right? Honestly, I have no idea....

That's It?

At Menlo, the affluent community that we have is great for giving Luttickens lots of business even in these times of trouble. However, it would seem that a trend has started where people don't bring money and that just because someone has bought a bagel at Luttickens, that it obviously means that it is for everybody to share. "As I walked into the quad, I was bombarded with people asking for a bite or money." one student shared. So how do we take care of this problem? Well, it is really quite easy, give one person a bite and by appeasing one, you appease all and take care of the problem, hopefully.

The Passing of a Titan

By the end of April 1944 the majority of the war in Europe was over. Just days away from capture, Berlin, no longer the glorious center center of the third reich that it had been for the last decade. Himmler, the SS leader was trying to discuss a surrender with the allies, and when the seriously corrupt and delusional Hitler found out, he had Himmler arrested and his assistant in Berlin shot. By that point, Hitler knew that the end of the war was there. Instead of fleeing the country as advised by his peers he gave his last statement which said that he had made decisions that no mortal man had made and that everything that he did was for Germany and for the love of the people. At 3:30 pm the Fuhrer shot himself. Before being cremated, a piece of the skull was sent to a Russian archivist and then after being burned his remains were sprinkled over the Elbe River