Power, What is it?

The main purpose of the Humanities eight class was to understand the meaning of Power. According to Dictionary.com, “Power is the ability and strength to order, accomplish or change.” I agree with this statement because power can be seen in different ways, one can have the ability to accomplish any day to day task, but he can also be at a level where he has the strength to order a major task that can be done by others. From studies throughout the year, major topics such as the Industrial Revolution, Imperialism, World War II, The Russian Revolution, and the "Animal Farm" demonstrate major examples that relate to my generalization of what power is.


Starting off with The Industrial Revolution, The industrial Revolution was the time of early development in technology, it was when machines such as the Spinning Jenny, and the Water Frame began to take the place of man-made products. The Wealthier Cast however, heavily benefited from these machines, and had the power to let these happenings happen. Since the rich had more power, they were at a much higher political levels than the poor, they had the "strength" to "order" more out of the machines. Another Example of power in the industrial revolution comes from the machines itself. By the mid industrial Revolution, the machines had gained so much value over the economy of England and America, that they had the power to alter it's economy depending on it's income. This type of power is quite similar to my first generalization of power, the machines had the "strength" to "change".

Moving onto my second point,Imperialism. The time of imperialism was shortly after the industrial revolution, it was when the Europeans soon began to feel short of natural resources. Considering that Africa is like a bank for natural resources, a conference was held in Berlin where all the countries in Europe would gather to divide the countries in Africa according to how much POWER each country had, taking Great Britain for example,due to the industrial revolution, great Britain gained tremendous power, they had the "ability" to "order". And where capable to obtain the most nourished countries. Another example of power during the time of imperialism was the dehumanization of the slaves. The book, "To Be A Slave", shows many various points of views of how the slaves felt while having to work under another. This follows my second interpretation of the definition from dictionary.com,another master has the "strength" to "order" his slave to an extent where people may not classify the slave as human any more.

Another way to look at power may be with World War II. Shortly after the WW1, the Germans were in terrible conditions having lost a significant amount of money to the allied forces.To support the loss they signed a peace treaty, called the treaty of Versailles.To over throw the government, Adolf Hitler, a strong general in the German army showed up having three goals in mind, uniting all German speaking countries, secretly building the German army, and dominating Germany, all of which succeeded. Adolf Hitler had the power to accomplish all three of his goals,he had the "ability" to "change". After Hitler succeeded on his last goal, he set out on other tasks. In 1934, Hitler built up the power to invade the USSR, and in 1939, he could even disrupt Austria and Czechoslovakia. This uses another form of my generalization of power. Hitler had the "strength" to "order". Another form in which Hitler showed great power was in the midst of forming his supporting "party" called the Nazi's, the Nazi party supported and raised even more power to Hitler,in Hitler's case, he had the "strength" to "change". In my opinion, Hitler was the real reason for happening of the World War 2.

Lastly, the Russian Revolution,and a common novel called "Animal Farm",the events in the book "Animal Farm" run quite parallel to the events in the Russian Revolution. The Russian Revolution started during the turn of the 19th Century, around 1905, when riots broke out in Russia due to a poor monarchy. Tsar Nicholas the second, a greedy king of Russia during the time of the Revolution, only cared for him and his family. However, the power rested in him to deny reforms when the time was right. Tsar nIcholas the second had the "ability" to "order" the denies of reforms so that his family could benefit from it. The book "Animal Farm" showed 2 main sources of power. One, like stated before runs parallel to the Russian Revolution, it is where the owner of the farm, Mr. Jones, treats the Animals in the Farm much like Tsar Nicholas did in the Russian Revolution. He too had the "ability" to "order". Moving onto the other source of power which came from Napoleon, the "unequal" leader later on. Being a pig himself, Napoleon thought that pigs were far more superior than all other animals in the farm. However, many other animals in the book such as Boxer, the hard working horse, worked much harder than all the other pigs put together. And once again, the power rested in him to deny the change. He had the "strength" to deny "change". This source of power follow one of the main theme's of the book too, " Individuals in society aren't treated equally."

To Conclude, power can be seen in many ways, in the case of the Industrial Era, power was found in the wealthier class as well as the machines. In the Age of Imperialism, power was in the rich countries and masters. In the WW2 and the Russian Revolution, the power lay in the wealthier monarchs of the time. To look over the points, power can most commonly be found near the wealthier class, this is because they are at a higher level with which they can "order", "accomplish", or "change".

Work Planning for Population Project

During the week that I get to work on my Population project in my humanities class, I would like to split my work in an order so that I don't end up in a position where I might have to turn my PoP in late.

Monday: On monday, I would like to gather and organize all my information, I would also like to go down to the library to finish any remaining research.

Tuesday: Since I know I have a lot of information, I think I would like to start taking notes on my notecards earlier.

Wednesday: Today, I would like to finish writing my notecards

Thursday: Since my first draft for the RP is due the coming monday, I would like to start writing my thesis statement today and maybe even start an outline

Friday: Today I would probably want to finish my thesis statement if I haven't already, and definitely sharpen the edges of my outline

Weekend: Throughout the weekend, I would like to write my first draft that will be due the coming monday

Even though this plan is a little fast, I think that I will be able to keep up with it's pace, as I will be working during class as well as at home.

PoP Reflection

For population project, I decided to look at gender inequality and girls education. One of the most alarming facts that I had learned during this search was that almost 95% of the girls living in a rural state called Bihar were illiterate which means only about 5% were literate. This is partially because many girls don't want to go to school as there is a shortage of women teachers. Another important fact that I learned was that ancient Hindu myths such as the Ramayana, and Mahabharata often viewed women as a punishment from the gods. Schools in Bihar feared that if women come to school, then bad things will happen to their schools. They became superstitious. I am pretty sure that I will use the information that I have learnt in later life to try and improve the current problem.

What is the "Net Effect" of Globalization?

According to the World Bank, "Globalization is the growing integration of economies and societies around the world", in short, it is the expansion of companies into other countries around the world. Whether or not this is a good thing or a bad thing, it has been debated world-wide. Globalization allows lower class people who live in poverty to have a chance to earn at least something. It also allows the middle-class citizens to earn more, this is because their jobs have been outsourced into their laps, allowing them to earn more money. This follows the Boom-and- Bust cycle, when people get more money, they buy more products, when they buy more products, companies expand to become bigger, when companies expand, there are more jobs, when there are more jobs, there more people earning more money, when people get more money, they buy more products, and so on. Because of out sourcing, many westernized people often have to work with people who aren't necessarily "westernized", depending with whom this may concern, globalization also reduces the amount of racism in our world. Along with jobs, technology is also a main part of globalization, it is often known THE source to keep in touch with people around the world. Companies such as facebook, MySpace or Skype allow indirect communication with friends in seconds. This source of technology, along with other forms of globalization tends to keep the world in one time, opinion, and speed, it tend to keep our world much more united.

Although globalization has done a lot of good deeds for earth, it also has some negative impacts, using technology for example, technology allows humans to keep in touch with friends, relatives, or even strangers. But according to Thomas Freidman (Author of "The World is Flat"), his tenth flattener stated that an excessive use of technology may lead to a much smaller world. Returning back to jobs, globalization brings in new jobs into a certain company, however, it also has some out sourced jobs. Middle-class Americans lose their jobs because there jobs have been outsourced in to a remote area like India. This increases jobless claims in America, where the government has to pay for the families expenses. The people who have lost their jobs often have to face major mortgage issues where they have to pay the government back before a dead line. Globalization has also effected the annual salary of most jobs, as the rich become richer, the poor also become poorer, creating a vast split in class, because more of the world population is poor, the numbers are increasing rapidly, creating conflict between the rich and the poor. Moving onto Culture, countries such as India, and China have had a major impact on their cultures due to globalization, bringing in changes in eating, clothing, and even behavior. This also relates back to how the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, the rich communicate more with westernized countries, having to wear clothes to fit their culture, much like sonny from the Morgan Spurlock video where Chris's job had been out sourced. While the poor communicated less with the American, and never had to change their culture. This created yet another split in culture, where the rich would be westernized, and the poor would be remain in their old cultures. Overall, globalizations has some key points that can save our world from crisis, however, it also has some key points that can create major conflicts in our world.

Technology and Schools

Q1 This Image has 3 main characters, by the face of it, there's a man, a women, and a boy eating their dinner.

Q2 It's really trying to show that the boy wants his father to read his blog, instead of telling him how his day went.

Q3 People in the world are using technology soo much that they would rather go on the computer, and paste what they are trying to say onto their blog, intead of talking.

Q 4 People do use the computer far too many hours in a day, just like I am doing it right now.

Q5 When I first looked at the picture, I saw a happy family eating, there was nothing about technology, this boyr looked nothing like a nerd, or even a tech person, but when I read the quote, I realized what the cartoonists is trying to say.

Q6 A couple of weeks ago we had a socratic seminar, that discussed whether we were using technology too much or not.

Q7 Maybe, the boy could be talking on his cell phone, or on a laptop at diner time.

Technology, What is it?

Technology would be the advance of daily activities, they cut down the time it would take for one to accomplish a task, they reduce the amount of energy needed to accomplish a task, they are like the outcome of all logic, creativity, and material that we humans have made from the earth. Today, I guess the most important technologies vary by age, an infant kid might think that a fake mobile phone would be most important because they see their parents having one, but for a average middle school student like us, or even all teenagers might think the computer is the most important piece of technology because they can use it to right all the long essays they need to write for in daily classes such as Humanities. Since, a majority of the population in our world is the adults, I think the most important piece of technology would either be their mobile(a real one), or a laptop, these help communicate with the world around us. The Least important piece of technology for an average child, would be a walk-man possibly, because they use, but quite occasionally they are pushed away with yet another advance in technology, and are off with that new toy, thinking that they'll use someday or another, yet they never do. For average teenager, the least important piece of technology, would be a small fixing tool, not many teenager would found handling or even holding a small fixing tool. For adults it would be the car, adult use a car, but they don't really think about it. While using a car, they're either on their phone or thinking about something else! To Conclude, no matter how big or small your piece of technology, it is still needed quite deeply, in our world today.

Am I a Luddite?

“Do you know what a Luddite is? That’s a person who doesn’t like newfangled contraptions. Contraptions like nuclear submarines armed with Poseidon missiles that have H-bombs in their warheads, and like computers that cheat you out of becoming. Bill Gates says, “Wait till you can see what your computer can become.” But it’s you who should be doing the becoming. What you can become is the miracle you were born to work—not the damn fool computer.”

- Kurt Vonnegut

I really think that the "damn fool computer" that we use every day can help us not only to civilization, but it is something we use almost everyday. We need a computer everyday, it helps us communicate and even save paper at times, it cuts down the amount of time we would take to accomplish a task, but while using this "damn fool computer," we never really remember that WE have created it, many people even come to believe that technology , and the "damn fool computer" is like a gift from god. God did not give us technology, god gave us the ingredients to make technology, but he left it to us to cook it. And so we did. But the computer isn't the only one that has deeply advanced into our generation, other technology like the "Euphio Project". The Euphio project was an invented,imaginary instrument that buys happiness. To add to my point, on pg 202, on paragraph 3, Lew states, "That's good-happiness by kilowatt, our motto will be "Buy your happiness the same way you buy you light"
To Conclude, I think that we use our computer so much, we always forget that we are the creators of the computer.

Feedback on Q3 and Q4

When we first arrived after the winter break, my goals for the third quarter were to improve my sentence fluency as that was a major let down during my African Research Paper. I really think that I have improved a lot in sentence fluency, before I would have to really be careful at what I was writing and how it was written, but now, it really comes much more naturally, when I read what I have written, it's much more fluent and flowing. Another goal I had for Q3 was to talk a little more during class discussions. Although I haven't improved so much in this goal compared to the old one, I really think I improved a little, as the year has gotten on, I have gradually opened my self up to the class. Knowing that this goal may need some more time, I want to enroll in onto fourth quarter. I am sure, that by the end of this year, I would have reached my goal. Now for Population Project, with this being the largest and "Hardest" projects of the year, I just really want to make sure that I did my best in it , and I did it up to my fullest extent. In the End, if I don't get a good grade, I'll know that I did my very best.

Holy and War an Oxymoron?

Holy and War could never be a word that were put together, they're are just opposites, when someone says holy, they think of peace and something being very sacred, and when someone says war, they think of anger, conflict and violence. They belong to two completely different moods too, a person would only go to a holy place when they want help or when they want to thank god. However, a person only wants to go into war when they want to finish a conflict, or colonize the other side. Also, I have noticed that in almost every religious temple, there is this atmosphere that is very quiet, and soothing. Whereas when in a war( I infer from the movies), that it is very loud, rough and forceful. It is clear that these word are just too different to be put together.

To answer the second question, since almost every religion prevents war, why are the causes of most wars religion? Let me start with how the not every religion reclines from war, Islam, however, promotes war when it is in a deadly position, and I think, deep down almost every religion thinks the same, and why shouldn't they, if your religion is in a state where it might become extinct, you would have to fight back for what you believe is right. Another reason to why most causes of war are religion would be the fact every religion believes in different facts, they get too caught up with the little details that they forget that the overall fact is the same, like in Islam, Shina's and Sunni's, they both believe in the same god, yet the main causes of war in Iraq are the Sunni's and the Shina's. This shows that many religions are forced to fight with one another to save their their religions, or to stick to their facts or beliefs.

WWIII?

With all the controversies, and conflicts going on around the world, I have a great feeling that there will be a bigger, better and more longer world war. However, I don not think it will be in our generation, I think it might just be in the early next generation, this means by the time the war has ended, many of us will be dead or many more of us will be very old. One conflict that is right in front of our eyes is Pakistan and India. Although, India and Pakistan were divided during independence, the pair still have many fights. Another example of a conflict would be between Israel and the Palestinians. And then up north, I'm sure Germany still sufers from WWI and WWII, with all these "little wars" going on all around the world, I'm sure they will evolve in to a major WWIII.

Anne Frank Feedback

In her diary Anne opined: “…if you’re wondering if it’s harder for the adults here than for the children, the answer is no…Older people have an opinion about everything and are sure of themselves and their actions. It’s twice as hard for us young people to hold on to our opinions at a time when ideals are being shattered…” (July 15, 1944.) Do you agree or disagree with this quote? When was the last time that you experienced the “shattering” of an ideal?

As weird as it seems, I have to agree with Anne, many young children are less experienced in life, and hence are much more gullible, they usually just go with the flow, and believe what anybody and everybody tells them to believe. One way, However, that children tend to stick to their opinions is by stubbornness. Nowadays, a large percentage of children have grown to be quite stubborn, no matter what the situation may be, many stubborn people just cannot see the other side. That was the children, now, let's move onto the adults or grown ups. Almost every adult has faced a lot of the situations in daily life. This enables them to be much more experienced, and able to bend their decisions according to the conditions. To Conclude, I completey agree with Anne, it is much harder for children to stick with their opinions than for adults. Children are more gullible, and much easier to explain. While adults are more experianced and are more flexible to the ideas around them.

Last Letters

1492
2ND Kaiser Street
Germany

Dear Joseph,
Hey brother, how are you?....I hope everything is just fine there.Hope you're taking care of mom alright. I'd sure like to see you guys, but the war is going on, and you know how I'm the new General now, I won't be able to come back for quite a while. Maybe in a year, maybe in 5 years, maybe I won't EVER come back. If I do, than we can celebrate....over my luck. But if I don't than, take care of mom, she's getting older by the minute, if you can't save up some money, than there's some left in my account, take it, and spend it wisely. Gosh, there's so much to say, so much to do....I still remember when we used to be kids, just after a stormy fall, we'd sprint down the muddy path into the great lake. Sink our skinny skinny feet in the clear water until it reached our knees, bent down to find our faces, yet we'd always end up with fishes. We'd take a deep breath, speak our prayer for forgiveness, and grab the first fish that slipped through our hands. You were always better at catching them than I was...I always wondered how, I guess I still do. And then, Mom would yell at us so hard, even Dad felt sorry, but what could we do, we were kids, we just had to do those kind of things! Now it's different, now, we have to earn our living, earn our families living, and never let them down. Speaking of family, you should find yourself a nice girl, she'd help you take care of Mom. Your lucky to have one, I don't even have a soul mate, I'm going to die soon anyway. Father's already dead, I guess I'll meet him there...someday. Uh-Oh, I have to go now, it's my turn to fight my way throught this battle. I hope I see you soon though

Take Care,
Your Beloved Brother,
Antony

World War Two, In 10 short steps

Ingredients:
Germany
Ferocious Fire
Poland
Sparks at the stove
Japan
Italy
A spectrum of spices
Treaty of Versailles
Water to heat
Britain, France, Australia, and New Zealand
Belgium Holland, Russia
The Building Force/Anger

Step #1: Pour in some treaty of the versailles into your pan
#2: Spark the stove on by letting Germany attack Poland
#3: Let Britain, Germany, Australia, and New Zealand join Poland and the Treaty of Versailles
#4: Increase the fire to make it stronger by adding Belgium, Holland, and France to it
#5: Change the appearance of Britain because it's Prime Minister changed
#6: Add more of Britain so the fire can postpone it's attack
#7: While it's in the pan, chop Russia into pieces till it cannot be cut anymore
#8: Add a little more spice by getting Japan to attack the US
#9: Now, Take the Italy and put it in the Fire till it's burnt, then sprinkle the ashes on top
#10: Stop Germany and Japan by stopping the fire and Voila! Here is the your WW2

Animal Farm Movie Critique 2

In our class, our second part started of with the executions of the animals. Let me start with the movie itself, I believe that the movie was far too short, it could have explained a lot more than just showing how they went to the very beginning stages after Jones had left. Speaking of Jones, In the book, men from the pub had broken down the windmill, while in the movie, Jones had put some cracker in the windmill causing the windmill to break. This made many of the individuals very sad, especially Boxer and Benjamin. Boxer, however was very strong and always strived to work harder. In the book, Boxer had grown old, and was unable to even walk at some stage. While Boxer rested, Napoleon and Squealer found a way to even trade him off to the Glue Company. Whereas in the movie, a rock fell on top Boxer, he hadn't shown any signs of growing old and had injured his foot. Moving on, When the Pigs walk on their two hind legs, they are celebrating, and are even wearing some human clothes. Whereas, in the book, the pigs walk on their hind legs with whips in their hand as if they are monitoring the individuals. Lastly,when the animals are all fed up, they decide to rebel against the pigs, this however does NOT happen in the book. One last thing that could have changed the movie a lot was showing change in the seven commandments. To conclude, the movie was far too short and if possible could have been modified quite a bit to fit more or less the exact story.

Animal Farm Movie Critique Part 1

As I started watching the movie version of "Animal Farm", I soon realized that the movie had skipped through a lot of the hard work in the beginning of the book. And even before that, the speech that Old Major had given seemed much smaller compared to the speech in the book (pg 5-10). Also, in the book, Old Major died shortly after the meeting (pg 11), while in the movie, Old Major died right at the end of the meeting. Another thing that attracted my attention was that the Battle of Cowshed walked in a little too fast. In fact, one of the students even said," Isn't the battle of Cowshed a little later on?". Let's move on to Napoleon ,up until the meeting for the windmill, Napoleon was a lot like a dormant fly, he wasn't a very big part of the decisions that were being made either . I think, the animators might have focused a little too much on Napoleon because he was going to be the dictator later on. Along with events, the movie also alters the side characters a little. For example, in the book, there is a index of all the characters (pg 4). Whereas in the movie, many of the characters such as Mollie and Muriel were missing. Along with that, Moses, the tame raven, was not even introduced so well, in fact, a person who hadn't read the book from before wouldn't be able to tell that the raven was even a part of the farm. Moses plays quite an important role in the book, and should get that much importance in the movie too. To conclude, I think most of these differences are excusable, this is because, if they had imitated the book word, to word than I fear the movie would have gotten a bit too long.

Which animal best suits you?

While reading this book, I gradually realized that I best suited 2 of the characters in the book. Let me start with, Clover, I guess I best follow Clover, because nobody really knows me, I haven't opened up to anybody I know yet, they all just know me from the "outside", the only person I've completely opened up to, would be my sister, my sister and I are always together, we're like the best of friends. Everybody else I know, knows my coat, but nobody knows my core(Except my Sis). The other person I think I suit would be Benjamin, being the smallest in my family(in age), I think that I have the least power,I know a lot of the stuff that's going on, and a lot of the time, I can infer what's going to happen, so no one really listens to me, also a lot of people say I have a different way of thinking, but if only some people would listen to me, I think I could have possibly changed the family! To conclude, I suit 2 people, Clover, and Benjamin, one because nobody really knows me, and the other, Benjamin, because I think differntly.

Tyranny, Injustice, Self-ditermination

In my opinion, tyranny is when a king/person takes control over a country, without any vote, it's sort of like when a person comes out of the blues and decides to take over a country. Injustice is when a country or person or object is thought of smaller or less able than everybody else, and hence they are treated differently, or in an unfair manner. Self-Determination is when a country wants to be individual, and just be able to handle their problems by them selves. A couple of examples of tyranny, injustice, and self-determination is located right in our book called Animal Farm. One very clear show of tyranny is when the major,comes "out of the blues" and shows that all humans are bad because they use the animals' resources to feed them selves. For Example, the major stated that, the hens could have laid so many more chicken if the humans had not eaten them away(pg.3). More than tyranny there are many more forms of Injustice in the piece of writing that we had. For example, everybody might not like the major, everybody might not like the way they have to look at it. For Example there is Clover who acts like a spy because he is the closest to Farmer Jones and what if he finds that farmer Jones isn't that bad, but still he has to stick up for them...

Save Me, God, Save Everybody...

BARROOM! BARROOM!

The sounds of the rifles pierce through my ear,

Is this a dream? Am I really in a war?

SWISH!

A strong burst of air brushes onto my cheek

Ten seconds later…

BOOM!

An artillery smashes into our reserve trench

I guess that answers my question,

I guess I AM in a war,

I guess

I'm in the First World War

It's my turn next…

My turn to hop

Over the top

To try

Knowing that I'll die

But still

At least I could kill

Someone from the other side

What will happen to my children?

Will they take the tormenting?

Terrorizing,

And torturing

Agony?

Or will they just die?

Will I just die?

Will everybody just die?

….Is this…..

PEEEEEEEPPPP!!

Air bursts out of the captain's whistle

Time to go…

out into the violent wrestle

God,

Save me….

Save everybody…