300 Imperialistic Ways

*Imperialism is the policy of extending the rule or authority of an empire or nation over foreign countries, or of acquiring and holding colonies and dependencies*

The movie 300 tells the story of the Battle of Thermopylae & the Persian king Xerxes who sends his massive army to conquer Greece in 480 B.C. The Persians have already taken over some of the Hellenic city-states, and now threaten Sparta and Athens. King Leonidas and the Greek city of Sparta is left with two options: either have to sacrifice himself for the well-being of Sparta or watch it burn to the ground. Choosing the former, Leonidas forms an army of its finest warriors, and 300 of these soldiers are chosen to meet the Persians at Thermopylae, where Xerxes intends to reach Hellas, engaging the soldiers in a narrow canyon where they cannot take full advantage of their numbers. The battle is a suicide mission, meant to buy time for the rest of the Greek forces to prepare for the invasion. However, that doesn't stop the Spartans from throwing their hearts into the fray, determined to take as many Persians as possible with them. The 300 are accompanied by about 700 Thespians who protect the flanks of the passage, and combined, the forces manage to slay tens of thousands of Persians and prevent their entry into Hellas for several days. However, Ephialtes, a reject of the Spartan Army gets his revenge by showing Xerxes a secret goat passage up the flanks of the passage. The story depicts the epic last stand of the finest Spartan soldiers who are aware of their fate, but motivated by "honor and glory", see the battle as their duty to protect the rest of Greece for as long as possible.

300 ties into imperialism because, as the definition states, the Persian King, Xerxes, is trying to expand his authority by gaining more land and people to rule. By doing so, he brings his army with him over on to Sparta in an attempt to overthrow them and rule all but as he does so King Leonidas forms an army of 300 men, ready to meet him halfway at Thermopylae to stop them.

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QueenLani Tweets

QueenLani
Ahh, Good Morning Hawaii ! : D
01/14/1893 9:10 AM

QueenLani
Huh ? I see Americans coming ! Hope their friendly :X
01/14/1893 2:29 PM

QueenLani
They're asking for our sugar. Should I give them some ?
01/15/1893 10:33 AM

QueenLani
What is this ?! Are they really trying to take our plantations ? >:|
01/15/1893 6:15 PM

QueenLani
... This is absurd ! First our crops, and now our land too ? Who do you think you are ?!
01/16/1893 9:02 AM

QueenLani
I think I'll tax them... just because. xP
01/16/1893 9:30 AM

QueenLani
... Uhh, they brought Marines. But I will not go down without a fight ! >: )
01/17/1893 12:14 PM

QueenLani
OKAY ! I'll yield my authority to the Gov't of the U.S. for the sake of my people's lives
01/17/1893 12:30 PM

QueenLani
With any luck, I will attempt to get our land back and soon ! Wish me luck !
01/17/1893 5:58 PM

Shame on You & Your Yellow Crap !

*Yellow Journalism is a type of journalism that presents little or no legitimate well-researched news and instead uses eye-catching headlines to sell more newspapers*
An example of modern day yellow journalism is FOX being accused of writing biased political facts and opinions about President Obama. A Newsweek headline reading "The Making of a Terrorist-Coddling, Warmongering, Wall Street-Loving, Socialistic, Godless, Muslim President." points out the actual truths about the Fox-promoted myths. Some of them contain: him being born outside of the U.S., said he was Muslim, had socialist policies and even a "warmonger" and a terrorist coddler. Those are all false !
Truth of the matter is, he is a U.S. natural born citizen in Hawaii, he was raised by an atheist and became a practicing Christian in his 20s, "explicitly rejected advice to nationalize the banks and wants the government out of General Motors and Chrysler", and promised AND DID withdraw from Iraq & escalate in Afghanistan.
They just used this accusations to make their stories better and tried to attract more viewers but as it turns out, they're losing viewers because we all know they are lying and providing biased information.

Avg. Day of A West Indian Worker

May 29, 1906
Today marks the second year I've been working along my fellow Negro West Indian Workers and I've gotta say, it's been tough and I wish death would just take its toll and take me away already. Working on this monstrosity of a structure these Americans got us doing. The tropical temperatures are excruciating, a grand number of deaths were because they couldn't adapt well enough, and people have dubbed it as a "tropical pest hole and a 'white man’s grave' from which any white man in his right mind should steer clear." And not to mention the diseases; I've heard of and seen cases of Malaria, Yellow Fever, dysentery, typhoid, and dengue.
Panama was four times more deadly for the black man than it was for the white. Any black man who survived, can recall the "tremendous physical exertion and…the constant fear of being killed,” Death by violence was probably even more feared than disease since train derailments and falls, being crushed under land and mud slides, and suffocation from noxious gases was commonplace. Another was accidental or premature explosions from dynamites we've started using.
As this long, hot, and debilitating day comes to an end, I mark it down, tallying the day's that pass and count the ones I have left of working on this life-shortening duty , and finally being free, that is if death doesn't get to me first.

Bad SOA ! No More Coup d'Etat !

*coup d'etat: a sudden and decisive action in politics, esp. one resulting in a change of government illegally or by force.*

The SOA, located in Fort Benning, Georgia, is a combat training school for Latin American soldiers and has trained over 60,000 soldiers in nearly 60 years ! Once graduated, the soldiers use their newly acquired skills to torture, rape, or assassinate educators, union organizers, and even religious workers. My opinion is I don't think the U.S. should be able to operate these schools anymore. Mainly because in the process of overthrowing a government, which may or may not benefit the people, innocent people are killed and there is no need for that. For example, the night of Nov 16, 1989, a Salvadoran Army patrol massacred six Jesuit priests and their housekeeper & daughter at the University of Central America. One last example is on November 11, 1988, trucks w/ armed men drove in and "threw grenades indiscriminately", which killed 43 people, including 3 children, and wounding 50 others. The police and military of the Batallón Bomboná of the 16th Brigade stood by and allowed it to happen and no attempt was made by the security forces to detain the group.
So for the sake of the people, let's stop the SOA from operating and maybe, just maybe we can save a few hundred, even thousand lives.

Wk9;Blogging Assessment

The blogging assessment used in the course, I would agree with but maybe I want to alter it a little. The point system seems fair for the amount of work we actually need to do but for the content we actually put in I may want it to be graded a little more. Maybe for each daily we do, we can get 1 point minimum but also 2 points for extra. For an example, if two students do the same daily topic for the week, they will both get the same amount of points for completing it, but is it really worth the 1 point if one student went all out and provided everything you needed and maybe even a little extra. If the other student just straight up answers the topic in just exactly one paragraph, it means they just answered it get it over with or only knew a little to only come up with one paragraph. But if the one that went all out and gave examples, went into specific details, and wrote more than 2 paragraphs at least, can get 2 points because that shows that they actually know what they're talking about, they're right on point, and is obviously very educated on the topic.
The blog topics for this course isn't really hard at all. Everything you need to know you either have in your notes or we've gone over in class and if you paid attention then it should be easy for you but if you were to just sit there, goof around or not pay attention at all then its going to be hard for you to do the topic everybody else thought was easy. So for those who try and put forth the effort to put in the extra content that would make their posts better, they should be rewarded with that extra point in recognition of their knowledge and effort.
The weekly articles are right now worth 10 points each. That is understandable because it is a lot longer and more work than a daily topic. But sometimes the topics may be a little challenging to do because there are some students that may not understand how to answer it and it takes them a while to do. Plus, knowing us students, when we see something that is hard or we don't understand, we typically just leave it aside for later, then that later turns into tomorrow, and after 6 tomorrows, we're onto the next week and a new article topic is due on Friday. Then, we are behind on one article and it just piles on as we procrastinate. But I guess for now I am content with the 10 points. I'm 50/50 on it thinking it could be 5 points but then it maybe just be too much of a change since we don't get a lot of graded assignments in the class so in a way it balances the weighing of our overall average. I'm not complaining and it seems fair because it is better than 15 points, 20 points, and definitely a lot better than 25 points because if we get lazy and decide not to do it it would just drop our grade a great amount.



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Lincoln Preserves the Union

Although Abraham Lincoln didn't like slavery, was more focused on preserving the Union because he wanted to win the election. Preserving the Union would preserve the image of the United States being indivisible and shifting focus would help him gain and keep the supporters of the North he so desperately needed. In the South, it was believed if he was to be elected, Lincoln was going to jeopardize their ability to own slaves and would secede from America. So with that, he signed the Emancipation Proclamation which he had hoped would free the slaves in the South, but it did very little.

Former Slaves & Education

Although former slaves were able to study, they were not allowed to be taught to read. In 1829, Legislation made it a crime to teach slaves to read. So in order to get an education, they would have to find some other means. Some even tried to teach themselves by getting books and attempting to do it. But when they were granted equal rights, they all went into and filled up the schools that they were able to go to and get an opportunity to get a proper education but even then it wasn't as good. They all got old books and equipments while the whites all had new supplies. For those who wanted to go to college, they had to look afar because even then only a few would accept African Americans or former slaves.