In What Ways Where the People of the Gulf Coast Affected?

In What ways were the people of the gulf coast affected?
Well, obviously in many ways, they were hit by a hurricane! But I guess it wasn't the fault of the Hurricane that made this issue so catastrophic. It was the fault of the government and the Core of Engineers. They did not design the levees that they said they would, they were supposed to go 17 feet into the ground but only went ten. This affected the people because if the engineers would have built and designed the levees they said that they would, there would never have been the kind of damage that there was. So really, it isn't the hurricane at all that caused such demolition, it is the people who made (and failed at making) the levees. Everyone's houses were destroyed and they lost everything, sometimes even their lives. Also, I am sure that they were mentally scarred. One police officer was telling lies about things happening in the super dome. He said that lots of babies were being raped and that helicopters were being shot by hungry people. These were all lies, maybe he was just trying to draw attention to the situation or something but all this did was bring negative media attention to the whole thing. And he was a cop too! But that just shows how rumors get around and stories change a little every time they are told. This affected the people of the gulf coast because nobody knew what was the truth and what wasn't. Government officials took over four months to arrive and clean out the city. In all that time, things were just getting worse and worse. The after math of the hurricane was worse then actual hurricane. Also, when help finally did arrive, they didn't even do a good job of helping. Well for one, taking six months to search for dead bodies is already soooooo unacceptable, but then overlooking tons of houses is just pathetic for the whole country. When the government search groups said they looked through houses and that there were no people found in the houses, later dead people were found in the abandoned houses. To find a dead relative that you thought was alive in your own house is, I am sure, mentally scarring and would for sure affect people for the rest of their lives.

New Orleans were not the only ones affected. The entire country was affected by this in one way or another. The federal government got bad media attention for not taking action on this issue sooner. It took them way to long to get help over to New Orleans. For the rest of the country, it slightly diminishes their faith in the country and the government.  

Betsy and Katrina

Today in class, we watched a film about Hurricane Katrina. In the film, people who survived Hurricane Katrina talked about their experience and what they witnessed. We learned that a natural disaster is not all natural, especially hurricane Betsy and Hurricane Katrina. The film not only talked about the environmental issue of it, but also brought up the issues of government, religion and social class.


In hurricane Betsy, the levees were actually blown up so that the less expensive, lower class part of town would get flooded instead of the more expensive, upper class part of town. This left the people who lived in the part of New Orleans that got flooded, feeling resentment and anger toward the government and so know they don't trust them. When Hurricane Katrina came along, the people heard a boom, a lot like the boom in Hurricane Betsy that broke the levees. When water started coming in through a hole in the levee, the people automatically assumed that the hole was made by the government to flood out the lower class area. Even after everyone found out it wasn't actually the government, they were still mad because it was still the governments fault. The government said that the levees could hold, just to satisfy the people, but they didn't hold and the government lied.


A few days after the Hurricane, people were stranded on top of their houses and in buildings because everything was all flooded. The people in the ninth ward were holding up signs saying "help me" and "SOS" but all of the people in the helicopters that should have been helping them just flew by to help the people in the wealthier neighborhoods. There was no help provided to the people of the ninth ward until all of the other people were okay. That is not fair and is another reason for the people who live in the ninth ward to be mad at the government.

So now the main question: In what ways did Hurricane Katrina change the way people live their lives?
This is a question we were asked to think about while we watched the movie in class. Well, for starters, some people lost everything; their families, their possessions, their house, and even their own lives. It is devastating to think of all the people who were left with nothing. Also, like I talked about before, some people lost their trust with the government. The government was not helping the people in the ninth ward when necessary and they even lied to the people about the levees being strong enough to hold. Their lives are changed by this because they have lost a sense of trust in the government that they may have had before. Since the government wasn't being truthful and the people didn't trust the government, they will be living in fear for the rest of their lives in New Orleans because they will never know if the government is just trying to calm people down or if they are telling the actual truth. Not only will they be in fear because of the government, but also, a hurricane is a natural disaster which means that there is nothing to prevent them from happening again and being even stronger time after time. 

How Do Civilizations Take Advantage of Other Civilizations?

When my group was brain storming ideas for the three questions about epoch three, How do societies take advantage of other societies was one of the questions we came up with but decided not to use. I think this is a really good question because we see societies taking advantage of other societies all the time today and, as shown through epoch three, it happened a lot back then as well.

When the Europeans came over to the Americas, they took a ton of advantage of the Native Americas who lived there before. The Native Americans, who were not as advanced in their technology, were easily taken over by the Europeans who came to America. The Europeans took advantage of the Native American's land, and lack of advanced technology.

The Europeans also took advantage of the African civilizations that they came across when they expanded to Africa. Much like the Native Americans, the Europeans took advantage of the fact that Africa was not as advanced as them. They also easily took those civilizations over. The Europeans kidnapped some of the Africans and took them over to America to be slaves. This is an example of how Europeans took advantage of the African people.

There are many more times in this Epoch that civilizations took advantage of other civilizations but, to me, these are two of the most important.

The Events of Epoch Three

In history, we were all assigned different epochs and with a group, we are supposed to come up with the most three questions about each epoch. After we came up with the questions about the epochs, we need to give specific events to answer the questions. My group was given epoch 3.

How does one society's conflicts and progressions become an international issue?
We directly related this question to World War One. We decided to use World War One as an example because it started with just a few countries and ended up being a world war. This happened because Franz Ferdinand, the heir of Austria- Hungary, was killed by the Black Hand (a Serbian nationalist secret society). The conflicts between two groups led to an entire world war. Also, another example of how one country's beliefs during World War I can lead to global conflict is the political change in Russia to communism. This conflicted with other countries political beliefs which only made Russia a target. The Scientific revolution is an example of how one society's progression and achievement can become global. The newly found math and science tools lead to people beginning to question religion and lean more toward the scientific facts. This changed a lot of people's lifestyles because they questioned the church and this helped lead to the French Revolution. 

Why are leaders important to society?
Our group connected this to the Napoleonic Era. Napoleon, a french leader, lead France away from corruption and destruction after the French Revolution. He made France advanced politically, and economically. By doing this, Napoleon made France a powerful and distinguished country that was highly recognized by lots of other countries. France was a country to look up to, and that was only done with the help of Napoleon, their leader.

Why and how do societies expand and diminish?
We found that the European expansion to America was a pretty obvious example of how societies expand. They sent over people over to America to explore the continent that had never been heard of by them before. Europe settled in America in order to get more territory and power. After more Europeans came over to America, they started exterminating the Native Americans as well as contaminating them with diseases brought over by Europe.  That is how that society diminished. Europe also expanded over to Africa and created European colonies over there and that is another example of how societies expand. The Europeans took over and controlled all of the African people and forced them to follow their religion and rules of society. Europeans brought some of the people from Africa to America so they could be slaves, this started to diminish their society but not all of it.

What is Globalization?

Globalization, by definition means "Describes a process by which regional economics, societies, and cultures have become integrated through a global network of communication, transportation and trade." That is the internets definition of Globalization. So basically taking everything about a civilization and making it global. So I guess an example of globalization is the internet because it is something that everyone in the world has access to and can see. It is a way to pass information and culture to different societies. An older example of globalization was the silk road. The silk road was a trade route throughout Europe and Asia and was used to trade goods. But not only did the silk road trade goods, it exchanged culture.

How has Globalization influences today's society? Well, I think thay globalization has really influenced today's society because we would be not be the same without it, we would not know as much as we do if we didn't have it. Without globalization their would be no wars because everyone would be extremely sheltered in their own little country. When you think about it, we woul know pretty much nothing. We wouldn't have all the history or language classes that we have, and math and science would be totally different with the philosophies and discoveries. Economics would be completely different. It is interesting to think about what all the economies would be like. Would they all be perfect and without a problem because what other countries would we be giving money to? Or would it be terrible because there is no one to give money to you?

When you weigh out the pros and cons about globalization, I would say that it does a LOT more good then bad. No one would be the same if there was no such thing as globalization.

-Sarah

How Ancient Greece Plays a Role in Todays Society

Today in history class, we were asked to list the top five most important event in each epoch. In epoch two, I chose the most important to be the Fall of Ancient Greece. After much discussion in class I realized that the Fall of Ancient Greece isn't what I actually meant. The question that I had to ask was, is the actual act of Ancient Greece falling the important thing, or was the fact that Athenes, a civilization far ahead of its time, even happened and then ended. The Athenians, who were part of one of the greatest civilizations known to earth, were defeated by the Spartans. But what is more impressive, all the things that the Ancient Greeks, especially the Athenians, were able to accomplish and influence today's society in such a strong way? Or the fact that the Spartans had a strong enough military to beat them? If you ask me, it is much more impressive to have accomplished and discovered all of those things then to have a good military.

One thing that the Ancient Greeks invented that really influences today was the idea of Democratic Government. This has made such a huge impact on today's society, especially in America, and is pretty much the base of our entire Government. Another thing that has made an impact on today are their philosophies. The Ancient Greeks brought to this world the idea of biology and physics and cosmology. These philosophies have had a huge effect on how we view science and math and almost the whole world. Ancient Greece has even introduced the idea of psychology. Some could argue that everything all leads back to the ancient philosophies of the Greeks. Some other things that Ancient Greece has introduced and started an idea for are the discoveries of art, literature, theater and architecture. In the end, Ancient Greece has almost created a base for everything that is used in today's world and is so much more meaningful then being able to win a war.


- Sarah Humphrey

History in the Textbook

Today in History class, we were asked to go through two history text books and get the author, title, publishing date, the organizing strategy, the shortest period of time per chapter, the longest period of time per chapter, and the amount each area of the world gets in the book. When we were first given this assignment, I will be honest, I did not quite understand the meaning of it. I was thinking, how does this relate to actual history? Well, it actually does say a lot about history and what people find important. After all the data I collected, something I realized was that in both of the text books, the amount of years that were covered per chapter became less and less in chronological order. This means that we either know a lot less about things that happened a long time ago or we find that information not important. When I think about it, we definentely know a lot less about things that happened a long time ago, but also, I don't think that people would find that information as relevant today. But I think that the things that happened a long time ago are the most important, especially in this class, because I am looking for themes in world history. In the second book, the chapter that covered the least amount of time was 31 years before, during and after World War 2. The chapter that covered the most amount of time was 3500 B.C.E. to 1500 B.C.E. I also found that Europe and Asia got the most amount of pages in the book. Obviously, one would think that America would get the least because it wasn't discovered until Europe and Asia were already well developed. But since the more resent years were covered the most, I was suprised to see that America wasn't covered as much as all the rest of the continents. All in all, I wasn't too surprised with the outcome of the data collected from the History text books.

How did Religion Come into the World?

 The question I will attempt to answer is how religion came into play. A discussion in class today about how history, brought up the question of how religion started and triggered an idea for a blog post. Epoch one was the Epoch of origins, the Epoch of firsts. Religion was one of the things that started in the first Epoch. If you think about it, religion and god is a pretty strange thing for someone to think of. I mean how would anyone even think of something like that. I guess it all comes down to what you personally believe. I don't know enough about all the different religions to say that I am religious or that I follow a certain religion. I guess I would call myself questioned or agnostic. It is hard for me to even think that there is a greater being up there that is always watching. But then, I have been brought up Christian so it is hard to believe that there isn't some sort of greater being. It is hard for me to explain but sometimes I believe it but when I actually think about it, I find it hard to believe. So if, there is no actual god but some people still believe, how could they even come up with that idea? Maybe they just need something in their life to give them hope and so they made up the idea of a god. When I think about it, there must have been something that made these people think that there is some sort of god. But what if that isn't what it is at all? What it is something completely different altogether? And what about heaven? I don't know how anyone could come up with an idea like that? If, like they say, heaven comes after death, how would they know if they have never died before? There is now way of anyone knowing if there is such thing as heaven if you are still alive. My conclusion for this topic for now is that people just wanted something to believe in. They needed that reassurance with god there to watch them because with no god, they would have no protection and guidance.

History and the Past

I think that the difference between history and the past is not an easy question to answer.
The past is everything that has happened prior to this very moment. The past could be a year ago or the past could be .5 seconds ago. Everything, wether its important or not. History, to me, is everything that has previously happened that has somehow made an impact in the world. The impact could be as small as me, buying a purse at Bloomies, or as big as a Crusade. History can make an impact on many people or even just on person. One could say that the past is history, that everything that they have done has made some sort of impact, but someone else could say that they have done many things that have made zero impact whatsoever. I can't say that I believe one thing or the other, because I could do things that have no effect on me but later on could have a huge effect on someone else. I guess I could say that not everything that has happened in my past is part of MY history but everything that is done, is somehow part of both history and the past.