Friday, April 5, 2013

reading week seven 2-18 -- 2-22-2013

The week started off with a day called " Presidents day". This day became a holiday in the 1800 century. Originally this holiday is celebrated at the third monday in february. It first got recognized in honor of President George Washington and to re-embrace his birth and the changes he brought to America. In political circles this day is also known as George Washington's Birthday. He was born 1832 and was recognized than and also with the beginning of the building of the monument in 1848 and that were only some early reasons why we have a reason to celebrate this men.  In 1870 is was finally recognized as a national holiday. Now a days it is celebrated as a patriotic and remembrance for the people that created and support America. During the great depression people needed to focus on rebuilding america and its economy and this holiday would help to remember how great this county is and if you work hard you will be awarded. People are proud of the army, the soldiers, the fire fighters, police men and people in the court that support and risk each day their life to make America a better place to live.

We also talked about Marxism and social classes.
Karl Heinrich Marx was born as a Prussian -German and was known all over the world as a philosopher and revolutionary socialist. He was a very intelligent person that gained his doctoral at the age of only 23. He has been playing an important role in the establishment of social sciences and development of the socialist movement. His writings were in spiritual for Mao Tse- Tung and Marx also imposed communism in more than twenty countries. Marx was known as a radical and feared no government. But because they were threatening him he needed to leave germany in 1843 and flea to Paris. He than wrote the "Communist Manifesto" which are guideline on how to establish communism and end the practice of Capitalism.

We also focused on the Industrialization that first established in Britain. It not only brought great things to the world. It also was arising great problems for the working class and our ecosystems.
With the building of big factory's the rich people only got richer and the poor people would stay poor. There has been no law for workers and people would get injured or if they are sick they would be fired and were not able to survive in the city. Where living was expensive and unsanitary and you needed health treatment just in case you will get sick. And this wasn't uncommon.
Thank's to people that care about humanity we now have labor unions and health care requirements that an employes have to offer.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Manifesto of the Communist Party

Chapter 1.
The idea I got out of the reading was that the bourgeoisie would want more and more and not be happy with what they already got.
I think this is pretty much of human life on this planet. Everyone thrives for more and even evolution called it we thrive for more organism and than an explosion happens.
And this is what happened every century. People want more saying and we create an revolution. People want to say their opinion but someone doesn't like it and we start a war. Or we want more land but the people that own it don't want to give it to us so we start a war and take and it doesn't matter if you kill innocent Individuals.
Or people split in groups/classes and distinguish themselves upon money or other people they associate with. And sadly said this is how it is everywhere around you. Cooperate people against small business,
university level against public college. If you go to a college you might get a job if you go to a higher school that is a lot more expensive you might get a better job just because they impressed with to which school you went.
It has always been that way that the rich will stay rich and the poor might become rich but not said their next generations will stay rich.
I hope some people will see through that and work hard, and be satisfied with the things you achieve and you have. Otherwise it will be hard to enjoy life.
Sincerely,
SW

Monday, February 18, 2013

reading 2-11-2013 to 2-15-2013

This weeks reading covered a lot of material. We started as a big topic to talk about the echoes of the revolutions that occurred as impact from the american revolution in 1775-1783 and the French revolution in 1787-1799. Those revolution were inspired with the idea of enlightenment and reaction that involved in a brutal and violent movement to reach independence and fight for human rights.
All humans wanted the same rights and even woman started to become independent and reach more rights for their benefit.
We also talked about the sisters of Notre Dame de Namur which established at the time of the France Revolution in France. Nuns wanted to study and travel and teach other people their knowledge. And luckily Francois Blin de Bourdon had the money to support Julie Billiart with her Idea. Francois was from a noble and wealthy household and because money dictated the world -still to that day- the Church agreed with the idea of the two woman.
Another Revolution that was going on was fought in Haiti. The majority of people living there were slaves and plantain owners and white, mixed raced people were the minority. People wanted equal rights and fairness but it escalated into one of the most brutal wars. It was the conflict between the african race and colonial forces. Slaves were killing mixed race and white people like there was no tomorrow. They would hang them and leave them hanging there for people to see. 1000 Plantations were destroyed but the slaves became free and earned to be called citizen.
This revolution was taking place from 1791-1804.
Another Revolution that was an echo of the French and American Revolution was the Spanish- American Revolution from 1810-1825.
It was similar to the North American revolution. People had self- government and they were divided into social classes. Also religion had a great impact, most of the people though rejected the catholic church. This Revolution wanted independence for Latin America. The last place where they earned independence was Brazil in 1822. This revolution was so lang lasting because the church and the landowners interfered with the people of the movement.
All those Revolution had three positive outcomes. Because of those wars that were thought we earned the Abolition of Slavery, which means the violation of natural rights and human rights no matter what raise are not tolerated anymore.
Black people can be free and are excepted. But we can still tell only to a certain point. There is still hate from other people coming against other raises. And Slavery wasn't official anymore but still part of American Lifestyle.
Out of this movement came another proudness in humans, which is called Nationalism.
Nationalism stands for Human - Community - Nation this is a political ideology that involves strong identification of a group of a Individual Nation. That was probably not one of the best ideas that Humans had. Because it brought hate towards other nations and the competing with other nations.
But it was also the beginning of the feminist movement. Woman started to speak up like for one example I mentioned the Sister of Notre Dame de Namur. And there was a written set of rules, called the declaration of rights. This book was allowing people to be more independent and live a free life. But it wasn't perfect. And till now we are still working on the rights for woman, human and animals and how to live a fair life.

The reading for Friday covers chapter eighteen of the Strayer book and covers the Revolutions of Industrialization from 1750-1914, The first Industrial Society, the comparison the in the United States and Russia, and it will cover deeper material of the Independence in Latin America.

Friday, February 8, 2013

The sister of Notre Dame de Namur

Reflection.

This week was founders week at Notre Dame de Namur University. We celebrated our founders that created this school.
Julie Billiart which was a non/sister and one of the founders of the University. She was born july,12 1751 into the 98% class like most of the people back than. Which meant her family was poor and didn't had too much to offer. She went to church and studied religion studies in school.
The second founder of the school was Francois Blin de Bourdon. She was quite different than julie. Francois was born 1756 into a aristocrat family and raised in a wealthy environment. She studied home economics and was involved with the noble society of france.
But as she got older she needed guidance and she found that in Julie.
St. julie was back than and still is today a feminist revolutionary woman that found the sisters of Notre Dame de Namur.
She started creating school systems for children with the help of Francois. The religious revolution happened during the french revolution and was very controversy. Because back than the Church made the rules and had complete control of the community and the even the world. But because Francois had a lot of money and the church wanted that money they were able to compromise.
Back than it was a complete new tragedy that woman were aloud to speak up, get great education and trying to make a change for themselves and the future generations.
I met some of the sister that are still at our university. It was very interesting and positive talking to them. Some have done remarkable things for other countries and their community. I talked to a sister that had studied home economics like Francois but instead of staying in a comforatble setting of people she knew, she went to africa and helped building schools, houses and thought home economics to less fortunate people. She stayed their for about 10 years and made a remarkable change in peoples life and created a better world for them.
But there are many more sisters that have inspiring life stories to tell. Another example was Dorothy Stang, she also had been a sister of Notre Dame. Dorothy worked in the Amazon of Brazil to help rescuing the rain forest and protecting the land mother earth gave us.
But her story ended rather sad. She received death threats from land owners and loggers and was eventually killed by them as she was protecting land.
She gave her life for our future and will be always remembered as a hero.
I am looking forward to get more involved with the SND and i am sure they will guide me into the right direction.

Sabine

Sunday, February 3, 2013

Week 4 reading

I thought last weeks reading was very interesting.
We covered topics that ranged from science to religion and if there is a combination and ethical questions.
We talk about the globalization of Christianity, and it's people that influenced the time from 1450-1750.
Christianity at this time was spread out all over the world and the church started to gain more and more control over the people.  And if they would fight the church or the Pope, question the hierarchies, you needed to pay for it and got thrown into prison.
At this time Christianity wasn't only Christianity any more. Out of this religion established different religions. Different branches, like Catholics, and spiritual ceremonies that were spread in Afro- Asian cultural. Those communities believed more in drumming, ritual dancing and annual sacrifices and were more spiritual than reading the bible.
And also at this time a lt of people were not able to read. They had people like priest or the pope interpreted the bible for them.
China still practiced Confucianism and India was divided into Hindu and Muslim culture.
But it happen as well that Islam and Hindu tradition got mixed into a new belief.

Martin Luther played a very important role in this time era. He translated the bible and published 95 statements and ask the church to rethink the ways and why they address the world like they were.

We also talked about the scientific revolution, which I thought was the most interesting topic we talked about last week. I am a Bio major and believe in the theory of the scientific creation of the world. I do know of the creation story that God created us and this world, but I can't really agree or wrap my mind around the idea that woman were created out of a rip or man were created as mentioned in Mathews 2, out of mud.
So the idea of a big bang and evolution makes a whole more sense to me.
One important scientist back in the days was Copernicus. He discovered that the world is not the center and the sun is actually spinning around the world and we only one part of the galaxy and there are other planets with more suns out there.
He actually threw off the whole theory of the biblical belief system, but he knew that and because of that he did not published his work till shortly before his death.
It took the church a while to adapt to this new understanding of the world.
The society back them was constantly learning new things and people were more and more questioning theories and developed new knowledge.
It came to this point that people talked about the enlightenment time era, which meant people were forcing the remove of darkness of ignorance. It was very critical and found new prospective political and it showed that the society is not perfect and doesn't has to because through the in-perfection  humans gain new knowledge.

Charles Darwin was a great scientist. He discovered that evolution happens through natural selection. And with this statement he also challenged the church and was very controversial for his days.
Karl Marx as well played an important role- he was known for his research on human civilization and extensive historical research. He said that "socialism was not a good Idea it was inscribed in the laws of historical development".
Europe became the center of the world, it was the beginning of a time era also known as he "modern era" for constitutional government, political democracy, socialism, nationalism, feminism and the opposition of slavery as well as a industrial revolution.
A lot of things happen, and all this was because Europe had a great communication with other countries and the right ideas or weapons to fight them.
It was part of the Atlantic revolution, where intellectual and cultural people were able to exchange ideas and trade off things. There was also commercial and biological intercourse between different cultures.
North America had a revolution as well, we accomplished the deceleration of Independence in 1776and that followed with a military victory in 1781. In 1787 North America had a federal constitution and out of 13 colonies it became 1 nation.

France got inspired by this and followed with the French revolution in 1989.
But we are going to talk about this in week 5 of lecture.




Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Week 1/14- 1/18/2013

The reading of this week was manly about the different empires that were created and between 1500 and the 1800 hundreds.
There is a lot of material to cover and I will start with the main empires that were created during that time.
The Russians created a powerful and brutal empire. It was part of the vast tundra, the forest and grass land and was holding great challenges to come for the civilization.
It also brought in germans, ukraine, Belorussian and baltic people into Russia. Which was located between Asia and Europe.
The Russian civilization was part of the Mongol empire and was known for brutal was to get economically, military and commerce growth.
Because of some much different influence, you were able to find over 100 languages spoken in the empire. Which was also called the Ottoman or Turk empire.
The Russian and Siberians made create profit of their furs that they exported to America and all over Europe. It was a luxury item that people had great demand on. And this demand almost lead to the extinguishing of the beaver. The siberians killed deer, mace, beaver.
The russians got siberia under control because of their weapon power and the nomadic living siberians had no idea what weapons were.
The Ottoman empire was a Monarch empire which means it had one absolute ruler that commanded about his empire.
Siberia had barley civilization and only native people living there. After 1700 hundred the population went up to 700,000 people living there. But barley any native people left 30 precent by that time and around the 19 hundred went down to 19 precent.
The Russians now also depended on the produce and trade of grain, sugar, tea, tobacco and alcohol.
Like I mentioned before the Russians were brutal and also established the business of Prostitution.
But it was one of the strongest empires every seen.
Somebody said: "British had an empire" but "Russia was an empire" Which I think is a very interesting point.
        It seems like you can create a great empire if you raise fear in people and your folk is fearing the effect on their actions for wrong behavior.
The chinese empire played as well an important role in the 18th century. The chinese were in contact and interacted with the Mongols, Xingjiang and Tibet and they agreed on the ecologically and culturally establishment to gain more world power.

Another part that I thought was very interesting was the History of Sugar.
Sugar started the slave trade in the bloody atlantic from India to europe where christian Muslims paid high priced for that sweet and valuable spice.
But like mentioned in our reading "Sweet Nexus: Sugar and the origins of the Modern World", It brought more harm than good to the modern age world.
Sugar was the most brutal and long-lasting way of planting. People described it as the burning hell.
The produce of sugar was driven by the "world system" which focused on the division between areas of accumulation and areas of explorations.
Which basically meant how can we make money the most efficient way without spending a lot and getting a lot out of it, so the white man can life in luxury items and control the trade market over the ocean. The import of Africans was inexpensive and you would have a slave for about seven years after that you can just replace him and buy yourself a new one.
The labor was hard and many of the slaves died before the seven years because it was physical unbarring, the temperatures were hot and the owners would not take good care of their workers.
But sugar stimulated the market and had great effect on the whole world.
For a while sugar was a luxury substance in the british new world. But became soon an essential for middle class as well. The slaves ate the left overs of the sugar and in our reading is also mentioned that the sugar could be harmful to people in a great amount.
Early on people understood that sugar is causing to interrupt the establishment of Africa and the population is declined and that we will have health issues.
Frederick Slare is saying that it can make people fat and woman will gain weight without knowing.
Also it is early known that sugar can cause cavities and back than the dental market was not as established as it is today.

What made me think that we are actually in a process of changing the future. More and more people know now that sugar is not as great as it was described back than. It was known as the" white gold".
We rethinking our inventions and try to become more ecological friendly. We try to use honey, agave, and many other natural sweeteners that are healthier for us.
The demand on sugar is still part of our economy and all the big food factories add sugar to everything because it can become an addition and tricks your  body into wanting more. Which means for the industry more money and a greater demand. But cutting it our for a while is rebooting your own system and you don't have to depend on it anymore.