Wednesday, June 12, 2013

What it Means to Be an American

Sorry if my voice sounds really funny I'm really tired today and kind of out of it.  I don't think that it's complete jibberish, but it is possible.  I was told that I have been "butchering the English language" all night.  Hopefully everything makes sense.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V746tgVGeo4&feature=youtu.be

Monday, June 10, 2013

day 1 post

This is my predator from the quest project.  If you look closely enough at him, you will see what we have done in class for the past two days.  If you don't see it right away, keep looking.  You will understand eventually, I promise.


Thursday, May 30, 2013

Day 1 Post

note: my w key has been sticking, so sometimes I have to hit it really hard to get it to work.  I don't always notice when it doesn't work, so please ignore any missing w's

Yesterday in class, we had a paper to fill out about things like the Monroe Doctrine.  We decided whether each thing was an example of the US being a good neighbor, an imperial power, or possibly even both.

Today in class, e had a debate about the Bush Doctrine.  We were split into groups consisting of someone representing the pro side, someone representing the con side, and one or two judges.  After we finished the debate in our groups, the judges formed their own group and discussed hat they heard in the debates.  The judges then came to a conclusion based on hich side was more convincing.
I was a judge.  In the end, I chose the pro side as the more convincing side.  In the debate I was a part of, the con side really only had two arguments, and both were extremely weak.  One was that it damages international relations and upsets other countries.  This is a legitimate concern, but if there is a serious threat against the country we can't afford to worry too much about upsetting other countries, especially those which are not involved.  The other argument was that it gets us into wars.  This is not a good argument because if another country is making violent threats against us, we're headed for ar hether we like it or not.  The pro side had much better points.  The points made focused on the safety of our country and of others more so than the feelings of other countries.  What I liked about the things that the pro side said was that they weren't saying extreme things like "If a country threatens the US in any way we should bomb them immediately," or "All countries should be democracies like wonderful America!"  Instead, it was much more moderate and reasonable.  The said that with the Bush Doctrine we wouldn't respond that harshly to threats unless there was definite proof that the other country would annihilate us if we did not make a move.  Instead, milder approaches would be taken to discourage the other country from taking action against us.  As for the government thing, the pro in my group said that it would only happen if the safety, happiness, and general well-being of the people of that country was being extremely negatively impacted by the current government of that country.  I liked these arguments because not only were they reasonable, but they were what I like to think the Bush Doctrine was meant to be: not a way to justify going around and bombing people and overthrowing every government that isn't like ours, but to protect the safety of our country and to help people who want and need our help.
In the end, I chose the pro side.  I am surprised that more of the judges, especially the judge who was in my group for the original debate, did not choose the pro side as well.  There did not seem to be many good arguments for the con side. I suppose that is a matter of opinion though.

Thursday, May 2, 2013

game

My game is done.  At first, scratch was frustrating.  Then I liked it.  Then it got frustrating again once i started running out of time.  I think I fixed all of the issues with the game (such as the deer), but it's possible that I missed one or two.  I'm going to go through it again tomorrow when I can hopefully think straight just in case.

Link to game: http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/jmacey72/3310948

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

pioneer diary entry

Dear Diary,
Ever since we left home we have been squeezed onto this boat with many other travelers.  The trip is long and hard and I almost regret it.  Only telling myself that a trip by wagon would be longer and that the trip will be worth it in the end gets me through the tougher days.  There are days where we stop at a town when we reach a lock in the canal.  We can get off and sometimes spend the night there.  Even just getting off of the canal helps me to feel better about this trip.  I always hope to see someone who I know from back home in one of the towns.  I know that it is unlikely though because nearly everyone I knew who made the trip stopped and bought land along the canal.  Land was being sold for low prices in the areas alongside the canal, so many people stopped their journey and settled down along the way.  Even in such a crowded ship, I'm still so very lonely.  Only the promise of a good future and a new life out west keeps me going these days.  I hope the journey ends soon, both because of my excitement for my new life, and because it will end this dull trip.

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Ebooks are the devil

Here's the book.  Just take it, I don't want it.  Writing in character when my narrator is a racist jerk makes me feel like a terrible person.  The ebook website makes me hate everything.  It took forever to load and did obnoxious things.  It rearranged all of my text boxes on me a few times.  I found page on where 17 was supposed to be.  It it terrible and I hate it.  I could go on and on, but I won't because I have a hunch that Mr/ Boyle is actually its creator since it sounds like him:

No, but really, that site was nearly the death of me and I hate it.

now take the book and never let it see the light of day again once it has been graded.  the worst part about ebooks is that you cant burn them.  I'd like to burn this book. take it and leave me alone.

  
Myebook - Southern Hospitality - click here to open my ebook

note:  Mr. Boyle, if you read this, just know that I'm not emailing it to you until the morning because i'm tired and angry and my computer is dying and I just want to go to sleep.

Monday, March 25, 2013

day 1 post

yesterday in class we talked about the civil rights acts of 1964

Today in class we talked about the Black Panther Party.  We read their demands and thought about whether or not they were reasonable.  Most of them were not.  Some even sounded rather communist.  One thing that they wanted was free healthcare for blacks and oppressed people.  I think that this is unreasonable because if even wealthy and middle class blacks get free healthcare (as opposed to just poor people who actually need it) then wealthy and middle class people of other races should get free healthcare as well.  Mr. Boyle tried to argue this by saying that the black panthers feel that they have been treated unfairly and whites haven't faced hardships so it is reasonable (Or at least I think he was trying to say it was reasonable.  He didn't get to finish because class ended, but from what he was saying that's what it seemed like).  Yes, that makes it understandable that the Black Panther Party would make these demands, but it doesn't make it reasonable to give all black people in the united states free healthcare regardless of wealth and lifestyle if other races don't get the same thing.  Yeah, yeah, I know that blacks have been oppressed in the past and weren't given everything whites were.  If they weren't treated fairly then, why should whites be treated fairly now, right? Wrong.  If we're going to move past discrimination we need to stop keeping score.  Saying "They treated us unfairly then, so now it's our turn to treat them unfairly" doesn't get us anywhere.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Day 5 Post



Yesterday we did not have class because it was a snow day.


Today in class, we listened to a speech by Malcolm X and a speech by Martin Luther King Jr. We then talked about which one was more realistic and/or ideal. We also talked briefly about whether or not our country has reached the point that Martin Luther King spoke about ("... a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.") and whether or not the country is better than it was when he made that speech. I think that we have not yet reached that point, but we have certainly come a long way from where we were back then. As much as we want to say that we treat everyone fairly regardless of race, we can't. We still have a ways to go. Are we where we should be? No. Have we made progress? Certainly.

Monday, March 18, 2013

Day 3 Post

Yesterday in class, we were split into groups.  Each group had a different document and we were to answer questions about these documents.  My group had a document where Malcolm X talked in an interview about his plans for the future of blacks.  His ideas are pretty terrible and racist.  At one point he wished that Allah would kill whites for him.  He also preaches black supremacy even though he was all offended by white supremacy.  He also thinks that violence is necessary and justified because white people had been violent towards blacks in the past.  He was an interesting guy to say the least.

Today in class we split into different groups to give other people the information we gathered from the documents we read.  Well, we only did that for part of class.  The rest of class was spent talking about an upcoming project and being talked to by Mr. Boyle about various things like learning skills, life, etc.  He has some good ideas, that man.

Desktop Documentary: James Meredith





Citations:

Info:


"Address by Meredith Climaxes Turbulent Mississippi March." The Telegraph [Nashua]
27 June 1966: 7. News.google.com. Google. Web.
<http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2209&dat=19660627&id=XawrAAAAIBAJ&sjid=S_0FAAAAIBAJ&pg=6926,6215071>.

 "James Meredith." MWP: (1933). N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Mar. 2013.

 "Luther King Takes up Meredith's March." The Glasgow Herald 08 June 1966: 9. News.google.com. Google. Web. <http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=yX9AAAAAIBAJ&sjid=zKMMAAAAIBAJ&pg=1470,1275409&dq=martin+luther+king+meredith+march&hl=en>.

 "On This Day in History: James Meredith Barred from Ole Miss." UPI. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Mar. 2013.

 "Tag Archive for 'James Meredith'" Publishing the Long Civil Rights Movement RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Mar. 2013.

 "U.S. Marshals Service, History, The U.S. Marshals and the Integration of the University of Mississippi: ." U.S. Marshals Service, History, The U.S. Marshals and the Integration of the University of Mississippi: . N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Mar. 2013.

Images (links):


http://content.answcdn.com/main/content/img/getty/2/6/3364626.jpg
http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/01/38/7a/92/university-of-mississippi.jpg
http://www.history.com/images/media/slideshow/mississippi/mississippi-oxford.jpg
http://mpbonline.org/news_mp3s/james_meredith_olemiss._thumbjpeg
https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR0iLBR_ugF60BCyIFOxRAOIu3ndlk7h0UbcQmScYz9gg-djHpR
http://assets.espn.go.com/i/eticket/20090225/photos/etick_06_g_riotsquad02_850.jpg
http://cdn.aarp.net/content/dam/aarp/politics/events-and-history/2013-01/620-civil-rights-legal-history-facts-james-meredith-graduates.imgcache.rev1358281002598.jpg
http://negroartist.com/MARTIN%20LUTHER%20KING/images/Meredith%20March_%20Martin%20Luther%20King%20and%20James%20Meredith%20in%20Mississippi,%201966_%20Photo%20by%20Roy%20Lewis_jpg.jpg
http://blackfilmcenterarchive.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/james-meredith-pullitzer1.jpg?w=490
http://binaryapi.ap.org/2558875373204410ba57716de48dcae3/512x.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/James_Meredith_Portrait.png

Monday, March 11, 2013

Day 5 Post

Yesterday in class, THERE WAS NO CLASS. snow day.

Today in class, we talked about segregation and whether or not it is still around today.  We talked about a case in a school in 2007 where a group of kids beat another child until he was unconscious. some other kids had previously hung nooses from a tree.  The ones who beat the kid were black, and the ones who hung the nooses were white.  The black boys were severely punished, the white boys were not.  That's not segregation.  Yeah, it's racism, but not segregation. also, people were getting all worked up about how the black kids were being punished more harshly than the white kids.  Apparently that's racist even though the black kids beat another child unconscious and then continued to beat him after he passed out. It was a group against an individual and they could have killed him.  That is not just a schoolyard fight like people made it out to be.  Yes, hanging nooses from a tree is terrible and those children should be punished harshly, but them not being punished as harshly as the people who nearly killed someone is not really racism.  It's not always about race, people.  The noose thing was definitely racist though.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

day 3 post

Yesterday in class, I was not there because I was at the blood drive and it too way longer than I had expected. No, really, it did. I thought I would just miss part of f period, but ended up missing f, g, lunch, and half of e. My sources say that they watched a video in class about a boy who was brutally beaten. I believe them, I have good sources.



 Today in class, we read five different documents about as bus boycott. This was the boycott that occurred after the well-known Rosa Parks incident where Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white person even though it was the law that she had to sit in the back of the bus and give up her seat when it was required. After each document we read, we found reasons for why the boycott was successful/unsuccessful. We then wrote the conclusion that we drew from each document (which was pretty much exactly what we had just written, only in paragraph form rather than bullet form).

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

No.

Yesterday in class, we talked about the Scottsboro Boys Trial. In this case, nine black boys were accused of raping two white women. We wrote journal entries from people involved in the case. My group wrote the journal entries of Ruby, who was one of the women who may or may not have been raped. Hint: she wasn't. Her and the other woman, Victoria, were dirty, dirty liars. In our journal entries, which I read to the class, we threw Victoria under the bus. Well, we only threw her under the bus in the first two entries. Then we just sideswiped her with the bus. Today in class, we read some things and worked on a map about segregation. Then we talked about some trials and stuff. To be completely honest with you, I don't actually remember too much about class today.

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Day 1 post

Yesterday in class, we took some notes.  Super fun stuff.

Today in class, we talked about equality.  Of course by "talked," I mean "got into a heated argument."  We had a very lively discussion where we all yelled at Mr. Boyle while he grinned evilly and antagonized us.  At one point, we talked about a scenario where two patients came into the doctor's office complaining of headaches.  On had a brain tumor, and the other had a regular old headache.  We discussed what the doctor would have to do to treat the patients equally.  While we tried to discuss it, Mr. Boyle interrupted us every chance he got to say things like "but they both have headaches" and "no, he had a headache."  He interrupted me while I was making a point, so I yelled at him to assert my dominance (and because I was really really angry/agitated/not-actually-angry-but-still-really-angry-somehow).  Right when we were getting all fired up and angry about the brain tumor, he moved on to the next topic, which was easy to resolve.  This left us (or at least me) all furious with nothing we can do to about it.  It was diabolical.  I'm still a little agitated just thinking about it.  ARGHHH BRAIN TUMORS ARE NOT EQUAL TO HEADACHES, SO... SO... ARGHHHH. ahem.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

day 3 post

yesterday in class, we went to the library. we filled out a worksheet using a map and pictures online

today in class, we read the 14th amendment and made a fake magazine cover about it

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Which Character Am I?

From reading thew descriptions, I thought that I would be tigger.  Why? energy energy energy energy energy energy!

when I took the quiz, I got the following:

You are Rabbit. You are clever, intelligent, and level-headed. You have close, loyal friendships, but you have a bit of a short temper when the people around you act foolishly.

Level-headed? NOPE.
Short temper? yep.
clever? psh of course.

I think that I thought I was a different character because the first site's descriptions and the quizzes descriptions are very different.  

POLECAT

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Day 5 post. Yeah, that's right.

Yesterday in class, we took a test.  This test was about history.

Today in class, we got study guides for our midterm and "studied"

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Day 3 Post!

Yesterday in class, we had our little memorization thingy about the Gettysburg Address. Then we took notes.

Today in class, we took more notes! Notes notes notes notes

Friday, January 4, 2013

day 1 post

yesterday in class, we discussed the emancipation proclamation and it's importance.  some think that it is not as important as it is made out to be.  I agree with that.  it didn't free the slaves like people say.  it only said that they were free in some states.  people act like it was the whole process when it was only a single step.  afterwards, we talked about the Gettysburg address.

today in class, we talked about blacks in the army and called Mr.Boyle a diva. he is,it is true.  I don't think that he realizes that it is not necessarily a bad thing to be sassy/a diva. silly.