wiki 5 - 0/20 no post for 11/6
wiki 4 - 20/20 -thanks for the second link... I hear your irritation with Fox and second your assessment... it's annoying when the news tries to "make up our minds" for us! Just give me the facts and let me decide is what I feel most often!
Wiki 4 - 10/30
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1-DtVLMopY&feature=related
Ron Paul is one of my favorite political persons. Even though i consider myself or i like moderates better, to me, Ron Paul is a honorable politician which is something I would not say about 95% of our politicians. Even though he is a Republican the way in which he speaks is blatantly attacking the Republicans. His deliverance in the way in which he speaks shows that he has emotion in what he does and I do believe that he is telling the truth for which he stands. I feel really angered with how fox news among other Republicans do not like which he stands for even though he actually represents what the Republicans believe in. Another video to show a way in which they slam him is
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mx7Q8-5PtOs&feature=related
It is just showing that even the Republicans do not like him, to me, he is a honorable man and even though i may not agree with everything that he says, you have to commend him for cotinuing his fight for what he believes in.
wiki 3 - 10/23 - 0/20 no post!
wiki 2 - 10/16 - 0/20 - I see the link you may have watched.....but not an entry about it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEyCjN9riiY - General Dwight D Eisenhower Pre D-Day invasion speech.
wiki 1 - 20/20 - good response! Isn't it fascinating that you don't even have to be able to understand WHAT he is saying to get that he is dynamic as he says it!? Interesting choice!
Week 1 (Speech interview)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q-6H4xOUrs - Video
I reviewed a speech of Adolf Hitler because he was known for giving profound and deep speeches. The confidence in his speech shows why people chose to follow him with such admiration. He was a fearless man when he gave speeches even though he had Parkinsons later throughout his life. He couldn't show the German people that he had a weakness. He projects his voice and the arm movements or his gestures shows how emotional he is. This is the reason that he is such a great speaker and why so many people layed down their lives for him. You can see many examples of his speeches compared to such people as Stalin, Mussolini, Churchill, or even Roosevelt. His propaganda advisors were ingenious when you think about it. So many people went to hear him and so many people did hear him on the radio and truly believed what Hitler stood for.
Dietz 1
Kevin Dietz
Mrs. Staude
English Symposium
9/23/09
Stalingrad
Our orders were to hold the apartment at all costs. Our commanding sergeant Yakov Palov was a well respected man in our division. He was the highest ranking even though he was only a lowly sergeant. All of our other officers had been killed or wounded. The Germans were at our footsteps, waiting to strike. They were breathing down the motherland's neck. Hitlers reason for ever wanting Stalingrad was one of pure indulgence. There was no military value to it, besides inflicting morale damage on Russia's people.
"Raskolnikov" whispered Alexander.
"Yes my friend, what is it?" I murmured back.
"Ready for your wonderful meal?"
"What do we have today?" I said gloomily.
"Horse stew, with old bread" Alexander replied gleefully
"Those damned fools, we need sustenance and not this poor excuse of food"
Thinking to myself, I thought of the past week where the only food I had was horse stew and old bread. No real meat, no eggs, not even vodka... Remembering Alexander was still there with my soup, I took it, bid him farewell, and went back to my post. My name, is Raskolnikov
Dietz 2
Dostoevsky, I am only 19 years of age. I managed to be a junior sergeant in the Soviet 13th Guards Rifle Division. Within the last few weeks I raised my rank from private to junior sergeant. How, do you ask?, everyone else who was above me, died. The date was November 21st, 1942. We were promised reinforcements a month and a half ago and now the deadline was up again, on November 23rd, at 0800 we were to be finally relieved of our post by other unfortunate men.
My kill count was only 78 because we did not count the mines we had laid down. The leading man of our platoon was Peter, with well over 150 confirmed kills. It was no fair however, for Peter had a machine gun, and I, only had a sniper. I became such a good shot with my scoped Mosin Nagant that I could kill a Kraut from well over an average snipers range. Pavlov had the most difficult kills though, he had well over 10 tank kills! He would go on the roof and hit the Panzers where they were weak at with his antitank weapon, they could not manuever well in the rubble of the city, so it made them sitting ducks. Sadly, we made a game of killing, the more you killed in one day, the higher the ration of horse stew you were graciously gifted with.
We had to stop the German 6th Army from taking any more of Stalingrad and we were doing a wonderful job of it. We were camped in our little fortress which we named after our commanding officer as Pavlovs House. We had mines laid around the entire perimeter of the house and even more entrapments. Barbwire was laid around everywhere. We joked around that the only way a Kraut would not be seen was if he hid behind the pile of corpses of his fallen comrades. With only our fifteen to twenty five man platoon, we managed to hold off the Germans for a ungodly amount of time. We had the occasional reinforcement or two when we had others die and they brought all of our ammunition and hors errr food rations.
Sleeping was overrated and was often impossible for me. Even though everyone always joked about and were proud of how many Krauts they killed, it disturbed me. These so called "Monsters" were the same as us, human beings. They had families, they had regular jobs like all of us did. I know my family would be absolutely devastated if I returned home in a body bag
Dietz 3
and I could only imagine the same for them. But, this is war, there is no time for grief and I could not bear to tell the maniacs in my platoon.
We had been preparing for the rumors that the Germans were going on an all out war. We laid down even more mines than previous, even more barbed wire and we even tossed the frozen bodies of all those Krauts into one big pile and burned them. Just as me and Alexander finished throwing the last body on the pile, a gigantic flash appeared in front of us. Seconds turned into minutes as I opened my eyes, both ears ringing, with blood coming out of both of them. I looked to my right expecting to see Alexander and all I saw was his arm. Peter, even as reluctant as he usually is about helping people, came running out to drag me into our impenetrable fortress.
The battle was on. Wave after wave of mortar fire lit up the entire city or what was left of it. Small arms fire was heard everywhere and Pavlov and all the other men were all in their posts, except for me. "Raskolnikov, I need you now!" Pavlov barked. That bastard knocked sense into me before, but never have I felt this close to dieing than that big wallup he gave me over the head. Aside from my splitting headache, my ears still ringing, and my shrapnel that managed to find its way into my knee, I crawled to my post. Germans were finally trying to take our fortress away from us. I saw at least thirty or forty men and we were all waiting on Pavlovs signal to fire. They were in a tight formation of two lines with about twenty in each line.
Those Krauts did not know what hit them. "Pow!" number 79 down, right in the jugular. I was getting a little sloppy, because Peter was already on man number 12. His machine gun tore up their flanks and their tight formation scattered everywhere. Screaming could be heard from those laying down on the ground refusing to die. I put them out of their misery, the Germans had no medical supplies, nor did we, and we also did not take any prisoners. Now the battle was actually getting a little exciting because we were getting resistance or at least frantic firing in our direction. A stray bullet even managed to hit Peter, which was great! I did not want him to die of course, it was only a flesh wound, that way he would be out of the fight for a bit to nurse his wounds. I could then catch up in which I did.
Dietz 4
Round two came this time with one Panzer and about ten infantry. That mechanical giant was our biggest threat, just as I thought that, "BANG". Pieces of debris went everywhere as did three poor souls who were unfortunate. Right after that giant had its shot it was up in flames. Pavlov did not get his shot off in time to save those men and for that, he cursed under his breath. The Krauts who survived the first onslaught and those who managed to escape the debris of the tank exploding were now in our kill zones. They thought they were smart hiding behind the walls we had set up. I shot the mine I planted earlier and that set a chain reaction of explosions. Those who were behind the pillars were now dead. Wave after wave of men were coming and we were not getting backed by any reinforcements.
Our ammunition was dwindling and even Peter was being conservative with his ammo. I was beginning to become blood crazed and I started killing out of pure delight. I was firing shot after shot and I cared not if I missed. As I picked up my magazine to reload, I noticed it was my last clip of ammo. We were in trouble. We resorted to firing only if we knew it would be a one hit kill. Our ammo situation was desperate. The Krauts never stopped coming, for every one that we shot, two more sprouted out of nowhere. We could only last for another twenty minutes before we would have to resort to close combat. Just as I thought of resorting to close combat. Explosions came out of no where and were landing on the Krauts!
I looked at my watch and noticed that it was 0900, only an hour late I thought, not bad. Our reinforcements were here. Men out of nowhere came and and rushed to our building, they knew the path to take to avoid minefields. We finished "cleaning up" and finally our platoon was relieved of duty. Two months of brutal fighting, but it was not all for nothing. Our heroic story encouraged all those of Stalingrad to fight for the motherland. But for us, we thought nothing of it and just went home.
wiki 5 - good work on wiki 5..
9/18/09
How about the dad in this story? Is he a "good dad" or does he expect too much of his daughter?
The dad in "From Mother With Love" is a good dad for telling his daughter. My thoughts on this story is that it is a good story. At the end of the story I was almost tearing up. I do not get emotional on much things, however i felt that this story was very touching. The dad does not expect too much of his daughter because his beloved wife is dieing or will be dead. The daughter doesnt have to do that much just stay home with her dad for a year before she goes to college.
To those of you who know Langston Hughes predominantly as a poet, he was also a playwright, novelist, and songwriter! Pretty multi-talented. Give some thought to his style here... he does write almost poetically about a rather harsh and ironic situation. Can you see the irony? Who really loses when prejudice seems to win?
I can see the irony in which Langstone Hughes writes with. The person who really loses when prejudices seems to win are the people who rejected her. They think that with doing what they did, they can stop one more black person from succeeding. Instead of that, they are only making her stronger and because of that she will only get stronger and make sure that herself and other minorities in the future will get treated with respect and the dignity that they deserve. She was the perfect canindate for winning the scholarship and she shouldve have won, but because of the racism, she did not win. The color of her skin is the only reason she did not win.
9/11/09
I am going to go "out on a big Limb" here and also invite you to comment on the reading of the Speech to America's Students that I presented in class on 9/8/09. I hope it was evident that I was trying to tie it to our new theme on "pre-judging" things and/or people plus it fit rather nicely with our discussion the other day about censorship. I will be interested to hear what you have to say on the topic as we really didn't allow a lot of in class discussion time. I hope everyone will feel welcome to express their views on the wiki if you so choose.
The speech that you read in class was interesting because I personally liked Obama more than I did McCain. I found that what he said was honorable and even if you are a die hard Republican you should respect what he wrote. I find it rather ignorant of people to be such staunch Republicans because of what their parents believe. I myself, am a moderate, but if I could have voted I would have voted for Obama. He was a much better canindate compared to McCain/Palin. Therefore, iIlike the speech and I am happy that you decided to share it with us in class and tell us that we should choose for ourselves not just because of what our friends do.
1. Quite a different tale than some we've read so far, isn't it? What sorts of things did it make you think about?
This story made me think more about World War 2 and the destruction of war itself. It is sad saying this, but even today we have displaced people. The Iraqis/Afghans are being displaced right now as we speak. Others include many African countries, Kurds, Kosovo. It made me think about the movie "Blood Diamond" where it shows the refugee camps and how they are continually having to move because of the horrible atrocities and corrupt government that occurs in their countries. It made me think more about World War 2 because I love the history behind it. I always read books about it and I know alot about what has gone on there.
Great job on wiki 3!
9/2/09
At what point in the story did you start to "catch on"?
The point in which I caught on in the story is when they first entered into the house. It became apparent to me because it was way different than most situations. Almost everyone should have caught on when Garret threw the books into the fire also. If he would have read those books he may have been able to survive and not die. Instead, however, irony happened because he was given the chance to survive but instead he died the same way in which "The Cask of Amontillado" character did. Being trapped alive by bricks and being left to die.
This story is set in Northern Ireland at the height of the violence between Protestants and Catholics. What did you think about the level of violence in this one? Did it contribute to the realism of the tale or hurt it?
The level of violence in this story represents the conflict of the Protestants and Catholics well. It contributes to the realism because there are stories like this that happened. The war or conflict of Blood Sunday or the IRA happened in the city. It did not happen in the country side for the most part but the cities so it takes place in a life like environment. I find it hard to believe that Ireland still gave up on finally being free from England. The war was very unpopular with the British people and they should just let Ireland finally be free.
8/28/09
When or how will Mike know it is time to regrow his moustache
Good work on wiki 2! I esp. enjoyed your second entry about being honest with yourself... that's very true!
Mike will know when it is time for him to regrow his moustache when he has the ability to handle the truth. He doesnt handle the truth very well when his grandmother is acting or thinking that he is her husband. He couldnt bring it to himself to tell his grandmother that he was not in fact, her husband. Mike couldnt tell his grandmother because he was embarassed about what he had to think about. He was embarassed because the grandmother was arguing or telling about their lives and Mike had to think about what all his grandparents did. If he was more mature he would have been able to handle it and not be embarassed. Because he is embarassed it shows that he is still a little immature and that he should wait to grow his moustache until he can handle it, because he will think about his grandmother every time he has one until that moment.
8/28/09
People are not always honest for a variety of reasons. Sometimes people don’t always want to tell the truth because they do not want to hurt the other persons feelings. For example, in the story when the guy took the girl home he said that he would call her but we don’t know why he never did. Maybe he already has a girlfriend and he wanted to be with somebody different. Maybe he didn’t like her that much after all, but he did not want to hurt her feelings. Maybe he is a jerk. Whatever the reason, people need to be mature and honest not only with the other person but with themselves. First question; what is the main reason people have so much difficulty simply being HONEST or at least up front in dating situations?
People have so much difficulty being honest because they are afraid of the end results. I can tell you from my life that there is nothing more than my father hates than for me to lie, yet i still find myself doing it from time to time. Being honest is just hard because we are afraid of what people will think of us even though telling the truth is better than lieing. Being honest in up front dating situations is also hard because of such things as rejection or having to face that person again in school or wherever it may be. Being honest in the end is always better, even the smallest lie may hurt a person more than telling them the truth. Telling the truth may not be the easiest thing to do, but you should strive to always tell it.
After you read part 2 of the story, comment on the story. I am particularly interested on what you think of Crane's style. Is he an entertaining author? I am also curious about how you feel this story compares in style to The Red Badge of Courage... any similarities or did Crane go in an entirely new direction?
I like the style in which Stephen Crane writes because he has his story to where he highlights the main character and focuses all attention on the main character. My reasoning for him being entertaining because it makes it so unpersonal and even though you have a sense of being left out you still enjoy the fact that he will talk about that other side character or whomever it may be a lot. Crane writes in the same direction as his other book The Red Badge of Courage by the way he introduces all of the characters. He also has the story as sort of bland and without much action or the rising action leads to disappointment.
What would YOU have done in Pablo's situation? Would his situation even happen in 2007?
If I would have been in Pablo's situation I would not have been so confrontational and probably would have just left after the first drink. Pablo caused the tension to escalate by continuing to egg the bartender. His situation would not have happened nearly as much in most cases in the year 2007 because the world is not as racist or discriminatory as it used to be. Back when this story took place people stood by and lingered with only those from their cultures (I.E Germans/Italians/Irish/Cubans). Today, this isn't the case because for the most part people are more accepted today than they were back then. Not to say that the world is still perfect because alot of hateful and unnecessary tension is still present today.
Good work on wk. 1 - I enjoyed your insights. You make a good point about today being a bit more open.
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