Maus II Part 1

I thought there were some very good questions brought up during the discussion but not all of them were answered and not all of them were answered fully enough. I'm not sure if this was because people did not know the answer to what was being asked or if they were afraid to add in their opinions of things. While I was reading I was confused by a lot of things and I had a lot of questions that came into my mind. It would have been helpful to have had some of those questions talked about but I felt like it was hard to discuss this book specifically because there are so many possible interpretations of each saying and picture. On the other hand, hearing how each person interpreted it differently would have helped get ideas about what was going on and why things were written and drawn the way they were. I found it really interesting how Spiegelman wove in parts of his present day life with the story of his parents time in Auschwitz. I also wondered what the significance of taking pages to explain things going on with his father and his current day life was.

The Congo Today

1. I am finding that there are lots of power hungry leaders of the Congo which has had some benefits, but eventually is not doing the country any good. There seems to be constant fighting there because the leaders all have ulterior motives, or there is not a stable leader in power. There are lots of political issues that have been going on throughout the Congo's history, but especially as of late. It seems like ever since they gained their independence from the Belgians that they are free but there is still lots of political turmoil and war. People are still dying and the UN is not really doing that much that will actually help the people of the Congo.

2. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/02/world/africa/02congo.html?scp=4&sq=congo&st=cse
This article is about how the UN just recently released a report about the killings and abuse in the Congo from 1993-2003. It is over 550 pages long and interviews thousands of people about their experiences. There are issues with the report however because the other countries listed in it are not listed favorably. There are arguments about whether genocide is the correct word to use in this situation. This is the same sort of question that Hochschild had about Leopold's regime. He said technically it could not be considered a genocide because he did not intentionally go in trying to kill any one certain race. I do think that the things going on in the Congo today and concerning the Congo were affected by the things going on during Leopold's regime.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/10/05/congo.rapes.arrest/index.html?iref=allsearch
This article is about how the alleged leader of a Congo military group was arrested the other day on the accusation of committing mass rapes in the Congo. A report published last month confirmed that over 300 people were raped between July and August in one region of the Congo. It focused on shortcomings of the military and their inability to protect the people in their areas. Victims were told that the main reasons for these attacks were to punish people viewed as traitors. The things that happened during Leopold's rule did have an effect on the things going on now. There are still terrible happenings just as there were during Leopold's rule. The military under Leopold's rule were abusive to the natives, just as this article is talking about for modern times.

Discussion Thoughts

I actually enjoyed the discussion our group had. I felt that we took some of the questions and everyone had a chance to give their opinion about it. There were some very good insights given and we were able to successfully all share our thoughts and elaborate on each other's thoughts as well. It was nice to be in a group where nobody was overpowering and everyone felt comfortable sharing.

King Leopold's Ghost pgs. 1-32

"But we do not have a full-length memoir or complete oral history of a single Congolese during the period of the greatest terror. Instead of African voices from this time there is largely silence" (Hochschild 5).
I found this quote to be particularly interesting because I never thought about how there are many accounts of these events from outside perspectives, but hardy any from those who experiences the terrors first hand. The views regarding many different events from the time period would surely be understood differently if there were two different views of the event. The European view became the only view because that is all people knew or were hearing about. African people being treated unfairly were unable to speak up and give their side of the situation because they did not have the ability to record the things going on and how they felt about them. It is hard to know whether hearing about the terrible things going on to these people directly from them would have changed people's ideas about imperialism and slavery.

Did the events of John Rowland/Henry Stanley's childhood and adolescence have more of a positive or negative impact on his work later in his life?

Do the differences between African slavery and European slavery make one form more acceptable than the other? Why or why not?

Thoughts after 9/2/2010 Class

I learned more details about the things going on between 1871 and 1899. I knew general details about this time period, but not the details. I also learned about the differences of new and old imperialism. I have heard the phrase new imperialism before, but I was never really sure what it entailed or what exactly it was. I did know some of the European's motivations for colonizing these countries, but there were new reasons I learned as well.

Current Events Practice

1. What's being discussed in this article? This article discusses how people in China are beginning to fight back against the law that allows them to only have one child. This law has been in place for nearly 30 years but is slowly changing in some parts of the country. In some rural parts of the country people are allowed to have a second child if their first was a girl. It is still widely believed that male children are superior to female. The government is hesitant to get rid of the one child law however. They estimated the fertility rate to be around 1.8, when in actuality it may be closer to 1.6. There could end up being a problem however because women in cities and wealthy rural areas did not generally want multiple children.
2. When did the event happen? (Is this breaking news or something that's been analyzed and discussed for a while?) This story was written recently, but this has been an issue ever since the law was implemented 30-40 years ago. 
3. What questions do you have that would help make this article make more sense to you? What more do you need to learn about to be able to report on this event? It would help to learn more about the law itself, and other cases of people trying to fight the law. it also may help to learn about how the fertility rate is calculated and why the number is what it is. A question you may ask is why do women not want to have multiple children?

Important Current Events

Mine.
1. 9/11- It is a very clear memory in my mind. I remember we were having work done on our house and Bob, our contractor, came in and said that the World Trade Center's had been attacked. I thought he said the World Toy Towers, and it was not until I got to school and they had the news running on the TV that I realized it was the World Trade Towers.
2. Obama's election- I remember sitting in the car after the primaries with my mom and talking about Obama, and she made a prediction that Obama would be president, and he turned out to be. I also remember watching the TV the night of the election when they were counting votes and finding out that Obama won. The other memory I have is Inauguration day when the whole high school went into Wood's Hall to watch on a big projector. Mrs. Randall was sitting there and crying and I remember looking around and seeing all of the different expressions on everyone's faces.
3. St. Louis Rams lose to the New England Patriots in the Super bowl in 2001. I remember this because the game was on my birthday and we were having family and friends over to watch the game. My grandma got me hooked on football and I was so excited for the game because I remembered what it was like two years earlier when they won.

Mom
1. The first Earth Day. Her mom got involved and got her involved and it taught her a lot about the environment which in turn affected the way she has viewed things her entire life.
2. Barack Obama's election. It is a very important event in the development of our country. He came out of nowhere and convinced the American people to vote for him. He had new ideas and seemed less influenced by the political world around him and seemed like he would be a good change from before.
3. Space Travel. This was another big moment in our country's history. She remembers watching it on th TV at camp and thinking about how special it was that there was technology available that allowed space travel.