Author: dominique

05/15/11

BP Rig Missed 16 Inspections Before Explosion

 

BP’s Rig Explosion back on April 20, 2010 rocked the entire country. Investigations began immediately on how something of this magnitude could happen. This news article reports on how upon government inspection it was seen that BP’s Deep Water Horizon Rig was only inspected 6 times in the year 2008. Rigs are supposed to be inspected once a month, meaning it had missed 6 for that year, and 16 in total since 2005. The most updated inspection during the time of the upcoming explosion was on April 1 by Eric Neal, a novice who had just started his inspection training four months prior. It was obvious that an explanation was needed and serious in depth investigating on what when on behind the scenes of the inspection agency and BP.

 

 

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20007514-10391695.html <—Source

05/11/11

It doesn’t end

I am in agreeance with my classmates about Foner going more in depth about African Americans. The lives of Africans Americans went through the most dramatic change in the last century according to Foner. Blacks were now in corporate settings and in the 1990’s, an economic boom helped raise the African American averge income quicker than whites.

Although prosperity came for African Americans, there were still troubled times on the horizon. Discrimination never went away. Foner needs to go more in depth about this topic. He made it seem as if the economic increase in a small population of Blacks represented the majority of them.

04/27/11

I’m Black & I’m Proud….Rule

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M53-Mb1KDZ0

 

James Brown’s song “I’m black and I’m proud” as well as Nas’s song “Rule” are both songs of protests in their time. They expressed their feelings through their lyrics directly referring to the problem at hand and making sure everyone knows it.

“I’m Black and Im proud” is noted as one of the most notorious black power anthems to be recorded. The prejudices towards African Americans were addressed and the need for empowerment. He uses powerful lyrics to portray his emotions towards the country and for his people: “we demands a chance to do thangs for ourself/we’re tired of beating our head against the wall/and workin’ for someone else” and “We’ve been ‘buked and we’ve been scorned/We’ve been treated bad, talked about as sure as you’re born”.Nas’ song’s lyrics are political, inspiration and reminiscent of those on Nas’ 1996 single “If I rule the world (Imagine that)”.

Back in the day, protests were powerful. If the people felt something was wrong with the system and wanted something done, they took action. Whether it was through marches, boycotts, songs, movies, the people expressed how they were feeling. These days I feel that society has gotten scared. Nobody wants to speak up for the injustices done and artists are able to do so. Many artists use songs to write about things going on in the world today, But other than that I dont feel like we do enough.

04/27/11

Spring 1963

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj80sO-DGYw

The climax of the modern civil rights movement occurred in Birmingham. The city’s violent response to the spring 1963 demonstrations against white supremacy forced the federal government to intervene on behalf of race reform.The public outcry provoked President John F. Kennedy to propose civil rights legislation that became the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The act opened America’s social, economic, and political system to African Americans demonstrators Attackedand other minorities, including women, the handicapped, and gays and lesbians. The legislation addressed the principal goal of the movement of gaining access to the system as consumers but also set in motion strategies to gain equality through affirmative action policies.

Birmingham was a major centre of civil rights activities and the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was an organisational centre for the movement. In particular, youths used the church as a centre to help plan out strategies to get more black high school children involved in the civil rights cause. In the Spring of 1963, stores in downtown Birmingham had been desegregated and just days before the bombing, schools in Birmingham had been ordered by a federal court to integrate – nearly ten years after Brown v Topeka. Many Klansmen would not accept this decision nor the successes the civil rights cause seemed to be making.

The chief of police in the city, Bull Connor, was very anti-civil rights and had ordered that police dogs and fire hoses be used on civil rights demonstrators in May 1963.

Birmingham was also a stronghold of the KKK. The influence of the KKK was such that children’s books that showed black and white rabbits together were banned from sale in book shops in the city. Segregation was the norm in the city. Violence against the black community in Birmingham was not unusual but the deliberate bombing of a church took that violence to a new level.

04/6/11

Boom Boom Baby Boom!

During the 1950s many changes began to occur across the nation. The war was over, soldiers were coming home, and businesses started booming. As more skyscrapers were being built, residents were being pushed out to move into the suburbs causing a great rise in suburban communities. Not only was their a rise in the communities, but the average family began increasing and the baby boom occurred.

The average family had 4 children, as women began marrying younger to keep from pre-marital sex. The change in mentality from pre-war to post-war changed the way Americans lived. Feminism was no more and the technological advances such as the barcode and credit cards were invented.

04/4/11

The Hollywood Ten

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nublLQDGbU

In there was a Hollywood blacklist that consisted of  a list of actors, writers, directors, musicians and other entertainers. Their political beliefs and associations, regardless of their validity, caused them to be targets. This blacklist was created around mid 20th century. In 1947, a group of screenwriters and directors were the first to be victims of this blacklist when they chose not to give their testimonies.They were banned from further working in the entertainment industry. It was not until 1960 that the blacklist was thrown away. Because they were banned, we missed out on a decade worth of entertainment. That is 10 years of movies, shows, or of the such that could’ve topped movie charts for centuries to come.

03/18/11

Step by Step – The New Deal

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Step by Step
2/11/37
By Warren in the
Buffalo News

The response to Roosevelt’s judicial reorganiztion, or “court-packing,” plan was decidedly negative by everyone. Cartoonists expressed the congressional, judicial and public misgivings better than anyone. While often playfully criticizing the president for “agism,” the tone was at times serious and extreme, portraying FDR as a dictator intent on destroying American democracy. Editorial cartoons supportive of the president’s plan were rarely seen, most likely as rare as finding approving individuals outside his administration.

The author of this picture obviously felt that President Roosevelt, at the time, was on his way to Dictatorship with the way he was running the policies and government.

03/12/11

Enough is Enough!

During the Great Depression, unemployment was high. Many employers tried to get as much work as possible from their employees for the lowest possible wage. Workers were upset with the speedup of assembly lines, working conditions and the lack of job security. Seeking strength in unity, they formed unions. Automobile workers organized the U.A.W. (United Automobile Workers of America) in 1935. General Motors would not recognize the U.A.W. as the workers’ bargaining representative. Hearing rumors that G.M. was moving work to factories where the union was not as strong, workers in Flint began a sit-down strike on December 30, 1936. The sit-down was an effective way to strike. When workers walked off the job and picketed a plant, management could bring in new workers to break the strike. If the workers stayed in the plant, management could not replace them with other workers. This photograph shows the broken windows at General Motors’ Flint Fisher Body Plant during the Flint sit-down strike of 1936-37.

World War I veterans block the steps of the Capital during the Bonus March, July 5, 1932 (Underwood and Underwood). In the summer of 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression, World War I veterans seeking early payment of a bonus scheduled for 1945 assembled in Washington to pressure Congress and the White House. Hoover resisted the demand for an early bonus. Veterans benefits took up 25% of the 1932 federal budget. Even so, as the Bonus Expeditionary Force swelled to 60,000 men, the president secretly ordered that its members be given tents, cots, army rations and medical care.

In July, the Senate rejected the bonus 62 to 18. Most of the protesters went home, aided by Hoover’s offer of free passage on the rails. Ten thousand remained behind, among them a hard core of Communists and other organizers. On the morning of July 28, forty protesters tried to reclaim an evacuated building in downtown Washington scheduled for demolition. The city’s police chief, Pellham Glassford, sympathetic to the marchers, was knocked down by a brick. Glassford’s assistant suffered a fractured skull. When rushed by a crowd, two other policemen opened fire. Two of the marchers were killed.

These two pictures are images that show that the people of the nation had tolerated enough. Not enough was being done to help the economy and the government wasn’t quick enough. In the first image, the workers are taking matter into their own hands by protesting the big factories that were treating them unfairly. The second picture depicts the same concept, but consisted of the war veterans who wanted to collect their bonus checks that were owed to them. In both sceneries, those in power took advantage of them.

03/6/11

Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia

[Telegraphic]

Vienna, July 28, 1914

The Royal Serbian Government not having answered in a satisfactory manner the note of July 23, 1914, presented by the Austro-Hungarian Minister at Belgrade, the Imperial and Royal Government are themselves compelled to see to the safeguarding of their rights and interests, and, with this object, to have recourse to force of arms. Austria-Hungary consequently considers herself henceforward in state of war with Serbia.

The above is a telegram send by Count Leopold von Berchtold, the Austro-Hungarian Minister for Foreign Affairs to M. N. Pashitch, Serbian Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs on July 28, 1914, 11:10 am.  It was one month to the day after which Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife were killed by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo.  Austria-Hungary felt that a timely response was needed when they presented Serbia with the July Ultimatum. This ultimatum was part of a coercive program meant to weaken the Kingdom of Serbia as a threat to Austria-Hungary’s control of the northern Balkans which had a significant southern Slavic population, including a large Serbian community in Bosnia. This was supposed to be achieved either through diplomacy (the terms of the Ultimatum were made harsh for this purpose) or by a localized war if the Ultimatum were rejected. Confronted with the ultimatum and the lack of support from other European powers, the Serbian Cabinet worked out a compromise where Serbia accepted all of the terms of the ultimatum except for the demand in point #6 that Austrian police be allowed to operate in Serbia.With all of the tension arising between the two countries and for the failure to accept the full terms in the time allotted, Austria Hungary marched and declared war on Serbia, pushing the other alliances into a world war. 

03/2/11

Garveyism

Garveyism became on the rise in World War I. Started by Marcus Garvey, it is the complete, total and never ending redemption of the continent of Africa by people of African ancestry, at home and abroad. It was to encourage African Americans to stand up for themselves and the self-encourage one self towards equal rights. The UNIA (Universal Negro Improvement Association) was a big supporter of the movement. Eric Foner’s coverage on this topic is restricted though. He covers it in one paragraph.

02/28/11

Womens Movements

Women were gaining momemtum in the 1900s fighting their hardest for rights. They were able to gain power in the labor force and were now demanding rights as a citizen and equal human being. The movement demanded that the government expand laws to include women and to stop the discrimination based upon gender. Rights such as abortions, voting, and more working power came into effect because of the women who fought so hard during this time

02/20/11

From A to B

Barges transported immigrants from their steamship company’s dock to Ellis Island. Immigrants then walked from the barges to the main building on Ellis Island. In the background is a hospital where ill passengers were dispatched.

Credited: 1902 William H. Rau. Library of Congress

Additional buildings used by the U.S. government to quarantine immigrants with contagious diseases.

Credit: Created 1902 Unidentified photographer. Library of Congress

Both of the pics differ for one is depicting the immigrants coming off their original boats and into the new ports on Ellis Island. The other one is the actual additional buildings. The style is the different because they are by different authors but yet they are both from the Library of Congress.

02/9/11

Roe vs Wade

Roe vs Wade (1973) was a controversial case on the issue of abortion in the United States. The U.S. Supreme Court decided that a right to privacy under the due process clause in the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution extends to a woman’s decision to have an abortion. This was one of the many steps towards women’s rights.

02/7/11

An Untold tale

Minorities have never had a voice. Or at least one loud enough to be heard over the mainstream opinion. For David Blight to write a book and dig deep enough to uncover the other side of the civil War story is something I’d personally be interested in. Everyone would benefit from reading this book because it would crumble the biases encountered from only reading and learning a one sided history textbook.

Historical Memory is important because it is what gives us the shape of the story. Of course there is a straightforward encounter of important events that happened in history, but when you collect the memories it is a more personal and in depth account.

Everything is politcally motived. Politics are apart of every aspect of history because there is always an agenda behind something. Two sides fight to get their way, or work towards a comprimise. A republican might see the history of gay rights as negative propoganda mean while democratics would see it more so as positive.

02/2/11

Hello Big Brother

Ever since the creation of technology, society has never looked back. We are so relient on techonological uses that society has all but lost the ability to think and function on our own.

Though it has been very helpful in our progression of life for it has given us the ability to “archive” our everyday lives. Cave walls, dirt, and maybe eventually even paper, is no longer needed to help document history. It is a great advancement and helpful to historians down the line who want to look back and be able to show history without having to dig through pounds of fragile artifacts.

In “Archiving  Tweets”  this sentence by Luke, “I believe (strongly) that control over the life of user-generated content should lie permanently with the user.”,is my thoughts exactly on the whole situation. I do not feel comfortable knowing that what I am writing on my personal blog is being archived in someone’s library. I am very big on being private. Its bad enough people have found ways to turn technology into ways to hack into the lives of others and destroy them but now we also have to worry about the government, historians, jobs, etc. To me there really is no “freedom of speech” so to say if we have to worry about when can I say what and who is watching and judging my thoughts.

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