Author: hong.huang

05/1/11

“Feel Like I’m Fixing To Die” and “Sex and Gasoline”

“Feel Like I’m Fixing To Die” was written by Joe McDonald is a famous protest song which is anti-Vietnam War. It was the released on 1967. The singalong chorus and stinging attack on the US military industrial empire had its greatest moment. “Sex and Gasoline” by Rodney Crowell is from 2008 his Grammy-nominated album. The song is depicts a society still run by men who wield their power over young women making them into whores, literal or otherwise. It attacked the ear that mistresses of golfers and the like are objects of fame rather than shame. Compare to the protest songs from 1960s and nowadays, I found that most of protest songs around 1960s are mainly about anti-war. But most of the modern protest songs are attacked unfair social phenomenons.\”Feel Like I\’m Fixing To Die\”

\”SEX AND GASOLINE\”

05/1/11

Re-divide the world

The root caused of World War 1 is because of  the  uneven development  of capital during imperialism period, resulting in the emerging imperialist countries urged to re-divide the world. In the late 19th and early 20th century,  from the stage of free competition of capitalism developed to a stage characterized by monopoly. Every country wants to maximum their profit,  actively promote the expansion and aggression of foreign policy, using force to fight for the colonial around the round.  Older colonial powers Britain, Russia, France and occupied most of the colonial world. Then the rapid economic development and expansion of national powers such as Germany,Japan, the United States and other emerging imperialist colonial countries have relatively little. This economic development and the uneven distribution of colonies led to sharp contradictions between the imperialist countries.

03/2/11

Southern Renaissance

With the end of World War I, American South came to be known as the “Southern Literary Renaissance” era. The “southern Literary Renaissance” was the reinvigoration of American Southern literature that b began in the 1920s and 1930s.

In 1945, Allen Tate wrote, “With the 1914-1918 war, the South again into the world; when it kick taken the boundary, it is a back care, this care has brought us Southern literary renaissance, brought about a consciousness in the past in the present literature”.

In fact, the major life change of South during the World War I is that changing the angle of perspective. After half century the material poverty and political impotence, the South stood up again; actively support and endorsement of the South’s “Native Son” Woodrow Wilson’s idealism and internationalism.

Among the writers of the Southern Renaissance, William Faulkner is arguably the most influential and most famous one. The above is William Faulkner’s picture.

02/28/11

Herbert Hoover

When United States voters elected Herbert Hoover, who had established a worldwide reputation as mining engineer, writer, and war-relief administrator, 31st president in 1928, the country was enjoying an industrial and financial boom.

02/27/11

New arrivals

The first image is portraying the lives of in Chinatown Mott Street in the 1905. The image was taken during the Chinese Exclusion Act, to date the only non-wartime federal law which excluded a people based on nationality, was a reaction to rising anti-Chinese sentiment. This resentment was largely a result of the willingness of the Chinese to work for far less money under far worse conditions than the white laborers and the unwillingness to “assimilate properly”.

The second image was taken in Ellis Island circa by 1905. It is describe that Ferry boats shuttled the immigrants from steamships directly to Ellis Island’s Main Registry Building. Ellis Island is a symbol of America immigration history.  Ellis island also known as” island of hope, island of tears. Because you pass the island, you have entered the U.S, and you will get hope; If you didn’t pass it, will be repatriated and is island of tears for you.

02/14/11

Pendleton Act (1883)

The Pendleton Act is a federal law established in 1883 that use British civic system as a reference and provision that government jobs should be awarded on the basis of merit. This is the first time federal government established the three principles of personnel management, included competitive exams, permanent position and politically neutral position.  It also made it illegal to fire or demotes government employees for political reasons. Started during the Chester A. Arthur administration, the Pendleton Act served as a response to the massive public support of civil service reform that grew following President James Garfield’s assassination by Charles Julius Guiteau.

02/9/11

Ford Introduces the Model T

The Model T set 1908 as the historic year that the automobile became popular. It is considered  as the first affordable automobile and  enter into the common middle-class American’s family.The Unite States has becomes a “nation on wheels”.

02/7/11

Let the memory fight against history

The book review “Race and Reunion” by David Blight is an interesting book to me. I used to think that history is always evidence, can not be changed. From the book review I found that about history, is not always entirely “fair”, the memory sometimes might distorted, or even seriously out of shape. The most important inspiration i got from the book review is that historical memory could be politically motivated. I think the book review will benefit to everyone, because it uses Civil war as an example to emphasize that every thing both has two sides,maybe we do not know the facts of history, or not the whole truth of history.

Can you think of another example of a shared experience that is remembered in many different ways? Nanjing Massacre was the first thing that comes to my mind.This is an indelible piece of history. 70 years ago, this is a not many people know the news, Tragic pain of a nation, Another country is a bloody crime;70 years later, when an individual’s memory has become history, When a group also working to conceal the fact，People began to shed tears for those souls away. In Nanjing Massacre, 200,000 or more to more than 300,000 Chinese civilians and prisoners of war were killed by Japanese troops, one third of Nanjing city burned down.But how Japanese textbooks describe invasion of China? They are trying to cover up historical facts. In their textbooks, Nanjing Massacre only 40,000 people got killed, there are some picture shows that Japanese soldier help the Chinese old woman and  Japanese military distribution of candy to Chinese children……

02/2/11

from the “deep” to “shallow”

The Library sees Twitter as a “technology change” in the way we communicate. Nowadays, technology as the primary productive force, advanced technology has brought many benefits to the people; the generation of Internet as well as a large scale to be used in human daily life, it greatly expanded the free space of activities and also brought more freedom and get rid of natural constraints. Online social networks such as Facebook, Aim, Msn, Twitter, and etc are currently very popular, however these modern platforms are supposed to provide services that bring people closer together but I believe it is actually doing the opposite due to how easily it is to utilize instant messaging services to chat instead of having a conversation face to face and sending an emoticon instead of a real smile or even a hug. I strongly believe that in-person experiences are far more memorable than anything a computer screen can deliver.  Nevertheless the emergence of the Internet does help expand the dimension of freedom of human behavior, developing human’s great potential; bring to mankind a far-reaching change.
I agree with some people that say this generation is doomed from the “deep” to “shallow” generation; this generation is the generation of the information revolution Oliver Twist; this generation is taking the last memory of life without the Internet generation.