Week 15 Blog: Galileo

During this week's reading I was most interested in Galileo. It may have been common knowledge for most, but I wasn't sure what happened to Galileo after the trial--so I googled it. This is what I found: After the trial he was put in prison for an indiscriminate amount of time. Wikipedia did not say how long he actually in prison, but was later allowed to move back into his house where lived out his life writing books (not on heliocentricity) and undergoing house arrest. The article did say that he eventually went blind, and that his later works were indeed esteemed by eminent people such as Einstein. Galileo is now referred to as the "father of modern physics." It is hard for me to accept the fact that Galileo spent so much time being punished for having beliefs that were actually true. It would be fun to go back into time with a rocket ship and take the archbishop on a ride into orbit, or maybe prove how eclipses work.

Wikipedia Article Analysis: #3

I don't want to sound too demented for saying this, but I always take a fascination to things like horror movies, books, etc. So I chose to research the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre for the third Wikipedea Article Analysis. The search result was a good article describing the actual event, death tolls, and a lengthy analysis of the societal affect. Besides the obvious tensions between Roman Catholics and Protestants, the article focuses primarily on two major reasons for occurrence of this massacre: the failed assassination of Coligny and the unacceptable marriage between the queen's daughter Marguerite de Valois (a Catholic) and Henry of Navarre (a Protestant and future King Henry IV). The other main aspect of the article consisted of different reactions to the massacre from other countries--almost all of them condemning the event.



Listed Criteria:



1.) There are 2,838 words in the article.

2.) Exact search term: "St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre" Article title was the same.

3.) There was no disambiguation link.

4.) For the discussion tab, I found several entries explaining this page's relationship to other various "projects" such as the "religion project."

5.) There are over 1500 changes to this article. The most recent change was September 8, 08. The first change was posted on April 4, 06.

6.) Three external links are listed.

7.) Four references are listed.

8.) Nothing under further reading. But there were (as always) plenty of good pictures.



My final assessment of this article is that it was a great article. It was an interesting subject for me, and the article gave plenty of good clear information supplied with a ton of pictures and other links. I would definitely suggest this article for someone just wanting to know what this event was. The article would however, not be an adequate source for a research paper--even though it gives such a lengthy "societal perspective."

Week 13 Blog: Massacre

The massacre article interested me the most this week. Its hard to imagine the situation that occurred during the Massacre. I don't see how these people could have thought it would be alright to just kill all of the protestants. What if our leaders just one day decided to kill everyone that was pro choice (or vice versa)? Could you only imagine the types of violence that would follow a suggestion like that?

Another part of the reading that really struck me had to do with the way the reading began. --"So it was determined to exterminate all the Protestants and the plan was approved by the queen."-- It seems so un-excited. "So it was determined..." and "exterminate"? I guess the wording of the reading is irrelevant, it's not an artistic piece of fiction or anything, but it just seems so un-emotional or neutral. If I had been the one to write this, even if I was trying to bracket any sort of bias I might have, I still would have had to use the word "murder"--at least.

I wonder if there were many non-protestants that had a problem with the plan. Did they even know it was going to happen? Did the queen ever suffer any punishment for being so unjust?

Week 12 Blog: On the "Schleitheim Confessions"

This week I will blog about the "Scheitheim Confessions" because the reading seemed to be the most direct. In Knox's introduction to Early Modern (two weeks ago I believe), he urged us to focus on several themes--all of which were deeply tied to "change." The Confessions were actual written out "changes" to long withstanding practices and interpretations of The Bible. For example; after the Confessions, one would be baptised only after being able to make a conscious decision to accept Christ. Previously, people were baptised as infants. Another example is that regarding communion. Previously, all were encouraged to take sacrament, but after these changes took affect, only those who were baptised were permitted to take sacrament.

Its no wonder to me why so many religious wars happened during the times of these changes. Indoctrinated beliefs are hard if not impossible to change--especially when it concerns "the powers that be." Perhaps that is why there was never a complete resolution concerning the practice of Christianity.

Week 11 Blog: Reformation Vs Spiritualism

This weeks reading on the reformation got me thinking about today and how it seems that most of the people I know "reform" their own religions. During the times of the reformation, religion obviously had a much stronger influence on the beliefs of the people--but these people started to change their religions to either suit them better, or follow more accurately what they thought the bible meant. Today as I see it, people change their religions too, only it happens in a different way. Many of my friends denounce religion altogether--not because they don't believe in god, but because they don't want to follow any sort of religion. I realize that this option would not have existed during the times of the reformation. Nonetheless I think what happens is that these people struggle with the balancing of their "religious" and their "social" identities, and once this conflict happens they choose to believe in God, but not to follow his "written rules"--aka the bible. Many people today have undergone this sort of change. They say they don't believe in religion and call themselves spiritual. Of course not all spiritualists would fit into this category, but imagine if the people during the reformation had the ability to denounce religion--would they have become spiritualists? I think so.

Week 10 Blog: On "...Paternal Advice..."

The "Paternal Advice to a New Cardinal" article struck the most interest with me this week. It did so because the article really felt like a graduation speech. I guess in some senses it was like a graduation speech. The young Giovanni has been "accepted" to be a cardinal. I understand that being a cardinal is a bit more prestigious than going to college, but the implications are the same in that the boy now gets to "grow up" and begin a new level of study; and is also going to move off to a new city and begin to mingle with brilliant people. The way the father always exemplifies the importance of the boy, he always uses it to humble him. I though this aspect of the narrative was most appealing. At my graduation speech, the spokeswomen both complimented us for our achievement and cautioned us to always be respectful in our "higher" endeavours. I wonder how many cardinals may have been in Rome at any given time during that period.

Week 9 Blog: Where are the Dark Ages

I have always thought of medieval Europe as what was referred to as the dark ages. The first part of this weeks reading really changed my mind about this. To think that these people actually underwent an intellectual Renaissance was a bit of a paradigm shift for me. I was taken back that this relatively new religion (Christianity) was already undergoing such refining acts. The people took the "rules" for ritcheous living and realized that nobody was going to go to heaven--so they changed the rules. Thinking about how the justice system was based on theological views makes sense to me, but I can also see why the people thought that this was a bad thing--it was too tough. I was also surprised to see such an interest in academics. These motivations for learning were not things that I thought the people of this time period had. Maybe I am wrong in thinking that this was the Dark Ages at all. Can anyone speculate for me?

Wikipedia Article Analysis #2

Based on some interest that I had during the readings for this week, I chose to search “Viking” for this assignment. I was a little disappointed to find that we don’t really know very much about the Vikings. The article was however, enlightening to some degree. Beginning with a brief definition of Viking, the article quickly delves into the subject of etymology. The main point of this section is that Viking originates from a verb—to go viking. It wasn’t until much later that people referred to the Norse as Vikings. The next major section’s theme is “the Viking Age.” Within the time period of 790 to 1066 the Viking Age represents the Norse’s mobility by sea to the surrounding areas. The article then goes on the explain that much of what we know about the Vikings comes from very biased Christian writings, and also from archeological findings such as rune stones. The last part of the article is focused on dismissing common misconceptions about the Vikings—such as their horned hats and that they were unclean.

Listed Criteria:
1.) The article is 6,293 words long.
2.) The exact search term was “Viking.” The article title is “Viking.”
3.) Two main disambiguation entries appear: “Viking Age” and “Varangian.”
4.) The Discussion link seems to be full of suggested corrections and areas of the article that need to be improved—mostly places that require more citations.
5.) The history page has been quite active. There are over 500 changes made to the original article. The first change occurred on October 13, 2003. The last change was made on October 12, 2008.
6.) There are six external links provided.
7.) There are five references.
8.) Under further reading there is nothing listed.

The article was good is some senses and lacked information in others. For reasons of being good, the article did have a lot of information and helped to dispel many of the Viking misconceptions. In the light of being bad, I felt that the article didn’t really teach anything about who the Vikings really were—culturally. This, as it turns out, was simply a result of this knowledge not really existing.

Week 8 Blog: Vikings

Reading about the vikings was interesting to me becuase I had never really given them much thought. The only thing that I new about the vikings was basically how they are portrayed in cartoons and film--none of which is even hardly accurate as it turns out. The vikings were much like pirates, only they pillaged the land rather than ships--though they probably did this too. I wonder how they thought this was ethical. Maybe they didn't really think about ethics, or maybe in some way they felt justified. I'll be researching this more as I have chosen to write up my Wikipedia analysis on the subject. It seemed like an entire culture based on thievery. I can understand why many people didn't really fight them back, they couldn't. But it was bizarre to think that, in some situations at least, they vikings actually stayed and lived in the villages with the people they had just pillaged. That would be hard for me to tolerate--even if there was nothing I could do. How maniacal they were to so methodologically terrorize the countries. They optimized how to squeeze every penny from the towns, for example they didn't kill or destroy villages completely--that way they could come back later and do it again. This was especially true with monasteries. One last thing that was hard for me to wrap my mind around was the small ships that they sailed on. How uncomfortable it must have been to bare the sea in such a cramped, uncovered space.

Week 7 Blog: The Popes take Authority

I enjoyed reading about how the Popes try to take the power from the rulers. Based on how interpretation of Christ's words is so open to any translation, it makes sense that everyone thought differently about who had the real power. The idea that popes could create and depose of emporers was quite a leap from what the Bishops of Rome were supposed to do. It makes sense though, with the rise in interest of Christianity, it seems appropriate that their religous leaders would also be the secular powers. The power struggles that ensued between religion and state were more detrimental than those that we see today--in that these struggles were to determine who had leadership. Currently the debate is based on whether or not religion should anything at all to do with rule.

Week 6 Blog: Hermits

It was exciting to read about the hermits and how they developed into what we might consider monks. And also how their lifestyles developed into the system of monasteries. As these people sought out the baroness of the desert, they believed that they were living a more primordial existence. By living this "existence" hermits thought that they could deduce life to more of what God expected. It also gave them the ability to clearly see what it was that God intended. Moving away from the hustle of civilization to see the "truth" can be compared to how astronomers use their telescopes in areas where there is no light pollution. To these monks, civilization polluted the pondering of what life is. This distancing of one from the pollution of civilization seems to be somethings that even many intellectuals have sought out--take Thoreau for example, with his seclusion to Walden Pond. For Thoreau, it was impossible to see the simplicity of nature in a civilized world. Even Jesus supposedly went into the desert to ponder and pray.

Week 5 Blog: Roman Slavery

I thought the article, "Roman Slavery in the Republic," was very interesting and thought provoking. I am reading a book, The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby, and one of the chapters discusses much about the ways slaves were treated in the South on plantations. Marking most notably the fact that slaves were simply considered possessions. A distinct difference between these new Americans and the Romans can be seen by looking at the value that the latter group puts on slaves. If a southern plantation owner died, his slaves were either freed or sold to the next plantation owner. The Romans however, put a much higher value and importance on the slave with regard to the family. So much, as the article explains, that if the roman slave owner died, the slaves were also killed because it was their duty to protect him. If a roman committed suicide, the slaves were killed because they were thought to have not done their duty in helping the owner pursue a happy life. The Southerners saw slaves as merely working tools--not agents to benefit the mental stability of their owners, like the Romans.

Week 4 Blog: Unsettled Government

The reading this week was overwhelming. I was taken back by the amount of instability the Roman government underwent. Could you imagine changing presidents four times in one year?! It would have been worse for the Romans because the emperor had way more power than our presidents do. It seemed strange to me that powers that were simply didn't abolish the senate all together. With all the power that they had, what position did the senate really have? It didn't seem that they had any real power.

I found Augustus to be the most interesting of all the rulers we read about. They way he expanded the boundaries of Rome is impressive. Also the characteristics of his ruling seemed to be the most appropriate for the time--given some power to the senate. I also found it quite enlightening to learn how our calendar came to be. The origin of the month August and July, and the meaning of SEPTember, OCTober, and DECember never crossed my mind. It never made sense that they were numbered wrong--now it does.

Week 3 Blog: Early Rome

I did not know that Rome had begun so early--753 BC. As we were reading about Greece, I had figured that we didn't hear about Rome because it hadn't really been created. I was enlightened and now realize that Rome wasn't really a threat because Greece was not a threat to Rome. I thought it was interesting how Rome, in the beginning, was not concerned with conquering the world. They were simply occupied with trying to ease tensions at their borders by controlling those that opposed or threatened them. Up until reading this week's assignment, I had always thought of Rome in the context of world domination. I now compare very early Rome with Athens--that is, not world domineering and mostly interested in creating a reasonable government. I know that this only lasts for awhile, but the beginnings of the two are somewhat comparable.

Wikipedia Article Analysis #1

The article that I decided to use for this assignment was the result of a basic search: “Ancient Greece.” Also titled “Ancient Greece,” the article attempts to summarize the period of Greek history lasting from 1100 BC to 146 BC. Divided into four periods (Greek Dark Ages, Archaic Period, Classical Period, and The Hellenistic Period), Greek history is analyzed by its pottery styles and political events. The last half of the article breaks down the Greek humanities under several generalized sub-headings: Colonies, Politics and Society, Government and Law, Warfare, Education, Economy, and several others.

Listed Criteria:
1.) Eight Pages, about 5,400 words.
2.) Search Term: “Ancient Greece.” Article title: “Ancient Greece.”
3.) No disambiguation links.
4.) In the Discussion tab I found pages and pages of debate, corrections, and questions regarding the article. Some of it seems somewhat like our blogs.
5.) There have been over 500 changes to the page, starting in 2006. The last change was made in August of 2008.
6.) There are six external links provided.
7.) There are nine references.
8.) There are nine items listed under “see also.”

I felt that this was a good article in the sense that it was very general. There are not many details, just huge paragraphs of “facts.” The article was easy to read (as with most Wikipedia articles), and despite its pithy nature, the article helped to generalize the chronology of the time period. Overall, I would suggest that a student use this article to further refine a search topic.

Week 2 Blog: Alcibiades

I was profounded by how "slimy" Alcibiades was. He is a real example of how selfish and spiteful a human can be. After persuading Athens to fight a war that she didn't want to fight, Alcibiades insults her culture by defacing public property. When faced with the consequences of his actions he cowardly runs away--then steps even further by becoming a traitor. In telling Sparta of the coming assault, he basically destroys Athens' chance of winning their battle. This might not be so bad (saving Sparta), but IT WAS HIS IDEA IN THE FIRST PLACE. I wonder how Sparta reacted to his news. Were they glad that he told them of the coming battle? I wonder if he told them that it was his movement--probably not. I bet he left that part out and was paid handsomely for his knowledge.

I felt sorry for Nicias. Having to fight in a war that he didn't even want to participate in must have been a great challenge. I would be hard to motivate thousands of men to fight when one's heart isn't even in it. It was somewhat comic to see how he tried to manipulate the council only to have in backfire in his face--twice!

Week 1 Blog: Comment on "Aristotle on Democracy"

The way Aristotle explains how humans "move" in the direction of "good" helped to make it clear that the eventual formation of a state is the natural progression for humans. Starting with the family, humans can fulfill their everyday needs. The village is a way for humans to become self-sufficing. And ultimately, the state was a way for humans to seek a better life. It seems appropriate the he would start the topic of "democracy" off with an analysis of why states came to form.

As Aristotle goes on to explain why Democracy is the best form of government, he proposes that the middle-class should be the ruling class. According to him, putting the middle-class at the "fulcrum" of government keeps the "scale" of democracy balanced. Since most people are in the middle-class they represent the "mean" of the population, and to be cliche--majority rules! The downside to having a ruling upper-class lies in that they don't live in "reality," that is they were raised in a privileged world and don't know "real" problems. The poor are, according to Aristotle, envious and thus shouldn't rule. I think he put it best by saying that a ruling middle-class keeps either extreme from becoming dominant.