Christopher Columbus - Hero or Villain? HIST 2111

 

In my book, Christopher Columbus is no doubt a Hero.  Columbus is defiantly not a villain for the simple fact that a villain’s actions are deliberate and without thought or considerations of their victims.  In other words, because Columbus had no idea as to any negative effects of his trip or their encounter with any natives. he is not a villain. 

Columbus first came to what is known as Hispaniola and later to South America.  He crossed the Atlantic with a small crew using three ships that were very small, less that 60 feet long.  That is an amazing accomplishment in itself.

Another reason Columbus is a hero is the fact that he was a visionary.  He felt he could go west in order to wind up east as he was looking for an alternate trade route to China and India.  He was in the minority in 1492 and was willing to stake everything, including the lives of himself and his crew, on his belief that the earth was round.  A crazy idea back in the 1400’s.

It is a misconception that the American Indians were living in a germ-free world of their own and Columbus shattered it all for them.  They already had plenty of diseases of their own in the New World including tuberculosis, giardia, rabies, amebic dysentery, hepatitis, herpes, pertussis, and poliomyelitis to name a few.  The diseases that were brought over and infected the native American Indians were from Europeans like Ponce de Leon in 1494.  What Columbus did was to open a doorway to westerly expansion to literally a new world.  His actions should be appreciated for what they were, great men taking a risk for the expansion of mankind, not unlike our going to the moon for example. 

In conclusion, Columbus was a great visionary who was willing to take a risk on what he believed was the right thing to do and the time was ripe.  The thought of spreading diseases never entered his mind.  If Columbus hadn’t discovered the new world, someone else would have and they would be reviled.  In any case, it all worked out as we needed a holiday in October anyway so, if only for that, he’s a hero in my book.

The Wright Stuff MGA AVIA 1101 Aviation Perspectives

 

The Wright Stuff

The story of the Wright brothers is an incredible one when you consider what it took to not only invent this machine, but you also have to learn how to fly the darn thing.  What I didn’t realize was their patent was not for inventing the airplane but how to control it thus wing warping.

They discovered that the engineering data was incorrect so, on to of building the plane, they must design and build a wind tunnel and test wing designs. (The wind tunnel is a story in itself, of which the design hasn't changed in all this time.  They got that right as well!)  To support the bike shop, they employed several people to repair and build the bikes, which included their sister, which enabled them to focus on the airplane.  Another key employee of the shop was Charles Tayler who built the engine which powered the aircraft.  He is celebrated to this day when aircraft mechanics around the world recognize him as the first aircraft mechanic and reguard his birthday (May 24^th) as AMT day (AVIATION 2021).

According to the narrator of the American Experience film (Potter, 2009), the brothers would discuss things like brothers, at the top of their lungs.  What I found interesting is they would switch sides and debate with the same tenacity.  I found that surprising because that is very unusual.  Have you ever don that with a sibling (I’m an only child so I had no one to argue with but myself and it’s not the same.)  I think this put them in a unique place because they worked both, or all, sides of a problem.  I don’t know if they would have done it that way if they were designing a new invention today because they would have been emailing or texting and it’s not the same.

What they did was remarkable, especially considering the technology of the day (or lack thereof) and they didn’t get filthy rich doing it, as compared to say Bill Gates and Microsoft.  In an interview with the St. Louis Post Dispatch on November 7, 1943, Orville said that he was disappointed in what their invention was used for, nothing but destruction because they thought the “[airplane] would bring lasting peace to earth” (Akpan 2015).  He died a few years after the end of WWII and saw the devastation their airplane had brought but wasn’t able to witness its overwhelming capability to bring good.

As I said in my introduction, without those two guys invention, I dare think what I would be doing for a living.  Thank You Orville and Wilbur, Thank You.

 

Akpan, N. (2015, August 20). 8 things you didn't know about Orville Wright. PBS. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/8-things-didnt-know-orville-wright#:~:text=%E2%80%9CWe%20dared%20to%20hope%20we,Dispatch%20on%20November%207%2C%201943.

AVIATION MAINTENANCE TECHNICIAN DAY - MAY 24. National Day Calendar. (2021, May 19). https://nationaldaycalendar.com/aviation-maintenance-technician-day-may-24/.

PotterNextChapter. (2009, June 19). The Wright Stuff - The Life of The Wright Brothers | Part 2. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoFib7jWOLE.

 

 

Media

Citizenship Assignment 3

The news story I am comparing is about pres. Trump having “mini-strokes” as reported in a MSNBC story from NBC (Georgian) as well as Fox News (Fordham).

The first question to answer is “Were the facts reported the same in both stories? Or was there something that was left out of one story and not the other?” I found that facts of the two stories seem to agree because they both referenced the same tweet from Pres. Trump and from the same Whitehouse statement from his physician.

The second question was “What did you notice about the language/word choice? Was there leading or subjective language to favor one point of view over another?” The NBC story talked more about the upcoming book “Donald trump vs. The Whitehouse.” than anything else, as if that was the entire reason for the story in the first place. While the NBC story was about the book, the Fox news story discussed why Pres. Trump meet with his doctors at Walter Reed hospital in November of 2019 (which was said to be scheduling conflicts in the upcoming year).

Fox news was the story that mentioned mini-strokes and sited a tweet from Don Winslow. He said that he got the info from “a lot of people, including whistleblowers inside Trump administration”.  This same tweet showed a news clip which the claims to show Pres. Trump slurring his words during a speech on Israel. To me, it sounded like his dentures were loose rather than a stroke. I guess his Efferdent didn’t hold up to his rigorous schedule.

The third question to answer is “Is the media trying to influence your opinion about the topic as mentioned in the textbook under the heading "media influence?" Both these stories are about planting a seed that Pres. Trump is unfit to be president by setting the agenda, or by continuing the agenda.  Fox News went a little further to the left by talking about, and showing, the tweet. Both of them answered the question why he went to Walter Reed. NBC wanted to sell books and bring down trump at the same time so if you hate Trump, buy this book. (And they don’t like capitalism.)

The fourth question to answer is “Are the media in this particular instance performing their proper role in our democracy? Why or why not?” The role of the press is so important that its importance was established in this country’s founding documents. Their role is to inform the public and to act as a watch dog on the actions of politicians and the government at large. This is why it is often referred to as the fourth estate.

In this example about Pres. Trump, they both brought up the story but for different reasons.  The NBC story came out first and was not to inform but to sell books and secondary to reaffirm their narrative that Trump is unfit. If NBC’s story was truly about his health, it would have been focused on the medical aspect and contained quotes from doctors and other medical professionals. The Fox story on the other hand was only written as a rebuttal even though it contained additional information which seemed to bolster the original story. I believe they both failed in their duty because neither was to inform John Q Public, but to sling mud and undermine the office of POTUS. The other story was just to wipe away some of the mud.

The last item was to fact check the story using “Politfact” and “Factchect”. Neither one of these two sites had anything on the story, which doesn’t surprise me. However, the exercise is to become familiar with these web sites for fact checking and perhaps more important, is to not take anything as absolute fact. When I Googled them, I found one set of facts but when I searched using Dogpile, I got something different about these sites. The more you check, from as many sources as possible, the better. It may still take some thought on the readers part but that is what we are to do, present evidence and let the reader decide.

 

 

References

Gregorian, Dareh. Trump raises eyebrows with tweet declaring he did not have 'a series of mini-strokes', MSNBC1 Sep 2020www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-raises-eyebrows-tweetdeclaring-he-did-not-have-series-n1239006

Fordham, Evie. Trump denies suffering 'series of mini-strokes,' doctor says he 'remains healthy' Fox News, www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-denies-stroke-michael-schmidt-book-walter-reed

The Presidency, My Assignment

The Presidency

Answer the following questions:

1. How does FiveThirtyEight.com rank the reliability of the polls?

FiveThirthEitht.com gathers data from other polls and applies their modeling technics, data weight, and applies corrections to get their ratings for each candidate.  These polls take onto account voters, like for instance, adults vs voters or registered voters vs. likely voters (likely voters would carry more weight than only Adults).  These polls can also consider the group size where a larger group will be more accurate.  They also consider how old the data is as an older poll will be less accurate than a newer poll.  Next, they apply a trend line regression or local polynomial regression math modeling formula. This smooths out the lines of the graphs, making them look better however, to much can alter the accuracy of the data.   Then they do a process correcting for “House Effect”. which FiveThirtyEight.com defines as “…which are persistent differences between the poll and the trend line” (Silver 2020).  Lastly, estimating uncertainty by looking at past forecasts have been to past elections.

In conclusion, the article from FiveThirtyEight.com made the best comment yet when it said, “…there’s not any good way to determine how Trump’s “true” approval rating compares to our estimates” (Silver).  In other words, after all this, they don’t really know.  It is still just a guess.

2. How do Trump's approval ratings today compare to this time last year?

            “On August 27, 2019, President Donald Trump held a 41.3 percent approval rating and a 54.2 percent disapproval rating, according to FiveThirtyEight’s poll tracker” (Klein 2020) and not much has changed today as he still has high disapproval numbers.  A Rasmussen poll, which came out on the 14^th of September, has Pres. Trumps Total Approval at 51% with a Total Disapproval at 48%.  This poll has not been included in a FiveThirtyEight poll. 

2a. What might explain the change?

The press and the establishment can’t stand him and will do anything they can to discredit him, blame him for everything that they can.  They have been throwing everything they can at him, but he hangs in there.  This makes them furious.   Last week, he is being blamed for the fires in California.  When I was a kid growing up in the burbs of Los Angles, I can remember going out of my house to go to school and their would-be ash on cars, literally on everything.  That was way before Trump. So, it is ludicrous to think that Thump has had anything to do with forest fires in California, Oregon, or Washington. They happen every year and they will continue to happen for the remainder of time.  With all that they have accused him of, his disapproval numbers should be higher that what they are, but I think most informed voters can see what is going on.

3. How does Trump's approval compare with other presidents?

Pres. Trumps numbers are worse than most of the other presidents.  With few exceptions, his numbers are lower, but they don’t seem to fluctuate much, unlike some who’s numbers went up and down.  

3a. Is his approval rating pretty much the same as other presidents or much different? You may want to compare Trump's approval with specific presidents or use a general comparison.

When you compare the past presidents and their ratings to Pres. Trump, I noticed something.  Trump has some of the lowest ratings and for the most part, only with few exceptions, did a previous president have lower ratings.  However, these lower ratings of past presidents had a substantially large disapproval rating, but they could all be attributed to some critical event.  For example, Pres. Truman’s dip was the result of massive labor strikes after WWII.  With Pres. Carter, it was due to the Iranian hostage crisis and again when the rescue attempts failed.  With Pres. Trump, is disapproval ratings are just constant

3b. Explain WHY his approval is similar or different.

Pres. Trumps ratings have been very low for some time but with all the scandals, accusations, controversy that has plagued him throughout his presidency, you would expect his disapproval would be near 100%.  When you ask likely republican voters, he has around a 90% approval rating, so says a Washington Post-ABC News poll.  One explanation is these strong approval ratings are split more along party or loyalty lines than about actual topics or situations.  

There is one thing that I have learned about polls is… they are probably wrong.  “Polls are to create opinion, not report it” (Limbaugh 2020).  The election of 2016 is a great case study in how wrong poles can be.  I think that's proves Mr. Limbaugh’s claim. The polls said Hillary Clinton was all but in the oval office.  Trump out played her by winning more electoral votes than she.  I believe the 2020 election will go down in history as one of the biggest landslide victories, maybe not as big as Roosevelt’s win in 1932, but huge, nonetheless.  We will see, hopefully, by the 4^th of November.

 

References

“How unpopular is Donald Trump?” (2020, September 15). FiveThirtyEight. https://www.projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/

Klein, E. (2020, September 2). Can anything change Americans’ minds about Donald Trump? Vox. https://www.vox.com/2020/9/2/21409364/trump-approval-rating-2020-election-voters-coronavirus-convention-polls

Limbaugh, Rush. (2020 September 15). The Rush Limbaugh Show, Radio Broadcast, Premiere Networks.

Silver, N. (2020, March 2). How We’re Tracking Donald Trump’s Approval Ratings. FiveThirtyEight. https://www.fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-were-tracking-donald-trumps-approval-ratings/

Political Parties

The Republican Platform

            I whole heartedly agree with the Republican platform when it speaks about Abortion.  This is the number one reason why I became a member of the republican party.     

            The Republican platform states “The Constitution’s guarantee that no one can “be deprived of life, liberty or property” deliberately echoes the Declaration of Independence’s proclamation that “all” are “endowed by their Creator” with the inalienable right to life” (Republican Platform 2016).  I couldn’t say it any better but I’d like to elaborate. 

This statement echoes my personal beliefs as I think that abortion is wrong on any level.  A baby, a child, or an embryo is a human life and no one but the creator has the right to take that life away.  As the Declaration of Independence says “…ALL are endowed by their creator...” that would imply that there is a creator and as such, he is the one whom gives life (National Archives).  Life comes from God almighty and not parents, nor a test tube, or a big bang.  Because life comes from God, it is wrong for someone to decide to take that life.  That would make us higher than God.  I don’t think so.  

One of the duties of the government to protect its citizens, especially those who cannot protect themselves.  The Republican party recognizes this and addresses it whereas the Democrats turn the unborn child into a pawn for the mother to use to defend her “rights”.

The Democrats are as opposite as night and day on this topic.  They don't acknowledge any form of “higher being” because to them, Government is the higher being, so because of this, they have no moral code by which to guide them in their decisions.  They advocate abortion on demand, at any time, and want the taxpayers to pay for it (Party Platform 2016).  They are only concern with the mothers “right to choose”.  To them the baby isn’t really a life until it is born and even then, it’s questionable. 

The Democrats are hypocritical when they say in their platform “…defend the constitutional principles of liberty and equality for all, and will protect a woman’s right to safe and legal abortion” because when they say equality for all its only for women who vote Democrat (Party Platform).

I don’t think there is a way to compromise with the Democrats. I do want the members of Congress to take the high road and find a solution that both sides can agree with.  I don’t think the courts should be de facto writing laws from the bench.  The Congress should take up this issue and settle it based on their constituent's beliefs.  We all know where this is going because no politician wants to take on this hot potato.

To sum it up, the government's role is to protect ALL if it’s citizens, regardless of their size or condition.  This was so important to the founders that they put this into the Declaration of Independence when it says “...Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (National Archives).   I feel that abortion violates the essence of the Constitution and I think the founders would be disappointed with us. 

 

References

Republican Platform 2016 https://prod-cdn-static.gop.com/static/home/data/platform.pdf?_ga=2.43696166.204372641.1597558173-1924827778.1597558173

Party Platform. The 2016 democrat Platform. www.democrats.org/where-we-stand/party-platform/

National Archives. America’s Founding Documents, Declaration of Independence: A transcription.  www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript 

Polling Data, Look beyond the numbers.

 

Look beyond the numbers.

The author is obviously upset with the results as he wants to know “How this happened” so they look to the numbers for answers. To quote the Geico commercials, “It’s what they do”.

People get caught up in numbers, so they miss the point. The left said Trump voters were stupid and should not have been allowed to vote. They couldn’t accept that their candidate just wasn’t what the people wanted.

To boil it down to one item, it would be item number eight when the author said “This was a change election. And Trump was the change candidate” (Cillizza).  Speaking for myself, Trump wasn’t my first choice, but I voted for him because I wanted somebody different, somebody outside of politics. Well you can’t get much farther outside of politics than Trump. I didn’t vote for a Pope or anything like that so all the mudslinging the media did had no bearing on my vote.

I found a nugget in this article which is very relevant for today. The last item is about Presidential debates. The article stated that “…64 percent [] said the debates were an “important” part of their vote for president []” (Cillizza).  Joe Biden could not perform well in a debate against anyone so, now the left is downplaying the effect a debate has on an election and using the corona virus as an excuse to not hold any debates.  Interesting how the tides change.

Until we talk again.

Cillizza, Chris. “The 13 most amazing findings in the 2016 exit poll”, The Fix, The Washington Post, www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/10/the-13-most-amazing-things-in-the-2016-exit-poll/, 10 Nov 2016

 

Post 14: Write in response to what 2 of your colleagues have learned this term.

So Long, Farewell, 
Auf Wiedersehen to You

Well this is the last official blog for English 1101 and it is bittersweet. I cannot tell you how glad I am that it is over but, then again, I did enjoy the writing and the assignments. I was forced to stretch myself past what I thought I could achieve.

In my last post, I wrote about what I learned in this class. Now, I was asked to wrote about what two of my classmates wrote about what they learned.

First up, I truly enjoyed Luke Maloney-Grimes’s blog as it demonstrated that even though we are in an English writing class, you can learn more than just English. He stated that he learned how to be more organized by stating “That if you are organized, the average time taken to get your work done can be cut in half”. That's a huge savings. He also stated in his blog “I have learned to further develop my reading and writing skills in order to be a better communicator”.  If I dare read between the lines, he is stating that it is practice that makes you a better writer, or in this case, a better communicator.  

As I wrote in my blog, I can relate to what Tiffany Dunham wrote in her blog.  She said "Writing is something that I have grown to like so I hope that I can take the skills what I learned with MLA and how to correctly format a document in my future course."  This is what I feel as well. We will take what we learned in this course and apply it to almost every class we will take in the future. (God help us.)  This continues the theme that it is practice that will make us better at writing, better at whatever we do.

In summary, the bottom line is practice. We have been given the tools in our textbook which contains so much information, one class couldn't go through it all.  So like my title says, So Long....

I hope we will talk again.