Part 1

“Christians Attempted Takeovers”

Fallacy: Biased Language

Correction: Change it to something non-biased like “Christian’s claims to America”

“These attempts show that it is not speculation that Christianity is taken over, but active conquering on their part to make this their country”

Fallacy Biased Language

Correction: First fix spelling errors “taken” should be “taking” then change sentence to be less biased like “These events show that Christianity has made an open claim to the country as their own country”

Part 2

For my poster I will use each side to tell a different part of the history. The middle will illustrate the main argument that Christianity and American Politics are intertwined and Christianity is influencing it. I’ll do this my using pictures of political religious gathers i.e. presidents at mass, large Christian groups doing something with politics like protests, banners, pamphlets, etc. I’ll have a few words on the middle section to help the views get the point as well. On the sides I’ll present the two presidents that I’m looking at in my paper. The Left will show President JFK and his election. I’ll try to find some pictures of the protests against him and his religion, and also of him making his speech in Houston, Texas. I’ll see if I can find an image containing the actual speech and if not I’ll take key parts from his speech and put them in larger, but not too large, font on the poster. On the right side I’ll present the case of George W. Bush and his elections. I’ll provide pictures of the religious appealing events he held to gain votes i.e. Church talks, pamphlets, etc. I’ll also put a few quotes from Bush or from his staff on his side to show how he ran his politics. The header to the whole this will be “Faith and Poltics” with a jagged line through the “and” to show that they should be separate.

After putting together my presentation I realized that there is a lot more information on this subject then I had originally thought, which will be helpful, but at the same time that information is not always easy to find. It also helped me realize that Catholicism in elections is truly a debated subject as everyone had questions on the topic and I had to be cut short. The question my presentation helped me realize was “How can I show that the Catholic influence in elections is truly a problem?” because what I got from some people’s questions and reactions to my topic was that they didn’t really view it as a problem or that they hadn’t even know this was really affecting elections that much.

1.      Campion, Owen F. “The Catholic Vote.” Priest 64.11 (2008): 16-23. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 8 Oct. 2010.

2.     McDermott, Monika L. “Voting for Catholic Candidates: The Evolution of a Stereotype.” Social Science Quarterly (Blackwell Publishing Limited) 88.4 (2007): 953-969. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 8 Oct. 2010.

3. Peter Steinfels.  “Catholics and Choice (in the Voting Booth) :[National Desk]. ” New York Times 8  Nov. 2008, Late Edition (East Coast): Banking Information Source, ProQuest. Web.  8 Oct. 2010.

4. Gizzi, J.. “‘Faithful Catholics’ Rallies Votes for McCain-Palin. ” Human Events 3 Nov. 2008: Social Science Module, ProQuest. Web.  8 Oct. 2010.

5.   “Religion and politics in America: The 1988 campaign.” America 158.21 (1988): 551-558. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 8 Oct. 2010.

My most promising source is the 2nd source on this list, “Voting for Catholic Candidates: The Evolution of a Stereotype.” The reason I believe this source to be the most promising of the five is because from the description in the abstract it says that this source looks specifically into how Catholicism effects an individual voter in both forms, either the voter being catholic or if the candidate is catholic. This type of information would give great incite into how Catholicism has effected certain elections using data collected on Catholics and Voters.

In Sallybrass’s article “Against Thinking”, he states that “you are not, nor should you be, the origin of your own thoughts (anymore than you are the origin of your own voice)”. To me this means that like we are taught how to speak, we are also taught how and what to think. Without the knowledge that has been passed down to us and the culture with which one has been brought up in one would not be able to form thoughts. This statement means to say that our thoughts are only possible because of the influences and lessons we have learned throughout our lives. This is relevant to writing a research project because the thoughts and facts you state are only possible because of the information that you have read and researched. Without researching a topic, one would not be able to write a paper on it just like without learn what speech is, one would not be able to speak, but instead make incomprehensible noises that no one would understand much like a paper written about a topic that the writer did not research would not make sense.

• I am interested in researching universe structure
• because I want to find out the different theories and why scientists disagree on the way the universe is structured
• and this is important because the way we interpret universe structure affects how we interact with the universe.

What are the leading theories in the debate of how the universe is structured and what support does each theory possess?

When was the first theory developed, by who, and is it still credible in today’s debate?

Have any formal tests been done to solve the mystery of how the universe is structured?

During these past few weeks we have discussed in class museums and how they display certain subjects, which sometimes create an “official story” instead of the “unofficial story”. One such subject matter is the Enola Gay exhibit. When an exhibit goes on display at a museum, it becomes subject to the bias of curator and the museum setting. In the Enola Gay controversy, the problem with this exhibit is that the subject surrounding this one aircraft is too large for the actual museum, thus the curators had to decide on very specific pieces of information to display with the Enola Gay aircraft. The exhibit shows the restored Enola Gay, a brief overview of its construction and what it is capable of, and one historical fact about it being the first aircraft to use nuclear weapons. The problem with this is that the exhibit is more in situ and less in context. This is a problem because protesters argued that just by looking at this aircraft one cannot understand the devastation it helped cause and its part in World history. The other side of the argument is that there isn’t enough text to go with it, which leaves room for debate, which veterans and other political figures don’t want. The exhibit hides too much of the history behind this aircraft, but at the same time has no choice. A simple solution would be to get the Enola Gay its own area that would provide the space needed, but there is no way to solve the way in which the protesters want it seen be the people, because a museum is suppose to be neutral area in which the facts are giving and the observers make their own opinions on the subject.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/300_%28film%29

In this movie “300”, a heroic squad of 300 Spartan soldiers takes on the Persian Army at Thermoplyae. It says that the Spartans alone were able to hold their ground against the Persians and take down numerous lines of Persian soldiers for three days before falling. The Spartans are able to stop the Persian army long enough for the rest of the Spartan army to prepare and that in the end the Spartans won against the Persians.

What this doesn’t show/tell is that although there were 300 Spartan soldiers at Thermoplyae, there was also 4000 other Greek soldiers there supporting them the first two days. Another fact it doesn’t show is that the “Immortals” of the Persian army were not slaughtered, but actually sacrificed so that the Persian army could go around the Spartans and head straight to Sparta, while the Spartans were distracted with the “Immortals”. In the actual Battle of Thermoplyae, in the aftermath of the battle, Xerxes actually desecrates Leonidas’ dead body after he has achieved victory, which they have no mention of in this movie.

Although this may seem like a heroic story, filled with extraordinary men. It was actually just regular men but many more of them then mentioned.

Poem part 1

Poem part 2

Poem part 3

The item of Fredrick Douglass’ that I reviewed was a poem called “An Eastern Voile”. This poem was written by Rose Terry Cooke and was kept by Fredrick’s mother.  The poem’s date of publish cannot be verified these days as it does not appear in here collections. The author is from Connecticut, which brings about the question as to how it got all the way to Maryland. The poem is a message that even after death, Fredrick’s mother will be “high in the heaven above” watching over him and wait for him there. The purpose of the poem was to comfort Fredrick and his siblings after their mother died. It was found by him in his mother’s chest after her death. The artifact shows that his mother knew how to read and write because she was able to make a copy of this poem, but raises the question where did she get the copy of the poem as literature was not readily available for slaves. Another question it raises is that if she knew how to read and write, then why had Fredrick not been taught at a younger age or if he even knew his mother could read and write? It also raises the question, why didn’t Fredrick mention this in his narrative? If he was allowed his mother’s belongings which contained important things to him, then why did he mention nothing of this poem or any other contents? Another question brought up, is that if Fredrick hadn’t been taught how to read, how was this ever suppose to bring him or his siblings comfort? This artifact revealed a personal part of Fredrick’s life and revealed so many new doors, leading to new facts about his life, to be opened