The Depression in a little poor white girl's eyes

Albert left home today, Papa and my other brothers and sisters walked four miles to Mrs. Bellum's house to listen to the Fireside Chats. She's our closest neighbor. Mr. Roosevelt said that the young men who needed work could go to the CCC. Papa says that's where Al is going... he says we probably won't see him for a while. Mr. Roosevelt is a good man for hiring Al. He's a hard worker and Papa says that he'll make us some money, too!

I haven't seen a dollar bill in a while.

Ever since Mama died, things have gotten worse and worse and worse. Papa has gotten more serious and he is home more often... sometimes we don't even have food on the table for days. When mama was here, we would have at least two meals a day.

I miss mama.

I miss being able to eat.

and now, even though he's only been gone since this morning, I'm missing Al, too.

Myth vs. Reality

Cowboys were often depicted as rough and tumble outlaws or heros in Hollywood films. This depiction is wrong- cowboys were cow herders, so they hardly had time to be outlaws or save damsels in distress. They were only really interested in making money. They rarely had shoot outs with sherifs in towns in reality. Hollywood turns these men with mundane jobs into something far greater than they actually were.

The Reconstruction: Success or Failure

The Reconstruction of 1865-1877 was a failure for many reasons. Firstly, the Reconstruction could not resolve the main dispute of the Civil War- slavery, which is part of the reason why it was conceived. In a way, the Reconstruction hindered any other serious actions to be taken to get rid of slavery for a very long time because the pride of the whites had been so severely shaken. Second, the Reconstruction was too "beyond its time" so it was illogical to try and in force it, but they tried. Some government leaders believed that African- Americans prevented the US from achieving racial equality and this widely shared mind- set did not help the Reconstruction at all.

The Reconstruction in its entirety achieved very little, nonetheless, it was the first step into achieving racial equality.

Andrew Jackson: The Champion of the Common man or King Andrew?

Though his presidency was a monumental era in U.S. history, I do not think Jackson was a very good president. He was very unprofessional at times and allowed personal bias and hatred to get in the way of his duties as the president. He did not like John Calhoun and Nicholas Biddle because of personal issues. Jackson's hatred of Biddle helped to drive him to try to destroy the National Bank. The Peggy Eaton affair was another event in which Jackson used his love of his departed wife, and his power as the president of the U.S. to place Eaton and his wife in to the Cabinet's social life, an irresponsible use of his power.

Not only was he unprofessional at times like these, but he also condoned racism against the Native Americans and was apt to harbor the feelings of hatred himself. Jackson drove out the last remaining Natives in U.S. territory against their will with brute force. This man is not the Champion of the Common Man, he is closer to a King because he made his decisions personal affairs, he did what he liked and nobody could oppose him, and lastly, because he did not treat all people with equal sincerity.

The Jeffersonian Era

Let's start with the basics. Jefferson had a few goals he wanted to accomplish when he and his followers took power in the US in 1801. These included a system of universal education (public education), an independent and argricultural society with less of a European influence, and limited government supremacy giving most of the power to the people. This is a rather radical view of how America should be, and in it's own right, very unrealistic.
During the Jeffersonia Era, some things did not exactly go exactly as Jefferson would have liked. When it came to keeping the central government's power limited, Jefferson was unable to do this for very long. When Napoleon agreed to sell the French territory in America to the Americans, Jefferson was doubtful about claiming the territory because claiming territory is a lot of power. Luckily, Jefferson decided to purchase the terriory anyway without the consent the People.
The Jeffersonian Era did not go along with his beliefs at all.

I have to work today?!

Well, I had planned to use my Sunday to finish up the rest of my homework and do re-writes on Dr. K's stuff, but low and behold, somebody NEEDS ME TO WORK FOR THEM TODAY!!!
oh, well. at least i'm getting paid.
but on the down- side, i won't get to study as much for your test Mr. Chandler which sucks because them my grade will suck if i don't study on the job.
And also, I'll only have time to maybe finish Dr. K's re-writes, which also sucks because then i can't finish pulling up my grade. ::sigh::
It looks like I'm studying on the job today.
On the bright side, I'm getting my Mac laptop sometime this week!! yay!

I hope all of you guys keep a level head! Don't stress!! One step at a time!

pay-ce~

The American Revolution: Radical?

Lets look at this a little farther back.
The Colonists's argument: They were left in solitary neglect for a very long time and were not used to having a king tell them what to do. It was a huge shock to them when the king did take control after the French/Indian war due to war debt.There were a lot of taxes and the colonists never got a say whether they wanted to be taxed or not. Like I said, the colonies were used to being on their own, making their own rules, calling their own shots. To them, it felt like an injustice for the king to regain control over them after such a long period of time.

I understand the colonists arguement, and I do think they made the right descision about breaking away from Britian. I think America took a huge risk by rising against Britian, so the American Revolution was radical. However, it was the right thing to do.
I suppose it would be the similar to ask yourself, was it radical for the Senators of ancient Rome to kill Julius Ceaser if he had the aptitude to be a tyrant? Of course. But it was also the right thing to do.

Think about this; did they really want to find out? They wanted to de-root the source of uncertainty so they wouldn't have to deal with it later when the tyrant was too powerful for them to stop. However, in the colonists eyes, the king of England had already become a tyrant.