The Results of a creative assignment for my History Class. Covers a lot of stuff. Berlin Wall, World War II, French Revolution. The Assignment was to answer the question "What is History?" with out using any real words. I opted to use Images and silent clips set to Music. Give me your feedback (I KNOW THAT THE CAMERA SEEMS LIKE I FILMED A SCREEN, ITS THE BEST I COULD DO WITH MY RESOURCES)The Results of a creative assignment for my History Class. Covers a lot of stuff.... more
For those that doubt the British educational system, here might be some proof.
One in 20 children think Adolf Hitler coached Germany's national football team, a survey has revealed.
The poll of over 2,000 British kids - testing what the know about the world wars - also found one in six kids believed Auschwitz is a World War Two theme park.
Worryingly twelve per cent assumed McDonald's Golden Arches was the symbol of Remembrance Day and 40 percent didn't even know what day it fell on.
One in 20 of the nine to 15-year-olds also said they thought the Holocaust was the celebration at the end of the war.
On a slightly more encouraging not 70 percent of those polled said they would like to find out more about the world wars -- like who won.
A spokesperson for Erskine, who commissioned the study, said: "As we approach Remembrance Day it is hard to believe that 40 per cent of our children do not know when it is.
"There are also some positives to come out of this survey with the level of interest from children wishing to learn more at school about the World Wars.
"School children are the future of the country and it is important that we help them to learn about our history."
If you want to understand how to fix today's health insurance system, you'd be smart to look first at how it was born. How did Americans end up with a system in which employers pay for our health insurance? After all, they don't pay for our groceries or our gas.
It turns out there never was any central logic at work. The evolution of the American health care system began in the 1920s, when choices boiled down to which crazy cure you preferred.
Dr. John Brinkley, for instance, was a huge hit in American radio with his health advice shows. For whatever problem folks had, Brinkley had one fabulous solution: transplant a goat gland into your body. He pitched it as being perfect for everything from dementia to impotence to flatulence. But if, somehow, a goat gland didn't cure your ills, you could always use Bonnore's Electro Magnetic Bathing Fluid or Clark Stanley's Snake Oil Liniment.
Before the birth of modern medicine, hospitals were poorhouses where the indigent went to die. Then came the advent of effective medicines, especially antibiotics, along with a revolution in medical schools.
Suddenly, says economic historian Melissa Thomasson, "hospitals are marketing themselves as places to have babies." The professor at the Miami University in Ohio says that in the early part of the 20th century, hospitals were able to focus on happy outcomes.
Health care became much more effective, and much more expensive. Clean hospitals, educated doctors and real pharmacological research cost money. People proved willing to pay for care when they were really sick, but it wasn't yet common to go for checkups or survivable illnesses.
By the late 1920s, hospitals noticed most of their beds were going empty every night. They wanted to get people who weren't deathly ill to start coming in.
"The war economy is an entirely different ballgame," Thomasson says. The government rationed goods even as factories ramped up production and needed to attract workers. Factory owners needed a way to lure employees. She explains that the owners turned to fringe benefits, offering more and more generous health plans.
The next big step in the evolution of health care was also an accident. In 1943, the Internal Revenue Service ruled that employer-based health care should be tax free. A second law, in 1954, made the tax advantages even more attractive.
Thomasson cites the huge impact of those measures on plan participation. "You start from 9 percent of the population in 1940 to 63 percent in 1953," she says. "Everybody starts getting in on it. It just grows by gangbusters. By the 1960s, 70 percent [of the population] is covered by some kind of private, voluntary health insurance plan."
Thus employer-based insurance, which started with Blue Cross selling coverage to Texas teachers and spread because of government price controls and tax breaks, became our system. By the mid-1960s, Thomasson says, Americans started to see that system — in which people with good jobs get health care through work and almost everyone else looks to government — as if it were the natural order of things.
But to Thomasson and other economic historians, there's nothing natural or inevitable about it. Instead, they see it as the profound result of historical accidents.Accidents Of History Created U.S. Health System
If you want to understand how to... more
Darren sez, "A disarming video of an 86-year-old WWII veteran from a public meeting on Maine's marriage equality bill on April 22, 2009."
The woman at my polling place asked me do I believe in equality for gay and lesbian people. I was pretty surprised to be asked a question like that. It made no sense to me. Finally I asked her: what do you think I fought for in Omaha Beach?Darren sez, "A disarming video of an 86-year-old WWII veteran from a public meeting on... more
A haunting new exhibition at SFMOMA surveys the effects of the atomic age on a generation of daring Japanese photographers. VIEW OUR GALLERYA haunting new exhibition at SFMOMA surveys the effects of the atomic age on a... more
The left may be pressuring President Obama to exit Afghanistan. But their heroes—from FDR to JFK—promoted U.S. involvement in more wars than all modern GOP presidents combined.The left may be pressuring President Obama to exit Afghanistan. But their... more
"Kseniya Simonova is a Ukrainian artist who just won Ukraine's version of "America's Got Talent." She uses a giant light box, dramatic music, imagination and "sand painting" skills to interpret Germany's invasion and occupation of Ukraine during WWII.""Kseniya Simonova is a Ukrainian artist who just won Ukraine's version of "America's... more
In an Op-Ed column for the New York Times contributor Antony Beevor discusses recent speculation, by American researchers, that the jaw supposedly belonging to Hitler was actually that of a young woman.In an Op-Ed column for the New York Times contributor Antony Beevor discusses recent... more
MOSCOW — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's statement that the Holocaust was "a myth" is "totally unacceptable", the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement Saturday.
"Such statements, wherever they come from, contradict the truth and are totally unacceptable," ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said in the statement.
"Attempts to rewrite history, especially as the 70th anniversary of the start of World War II is being marked this year, are an offence to the memory of all victims and all those who fought fascism," he added.
Nesterenko said Ahmadinejad's comment "does not contribute to creating an international atmosphere that would foster a fruitful dialogue on issues concerning Iran."
Iran and six powers -- Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States -- are to meet again on October 1 on Iran's nuclear programme amid fears that Tehran is planning to build an atomic bomb.
Ahmadinejad made the statement as he addressed the annual Quds Day rally in Tehran on Friday, reiterating earlier comments that had sparked outrage around the world.
The United States, Britain, France and Germany all issued statements slamming his latest outburst dismissing the killing of some six million Jews of occupied Europe by the Nazis during World War II.
"The very existence of this regime is an insult to the dignity of the people," the hardline Ahmadinejad said of Iran's arch-foe Israel.
"They (the Western powers) launched the myth of the Holocaust. They lied, they put on a show and then they support the Jews.
"If as you claim the Holocaust is true, why can a study not be allowed?" he said to chants of "Death to Israel" from the crowd gathered for the annual display of solidarity with the Palestinians.
"The pretext for establishing the Zionist regime is a lie... a lie which relies on an unreliable claim, a mythical claim, and the occupation of Palestine has nothing to do with the Holocaust," he added.
"This claim is corrupt and the pretext is corrupt. This (the Israeli) regime's days are numbered and it is on its way to collapse. This regime is dying."
Washington condemned Ahmadinejad's comments as ignorant and hateful.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband branded the comments "abhorrent as well as ignorant," and said they were "not worthy of the leader of Iran".
"The coincidence of today's comments with the start of Jewish New Year only adds to the insult," he added.
French foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero called the remarks "unacceptable and shocking. We resolutely condemn them."
In Berlin German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said they shamed Iran.
Similar comments by Ahmadinejad shortly after his first election as president in 2005 also sparked an international outcry.
Then he said Israel was "doomed to be wiped off the map".MOSCOW — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's statement that the Holocaust was "a... more
Darkest of Days sets out to carry gamers through the time stream to multiple historic battles ranging from the American Civil War through World War II in epic scale. Does it shine above the crowd, or just get lost in the dark?
From the Review:
"Where most game studios tend to put their best foot forward in the opening of the game to reel players in early and, perhaps more importantly, project a good image in previews and trailers, but slack off toward the end of the game becoming almost routine, 8Monkey did almost the exact opposite here. The beginning of the game feels bland and generic, but improves markedly as you go on. After finishing the first two segments with period weapons in the Civil War and World War I eras, some surprises begin to occur. There's no truly developed story to speak of, no character depth, or strongly detailed events, but what happens still adds to wow factor a bit. Events start to appear in the wrong place, and don't match up with the proper timeline. Green time portals open up and power armored agents pop out and begin interfering. The historical detail and mood is extremely well done throughout the game, so time bubbles and Storm Troopers provide the intended shock to the senses, as do events that don't match up. Later in the game you begin intersecting your own time intervention, working for the other side and experiencing your own actions from earlier in third person. Additionally, missions stop being a linear rail shooter and start focusing on objective based missions..."Darkest of Days sets out to carry gamers through the time stream to multiple historic... more
LONDON, England (CNN) -- British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has issued a posthumous apology for the "appalling" treatment of Alan Turing, the British code-breaker who was chemically castrated for being gay.
The apology came after more than 30,000 people signed an online petition on the UK Government Web site calling for the government to recognize the "tragic consequences of prejudice that ended this man's life and career."
Turing was just 41 years old when he committed suicide, two years after undergoing a court-ordered chemical castration. He had been found guilty of gross indecency for having a homosexual relationship. The punishment in 1952 was either a prison sentence or chemical castration. Turing chose the latter.
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More at link.LONDON, England (CNN) -- British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has issued a posthumous... more
Brett Erlich and Ellen Fox join forces with bloggers, comedians, students and citizen critics to review "Inglourious Basterds."
The Rotten Tomatoes Show is a movie review show that airs on Thursday nights at 10:30 e/p on Current TV. From reviews of the newest releases to commentary on cult favorites and movie trends, each episode of The Rotten Tomatoes Show is a fast-paced, comedic journey through the week in cinema.
For more about movies from Current: http://current.com/moviesBrett Erlich and Ellen Fox join forces with bloggers, comedians, students and citizen... more
The Ill-Fated Pact
Bartosz T. Wieliński
2009-08-21
The German and Soviet invasion of Poland was a prelude to a destructive war and the communist enslavement of eastern Europe, 140 German intellectuals write in a declaration.
'We thus respond to those in Russia who are trying to defend Stalin. They don't seem to be living in the 21st century,' says CSU deputy Hartmut Koschyk, one of the declaration's signatories.
The declaration is an appeal to Europe to not forget, while celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Iron Curtain, the circumstances in which the continent was originally divided seventy years ago.
'We are aware, and this is a painful awareness, that without the German-started World War II neither the communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe nor the division of Europe and Germany would have happened,' write the German intellectuals. Rather than identifying 1 September 1939 - the day of the German invasion of Poland - as the beginning of the tragedy, they point at 23 August 1939, when the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact was signed in Moscow. In it, the Third Reich and the Soviet Union divided Central Europe between themselves. 'It was an ill-fated pact,' reads the declaration.
The declaration was initiated by Marianne Birthler, head of the Stasi Records Authority and the Foundation for Research into the DDR Dictatorship, and former DDR dissident, Wolfgang Templin. It was signed by nearly 140 persons, including, among others, ex-president of the Bundestag, Prof Rita Süssmuth, the first head of the Stasi Records Authority, Joachim Gauck, historians Arnulf Baring, Dieter Bingen and Heirinch Winkler, journalists and politicians.
The declaration is unprecedented. To avoid being accused of historical revisionism - diminishing German responsibility for WWII - Germans seldom speak about Russia's responsibility for the war. Politicians usually steer well clear of the subject in order not to damage relations with Moscow. Yet the declaration leaves no doubt about what communism meant for eastern Europe.
'In the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and part of Germany, all weakened by the war and Nazi rule, the Soviet Union introduced a new regime. That had disastrous consequences for society, the economy and culture, as well as for the masses of people who were persecuted or lost their lives because they stood in the communists' way,' reads the declaration.
Markus Meckel (SPD), one of the signatories, assures Gazeta that no one wants to whitewash Nazi Germany. 'But we need to remember that there was another totalitarianism which also committed crimes and left scars on central Europe's collective memory. People in the West have to finally acknowledge this,' says Mr Meckel.
Moreover, the German declaration comes at a time when a group of Russian historians, acting on the Kremlin's orders, is trying to defend the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact. They are arguing that Stalin wanted to buy himself time to prepare for the war against Germany, that he was forced to sign the pact by the inflexible position of Poland which didn't want an alliance with Russia. Some have gone as far as to suggest that it is Poland that bears responsibility for the wear because it refused to meet Hitler's 'moderate' demands and surrender the 'Gdańsk corridor.'
Mr Meckel adds that the declaration is also an appeal to Russia to start an honest debate about the past. 'They should finally confront the vision of history of the Poles or the Balts,' says the SPD deputy. The signatories Gazeta has talked to hope that chancellor Angela Merkel speaks in a similar tone during the 1 September celebrations on Westerplatte, Gdańsk.
The German declaration is also a homage to the democratic opposition in Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary. 'We will never forget that it was especially the Poles who, fighting for our freedom and theirs, dealt the first blows to the communist regime,' reads the declaration.The Ill-Fated Pact
Bartosz T. Wieliński
2009-08-21
The German and Soviet... more
Japan and Russia have never signed a peace treaty over World War II. The reason for this is that there is a dispute over four islands off Hokkaido that were occupied by Soviet forces that were once in Japanese hands. A 1956 Japanese-Soviet joint declaration signed in Moscow stated that Shikotan island and the Habomai islets would be returned to Japan after a peace treaty was concluded between Japan and the Soviet Union.Japan and Russia have never signed a peace treaty over World War II. The reason for... more
Here is a performance by sand artist Kseniya Simonova in Ukraine's Got Talent. Incredibly, it's an eight-minute piece (performed to music) that recreates the conquest of Ukraine by Germany in World War II, and it's both beautiful and moving. I know, that sounds like a premise for a Monty Python skit, but just go watch it and you'll understand.Here is a performance by sand artist Kseniya Simonova in Ukraine's Got Talent.... more
Okay, I'm no film critic, I just love movies. I mean, I really love movies. I could live in my own private film festival (and have for specific stretches of time). I'll see anything from an arthouse indie specialty film to the tentpole CG blitzkreig popcorn movie event, and I'll enjoy it. Even if it's not perfect. But when I feel the hand of a master filmmaker in every nuance, I enjoy it even more.
This weekend, thanks to a lovely and talented thespian friend of mine, I got to see an advance screening of Quentin Tarantino's INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS. I was eager to go, since I'm a fan of his work and - I'll admit it - I was intrigued by the mixed reviews he got in Cannes. But within the first few seconds I felt the unmistakable deft skills of a master filmmaker. And that was something that continued throughout the entire movie. Every spot-on performance, every gorgeous shot, every moment telling a story (and the story-within-the-story). In its essence, this film is made by someone who loves movies for other people who love movies.
And it seems like only yesterday Quentin broke out as a writer with TRUE ROMANCE, or announced his presence on the director scene with RESERVOIR DOGS, or won an Oscar for PULP FICTION. Okay, he's no newbie, but still, his craft feels ripe now. It's pretty cool actually. And it's nice we have a real American Auteur in our times!
So forget the haters and run out to get some cinema when Inglourious Basterds comes out.Okay, I'm no film critic, I just love movies. I mean, I really love movies. I could... more
“Shadowplay” is a multi-award winning animated stop-motion short film, which was written, animated and directed by Dan Blank. The film was the winner of the 2002 Los Angeles Film Festival Best Short Award, the 2002 Student Academy Award (Bronze) and the 2003 Student Emmy Award (Gold).
In August 1945, the closing chapter of World War II, a blinding flash lit the sky over Hiroshima. In that searing light, huge slabs of concrete worked like emulsion paper, creating silhouetted photographs of that split-second of power, with only shadows left of the people who had been going about their everyday lives. “Shadowplay” tells the story of Akio, a shadow of a young boy, who wanders around the devastated city searching for his family, while trying to make sense of the unfathomable atrocity.
We should be reminded of these images when there is talk of nuclear threats or weapons of mass destruction. The faceless poses of Hiroshma should make us realize that this could have been anyone, anywhere.
This piece presents a number of colorful illustrations from the film and the acclaimed animated short, “Shadowplay.”“Shadowplay” is a multi-award winning animated stop-motion short film, which was... more
Logic dictates that more than 60 years after the conclusion of World War II, after tribunals and investigations of all sorts, we pretty much know all the gory details Hitler and his henchmen envisioned and inflicted on the human race.
But that sadly is not true. It’s not true at all. National Geographic Channel’s Hitler’s Hidden Holocaust uncovers still more atrocities – atrocities of vast proportions that until now have remained almost totally unknown outside of the areas in Eastern Europe in which they occurred.
By its very nature, any documentary about the Holocaust is grim. But few are as gut-wrenchingly horrific as this one.Logic dictates that more than 60 years after the conclusion of World War II, after... more
"Battlefield 1943 captures not only the nostalgia many of us feel when we think of Battlefield games, but also manages to include solid gameplay with attention to the platforms the game is shipping on. The game itself can be found on the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade for $15 or 1200 Microsoft Points. The price point is good for those of us looking for a solid Battlefield game on the consoles, or anyone interested in a multiplayer shooter this summer.""Battlefield 1943 captures not only the nostalgia many of us feel when we think of... more
