Free Mind // Open Spirit

Just a struggling college student Aspiring to be a Veterinarian. The struggle is indefinitely real.

[kodaisadragon]

Journal 9- Course Reflection

Let me be the first to say that this course was very intriguing, almost immersive. The class was taught very well. I appreciated that Professor Morton had little to no bias throughout the course of the semester. At times, he would even point out where America was completely wrong and “bent the rules” a lot, such as the entire Mexican-American war. In an effort to obtain land from Mexico, we sent troops across the Mexican-American border, and claimed it as our territory. When the Mexicans crossed into “our territory” we declared it as an act of war and proceeded to fire upon them, starting the Mexican-American war. When Professor Morton explained this, he used a sarcastic tone and made it almost funny. Humor, humor was a large part of this course, providing me with excitement and a drive to get involved. My favorite part of this course has to be the World War 2 section, while my least favorite is definitely the roaring 20s section. World War 2 has always been my favorite war to study and examine, seeing as though this war forever changed the way wars will be fought. From the honor and valor of the Marines who stormed the beaches of Normandy, and Iwo Jima to the fearless pilots of the Royal Airforce who were outnumbered in the Battle of Great Britain, this war truly showed the strengths of man, as well as utter hatred that humans can harbor. My least favorite section, again, is the roaring 20s. I find it so insanely boring. Nothing happened, other than the many new inventions and the great depression. I find it to be the “business” era of the United States, seeing as though many businesses sprouted and prospered. I feel as if we didn’t have the opportunity to focus on the Vietnam and Korean War enough, seeing as though the class was condensed. I also feel as if you should have touched a lot more on the Pacific campaign of World War II, forcing us to embrace the horrors of what happened on those hot, terror-filled nights on Iwo Jima and Peleliu. Also, nothing was said about the tragedy of Wake Island… I feel as if the story of Wake teaches us young people to respect those boys who died for us and each other. The topic that stood out the most throughout the semester was that of the media, and how it actually has deceived us over time. In summary, “History is determined by the victors”-Winston Churchill. This course has changed my view of how the media depicts the course history by showing me different perspectives of events such as the sinking of the Maine and the Mexican American war. The course showed me that any side can manipulate the world into believing anything they want them to believe in efforts to further their cause. Thank you for giving us this magnificent lecture of America’s history. I learned a lot that I didn’t know, and it has impacted me in a worldly way.

[kodaisadragon]

Tumblr post 8: Social Justice

The Rakhine national party claimed that they were being forced out of their lands by the Rohingya, or Muslims. They fought, the Rhakine and the police came with guns, and killed several people. The Rohingya began to be riot and the Rakhine were targeted.  Nasaka lined up protestors and executed them. People's families were killed. People fled to Bangladesh by boat. Nasaka beat Raheem and his family for staying out past curfew. Zurhee's son was targeted by the Rakhine and killed. Police brutally beat hame-jamil. Government forces opened fire on the civilians, as they ran across a creek, 25 children drowned. NaSaka buried it's victims at night in mass graves and Raheem buried his friends personally. The Rohingya were "refugees in their own country." "we have no food and no job.... We are given rations of rice and people starve". The bengals began to falsely blame the Rakhine for burning their houses down which in turn sparked more war in their country. The Rhakine proceed to break up the bengals and the Rohingya, and claim that they should not mix, that the bengals need to be relocated to a better area. Ong-San-Sun-Chi, the representation of freedom in Mayanmar, even denies the Rohingya citizenship. The Rohingya were even regarded as a virus, in a book. The Rohingya are being exported from their country s today. They are not accepted in Bangladesh, or Mayanmar.  Honestly, Professor Morton, this has had to be the worst, most confusing, unclear documentary that I have ever viewed. The interviews were a mess, their names were not posted anywhere on the screen, and all of the witnesses were hysterical throughout the entirety of this documentary. I gained little knowledge as to what is actually going on in Mayanmar, and seriously despised every second of this poorly made documentary. I love documentaries by the way. Throughout the course of our class, there hasn't been a single boring or bad video, but this was absolutely terrible. There are so many blind spots. For instance, the film never goes into depth about the NaSaka camps or what happened to the refugees in Bangladesh. It was unclear how this genocide even started, asides from the disagreement between ethnic groups. This film does show a bias in favor of the Rohingya. Of course it does. It is based upon their genocide. This documentary compels the audience to feel bad for the Rohingya through poorly detailed information and a plethora of videos that depict their negative treatment thereof. The film makers certainly did not give enough information. I watched this documentary TWICE and could barely pull the slightest bit of information out, seeing as though I was distracted by all of the screaming and the numerous appeals to the audience's pathos. The topics brought up in this film related topics brought up in class because we have spoken of the Armenian genocide in and we are going to speak of the Holocaust in this next coming session. It correlates with the beginning of the holocaust because it shows a government army, NaSaka, that seems to be the German SS of the Rakhine, as well. After watching this documentary, I am inclined to look up more about the genocide of the Rohingya, do to the confusing nature of the documentary.  In my own personal opinion, "never again" can never be an actual option. There will always be a bad apple, a bag group that will undertake these sorts of movements, over small things such as ethnicity or race. 

[kodaisadragon]

American History Journal Extra Credit #1 (War Horse)

      Steven Spielberg's war horse is an average story about World War One, mostly from a strange viewpoint. It shows the life of a strong, eager, hard willed young horse by the name of Joey. Joey goes through many trials and stipulations. From fighting for the British army to fighting for the German army to becoming a girls pet, Joey experiences it all. He is first adopted by Jeremy's father, a poor man who owns a farm, to preform fieldwork to give the family revenue for their rent. After a quick introduction as well as a few montages of Joey is Jeremy working in the fields together, a storm wipes out their crops andWorld War I sporadically begins in Western Europe. Seeing a good opportunity, Jeremy's father sells the horse to the Royal army to pay off his rent, seeing as though his crops had been destroyed due to a rough storm. Joey is drafted into the military and serves as a captain's Calvary horse. Joey serves along the side of another, seemingly more powerful, larger horse, in which Joey begins to outperform and become friends with, setting the stage for a future friendship and a movie about the underdog. Joey is captured by the German forces after a failed Calvary charge at Quiéverchain, France, 1914. Two young German soldiers abandon their posts, steal Joey and the black horse, then eventually are found and killed for going AWOL. Though the scene just seemed like a filler, it was extremely depressing and added a whole new level of darkness to the movie. Joey and the larger, black horse are then taken in by a young girl and her grandfather in which teachers her how to ride, only to have the pair stolen back from them by the powerful German army. Joey and the Black horse are forced to pull heavy artillery for the German army until they die or survive the war. The black horse seemed to be having problems pulling the artillery so Joey courageously takes his place in a heartfelt moment that proves that animals can have just as much courage as humans can. I believe this is the main theme of the movie; courage and bravery. Standing up for what is right and never disregarding the underdog no matter what. Joey continues to pull this artillery to the battle of The Somme in France, in 1918. Albert has joined the British army and is fighting against the Germans in trench warfare. These next few scenes are especially gruesome and are the highlight of the movie and my personal opinion. Trench warfare is shown with all of its nasty components such as mustard gas and heavy machine gun fire. Many men die, and it really shows how disgusting the trench itself was. Rats ran rampant and food was scarce. Joey, Ends up breaking free from the German army and runs through their lines all the way to the space between the trenches and which is called "no man's land". After he gallops through bullet and artillery fire he  ends up getting stuck in barbed wire and seems to have no hope left. Through miracle, both sides have a cease-fire and one soldier from each side goes to the middle of no mans land to find Joey, and end up meeting in the middle with wire cutters. They both have a heartwarming conversation  regarding the war, and their reasons for fighting as they chop away at Joeys steel prison. Joey ends up going back with the British and Albert is reunited with the horse at their headquarters by making the special call that they developed together. Joey goes home with Albert, the farm is saved and all is well. 

 First off, this film appears to be historically accurate, yet after further investigation it is not. Apparently the first Calvary charge never happened, there was not a massacre as portrayed in the movie. Furthermore, there was definitely a lack of horses in the later parts of the movie. I throughly enjoyed this movie, for the horses, mostly. The acting was a bit off but all in all I appreciated what it was trying to show me. It was incredibly depressing in the earlier parts watching the two German boys a bed in there posted and be slaughtered by their officers, as well as a strange, cliche backstory.|This movie does seem to follow a sort of algorithmic feel good movie linear pattern.  I appreciated the fluid color pallets and the costumes used as well as the scenes and computer generated imagery. I also appreciated how much work was put in to giving the viewers a feeling of sadness. The film is based off of a World War I legend, which apparently was true. It connects to our class by showing the struggles and gruesomeness of World War I and the European trench warfare. Though we never spoke about the Calvary, this gave me good insight as to what was going on.  This film is bad history, in my opinion, yet it wasn't supposed to be a very historical film. I think it's bad history because it is story drive, rather than factual, and tends to stray away from significant detail. I don’t believe a historian would be pleased with this film, yet it was fun to watch and provided a simple background to what was going on at the time.This film was made in neutral historical context, and it's sole purpose was to sell at the box office. I don't personally believe that people will look back and view this movie is a marvel of history or even bother with it in about 20 years. It was more of an action flick aimed towards a crowd in which tends to care less about the history and more about the lesson and maybe even the story, if that. This movie doesn’t really have a bias nor does it take sides, and that is the beauty of it. It simply shows the kind nature of animals, and how a war can truly take everything from everyone.

-Brandon Arslanian 

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[kodaisadragon]

Tumblr Post 7 - American Demagogues

Due to this documentary not showing enough of Louis Farrakhan's background I had to do secondary research using a few different websites. Farrakhan was born in the Bronx and was raised there. He would come to be the leader of today's religious group, Nation of Islam (NOI). It has been said that he is anti-Jewish as well as anti-white. Though these claims are compliant with some things that he has said, he claims that he loves all regardless of race or religion or sexual orientation. This documentary "Louis Farrakhan: Angel or Devil?" is more of an interview at heart. Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones interviews Louis, and asks him what he thinks of the United States due to the extreme situations we are going through at this moment in time. Louis has a lot of claims, mostly being conspiracy theories… and I absolutely loved every second of it. Though I had to constantly fight myself to disregard Louis' past blatant disrespect for whites. That part bothered me. Louis gives a fantastic perspective of what it is like to be affiliated with Islam in America as well as the Middle East. This documentary really breaks down a lot of the problems that America's is faced with, most of which revolve around our own central government. He claims that 85% of people don't understand cause-and-effect but 15% do. 15% understand what is happening in our country in the results of our past occurrences in the Middle East. He claims and agrees with Alex Jones that our government is not run by who we think it is ran by, rather these central banks that have been instituted by the Rockefellers and the Rothschild family. Louis goes on to explain that he absolutely believes in the New World order and the idea that it is slowly falling into its own trap. Goes on to explain further that our government is trying to constrict us, trying to remove our bill of rights and obtain total control of commerce. Louis makes a fantastic point, where he says that America is ran by banks mostly our central bank which the constitution warned us about. Whoever controls the money has all the power. He believes in Trump. That is a plus. I agree with Louis when he says that the USA gave the Middle Easterners a reason to hate us, I agree with him when he says that they will unite against us and therefore we should not let any Muslim into our country unless they are "properly vetted." . I agree with Louis when he says that the USA goes into countries in arms the rebellions, and that Isis is a product of America. Isis is in fact a proxy group.He also brings up the point that there is a mini race war occurring in the USA. That blacks and whites are starting to get so separated that we will begin to hate each other. This is a major problem because as Abraham Lincoln claimed " a house divided cannot stand. " The documentary ends off with Louis explaining that he believes that the end of times is coming, that if Trump cannot fix what is going on, if he cannot make amends for America's actions against the Middle East,that we will crumble, and Jesus will return. And I quote "a war is coming, and that war will clean the slate, and whatever's left will become one. We have no other alternative, then to live in peace."I am wary to bring religion into the topic but the bible describes the end times to be the falling of a nation, and a massive war. Look what's going on around you! The topics brought up in this video relate to the topics that we have talked about in class because they refer to powerful movements caused by singular people, movements that can change the world in a positive or negative way. I learned a ton, during this documentary. I enjoyed it thoroughly, and even paused it multiple times to think about what Louis was saying. I also listen to Jones and appreciated what he had to say. I have weren't that America really is in the country it's supposed to be and that we have been lied to her since Vietnam and most likely, before. I understand that the war in the Middle East isn't what we say it is. There are a lot of blind spots in this. This isn't focused on Louis this is focused on the world problems. Like to know more about louis himself, as well as his upbringing and young life. This film is biased against America as well. We do have a lot of Demagoguery in America. The many different groups we have such as the LGBT movement and the black lives matter movement have demagogues just as any others do.  We are in trouble, and we need to make amends with what we've done, leading to peace. 

[kodaisadragon]

Journal 6 The American Way of War

This documentary covers some of the more important aspects of the Vietnam War, such as our blatant disregard for what the war was about. After reviewing this film in it's entirety, I have come to realize that most of it was actually biased towards America and American soldiers for not knowing, what the "war" was about, for not even declaring actual war against the Vietnamese. It has made me realize that the only reason we went into Vietnam was because we were scared of the spread of communism, also known as the domino theory. We wanted political change. The documentary states that Kennedy poured "foreign advisors" into Vietnam to train the south Vietnamese to defend themselves, yet ended up sending a whole army. After Kennedy had been assassinated President Johnson was willing to do anything to "meet the majors needs" to end the war, though he had doubts that we could win the war. The documentary states that at one point he actually believed we should have left, yet never did, due to us being involved in the war for too long. Throughout the documentary, there is an extremely regretful tone. It seems almost as if most everyone wanted to leave Vietnam, and really turns the tables on our own government. The American public had apparently been lied to by its leaders, and the news media hadn't portrayed things correctly either, creating a sense of "false patriotism" if you will. Actor Warren Beatty said it best when he states that the Americans were told to look up to the president, to know that if they knew what he knew that they would want to be involved in the war. He says he found out they were right, that the government was wrong and that Americans were correct to protest. I personally enjoyed that part of the documentary, because it shows how us as citizens used to fight for a cause and stand up for what was right, rather than do what we do today. Watching the antiwar movement, I know more than I used to, that so many people, parents and children, children and friends disagreed upon so many various topics that it created tension in America. "A house divided against itself, is a house that cannot stand." Johnson does not re run, and Nixon promises to end the war. He leads America on, creating propaganda, because he has no idea how to end the war. I feel as if it's unfair that Nixon was handed all of this, this mess that Lyndon had put him in. Apparently they try to negotiate peace, yet cannot find a way to establish any to begin with. The world looks at America being extremely imperialistic. I would like this to be expanded upon, as it is only so briefly talked about. I would like to know about some of the major objectives of the war as well, as well as more information about the Ho Chi Man trail. As the documentary plays on, it starts to show how the veterans were treated as they were coming home, being spat on and called “baby killers.” They had been so excited to come home and were treated horribly by our nation, even though most were drafted in. They had been unemployed and treated as undesirable by the citizens, and I believe that this is shocking. It was a ridiculous part of this war that these boys had to come home and be treated in such a way that depicted them as demons, as lazy bums, though they had the worst PTSD out of anyone who had ever served. We had left Vietnam, yet made the north and south sign a sort of cease-fire, which had been broken immediately after we left. They fought until 1975 and the North retook the south, and reinstated communist rule. Therefore, the war is said to be useless, we didn’t achieve anything by being there, yet we lost 55,000 troops. I do not support, nor have ever supported the US’s involvement in Vietnam. I feel as if it was a tremendous waste of time, effort and bodies. We lost so many young men that were drafted and had no choice but to fight an enemy that they could barely see. I believe the Vietnam war was gross. I feel as if we were not helping those people, but were scared of Russia and it’s induced Red Scare, though that wasn’t’ talked about much in the documentary. I appreciated this documentary as a whole, and it gave me new insight that the government had been lying to the people for a long time about the war. It shows me that history does, in fact repeat itself, I cannot trust my government today.

[kodaisadragon]

Journal 4: Religious Freedom?

    After watching four of the plethora of these awesome videos that my professor has posted "Regarding religious freedom", I have come to a decision that the idea of religious liberty is a strange one. This idea that many different people such as Sargent Monk, Chief Cole ran and Baronelle have been accused of discriminating against others is quite frankly a good one (in most cases.). Well I do not believe that Sargent Monk should have not been let off from the military for expressing his Christian beliefs towards homosexuality, there has to be more to the story than this. If Monk were to have assaulted a homosexual male in the military that's a different story then what the media chooses to portray. In the case of Baronelle, I believe it is 100% justifiable that she has lost all of her financial assets due to discrimination against homosexuals. Baronelle, a flower shop owner, decided that she was not going to sell flowers to a gay couple for their wedding, due to her profound religious beliefs. In the Bible it says that no man another man should have sex and or get married, therefore she decided to not serve them. This Is the problem; when people take to listen to such extreme affects people around them. Honestly I sold we believe that if you are to exercise a religion you should do so, yet realize that times have changed. Times have definitely changed. The world was a lot less civilized went THESE holy books were created. When many religions were created, there was conflict in the world and massive problems between races. The ideas from the Bible most certainly do not parallel with us as human beings today. Though the Bible has good teachings just as any other holy book such as the Koran its teachings should not be followed so literally. I am a self-proclaimed Christian, but you don't see me running around the University of Central Florida hating on gay people, though every Wednesday, there are religious extremists that say you'll go to hell if you ever choose to sin. They reside outside of the student union, scream at homosexual couples, telling them that they will go to hell because they are not pure in god’s eyes. Enough of that, back to Baronelle. The fact that she does not serve the homosexual couple is a bit rash. Actually, it is clear discrimination whether you choose to see it or not. Acts like the religious liberty restoration act, aim to let people discuss their believes openly and act upon them. For instance, this act aims to makes it generally OK to speak about religious beliefs yet opens many, many doors to discriminate. I personally believe that that is way out of line, it is wrong, it is almost parallel to discriminating against people for the color of their skin. Now, this act is not supposed to solely provide a basis for discrimination yet it does, in it's current flawed state. It is a very perfunctory act to have been passed, due to its incompletion and unclear nature. Well I do agree that people should be able to practice their religious believes in their businesses in public, I do not believe that in doing this they should not be able to discriminate against others for any kind of reason. Regardless of age, sexual orientation, religion, color, stature, or gender, we are all human beings and deserve to be treated equally as such. 

[kodaisadragon]

Syrian Refugee Crisis!

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    The Syrian refugee crisis is indeed a struggle. Hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees are fleeing the Islamic state, while being persecuted. America could gladly open up their loving arms to these immigrants, yet if we were to open up set arms there would be too high of a risk that members of I S I S would sneak in. For instance, Professor, if I offered you a bowl of 10,000 mNms and I told you 500 were poisoned would you grab a handful? Of course you wouldn’t it’s too risky! I feel sorry for the Syrian refugees, but don't really believe that America should be a home for them seeing as though they have torn apart the eastern European country side in which they have been fortunate enough to be able to migrate to. I strongly agree with Donald Trump on this one topic, other than that, Mr. Trump’s policies are whack. But in regards to this good policy, I believe that for now, all members of middle eastern foreign decent should have their visas checked. The United States of America should put a hold, A HOLD, on immigration from all countries. It may seem as if Americans are “Islamaphobic” yet we are anything but. We are soley making an attempt to not kick people out, we are rather trying to repair our country, to fix our immigration system in our airports and our infrastructure so that therefore we will know when and how terrorists are getting into the country. Isis is spreading like wildfire in the Middle East right now and America cannot be susceptible, America will not be susceptible to their threats. People believe that Donald Trump just wants to force all the Muslims out of the country that is not correct. All the Trump wants to do is make sure everybody's busy is your correct and make sure that they are indeed loyal to United States of America, the red white and blue. The problem with Muslim Americans in our country is that in fact in the Muslim Bible, the Quran there are many, many verses of violence towards the “infidels” or those who do not believe in the Muslim religion. These verses of violence cannot be taken literally by the Muslims, and to me that depends whether they are radical or not. If they are taken literally, we cannot let them into our country. ISIS will spread silently like some kind of rogue virus, and it will attack in many different states at the same time. We cannot have that. If we can just continue to strike Isis from the skies, and provide the Syrian refugees with support through care packages and ground support, maybe we can help them as well, but that is not our number one problem. Our main priority should be to keep AMERICA safe, not some members of another country.     America needs to stop being so afraid of using the Monroe doctrine. We do, in fact, need to walk softly and carry a big stick, as a wise Roosevelt once said.      

[kodaisadragon]

Journal 2.

    After watching the documentary "Wacipi PowWow" I learned about the Wacipi tribe as well as some of the other tribes of Native American Indians.  Most of this documentary was about the powwows themselves, yet it did give me a bit of insight about the society within an Indian reservation. I learned about how everything within a reservation and a powwow represents something. For instance, when people play the drum at a powwow the drum represents the heartbeats of the tribe. The beat of the drum represents the heartbeat, and whomever is beating on the drum together, in unison, become family.     The tribe believes that there are spirits inside of the drums and that Mother Nature creates songs in the grass, wind and birds. Each Indian is believed to have a special song, and said Indian can hear the words in the specific song. Whenever they hear this tune it brings them peace and makes them feel good. It almost gives them some sort of spiritual high. When the song is played they dance in a traditional manner, influenced by the spirits with every step they take. I learned that the outfits they wear were homemade and every element of said outfit has some sort of significance. I learned that the woman dance on the edge of this massive circle while the men dance in the middle. To me, that shows male dominance in the Indian tribes as well as a sort of form of metaphorical respect to them. My question is, is there an equal balance of power between men and woman in any Indian tribe? Do people get along as well as they say they do in this documentary? I'm also unsure as to whether they believe in God or solely Mother Nature. I learned about how     Indian tribes honor someone by giving to others in their name. Everything is solely based around giving and being selfless, rather than being selfish. I Native American is judged by what they give not what they own, and I believe that is beautiful. It makes everybody seem like they have a much larger family. We are all humans and we should all love each other. That part of this fantastic documentary hit me very hard, it actually makes me want to join a powwow if possible. I feel as if it would be extremely beneficial if the director of this documentary would have included whether or not that was a feasible activity for a non-tribal member.  Again, everything in the Indian tribe has a metaphor for instance when the she could Ogichidaakwe, or "warrior women" where's a jingle dress and dances she does not dance in a circle or straight lines rather she dances in a zigzag because "life isn't always a straight path". The Ogichidaakwe must set a good example for young women's present.      All in all, I’d love to actually participate in a Pow wow. The documentary has influenced me to actually go out and search for something to join. This has no bias really, because there is no argument, yet if I HAVE to give a bias, it would be towards the Indians because of the friendly, passive nature of the documentary. It makes them look good, and attracts curious men and woman like me. [x] (by the way, the picture is somewhat related.) 

[kodaisadragon]

My relationship with history and the history classes I’ve taken. Brandon Arslanian Journal 1

      History. His-story. The study of the past, all of the events that have happened in a particular order to create what we know. History does tend to repeat itself, so the study of history does not only provide information, but it does benefit the reader by giving them an insight as to what might happen in the future. My area of expertise and most interest goes to the World war 2 era. I love the whole feel of the era, how the US joined forces with England to battle a common enemy. This is why I chose my piece to be “The Pacific”. The pacific is an HBO miniseries loosely based on the attacks on the Japanese in the pacific theater during World War 2. The series is fantastic and I believe that it should be shown in any class that studies World War 2.  I feel as if the US soldiers knew that they were defending their homeland rather than attacking an unknown enemy for an unknown reason. The boys back then were a different breed. They were different, they were stronger. I love the feeling of World War II era, the heart the boys had when they were fighting against the enemy. They were fighting for each other. All of my history classes so far have been fantastic, really, I’ve learned morals from history, I've learned life lessons from teachers in high school. I try to immerse myself as much as possible every step of the way. I've learned about culture and diversity. I learned about how presidents can be frauds, and how people can betray each other in an instant. A.k.a. (Adolf Hitler.). As far as teachers go all of my teachers have been extremely influential as well as open to questions and were willing to help. History can either be incredibly bland or an incredibly astounding subject. It all depends on the teacher, and how said teacher teaches its class. As far as my partner’s piece goes, I feel as if I may have forgotten it. I believe it is the movie saving Private Ryan. I actually have seen this movie many times and adore it greatly. It shows the rough gritty truth of the war along with all the emotion that comes from both sides. I look forward to watching it another time and learning about the small things that changed the course of the war. I look forward to this class and all of the things I will learn in it.

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