White Males of the colonies in the 17th and 18th Centuries

Out of the three groups of the time, men, women and Indians, the white men probably had the most stress in terms of having to show leadership and provide for the group. Neither the Indians nor the women had this type of stress in the same sense. It was present, but not in the same way that it was for the white males. the men were completely responsible for the growth and survival of their households, and on a greater scale, their colonies. What they had to face was nothing like life back in England (or whatever home country they came from). They, not parliament, were in charge. They really had no higher power that they had to report to. If the Indians were to attack, it was the men who would have to rally together and fight. Unlike in England, they had to do all of the jobs; they had to weave clothe, make shoes, grow the food....everything was their responsibility. Also, they were forced to look at the women in a new light. Women could not be locked up in the house all day as in England. There was far too much to do. Women weren't all free to go and do whatever they wanted of course, but the men were forced to release a bit of their vice grip on the women's freedom. So all and all, I would say the life of the white male in the colonies was very difficult. They had to defend against the relentless Indians, govern their new state, do every single thing that needed to be done to support their well-being, and at all times try to make the life of their family a little bit easier. Life was hard...

Our Wonderful class Project (plus the "how I helped" blog)

Quite frankly, I don't think the project was a very good use of our time at all. I think that enough information is available out there that is just as easy to access and probably more valuable than compiling the amount of info that we were able to put together. I think a better use of our time would have been to continue reading and discussing the various works that were produced by these people in class. You could assign it as homework for us to read, but I think that we get much more out of it when we go over it as a group in class. I know that we turned this option down when you offered it at the beginning of last week in favor of the site, but I realize now that reading would probably be better. As for my participation in the project, I felt that David and I did a pretty equal job of leading it, so we both put in the most work. I think that this could be effective, but I don't think it is going to do it if we work in groups. I think that if we work alone a separate subjects and then put all of our individual work together on the same site, then we will be able to get a lot more done. Yes it will require more individual work on each of our parts, but the quality of the work and th quantity that we will individually be able to produce will be much greater than that which we could do as a group. In a group setting, you can't take over and be the boss, and you all have to agree on what needs to go on. I feel like personally I would be able to produce better work and be more productive if I was working on something alone.

Mary Rowlandson

So I think Mary Rowlandson is pretty cool so far (not as cool as Anne Bradstreet, however, though the two are very similar). I appreciate the fact that, like Bradstreet, Rowlandson was a very controversial female author. And she knew it. However, she was still very willing to put her work out in public. The passage that we read in class today about the Indian raid was, while a bit morbid, still good literature. And by good literature, I mean something that is capable of capturing and maintaining my attention. Bad literature is usually something that, after about 3 minutes of reading it, I fall completely asleep. I also liked the way that she stood up against the normal beliefs at the time and went so far the she was actually thrown out of a state. That was pretty cool.

Anne Bradstreet (Sorry it's a tad late)

So I was actually really impressed by Anne Bradstreet (it's actually pretty rare for me to like a poet. I've never really liked the stuff). Anyways, There are a couple of reasons why I found her interesting. First of all, she rights in a style that I can understand pretty easily. That's always a plus. Secondly, I liked the fact that she had beliefs, and she was very willing to write about them even though they were controversial, and she was willing to write about those things in a sarcastic and satirical manner. That makes things far more amusing for me. Her belief in writing about important matters, which she discussed in the first essay, makes her stand apart from other writers in my mind. If she wrote about things like love and lovers, then she would just be another author. I really hope that we can read more by her as the year goes by.

Oh Mr. Salatin...

I have to say that as a whole, I was a bit disappointed by Mr. Salatin. After I read The Omnivore's Delima (or at least most of it) and heard that Mr. Salatin was going to be our guest host, I was really excited. I was dying to hear more about the way that things worked at Polyface Farms, to learn the science behind the intense rotating cycle that he had going, to learn about the eggmobile and what inspired this idea. I wanted to know how this brilliant idea worked. These concrete ideas were met by a very abstract man. The speech at Convocation just didn't interest me. I really don't care that much about ten reasons why a garden is a metaphor for my life. I must say I was also quite frustrated by the fact that the band (including me) was in the worst possible place to hear the speech, and I only remained awake for about the first half. I really tried though. I was fully conscious through the Q & A D period though, and I still wasn't very impressed. He seemed to take a question so much further than we really cared about. It may have been great for other people, but I was far from impressed.

Freedom and Sustainability

        I think that there are actually a lot of different parts to this prompt, and the one that attracts my attention the most is actually within the first 3 lines. It is as follows: "The notion that we have the right to choose what we do, why and how, and that that right should not be removed by any force outside of our own free will is ingrained in all people across the globe." At first glance, I absolutely agree with this statement. However, after thinking further upon it, I start to diverge from this statement's beliefs. I believe that here, in America, this absolutely holds true. If we think about places outside of the United Sates though, things become a little more shaky. The first example that comes to my mind is the television documentary that I saw a while back about the international food and clothing industries. I constantly find images flashing through my head where I see Southeast Asians slumped over a sewing machine or cleaning fish to stuff into a can, all just so that they can make the bare minimum amount of money that they need to survive on.
        Thinking back to the sentence that grabbed my attention, we see that it claims that the right to choose our lifestyle should not be removed by any force outside of our own free will is ingrained in all people across the globe. For those people in the factory, there was no freedom of choice. Either they work at their towns factory, or they starve. I have a hard time believing that we human, all around the world, understand and are able to practice free-will.

A Model of Christian Charity (I know, not very creative)

Ok I'm not going to lie, I was completely confused by this prompt, and I'm not sure I understood very well but here is want I think it is saying. It almost seems that what John Winthrop is trying to say is that love should be complete and unconditional. Almost the type of love that holds a family together. The examples that he uses, with the mother's realtionship towards her child, the intense friendship between Jonathon and David (brothers?) in the bible, and the relationship of the two sisters, Ruth and Naomi, also in the bible, seemed to almost imply that in settings like these, the type of love that you need to show goes above everything else, and is the absolute priority. And that, Mr. Cook, is what I took from this.