Nuremburg Trial Movie

The part of the movie that I have reacted most strongly towards was the film of the prisoners of the concentration camps. They looked like walking skeletons. I had never seen anything like that before, and what made it worse was that these were images of what real people looked like. I was amazed that any of them were still alive. They were so thin that they scarcely looked human. I cannot believe that the soldiers at the concentration camps were able to do that to other people and still sleep at night. It was also terrible seeing the way to corpses were treated. The worst part was the faces. Each prisoner still had a recognizable, individual face. This made them appear more human, yet completely unnatural. Their heads were by far the largest part of their bodies, and their expressions were of pure torment. I think it is absolutely horrible that anyone had to be put through that ever, and this happened less than a century ago.

The Nazi leaders' arrogance is particularly upsetting. They made the orders that made people dwindle to these walking skeletons, yet they still all pleaded not guilty. I would have thought that at least one of the officers would have fessed up to what he did. However, there are also the countless German soldiers, some of whom were in the film, who were not punished for their crimes in the concentration camp. I don't know how one can claim that they were just following orders. It was obvious that what they were doing was wrong, yet very few stood up for the Jews.

Self-reflection

This class has been a very enjoyable experience for me. I feel like I performed rather well, and that took a lot of time. I remember the beginning of the year when I would stay up really late doing homework and projects while juggling a night class at Lycoming College. These are now some of my fondest memories of this school year, even though I was a stressed out wreck at the time. I feel like these sort of nights were some of my best lessons because I am sure that I will have plenty more nights just like those when I go off to college. Thanks to this class, I feel prepared for the workload.

One of the things I did well in this class was memorization of the material. When a history class is taught well, I have no problem learning the facts presented. I definitely had a fantastic teacher this year. A lot of the material covered in class is now a part of my base knowledge of the history of the world. I especially enjoy being able to watch Jeopardy and answer many of the history questions. I always think to myself, "I learned that in Maz's class."

This class has expanded my knowledge so much because it covered topics that none of my other history classes had covered. When thinking about this class I compare it specifically to a world history class I took in seventh grade. That class covered many ancient civilizations of the world. I remember enjoying that class as well. One thing that we learned in APEH that I have never really been exposed to before was how different countries affected each other throughout time. They interacted in more ways than just war, and this class showed me how European countries developed together over the last thousand years.

My one regret is that recently, I have let slight senior-itis set in. I know many of my peers would give me a funny look and tell me that I am still working rather hard, but approach of the end of the year makes it hard to focus. One problem I have is that I have so many extracurricular activities. However, from this I can gain the lesson of being more careful with my time and not committing to too many things in college. Don't worry though, I am really excited to be Albert Einstein for Meeting of the Minds, and I will try to blow you away. That probably won't really happen, but I will definitely have a lot of fun with it.

Israel vs. Palestine

In class today, when the historical facts as well as the demands of the Israelis and the Palestinians were made known to us, I can see how this could be a rather difficult issue to solve. This is not only because the fighting has been going on for thousands of years. It is also because both sides believe that they are in the right, and it is hard to decide who really is in the right.

One of the biggest pluses to the proposed plan of the Israelis is that they are willing to give up land if it will end the violence. However, I would not characterize Israelis as a bunch of pacifists because they have clearly done many horrible things to the Arabs. There is also of course the question of which land to give up, and what constitutes as a "fair" splitting of the area. For example, I am sure that Israel would not want to give up any large part of Golan Heights, the militarily superior area.

The main argument that I am picking up from the Palestinians is that they were a country first. Israel pretty much took them over, so there is no way to really say which part of the area Israel deserves to get. Palestinians believe that they do not deserve any land at all, and they want to kick Israel out. The Palestinians more belligerent popular opinion may seem off-putting to foreign countries, but who is to say that they are wrong in there beliefs? Israel seems to have just sprung up out of nowhere in the last century, effectively wiping Palestine from the face of the Earth (in a geographical sense).

Coheed and Cambria: Second Stage Turbine Blade

This is the album artwork for Coheed and Cambria's first full-length album, which was first released in 2002. This art might not have a lot to do with worldly events at the time, but it is definitely easier for me to understand. The dragonfly is actually a key part of the story behind Coheed and Cambria's five album concept series. Supposedly, they carry some sort of mutational virus.

While it would be impossible to know this without knowing the story, which only a bunch of obsessed Coheed fans know, the tale does make some interesting allusions to past history. The conflict is caused by a supreme Tri-Mage who destroyed the other 11, which may or may not be an arbitrary number, mages. He then used control of the media to gain the praise of the citizens of the whole galaxy because he ended the Mage Wars, which he had also started. This point in the story immediately reminded me of the way that Hitler, Stalin, and other dictators use the media to gain power.

Another reason I chose this art piece is because album art seems to be the most common form of artwork anymore. I realize it might not be quite as "artistic" as some of the abstract stuff that ruled the 20th century, but times are still changing. Art comes in all sorts of forms. For example, graffiti is now considered to be a form of artistic expression.

Andy Warhol: Campbell's Soup Cans

I think many people know about the connection between Andy Warhol and the Campbell Soup Company. This painting, depicting 32 different Campbell Soups, was painted in 1962, and it caused an uproar in the artistic community. At the time of this painting, abstract expressionism dominated the art scene. This painting upset other painters, who then "questioned" Warhol's "motives." I just think that the presence of an uproar is kind of funny because I can at least understand what this painting represents, unlike other art of the time. Of course, the artistic community makes up a very minor minority of the total population, so I am sure that most people did not care about how simple these paintings are. This shows that commercial companies prefer simplicity because they are trying to attract customers, who also prefer simplicity.

Hans Hofmann: Simplex Munditis

Simplex Munditis means something along the lines of "without ornamentation." What that has to do with this painting, which was painted in 1962, I have no idea. This is a work of Abstract Expressionism. Which seems to have many forms, though these are supposedly contributed to the tastes and techniques of the artists.

Hofmann was known to focus on color relationships and giving attention to apparent depth. Knowing this, the one thing that really stands out to me is the reddish purple shape in the center. It is difficult to see because right behind most of the shape is a red background. However it is easy to see where it mixes a little bit with the blue. The resulting effect of this shape, at least for me when I look at it, is that the purple shape is out in front of the rest of the painting, but it is still hard to see because of the colors. Whether this was the effect that Hofmann was going for or not, I don't know. However, it is hard to pick out one concrete interpretation for art like this.

Connection Across Time (Current Events)

One of the things I have heard over the years of listening to debates on global warming is that the temperature increase is a natural process. Some people claim that things such as animal waste and volcano eruptions result in the accumulation of greenhouse gases. This is only kind of true. It is true that volcanoes release greenhouse gases, along with all of the different kinds of gases that are in our atmosphere. These gases are needed to keep our planet at a relatively constant temperature. What industrial processes have done is made an excess of greenhouse gases.

This is easily understood when one considers the volcanic eruption in Iceland, which only occurred weeks ago. Yeah, sure that volcano spat out some of those nasty greenhouse gases, but overall, it actually reduced the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. It prevented many planes from polluting with their own emissions, saving many tons of gas from being dispersed.

We don't really know if the planet is supposed to warm up over time or not. One's thing is for sure though: we are doing it way too rapidly.

Patrick Buchanan

This is a pretty interesting and slightly distressing article. Being an American citizen, it's always nice to think we are ranked at the top of things. What do you expect though when we export all of our producing jobs. At least we still have awesome farms. It is a good thing that we are worried about our environment and resources though. The rest of the world will run out before we do, which is comforting. Another reason why we are being careful about preserving our environment is to prevent global warming. The whole world claims to be concerned about this problem, yet China's greenhouse gas emissions are not limited because they are a "developing country". How much of the global economy do they have to control before they are considered "developed"?

Another, probably more important, part of the article talks about the alliances that China is making with countries that are hostile towards the US. While isolationism did not seem to work at the beginning of the 20th century, that seems to be the policy that most countries want us to follow now. Of course, the article also says that China has stayed out of conflict for a while. This might be the secret of becoming a global superpower. I think it was after WWI that the Americans emerged the strongest superpower, and that was after a long period of refusing to enter the war.

The U.N. Security Council and the Korean Conflict

One thing I find rather interesting about the Korean Conflict is the fact that the United States and China had directly fought each other. The fact that the USSR and the US never fought each other during the Cold War is stressed by most historical accounts. However, I do not understand why the conflict between China and the US is played down so much. They were both permanent members of the Security Council. I think that's why I was surprised that this disagreement had not led to an all-out war. I also amazed that the United Nations did not fall apart when conflicts like this arose since the UN was made up of communist and democratic nations.

Of course, I think the Chinese delegates to the UN at the time did not represent the Communists of China. I read somewhere that the USSR had made motions to replace the Chinese delegates, but these motions were not passed through the '50s. I guess China did not really fight back against the containment of communism. The Chinese were more upset by having the war so close to their borders. I guess it all depends on if you would consider the Chinese UN delegates to support the Chinese involvement in the conflict. Either way it seems like MacArthur pushed the Security Council into a rather dangerous position.

Oskar Fischinger: Motion Painting I

Oskar Fischinger was actually not a painter. He was a movie producer. This picture is part of a motion picture that was played along with Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3. The picture changed, at a rate of 24 frames a second, along with the music. Different moods might have caused the different colors, and elaborate runs might have caused the swirls. I don't really know because I have never seen the motion picture by Fischinger. I just thought it was really interesting how he had wanted to find a way to mix music and painting together in art. Apparently, he did it to find a way to escape the factory-like production of Hollywood.

Wols: Painting

Here is another painting called Painting, and it was painted around the same time as the painting by Bacon. This painting however, is kind of a mystery to me. It looks like a block of wood. The dark dots could be knots in the wood. However, the orange dots and lines would not be part of the wood. They would have been put there artificially by whoever is cutting the wood. Maybe this is a picture about removing imperfections. The Nazis did this by exterminating those that they did not believe were the perfect examples of the Aryan race. If these knots were removed from the wood, there would be no purpose for this painting. There would be no beauty in the would because it is variety that attracts the eye to the image. Just like it is variety that gives energy and excitement to civilization.

Francis Bacon: Painting

This painting, called Painting, by Francis Bacon was painted in 1946. The picture is supposed to be of a corrupted British politician, apparently. One of the reasons that I chose this picture was that it was one of the few that depicted human figures during this time period. While Bacon was known to be one of the few who did this, he was still regarded as one of the most influential painters of the time. Most of his paintings are of grotesque images that cause despair. In this, the figure in the "unofficial uniform" of a British official is standing in front of a cow carcass. This is designed to show that under the dress of an officer of civilization is a cruel and violent man.

I would also like to say that this painting reminds me of something that might be found in a comic book, judging by the way the colors are painted and the nature of the picture. I wonder if this is some of the first "comic book art" that was created. It all had to start somewhere.

What is Communism vs. Fascism?

We all know that Marxist Socialism was never established in Russia. Stalin's Communist Party was nothing more than a name. It never followed true communist ideals. No instead of a dictatorship of the proletariat, a dictatorship of Stalin was established. I still lack some basic fundamental understanding of fascism, but I find it difficult to tell the difference between Stalin's Russia and Fascist Europe. Hitler and Mussolini were dictators. Stalin was one too. There does not seem to be much difference in the way they did things. So why did they hate each other? That is one thing I will never really understand. The book says that Communists were left wing, but I do not understand how there can be anything liberal about rule under a dictator.

It must only be in the name. I guess this should not be too surprising that this would be enough for Hitler to not like Stalin, given Hitler's racist beliefs. It might have also stemmed from his belief that Slavs were inferior people. Whatever the reason, the resulting alliance between Russia and the West after Hitler's attack on Russia seems very unlikely. Of course that was the cause of the post-war tensions and the split between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. It is interesting to see that people of very different ideologies can unite against a common foe.

Connection Across Time

It is interesting to study the rise of dictators right before the second world war. All of the dictators seem to have started off in a relatively insignificant party. That would have made it easier to gain complete control of the party. The real challenge then lies in getting support for the party after control over that party has been gained by an individual. This support will only come during hard times. It was the economic troubles in Europe that brought Hitler and Mussolini to power.

While I doubt that there is any threat of a dictator coming to power in the United States, I wonder how bad the economy has to get in order to allow a third party a strong foothold in our country. I know that there are other parties around in the US, but they are overwhelmingly crushed by the popularity of the Republicans and the Democrats. Instead, other minor parties support the candidates of one or the other. Economic hardships just are not bad enough right now to cause any revolution of this system. We may be facing some of the worst times I have ever seen, but I am sure it does not match the difficulties of the Great Depression at all. Another thing that makes it difficult for a third party to gain power is the change in media. As the 20th century progressed, the media became a more integral part of society. It is expensive to advertise effectively. No third party can stand up to the raw financial power the two main parties possess. I do not know how the rest of the world functions in terms of elections (at least in those countries that do hold elections), but it seems incredible to think about how a small party, such as the fascists, could gain so much power.

Brutality of Soldiers

After learning about the atrocities of the Rape of Nanking, I can see how widespread the brutality of the Axis Powers was. The soldiers seem to be able to perform the most despicable deeds without being troubled by there consciouses. I also wrote about this in my journal and the one thing that this really makes me wonder is if the civilians of the same country as the military that conducted these activities would have wished their enemies to suffer as badly as they did. Was the cause of this brutality a result of gruesome training given to the Japanese boys by the government, or is that just the mindset people get when they go to war?

I wonder about the causes of the actions of the Japanese as well as the German soldiers, because we are led to believe that they were some of the most evil beings imaginable. However, the propaganda of the Axis Power nations probably was designed to cast the troops of the Allied Powers in a similar light. What kind of atrocities were committed by our side that we have never heard about? I ask this because I have heard a few stories of terrible things that the United States did to civilians in the Vietnam War. This is surely downplayed by the government because it was so recent, and many veterans remain scarred by what happened then. Hearing about events such as the Rape of Nanking makes me wonder if other countries tell similar terrible histories about the United States. I know there are plenty of people in the world who hate the United States, and maybe they have a better reason than our history books want us to know. Of course, maybe it is also through exaggeration.

Physics and Philosophy

I found it interesting how both physics and philosophy seemed to "fall apart" at the same time. Physics, always trying to delve for a more fundamental understanding of the universe, led to the realization that we have no idea why atoms behave the way they way they do. Before that, there had been great confidence in the fact that physics seemed to be able to solve any problem that society faced. The new physics also led to terrible new discoveries. The ability to split the atom led to the creation of the atomic bomb. This also led to the ability to harness nuclear power for peaceful energy, but the results of the Manhattan Project had caused people to fear and distrust physics.

Philosophy also grew more confusing and more threatening at the same time. Freud was the most famous and most controversial psychologist of the time. His views were not so widely accepted as those of physics however, even though the new views of physics were basically saying we knew nothing. A much less popular -- and in my opinion much less valid -- science, psychology seemed to be following the trends of physics. This might be because the overall view of the universe changed with physics. I think it was this sort of thing that gave rise to the modern trend of agnosticism.

Connection Across Time

After exploring the different forms of art and music of the Age of Anxiety, I realize that artistic movements are often limited in whom they appeal to, just like the cultural transformations during the Renaissance were restricted to the lifestyle of the upper class. Old movements still live on today. As I said before, the music that was introduced at this time broke the rules of composing that existed before. However, not all music today breaks these rules, or at least not so many rules. New movements seem only to pile on top of old ones. Artists also probably try to copy some styles of previous times. It is like part of the way humans learn by passing knowledge, and art, down through time. There are still people today who practice dadaism, but there are certainly a lot more people who don't. As new things are developed, they don't take over whatever field they are a part of. They simply add to it in a way that allows others to specialize according to their own personal preferences.

There is still music played today that was written by Beethoven and Mendelssohn. While there are new forms of music being created today, I certainly do not have any knowledge of what these new things might be. The music I listen to may be written during the current time, but the basic form of the music is fundamentally the same as older music. As Dali said, people are not always ready to be exposed to the new art of the day.

Pablo Picasso: The Three Musicians

I felt that I would not be able to complete an entry on the art of the Age of Anxiety without mentioning Picasso. I also figured I should do a piece of cubism. However, nothing that was cubism inspired any emotion in me. I thought the whole reason for art was to inspire emotion. This might just be a failing on my part to appreciate the beauty of this form of art, but these straight lines do nothing for me. I find this slightly ironic because I really enjoy looking at buildings that were created using functionalism. This painting should also be considered functional, getting its point across without excess lines or colors. There is not a complete disregard for the presence of lighting. There looks like there are a few shadows in the lower left hand corner of the painting, but the two-dimensional feeling of this piece makes it impossible for me to picture anything. I think I enjoy surrealism more, which may be abstract painting, but it at least inspires the imagination a bit more.

Salvador Dali: The Temptation of St. Anthony

This picture had caught my eye during class. The horse looks especially demonic. At the same time, it looks majestic. The man wielding the cross, whom I would presume to be St. Anthony seems to be warding off these godlike creatures of nature. At the same time, he is warding off the woman that is riding on top of the elephant. This scene makes a lot more sense when I learned the title of the work: The Temptation of St. Anthony, which I did not know during my search (as you can imagine that made it tricky to find the picture). Then a little bit of research revealed to me that the temptation that St. Anthony faced while in the Egyptian desert is a popular theme in art. That means that St. Anthony is trying to ward off these creatures which may be pagan gods. I think it is fascinating how majestic and terrible a little bit of surrealist distortion can make these animals. This picture is a very awe-inspiring work of art.

Henri Matisse: Woman with a Hat

This colorful painting done from 1905 by Henri Matisse demonstrates the increasing emphasis on color that took place during the "Fauves" movement. I find it interesting to see how many different colors are used on each object. The face has six or seven different colors on it, and that is not including the features such as eyes or her mouth. Still, her face is very distinct and it is not hard to picture what the model for this painting may have looked like.

Her face is sandwiched between two dark features of the painting, her body and her hat. This makes the face the artistic focus of the painting, but many people who look at the painting question the nature of her hat. The fact that it is so big makes me think it is one of those fruit hats. However, its dark colors seem to contradict this assumption. The features are very blurry and distorted, so it is impossible to say what it is for sure. This is probably by design. I am sure that many artists like to have an element of mystery in their paintings. If I had to take a guess, I would say it was a fruit hat, and it was given darker colors to give an overall balancing effect to the painting, with the bright face in the center of the painting.

20th Century Music

Being a musician, I am somewhat familiar with the music of the 20th century. I can also attest to the dissonant nature of this music. Each part, when played by itself makes no sense compared to what I am used to hearing from playing classical composers and even current artists. When it is all put together, though, it sounds amazing. I used to think that was due to the talents of the composers who were able to pull off a pleasing sound made up of chaotic, interwoven parts. If it caused riots at its introduction, that might not be the case. I might be used to hearing that kind of music. Still, there must be some talent involved because some of the stuff I have heard just sounds terrible. Unless my ear is not as adjusted as I would like to think, which I will admit could very well be the case.

Of course for the same reason, that is my background as a musician, I can see why people would have started to break the "rules" of composing. In music theory, we have learned that early music was all written for the church and certain conventions must be followed by these composers. Staying inside these rules results in a limited amount that one can do with music. That means that after a while, it would become impossible to write a song that does not sound like the work of an earlier composer. Being new meant being different to the popular taste. This is probably true in any field of art.

Henri de Groux: Gas Masks

This etching by Groux portrays the gas men of World War I as beings who are not human. This is of course befitting to the style of ruthless killing that these soldiers caused. Underneath each of these masks, however, is a person leading their own life. The mask transforms them into a killing robot-like individual. Soldiers in the trenches of World War I must have felt great terror when they saw enemies approaching with these masks on. All of the art I saw depicting gas men cast these soldiers in a light of fear. Most of this picture is very dark, and it is hard to make out the pictures of the soldiers. This is because of the cloud of gas behind them. I wonder how many soldiers survived gas attacks. The cloud seems so thick and oppressive. The experience would certainly drive anyone crazy. I guess the gas would have been somewhat visible, even though I had always imagined the gas to be an invisible killer. I think it probably would have been much more frightening to see the gas approaching, even though soldiers falling dead from apparently no cause would definitely be enough to scare me too.

Fernand Léger: Membership to the Keys

Membership to the Keys, 1929, by Fernand Léger, strikes me as a very odd piece. This seems to be a time period filled with very abstract art. I have no idea what to make of this piece, which is one of the reasons I picked it. I first thought that many painters were creating these abstract paintings due to the mental stresses of the war. However, Léger had started painting abstract forms before he fought in the French Army.

The keys in this painting are the most dominant feature. I feel like these keys are those to some arcane secret. Maybe they are the keys that can put the rest of the objects in the painting together. I also think that they could be the keys to power, thrown in with some other arbitrary junk. Another part of the picture that really catches my attention is the arrangements of the straight lines. To me, they kind of appear to be the lines that make up the framework of a three dimensional graph. However, the vertical line does not line up with the intersection of the other two lines, which would normally be the case in a mathematical model. This more than anything gives the painting a very unbalanced look when I inspect it. All of the other shapes are relatively meaningless to me. The thing on the left might be the moon, but the keys and the lines leave the greatest impression on me.

George Grosz: Explosion

George Grosz shows in his painting Explosion, 1917, the destruction of a city by an inescapable bombardment. Grosz was considered to be mentally unstable when he painted this picture. It appears to be obvious that any mental trauma he suffered was a direct result of the violence he was exposed to in the war. There are shapes of what might be people, or parts of people, towards the bottom of the painting, but the majority of this piece of art is dominated by the color red. This is the color of the explosion, the color of blood. However, it makes me think of a fire. The city seems to have been turned into a furnace, burning its inhabitants. The process of war has been turned into a largely industrial activity. At this point, war has become nothing but a list of statistics. The age of honor and pride in war has completely vanished. World War I was mechanical and unforgiving.

Who was Franz Ferdinand?

Let me start out by saying wow, Franz Ferdinand is one unlucky guy. History only really remembers him as the guy who was shot in Sarajevo. I don't really know anything else about him. What kind of a person was he? Was he going to be an anti-Serbian leader? It is even more depressing to think about how his wife suffered the same fate on June 28, 1914. She was probably innocent and undeserving of being killed. The death of someone innocent seems to be the way that most major revolutions start, or at least the revolutions that produce major results fast. The deaths of the weak French King Louis XVI and the former czar Nicholas II, who had abdicated and no longer threatened the revolution, are examples of such deaths, or at least in my eyes. These people differ from a repressive ruler like Saddam Hussein because a repressive ruler works with a network of ruthless, loyal followers who may still opperate under the death of their leader. This could easily lead to war, as we are seeing today. The assassination of a relatively benign leader is not met by such crippling consequences as other leaders because these rulers do not have such a close group of followers that were relied upon in life to take up the cause of revenge.

Franz Ferdinand obviously had some powerful alllies, however. His death caused a global feud. Does this mean that he would have had the power, or desire, to be an oppressive ruler? I don't necessarily think so. I think strong feelings of nationalism, causing the citizens of Austria-Hungary to feel insulted by the assassination, were more the cause of war than powerful government bodies. If the citizens of his country were so upset by his death, Franz Ferdinand was probably expected to be a good ruler for his people.

Connection Across Time

World War I seems to have started over rivaling alliances, with the assassination of Franz Ferdinand as the catalyst to actually start the fighting. Why were these countries hostile in the first place? Greed. The alliance consisted of empires that wanted more land. Since this war, there have been no empires. Yet, there are still countries that want to expand their borders today. These wars are few, but fierce. Now I can see how one might argue that the effects of World War I are still felt almost a century after the war. I doubt I'll live to see the day that these territorial conflicts are resolved, but once people of each ethnicity have their own land and own government, how long will it take for the next major conflict, or series of conflicts, and what will be the cause?



I know I probably have a somewhat warped view of the world due to my exposure to American media and my lack of traveling, but it seems that most conflicts around the world are civil wars of countries that are significantly underdeveloped compared to countries like our own. This is most likely a result of imperialism, which stripped countries of their resources and governments. One of the best examples of such a country that I can think of right now is Afghanistan, which was torn apart after Russia invaded. Hopefully, it is possible for these countries to eventually develop a strong, stable government since the United Nations is designed to keep countries from invading each other and causing a similar situation all over again. One would expect this to help domestic tranquility within each country. However, is this not what China is trying to do right now, gain stability and power in the world, and don't we hate them for this? Of course, we also disapprove of their dictatorial form of rule. Maybe the lingering effects of WWI are still felt because of nationalism, in addition to the damaged countries that were once colonies. It would be nice if countries were able to start feeling more unified as members of the United Nations.