Author: justinrod717

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This piece by Steven Biel is the opening statement for the book American Disasters which itself is a compilation of works that describe and give theories based on and around numerous disasters throughout U.S. history. To start his piece Biel begins with a story of where he was in August of 1998, primarily working at sea “with titanic research and recovery expedition”. This is how he goes into the medias use and abuse of the idea of disaster and how it has affected the common thought today with the idea that if the media isn’t filming it, it isn’t a disaster. From here Biel goes into the progression of what a disaster is and how the pieces within the book American Disasters. Including the prospects and ideologies of faith, community, and possibility. Along with these he gives chapter and pieces  within the book that do a magnificent job covering what he believes including a text that goes into the feminist and black viewpoints of the titanic in the chapter “Possibility” which John does a good job of summarizing and explaining within his post.

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George Orwell’s Politics and the English Language emphasizes how the English language has been continuously lowering in progression and standards for quite some time. Orwell does this by emphasizing on four ideas as well as using sentences from multiple text throughout modern history that gives credit to his theory on the lower standards and advancement of the English language. These four focus points include “Dying Metaphors”, “Operators or Verbal False Limbs”, “Pretentious Diction”, and “Meaningless Words”. These phrases included sentences that structure and execution leave the reader wanting and emphasize the points placed by Orwell on the use of the English language. Going on into his piece Orwell describes the worse perpetrator in the use of inadequacies of the English language as coming from the political literature. Finally Orwell goes into the curing of the English language giving six rules in order to better the use of the language.

This idea on the devolving of language greatly affects those in the academic field of those who use English. As Juan states in his statement of digital history the lack of information and gathering of info can also be attributed to the deterioration of the English language

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For the class presentation I decided to use the recent video game Nioh. Nioh is set in the cusp of the Edo period in Japan durring the Battle of Sekigahara with a focus on the historical warrior faction the Samurai. Though primarily a work of fiction including the application of demons and spirits within the game, it brings some historical accuracy with many of the characters representing actual historical figures. This includes the protaginist whom is supposed to represent William Adams, who is historicaly known as the first western Samurai. This being said the fiction of the game is prevelant even here, as the original Adams was of Briitish descent and had dark hair while the games Adams is of Irish descent and has fair colored hair. Apart from this a subplot within the game is the war between two factions of Samurai and the impact it has on the remaining, this too is fairly historicaly accurate to the war between eastern and western japan led by Tokugawa Ieyasu and Toyotomi Hideyori respectively.

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After reviewing the post scribed over the course of the semester it easy to see the improvements and changes that occurred. That is no to say that the writing in the beginning was bad by any stretch of the imagination, however it did seem unfocused and for lack of a better word timid. This seemed to stem from a lack of direction in how and what the full outlines of the writings should be leading to simple summarization of the works in the beginning. This changed fairly quickly with the addition of opinions on subjects, such as Juan’s piece that showed his viewing of an event concurring with evidence of events from differing time periods. As well as Zhedrick’s piece on Isaac giving reasons to the abilities at the time. Along with opinions the addition of the importance of the pieces themselves where not lost with post including the significance of the works themselves seen in post such as Chris’.

On a more technical term of the writings early on, the use of hyper links and quotations seemed to be either lacking or spontaneous at best. However this was soon cleared up, most likely due to the class time used to go over it, and post such as Chris’ and Rebeka’s showing the marked improvement in the use of others post.

Overall the post created over the course share a common trait in the idea that they show the significant differences of ideals and views of the same works. This in itself helps a great deal in the view and understanding of a piece of writing from multiple viewpoints. Personally I have viewed certain post in order to try and gain an understanding of the piece in a way I had not previously, and then I try to mimic this ideal with other works to try and angle them in differing ways.

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Craig Offman’s article primarily focuses on the book by Erik Larson called “Isaac”s Storm” and studies the accuracy of some of its findings using Lew Flincher of the American Meteorologist Society as a view point on the matter. With this Flincher describes a slightly differing view point of aspects of the book, such as the estrangement of the brothers and the classification of the storm. Whereas Larson calls upon the inability of Issac. Flincher, much like Zhericker, states that Isaac used all of the abilities he had with the information he had at the time. Overall the reasoning of this article seems to be focused on the idea that Larson is not infallible in his reasoning of the past and that his writing has both concrete evidence as well as some humanizing fictions, however he also shows that there will always be some differing views on the reasoning for actions in history as he points out the different opinions on the Class of the storm with multiple “professionals” giving different opinions.

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This finale to the book Isaac’s Storm covers what happened after the storm that had annihilated the town Galveston had moved on from the area. It encompasses the destruction that had been wrought to the town stating that entire areas of housing and buildings had in fact been simply swept away in the tide of the storm. Along with this the amount of wounded and deceased were staggering, with numbers of dead being estimated at the end in the 6000 range.It goes into the clean up stages of the town directly after the storm with the searching of individuals, both alive and dead, as well as the disposing of corpses that now littered what was left of the town. These tactics included burial, both in the ground as well as at see with the latter coming back to haunt them, and finally mass burning. During this time help and aide came to Galveston from many other areas of the country including the aide of the red cross. Soon the town was being rebuilt, along with added defenses against future storms including a seawall and the rising of Galveston itself up a predetermined amount of feet. Isaac would record what had transpired before and during the storm for the weather bureau who would both stretch the truth as though to seem as though they had tried to mitigate the destruction in some way. For as Peter Rossi stated the weather bureau at the time, and even now, has a lot less accuracy in the prediction of weather and storms than is let on. It is due to this most likely that the events of Isaac’s Storm were as bad as they were, though it is of little consequence to focus on a what if scenario. The book ends with a brief outline of Issac and Josephs dealings in later life as well as the time of their deaths As well as a look at the Galveston for what it was, is, and could have been.

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Smiths work on the Chicago fire of 1871 looks deeper into the “fire literature” that came from the disaster and how the views of the act were discerned. Over all Smith states that the immediate thought to come from the fire were those of a religious ideal and showed the fire, for a smaller portion, as a punishment from the divine for the sins committed and represented within the boundaries of the city. However this perspective was over shadowed by the idea, as Smith states, that the fire was a clear indication of Chicago’s singular importance and individuality. Of course the written pieces on the fire range away from the ideas of Christianity and religion leading to the considered glory of the Chicagoan’s as they valiantly and stoically reacted to the burning. Smith gives quite a few individual statements of the time in regards to the abilities and bravery of the Chicago people. This sense of disaster bringing out the best of us extended to the rest of the country as articles defined the immense relief effort done in order to help the city of Chicago.  However with such a disastrous event there comes a need to blame someone or something and this is not abandoned in this disaster. Smith continues his work with the description of works that told of satanism, hidden societies, and other such things that could have played a part in the cause and destruction of the fire. This effectively as Smith stated showed Chicago as an innocent bystander hurt by a much more nefarious plot. A bleaker outlook on the events also took hold with the statements of looting and alcoholism ravaging the town as the people fled the fire. This was also coupled with other maladies coming from the fire including the release of convicts into the populace as an escape from the raging inferno. Smith gives credence to the less then appealing articles as a coping mechanism of the populace by scapegoating those that they had already had a fear and dislike of, similarly seen in the story of Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow.