Welcome...and initial guidelines...

This blog will be used in the spring of 2008 by 80+ students at Drexel University to investigate the effects of Iraq on culture and the reverse. Our goal will be to better understand why the US is in Iraq, and to question whether literature can help us on this journey.

Weekly plans and other materials will always be posted in Vista, not this blog. So go to Bb Vista to get the discussion prompts and other instructions.

I intend this blog to manage our discussions and track our collective investigation.

You should have received an email from me inviting you to become a contributor to this blog. The email was sent Monday afternoon to your official Drexel email address.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Titanic isn't the only thing in 1912...

When I saw that the date 1912 was given as an example, my mind immediately went to the Titanic. When the move came out about the Titanic I have to say Leonardo DeCaprio first caught my attention. So I got multiple books about the movie because of him, only to find that I was intrigued by the information about the actual ship and itself. April 14th, 1912 the Titanic sank in the open Atlantic Ocean. Of course this is a tragedy in and of itself, but another tragedy occurred on the ship and during those years. The social class issue affected many and added to the disaster.
Social class has always been a problem in the world, but watching The Titanic and reading books about the incident I realized that social class had a lot to do with the number of deaths. People from steerage were not allowed enter the deck until everyone from first class was brought to safety. However, the lifeboats were not filled anywhere near their capacity. Thus, it was almost impossible for the steerage class to survive. Now, does that seem fair? If one had money they lived, if not, good luck. This attitude has continued throughout history causing many wars, fights, and riots. When will it all stop? It seems as though we will never consider everyone to be equal regardless of how much we try. This is what causes so much hatred in the world. People just cannot be civil with each other because of the differences between them. And what’s worse is that we decide to send innocent young men and women into war to fight for some sort of cause. We will see if we are ever strong enough to realize that war is simply not the answer, and people really are equal.

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