Coulisse

In the book we’re reading, the title’s name of which escapes me, many things happen so far. The narrator goes on to describing how slave life is, and how his overseers act towards the slaves. The first overseer was a cruel man with a mouth in need of deep washing. The second overseer was Mr. Hopkins, taking the previous one’s job, after he died, was a man who did not take pride  in whipping slaves, and he was a good overseer to the slaves. Then, Mr. Hopkins was fired from his job, to be replaced by the filthy, Mr. Gore. Mr. Gore no doubt lived up to his name, for he was a creul man, not giving slaves a chance to defend themselves, or giving them a chance in any matter at that. While Gore was lashing a slave, Dembry, the slave ran to the water and stood in it neck deep. Gore said he’d count to three to get out of the water, or else he’d shoot him. Gore got to only three before he shot poor Dembry. The narrator also goes into detail of how he was part of the Main House crew, how cruel the colonel could be, and other such facts.

The two articles here and here state what we’ve already stated. Basically, both summarize that China has pull in this entire mess in Sudan, but they’re not using it at all. They also go on to say what has also been stated; many are dying (or being killed), being displaced from their homes, the bombings, etc.

My opinion: This is genocide. Genocide isn’t a good thing; all humans are equal. Also, we are dealing with people that do affect us and others when we make a decision. For example, China. They play a huge role in this, and anything we do affects our relationship with them, and affects our entire country, maybe even other countries.

Another reminder of the now 48 hour March 6th International Darfur Awareness Day. And we were so fortunate as to have the precious minds of little 3rd graders do a press release like we did, found here.

Good day to you.

In the first out the the eight stages in genocide, people classify others into certain groups like the Germans and Jews. The next stage is symbolization; we give names to the classifications such as “Jews”, and we specify them by how they dress or their ethnic background. Dehumanization is the next stage; one of the group denies humanity of the other group. As in, they think that the others are less human than them; vermin, animals, diseases, even property. Then organization; people are put into militias and specially trained and/or armed. Stage 5 is polarization; basically, they drive the groups apart, such as outlawing intermarriage or social interaction. Next is identification; the victim group is separated out, and death lists are drawn up. People belonging to the victim group may be forced to wear identifiers, kicked into concentration camps, or even starved. Then comes extermination; when the mass killings roll in, and the act is dubbed “genocide”. The reason for being called exterminationis because the killers of the victims do not believe that they are human. The last and final stage (maybe even the most revolting aside from the previous step) is denial; the killers of the genocide is where they dig up graves, persist to burn bodies, and basically try to cover up the evidence and witness. They deny that they’ve done anything wrong, and continue to thrive until they are forced from their power.

 Now, as for the Bush speech….
Basically, he’s backing out. Bush decided to not send troops, and he quotes, “My message to to other nations is: ‘Join with the president and help us get this problem solved once and for all’.” Before that, in the article found here, it says exactly, and I quote the article, “Bush, who famously once wrote “not on my watch” in the margin of a report on the Rwandan killings, decided not to send U.S. troops into Sudan, focusing instead on imposing sanctions, applying diplomatic pressure and training and transporting other nations’ soldiers for peacekeeping there.” Now, I specifically quote the article for that, so don’t get all up in my case.

Moving on, Bush has withdrawn from the plan, and he wants other countries to also step in and help. Normally, I would be against that, but right now, I have to agree. We’re still in Iraq right now, and we can’t send more troops out of the country, to go stop something and put our lives in even more danger, not to mention our relationship with China is an issue. So kudos for you, Bush.

Here is a link to the article: [link]

And here is the summary to the article:

Steven Spielberg was appointed the man in charge of all the Beijing Olympics commercials to promote the event. Not too long ago, he withdrew from that position. He did this because China was not addressing the bloodshed going on in Darfur. China, as you should know, is hosting the upcoming Olympics. Though, after his leave, Spielberg was bashed for his opinion on the troubles in Darfur. Many news papers have printed that basically he has no right to tell China what they’re doing and not doing, and how they handle things.

Frederick D. was many things, including a human rights and woman rights activist, and many other things that helped achieve justice for all Americans, especially for African-Americans, women, and minority groups. He was a man committed to freedom.

Douglass often served as an advisor for presidents, including Abraham Lincoln, who said he was the most creditable man of the nineteenth century. Later in his life, he was appointed to several offices, and then by President Grant, he was to be secretary of the commission of Santo Domingo.

Fred D. taught himself to read, and he soon realized that was the key to freedom. At only twenty years old, he escaped to north, gaining his freedom, then settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts along with his wife. There, he became part of the abolitionist movement.

William Loyd Garrison hired him as a spokesman for the Mass. Anti-Slavery Society, having realized Freddie’s full potential …. and now I can’t even concentrate on this because some peopleare running their mouths. I apologize for the inconvenience, but it’s the morning, someone’s talking non-stop, and I’m about to rip something to shreds.

Now, basically, I’m going to get through this before I go insane. He supported woman’s rights, but he said that if anyone was to get rights first, it should be men. In his newly run news paper, the North Star, it once said, “Right is of no Sex - Truth is on no Color.” Freddie died in February of 1895, as the article said, “having just attended a Woman’s Council meeting.”

On March 6th, we will be asking students from around the world to visit the project Darfur blog and leave thoughtful comments about:

1.  Darfur Awareness
2. Ideas for taking action

Right now in Darfur, something called genocide is going on. The government is paying and supplying the Janjaweed (a rogue group) to kill and strike terror on the villagers and people of Darfur in Sudan. That is, basically put. We, the US, are trying to do something about it, but not enough is being done, and the stress of our relationship with China is also hovering. This means that if we upset China by bringing in troops to stop this, and we get on China’s bad side, it’s game over for us. No one wants to get on China’s bad side, because, the have real weapons of mass destruction, and quite frankly, I don’t want to get nuked, and many others may share this opinion. So, you see how delicate our situation here with China and Sudan is.  Though it is our “global responsibility” to watch out for other countries, we need to stay on our toes and be careful.

The blog can be found at http://manyvoicesdarfur.blogspot.com/, and click on the wiki link in the top left corner.

Alright, I finished my story before winter break, and I need to do some heavy editing. I need to back up a bit and forget the publishing part of this for now, because that’s not the entire point of the project. I need to go back and think about where I was when I started the book, somewhere around November, and now, and write anotherprocess journal about, or else the panel for MYP will surely fail me, if I’m not ready for them with this. That is the biggest point of MYP projects, actually. Finding out ways to do some things, then adjusting them to your personal needs, and reporting that. Without this information, as I have mentioned, I willfail. Now, I know editing is a huge part, and Lulu.com is calling for me to submit the story, but if I don’t get something down about research or noodletools or SOMETHING, I’ll have to withdraw myself from the project, which I think I might do after all.

When I started my story, I was thinking something along the lines of “Okay, let’s have two main characters, both guys, both outlaws, one convicted of murder, one a shape shifter.” A few weeks into the writing, I began to not exactly prefer the 3rd person view, I didn’t want to go back and edit everything, and I was more used 1st person female view, so I said, “Hey, why not throw in one of my older characters in, make her read minds, and have the entire past 25 pages be a memory that she saw!” So I went with that, and switched it up.

Come November, I was at page 63, and feeling doubtful that I would finish on time. I wasn’t completely sure as to where the story was headed, and I was slacking in my writing. I wasn’t getting pages done fast enough, even though a lot of it was stored in my mind, and I needed to quicken my pace. Thanks Giving arrived, and I was so sure that I’d be too busy with family, that I wouldn’t find time to type. Then I found that we’d taken the family laptop on our trip, and I got about 20 good pages in that break. By then, I didn’t know, that I’d only have about 20 more pages left. I quickly wrapped the story up, say, 2 days before winter break, and I was home free. The longest journey of the project was over, and now I needed to delve into organization.

Right now, my mother, friends, and I are working on editing the story, and I need to apply the edited script to my computer copy. At this point, I no longer care if I publish it, (that can be accomplished after the project), but the MYP part of the project, so I don’t end up failing. If I fail, well, let’s just say that’s not the best option for one’s self-esteem, especially if I’ve been working on this story for… almost nine months now. Wow, there’s a scary metaphor. My story has grown for nines months, and now it’s finally time for the world to greet it and take it in. Yikes, that’s the last thing I want my story process to be compared to; pregnancy. Though it is a good metaphor (if I do say so myself), I don’t like it. This never happened.