Jay Walking: A Year In Review Essay

Edmund Burke once said “Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it.” Unfortunately, it seems that many people who have impacted the world have had a bad history teacher, as history continues to repeat itself to this day. One of the most prime examples of this is seen in the Middle East; where the Palestinian people are fighting against the Israelis over territory in which they both believe belongs to them. It has been a dispute which has resulted in loss of homes, loss of life and loss of money. However, this is nothing new. Eugene O’Neill’s statement, “There is no present and no future, only the past happening over and over again, now” applies strongly to the situation of the past 70 years in the

When it comes to analyzing our history and seeing what has occurred, the past generation often times have been able to influence the new generation through their experiences. The Cambodian Genocide took place in 1975 where, killing not just thousands but millions of innocent individuals. Moreover, The story “Walking With Living Feet” by Dara Horn consists of a story when she was 15-year-old visiting an extermination and concentration camp located in Poland, where the scenery left by our past generation of the Cambodian genocide leaves her with her eyes widened. Whereas the story called “A Birthday Wrapped in Cambodian History” by Loung Ung consists of her experience during the Cambodian genocide where she witnessed a bomb, killing her best

In the article Knowing History and Knowing Who We Are written by David McCullough, is an essay in which he informs how important it is to learn about our history and how it shapes who we are today. Throughout, he connects important events from American History and relates it to our lives and the world around us. The three main ideas; which are “Character and Destiny”, “Our failure, Our Duty”, and “Listening to the Past”. These ideas

She carries the audience through her argument in a logical sequence. First, she makes her claim that student do not know history and explains her reasons (250). She then elaborates on what history students are taught and what exactly is wrong with the methods by which they learn (251). After this, she explains the job of a historian to the reader – how historians confront primary sources to “make some sense of what once happened” (252). To end the article, Simon describes how students can better learn history through exploring primary sources (253). This structuring and organization helps the reader to understand and to believe Simon’s

Throughout time, history has been recorded from the perspective of the victors. It is this bias within the archives that shape the views and motives of the groups involved. As a result of this influence the general way of thinking, and recollection of historical events has been altered to a certain degree to conform to the conqueror’s ideals. Society turns a blind eye to the horrors of the past, preferring to plead ignorance than to face the reality of the cruelty humans are capable of. There are parts in history that conversely cannot be ignored, such as the genocide in Rwanda, 9-11, Terror in Paris and the most historical, the holocaust in World War II, where the true extent of human vindictiveness came to light. In spite

Winston Churchill once said, “History is written by the victors.” This means that victors ultimately document history and have jurisdiction over it. They control the past, present, and the future, establishing their accounts of “history”. In 1984 by George Orwell, Oceania and the Party is the victor and have absolute power over history. The totalitarian government authorizes practically everything and manipulates the citizens to the most extreme level. From psychological manipulation to Newspeak to altering historical records by the Ministry of Truth, the Party is the victor, and will use its maximum power to transform even the most rebellious citizens into loyal ones in seek of attaining complete control of the past, present, and future. They attempt to suppress language and communication, sexual desires, rebellion, and memory both physically and mentally by the means of utilizing technology, Party members, propaganda (Big Brother), and altering history. Doing so grants them power and jurisdiction over the people and brings them closer to their perspective of a “perfect” society.

In The Death of History is Bunk, Patrick Watson argues that the decrease of historical content in the curriculum does not indicate that history, as a subject, is declining. While many complain about the decreasing prominence of history classes in Canadian schools, the content of those classes is excessively dull as it consists of memorizing lists of facts. Despite this, there are still protests that knowledge of “defining events” is required to contribute to “the National Conversation”. However, history is not so simple as a list of events—it is the sum of the small happenings in society around the events. A whole variety of factors influence history, which is created by the common people. Unlike Americans, who turn to their constitution for

As the professor James W Loewer, author of the book, referred that Americans have lost touch with their history. Our teachers and textbooks play important roles in our history study. However, it is their eliding and misrepresenting factoids that have been obstacles in our history studying. Because access to too much errors and distortion, many Americans can hardly understand the past of the country. As a result, we lack the ability to reflect on what’s going on right now and in the future.

“I don’t understand why I have to take this class. All that old history stuff has no relevance to my life, and it is a waste of time to fool with it. My life today is more important than the lives of all those dead and boring people.” This remark is said more frequently than we realize. History is a combination of events that created our present and future today. The past it what simply gives our present it’s value. Another way to look at history is it can be compared to our ancestry line. Without our ancestors we wouldn’t have the make-up of genes that we do today. For example, the Columbian exchange is one of the events in history that has really impacted our world. Not only did one change come from the event but a variety including food, plants, animals, goods and knowledge. History also exposes knowledge to us. It is the resource that allows us to better our lives and expand our knowledge. Believe it or not, our life we peruse everyday consist of history. Including languages, we inherited, religions that weren’t just created on the spot, technologies that have been upgraded in the past years, and the clothing we decided to put on our backs everyday that has evolved from different materials to different fittings. The world has evolved in many ways in the past and it continues to evolve.

Government mutilation of the past is a topic that resurfaces frequently throughout 1984. In Oceania, the Party has complete control over printed materials, including all literature and records. The Party continuously alters information to frame the past in such a way that ensures their image remains untainted. With history twisted in their favor, the Party is able to maintain admiration from Party members, and therefore, power and control. The book suggests lacking access to accurate, unadulterated history causes society to be more easily subjugated and susceptible to obstructions of justice. In the book, Party members blindly accept information presented to them by the government because they simply know no better. They have no objective knowledge

What I find ironically funny is the statement quote used for this essay topic, “Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it”. This is something our government needs to take heed to, because they are the ones repeating history. Right now as we speak banks are again selling houses to people that cannot really afford the payments, they are signing contracts without reading the fine print of the balloon rates that are going to make it impossible to keep their

History is something that we all have knowledge of. It may be family history, or even your own but we all know of an experience that happened in the past. These experiences make us who we are, and they determine how we think. Not only that but they determine our emotions towards certain topics. Through characters in the book, "Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, " written by Jamie Ford, we learn that American identity is based on ones history and if we want America to become a stronger more united place everyone’s history must be accepted.

To know the past is to know the future. In his essay Knowing History and Knowing Who We Are, David McCullough argues about the importance of studying and teaching history. In his essay, he explains that there are three main points about history: character and its effect upon destiny, our failure of teaching the future generation, and the importance of learning and listening to history. David McCullough strongly advocates that audience should start to listen to and teach about the past in order to learn about the way a person’s character can affect their destiny.

There are many reasons why gangs exist. Two prime examples that come to mind are the feeling of belonging to a family and the supply/demand aspect of drugs. If addicts were to receive treatment for their addiction, then gangs would not make nearly as much money as they do from the drug market to fund their lifestyle. Consequently, a lot of these children who do join gangs would presumably have their parents in their lives more to care for them which would deter them from joining gangs for the family aspect. In my opinion, if people did not have chemical dependency’s it would reduce the number of people joining or maintaining their gang status because the drug market would decline and they would have to find another way to make money.

As researchers, we are interested in the topic of Jaywalking. We specifically want to find out through our survey why people jaywalk and what factors may affect how often they jaywalk. We will send this survey through a variety of different methods. Three methods will be used mail, e-mail, and telephone. We will give out 200 surveys for each of the different methods. We will also have dedicated staff for each of these methods which will all rotate to look at each of the methods results. We will target the general population of Fresno and will randomly select people to send out the surveys to.