Eskimo life

For my blog post today I found a diddy on Eskimo Culture. The article I found can be viewed right here on the website Fact Monster http://www.factmonster.com/ce6/society/A0858029.html . Eskimo's are like many other hunting and gathering cultures. What makes Eskimo society stand out from others is that they were known for their especially skilled artists and fine craftsmans. Due to the sparseness of the lands they live on Eskimos live in small bands with a leader selected who is recognized for his ability to provide and protect the rest. The idea of personal property is viewed much differently than most cultures, Eskimo's will share most things besides for the most personal, private property. Just like most cultures though the Eskimo men will build the homes and provide food, while the women will stay home to watch the family. Their religion is rich with mythology, and shamanism is practiced. Shamans are like priests, but they commune with the earth, like many other pagan priests shaman's will use drugs to induce visions. Now a day's almost all Eskimo's live in communities. Instead of the spear the gun is used to hunt, and many communities will even have snowmobile's. Hopefully one day the Eskimo god Khuralu will descend from the moon to lead his tribes down from the tundra's to feed like ravenous dog's on the white man, and we will all see a great world ruled by the Eskimo

The warrior children

In the time of the Hegemon's and when diplomacy was decided by the end of a pike there was a city that had such well trained warriors that it was able to spread its influence far and wide, this city was Sparta. Sparta is home to the famed Spartan warrior, known for his ferociousness and discipline in battle. The story of the 300 spartan's, although fiction, has forever solidified the power of the spartan warrior in modern day culture. The reason for the greatness of Sparta's military is the Spartan Agoge system.
Right from birth a spartan boy is taken to the old scarred veterans who judge if the boy is good enough to be a spartan warrior. If any signs of weakness or birth defects are noticed the baby will be taken to a near cliff where he is cast away. When the child reaches the age of seven he is taken from his mother and placed in a communual barracks with other young spartan boys. From this point on the child will go through intense training every day until the age of tweleve. At this point in the boy's training he is cast into the outside world with only a mere rag for clothing. They are forced to live off the land and be exposed to the wild beasts. After one year has passed the boy's are now men. For the next seven years they will participate in live war games against local non spartan's. These games were very dangerous and left dead. Once the spartan was twenty he would then continue to live in the barrack's as a part of the standing army. This went on for ten years, then at this point the warrior would be allowed to marry and take their own home and if choose a public office. I found this article on a site called Suite101 and the article was called Agoge- Spartan Military Training. Link provided http://ancient-military-history.suite101.com/article.cfm/agoge_spartan_military_training

The 1931 Chinese Floods

Today I read an article on wikipedia that discussed the events that occurred during the 1931 floods in China. The series of floods that happened in China in 1931 are considered the most deadly natural disasters to occur in the 20th century. The casualties were estimated as low as 400,000 all the way up to 4 million deaths. Before the time of the floods a long draught occurred in China lasting from 1928 to the end of 1930. The extensive draught was what led to the mass floods across the main part of the asian continent. In a time period like the early twentieth century, especially in a country like China that was still developing

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

For my quick read minutes I chose the American classic, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The setting of this novel is in a small Missouri town right by the Mississippi River. Tom and all of his friends are always getting into new mischief and trouble, especially Tom and his orphan friend Huckle Berry Finn. The passage of the novel that I decided to read starts during the climax of the book when Huck is trying to find out what Injun Joe is doing. When he realizes that Joe and his friends are going to try and kill the widow, Huck braves it out, and figures out Joe's plan so he can help stop him from killing the widow. Huck demonstrates and shows great courage, and that doing the right thing is right because you can help, and save people as appose to hurting people. For more information On The Adventures of Tom Sawyer visit the Tom Sawyer Homepage.

Today I read an article all about making the football season from 16 regular season games to possibly 18 regular season games, if not a few more. I found the article "NFL looking to expand to 18 regular-season games" by Gary Myers on the New York Daily news's website. It talks all about how in an attempt to bring in more revenue the NFL is likely to change two of the preseason games into regular season games, but the only thing holding back the decision is whether or not the players should get paid extra for the two extra games. Already players get paid 60% of the leagues revenue, would they really need any more cash with what they already are making? Roger Goodell, the NFL commissioner was quoted saying, "even though they are playing two more regular season games, they should not get an automatic raise where their base salary would be 18 times their per-game pay instead of 16. If a player is making a $1.6 million base salary, which is $100,000 a game, the NFLPA will argue the salary should jump to $1.8 million, while Goodell says any extra money will come as a function of the salary cap system." I personally am split on the decision. I think that it would be great and all to have more regular season games because that just means there will be a ton more fun for all of us. What I am split on is wether or not the player's should get paid more for the extra two games. One side of me says that they are already making a million dollar's plus so why should they get paid more for just two more games. Than the other side of me looks at it like this, they are workers just like everyone and like everyone if your boss said you had to work saturdays also in addition to mondays through fridays for no extra pay we would all be pissed, I mean of course they want extra cash for extra work. Although It won't be a big deal for me wether or not the player's end up getting larger paychecks, what I will really be watching eagerly is the decision on the amount of extra games that will be added to the season.

US special forces launch rare attack inside Syria

Today US military forces launched a very rare attack into Syrian territory close to the border with Iraq. Written by Albert Aji from the Associated Press this articles describes a raid conducted by special forces on al-Qaida linked foreign fighters moving through Syria into Iraq. "Syria condemns this aggression and holds the American forces responsible for this aggression and all its repercussions. Syria also calls on the Iraqi government to shoulder its responsibilities and launch and immediate investigation into this serious violation and prevent the use of Iraqi territory for aggression against Syria," This is a quote from the government issued statement from Syria. As a result of the attack many Syrian civilians have been injured and killed, including four dead children. I am very concerned with this news. I think it is out of our authority as a nation to go into another country without permission and kill civilians in an attempt to curtail al-Qaida traffic through Syria. American government officials tried to support the attacks by saying things like,"We are taking matters into our own hands" and, "The one piece of the puzzle we have not been showing success on is the nexus in Syria". I think that we should not just be allowed to go into other countries and just do what we want because we want to. It is things like this that make so many other countries hate the US. I just think it is sad that we do things like this. The right way to go about this would have been to get the cooperation of the Syrian government and then this trouble could have been avoided. To read the full article click here.