Joe

I found these recipes for bitter gourd preparations

I sort of forgot about this assignment until earlier this week so I went to the Media Center and checked out the Taming of the Shrew with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Suprisingly, it was one of the best movies I have ever seen. Franco Zifferelli (I’m not sure if I spelled that right) is an amazing director. The sets and costumes were spectacular. The soundtrack was great. All the actors did a great job with their parts. I would definitely reccomend it. When I’m done with this, I’m going to rewind and watch it again.

Many people have brought up the idea of paritioning Iraq as a way to solve it’s problems. Partitioning it would mean separating it into three separate countries consisting of three main groups of people: the Sunni, Shiites, and Kurds. According to www.washingtonpost.com,

Those who see the partitioning of Iraq as increasingly attractive argue that separating the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds may be the only solution to the violence that many experts believe verges on civil war. Others contend that it would simply lead to new and dangerous challenges for the United States, not least the possibility that al-Qaeda would find it easier to build a new base of operations in a partitioned Iraq.

At first, I thought partitioning Iraq sounded like an interesting idea. I thought that if each group had their own country, they would stop fighting. However, upon further thought, I realized that partitioning would only result in trouble. First of all, we are having enough trouble trying to create a democracy in Iraq. Now multiply that by three. That would be a lot of work. Also, since each group thinks they’re the best, they would try to attack each other. Since they would be tiny countries, other countries would try to attack them. Partitioning Iraq would be a bad idea because it would only cause more trouble.

Wow, what a great book. I am so glad that I read it, and it was definitely worth reading. Reading this book gave me a new perspective on the First Thanksgiving, new knowledge of what happened after it, and a new appreciation for the Pilgrims. As you have probably figured out by now, I’m a big fan of the first Thanksgiving, and therefore I must admit that I was rather disappointed at finding out how insignifigant it was in the overall development of the Pilgrim-Indian relationship, and what a minor event it was in itself. Unfortunately, I came to realize that all my favorite stories, paintings, etc about the feast were a litte exaggerated. I never really knew what happened after the first Thanksgiving. From this book, I learned what happened, which I found very interesting, especially the fact that the peace did not last. Also, by reading this book, I gained a new appreciation of the Pilgrims. Obvioisly, I knew who they were, etc, but I never really knew about them, what their story was. These people were rock-solid, they never gave up. They were hard-core believers in God, which helped them through the worst of times. William Bradford, for example, lost his parents as a boy in England, left his son in England when he set sail on the Mayflower, and his wife fell overboard and drowned while in Provincetown Harbor. He is a perfect example of how these people perservered through tragedy and tough times and went on with life. The transatlantic voyage was extremely rough, and while the most intelligent decision would be to turn back, the Pilgrims decided to keep going in pursuit of finding a place to freely worship as they pleased. What a great group of people, what a great story. 

I really liked Philbrick’s style and would definitely read another of his books. I would like to find out a little more about the Indians in the area. I know about the disease that wiped them all out before the Pilgrims showed up, but what were they like before that? It would be interesting to know.

In my favorite rendition of my favorite story (the Peanuts “First Thanksgiving” special*), Squanto is portrayed as this really nice, sincere, helpful guy. One of the most surprising (and dissapointing) things I learned from Mayflower so far is that he really wasn’t. According to Philbrick, Squanto was this jerk who was really DTD and tried to turn the Indians and the Pilgrims against each other. Apparently, he had been kidnapped and taken to Europe many years earlier, where he had learned English. A monk had helped him return to America, wherehe started causing trouble. Anyways, something that I found surprising was that the food the Pilgrims planted for the first Thanksgiving didn’t last too long. At the point I’m at now, a group of Pilgrims is setting out in a boat to sail to another settlement to try to trade for food.

*Not “Happy Thanksgiving, Charlie Brown,” but the First Thanksgiving segment of “This is America, Charlie Brown.”

So far, so good. Mayflower has been very interesting so far. However, I was a little dissapointed about how insignifigant the first Thanksgiving was. The first Thanksgiving is like my favorite story of all time, with the whole Pilgrims and Indians thing going on. I’ve read all the picture books, seen all the TV specials, my favorite one being the Peanuts version. Therefore, I was rather dissapointed to see that it was only given a few pages in the book. The reasoning that Philbrick gives is that it was insignifigant in the overall story. According to the book, it was an insignifigant event, nothing like the grandiose feasts depicted in those great stories and paintings (much to my dissapointment). Something interesting I learned was that the peace between the Pilgrims and Indians lasted very shortly. At the point I’m at now, the Pilgrims are constructing a wall around their settlement to protect themself from and Indian attack.