It's Tough Being a Cowboy Round These Parts.

What defines the real american cowboy? Is it the horse, the guns, or the cow herding. If I had to choose the most important thing to me is the day to day work ethic of the cowboy. A cowboy's day usually consists of getting up early in the morning and working the ranch until the late hours of the night. From keeping their horses in peak condition, to wrangling up the cows after grazing.

Being a cowboy was hard work. It isn't just the riding around and shooting criminals. That is just hollywood fiction. Cowboys usually just hungout on the ranch and did chores like any ranch would need. They would wrangle the herd up and lock them up after grazing. They would also move bundles of hay and protect the land. After a hard days work they were finally free to go inside for dinner and get a good nights sleep only towake up early again the next morning and do it all over again.

Hollywood portrays the cowboy as the roung riding group that goes around shooting bad guys. The only thing hollywood is really honest about is the clothing. Cowboys would wear the boots and wranglers because it helped them do their job. The boots would have spurs to make the horses go faster and the wranglers were comfortable and durable for their hands on job.

Oregon Trail. Yee-Haw!

Games like this one can easily pair with learning. In this game kids can learn how it was for the people traveling west and learn math when buying supplies. It can also help with economics to understand the way buying and selling works. I think with our modern day technology it would be very easy to connect fun gaming with the knowledge from learning.

six word story

Fame and fortune awaits us here.

Everyone Deserves the Same Treatment, Why Does Skin Color Matter?

The treatment of African-Americans in the United States has remained similar over the years even after slavery was abolished. African-Americans have been ridiculed and looked down on since the beginning. People thought that there was a supreme race and that all others were just like garbage. They used them like tools and worked them sometimes to death. When slavery was abolished there was a process called Reconstruction that was innitiated. What this did was supplied the former slaves a place to live by building farms on plantations. In return for the home, the ex-slaves would farm crops, but they had specific terms they had to abide by when they signed the agreement. The agreement was that the former slaves would plant crops, only those approved by the homeowner, and give them 50% of their income in return for the residence they were provided. After all was said and done, the slaves would usually end up not earning anything and sometimes go into debt, rarely did the make a profit.

This treatment is similar to the Civil Rights Movement. The African-Americans would have to sit in the back of the bus, and were even brought to the extent of having segregated schools, restrooms, and even water fountains. Although slavery was no longer an issue, they were still treated like trash and got only the bare minimum needed for survival. The whole reason the Civil Rights Movement happened was because the African-Americans were sick and tired of the way they were being treated. They rose up against the "white man" and tried to fight for equal rights, which didn't exactly "work" so to say but they did accomplish stuff from it.

Since that movement the treatment of African-Americans has improved but even to this day there is still racism and extremist who still have it in their minds that they're better than every other race. Everyone is equal, skin color doesn't matter. People are people.

image sources: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/30/books/30grimes.html
http://knowledgenews.net/moxie/todaysknowledge/civil-rights-successes-2.shtml

Forgiving the South

I think that it was a good choice granting amnesty to the south. It helped to form a bigger nation and make us what we are today. Everyone deserves a second chance and it was a wise decision to give it to them. If the South wasn't granted amnesty then we wouldn't have the United States of America. It would be like two different countries. But at the same time granting the South amnesty caused alot of problems. People were mad because 10% of every confederate state had to take an oath of allegience to the United States. This made people mad because there was a lot of citizens that weren't even involved in the war and got sucked into the middle of it. The question can be argued forever but my opinion is that it was a good idea to grant the South amnesty even though it was the reason Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.

Picture This

I chose this photo because it portrays Abraham Lincoln, the president of the United States at the time. I want to discuss this topic because of the major impact he had in the Civil War. He lead the North to victory in an onslaught of soldiers from both the North and the South. He abolished slavery in the United States and brought the North and South back together. But he also pissed people off in the process. He made 10% of every state make an oath of loyalty, which angered citizens that were caught in the middle of something they had no part in. Doing so is what got him assassinated in the Ford Theater by a man named John Wilks Booth. Lincoln was one of the most important presidents in the history of the United States. What he did changed the lives of millions forever.

stereotypes, still used? i would say yes

Stereotypes are still used today all over the world. People always think that they have the better race, or that no one else is good enough just because of their skin color or ethnicity. I think stereotypes are used in society still because of how there was slavery in the past and people can't just let it go and admit their mistakes. Honestly there is no reason or rime to why people started all this crap, but enough is enough. It all just needs to be dropped. Its rule number one, everybody loves everybody. Thats all there is too it.