The Judge Has Spoken

Overall, I enjoyed this assignment and I thought it was a really creative and fun way to get the students into really thinking about the Mongols. It was not just another average school project, but something that was good enough to look forward too. It was a lot of fun watching the actual trial (when it's not your turn...). I think it had it's ups and downs. The research was definitely a lot easier than performing the actual thing. If you were a character then you couldn't predict what the cross-examinator was going to grill out of you. I thought that it was more entertaining to brainstorm and conjure the back stories. I especially liked Sarah's back story; when I read in the textbook that intermarriage was outlawed, I knew that a heartwarming yet unfortunate love story had to take place. It was destined to be.
I don't think I have any regrets because even if I didn't do an excellent job, I felt as if I did the best I could. Public speaking isn't my best attribute. I couldn't even do poetry out loud properly in front of 5 people during class (yes, we only have 5 girls in our class. our knowledge of the english language scared the boys off). Since my character was sort of made up (a chinese peasant) I had to create a story for myself and since I didn't really have specific hardcore details to refer to during the trial, I think I did a pretty good job improvising.
Although Futaba made several good arguments today and I was proud to be on her team, my opinion on Genghis Khan stands. So even now, I still believe that the Mongols are not insane. They may have been guilty of murder and kidnapping among several other things, many other empires and conquerors have done the same thing. History seems to repeat itself. I think that how we should view them is very ambivalent seeing as how they could be seen as crazy murderers but they also were strategic and intelligent. So I would have to say that even though I do see good traits about them, from a logical, lawful standpoint: I would have to say that they are guilty of terrorism, kidnapping, and genocide.,

Genghis Khan: Insane Maniac or Brilliant Leader?

Is Genghis Khan crazy or not? 

I think that when most people hear the name Genghis Khan, they immediately think to the Mongols, the world's largest empire, and last but not least, the blood that was shed to acquire such land. 

To really determine if Genghis Khan was insane or not, I think that we need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. We have to look at the time and place this happened. He didn't live in 21st America where the things that he did would take him to death row right away. He would be enjoying his last meal before his empire began to form. But this is not the present, this is the past. 

If you think back to where he lived and when he lived. Everything that he did is understandable. Looking at the environment that he was raised in, the question of nature vs. nurture comes forward. Human nature: we all think that everyone has deep rooted moral standards and if they don't... they at least have some sort of moral code they follow. I'm sure Genghis had a moral compass as well but I can imagine that it was way different that what mine is. His own clan left him and his family to fend for themselves after the death of his father. That betrayal must have broken something in him. Even now friendships, relationships, basically anything can be broken by betrayal. Everybody has a tinge of revenge hidden in them that strikes out when they feel a wrong has been done to them. It't the same thing. He was betrayed and he wanted revenge, or at least to get back the clan. 

You might say, "oh, but wait, remember when he killed his half-brother over a fish?". To that, I say yes I do remember but think of the horrible things that happen in the world even today over silly disputes. Back then, that's how they settled things I guess. Although he was at times cruel and barbaric, he believed deeply in diplomacy. So you can say that at least he tried to keep peace at first. 

Everybody does wrong. Great leaders that people venerate have murdered people. Think of all the army generals and war presidents who we all admire so much? Are they insane? And it's not Genghis, himself, killed each and every person who was killed. He did kill but so did his soldiers. And if that's the criteria for being insane, then I suppose George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were insane too. And although he did do some torture and other such things, there have been terrible torture methods that took place in America, not even a hundred years ago. Even now, protesters are injured and harmed. 

Genghis Khan is human. He makes mistakes. He does things wrong. Everybody does. 

He is just another human being. Not insane. 

And in the end, whose to say what's normal and what's not? Whose to say who's insane or mentally stable? Does anybody have the right and ability to judge those things? I think not. 

El Final

The final product:

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/12913851/parvez-and-baseema-tell-all


Xtranormal was a really interesting way to present my project which is why I picked it. I had a lot of fun listening and picking out accents and characters. The only problem was that there is a limit of free stuff you can use. And it takes a lot of time to load so that you can preview what you have so far. It was also hard because the characters can't really assert the tone that you want them to use so they just talk the way they want to and they are quite bad at accentuating the parts of the word that must be accentuated to make sense. So I hope that you can understand what I made them say. Overall, the project came out really good and I'm happy with my final product. Enjoy!

* Clicking on the link should take you straight to the video. It takes a while to load, so don't worry, it's all there.



Bibliography:

• Butler, Chris. "FC67: The Crusades & their impact (1095-1291)- The Flow of History ." The Flow of History. N.p., 2007. Web. 12 Jan 2012. <http://www.flowofhistory.com/units/west/10/FC67>.
• Cline, Austin. "Muslim Perspective on the Crusades, Perspectives and Religion in the Crusades."About.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Jan 2012. <http://atheism.about.com/od/crusades/a/crusadesviews_2.htm>.
• . "Crusade." . WordIQ.com, 2010. Web. 12 Jan 2012. <http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Crusade>. 
• Dynosoar, . "Islamic view of the Crusades." . Stardock Corporation, 02/06/2006. Web. 12 Jan 2012. <http://forums.joeuser.com/100054>.
• Hammond, Peter. "Jihad and Crusades ." . Frontline Fellowship, n.d. Web. 12 Jan 2012. <http://www.frontline.org.za/articles/JihadAndCrusades.htm>.
• . "The Crusades (1095-1291)." . Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, 2011. Web. 12 Jan 2012. <http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/crus/hd_crus.htm>.

Xtranormal

I decided to do a Xtranormal presentation for this project. I picked two adorable little animals to be my Muslim people who will be talking about the crusades and how they personally feel about them. The most difficult part of this project was that there wasn't much straight-forward information to go by so I had to infer a lot. I was wondering if I should make my characters have Arabic accents, but I didn't know if it was inappropriate or anything so I just decided to go with the classic British accents. Making the presentation with Xtranormal is a bit time-consuming so I'm glad I started this at 5 instead of like 8 or some other time later. It feels good not to procrastinate. I am a little worried that I am going to run out of things to say and that my presentation will be too short. I think that I'm going to do three Xtranormals, for each of the crusades I picked. I will use the same characters but different settings and it'll be like as if I was following them through the years. How exciting! I had to include a panda, my little British panda is just too cute. But.. back to work. I'll post the links up later when I am done.




****** Change of plans, I guess you only have 300 points to spend before you have to pay and buy more, so I shall only be making one presentation. NOT THREE. I guess I'll just have one of the characters narrate also for each time change.

Short & Sweet

Using sweet search...
As I was browsing through other's blogs and reading the comments and such (not in any way or form creepy... )
I read that someone suggested using sweetsearch.com, so I gave it a go. It's a pretty good website & I think as of now, it is the best source.
Some sources:
http://www.flowofhistory.com/units/west/10/FC67
http://boisestate.edu/courses/crusades/5th/
http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=4461
http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/on-this-day/May-June-08/On-this-Day--Crusaders-Victorious-in-Siege-of-Jerusalem.html
http://www.the-orb.net/textbooks/nelson/first_crusade.html
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/crus/hd_crus.htm
http://www.mrdowling.com/606islam.html


I think the biggest problem is that although the interwebs are helpful, there are not that many websites that really assert how the Muslims felt concerning the crusades. Even if you type "Muslim perspective on first crusade" things don't really come up. I have only found numerous websites that merely tell what happened, not really individual views. I am hoping that if I use other country's google then I will be more successful.

status update... what is this, facebook?

oh blogger, it's been a while. i don't check you every day life facebook. Maybe you and facebook should switch places...

SATURDAY: was initially a little confused about the project so I took this night as an opportunity to get some smart people's input. So Laura and Luke explained the project to me and we did some initial researching. yippie! Then we treated ourselves to a little fro-yo as a reward for being so focused. hehe.

MONDAY: More research time. I have officially decided to pick Crusades 1, 4, and 7 with the addition of some references to the smaller crusades as well. I felt like that these three crusades would align and work together well and they're all a little different so the Muslims would have several opinions about them.

TUESDAY: Hello Google, it's nice to meet you again.
Some links I found:
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2000/472/bk2_472.htm
http://catholiceducation.org/articles/history/world/wh0042.html
http://forums.joeuser.com/100054
http://www.doaks.org/publications/doaks_online_publications/Crusades/CR02.pdf
One problem I found was that some sites are very repetitive so I have decided to try some other search engines tomorrow and see if I get any luckier.

WEDNESDAY: Hello Yahoo, it's been a while. Bing, have we ever met before?
Ah, wikipedia.... I seem to have a little stalker on my case.... It keeps popping up everywhere, but from personal experience, wikipedia and I will be taking a little time apart from each other. It doesn't seem like wiki  is too pleased about that? Do I sense a restraining order?
Yahoo keeps throwing this book called "The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives" which would be a wonderful source if only it wasn't a book... available on google books that I have to buy.
Some sources from yahoo on the crusades:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/news/2001/oct05.html
http://www.imamreza.net/eng/imamreza.php?id=5486
http://atheism.about.com/od/crusades/a/crusadesviews_2.htm

Some sources from bing on the crusades:
http://atheism.about.com/od/crusades/a/crusadesviews_2.htm
http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Crusade

Overall, I thought that google worked the best and gave me the most information. Yahoo would lose this competition because it didn't really narrow the search results down for me. It wasn't necessarily very useful. I liked that Bing would change the color of the link if I had clicked it before even if I had clicked it from google or yahoo. That was really nice because then I didn't have to click it again and waste time. Now that I got most of my research done, I'll work on the final proudct tomorrow.
I am hoping to do either a powerpoint or an animation because I feel like, personally, those two things help me understand and learn topics the best since they are very easy to follow and sometimes can be entertaining.