Average Citizen Blog

I chose to follow a U.S Civil War blog by Ethan Rafuse.  The blog has been listed in a few top-ten U.S Civil War Blog ratings. I immediately chose to follow a Civil War Blog because The United States Civil War has captivated me since middle school.  Not only is it my favorite part of history to study but I also find reading anything on the Civil War entertaining.  Perhaps the classes I have taken on the civil war that lead me to my fascination with the war, military leaders, Lincoln, reconstruction, and how the war is still remembered today.  I believe to this day there is still a connection to the Civil War within the US that is deeper than connections to any other historical event.  This blog is an example of this.  Ethan Rafuse is a great blogger.  He has collected and posted recent articles, some of which reporters have quoted him in, as well as written his own pieces that give opinions on events. These articles exemplify the connections historians and average people still have to the Civil War.  Titles like, “Osceola — still smarting from Civil War — calls on KU to drop Jayhawks as mascot.” And, “Today’s Military is Still Learning From the Civil War,” truly help the reader understand that the Civil War is not just another piece of history nor is it forgotten.  Infact, was intrigued the moment I started reading the blog because the sub title is, “Refighting the American Civil War, One Blog Post at a Time.”   Ethan Rafuse and his team do a wonderful job of picking articles to do just that. I would recommend following this intelligent blog to anybody even those who are only slightly interested in the Civil War because it does not consist of bland factual civil war readings but rather recent articles filled with recent events connecting to the Civil War.  This makes it much easier to relate and stay entertained.  For those who are not as inclined to read, there are also interesting illustrations from past and present artists to admire. The Civil Warriors blog can be found at: http://civilwarriors.net/wordpress/ .

WikiLeaks

So I went on to twitter to see if there was anything relevant for today’s blog, I found one account called Source Fed they have a popular YouTube channel and blog. The story that I found to be most interesting was one about WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks has released over 1.7 million documents as part of WikiLeaks Public Library of US Diplomacy (Plus D).The creator Julian Assange said that; “The collection covers US involvements in and diplomatic or intelligence reporting on, every country on Earth. It is the single most significant body of geopolitical material ever published.”  The time period of these documents is from 1973-1976 it has 200,000 records most of them about former US Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger. This is WikiLeaks largest publication. There are over 12,000 documents that are listed no distribution and 9,000 that are listed as Eyes Only. Julian Assange also posted this about the leaks; “The US administration cannot be trusted to maintain the history of its interactions with the world. Fortunately, an organization with an unbroken record in resisting censorship attempts now has a copy.”

 I wonder how the government is going to respond but, with so much talk about North Korea this leak might be ignored. 

Source:http://sourcefednews.com/wikileaks-releases-over-1-7-million-documents/  

California's Silent Disaster

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s USC address on climate change  is refuted on the page of a faithful twitter follower.  Arnold dubbed the issue “California’s silent disaster” and recalls the shock he encountered after waking up to the news of more than 2,000 fires burning in California.  After Mona Kiss re-tweeted Arnold’s twitter synopsis of the issue on her page, his claims were refuted with supposed scientific findings that disprove the issue.  Other followers claim “science has now proven that the planet has been cooling for about 20 years now! Global warming is a hoax!”  Apparent evidence to these findings would be more well known among the populace, if more people “read the newspapers” because they all contain “lots & lots of links about the junk science behind false gw [global warming].” I never knew that twitter had so many politically and scientifically knowledgeable followers.