My Japan Project Plan (it rhymes)

My project will cover the inhumane slaughter of whales and dolphins in Taiji, Japan (and other Japanese towns.) The presentation's going to be in power point form and the targeted audience can just be people in my town that I'm trying to get to sign a "Save the Dolphins" petition and spread public awareness. It's going to cover---
1. How they kill the whales and dolphins (this needs to be included because the brutality of the method used is what's causing most of the controversy)
2. Why they do it, so far in my research I've come across:
-traditional/cultural reasons
-economic reasons
-and "pest control"
3. The documentary "The Cove" and disputes it's causing
4. Health issues (high levels of mercury in the meat)
5. I need to do more research but I'm going to make one point of my presentation the Japanese opinion

Old Time-y Olympics

Way back when, the Greeks played the reeeal Olympics, the ones we copy today. A lot was the same, they held them every four years, something we still do today. They played sports in their Olympics, but it was also a competition of music and Greek literature. Races, discus throws, javelin throws, long jumping, boxing, wrestling, and chariot racing were some of the sports they did. I don't know too much about the ones we have today. We have more more modern sports and most of them are individual. When that empire was declining, their games stopped and didn't pick back up again until the late 1800's. Olympic games used to be all jumbled up into one group and meant only for amateurs but now we have them separated into seasons and professionals can play in them too. It's a really big international thing now and there's even Special Olympics for disabled people to compete in. We have so so so many sports to compete in: archery, baseball, basketball, boxing, canoeing, cycling, diving, equestrian sports, fencing, field hockey, soccer, gymnastics, handball, judo, modern pentathlon, rowing, sailing, shooting, softball, swimming, tennis, track and field, triathlon, volleyball, water polo, weightlifting, wrestling, biathlon, ice hockey, lueging, skeleton sledding, snowboarding, ice skating, skiing, and bobsledding. (That list came off the website.) One of my favorite movies is Cool Runnings :)

Motivation to Climb a Mountain

The main characters of the movie had different motivations. The American one climbed to the top, no oxygen tank, "for the challenge". How stupid! He was a newly-wed, but aaaanyways. The lady did it because she loved to climb, that was her motivation I think, but it also made her feel good to be the first Spanish lady to summit the mountain. Norgay did it to fulfill a calling he had in his heart; he wanted to do what his father had. (His dad was the one that lead the first successful expedition to the top but he never got credit for it until way later). Near the end, Norgay prays on his little flags and he was at peace with having accomplished his life dream. He also gets the monastery to light all of the candles to thank their God for letting him get to the top safely. The others just hugged everyone at "base camp" and jumped around. I also noticed that Norgay left pictures of his family at the top, like, making it up there was really really important to him, you could tell because he got emotional when he talked about it.

Exploring Extremes

This is the how the moon looks at the North Pole, ain't it beautiful?
Roald Amundsen's team was the first to reach the South pole, which they did on December 14, 1911. A couple of years before that, on September 5, 1909, Robert Peary said that he had reached the North Pole, but it's disputed if he actually did or not. Mallory and Irvine were two climbers who attempted to summit Mt. Everest and may or may not have reached the top, they were seen very close to it then lost from sight and either died on their way back down or died before reaching the top, nooobody knows. On May 29, 1953 Sir Edmund Percival Hillary completed the journey fosho:)



There are sooo so many people that like doing extreme things like climbing everest, I can't fathom why though. I suppose they do it for the adrenaline or maybe they want credit for being bada_ _? It seems like more guys like doing those kinds of things, maybe they're trying to prove how man they are. From the articles I read, the country of which the mountain climbers came from is always mentioned and most of them talked about "the race" of being the first to the poles and the top of Everest, which to me shows that this thing was country-competition and probably very nationalistic. I would never throw my life away for a sport or fame or anything like that, but I don't think that too many people are counting on losing they're lives, they're just doing something they love. That would be the only way to do something so physically hard, but it's really not worth losing a life over to me. Maybe if I was old already or something and I didn't have very much time left, it could be one of those "I've always wanted to...." things.

More Than 100 Years Later, the World I Live In Still Displays the Impact of the New Imperialism

New Imperialism had many impacts on the world. One of the main things that happened in this time was the spread of Western civilization and modernization of the countries involved. Christianity can be found in the places where it was spread to.

Positive Effects of the New Imperialism

New Imperialism had lots of good things to it. In the first place, missionaries got to spread Christianity. Countries with bad-ish and unfair governments could benefit from learning about democracy and stuff like that, it helped them get their freedom and independence in some cases, like if they learned about nationality. The West was way ahead in their living conditions because of the Industrial Revolution so they could help other people to get to that quality of life, as they did when they spread their medicines laws and schools and stuff like that. (But for the West to look down on countries like as children was the wrong thing.) I'm sure when Britain took over all those countries in Africa it helped out their own economies and it helped them get more power in the world but there's no way that I personally could call that an effect that was positive because of the negative ones it brought to the people in the countries they were controlling. Besides that though, the British helped like, in India they built railroads and regular roads and they helped communication out a lot by putting their own postal and telegraph systems.

Negative Effects of the New Imperialism

There were so many negative effects of the New Imperialism. People were pretty much fighting over land and power gain, it actually cost them lots and lots of lives, which is awful:( It's horrible to think that people kill one another over that. There are some specific instances too that New Imperialism was bad. When the British had colonies in India, they had an unequal partnership in trading that was in Britain's favor. The British ruined India's hand-weaving industry and they caused a major famine due to deforestation and population growth. When some people are taken over and they want to get independence they'll fight for it of course, like in the boxer rebellion, and they will die for it. Just the loss of human dignity (when missionaries and people looked down on other groups as children) and when people were forced to lose their culture and freedom, like having someone else in control of their country, are all negative.

What was "the New Imperialism?

The West dominated the world in the 1800's when the New Imperialism started. Europe was getting a better economy because of the Industrial Revolution and they had stronger governments than they used to; this was why they were able to expand. Those power gains and all of the other affects of the Industrial Revolution (better technology and better military) are what made this imperialism new. Europe's three main reasons were 1. economic interests---overseas they could get more resources and markets to sell their products, 2. political and military interests---this meant that gaining land gave some countries a better sense of nationalism and pride in their country (it gave them more prestige) and because the military needed bases for their warships and things like that, and 3. the humanitarian goals---some westerners felt "the white man's burden", that it was their responsibility to help and take care of the uncivilized people they took over, and also to spread Christianity. Also, to an imperialist, having the ability to take over a group of people showed that one had racial superiority over them. Imperialistic rule was usually in one of these three forms: colonization, having a protectorate, or having a sphere of influence. Not that Europeans didn't have trouble taking over all of those places, they did sometimes meet resistance but none of the people they were taking over were able to stand up to Europe's machine guns and warships. Europe was very successful in their expansion.