Blog Post #6: The United States' Love of Chaos

What is the best kind of news in the media that causes the most clicks, comments, and views in the United States? One simple word can sum it up very well... chaos. The news that we see in America on a nightly basis is almost always based around death, war, or politics. Today people in America are so divided they watch their different news stations like CNN and Fox News just to receive the same information but from two completely different view points. 

I feel that when it comes to anti war websites you do not hear or see a lot about them because they do not generate the headlines that grab people's attention compared to a bombing. Like while reading through antiwar.com website I found an interesting article talking about how Russia offered the U.S to enter negotiations to end the war in Ukraine and the U.S denied it. That is completely different then what you would see in mainstream media where it is made to look like the U.S is doing everything they can to help the Ukrainian people and simply that is not true.

Another article I read was about all of the journalist that have been killed in Gaza during the war between Israeli and Hamas. 85 journalist have been killed since that war started and the article says it averages out to about five a week. It is extremely sad to read something like that because innocent people are being killed while trying to do their job and a civic duty in providing citizens vital information that could save their lives. 

In the U.S we love to act like a nation that is trying to prevent wars but in actuality we are helping aid multiple wars around the world right now. All the different anti war websites out there are trying to show that and the government could be censoring their content to prevent it from being seen from a wider audience because they do not want people to know the details about the wars they are financially backing. Could the wars in Ukraine and Israel be over if the U.S was not involved? I can't answer that but that is something the United States' government doesn't want you to even consider.

Blog Post #5: Carrier Pigeons and Dumb Humans

 

In class we learned about different forms of technology and how it has evolved over time to get to where we are today. One of the most interesting ones that I learned came from Julia Foster and she talked about Carrier Pigeons. I thought it was very interesting that a pigeon no matter where you take it knows where "home" is and knows how to fly back there at any time. On the surface level it made me wonder how humans were able to figure this out about pigeons, but once it was proven that pigeons always know where home is it would be easy to see why humans started using them to pass messages along. 

I was very intrigued by the way that carrier pigeons were used in war especially in World War 1. For Germany to use the carrier pigeons as a way to gain intelligence on the enemy by strapping a camera across the bird's chest is genius. They were able to use things that you would find in nature to help game-plan against the enemy but did not have to use planes which obviously are way easier to spot and recognize and doesn't run the risk of costing a human their life.

So after giving human's credit for coming up with at the time a creative and faster way to transmit messages to people Dr. Smith ruins it for me by telling me about a pigeon being held captive for EIGHT MONTHS by Indian authorities on suspicion of being a Chinese spy. In the year 2024 by the way... at this point thanks to bigger and better technology I do not think countries are going to use pigeons anymore to transmit information. Much less train one to become a spy and be able to communicate back what they see. 

Overall my big takeaway from learning about carrier pigeons was how humans can be smart and creative but also very dumb at the same time. Also with how many animal rights organizations that there are in the world now I am surprised I did not hear or read a bigger outcry to get this pigeon freed. You would think that a pigeon being held against its will by a country would be at the top of their list of animal injustices to talk about.