Tag: American

The Original Version of the Statue of Liberty

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The Statue of Liberty was provided as a gift to the U.S. from the French public to celebrate the U.S. French alliance during the Revolutionary War. This gift however was not originally designed for the U.S., as its sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi (pronounced “fred-reek ah-goost bar-told-ee”) had traveled to Egypt to pitch the idea of an enormous woman like the Statue of Liberty, standing at the entrance of the Suez Canal. This original design was to be veiled to comply with then Egyptian values, and holding a lantern representing Egypt carrying the light of progress into Asia. Initially the Egyptian government liked this idea but because the cost was exorbitantly high, plans were eventually scrapped. Bartholdi redesigned his concept to depict a Roman goddess which is more European and therefore palatable to the U.S. conscious. In addition to this, Bartholdi also wanted to ensure that this new design represented freedom, not progress, to reflect American sentiment during this period

The Ecologically Destructive Technique of Blast Fishing and Cyanide Fishing

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Blast fishing was introduced in Southeast Asia post World War II, by American soldiers who threw grenades into bodies of water to yield a large cache of fish, a technique which is used  during the modern day to produce fish as a food resource in local markets. Dynamite is often used but any explosive will perform the task effectively, even improvised devices which utilize an explosive chemical within a glass drinking bottle with an improvised wick lit by a cigarette. Cyanide fishing is an ecologically destructive method of catching fish in which a diver takes bottled cyanide and pumps it into reef areas where fish reside, stunning the fish and making them easier to catch, so that they can be extracted for the pet and live fish trades. These techniques result in coral reefs losing their color and ultimately dying, eliminating a major food source for marine life within the region. Both methods are extremely damaging to the ecosystem and left unchecked, can decimate entire ecosystems within a few short years. Portions of and entire coral reefs which have slowly built over thousands of years can be destroyed in a matter of seconds by using either of these harmful techniques. Fortunately, both methods of fishing are illegal in most of Southeast Asia

The Discovery of the Sunken Titanic

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The Titanic’s shipwreck site was found by the U.S. Navy whilst embarking upon a clandestine military submarine sea voyage operation in 1982. The intent of the mission was to surpass the Russians on every front, including land, sea, air, and space. Geologist and Navy Captain Robert Ballard was the person who developed the mission idea by suggesting that the U.S. Navy scour the seafloor to gather intelligence and search for evidence of Soviet placed hardware. The original intention of the mission was to locate and recover 2 U.S. Navy submarines which were classified as top secret nuclear attack vessels and lost during the 1960’s. The first submarine was the U.S.S. Scorpion, lost in 1968 with 99 onboard, and the second was the U.S.S. Thresher, lost in 1963 with 129 onboard. Recovery of these vessels during the 1960’s was limited to the Sound Navigation and Ranging technology of the era, commonly abbreviated as “SONAR”. Ballard only had 12 days to locate the S.S. Titanic during the mission without exposing his cover story, a feat which was unable to be completed by the French and the Americans, despite having much longer time spans and multiple expeditions to achieve this goal. Ballard narrowed down the search area to 80 square kilometers and focused towards the south as he believed that ocean currents would have carried sunken debris in that direction. Ballard continued searching for a trail of scattered debris from the S.S. Titanic and on the 9th day of the expedition, with time quickly running out, the operators of the remotely operated vehicle ARGO, found wreckage from a modern iron ship which appeared to be from the early 20th century. It was confirmed shortly after on September 1, 1985 at 12:48 AM that these remains were 1 of the 29 boilers belonging to the S.S. Titanic. It had been 73 years since the S.S. Titanic was last seen, resting nearly 4 kilometers below sea level, with it’s 1500 onboard passengers and crew

The Indigenous People of Tanna Island, Vanuatu and Their Religious Cult Honoring and Deifying the U.S. Military

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On Tanna Island, Vanuatu, every year on February 15th, residents of the Pacific Ocean island chain engage in a military parade with the term “USA” painted in red or tattooed upon the chest of men who carry large bamboo spears with red tipped, pointed ends, a tradition which began more than 60 years ago, inspired by events which took place during World War II, when the U.S. military descended upon the island with modern machinery and supplies (e.g. canned food and cotton clothing etc.). The native inhabitants were in awe of these technologies which lead them to believe that the Americans were in possession of magic. Science fiction author Arthur Charles Clarke’s Third Law states that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. When World War II ended, the U.S. closed its bases in Vanuatu and left seemingly overnight, taking their technologies and goods with them. In honor of U.S. soldiers in the hope that it would entice them to return, the indigenous people created a cult which honored those who had appeared from beyond the horizon. These inhabitants started to create replica U.S. military items (e.g. wooden bandolier designed to mimic artillery shell bandoliers, straw aircraft, U.S. military insignia shoulder patches denoting rank which are painted onto skin etc.). Virtually all religions begin with a miraculous event (e.g. comet in the sky fortelling of calamity) followed by the creation of monuments which exemplify the event observed (e.g. large statue of the Buddha as a deity). Religions developed by cultures which worship other beings which have descended upon them are often referred to as a “cargo cult”

The Etymology of “Matter Plasma” and “Blood Plasma”

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The term “plasma” is derived from the ancient Greek term “plassein” which means to “shape or mold something”. Plasma related to physics, specifically matter which has had its electrons separated from the rest of its atoms, forcing it to become an ion, more specifically a mixture of free floating electrons and ions, was first identified by British chemist and physicist Sir William Crookes in 1879 using cathode ray tubes. Crookes referred to this discovery initially as “radiant matter” but it became known as “plasma” in 1928 because of American chemist Irving Langmuir. Langmuir was exploring ionized gases, gases which were subjected to strong electrical fields to remove electrons from their orbital shells. Langmuir used the analogy of blood to explain this phenomena, with the ions representative of corpuscles and the remaining gas thought of as clear liquid. Blood is similar to plasma in that it is primarily comprised of 2 components which include its clear liquid and the corpuscles/cells entrapped within this fluid. This clear liquid was named “plasma” by Czech physiologist Johannes Purkinje In 1927. The definition of matter plasma and blood plasma however have absolutely nothing to do with eachother physically, aside from the fact that two different scientists had the idea to use the same term at approximately the same time. It is believed that these two scientists based their name upon the ancient Greek definition of the term “plasma”

The Abhorrent and Racist U.S. “Loyalty Examination” of World War II Designed for Japanese Immigrants and Japanese American Citizens

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The U.S. War Relocation Authority created a supposed “loyalty examination” which was provided to young Nisei Japanese males of draftable age. The term “Nisei” means “second generation” in Japanese. Question 27 asked “are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat duty wherever ordered?” and Question 28 asked “will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America and faithfully defend the United States from any or all attack by foreign or domestic forces, and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, or any other foreign government, power, or organization?”. These questions were met with confusion and resentment within the population of Japanese and Japanese American internment prisoners of war. A yes answer was designed to prove unwavering loyalty whilst answering no was designed to entrap and prove malintent towards the U.S.. Some detainees answered no to both questions which lead to the term the “no-no boys”, a slanderous term designed to segregate Japanese and Japanese American citizens from their American counterparts. Question 27 was at its most fundamental roots designed to ask if a person was willing to serve in the U.S. military and Question 28 was designed to ask whether a person swore allegiance to Japan or not. Many prisoners did not know how to answer these questions, including both immigrants and American born citizens of Japanese descent. Those who were unsure and answered “I don’t know” or something similar to this with a cross out and the answer yes written in afterwards, were denied early clearance from detention and were subject to possibly being relocated. Those who passed were often permitted to leave detention upon the promise and agreement that they would not return to the west coast

The Effects of a Western Diet Upon Health

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Overall health and quality of life typically are reduced dramatically after the age of 65 for people who subscribe to consuming a typical western diet. The average American may live to be 79 on paper, but in practice a wide bell curve must be observed which states that the majority of people, or at the very least 50% of people in this range die between the ages of 60 and 79. Those who adopt a nutritarian diet can typically expect 15 – 20 more years than a person who consumed a typical western diet, but what’s more is that those years are spent in good health not poor or deteriorating health, observing a vastly reduced, thin bell curve which sees a peak of 98 years of age with death occurring between 80 – 120 with virtually all living past 85

General Motors Purposefully Suppressing and Dismantling Public Transport

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General Motors, through various shell companies, purchased the Los Angeles, United States of America, mass transit system and deconstructed it so that only vehicles and highways would survive the transition. General Motors understood that people wanted and needed a simple way get where they needed to be within a reasonable amount of time and doing away with public transit meant that these people would have no alternative other than to purchase a vehicle, with the goal being for these people to purchase from General Motors. By 1960, the last remaining trolleys were shut down and taken to the nearby Santa Monica Bay to be thrown into the ocean, which is why they are now being used as reefs. This was not a person centered solution nor was it an environmental centered solution, but it was an intelligent business decision and did end up changing the way American’s viewed transit. Traffic congestion became more and more difficult as time progressed so the municipality of Los Angeles decided to widen its freeways to compensate for the sudden burst of vehicles within the city