So, as much as the class knows I was spacing out during Karinne's presentation (which I apologize for) but I was taken aback with Nathan's. I briefly skimmed it yesterday and have gone back for more but still have not thoroughly finished it. But as he presented I also thought of how the world is not linear (James put it well in his emotional presentation by saying something along the lines of, the world once was looked at as linear but we learned that was false so why do we continue to think our lives are linear? Sorry James you put that much more elegantly) and we continue to have the same three occurring problems in our lives that Shakespeare and all generations before have had. These are simply, plague, famine, and colonization, empire, or what have you.

After all a plague is what forced Shakespeare to take a furlough from being a playwright because the theater scene was shot when people were forbidden from gathering in the masses.

Throughout history their has been an empire that has controlled the way the world whether it be an actual country or a religion. Christianity has consistently forced its' beliefs upon the world with little regard for the people they were attempting to convert. Christians attempted to influence both China and Japan even though their empires had been around for thousands of years before Christianity existed. When they failed to oust Buddhism they started to use force with military invasion. This is a whole other story but with the dropping of the Atomic Bomb on Japan because they would not allow the Western World to remove their Emperor from power because of his tie to not only Buddah but to the original royal family. There will always be a country, person, or any other powerful figure to take this role; presently it is the United States in their attempt to force Democracy on the world even though capitalism comes before democracy in the US.

As for famine, has the world ever come close to being cured of hunger? There always has been a distinct separation between classes where there has been enough money to even form classes. In most of Africa it is hard to differentiate if there are even classes; for my peers who remember last semester in Myth I lectured about Zambia for my final presentation. In Zambia there is Lusaka which has over a million people but offers little for financial gain. The people who live in the countryside live in mud huts and make barely enough money to support their families. They find support for their family in the ground around them but still are not able to properly feed their children. I recently have heard a stat that there are now more obese people than starving, which I find to be an extremely disturbing fact but I suppose it offers an alternative to this cycle we had been in for a mere 6,000 years?
This is a relatively short cycle as I was reminded of today as I wandered around the Museum of the Rockies. There is still plenty of time to change the cycle of going around in a circle constantly making the same mistakes but in order for this to happen people must assist in the aide of others. This starts with acceptance of others beliefs and as I mentioned earlier about 'empires' which must stop attempting to guide countries with financial pressure. I personally believe, this may offend some, but I feel countries need to stop supporting one another with financial aide even when there is a significant disaster (i.e. Japan). Until our problems are solved at home (racism is still as evident as it was in the 60's along with educational/housing segregation) we do not have a right to tell Afghanistan/Iraq/Egypt...they need to have a democratic government. I have recently been researching the Eisenhower's foreign policy on the coup de' tat of Guatemala in 1954 and the amount of propaganda spread about their government is unbelievable. My blog's typically become rants and go places I do not foresee but I guess I want to end this by asking people to seek other sources for their news because knowledge is the only way to change the repetitive circle we have been living.