Article 27 Response Paper

*Need 400 words

Daniel Contreras
Professor Osborne
Anthropology
Mon & Wed 4:00-5:30pm
November 28, 2011

Art. 27 "The Birth of Childhood" Response Paper

In the article titled "The Birth of Childhood" Ann Gibbons explains that the modern human has a profoundly longer period of development than any other species. The author asks when and how did this prolonged development start. They begin searching for the answer by looking at our closest relatives: the chimpanzees. Gibbons notes that the modern human takes approximately twice as long as chimpanzees to reach adulthood; however, modern humans are plentiful and long living. She further evaluates the techniques used by researchers that study the fossilized bones from H.erectus and Australopithecus afarensis hominins.
The researchers use methods requiring the study of the fossilized teeth to figure out what age the children were. Surprisingly, they discovered that the early hominin children grew at a much faster rate than the modern child do. Studies revealed that these early children grew close to the rate of chimpanzees. The article begins with an anecdote explaining the unfortunate circumstances of an infant chimpanzee who is left without a family. However, the infant did manage to survive with aid from other chimpanzee youth, on the other hand, if it were a human child getting aid from other human children the family-less infant would not have survived. Although humans tend to take longer to reach adulthood, we generally live one or two decades longer than chimpanzees.
After reading this article I read it again because some parts were unclear. Then I reread it a third time to figure out the author's overall point and purpose of the article.


Works Cited
Gibbons, Ann. "The Birth of Childhood." Ed. Elvio Angeloni. Physical Anthropology 11/12. New York: McGraw-Hill/Contemporary Learning Series, 2011. 144-47. Print.

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History in the News #3

Unearthing the Past
What is the summary of the article?

What is its relevance to the class?

What is my viewpoint on the article?

 
Published: August 29, 2010 - By History.com Staff
Civil War Artifacts Unearthed from Former Confederate Prison
As the United States prepares for the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, archaeology students in Georgia have unearthed a treasure trove of rare artifacts from a Confederate stockade that until now had been cloaked in mystery. Experts are calling the find one of the most important Civil War discoveries in decades.

The Union mapmaker Robert Knox Sneden, who was imprisoned at Camp Lawton, painted several watercolors depicting the stockade and kept a journal chronicling the grim conditions there.
Led by graduate student Kevin Chapman on the grounds of the Bo Ginn National Fish Hatchery near the town of Millen, the dig yielded roughly 200 objects used by inmates and guards at the Camp Lawton prison, including an improvised pipe, a tourniquet buckle, buttons and coins. These everyday items, Chapman said in a press conference on August 18, 2010, bear witness to “individual men and their desire to survive” during America’s bloodiest conflict.
It has been known for quite some time that the site, which borders Magnolia Springs State Park, was once home to Camp Lawton, largely due to the remains of Confederate earthworks there and because freshwater springs are mentioned in descriptions of the prison, explained W. Todd Groce, president and CEO of the Georgia Historical Society. The 42-acre Camp Lawton, which opened in the fall of 1864 to accommodate men from the notorious Andersonville prison, lasted a mere six weeks before it was swiftly abandoned as Union troops approached. That was enough time for an estimated 725 to 1,330 of its 10,000 inmates to perish. While Andersonville has become a national historic site as well as a byword for the suffering faced by POWs on both sides of the conflict, Camp Lawton has remained “an obscure Civil War footnote,” said the historian John K. Derden, who wrote a book on the prison.
At the time of Camp Lawton’s construction, more than 32,000 prisoners were packed into the 26-acre stockade at Andersonville, where poor rations, inadequate shelter and a lack of sanitary facilities had triggered widespread unrest, disease and death. Meanwhile, General William Sherman and his Union troops had spent the summer plowing through the Confederate heartland, seizing city after city in a series of successful battles that included the decisive siege of Atlanta. Unsure of the path Sherman’s men would take through Georgia, Confederate officials feared they were headed for Andersonville and decided to evacuate all but the sickest prisoners there.
Some 10,000 of them were moved to a site near Millen, where stockades had been hastily built by slaves despite at least one doctor’s concerns that the poor quality of the local water supply could endanger inmates and guards. Believing they had made the 150-mile journey as part of a prisoner exchange, the prisoners were aghast when they arrived at Camp Lawton, as the Millen complex was called. Union soldier John McElroy described his unit’s transfer from Andersonville in his 1879 memoir: “We were ordered out of the cars, and marching a few rods, came in sight of another of those hateful Stockades, which seemed to be as natural products of the Sterile sand of that dreary land as its desolate woods and its breed of boy murderers and gray-headed assassins.”
As more and more war-weary and severely malnourished prisoners were loaded into the new stockade, conditions deteriorated. Instead of Andersonville’s sweltering heat, the men now faced torrential rains and plunging temperatures. The most fortunate among them had little more than two poles draped with a blanket to blunt the effects of the elements, while others burrowed into the dirt for warmth. According to McElroy, one out of every 10 prisoners died during the six weeks Camp Lawton remained in operation. The facility’s chief surgeon appealed for supplies, writing, “Thousands of sick, both at this post and Andersonville, are in a state of suffering that would touch the heart even of the most callous.”
Their misery did not last long, at least not at Camp Lawton. By early November, General Sherman’s troops had embarked on the campaign known as Sherman’s March to the Sea, which would take them straight through Millen. “The Confederate government moved the prisoners out of what they thought would be the path of Sherman’s army, but they inadvertently moved them directly into the path,” Groce explained. Camp Lawton was dismantled and emptied in three days. Some of its prisoners were sent to Savannah or South Carolina, but 1,000 of them returned to Andersonville, meaning they had been “shuttled around Georgia in a big circle,” Groce said.
Later that winter, a group of Sherman’s men came across the deserted stockade, finding a freshly dug pit and a board bearing the inscription “650 buried here.” Brigadier General John W. Geary described the “foul and fetid” scene, concluding, “This prison, if indeed it can be designated as such, afforded convincing proofs that the worst accounts of the sufferings of our prisoners at Andersonville, at Americus, and Millen were by no means exaggerated.” A chaplain later recalled the abandoned facility’s “miserable hovels, hardly fit for swine to live in.” On Sherman’s say-so, outraged Union soldiers burned the camp to the ground and set fire to Millen’s railroad station and warehouses.
Five years after the war ended, the Union dead of Millen were transported to their final resting places; many were re-interred at a Civil War cemetery near Beaufort, South Carolina. Camp Lawton remained virtually untouched until 2009, when Kevin Chapman and his team broke ground there at the suggestion of Sue Moore, an anthropology professor at Georgia Southern University. As a result, they uncovered “one of the most pristine Civil War archaeological sites discovered in recent history,” according to Mark Musaus, deputy regional director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which co-sponsored the project along with Georgia Southern University and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.
A selection of the artifacts will go on display at the Georgia Southern University Museum on October 10. Meanwhile, excavations of Camp Lawton will continue, helping scholars piece together this tragic chapter of American history. For Chapman, who served in the U.S. military, the discovery sheds light on the experiences of a group of people who shaped the country’s future but left few traces of their contribution. “It’s the story of the men who didn’t write it down,” he said. “It’s the story of the men who went home and went on with their lives.”

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Actor Paper - The Fighter - Christian Bale

- (I) = Italicize
- Needs cover page

Daniel Contreras
Introduction to Theater
Professor Josten
Actor Reaction Paper
17 November 2011

In the film, directed by David O. Russell, "The Fighter" Christian Bale stars alongside Mark Walhberg. This film is based on the true story of professional boxers Micky Ward and Dick Eklund. Bale was not initially selected to play Dick Eklund; in fact, Brad Pitt and Mat Damon where the previous choices. Both Pitt and Damon had to drop from the production due to conflicting schedules. Walhberg, a key player in the making of "The Fighter," met Bale while they each were dropping off their own daughters at the same elementary school. He thought Bale would be a great fit for the part. Bale had previously met with director Russell back in 1999 for the casting of the movie "Three Kings." Unfortunately, Bale lost the part to Spike Jonze who was a close friend to Russell. On the other hand, Walhberg did feature in "Three Kings," so "The Fighter" is not the first collaboration between Walhberg and Russell.

Apparently Bale did make it onto the team this time; however he had quite a lot in store for him. Bale was assigned to play a welterweight boxer obviously something he was not. In order to better feel like Eklund Bale decided to shed some weight---30 pounds to be exact. He had literally transformed from a Batman physique to a slender drug addict. Surprisingly this was not the first time Bale changed his weight for a movie role. In the 2004 film titled "The Machinist" Bale stars as an insomniac who's mental health is slowly deteriorating. Bale really puts himself in the position of the character whether it be by technical approach or empathy. Supposedly, Bale starved himself to get his weight down in order to become a legitimate welterweight. In contrast to this physically straining transformation, Bale actually got the opportunity to meet and get to know the real Dick Eklund in the city of Lowell, Massachusetts. Bale and Eklund became good friends after spending two extensive weeks visiting local bars, some of the crack houses Eklund has been in, and the local police and while to stories about Eklund's past. This time together allowed Bale did not want to imitate, but to know the character's dialect, body language, and mannerisms. Reportedly, Bale talked with the accent throughout the production mostly to remain with the character and not lose it; according to him, it was tough at first but then he gradually slipped in. To receive the welterweight body he wanted, Bale exercised every day for two hours by running and practiced his boxing style in the ring.

Bale does not look too much like Eklund; although, Bale's character behaves exactly like Eklund---on point. The actor explained in an interview that he and Eklund have similar attitudes. When asked about getting into a role of a drug addict Bale responded that he has experienced those dark stages of life; moreover, this could allow him to recollect an emotional memory to utilized in his part of the movie. One dark and fairly recent dilemma in Bale's life reveals that he does share empathy for his character in "The Fighter." Eklund's family is dependent on his income from a very early age; additionally, he was to some degree forced into working. Bale began acting very young as well, providing his parents with money to help them out while working full-time. Nowadays, Bale does not keep in contact with his mother and sister whom live in the United Kingdom. Like Eklund, Bale seems to be trying avoid his money-seeking parent (Lampert). Before "The Fighter," Bale had a meltdown on the set of the "Terminator Salvation" and during a family meeting with his mother and sister which resulted in his arrest. Bale played the role superbly, as coincidental these circumstances are.


Works Cited
Lampert, Nicole. "Christian Bale: The Fighter Is Hollywood's Golden Boy but Still Feuding with Family." Http://www.dailymail.co.uk. DailyMail.co.uk, 4 Feb. 2011. Web. 17 Nov. 2011. .

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Some interesting websites

http://getgallery.blogspot.com/2010/12/unusual-perspective-photos.html

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/100-funny-photos-taken-at-unusual-angle-humor/

http://www.digitalpicturezone.com/digital-pictures/30-striking-examples-of-silhouette-photography/

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