Due to a variety of factors, I am now reading 'The View from the Ground: Experiences of Civil War Soldiers' edited by Aaron Sheehan-Dean. <\/p>\n
It is a collection of essays focusing on different elements of a typical soldier's experiences and motivations, and you'd think I left this kind of reading at university but I'm not surprised at all. This actually is an interesting topic that you just don't really think about when you think about the US Civil War.<\/p>\n
The foreword leads the reader to believe that there is just this massive<\/em> amount of personal Civil War documents (i.e. letters, diaries\/journals) that no one has taken the time to delve into. The things these different authors are coming up with are just incredible, everything from the negative attitude of the Southern soldiers toward the Northern soldiers to Southern soldier attitudes toward the home front and the religious struggle both sides had to go through as they went to war with each other. <\/p>\n It's the kind of reading that brings back the history lessons I took as a History Major about using primary resources and what they tell us about certain time periods. It's just ... I'm kind of getting emotional thinking about it.<\/p>\n It's incredible.<\/p>\n The book destroys this idea that all Civil War soldiers were uniformly American and \u2014 let's face it \u2014 kind of romanticized. These were individual men and boys who had their own thought processes, beliefs, opinions, experiences, and they let them all out on paper. I mean, if you think about it, there are hundreds of thousands of personal documents out there that no one is doing anything with and it's difficult to actually wrap your head around that. <\/p>\n I'll take notes and get back to you if anyone's interested.<\/p>\n * ** *<\/p>\n Back before 2020, whenever I heard the argument between slavery vs. states' rights as the cause of the Civil War, I didn't actually understand the difference. Slavery was considered a state right because the country was still growing and states could enter the Union as a free or slave state. <\/p>\n (While slavery was the main cause of the Civil War \u2014 state right or not -, I'm just not entirely certain it was the only cause of the war. I had an environmental history class that made the compelling argument that changing weather patterns had a significant affect on the war \u2014 can't remember if it was considered a cause or not \u2014 and while America based a lot of itself on slavery in some way, shape or form, is there a chance that there were other factors?<\/p>\n It's not impossible to think slavery was The Cause of the war, but wars\/conflicts\/military actions have a variety of other factors involved before it reaches that point \u2014 i.e. Pearl Harbor.)<\/p>\n When 2020 came around, I began to understand how state rights were played out and most importantly how people reacted to it<\/em>. I need to read the above book to understand thought trends circa 1860, but first thoughts suggest a parallel between these two events from the soldiers' point of view.<\/p>\n 1860 America elected Lincoln, who promised to abolish slavery, and it seems kind of ridiculous to compare that to 2020 America who rebelled at the thought of wearing face masks, but how ridiculous is it really? Americans don't like to be told what to do, so I really don't think America has changed in terms of emotional ... I don't know if I want to say 'maturity', but ...<\/p>\n Emotional reaction?<\/p>\n Something to that effect.<\/p>\n Sure, I laugh when I think about America going to war over face masks the way America did over slavery, but I know it's not exactly a laughing matter because people do have Feelings over face masks and people are definitely crazy and it's not funny to most people. Still, though. <\/p>\n * ** *<\/p>\n Here's something else to consider:<\/p>\n America had a mini-series documentary about Grant and it was gorgeous<\/em>. <\/p>\n Especially the Civil War content. It's definitely one I would buy to own because the story telling had everyone on the edge of their seats in my house! I remember when I looked over at the commercial break and saw my younger sister and my parents slide back against the couch because they were so entranced. My inner History Major was rejoicing about it because it's just so hard getting people to be interested in history at all. <\/p>\n Anyway, there was a piece of poetry the program had quoted and I wanted to see if I could find it, but instead found post-war poem 'The Blue and the Gray<\/a>' by Henry Miles Finch. It's beautiful even without context<\/a>. <\/p>\n With context, you definitely read it differently. <\/p>\n * ***<\/p>\n There are really compelling soldier stories from many wars \u2014 especially WWII \u2014 , but how many have you read that are from the US Civil War? Have you found any that you don't particularly want to read, but you found it anyway because you read this and was curious? <\/p>\n The one book I've found recently and want to read is called 'Hell Itself', a book about the Battle of the Wilderness. I will let you go into the details regarding Wilderness on your own.<\/p>\n And on that note, have a good weekend.<\/p>\n
<\/p>","comments":"https:\/\/hypermint.livejournal.com\/32856.html?view=comments#comments","category":["trivia","poetry","book reading","historical rambles"]},{"guid":"https:\/\/hypermint.livejournal.com\/32692.html","pubDate":"Wed, 17 Mar 2021 00:08:56 GMT","title":"Help me find a Gundam Wing story!!","author":"hypermint","link":"https:\/\/hypermint.livejournal.com\/32692.html","description":"I remembered a really good GW story from a number of years ago, but I can't actually remember what it was called and I'm praying it wasn't deleted since I read it.
What I remember about it is that the boys are at a safehouse and Heero falls ill with something that he might have caught years ago. As he gets sick, he finds himself interacting with a little girl that no one else can see and plays ball with her at some point - Trowa walking past on one occasion.
I don't remember if it was 1x2 or no pairing, but I think Duo gave Heero his cross as added protection from the illness. Heero finds out what happened to the little girl, but I can't remember the story behind her myself. I want to say that it was her house and Heero feels responsible and guilty for what happened to her.
I would love to read this again, so please help me. Someone has to know something. I don't even know what year I read it in so I'm really hoping someone knows something.
**
On an unrelated note, if anyone knows what happened to the author of 'Hello', an ff.net GW 1x2 story, I hope they're alright. It is such a good story and I still want some sort of closure about it. Even a friendly, exasperated \"I'm alive!\" will do.
** *
Even if you don't have a clue, but remember the story, anyway, at least I'll know I'm not crazy.
You can apparently find a lot of things on the internet except for older fanfiction. Sigh. \ud83d\ude1e >.<
(\u30ce\uff40\u0414\u00b4)\u30ce\u5f61\u253b\u2501\u253b","comments":"https:\/\/hypermint.livejournal.com\/32692.html?view=comments#comments","category":["fanfic","fic rec"]},{"guid":"https:\/\/hypermint.livejournal.com\/32499.html","pubDate":"Fri, 12 Mar 2021 02:43:26 GMT","title":"Today's Coconuts are Tomorrow's Almonds","author":"hypermint","link":"https:\/\/hypermint.livejournal.com\/32499.html","description":"Around last October, I was learning Tagalog on a regular basis - I've had to take a break since New Years be cause I can't keep up with so much with a small window for it. My head has also started hurting when I think about it.
Anyway, I somehow created the title as a bit of a mantra","comments":"https:\/\/hypermint.livejournal.com\/32499.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/hypermint.livejournal.com\/32184.html","pubDate":"Wed, 10 Mar 2021 02:22:36 GMT","title":"3\/9","author":"hypermint","link":"https:\/\/hypermint.livejournal.com\/32184.html","description":"Here's an interesting thought.
I was messing around earlier with a random writing generator and found this interesting conversation starter:
You are a ghost looking for a new home. Where would you choose?
It might have been one of those 'in your neighborhood' things that I completely overlooked in favor of thinking where I would like to live as a ghost.
As for the neighborhood thing: I don't know if I would want to haunt my neighborhood, but there is a church about five - six minutes from my house. Before you get there on the way to the main road, you have to pass a funeral home.
I kid you not.
I'm living in one of those strange places where stuff like that is normal.
As for where I would live, period, as a ghost: a pumpkin patch.
... I don't even know.
Have you ever heard of a haunted pumpkin patch?
What would your answer be to this prompt question? Is there a reasoning or just the first thing you thought of?","comments":"https:\/\/hypermint.livejournal.com\/32184.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/hypermint.livejournal.com\/31891.html","pubDate":"Mon, 01 Mar 2021 13:18:56 GMT","title":"Absolute No","author":"hypermint","link":"https:\/\/hypermint.livejournal.com\/31891.html","description":"Last year, I was told to \"lighten up\" and learn how to take a joke.\"
I don't like this advice.
I would prefer that people think about what this advice can mean before doling it out.
Most of the reason is because I don't like being teased.
That, however, does not mean I can stop people from teasing me.
What I can do is be willing to compromise on certain things - like what I say and how I say it. I get it, I can say some clever things and not know I'm saying them a certain way that others can find hysterical.
I like the way I say certain things, especially writing them in my stories, and I'm not entirely sure if it's different because I can now witness the reaction to my words in real time to my face or if it's something else, but I'm starting to wonder why it's different at all.
Writers like knowing that people are enjoying their writing and their words, because I most certainly do. It might be the jarring realization that this is real life that is throwing me off because I know how hypocritical that sounds and looks on paper.
That's why I'm willing to let people laugh at my words and the manner in which I say them. I even say things that way knowing I will trigger amusement and I feel like I will be more okay with that as time goes on because it's evidently an easygoing personality thing I might have.
What I am not willing to compromise on is being mocked for saying things a certain way.
I was bullied about that in middle school so that's a Red Flag. As you grow up, you unfortunately realize that people do not outgrow certain things and mocking people for their speech is absolutely one of them.
The other day, I said something in a way that I didn't see as funny. It wasn't meant to be funny nor was it even said in a particularly humourous circumstance. But someone immediately turned to others going, \"She said ...\" and I could tell she was trying to copy my manner of speech.
That shit is not okay and it is not a one time thing nor was she the only one who does it.
I get that people make assumptions about others when it comes to their voices, but that does not mean it's okay to make fun of them.
To quote something I've seen recently: in a world full of choices, choose to be kind. ( \u25dc\u203f\u25dd )\u2661","comments":"https:\/\/hypermint.livejournal.com\/31891.html?view=comments#comments","category":"therapy entry"},{"guid":"https:\/\/hypermint.livejournal.com\/31622.html","pubDate":"Sun, 28 Feb 2021 16:07:44 GMT","title":" #stopasianhate","author":"hypermint","link":"https:\/\/hypermint.livejournal.com\/31622.html","description":"In America, 2020 has brought to light some racial awareness in two respects.
The Black and brown community has been uplifted in the public awareness even moreso than the CRM ever did or probably ever dreamed. It is no doubt a positive change.
The rally around black\/brown Americans is even more striking when compared to the complete opposite of attitude in regards to our Asian communities.
As far as we know, the virus originated in China. This has caused anti-Asian sentiment across the color barrier because I refuse to believe that only non hispanic whites are the only ones doing this. It can't just be whites - period - nor is it only in America.
So the virus originated in a country that just so happens to be in Asia. That doesn't mean we need to be horrible to a group of people who are only guilty of being from the same area of the world as the virus. It's not their fault.
This is just like Pearl Harbor all over again, only on a more global scale.
It's not really fair that one type of people that have been seen as not important for centuries are now People Who Matter, yet a different group of people are still the same villains that have been blamed for a lot of things.
Black and brown Americans have done a lot for this country and what they didn't\/couldn't do, Asians took up the slack.
You claim that my black\/brown neighbors are just like me with dreams and hopes and lives with families.
Why would my Asian neighbors be any different? They have hopes and dreams and lives with families, too, and yet one disaster changes all of that and it's just not fair.
What a polarizing world we live in.
_______
I did a research project in college about the Korean Conflict and why it was dragged out for so long. There is an American archive of the different transcripts from the American side of the negotiations and I just got the feeling of there being a racial tone to all of it without concrete evidence of that feeling.
_______**________
I'm not gonna lie.
I've been raised in an Asian household.
My grandma is full Asian, mom is half. They used to visit with Asian friends all the time when I was a kid.
I have Asian cousins that I'm friends with on facebook. There's definitely a language barrier, but there are ways around that.
While there are things about the food I have issues with - like spice and reservations about what the dish is made of -, I respect this culture that I am a descendant of. I respect the Asian countries that might be in my bloodline in some way. Do I know that for certain? No. But family lines are strange things so it's not entirely off the table.
I'm more familiar with Asians and am comfortable with them. I know that Asian immigrants were essential to uniting this country from coast to coast, just as they had a role in Gold Rush America.
I know that - in contrast to Black slaves who were brought here unwillingly - Asians chose to come to America. And yet it is those same willing people who end up punished for their choice when we need someone to blame.
We need to do better in awareness and maturity, people.
#asianpride<\/a>","comments":"https:\/\/hypermint.livejournal.com\/31622.html?view=comments#comments","category":["#asianpride","current events"]},{"guid":"https:\/\/hypermint.livejournal.com\/31342.html","pubDate":"Wed, 24 Feb 2021 02:15:29 GMT","title":"2\/23","author":"hypermint","link":"https:\/\/hypermint.livejournal.com\/31342.html","description":"It's Dad's birthday today. Not much going on with everyone occupied with one thing or another. Plus COVID.
Which I'm still upset about since my birthday was literally cancelled last year. \ud83d\ude11
I still hang out at my local ReStore most of the week and today, the Easter stuff came out.
It got me thinking about holidays and religion and religious holidays. I'm of the religious branch who practices Lent, so I don't know how 'everyone else' spends their days leading up to Easter.
Do you celebrate Easter or Lent?
Do you only celebrate Easter? Do you celebrate Mardi Gras, then not think anything of it until Easter? No special plans from one to the other?
I need details because I'm naturally a nosy person who needs to know stuff!
(\u251b\u2727\u0414\u2727))\u251b\u5f61\u253b\u2501\u253b
I mean, no pressure about anything, but I'm curious now.
Is it too personal to ask how you celebrate Lent if you do so?
*__*__*","comments":"https:\/\/hypermint.livejournal.com\/31342.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/hypermint.livejournal.com\/30977.html","pubDate":"Sun, 14 Feb 2021 01:44:23 GMT","title":"2\/8: Holocaust","author":"hypermint","link":"https:\/\/hypermint.livejournal.com\/30977.html","description":"January 27 is Holocaust Remembrance Day.
I'm late this year, but I've noticed Holocaust related news articles coming to light even this far out from the 27th.
One of the more concerning ones involves Poland basically suing Holocaust historians\/researchers for libel and slander for even daring to suggest that Poles were in cahoots with the Nazis.
While Poland would prefer otherwise, there is documented evidence that Poles were divided in their responses to what had been going on at the time. Oh sure there were some Poles who risked everything in pursuit of helping their Jewish neighbors in whatever capacity they were able, smuggling them across country borders for example, but there were also those who were indeed throwing their lot in with Hitler.
As the Trump Debacle has shown us, groups are capable of being divided -especially when it comes to the people in power -, so I don't actually understand where the Polish version of \"how dare you suggest such slanderous lies that besmirch my honor as a Member of the Righteous Among the Nations!\"is coming from. I mean, while Hitler was shall we say very persuasive in his conquering, there had to be people who cheerfully tossed their Jewish neighbors and former friends into the train cars - and under them - with very little resistance if at all.
That's just how things are and governments can't change that.
That's just how human nature is and no one can actually change that, no matter how much we wish to.
Unfortunately, Poland does not want to remember and it does make sense nor is it the only country facing the dilemma, but","comments":"https:\/\/hypermint.livejournal.com\/30977.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/hypermint.livejournal.com\/30808.html","pubDate":"Tue, 09 Feb 2021 01:13:11 GMT","title":"Black History Month (2-8)","author":"hypermint","link":"https:\/\/hypermint.livejournal.com\/30808.html","description":"As we celebrate Black History Month, we focus on the Big Names. We all know who they are, they need no introduction.
Well, not the more recent ones.
We all need to brush up on our pre-1900 Black pioneers. Starting with Ms. Harriet Tubman.
She is one of the first who come to mind, her bravery and courage against overwhelming odds undeniably very inspiring especially to women who might seem defeated and overwhelmed by life in this post-COVID world.
But let's go further than Ms. Tubman.
As we celebrate Black History Month, let's look beyond the people we are supposed to learn about. Who was the first Black [...] to [...]?
What non-famous\/little known black\/brown person was the first to do something in an area that you feel strongly about?
This entry is for everyone to interact with. Do you live outside the United States? Tell me about the first Black female to ...
The first Black male to ...
It's hard as an American to remember that America is not the only country with Black\/brown citizens mixed in with a white population. That said, let's take Black History Month to the international level.
Tell me about people you have to look up.
Tell me about Samuel Ball. What makes him so interesting? What's the controversy surrounding him?
Tell me about the black family traveling on Titanic. What country did they come from? Did any of them survive?
Who was really the first Black female to stay in her seat on a bus?
Let's get a conversation going. Who knows what will come of it?","comments":"https:\/\/hypermint.livejournal.com\/30808.html?view=comments#comments","category":["trivia","current events","historical rambles"]}]}}