There is much discontent over whether the we as a nation have involved ourselves unnecessarily in religious conflicts that are not any of our business in the first place. The Vietnam conflict is a great example of such involvement. Today as I walked across campus, I became very distracted by an altercation between a Fundamentalist Christian set on professing his beliefs and the word of the Bible and a young man who, although a follower of Islam, knew the passages from the Bible from front to back. It seemed to me a wonderful reflection of such religious conflicts on a much smaller scale.                               

In lecture today, Professor Putman was talking about counterculture and hippies. He described how they rejected the mainstream and cultural norms for a different type of lifestyle. This included tie dye, drugs, and the concept of love over war. My friend that lives next door to me in the dorms has the most colorful room I’ve ever come across. The only way it can be described is colorful and happy. I realized that she has this small tapestry (pictured below) draped across her bed and it completely embodies the hippie counterculture. “Make Love, Not War” and “All we need is love” were two common phrases of the time.

Today in class Dr. Putman mentioned the counterculture of the hippies and described their lifestyle. He mentioned how San Francisco was the epicenter of the counterculture because it was known to be a more openminded city. We saw a clip in class about a big outdoor concert that took place in Golden Gate Park  in San Francisco. I was able to connect that to a concert I had also been to in Golden Gate Park where that same hippie spirit was still alive. There were people with flowers in their hair dancing around, and just a large amount of people overall who all gathered together to listen to music and experience good vibes.

During the presentation about Emit Till I first shocked that I hadn’t learned about the event before, but I also knew that I had heard the name many times before. For spring break my friends and I road tripped up to San Francisco, and on the way I figured out where I had heard it – in a Kanye West song. I was driving and the song “Through the Wire” by Kanye came on spotify while everyone else was asleep and I couldn’t believe it. I had heard the song countless times and always wondered what he had meant by his girlfriend being afraid that he looks like Emit Till after his almost fatal car crash, and now I know.

I purchased this black and white skull as a wall decal for my apartment from Ikea. However, it got me thinking about a Mexican tradition I learned about in Spanish Class. As part of “Dia de los muertos,” the spanish version of Halloween, people decorate skulls in bright colors and patterns as seen in the second picture. This is supposed to paint the idea of death in a positive light instead of a sad one, and to promote the idea of a joyous afterlife. If we go even further back in history, we see that the Mexicans actually adopted this tradition from the Aztecs. Since we live so close to the Mexican border and since our school mascot is an Aztec, I thought this would be interesting to share.

For my essay, I wrote about how WWII ultimately led to the revival of baseball in the United States. Two days after it was due, my friends and I went to the last game of Padres-Giants series. It’s cool to be able to go to a game with a new insight on “America’s Favorite Pastime”.

This game of Hide and Seek is still ridiculous  

A weekend ago I went to Disneyland and remembered how it was created to be a distraction from the war going on. I realized how I had been to Disneyland so many times to get away from the pressures of school or work and how I guess that’s what it was made for. I went on to tell my family, who i was with, but to be honest I doubt any of them heard. I decided to do some more research on it later and found information about how Walt Disney would invite world leaders such as the Shah of Iran and Empress Farah to come enjoy their time here. Other Cold War politics went on to explain how Khrushchev was denied from entering.

This past Spring break, I went to Disneyland. While I was there, I remembered that Professor Putnam was talking about it and how it was a product of the Cold War. It was really interesting walking down Main Street because I was imagining and thinking to myself, “Is this what the world was like years ago??” I took this picture when I was there, and I think it looks cool because the airplane steam kind of look like “missiles.” I wish I had “You are haunted by history” flyers to put up all over the park (though I might get in trouble.. haha).