King Leopold: Bad Father or just blinded by power?

Something that really stuck with me was Leopold's ignorance towards the needs of his family.
Question number 14, How did Leopold's failing family life affect his actions in the Congo, really made me think more about the sacrifices that Leopold made in order to get further. Although Leopold liked about being a Humanitarian I still semi-respect him because he put the Congo as number one on his priority list. His dedication was amazing. He put his family on the back burner to focus all of his efforts on the Congo. He in a way did use the Congo as an escape from his family. He had many issues at home with his daughters and when he would fail as a father things in the Congo would progress.

DIALOGUE
me → Why would you ever choose to stay in a place like this?
Louise → I had put up with so much for so long and I was sick of following the rules. I dealt with the expectations of my family for so long and I was about to crack. The mask I had been wearing began to fall away and I realized that I could not let my family ruin my life. I knew that I had to finally stand up for myself and get what I wanted:love. I took a risk by having an affair, but I don't regret it. In a way it freed me of my chains as a daughter of King Leopold. I chose the asylum because in here you don't have to hide a thing. You don't have to wear a mask. They accept you, even if what you are is merely a loon.

DESCRIBING THE INDIVIDUALS LIFE
If Louise hadn't attempted to elope with her lover, she would have never been sent to an asylum. If she hadn't had the courage to attempt to leave she would have been stuck unhappily in her marriage forever. Louise matured as she aged

Questions
Why were people quick to believe Leopold was a good humanitarian? Did anyone suspect him of putting up a front and not having pure intentions?
How did Leopold's family past affect his idea of family when he was older?
Did Leopold's trouble at home push him to succeed in other aspects of his life (The Congo).

Questions in Class 1

Was it a good decision for Stanley to explore with men who had no experience as travelers? Why or why not?
Stanley's decision to explore without experienced companions was not a very wise idea, but he knew exactly what he was doing. "Out of the twelve hundred men who applied to join the expedition, some of them highly experienced travelers, he chose three unsuitable companions: a pair of sailor-fishermen, the brothers Drank and Eward Pocock, and a young hotel clerk named Frederick Barker"(Hochschild 49). "None of three had had any experience exploring" (49). "Stanley was always uncomfortable with anyone whose talents might outshine his own" and that is why he chose people that would have no chance of making him look bad or doing/finding something significant on their own. He planned it out so that he would be the star and that people wouldn't even remember the names of the other men. Stanley was practically exploring alone. If something would have went wrong, he would have had only himself to rely on. A hotel clerk, a bugle player... he didn't go out with a group schooled in the ways of the exploration. It was not a good idea at all, but he knew of the risk that came with taking incompetent companions on a trip where nothing was unexpected.

Quotes!

quotes that i found interesting...

“Leopold's letters and memos, forever badgering someone about acquiring a colony, seem to be in the voice of a person starved for love as a child and now filled with an obsessive desire for an emotional substitute, the way someone become embroiled in an endless dispute with a brother or sister over an inheritance, or with a neighbor over a property boundary. The urge for more can become insatiable, and its apparent fulfillment seems only to exacerbate that early sense of deprivation and to stimulate the need to acquire still more” (Hochschild 38).

“He has a script: the dream of a colony that had been through his head since he was a teenager. But he has as yet no stage, no cast” but “one day in September 1877,” the “Stage and star have appeared, and the play can begin” (Hochschild 46).

Stanley -> "The thin-skinned Stanley was remarkably frank about his tendency to take any show of hostility as a deadly insult. It is almost as if vengeance were the force driving him across the continent" (Hochschild 49).

"Stanley was always uncomfortable with anyone whose talents might outshine his own" (Hochschild 49). -> Even though this quote is short, I think it is important to realize that Stanley was a very proud man who loved the fame of being an explorer as much as the next person

1st Reading of King Leopold's Ghost

      For homework in my advanced world history class, I was instructed to read the first 35 pages of the book King Leopold's Ghost. The first part I read was the introduction. It talked about the background of a man that would alter history, Edmund Dene Moral. Moral was a very common man who didn't seem like "the sort of person likely to get caught up in an idealistic cause", but when he discovered the slave trade in Africa, he "almost single-handedly" "put the subject on the world's front page for more than a decade" (Hochschild 1, 2). As the introduction goes on, the author, Adam Hochschild, admits that he himself had heard of this great genocide in Africa and yet had filed it in his mind not as fact, but as fiction. The prologue talks of a time 500 years prior when people first began to go south towards Africa. They had many reasons. Some were drawn to the supposed riches, some to the source of the nile and some to the Legend of Prester John, a king who lived in Africa and would welcome strangers into his extravagant castle. This part of the reading caught my attention because it discusses how the people first got interested in moving south and how slowly but surely their curiousity began to get the better of them. They had wandered for so long that eventually the anticipation became to much and they started to attempt to go further and further into Africa. Most went on boats in the dangerous Congo River and the brave few would attempt to walk. I also found the section on how the priests were even betraying their promise to god and began to take slaves. It helped me to better understand how popular slave trade had become and how it was affecting more and more people. Another section that highly interested me was the beginning life of John Rowlands. He was a bastard child who spent most of his life wandering around. He lived with his grandpa, his uncles, a foster family and soon to St. Asaph Union Workhouse. John would go on to to be known as Henry Morton Stanley, the man who became a permanent roving foreign correspondent for the Herald at twenty-seven years old.

     One part that I found myself getting a bit disinterested in the reading was when Hochschild began to discusss Mbanza Kongo and how he changed things. I don't know why, I just found myself struggling to pull myself back in on this part, but it only laster the few pages discussing him and his rule. 

    Overall I found the reading very interesting and am already asking myself some questions such as...

1.) How was the story of such a mass genocide forgotten in history? It seems like a pretty hard event to forget.

2.) WHy do you think Europeans were willing to risk their lives traveling south down into Africa because of a silly fairytale? Was it purely curiosity or something more?

Which newsworthy events do you remember from your lifetime?

The question I asked was "Which Newsworthy events do you remember from your lifetime?"

Bill (aka my dad!): "Well I remember a lot but the ones that I recall most clearly were... well the assassination of John F. Kennedy. I was in Omaha, Nebraska at Offut Air force base in the base exchange when I heard. My youngest memory was when President Truman fired General McArthur, that probably makes me really old but I don't care. Oh! I remember when the astronauts landed on the moon. I heard it on the radio in my car and I rushed home to watch it on tv. I can remember a lot of stuff about when I was in the Vietnam war, but I don't want to get into that. The only memory I will mention is when I was in a helicopter with a bunch people shooting at us, and a piece of shrapnel hit me in the chest and burned the hell out of me. A more recent event that I remember really well would have to be 9/11. I recall hearing on my way to work just before 8 a witness saying that a plane had flown into the first tower, and a few minutes later the witness confirmed that a second plane had hit the second tower. The witness was a man staring out of his window with his wife watching everything happen and he was yelling "I can't believe it! Another plane just hit the other tower!"It was pretty surreal. I remember when John Lennon died. I was in New York... I had gone to dinner and when I got back to the hotel everyone was talking about it. I remember when Reagan got shot. I remember when that plane landed in the river in New York a few years ago. I remember the first American appearance of the Beatles... they were on the Ed Sullivan Show. I remember when I got black and white tv. I actually remember our first tv. It was an 8 inch screen. It seemed big back then... I remember party lines. Five houses would all be on the same line and have the same phone number. So you'd go to pick up the phone and someone else would be having a conversation so you would hang up and wait your turn. I remember the first computers. I remember 78 records.

Renee (aka my mom!): "Oh gosh. Well, I remember when President Carter pardoned the draft dodgers who had went to Canada to escape the Vietnam War. My mom was SO mad. I will never forget that coming off the news. I was really little, but my parents were so upset that it will always stick in my mind. I was really young but I vaguely remember when JFK died. I really remember when the space shuttle exploded with the school teacher on it. Of course I remember 9/11. I was dropping Sydney off at pre-school and I was in my car. I turned on the news on the radio and heard. I remember when the pope came to Des Moines! My mom went to the living history farm to see him. She rode a bus and had to walk... she was excited. I remember during the Vietnam War when one of my best friend's brothers was killed. Oh gosh I remember when Nixon got pardoned? What was happening? I remember he was in a bunch of trouble... OH! They were trying to impeach him, that's what it was. I remember that being a whole big mess. I remember when Reagan died, we were in California for a wedding. I also remember when the iron curtain was taken down in Russia! I REALLY remember when Princess Diana died. We had come home from a company anniversary thing and your grandma was sitting at the tv crying. She never bought another smut magazine. She was so mad at the paparazzi. She used to go to Medicine More every week for a magazine and some cigarettes and she was so upset that she never bought another trashy magazine. I remember when Elvis died! OH! I stayed up all night to watch the wedding of Princess Diana and Prince Charles. It was like at 4 or 5 in the morning, it was crazy, but I saw the whole thing! I remember Hurricane Katrina...  I remember when the Staten Island Ferry ran into the dock in New York. I remember being stuck in Des Moines during the floods of '93. We were driving across a bridge and the water was level with the car. I remember when John F. Kennedy Jr. died. I remember when the Beatles were out. My sister LOVED them. I remember Elvis on the Ed Sullivan Show. They only showed him from the waist up because rock and roll was evil. I remember getting touch tone telephones! Oh, party lines! I would never hang up, I would listen to my neighbors conversations. I remember when they were going to change the whole world to the metric system. I remember when they went albums to a-track players to cassette players to cd players to ipods now.

Now my turn! 

When Mrs. Knechel asked me to think about this I started to freak out a little inside. I thought, A"Alright Madison, you don't know that many so you should either heavily explain the one you do know or just start to look stuff up and pretend like you remembered it", but after interviewing my parents I realized that I knew way more than I thought I did. The "newsworthy events"didn't have to be specifically conflicts in different countries, but could be about anything that I had remembered.

I, of course, remember 9/11. I was sitting in my babysitter Mrs. Jeanne's kitchen after she had come and picked me up from school. The ever popular tv show "Big Wolf on Campus" was cancelled and I was of course extremely dissapointed, but Mrs. Jeanne made me keep on the news report that had replaced it. I remember seeing pictures of the world trade center and although I didn't fully understand what was happening I was afraid. I remember when Anna Nicole Smith died! I though people were kidding when they first told me. I remember when Michael Jackson held his baby out of a hotel room window to "say hello to fans" and people freaked out thinking that he was crazy and was trying to kill his child. I remember when Princess Diana died because I got the beanie baby created for her after her death from my babysitter. I remember when Osama Bin Laden was captured. I was prepping to sing the national anthem at the ram's game when it came on the tv. Right before I sang they announced it and I remember the stadium going crazy. I remember when J. Lo and Ben Affleck cancelled their wedding. I remember when Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake broke up. That was awful. I remember when George Busch won the presidential election over John Kerry. I remember when the blonde harp playing girl was found after being abducted from her home and was kidnapped for many years. I remember when Janet Jackson had her nipple incident at the Super Bowl with Justin Timberlake. I remember when Heath Ledger died. I remember the tsunami in Sri Lanka and Hurricane Katrina. I remember when Friends went off of the air. I remember when Mark McGuire was found to have been using steroids. I remember the shooting at Columbine Highschool. I remember when the pope was very sick. I was in Chicago at a dance competition and I sat at the tv with my mom and saw all of the people with candles, crying and praying. I also remember soon after when he passed away. I remember when the Amish school girls were murdered. I remember when scientists decided Pluto was not a planet... and then decided it was again. I remember when the space shuttle exploded. I remember watching former President Reagan's funeral and watching his wife cry on his coffin. I think that if I sat here for a few hours i would remember more and more stories. It doesn't hit you how much you absorb by just listening to the radio or having aol as your homepage on your computer... When i started this I thought I knew nothing, but now I think I might know a little more than I thought!