May 01, 2019 Wednesday
Bedtime Story
Lincoln (2012)
The cotton plantations in turn were
disproportionately dependent upon Africa-American Slaves.
The Confederate State of America or simply
The Confederacy consisted of seven slave-holding states namely South Carolina,
Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas – with most of them
semi-encircling the Gulf of Mexico.
They did not concede to the slave abolition
policy of the President Abraham Lincoln who was elected in November 1860 as it
would hurt their economic interests.
Displaying complete hostility towards the
new President elect and in general towards the people that elected him the
seven Southern States formed their own government in February 1861 a month
before the new President actually took over the office.
Not just that but overnight this new
government overnight formed its own army calling it Confederate States Army
which was an outright act of hostility and a call for war.
I don’t know if you have happened to see Spielberg’s
2012 historical drama ‘Lincoln” wherein the role of Lincoln has been played by
Daniel Day-Lewis and who won the Best Actor award at the 85th
Academy Awards.
The movie is very somber and dark set in
the year of 1865 with the Civil War to be expected to be over soon.
The movie is not about the civil war as it
is about the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution that sought
to abolish slavery and involuntary servitude.
Lincoln’s greatest fear and source of concern
– as depicted by Spielberg in the movie to glorify the protagonist – was that
the proposed amendment would be defeated by the returning Confederate States in
the house voting.
In the final moments of the movie the vote
on the floor of the House is eventually passed by a very narrow margin of 2
votes with the president having to deploy all his political machinations and
convincing ability.
There is one very memorable scene quite
early in the film which depicts the stance of the president towards the question
of black slaves which is in the form of a monologue in front of two young men and
it goes like this:
“Euclid’s first common notion is this:
‘Things which are equal to the same thing are
equal to each other.’
That’s a rule of mathematical reasoning.
It’s true because it works; had done and
will always do.
In his book, Euclid says this is ‘self-evident’.
You see, there it is, even in that
two-thousand year old book of mechanical law: it is a self-evident truth of
things which are equal to the same thing, are equal to each other.
We begin with equality.
That’s the origin, isn’t it?
That balance – that’s fairness, that’s
justice.”
Stay tuned to the voice of an
average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is Professor
Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the International
Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I recommend
this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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