It's already over? But I never got to object...

I really enjoyed this activity overall. I thought that it was kind of hard, but I think that just comes along with the role that I had in the trial. As the cross examiner, there was only so much I could do to prepare beforehand, while some people knew everything that they were going to say. I think I did pretty well as a cross examiner. I think that I elicited a few confessions, though it was easy to tell who prepared for this and who didn't, as the ones who didn't prepare would confess to anything. I know there were things that I could have done better, but when I consider that it was all very in the moment, I think I did pretty well.
I think that the Mongols were not monsters. I actually view them as a very ambitious, mostly fair people. I actually consider their successes astounding. In the context of the time, it was amazing that a band of horsemen could could conquer most of the known world. It really shows that they were a tactical people in warfare, and benevolent leaders in government. While I would consider them guilty of terrorism and kidnapping, I would not consider them guilty of genocide. The mongols used tactics in order to create fear in their enemies in order to win, even against overwhelming odds, and I won't fault them for that. I would not consider them guilty of genocide because for the most part, they spared those who surrendered and very rarely, if ever, just killed people without reason. This goes against the very basis of genocide in my opinion, because in order to focus on killing a specific group of people, it would be without purpose. It was said in one of the videos that we watched that Genghis showed great foresight, and I think that his descendants inherited some of that foresight from him.  

Genghis Khan: The man behind the horse

While it is difficult to apply terms such as "good" and "bad" to people, I'll ignore that philosophic landmine for the sake of this post. Overall, I think that he was good. From what we've seen from the video so far, it seems as though his actions, while brutal, were not random or unjust. One of the professors from the video had the opinion that Khan had foresight when it came to who he killed/helped. In the slightly altered words of David Fincher, "You don't get to rule the largest land empire in history without killing a few innocents." Another factor that supports this opinion is that Khan had to please his people, who, according to the video, were constantly pressuring him to continue to conquer. And lets not forget: it was the man's dream to conquer the world. He was just following his dreams, and you can't fault him for that anymore than you could fault a little girl-become ballerina who always dreamed to dance (although in this case it was a little boy-become murderous warlord, but that's inconsequential).

Project Post

First Crusade Glogster including xtranormal:

http://www.glogster.com/lukeschissler/muslim-reactions-to-first-crusade/g-6lq853rl83vbfq69siu3oa0

Third Crusade Glogster including xtranormal:

http://www.glogster.com/lukeschissler/muslim-reactions-to-third-crusade/g-6lq82gacel43gvk0nv7lua0

Fifth Crusade Glogster including xtranormal:

http://www.glogster.com/lukeschissler/muslim-reactions-to-the-fifth-crusade/g-6lq80ve24tu36gr41qk7fa0

Eighth Crusade Glogster including xtranormal:

http://www.glogster.com/lukeschissler/muslim-response-to-the-eighth-crusade/g-6lq7tak1jq5avnccabc1ga0

Project Day 3

Today I wrote on Josh Rosenberg and David Huynh's blogs just giving some general feedback. I also decided to do four crusades, and to do the 1st, 3rd, 5th and 8th instead of my initially chosen ones as these made more sense given the research that I found. I chose to show my understanding in this way because I have found that glogster gives the user a lot of options when it comes to showing an idea, and I like that flexibility. No real problems have occurred thus far. Glogster took a little getting used to, but once I learned how to use it, I found it really beneficial to my project. My project did end up working as I envisioned, thanks to the sites of xtranormal and glogster, which provided the canvas on which I painted my masterpiece.

Project Day 2

In terms of where I have been finding my info, Google has been most helpful. In specific, the American version. I tried the Arabic version as you recommended, but to no avail: I found no links that were helpful even with multiple searches. I have also tried Bing!, but after using said search engine I realized why Google has remained superior. For this project, I also enlisted the help of my friends. On last Saturday night, we got together to od some research and work on the project. Those friends were Yerim Oh, Laura Simon-Pearson and Krutika Nayak (not in your class, but I felt bad leaving her out). The only real trouble that I am having with finding my information is that there seems to be ample information on some of the crusades, but almost none on a few of them. This means that for a few of the crusades I am going to have to be more vague when it comes to the specifics of the project.

1st Day of Project

The Crusades that I have chosen for my project will be First, Third, and Fourth Crusades. I chose the First crusade in order to act almost like a control, as in a scientific experiment. As far as the crusades went, the first one was rather standard and not-surprising, so the Muslim response to this crusade will best contrast their response to the less-standard, more strange crusades. I chose the Third crusade because I though that the Muslim response to a negotiation rather than a war would be interesting. I chose the Fourth crusade because I would imagine that the Muslim response to the European crusaders attacking another Christian society would be one of comedy. Obviously, to accomplish this goal, some use of Google will be necessary, but I would also like to explore the other options and alternatives to Google that you have posted on your blog.