Joseph Kaminski on Facebook
Joseph Kaminski on Twitter
Joseph Kaminski on YouTube
RSS Feed
This past week, the National Football League (NFL) announced that all team members and league personnel on the field “shall stand and show respect for the flag” at the beginning of every game as the national Anthem plays. The new policy threatens to fine teams composed of players who decide to “disrespect” the flag by
What do you consider the most influential books in history? As simple as that question may sound, it can be a rather controversial one. Are you interested in the sciences, the humanities, or a mixture of both? Personally, good philosophic or historical reads trump any other – although I do enjoy the occasional science fiction novel
This post is an article review of “Shipwrecked in the Atlantic World: Reevaluating Jonathan Dickinson’s Interactions with Native Peoples Along Florida’s Southeastern Coast” by Jason Daniels, which was published in the Spring 2013 (Vol. 91, No. 4) edition of the Florida Historical Quarterly. You can click here for a direct link to the article on
Robin Sutton Harris was born on October 27th, 1919 in Toronto, Ontario. In 1941, Harris received his BA in English Language and Literature from honor courses within the University of Toronto’s English department. After a brief period of war service, he found himself teaching at the elementary school level for about a year before applying
J. L. Granatstein, a renowned and rather prolific Canadian historian with focuses in both political and military history, was born in Toronto, Canada on May 21st, 1939 to Polish immigrants. He received his BA from the Royal Military College in 1959, his MA from the University of Toronto in 1962, and his PhD from Duke
How and when did vampires become synonymous with sexuality? Vampires became synonymous with sexuality as the folkloric ideologies of vampires merged with popular culture in the 20th and 21st centuries. The topic of “sexuality” had been present in certain strands of vamires in folkloric mentions (ie. certain vampires returning to ‘eat the breasts’ of female relatives in
Essentially, modern medicine and science didn’t have proper explanations for an improper burial or the methods of disposing of bodies. According to Vampires, Burial & Death by Paul Barber: animal scavenging, shallow graves and the erosion of soil, grave robbers, and flooding were all ways in which the deceased would “unearth” and return to this world.
What was the influence Cleopatra had on Roman women and how was she able to become popular among the Roman population? In the late 40s BCE, Julius Caesar brought Cleopatra and their 2-year-old son to his Empire. This is the first real cultural elegance that the Romans experienced from the Egyptians, as Cleopatra was a very highly intelligent woman. When
How did the production and consumption of consumer goods transform gender roles, race relations, and ideas about class, and how did Americans allow consumerism to affect social change? Production and consumption levels within the United States rose to all-time highs throughout the 20th century. Consumerism, on all fronts, became a massive part of day-to-day life.
From the period of 1790 – 2000, the United States had gone through a process of creative destruction, which essentially is the economic materialistic perspective of witnessing one way of life collapse in favor for a newer ideal. Joseph Schumpeter, author of Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, defined creative destruction as a “process of industrial mutation”,
The American economic system has changed significantly since the end of World War II back in 1945, but the ‘product’ of American prosperity has managed to remain the same throughout the decades. Shortly after the American allied victories in the Second World War, the United States became a global economy. They were the only song
Chocolate Islands is a historiographical work with a unique style of writing that focuses specifically on the letters exchanged between Joseph Burtt, who was sent to Africa to investigate living and working conditions, and William Cadbury, an English businessman and industrial mogul who ran the helm of one of the world’s largest chocolate firms. Chocolate Islands
Trump makes rather embarrassing international headlines yet again with his racist remarks against immigrants who come from “shithole” nations in Africa and the Caribbean. America was based on the idea of diversity, a country that birthed itself from a revolutionary concept that swept the late 18th century and led to the “democratic” so-called American values
Previously on this site, I published a rather short book review on Lizabeth Cohen’s “Making a New Deal”. Much like I enjoyed reading the book twice, I’ve enjoyed writing about it twice. In what ways were workers united and divided before the Great Depression? How did labor gain and fail to advance under the New Deal legislation? Here’s an
I haven’t discussed much on the Catalan referendum and the quest for independence in Spain’s wealthiest region; but I do believe it’s an important discussion to have. If you haven’t been paying much attention to world news, I do suggest reading on and finding other news articles on the subject afterwards. It’s an intriguing and
The main objective of the Progressive movement was to eliminate the corruption seen throughout the American government. Targeting political machines and their corporate bosses, the Progressives believed that by taking down corrupt representatives, America could finally establish a direct democracy. Another main goal of the Progressive movement was to regulate monopolies and bust up the trusts
The Democratic Party elites and corporatist shills have spent the last few months preaching “unity” and “moving forward” while hypocritically bashing the progressive wing that has proven itself to be necessary in order to win actual elections. Let me be frank: the Democratic Party, the political affiliation I have found myself to be apart of in the
What should be considered an impeachable offense by a sitting U.S. President? Violating the U.S. Constitution? A scandal of international proportions? A war justified by lies and waged on innocent people? Murdering innocent people and children remotely using drones? Using the office of President to directly and indirectly from the federal government? According to the
There’s been a lot of talk about the alt-right in recent months. We’ve had our eyes on the current disaster laid out by neocons and neocon-lites that we haven’t really had much time to analyze the differences between the ‘fracturing left’. A long time ago on the site, I talked about how political parties can
Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide is an intriguing book – published in 2009 – that became the perfect candidate for a contemporary movie on ‘rights’. Essentially, the film (and book) showcases the stories of women of all backgrounds from across the globe in an attempt to showcase “gender-based crimes” that
We must not propagate Barack Obama’s eight year tenure as President until we understand the consequences behind everything in his term. Democrats – do not shout about how 44 was the “greatest president in recent memory” just yet. Republicans – do not refer to how 44 was the “worst president in American history” just yet…or
If you would have told me this time last year that Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders were going to debate over the topic of Obamacare, I would have leaped for joy. I was a very strong supporter for Bernie Sanders and a very strong mocker of Ted Cruz during the 2016
It appears to be that Donald Trump’s administration can’t grasp the reality of what the Department of Justice is supposed to do. Like any authoritarian leader rooted in widespread fear and closely cornered narcissism, Donald Trump has failed to differentiate what it means to pledge allegiance to the constitution and to pledge allegiance to himself. Well, like any fine
As I’ve been discussing for the past few months, Americans are currently witnessing the end of an era for political elitism. The 2016 election cycle will go down in history as unprecedented; as concerning as the rise of Hitler during downdraught Germany and as destructive as the fall of Constantinople in 1453 was to the Roman
John Bain, better known as TotalBiscuit, has passed away at the age of 33 after a lengthy battle with cancer. In 2014, the YouTube personality announced his diagnosis of bowel cancer. Nearly a year later, he announced that it had gone into remission. Last year, it returned and spread to his liver and spine. Chemotherapy failed
Perhaps one of the most well-known names in Hollywood is Morgan Freeman. Considered to be one of the most influential voices in Hollywood, the 80-year old actor has been a part of several classics dating back nearly fifty years. “Shawshank Redemption”, “Million Dollar Baby”, and “March of the Penguins” are only some of the works
A major problem is that many people don’t have the time to digest long-winded articles anymore. In a world where every pocket has the potential to be filled with a digital square that has access to all of the information and misinformation across the globe, people find it hard to digest information that isn’t spoon-fed
During the holiday season of 1999, right smack dab in the middle of the dot com bubble, a well-known retail store nearly crashed and burned, learning a very important turn-of-the-century lesson in business. Just in time for the holidays, popular retailer Toys ‘R Us opened their primitive website, which just could not stand against the
Each and every New Year’s Eve, people from all across the world celebrate the upcoming New Year by congregating in urbanized areas like New York’s Time Square. Close to one million people packed themselves into the Times Square celebration to welcome the arrival of 2018. Such a dense population of people would already leave behind a
Good morning! Welcome to 2018! Your brand new, exciting experience that welcomes you to being one Gregorian year closer to the inevitable heat death of the universe! Since 2013, my “New Years Resolution” has been a single word each and every year. I somewhat attempt to “base” my year’s experience and events on that single
It has now been around four – closer to five, at this point – years since I’ve started “blogging”. I oftentimes refer to posts on this site as “articles” rather than “blogs”, mostly out of spite for the atmosphere WordPress and Tumblr have created around the activity. In 2013, I helped write The French Turmoil: Vive La France!, an eleven-part
Zombies Ate My Neighbors is a typical run-and-gun video game that was developed by LucasArts for the Super NES and Sega Genesis consoles in 1993. The game featured both a single and a local multiplayer method of playing, in which players could take control of one or two fictional protagonists to rescue their no-named, pixelated
Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero was written by Michael Korda, a man mostly known for his editing skills, who was born in London, United Kingdom in 1933. Korda comes from a family lineage that absolutely cares for the arts, whether it be art in its literal sense or through film and writing. His father,
1864: Lincoln at the Gates of History is a work that covers what one may consider as one of the most decisive years of Lincoln’s presidential terms. Charles Bracelen Flood wrote the book, and publishing began in 2009. On November 4, 1929, Charles Flood was born in New York. He graduated from Harvard in 1952
History in general is stained with tales of greatness…tales that that play off the harsh climate of sociopolitical and economic turmoil and celebrate the ingenuity or ‘progress’ made in a world that lacked connections to modern society. It is within Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago 1919-1939 that Cohen tackles the myth of
