Hamilton DOL – Farmer Refuted

In Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton, “Farmer Refuted” is a song involving two main characters and sides to a discussion: Alexander Hamilton and Samuel Seabury (who wrote under the pen name A.W Farmer, hence the name of the song).  Hamilton is involved in a hostile altercation with the loyalist (an Episcopal rector) who is voicing his opinions on the rebellion. This is introduced by the opening line of the song, “Hear ye, hear ye my name is Samuel Seabury” and following, “I present free thoughts on the proceedings of the continental congress” explaining to us his purpose of being there. What morally drove Seabury was the subject of the First Continental Congress for supporting a trade with Britain as part of the aftermath of actions after the Boston Tea Party.

Hamilton heckles Seabury (right)  as he addresses the colonist.

 

The two held their disputes on paper through letters, pamphlets Another character is Hercules Mulligan who says the 5th line, “Oh my god tear this dude apart,” who  encourages Hamilton to speak up and back towards Seabury. Hamilton responded to this by writing back to Seabury in a piece titled  “A Full Vindication of the Measures of the Congress.” After these initial exchanges, the skirmish between the two continued to escalate. Later on, Aaron Burr makes a small appearance in the line “Alexander please” to which Hamilton responds with “Burr, I’d rather be divisive than indecisive, drop the niceties.” This line highlights the character’s desire to articulate and convey what he believes on the controversial topic, disregarding the concern of maintaining friendships and “niceties.” The final role in this song is a minor character who makes the first true appearance in the following song, “You’ll be back.” King George II is confused as to why the two are fighting and makes remarks through delivering a speech in the next song regarding the rebellion. The leeway and antecedent lines before this involve the people chanting “silence a message from the king, a message from the king, a message from the king.”

 

Artifacts from the exchange of letters and pamphlets between Seabury and Hamilton

 

The big idea in the Socials Curriculum that this song best coincides with is disparities in power alter the balance of relationships between individuals and societies. Hamilton and Seabury are arguing over the actions of the continental congress following the aftermath of the Boston Tea Party. The disparity in this situation analyzes the contrast of opinions between Hamilton and Seabury and the imbalance of their evidence, bias and support of each side. These two men influenced what other people thought as they were both notable, authoritative and admirable characters in the scope of Hamilton as a whole.

Samuel Seabury

Alexander Hamilton

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The most important historical note of this song is the publication date of Hamilton’s second published letter The Farmer Refuted, based off of Seabury’s pen name throughout the exchange. The letter was published in February of 1775 and was a follow up of his first letter, A Full Vindication of the Measures of Congress. During this time in Hamilton’s life, he was studying at the King’s college in New York where he was heavily interested and gifted in the field of writing. That year, the first shots of the revolution were fired at Lexington Green and Hamilton joined the New York Militia.     

Some of the wants that can be revealed from this song through the interactions of characters is the desire to voice opinions and become involved in authority and events. Alexander Hamilton and Samuel Seabury were influencers in the varying opinions regarding how the congress was handling situations at the time. Many people other than Seabury and Hamilton were later involved in this song such as Aaron Burr, Hercules Mulligan and King George II, showing how small decisions and arguments involve the lives of many other people too. This song expresses how revolutions are heavily dependent on the contrasting ideologies and opinions. As stated earlier, the exchange of letters through the dispute caused tension between the two characters and those who supported them, and resulted in a negative relationship between Seabury and Hamilton. During the revolution, people wanted to become involved because their decisions and actions would make an impact on the large event as a whole (comparable to current day voting). Conflicts this created were cynical relationships, skirmishes and battles, tension between countries and the overall “civil war” as a whole.

 

Sources

Images: 

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alexander-Hamilton-United-States-statesman

https://www.episcopalct.org/Find-Resources/archives-of-the-episcopal-church-in-connecticut/diocesan-bishops/samuel-seabury/n

https://genius.com/Original-broadway-cast-of-hamilton-farmer-refuted-lyrics

https://patriottoursnyc.com/the-farmer-refuted/ 

 

 

Info:

https://www.revolvy.com/page/The-Farmer-Refuted

http://elyjah.talons43.ca/2016/12/11/hamilton-song-analysis-farmer-refuted/

https://winewithcheetos.com/2017/06/23/hamilton-an-american-musical-the-facts-behind-the-music-part-4-farmer-refuted-and-youll-be-back/

https://genius.com/Original-broadway-cast-of-hamilton-farmer-refuted-lyrics

 

 

 

 

 

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Ted Talk 2019!

 

Click the links to go to specific sites for viewing:

Ted Talk – Light Pollution and Celestial Navigation ( How does light pollution affect our every day lives and how we view the universe?)

Ted Talk – Blooper Reel

Notes and Script

Bibliography

5 Ted Talks  (I watched for reference)

Ted Talk Science 2019 TALONS 9 – Michaela Da Silva

Socials Inquiry Info Graphic

 

 

PDF LINK

CANADIAN HISTORY INQUIry

Ecological Footprint Project

Calculation of Footprint: 12.9

Comparison of Footprint to Others

I notice that my footprint is a lot larger than my peers, and I believe this is mainly because of the amount of sports I do weekly and the living space required for the actvities outside of my own home. An example of this is how my barn is on approximately 40,000 square meters, on top of my 1800 sqm house and the school where I spend most of my time.  Some areas where my footprint was lower than others was in my water use area (I do not take baths and my showers are only about 5 minutes each), as well as how much money I spend daily (not that much as I tend to spend a lot in later quantities at once).

Things That Increase My Footprint 

1. Showering very often for a long duration of time
2. Eating foods or using products that contain high amounts of plastic content
3. Taking private vehicles every day to a work or school environment 
4. Buying new clothes every time you need a new wardrobe in comparison to up cycling and second hand materials
5. Eating more meat
6. Participating in activities and sports that are indoor or have facilities that require large buildings or parking lots
7. Not composting organics or recycling suitable products
8. Buying food that was not grown in BC or locally
9. Leaving taps and hoses on for unnecessary reasons
10. Wearing matching socks 

Of these ten detrimental environmental impacts, I have chosen 5 that I have attempted to change  to maintain a friendlier ecological footprint. I have started to take the bus more to school in the mornings, regardless of the fact that my parents are available to drive me or not. I chose this mainly because pollution and gasoline is a large contributing factor to the amount of carbon monoxide in the air and how unchangeable this problem may become in our future. When I am buying groceries by myself or with my mum I encourage her to buy things more locally grown and support farmers and growers in BC. One of the largest steps I have made as a person in my life to help myself be nicer to the environment is me going vegetarian in 2013. The livestock industry contributes more greenhouse gas emissions globally than the transport sector and the ecological footprint of vegetarians is estimated to be around half that of meat eaters. The last thing I tried to better for myself is wearing second hand clothes because I find myself throwing out a lot of my own clothes because I was unaware of how to up cycle them properly.  I chose these things to work on because I knew they would be accomplishable for me and I would not drop the ball or forget about them because I knew I would enjoy helping the earth and attempting to make an impact. 

The hardest change I had to make throughout this experience was wearing more second hand clothing. This is because I really enjoy shopping for new clothes and being able to do that dwindled the more I wore other peoples clothes instead of buying. My mum and I have created a system where at the end of each month we go through all the clothes we no longer wear and send them to value village, and shop for more clothes for ourselves while we are there. Giving up meat was not considered a large or challenging change for me because animals are very important to me and it made me uncomfortable to eat them in the first place, and I knew giving up the ability to do that would also help towards greenhouse gasses and the negative effects of farming. This change would probably be the easiest one for me to make because I also recognized how it would change my life and how much I wished to impact the people around me. I continue to tell people how positive going vegetarian can be for someone and how helpful it can be, because I believe things cannot be spread without people advocating their opinions about them. An obstacle I encountered while trying to drive to school less and use the bus more was the contradicting times with my schedule. I have to take 2 and sometimes 3 buses to school each day and they don’t always line up, leaving me waiting for up to 30 minutes in the morning. Since it also takes longer to get to school using public transit, I had to wake up earlier in my day which also proved challenging since I enjoy sleeping quite a bit. The way I solved this problem was going to sleep earlier at night and setting more than one alarm to insure I actually woke up instead of sleeping through them all. The steps I will and continue to take in my future include staying vegetarian for as long as my other medical dietary restrictions allow me to, create and organize systems to up cycle clothing and not buy things I do not need, buy local groceries when I move out for myself (when I have more control on what I can spend my personal money on) and continue to maintain a better sleep schedule so I can take public transit more instead of relying on my parents.

 

In Depth 2019 – Final Post

I am extremely happy with how my learning and exploration of photography has expanded throughout this entire experience and I would do it over again in a heartbeat. My mentor was helpful, forgiving, knowledgable, caring and helpful when showing me the ropes and basics of learning to take photos like a professional. Of course learning such a large hobby needed to be toned down to some more graspable aspects, so each session we narrowed down separate concepts to focus on. The main ones include:

1. Posing: positioning models (humans, animals, objects) in such a posture that produces flattering images with proper focal points
2. Backgrounds and lighting: learning what backlight is and when to use it vs frontal lighting and the use of natural sunlight on different facial angles
3. Portrait shooting: things to keep in mind for using models and taking people on shoots (finding locations, setting times with use of daylight, outfits, poses, action shots, etc)
4. Editing: exploring software such as Adobe Photoshop and InDesign and the basics on how to manipulate and change images a certain way

TALONS Adopt A Trail group working on bettering the environment by maintaining the Scott Creek Trail by their school, Gleneagle.

So far the final artifact I have completed for my final project is completing my finalized personal photography website. This page highlights the main things I enjoyed about this project in different tabs in my gallery (equine, portraits, nature) and a few photos from each shooting location in each tab. I also have included a blog which I am regularly adding posts to, a “contact me” menu for shoot bookings (also an option on my Instagram page) and an about me. This website was very fun to make as I am also very heavily invested in digital and graphic design and enjoyed putting these skills to use.

How close can I get to a wild animal with a small 18-55 mm kit lense?

For my final learning centre I will be showcasing my website on my laptop in front of a poster with some highlighted concepts (such as the ones listed above in this post) of what I learned. So far the vision I have for this poster is writing boxes in the middle of a trip fold and some more images I have taken on either side. I will also have some landscape photos professionally printed on the table for people to take as they walk by. Additionally on my table I will be displaying the  book I wrote for ZIP 2019 about the Impact and Origin of Photography, also mentioned in my website: https://michaeladasilva9.wixsite.com/photography

Thank you to everyone who help[ed me along with this project!

Looking forward to In Depth Night!

 

English Civil War Letter

English Civil War – Daily Life 17th Century Letter Assignment                                    April 22, 2019

Michaela Da Silva

Massachusetts Bay Colony, England

September 1st, 1664

Dear Father,

Hi dad, do you remember me? It has been a while since I last wrote, but it became too hard for me to find spare paper and my last pen I stole from the markets ran out of ink. Anyways, I hope everything is good for you right now and you are being treated nicely in your new position for the British Army.  My cousins and I have started to work more on uncle William’s farm so financially we are fine and everybody is getting fed. We are preparing a meal for when you come home, sort of like a celebration for the work you have done while you are here, even if just a brief time. I’m doing pretty okay right now but it’s really hard to live with mom’s absence all the time… Charlie and I have  been spending more time at the cousin’s place just to distract ourselves. Where does mom even go? I see her in the markets and in the alleyways behind town and such but lately she has just been home in the evening and mornings. Maybe it is just because we are getting older and she’s letting us do things for ourselves now, but I have to say it gets pretty scary sometimes. I mean, Charlie is doing okay. He found a rat in our shed a few weeks ago and it’s been running around our house like his little pet. I’m just worried about where mom goes and who she is with. I’m sure you have heard by now about the increase of executions and popularity of witch hunts happening. Johannes tells me rumours of tha Hopkins fellow roaming the streets around the towns, and it makes me even more nervous about mom. You are gone all the time so it’s just me, her and Charlie and we are pretty financially and mentally stable right now so I can see how she could come across as… peculiar? I try to talk to her and get her to stay inside more and not talk to the weird people by the south sides but you know she just likes to roam and try new things and explore. She takes our money into the night markets and comes back with all sorts of trinkets for Charlie and I. That must not look very good to the citizens and outsiders. I guess there isn’t much for me to worry about. I’m sure she will be okay. But please hurry home, the last thing I want to is to see her unrightfully burned at the stake for something she isn’t.

Miss you loads,

Michaela

 

Animal Farm Questions

Is it more important to have a strong ideology or leader for a revolution to occur? What tactics do leaders use to convince others of their ideologies?

 

Having a strong leader kick starts a revolution and provides a solid platform for a revolution or change of beliefs to occur.  Leaders are important because they are the people (or pigs) who get others behind them and promote their ideas to make their opinions relevant and popular. In Animal Farm, Old Major had ideas and a dream about a different life that could be lead by the animals and by calling together the farm and effectively expressing his ideas he started a new way of thinking for his comrades: “animalism” (3,11). From strong leaders, strong beliefs are created and others start to become more opinionated on the topic. After Old Major died, Napoleon took a stance as the leader whose goal was to change the animal’s lives for the better and persuade them to think like him. Without a strong leader such as Napoleon or Snowball in this story, the animals would have trouble banding together as one and working to change their own lives and revolt against the humans. Some tactics leaders use to convince others of their ideologies is promoting the benefits of what they are fighting for and expressing  how much better a situation could be than the current. Leaders can manipulate others, protest against something/someone else, or express their opinions in a way that puts down others to make theirs sound popular and in the right.

 

To what extent does power and privilege or lack thereof affect the beliefs and actions of individuals in a revolution?

 

Leaders in a revolution and those who are able to passionately speak up about what is on their mind are the most powerful people in a revolution because they are able to express new ideologies that influence other people. Power and privilege is related to this because   often the people with more authority in a revolution are able to more freely and respectfully convey their thinking (as in more people listen to them or are more prone to listen to what they have to say). In Animal Farm, Napoleon is a strong and opinionated character who was given the authority and appointed some sort of authoritative leader by the other animals and because of this he has a large impact on the way the other animals think and feel about their major conflicts. Closer to the end of the story Napoleon becomes more affirmative in his beliefs regarding the statement “all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.” This changes the way the animals think because it sways some of them to believe and stand behind him and causes others to recognize what could be wrong or biased (such as Mollie earlier in the book)(7). When there is little or no power in a situation and no authoritative figure to express strong beliefs, people are more prone to thinking to themselves because there is little to base their opinions from and they are less susceptible to change.

 

In your opinion was the revolution successful? Was there any other options to bring about the animal’s desire to change? If so, what could have been done? If not, what made the revolution inevitable?

 

In my opinion the revolution was not successful because the animals resorted to some of the beliefs they harshly opposed in the beginning. The opinionated movements of the way of life only benefited the pigs because they were the ones who were able to take charge and change things as to what they saw fit. The other animals are sacrificing some possible other contrasting opinions about the leadership positions and how the farm is being controlled because they believe the pigs are worthy and “more important” than anyone else (9). Because of this, the pigs are able to do whatever pleases them on the farm with little arguments or oppositions, such as building the windmill to “do their work for them” and writing (and countlessly revising) the commandments (15). I feel like there could have been better ways to solve the conflicts, and this story is a good example of how leaders who have boastful, controlling and cocky ruling styles can run a very controversial system of order. In the beginning the animals had effective communication methods by meeting to discuss their thoughts. But after struggling with the commandments, relationship with humans and neighboring farms, dealing with contrary opinions and living in the farmhouse the sense of questioning and frustration started to overpower the initial feelings of motivation. This is similar to Charles I and his relationship with Parliament in the English civil war because Charles also dealt with those who did not agree with his leadership style. Charles and James alike both had an arguably controversial way of order which involved voicing their strong opinions, similar to the pigs in animal farm. Overall, the revolution only benefited a minor group of the animals therefore it should not be considered successful. The revolution was not inevitable but it may have been seen as the most directly effective way to deal with the animal’s problems with the humans.