Comments on Readings for 3/20/08

p.147-154
I agree that there are no "absolute truths" in history. I can see why this passage says that we have to be careful to research very thoroughly in order to provide enough evidence to prove or disprove a claim. It is precisely that reason, though, that I do not think we can ever disprove or prove something written just based on more historical writing. Maybe the majority of people working as slave laborers in Nazi camps did not suffer a great deal, but maybe one particular person who wrote a story did suffer. We would never know this about that one specific person just based on what we could find in historical documents. I am not a big fan of history because we never actually know what is accurate and what is not, so I do not think I will like reading passages that we have to research and put a lot of historical background into to understand.
For me, just reading the White House raises questions not of historical context, but of what the writer is feeling. I have never really liked analyzing poetry because I think it takes the beauty away from it and often times even though people think they have found the "hidden meaning", it really may not even be close to what the writer was really thinking or feeling at the time. I think if we really had to know the historical background behind a poem or story, the author should provide the information we know with it, rather than have to research it on our own.
p.11-20
"The Holocaust Party" was an interesting story. I found it amusing that up until the part about Jews having thin blood, the narrator actually believed the story. I do not think there is any need to even research any historical data in order to tell that this story was fake. The narrator says it as well. I don't see how actually having historical information on the Holocaust would enhance the meaning of this story at all.

p.404
"The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" is a depressing short poem. I feel bad for the man just by the way he says "when I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose." I do not really have any historical background as to what this poem is about, yet I still get an effect from it. It may change my opinion or feeling toward the poem if I was given more information besides what the footnote tells me. But, from that i can tell that this man was extremely brave and the way the poem makes it so that we are hearing the man who died retell his own death gives it a very unique effect.