Uganda and the Stock Market Crash

On March 18 a group of filmmakers came to Cleveland mainly to speak about child soldiers, but their message seemed to turn toward raising funds more for the educating of free, yet underprivileged Ugandan youth than the rescue of those children still soldiers. Days before, all the History classes in the school (I'm led to believe) were made to watch the documentary Invisible Children. Originally made in 2003, the makers came to the school with an "update" film to fill in some gaps from those years in-between. Most important to everyone in the auditorium that day was Jacob, the 19 year-old former child soldier brought to the States from Uganda who's studying to be a lawyer.

Truly an experience. There are many things going on in the world of which the other parts of the world have no idea (for example, the Rwanda Tribunal that's still going on). That's why we have history class, not the internet, because if we leave kids alone with the internet, they play video games and Facebook each other. This is a fairly good way to keep an entire society in a bubble. Virtual social networking can only take you so far, and then you need a history teacher.

The official Invisible Children site has, as a main feature, a blog contributed to by all sorts of people with subjects from the Lord's Resistance Army to Haiti (yeah, still having issues over there) and this article I found about a 17 year-old Ugandan King, crowned at three, who wears a crown made from a lion's skin. Badass, fo' sho'. Apparently, according to the post, Uganda has four kings who each rule over their own little part of the country. President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni doesn't seem to mind, but I guess the kings don't have that much power (though the article attributes 2 million people to be under the rule of this 17 year-old king named Oyo). Also, says the article, Oyo "bobs his head to rapper Jay-Z, plays video games and reads the 'Twilight' vampire books." Take that as you may.




So anyway, to current events. Yesterday and to-day's class have been devoted to the STOCK MARKET CRASH of Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929 (which Mr. G erroneously gave as "October 14th 1929, or something"). Lesson learned: the only way to avoid losing money in a market crash is to hide your money under your bed. Or bury your money in the backyard. Or even better, hide your money under your bed and then bury the bed in the backyard. Works every time.

Here's the thing about the Stock Market Crash, and (spoiler alert) a build-up to WWII: a bunch of countries were affected, not just the U.S. (like Germany). Mr. G likened the way people were buying their stocks "on the margin" to Monopoly money. Of course, 'Monopoly money' would more accurately describe what the Germans would be doing with their money in the near future, as shown in this cartoon and this photo. The money was less than worthless. It was unusable paper. Not like Monopoly money, which can be made into sarcastic clothing.

Mr. G's quote of the day: "Well, let me get history hip-hop to do this part of the lesson for me."

Movie to watch regarding people freaking out about their money and bankrupting a company: 1946's It's a Wonderful Life with Jimmy Stewart. There's this scene, maybe it's on YouTube, go find it.

And the clip we watched in HotA with BEN STEIN:



~Curran O'Donoghue