fandomhigh | Quantum Physics 225: Monday, Fifth Period

A teenage boy, looking vaguely apprehensive in a striped tie, dress shirt, and nice trousers, is sitting on top of the desk in the Doctor's classroom. For some reason, he speaks with authority and a touch of attitude. Every so often he runs his hand through his mop of messy brown hair. And he seems to be pouting, just a little.

It was fortunate Turlough had left some of his clothing behind, or he'd definitely be in jeans and a t-shirt. And that? Would not be cool. It would suck. Though it would be more comfortable...
He fiddles with his tie.

"Okay. So. Discussion last week was good, especially Crichton, Sam." His voice cracks on the A in Sam and he winces. "Crap. Anyway. Today, each of you are going to talk--to me and to the class--about your selected Influential Persons. What did they do to be so great? I want to know. Even if I already know, which I probably do, but whatever.

"Assignment for Wednesday is to think about, say, two events in each of your two people's lives that could have been subtly changed--and what effects that would have on the future. Extrapolate, but don't be stupid about it or exaggerate, or whatever. Cool? Cool. Sweet. Go on, then."

He looks like he isn't exactly certain where 'cool' came from, or 'sweet', then mutters something that may sound like 'bloody CJ'. And then he pauses.

"Oh, yeah, and if you don't listen to the radio...yes, I'm the bloody Doctor. The usual rules in this class apply, and if you act like jerks, I will totally drag you by the ear to Smith's office."

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...

Jack's eyes bug out as he signs in.

The Doctor gives him his patented Shit-Eating Grin.

Jack rescues the eyeballs that are making a run for the border, pops them back into his head, and totally is cool with this. He did just run into CJ ~~although I know not right now how that turned out~~ (http://community.livejournal.com/fandomhigh/542887.html?thread=25578151#t25578151)

"Did you get my call, Jack?" Ten smiles at him.

Gee, Jack is cute...until the Time Lord of the Doctor's brain slaps the instinct back down, that is.

Jack continues blinking. "Yeah. You're sorry about the locking in the closet... what the HELL?"

"Watch your mouth in my classroom, Harkness," he snaps, which sounds incongruous coming from a teenager. "Don't be such a jerk. Do you really think that you would have talked otherwise? God, you two are stubborn as bloody goats or something."

His scowl looks ready to rival Jack's own.

Jack's mouth is open. "Why are you twelve?"

The Doctor looks at him as if he's seriously contemplating ripping Jack's head off and feeding it to piranhas. His fists clench, then release, then clench again. Finally, he says, "Seven.Teen. And it was the bloody LOCKER."

((don't forget to do your report!))

Jack blinked again. "Oh. So you know about CJ, I take it?"

Ten rubs his forehead, obviously sick of being like this already. "She fell in. I went after her."

Sam signed in, more than a little sympathetic to the Doctor's current plight.

John signs in, recognizes the guy from last night and realizes his name isn't Bill.

D'oh.

...dude. Just go for it.

"I did influential people from the Berlin Wall situation," John says. "Walter Ulbricht was the actual man who proposed the idea of the Berlin Wall to Nikita Khrushchev. He wanted a second air blockade that was refused by Khrushchev. For the women, I chose Anna Funder. Now, this might be cheating a bit but she was an author who wrote a book about living behind the Berlin Wall. Funder, in fact, lived in West Germany while the wall was standing. After the fall of the wall, Funder decided to do investigative reporting and interviewed the Stasi (the East German security) and the people they spied on."

"Not cheating, that's perfectly fine. Good work, Mr Crichton." Smirk.

The woman I chose was Lindsy Van Gelder, who is not a famous name, but she created a famous -- and fictional -- image of rebellion in the feminists movement ~~which isn't my topic, but we'll stretch it to include other radicals~~. She was trying to make a comparison between the women's movement -- which few people were taking seriously -- and the Vietnam War, which many people were taking seriously. On the day of the Miss America Pagent in 1968, a group of feminists tossed restrictive underwear like bras and girdles into a trash can and crowned a sheep. Van Gelder refered to "bra burning" as a metaphor for the women rejecting the symbols of oppression the same way that young men burning their draft cards were rejecting the government's attempt to call them into a war they did not support.

It was an incredibly vivid image, and managed to stick -- even if it never happened, or only happened after someone had started using the phrase.

(Info from Snopes: http://www.snopes.com/history/american/burnbra.htm . Guy coming up soon.)

"The two people I decided to research were Coretta Scott King, Dr. Martin Luther King's widow, and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, since they were both extremely influential in the Civil Rights movement, and it's theorized that they were even more involved because of the assassinations of their loved ones.

Just four days after Dr. King's death, she led a march of fifty thousand people through the streets of Memphis, and later that year she took his place in the Poor People's March to Washington. In 1974 she formed the Full Employment Action Council, a broad coalition of over 100 religious, labor, business, civil and women's rights organizations dedicated to a national policy of full employment and equal economic opportunity; Mrs. King served as Co-Chair of the Council. She was also instrumental in getting Dr. King's birthday established as a national holiday in this country.

Robert Kennedy, on the other hand, was elected to the Senate very shortly after his brother's assassination. As Senator, Robert endeared himself to the issues of African Americans, and of other minorities such as Native Americans and immigrant groups. He spoke forcefully, and tied himself with leaders of the civil rights struggle, and led the Democratic party to pursue a more aggressive agenda to eliminate discrimination on all levels. Kennedy supported busing, integration of all public facilities, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and anti-poverty social programs to increase education, offer opportunities for employment and provide health care for millions of disenfranchised and despairing colored Americans.

Kennedy also embraced opposition to the Vietnam War in 1968. Making this decision was difficult for him, for he knew that President Kennedy had increased military support for South Vietnam, and had envisioned a major U.S. commitment, if not exactly as it turned out during President Johnson's administration, to defending South East Asia and the Indochina region from Communist aggression. Many critics allege that Kennedy's switch in position was to reap advantage during the hotly contested Democratic primaries, and while this is true, it had more to do with Kennedy's own understanding of the war than merely a tactic to muster support for his candidacy.

Kennedy's presidential campaign was powered by an aggressive vision for civil freedom and justice, the expansion of social development programs beyond Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs, active minority participation in American politics and outright opposition to the conservative attitudes of the American South and the aloof attitude of many Americans to serious social problems like poverty and racism."

With much thanks to Wikipedia, from whence this information was ganked.

Woot.

Psst. http://community.livejournal.com/fandomhigh_ooc/239497.html - can you please tag your class posts again?

Sorry, didn't know it was working, and missed that post. Cheers.

Quantum Physics 225: Monday, Fifth Period

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