Caleb's corner

Hi! I am Caleb Salazar of Jackson TN. I am 13 years old, soon to be 14 in late January. My interest are Lord of the Rings, Cars, History, Geography, Math and building with Legos. I'm the editor of or family's newsletter The Salazar Sentinel. I'm in the 8th grade and am enjoying it for the most part. My English research reports can be a little difficult. I do enjoy studying America's history and writing short stories for my English assignments. Reading is a subject I like as well.

My favorite pastimes are writing stories, drawing maps, reading, building out of Legos and playing outside. I like building fortresses and buildings out of Legos. I have built a Chrysler Crossfire out of Legos that is over 1½ feet long! I like playing sports with my brothers. we play Football, Basketball, and Baseball. I enjoy exploring in the woods and ditch behind our house.

I read Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien this spring and have been interested in it since. I like the Lord of the Rings movies too, but they don't quite match the book. My favorite characters in the book and the movies are Sam, Legolas, Gimli, Aragorn, and Gandalf.

In history I am presently studying the Civil war. This event is a very disputed topic today. Most without a doubt would say the Confederate stand was for slavery and the North was against it. However, only 1 out of 17 southerners owned slaves. the bad cases of slave mistreatment was simply the worst case scenario that rarely happened. The Northerners heard a little bit of what slavery was like. They heard about the whippings and mistreatments throughout the South that took place occasionally and assumed that every slave owner treated his slave the same (which is an informal fallacy). The generals for the South during the war were stupendous, Christian men that have been vilified in public schools.

The same can be said about the Revolutionary War. Here the Americans went to war not just because the English were raising the taxes, but that they were taxing them even at all. All the colonies were separate states under King George III, not England! England to them was just like another country. When King George allowed the English Parliament to tax America, it was just like Canada taxing America! When King George refused to listen to America's pleas America declared war on King George. Secondly, King George was a tyrant. Consider the Quartering Act: the law was that you were to keep a soldier inside your home, which meant he was the head of the home. He could take your food, furniture, children or your wife. This was a great threat and America went to war justly, which took a great amount of courage for they were horribly outnumbered. Yet, they defeated the greatest empire in the world at that time.