Evaluating the new deal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Evaluating the new deal - Essay Example The recovery programs sort to strengthen the economy and the reform programs aimed at preventing future depressions. Kennedy just like many economists suggests that the new deal did target to saving capitalist system. It is evident that the first new deal was not that different from Hoover’s purpose and philosophy effort to end the depression. This is because both Hoover and Roosevelt sort support from the business community. However, Roosevelt’s administration approached their suggestions with importance and a greater willingness by exerting the full powers of the federal governments on the programs (Kennedy, 1999). The new deal targeted three goals relief, recovery, and reform. There were relief measures such as laws that set up programs that created jobs for thousands of young men. These jobs included tree-planting exercises, fire fighting services, and building dams to control floods. There was also a law that required the federal government to give money to states for helping the needy. The national industry recovery act was implemented to aid in economy recovery let us consider the National recovery administration supported by this law, which brought businesses, government and workers together. This program although it was not successful in regulating competition among businesses and preventing workers from organising unions, it changed business relationships. The laws that aimed at aiding economic recovery also supported programs such as the Tennessee valley authority that encouraged the government to spend heavily on large building projects like building public buildings, highways, and dams this created employment for Americans. The agricultural adjustments act was passed in 1933 the act targeted to increase prices of agricultural products to help farmers by reducing the production of farm produce (Kennedy, 1999). The new deal did manage to improve the circumstances for some Americans. The new deal managed to drop the unemployment figure. In order to achieve the goals set for the new deal the social security act of 1935 helped by supporting the provision of pensions for retired Americans. The law ensured that Americans who lost their jobs could access help from the federal government as stated in the unemployment insurance clause. The disabled and the needy also received government assistance. Although it is evident that not all Americans benefited from this law, but it did improve the lives of Americans in some way (Kennedy, 1999). Kennedy looks at the second new deal, which adopted an economic policy similar to a Keynesian model. The second new deal set up mass consumption based economy by motivating the masses capacity to consume. Economists argue that the second new deal targeted to restore the economy from bottom up. This deal is not as radical as the first deal this is because the second deal improved on a number of policies introduced in the first deal. According to Kennedy in the second new deal, the governme nt spent funds in trying to turn non-consumers to consumers. The federal government continued to initiate projects that would create jobs for family breadwinners. This plan supported many families and increased consumer demand. The social security act of 1935 set up a federally guaranteed pension system, which became a safety net for retired workers this helped to increase consumer demand. There was also an improvement of the National labour relations act of 1935 where the law attempted to prevent the

My Family History Essay Example for Free

My Family History Essay In all of us there is a hunger, marrow deep, to know our heritage to know who we are and where we came from. Without this enriching knowledge, there is a hollow yearning. No matter what our attainments in life, there is still a vacuum, emptiness, and the most disquieting loneliness. † –Alex Haley This quote explained to me the importance of my grandparent’s legacy and their history. A long twisting family tree inspires one who does not know where their roots originated. My grandfather Frank Douglas and my grandmother Delores Jones gave me a reason to find out where our legacy started. My grandfather Frank Kelow was adopted into a four person white family, which gave him the last name of Douglas. My grandfather was born on February 12, 1902. Frank was raised in Greenville, Mississippi with dozens of cousins, which gave him comfort. Frank’s biological parents did not attend college; in fact, they didn’t even graduate from high school. In Mississippi, â€Å"I was surrounded by racism, slavery, and poverty, which gave me the inspiration to give my father a better life† (Douglas). As a young kid Frank often hung out in the streets with his friends and partied a lot. He was a heavy smoker with a tiny taste for alcohol. â€Å"Growing up in a poor neighborhood I was introduced to a lot of bad things such as drugs, gambling, and fighting† (Douglas). Around the house, Frank was responsible for mowing the lawn, taking out the trash, and cleaning the pool. At the age of 21 my grandfather entered the army and decided to fight in World War II. After the war concluded, my grandfather married and moved to Queens, New York. Frank and his wife made history that day because they were the first black couple to move into the neighborhood, which they lived. This was the birthplace of my father Lance Douglas Sr. My grandmother Delores Jones was born on December 14, 1906, into a family of four. She was also raised through poverty, but with the help of her brother and cousins she found a way to stick it out. She was raised in New Orleans, Louisiana where her parents worked several jobs to maintain the tiny shack she was raised in. â€Å"Back in my day society consisted of smoking cigarettes, drinking beer, and partying heavily† (Jones). At the age of 13, she was required to work to earn extra money around the house. Some chores my grandmother had around the house was to clean the house, wash the dishes, wash clothes, and pull weeds from the lawn. The relationship between my grandmother and her parents was quite the opposite of mine with my parents. â€Å"After completing my chores, I was allowed to do basically whatever, as long as I was in the house at a reasonable hour† (Jones). Delores was a very social person. â€Å"I rarely spent time with my grandparents† (Jones). During her high school years she was often looked at as beautiful, ambitious, and persistent. At the age of 18 she was elected as prom queen for her senior dance. Although she was often free to do what she wanted, she was also held responsible. Delores was sometimes whooped and grounded for disobeying curfew rules and not completing her chores. This gave her everlasting the mentality of you must work for everything you want in life. I was born in Mississauga, Canada on the date of February 23, 1993. The name Kobie was given to me by my mother, it means warrior. Raised in a family with both parents, one-brother, and one sister, I was surrounded by people who loved me. My brother, Lance Douglas, was born four years earlier than me. Likewise, my sister was born two years prior of my birth. At the age of two, my parents decided to move to Plano, Texas, a beautiful city with the population of about 700,0000 people. As usual, around five I attended Kindergarten at the local school where my brother and sister attended elementary school. Being the youngest in the family provided both advantages and disadvantages. My brother and sister inherited my father’s gene of aggravating me to the point of physical confrontation, which later led to me getting beat up. Although women are usually on the feminine side, my sister was completely different. When my teenage years came around that’s when my siblings began to lighten up on the bullying. During my high school years I was considered the man on campus. I was an all-star at basketball, football, and baseball. During my senior year I only participated in football and was offered a scholarship to play for the Louisiana Lafayette, Ragin Cajuns. Now, as a freshman at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette I am living the life I once dreamed about; experiencing things I never thought I would. For example, going to the club on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. A student athlete who is enrolled in 17 hours and is also committed to football. Waking up at five a. m to workout on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Most of all, living the dream people told me wasn’t meant. All across the world there are families who have their own original legacies. In all of us there is a hunger, marrow deep, to know our heritage to know who we are and where we came from. Without this enriching knowledge, there is a hollow yearning. No matter what our attainments in life, there is still a vacuum, emptiness, and the most disquieting loneliness (Haley page 1). Its up to one to figure out how and where their family started. My grandfather Frank Douglas and my grandmother Delores Jones gave me a reason to find out where our legacy started. My grandparents have told me many things I never thought I would know about which has expanded my knowledge for the better.

Advertising Athletic Apparel and the Obese Essay -- Marketing Athletic

Athletic Apparel: Detriment to the Obese? Giant, toned arms, washboard abs, and ripped legs—these attributes are all too common in commercials for athletic apparel. Outfitters such as Nike, Adidas, Converse, Asics, and Under Armour display elite athletes in many of their commercials. Unlike some food, clothing, and car, among others, commercials, they are never directed toward the obese. Even fast-food companies are recognizing that the U.S. has dominated other countries in a statistic that it should not be proud of—the percentage of obese people living within our borders. Who is to blame for this? No one party can shoulder the bulk of the blame because it belongs to a large number of people. But the problem now is not to place blame, it is to help these people get in shape—not just to look good—so that they can live longer, happier lives as well. As mentioned earlier, fast-food companies, who are partially at fault, have begun to put out healthier food and advertised it more in an attempt to not only avoid lawsuits, but to help the overweight people who realize that they need to make a change. Athletic apparel is one business that could really make a push, through advertising strategies, to show that exercise represents a titanic percentage of what needs to be done to lose weight. They could have a line of commercials like Subway did with Jared, showing a true story about someone who loses massive amounts of fat by using their product. A commercial by Nike or Adidas displaying an obese person working out is hard to come by. A few years ago Miami Heat Guard Dwayne Wade signed a deal with Converse. Obviously he has appeared in a number of their commercials since then, partially due to his great success so early in his pro... .... The athletic apparel commercials, if directed at the country’s overweight people, could make a big push toward removing the United States from the title of â€Å"fattest country in the world†, as well as saving the lives of, not only Americans, but everyone in the world who is clinically obese and faces so many health risks. Works Cited "Two Decades of Annual Medical Examinations in Japanese Obese Children." International Journal of Obesity. 3 June 1997. npg. 26 Oct. 2006 . "One Billion People Overweight." Breitbart.Com. 2005. 25 Oct. 2006 . "Overweight Prevalence." National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). 6 Oct. 2006. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES. 25 Oct. 2006 .

Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock : Representation of Modern Man Essay

Often called the first Modernist poem, â€Å"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock† was published in the prestigious American journal Poetry in June 1915. About the Poem: The poem centers on the feelings and thoughts of the eponymous speaker (the somewhat neurotic Prufrock) as he walks through the streets of London route to meet a woman for tea. He is considering a question (perhaps, broadly, the meaning of life, or, more narrowly, a proposal of marriage). Far more than just the â€Å"love song† of a romantic, agonized young man, the poem explores the Modernist alienation of the individual in society. Thomas Stearns Eliot, 1888 – 1965 Born into a prosperous Midwestern family, Eliot attended Harvard and then went on to study at Oxford. Although born an American, Eliot married an Englishwoman, gave up his American citizenship, and lived most of his life in London. Eliot made his living as a teacher, a banker, and an influential literary critic. He popularized the modernist style of thinking and writing. In fiction, modernism was represented by the stark realism of such writers as Ernest Hemingway, but in poetry this new sensibility was quite different. The Imagists, including Eliot’s close friend and fellow poet, Ezra Pound, believed in the motto, â€Å"No ideas but in things,† in other words, the image is most important, the meaning secondary. Modernists embraced free verse (no regular rhyme scheme or meter) and freedom of thought (often their writing questioned accepted ideas and social norms). This anti-traditional and anti-romantic trend began before World War I; however the unprecedented loss of humanity during the war accelerated the popularization of modernism. The war caused many people to reexamine their previous beliefs in religion and the innate goods of humankind, and one radical branch of modernism, known as Dada, claimed that the only legitimate emotion left was disgust. â€Å"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,† An Overview The entire poem, â€Å"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock† is an interior monologue based on the traditional dramatic monologue, a solo speech that often puts into words the speaker’s inner turmoil, as in Hamlet’s famous â€Å"To be or not to be† soliloquy. Prufrock often alludes to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, but admits, â€Å"I am not Prince Hamlet.† He has no such grand illusions. His thoughts and feelings tend to be humble and full of self-doubt. He worries not about â€Å"outrageous fortune,† as Hamlet does, but about growing old and being rejected by a woman. Critically Analyzing the poem: Contrary to what the title implies, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, by T.S. Eliot, is anything but a love song. It is instead quite the opposite. Although the poem is open to several interpretations, after careful reading of the poem, the several underlying themes can be expressed by one central idea. In the poem, the narrator, J. Alfred Prufrock, portrays his disappointment with the society he lives in. By interpreting aspects of imagery, speaker and intended audience, one can easily assess Prufrock’s views of life. His interpretation of everyday life can be described as a vacant, bleak, and repetitive. Early on in the poem, Eliot creates a scene that does not seem very inviting. Prufrock describes his surrounding on an evening out with phrases that insinuate melancholy and depression. In line 6, Prufrock describes the night as â€Å"restless† and says that the streets are â€Å"tedious arguments of insidious intent†. From this the reader can infer a certai n discontentment that Prufrock has with his surroundings. He refers to his, and his companions’, destination as â€Å"one-night cheap hotels and sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells†. Even though these descriptions leave the reader only approximately 10 lines into the poem, we already have a feeling of restlessness and dissatisfaction from Prufrock about his life. As the poem continues, the reader is bombarded with even more imagery that conveys Prufrock’s discontentment with his surroundings. Prufrock talks of the â€Å"yellow fog† that â€Å"rubs its back upon the window-panes† and the â€Å"yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window panes†. He also mentions the â€Å"soot that falls from chimneys†. Later on in the poem, Prufrock refers to smoke again while describing the streets he is walking on. All this imagery leaves the reader feeling that the place Prufrock is at is dark and hazy and not at all welcoming. Among the feelings that Prufrock expresses in this poem, no feeling comes across more clearly than his feeling of restlessness and wasted time. We get the feeling that Prufrock, who is aging, would do things differently if given another chance. In lines 49-54, Prufrock asserts his overall boredom with life. He says he has â€Å"known them all already, known them all-have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons†. From this we can infer that Prufrock seems to feel as if his life is over and he has no more to offer. He makes statements similar to this throughout the poem. He proclaims to have known â€Å"the eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase† and the â€Å"arms that are bracleted and white and bare†. We get more of a sense of Prufrock’s disillusionment of life with his many references to time. In lines 24-34, he claims there is time to â€Å"meet faces†, â€Å"murder and create†, have a â€Å"hundred indecisions† and a â€Å"hundred visions and revisions†. It is not as though Prufrock is doing this in a hopeful manner, though. Instead we get the impression that he is reflecting on time as if it is plentiful only if you take advantage of it and perhaps he feels he did not Another aspect of this poem that is important is the interpretation of it is the speaker and the audience. Although the audience is never clearly identified, several assumptions can be made. It seems as though Prufrock is simply reflecting on life to himself. He makes several statements that would allow a reader to arrive at this conclusion. Throughout the poem, he asks several rhetorical questions of himself. In line 62, he asks â€Å"and how should I presume?†. He asks himself the same question again in line 68 and then follows with another â€Å"and how should I begin?†. These questions lead the reader to believe that the poem represents Prufrock’s inner-thoughts about life. This is important to consider because if the audience was anyone but Pr ufrock himself, the poem would more than likely take a very different course. Once you get past the initial misconceptions about the poem due to its misleading title, you can easily see that this is a poem about what happens if you do not make the most of your life. Prufrock is a character that we all can learn something from. Through an interpretation of this poem, one can assume that even though a person’s life may seem to be normal and in fact successful, sometimes that person may have a totally different view of their own life. From the poem we can conclude that Prufrock’s life was like many others during the time it was written. It talks of parties, drinking, and lovely ladies. This did not, however, bring his happiness. As he aged, Prufrock was left very disenchanted with his life. In the end, he discusses how he will behave in his old age and finally describes death as what can be interpreted as drowning in the sea. â€Å"The Love song of J. Alfred Prufrock,† by T.S. Eliot is about a man who is searching for something to break him for the dull life that he has been leading. In the beginning, the speaker invites us to go with Prufrock and come into his world with the statement â€Å"Let us go then, you and I.† Throughout the poem, the reader is following the speaker throughout an evening searching for the acceptance of a woman. Because of his lack of self-assurance, he fails to find the meaning and acceptance of his love. Prufrock is a timid man. He is extremely conscious of what others think of him and this has a great effect of his actions. He has problems with speaking what he feels and this is demonstrated when he â€Å"prepare(s) a face to meet the faces that (he) meet(s).† He also extremely self-conscious with his appearance and thinks that people talk about what he looks like and what he wears. Other’s opinion of Prufrock bothers him so much so that he does not want to â€Å"disturb the universe† by making an entrance into it. Finally, the last part of the poem, Prufrock show’s his final despair in life. He can not bring himself to tell the woman that he is in love with how he really feels. However, if he ever did decide to tell her, it would come out as a mess. He finds himself with no real role in life. He is no â€Å"Prince Hamlet, nor was he meant to be,† but rather an â€Å"attendant lord,† or sometimes â€Å"the Fool.† He hears the mermaids singing, but he thinks: â€Å"I do not think they will sing to me.† In the end, Prufrock feels left out of society, and can not find his own place in the universe. As an old man on the beach, looking out into the ocean, he questions if he did the right thing. But he missed everything, all because he was scared. He realizes that he has been living in an imaginary world. When this reality hits him, he drowns soul and all. This poem has always been a favorite of mine because the theme of can apply to the world as a whole. Each of us can sometime find ourselves searching for where we belong in the universe,but are afraid to act on our own desires because of the possible outcomes. In the end, we have to make our move, and not fear rejection so much so that we pass up an opportunity of a lifetime. Conclusion: The speaker of this ironic monologue is a modern man who, like many of his kind, feels isolated and incapable of decisive action. Irony is apparent from the title, for this is not a conventional love song. Prufrock would like to speak of love to a woman, but he does not have the nerve. The poem opens with a quoted passage from Dante’s INFERNO, â€Å"If I thought that my reply would be to one who would return to the world, this flame would stay without further movement; but since none has ever returned alive from depth, if what I hear is true, I answer you without fear of infamy.†, Meaning that Prufrock speaks only because he knows no one will pay attention to him and he won’t be heard. Purfrock repeats certain phrases to clue the reader in that they are part of the story. â€Å"You and I† in the first line, suggest that you must be with him to understand his story

Explain the importance of Curley’s Wife in the novel Essay

Plan: * Symbols – red lipstick * Not given a name Curley’s wife may seem an insignificant character because she has not even been given a name by Steinbeck. Her name suggests that she is nothing more than one of Curley’s possessions. When she first appears in the novel, she is dressed up as if she is planning on going out into town, rather than just spending her day wandering around the ranch. The image of her being a sex object is emphasised by the fact that Curley keeps a ‘glove fulla Vaseline’, for her benefit. However, Curley’s wife is influential to the book as she characterises loneliness, the longing for the American dream, danger and sexism. Her appearances in the novel are extremely important at they change the entire mood of the scene in which she appears in. We see that the first time we are introduced to Curley’s wife, she is heavily made up; â€Å"full, rouged lips†, â€Å"red fingernails† and â€Å"red mules†. The colour red symbolises danger and sexiness, and the fact that she is wearing these items creates a sense of foreboding that she will be the cause of George and Lennie’s failure to achieve their dream of having their own plot of land. Another symbol is shown by â€Å"the rectangle of sunshine in the doorway was cut off†. This immediately creates a sense of danger and doom in the reader’s mind due to the absence of light. However, we can see that the reason for Curley’s wife being flirtatious is because she wants to get away from the loneliness that surrounds her. By flirting, it means she can communicate with other men who otherwise would not talk to her because they do not want any trouble with Curley. However, by being flirtatious, she actually increases the hostility of the other men on the ranch as they become suspicious. We can see that she tells Lennie; â€Å"I get lonely†¦Ain’t I got the right to talk to nobody?† However, she then explains the reason behind her flirtatious nature; â€Å"I can’t talk to nobody but Curley. Else he gets mad.† However, we actually see that the marriage between them is already starting to break down because Curley thinks that his wife is â€Å"givin Slim the eye†. Curley’s wife is also important as she conveys the theme of sexism. We see that Curley, who keeps his hand soft for her, regards her as a sexual object. Instead of showing any consideration towards his wife, Curley only wants to increase his sexual prowess. The only way in which Curley’s wife can talk to other men is by; â€Å"dolling up†. However, when she does this, they talk even less to her, driving her behaviour further. Therefore, she remains excluded from everyone. We even see that Whit regards Susy higher than Curley’s wife; â€Å"a laugh† and â€Å"hell of a nice place†. This is a rare time when any woman in the novel is actually shown any kindness, and a complement. Curely’s wife, as with many of the other characters, wants to live out the American dream; â€Å"Coulda been in the movies†. It is this dream that drives and compels her to carry on with her otherwise miserable life on the ranch. However, her sudden death shatters her only hope of being able to get away from ranch life, where she is clearly not happy. We can see that the shattering of her dream is mirrored exactly by the death of Lennie, ending the dream for George and Candy. This shows that because she failed living the American dream, it is an ominous foreboding of the fate for George and Lennie. Curley’s wife also plays an essential part in the novel, as she plays crucial parts in changing the mood of the scene. When she is first introduced, hope created by the arrival of Candy is wiped out and the reader gets an ominous warning, which is emphasised by George’s caution to Lennie; â€Å"you keep away from her†¦jail bait†. Furthermore, when Curley’s wife arrives in chapter four, the excited mood created by wanting to achieve the American dream, changes to a more melancholy mood. We can see that because Curley’s wife is lonely all the time, she has turned into a spiteful and vicious person; â€Å"a nigger and a dum dum an’ a lousy ol’ sheep†.