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“On the Water Front” with Marlon Brando is a film back from the 1930s when hard times were at a peak. He was a dock worker in New Jersey and a mysterious murder takes place. The man behind the murder is the Union Boss and seems too powerful to take down, so no one does anything about it. The sister of the man who was murdered is desperate to find the killer and bring him to justice. Brando falls in love with the girl and decides to take a stand; this brave action seriously threatens his life in a time of gangsters and poverty. The film is in black and white which is very appropriate, like all classic noir films. The director Elia Kazan uses this to create dreary imagery to capture the dead worker’s family’s situation. The shadows in dark alleys, the black cars, the cold weather; it all symbolizes and demonstrates a poor society run by criminals. This grave setting creates a buildup of suspense as the situation becomes more and more treacherous. Kazan’s goal with this film seemed to be that he wanted to create a dramatically realistic version of what unions were like in the 30s and grasp the atmosphere of the depression. He was a very controversial director of his time and this movie was controversial as well, due to the content. In the end, Brando was beaten up severely by the boss’s hit men, but the other dock workers “saw the light” and the boss was overthrown. This movie falls into the classic noir category because of the dark content, scenery, plot and setting that were all a real issue back in that time period.

A few years ago a very intelligent man said that one should never drink the all-too-well-known soft drink Coke. He said that there was not much out there that was worse for someone’s stomach and intestines than Coke. I personally, found this hard to believe because there are so many people in the entire world that consume liters of this drink daily. No one’s ever said anything bad about it other than it’s bad for bones and teeth. Obviously the carbonation in sodas is bad for the body and naturally any soft drink is going to be less healthy than apple juice or water, but why would Coke be any worse? Well, eventually I casually mentioned this topic at the dinner table with my mom and my step-dad, Mike. Mike told me that he actually had worked in a Coke factory when he was younger and knew exactly why this intelligent individual had made this comment. Mike informed me that the factory kept the cola in these giant vats that were almost stories tall. Every year they had to replace these vats, or at least the bottoms depending on how bad they got, because the Coke was so acidic, it literally ate right through the bottom. He said that sometimes it would only be a matter of months before they had to be replaced. Also, this might not be as reliable as the other evidence, but someone I know has had 4 heart attacks and drinks no less than 6 cokes a day. Coincidence??

This week’s topic for “Global View” is: Europe and why it’s Better Abroad”. People in Europe tend to lead less stressful lives compared to the busy workers here in the States. Why? There are several possible answers to this question that are highly likely to be the key in bettering our own country. First off, in England, there is a national limit of the hours one is allowed to work per week. They are not allowed to exceed this time because it is considered unhealthy to work more than a certain amount. Their belief system is based upon that it is not worth the strain on one’s health to be overworked. They have a mandatory “tea-time” every day, along with lunch. This gives the average worker a long and leisurely daily break to relax and forget about their work for a few hours. Over here in the states, many people find themselves either going without lunch all together, or grabbing a hamburger at their local Burger King, while doing their work. Many people here have never even had the experience of taking off for lunch, which is very unfortunate because this causes a lot of unnecessary stress.
In France, it is the same, people have a designated work-limit, which is illegal to exceed. On top of it, there is free health care for everyone. The French government’s top priority is to take care of its people first. They go even further in that they send a check every month to families with children. This means, that basically if you have kids, you get free money in the mail monthly to help support them. It’s ridiculously embarrassing to compare what they’re doing in Europe to take care of their inhabitants, and what America’s doing. America, instead of sending a check every month to families with kids, are evicting families with kids that can’t afford their rent because our poverty-line is so unfair, people either don’t qualify for welfare, or do but still can’t afford to support themselves. Instead of providing free health care for everyone, our government is creating companies that are specifically designed to cheaply hire workers that have no where else to go, and because of this, these companies are purposely not providing benefits, which is how they can make so much money. This is the land of Dreams, where we can spend billions and billions of dollars annually to help the sugar industry but we have 1.4 million kids living on the street. These are a couple of reasons that “Europe does it better”.

Response to Transforming the Curriculum: Preparing Students for a Changing World

This passage intimidates me in the fact that traditional business is changing and old ideals are being replaced by new ones. No longer will it be a world of bosses and employees who have to get a long, and the employees just follow orders. Now it will be employees who must do all of the critical thinking to solve problems and create new ideas and solutions. That is a lot more work than just sitting at a desk, following instructions, which I tend to favor more. Not only this, but the educational system will be in the midst of changing programs and ideas, so by the time I’m at a higher level in my educational career everything will be new and the glitches not fully worked out yet. This means I will inevitably learn things that end up being useless and not what the work force is looking for. I dislike filling my brain with information that was hard to learn, and then it all going to waste.

This passage has also sharpened my senses to the fact that I will unavoidably have to learn certain technical skills. I am so far behind in computer skills alone; I don’t know how I’ll ever make it in the business world. In short, as time goes on, it becomes more and more apparent that without computer skills at least, finding a decent job is unrealistic. On top of that giant obstacle, I find myself in the midst of the experimental educational programs which have not been proven effective or not yet, therefore I don’t know if what I’m learning will serve me or not.

I’ve decided that I’m dedicating this blog to myself. My name is Amy Webb and unfortunately I’ve lived in Tampa my entire life. I was born on Bayshore (for those of you who have the honor of being familiar with South Tampa) if you don’t believe me. I’m 18 and I have a steady boyfriend who’s a bass-guitarist. My dad’s a musician too and has met a lot of interesting people throughout his career. I’m a cat person, but my favorite animal is the cuttle-fish (not really though). I am trained in the ways of equestrian sports and highly enjoy it. My best friend moved to Sarasota with the start of the fall semester and I am now friendless. Please be my friend; though if you are a member of a sorority forget about it. I am prejudice against prejudice people. I have been engaged in the arts since I was but a wee tot and intend on making a career out of it somehow. I paint and sketch in particular, but I danced for years and have played several instruments at one time or another. I absolutely adore Europe. I’ve visited Scotland, France and Ireland. As a matter of fact I went to Dublin just a few months ago. I love the people over there because they are 100% approachable for a wide variety of conversation and when they aren’t it’s just as entertaining. I speak French as well. In fact, I went to France with my French class two years ago. On top of it all I’m almost 100% Irish which means that both sides of my family are completely insane. As my dad says “It all starts with the fists banging on the table…!” And that’s all I have to say about that.

I’ve decided that this blog is going to be cliché, and my world view today will be about poverty. In my “Problems with Contemporary Society” aka: SYG class, we have been discussing doing a project to help starving children in Haiti. I have always known that there is an unnecessarily large percent of people in the world that are living in the street and starving to death, but I have been recently made aware that there are starving children in the street right here in Florida as well. This issue is not talked about or discussed in the news at all. I’ve heard it related to as “America’s Dirty Little Secret”, which I find highly appropriate. I find it absolutely ridiculous that our government can find the means to spend $1.4 billion annually to help the SUGAR industry, but only spend a measly $20 thousand on impoverished families. When I first heard this figure I asked myself “Why on earth does the sugar industry need financial help??” America is the land of baking. If you think about it, there are millions of rich, bored soccer moms who at one point in the day, have to bake a cake or muffins or something for their daughter’s volley-ball team, or whatever. Multiply that bag of sugar, by the million of mothers and chefs who bake and you get a gargantuan number of bags of sugar bought daily. Another thing that I would like everyone who reads this to digest, is how can we say we need to spend billions to fight for democracy, whether it be in Iraq or wherever, when we could be spending that money on world hunger?? If we care so much about other nations’ freedom and quality of living, why aren’t we spending that money where it would be 100% appreciated? Not to mention if we were spending that money on other things, there would be millions of mothers in our country who would still have their sons and daughters. And that’s all I have to say about that ( Gump, Forest).

This is the first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!