Alphonse Capone essays

Alphonse Capone essays Alphonse Capone a.k.a. Al Capone was born on January 17, 1899 in Brooklyn, New York. Alphonse Capone which parents were baptizes grew up in a rough district and he was a member of two kid gangs, the Brooklyn Rippers and the Forty Thieves Juniors. Although Al Capone was a bright young man, he quit school in the sixth grade at age fourteen. Although Al Capone was a criminal he had normal jobs on the side e.g. he was a clerk in a candy store, an assistant in a bowling alley and a cutter in a book bindery. Soon he became part of the notorious Five Points gang in Manhattan and now he worked in gangster Frankie Yales Brooklyn dive, Harvard In, which was an illegal gambling den. While working here he received his famous facial scars which resulted in the nickname Scarface. He had insulted a costumer and was attacked by her brother with a glass. In 1918 Capone met an Irish girl named Mary Mae Coughlin at a dance. On December 4, 1918 Mae gave birth to their son, Albert Sonny Francis. Capone a nd Mae married later that year on December 30. Capone was arrested for the first time while he was working for Yale because of a disorderly Conduct. He also murdered two men in his first years as a gangster, but nobody wanted to testimony against him, because they were either his friends or afraid of him. After Capone had sent a gang member from an Irish gang called Finnegan on the hospital, Yale sent him to Chicago because the Irish gangs where furious and threatened to kill him. So Capone now moved to Chicago with his family, were they moved into a house at 7244 South Prairie Avenue. After Capones move to Chicago he became member of the Four Deuces, a gang which were lead by his old friend from New York, John Torrio. The Year was now 1919 and a new kind of underground crime/business, illegal distribution of liquor was becoming attractive for the gangsters because...

Tips for Writing the UC Personal Statement Prompt #1

Tips for Writing the UC Personal Statement Prompt #1 Note The  article below is for the pre-2016 University of California application, and the suggestions are only marginally relevant for current applicants to the UC System. For tips on the new essay requirements, read this article:  Tips and Strategies for the 8 UC Personal Insight Questions. The pre-2016 UC personal statement prompt #1 stated, Describe the world you come from - for example, your family, community or school - and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations. Its a question that every freshman applicant to one of the nine undergraduate UC campuses had to answer. Note that this question has much in common with the Common Application option #1 on your background and identity. Overview of the Question The prompt sounds simple enough. After all, if theres one subject you know something about, its the surroundings in which you live. But dont be fooled by how accessible the question appears to be. Admission to the University of California system is remarkably competitive, especially for some of the more elite campuses, and you should think carefully about the subtleties of the prompt. Before answering the question, consider the purpose of the essay. The admissions officers want to get to know you. The essays are the one place where you can truly present your passions and personality. Test scores, GPAs, and other quantitative data do not really tell the university who you are; instead, they show that you are a capable student. But what really makes you you? Each of the UC campuses receives far more applications than they can accept. Use the essay to show how you differ from all the other capable applicants. Breaking Down the Question The personal statement is, obviously, personal. It tells the admissions officers what you value, what gets you out of bed in the morning, what drives you to excel. Make sure your response to prompt #1 is specific and detailed, not broad and generic. To answer the prompt effectively, consider the following: World is a versatile term. The prompt gives your family, community and school as examples of possible worlds, but they are just three examples. Where is it that you truly live? What really makes up your world? Is it your team? The local animal shelter? Your grandmothers kitchen table? Your church? The pages of a book? Someplace where your imagination likes to wander?Focus on that word how. How has your world shaped you? The prompt is asking you to be analytical and introspective. It is asking you to connect your environment to your identity. It is asking you to project forward and imagine your future. The best responses to prompt #1 highlight your analytical abilities.Avoid the obvious. If you write about your family or school, its easy to focus on that teacher or parent who pushed you to excel. This isnt necessarily a bad approach to the essay, but make sure you provide enough specific details to paint a true portrait of yourself. Thousands of students could write an essay about how their supportive parents helped them succeed. Make sure your essay is about you and isnt something that thousands of other students could have written. Your world doesnt have to be a pretty place. Adversity sometimes shapes us more than positive experiences. If your world has been filled with challenges, feel free to write about them. You never want to sound like you are whining or complaining, but a good essay can explore how negative environmental forces have defined who you are.Stay on target. You have just 1,000 words with which to answer prompts #1 and #2. Thats not much space. Make sure every word you write is necessary. Keep these 5 essay tips in mind, follow these suggestions for improving your essays style, and cut anything in your essay that isnt defining your world and explaining how that world has defined you. A Final Word on the UC Essays For any essay on any college application, always keep the purpose of the essay in mind. The university is asking for an essay because it has holistic admissions. The UC schools want to know you as a whole person, not as a simple matrix of grades and standardized test scores. Make sure your essay makes a positive impression. The admissions folks should finish reading your essay thinking, This is a student we want to join our university community.

Postmodernism in European and American history Essay

Postmodernism in European and American history - Essay Example The essay "Postmodernism in European and American History" focuses on postmodernist features and how they are recognizable in the contemporary society. Modernism lasted till the World War II and was superseded by a new movement called Postmodernism. Postmodernism is a diverse set of ideas, concepts, models, that emerged â€Å"as a reaction against modernism or as a natural evolution of modernism† in the 1950s after the Second World War. Postmodernist concepts not only projected themselves in the fields of art and literature but also in other areas like architecture, sociology, technology, economics, religion, and communication, thereby on the whole of the society. This influence of postmodernism is continuing even now and so this paper will analyze how the postmodernist features are still recognizable in the contemporary society, from the perspectives of postmodernist thinkers. Jean Baudrillard, French sociologist and a leading postmodernist thinker, was well known for his med ia related theory of â€Å"hyperreality† and â€Å"Simulation†, and how it impacts the society. According to Baudrillard, because of hyperreality created by the media, people in the society are not able to tell what is reality? what is fiction or what is created? It is a â€Å"theory that modern man can no longer tell what reality is because he has become lost in a world of "simulacra", images and signs created and presented as "real" by the mass media†.Baudrillard further argues that mass media has taken the role of ‘God’.

Native Americans in Texas Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Native Americans in Texas - Research Paper Example It is believed that these tribes came from Asia, thus crossing borders to occupy the Northern parts of America. The main tribes which occupied this area are the Apache and the Comanche people. Other than these two tribes, Texas also held many other different communities. This paper seeks to discuss the Native American in Texas and their diverse ways of live, as well as their, characteristics. The most ancient Texan groups comprised of nomadic activity as a main culturalactivity. According Elonera’s records made on Native Americans in Texas, about ten thousand years ago, these groups comprised of few people per holding who practiced hunting activities as a source of food. These people held the Plainviewand Folsom cultures in the present New Mexico regions.2 This is according to studies made in the area. The findings reported weapon points which had knives and scrappers as well as fire places. Some of their characteristics include the art of hunting in groups by the use of weapons such as spears during hunting. These ancient spear heads and weapons were made from carved stone. The hunters used large blocks of stone or flint tomake cores, whereby they selected large pieces of blades to make their spear tips. This art of chipping stone was common amongst the Clovis and Folsom hunters. The tips made by each group are named according to the group which made them, such as Clovis points. As found in most ancient groups, the males did the hunting tasks while the women fended their young ones. The women also did other tasks such as gathering and collecting food and sometimes the minor wild animals.3 They also assisted in preparation of hide and skin for other uses as well as prepare and cook food for their families. These groups practicedthese hunting and gathering activities in well-organized schedules.However,this highly depended on the seasonal trends during the year. These groups comprised of archaens who lived and

JBS Report Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

JBS Report - Assignment Example The changes are as shown in the income statement. When calculating the BEP for JBS, there is a challenge of classifying costs. It is very difficult to divide the costs categories as either a variable or a fixed cost. Consequently, the variable cost does not change proportionally to JBS revenue at each activity level. For instance, the revenues gotten from fee might change if the recruitment of students is changed. It is also difficult to categorize the faculty member as variable costs because there is high possibility of recruiting part-time staff. Consequently, there is a challenge attached to the time. Determining the time over which the variable and fixed cost relationship holds the status of the company is difficult to find out. Over a short time, the costs are viewed as fixed, but in the end, some of costs considered as fixed are now variable. To evaluate the progress of JBS towards its mission, will use performance indicators and measures. The company will use the balance sheet, income statement, profit and loss account, and cash inflows of the previous year’s result to measure its performance. The data will be extracted from the relevance sources and then converted to financial ratios. This analysis involves incorporating both the financial and non-financial information into the evaluation. Additionally, the evaluation will seek the help of scorecard and benchmarking indicators. In Benchmarking, the institution will incorporate the comparative data in measuring the performance. The method takes the internal form where comparisons are done between various units within the institution. The technique will also take the functional form, where comparisons are conducted with the trusted external practitioner despite the market. Additionally, the institution will take the competitive form where the comparisons are

Why Did The Soviet Union Collapse?

Why Did The Soviet Union Collapse? More than two decades have passed since the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics disappeared from the world political stage. Starting with 1985, the internal situation of the Soviet Union, as well as its international status, began to experience breathtakingly fast and radical change, which eventually led to its collapse in 1991, event probably commemorated today only by Vladimir Putin, who describes it as the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century (annual state-of-the-nation address to Parliament,  Moscow, April the 29th, 2005, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty). The are many controversial debates about the actual reasons that caused the collapse of the vast Soviet Empire, but one thing is certain: they cannot be reduced to one single factor, as for an historical event of such calibre to happen, it took the interaction of many factors, producing a set of circumstances that made the change urgent and inevitable. In the following essay, I shall present and argue the main fact ors that contributed to and can be described as reasons for the end of the Soviet Union. To begin with, we are talking about a disintegration process with different origins and extremely intense dynamics. The systemic involution had actually begun in February 1956, when Nikita Khrushchev struck the deadly blow against the myth of Stalins inerrability (February 25, 1956: Khrushchevs Secret Speech, denouncing Stalins abuses). It was followed by other disillusions, which would undermine the myths of the irreversibility and invincibility of the communist order. The economic problems of the USSR were asking for desperate measures, the society was becoming more and more corrupt, harsh, and inefficient, the sole existence of the USSR as a union was starting to be questioned. After the removal of Khrushchev from power in 1964, Leonid Brezhnev was appointed his successor. The economic crisis that engulfed the Soviet Union and the majority of the socialist states in the 1970s spread to the following decade. The reform surrogates consecutively introduced by the communist leaders failed to optimize the economy and release tension in social relations. The soviet socialism model proved to be completely inadequate, considering that the world was about to enter as Jeremy Rifkin calls it the third industrial revolution. Yuri Andropov (1982-1984) appeared to be trying to put into practice a reform policy, but was confronted by the inflexibility of the superior political structures and resistance from the bureaucratic system installed by Brezhnev. But shortly after the death of Konstantin Cernenko, on March the 11th 1985, in Moscow, a new leader emerged, animated by reforming ideas, under the aegis of Mikhail Gorbachev. The Soviet Union was confronting grave issues at the time Gorbachev took over, and they were all exacerbated by the immense quantum of military expenditures. The new General Secretary was quite cautious at the beginning, apparently proving to be consequent to his predecessors, but he then rapidly proceeded to consolidating his power, replacing, in a few weeks time, much of the governing team, and casting away his main rivals. This was meant to pave the way to Gorbachevs reforms. It started with the Central Committee plenum of the CPSU in April 1985, where Gorbachev brought forward the principles of the policy he intended to put into practice in the Soviet Union, in an attempt to save the communist system by implementing a slow liberalizing process that would lead to the abolition of the systems most heinous features, without destroying its ideological fundaments. That policy bears the name of perestroika, or restructuring. In his vision, the soviet system had deviated from the Leninist theory, and needed a reorganization based on reforming the political and economic systems, and improving the system of social relations, above all economic (Kommunist, no. 5, 1985, as cited in Sakwa, R., 1999, The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union, London and New York: Routledge, p.424). The main goal of perestroika was to demolish the consequences of the Brezhnev era (famously described as an era of economic stagnation), so Gorbachev decided to adopt a strategy of rapid accel eration (uskorenie) in the rate of growth, confident of the command economys potential to deliver it (Acton, E. and Stableford T., 2007, The Soviet Union: A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY, vol. 2: 1939-1991, Exter: University of Exter Press, p. 384). Applying this concept relied entirely on the support of the society, but conscious of the obstacles standing in his way, the soviet leader took a set of measures in order to stop the nomenclature who would have wanted to prevent these reforms from happening. A general view of this vision could be summarized in this extract from Gorbachev, M. S., 1987, PERESTROIKA: New Thinking for Our Country and the World, London: Collins, p. 66: I am pleased that theres a growing understanding, both within the Party and in the society as a whole, that we have started an unprecedented political, economic, social and ideological endeavour. If we are to implement everything we have planned, we must also carry out unprecedented political, economic, social and ideological work in both the internal and external spheres. Above all, we bear an unprecedented responsibility. And we are aware of the need for large-scale and bold efforts, especially at the first stage. In any case, the contradictions and limits of perestroika prevented the political system from being reformed. Therefore, there was a radical difference between what the initiator of the reforms wanted and what the final result was. Another important component of the reforming policy Gorbachev was introduced in 1986, and is called glasnost (openness), which meant gradually abolishing censorship, introducing political transparency and freedom of the media, which was a gate to elucidating the problems that were blocked, or remained unsolved for decades. The freedom a person had to publicly express a point of view which, not many years ago, would have had him deported in gulags (or even sentenced to death, in Stalins time), became an ordinary right thanks to glasnost. Soviet newspapers could criticize the government policy, the CPSU, and even Gorbachev himself. Yet remarkable were the results of perestroika in the external relations. He was convinced that this program could not be fulfilled unless the countrys international relations radically changed. Indeed, the USSR started redrawing its essential external policy. Together with his External Affairs Minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, Gorbachev managed to practically revolutionize the soviet external policy, enjoying great sympathy around the world. He introduced a new political thinking, based on a few components: external policy no longer needed to be reasoned and led through the ideological factor; the conflict between the 2 superpowers, USSR and USA, was non-productive, and military power did not automatically guarantee national security; the soviet state needed to revise its external objectives. Signing an agreement with China on the issue of the oriental borderline, his propositions to limit nuclear and conventional armaments, and drawing off his troops in Afghanistan, made Gorbachev loo k like a man who was promising peace. Furthermore, at the European Council in Strasbourg, he admitted that there is no such thing as an unchangeable social system, and suggested that such transformations could occur in Eastern Europe. This signal was also received in Eastern European states, not only in the West. His declaration was widely interpreted as a green light to the reformers in Eastern Europe, in their efforts to implement a democratic system and a market economy, but especially, it dispelled the fear of the intervention of the Big Brother (the name Hà ©là ¨ne Carrà ¨re dEncausse gives to the Soviet Union) to end the reforms. Another important step in the democratization of the USSR was made in 1989, with the election of a new Soviet Parliament, the Congress of Peoples Deputies. These were not free elections like the ones in the West, taking into consideration that 90% of the candidates were members of the CPSU and other political parties were strictly forbidden. But these elections offered the people the possibility to choose their candidates, and the vote counting had been correctly done. It was definitely the closest thing to democratic elections since 1917. Yet despite the radical reforms adopted in the USSR, no one anticipated the fundamental changes that were about to happen in Eastern Europe between 1989 and 1991. Poland was the first country in Eastern Europe where Gorbachevs perestroika and glasnost turned into an anticommunist revolution. The non-violent Polish break-up with a totalitarian regime was made possible by the existence of both governing and opposition elites, who understood the necessity of such a compromise. The final closure of the communist era in postwar Poland was done in December 1990, with the election of Lech Walesa as president. The Polish events in 1988-1989 had a substantial impact on the entire region. Hopes were reborn in Hungary, as in the spring of 1990, elections were held and won by the Democratic Forum, which led to overthrowing the communist power through the will of the people. In Czechoslovakia, the collapse of the communist regime was done by what the historians and public opinion know as The Velvet Revolution. Active opposition became visible since early 1989, when demonstrations were held throughout the country, and just as expected, democratic forces would take over later that year. The regime collapse in East Germany came as a natural consequence of the events rapidly taking place in the soviet bloc. In late October and early November 1989, hundreds of thousands of protesters went out on the streets of East German cities, demanding their rights. On November the 9th, the Berlin Wall, the main symbol of both German separation and the Cold War, was demolished. In Bulgaria, in December 1989, the communist leader T. Jivkov was arrested and the Communist Party changed its name into the Bulgarian Socialist Party, as a symbolic break-up from the Leninist dogmas. In Romania, unlike other countries in the soviet bloc, communism was overthrown through a violent, open fight. The lack of real opposition within the Communist Party made a peaceful transition impossible. The revolution first started in a city in Western Romania, and was first repressed by the secret police. But a second revolutionary wave broke out on December the 20th, which eventually spread out across the country, breaking the psychological barrier. First encountering militia and army resistance, the huge crowds managed to take over, forcing the Ceausescu dictatorial couple to flee. The communist dictator and his wife were captured, an improvised Court charged them with genocide and impairment of national economy, and the two were finally executed on the Christmas Day in 1989. 1990 was the year in which increasing social convulsion started to lead towards questioning perestroika, as an effect of the resurgence of national consciousness in all the Soviet Republics and satellite states, a factor which Gorbachev had not predicted in his plan to redress the Soviet Union. Interethnic confrontations arose in all the Soviet Republics, and national conflicts were threatening the cohesion of the USSR. Lithuania proclaimed its independence in March 1990. It was shortly followed by Estonia, Latvia, Georgia and Armenia. Other Republics proclaimed themselves sovereign: The Russian Federation, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Moldova, Byelorussia, and Ukraine. The laws of the USSR were no longer obeyed, and the leaders of the republics were demanding that the recruits should no longer be incorporated in the Soviet Army. Aware of the danger, Gorbachev proposed, in February 1990, a new treaty that was to establish a confederation, in order to avoid secession. The Congress of Peoples Deputies approved the project for a referendum on keeping the Union. The instauration of a new presidential power weighed significantly in the rapid evolution of the national problem. However, on August the 19th 1991, in Moscow, a group of conservative members of the Politburo who were against the reformation processes, launched what is known today as The August Coup, with the intention of removing Gorbachev from power, but eventually failed. The coup strengthened Boris Yeltsins position as elected President of the RSFSR (Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic) and leader of the democratic forces, and weakened Gorbachevs position. Finally, Gorbachevs desperate endeavors to transform the Soviet Union into the Union of Sovereign States, to organize new elections, to rescue his power, ended in failure. The Republics proclaimed their independence after August 1991. On December the 8th 1991, near Minsk, the Presidents of RSFSR, Ukraine and Byelorussia signed an agreement dissolving the Soviet Union and forming the Commonwealth of Independent States. In these given conditions, on December the 25th 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev would resign from the position of president of a state that no longer existed. The Soviet Union officially ceased to exist starting with December the 31st 1991, 69 years after its establishment. All in all, my view is that the economic backwardness of the USSR, the failure to effectively implement reforms (reforms which, paradoxically, led to its destruction), the loss of the arms race, and not least, nationalism, formed the main factors that determined the collapse of the Soviet Union. The dismantling of the Empire can be interpreted as an unhappy implosion, deriving from profound internal causes, from the inability of communism to build a viable economy. And the germs of the implosion had laid right in the theses of Gorbachevs brilliant by some, a non-sense by others perestroika, in his political actions, as the leader himself is the one who drove the first nails into the coffin, when he demanded the abrogation of article six of the USSR Constitution, which guaranteed the CPSUs supremacy. Gorbachev tried this way to transfer the political power to the Soviets, angering the elder conservative activists. Also, 1989 was the year that practically switched on the genetic immu ne system of captive nations. The long-dispraised nationalism was the explosive that dashed the Empire of proletarian internationalism to the ground. And yet, the revolution did not fail, considering that we cannot talk about a revolution that is totally triumphant. All the founding myths of that system based on the quasi-religious cult of the single party were shaken, and finally collapsed.

Arvay’s Epiphany in Hurston’s Seraph on the Suwanee Essay -- Hurston’s

Arvay’s Epiphany in Hurston’s Seraph on the Suwanee In the middle of Chapter four, we find Jim and Arvay in the middle of a journey to the courthouse; the reader, halfway through the journey from the top of the page encounters an interior journey as Arvay travels within herself. This four-line passage serves as a milestone marking the beginning of the narrative, which is a journey across the landscape of the life of Jim and Arvay’s relationship. The passage begins with â€Å"The elements opened above Avery and she arose inside of herself†(57). The first clause of this sentence has a poetic eye focusing on an atmosphere, or an aura rising and expanding around Arvay’s form, perhaps circular, like the break in clouds whereby a ray of sunshine appears, suggesting even further, the halo, or the circle of seraphim as described in the words of the prophets. The coordinating conjunction â€Å"and† begins the second clause, implying the synchronous relation between the outer sky change, and the inner event of rising â€Å"inside of herself.† In this sense her experiences, her conversation with Jim, her anxieties about her â€Å"secret sin,† her religious drive converge and for a brief space are unifying, interlocking, affirming and redeeming. The mystical language employed reveals a kind of â€Å"interpenetration.† That this epiphany comes at the moment when she is discussing her own rape with the man that raped her shows the way in which she thinks about her experiences. Also, this passage shows how Jim speaks to her in ways that produce thoughts and feelings that she cannot seem to find words for annunciation. Her mystical language contrasts sharply with Jim’s straightforward sentences, recalling the title of the novel, Seraph on the Sewanee. After reading... ... complex allowing no passage to Jim or anyone else. The epiphany resulting from her sacrifice â€Å"under the mulberry tree† exemplifies how Jim talks to her, but she cannot respond in ways that he can understand, leaving her helpless to the world around her while Jim is continuously carrying her off over further horizons. Throughout the book she continues this movement upward and outwards into the world, though with the limits of her tongue. In the end, as she becomes reconciled with the world she discovers the â€Å"Resurrection† where â€Å"Human flesh was full of mysteries and a wonderful unknown thing†(350). If the epiphany at the conclusion of the novel marks point Omega, then the Alpha point comes in this passage in the middle of Chapter four at the moment she tries to place her relationship with Jim, and the suffering from the rape within her understanding of the Cosmos. Arvay’s Epiphany in Hurston’s Seraph on the Suwanee Essay -- Hurston’s Arvay’s Epiphany in Hurston’s Seraph on the Suwanee In the middle of Chapter four, we find Jim and Arvay in the middle of a journey to the courthouse; the reader, halfway through the journey from the top of the page encounters an interior journey as Arvay travels within herself. This four-line passage serves as a milestone marking the beginning of the narrative, which is a journey across the landscape of the life of Jim and Arvay’s relationship. The passage begins with â€Å"The elements opened above Avery and she arose inside of herself†(57). The first clause of this sentence has a poetic eye focusing on an atmosphere, or an aura rising and expanding around Arvay’s form, perhaps circular, like the break in clouds whereby a ray of sunshine appears, suggesting even further, the halo, or the circle of seraphim as described in the words of the prophets. The coordinating conjunction â€Å"and† begins the second clause, implying the synchronous relation between the outer sky change, and the inner event of rising â€Å"inside of herself.† In this sense her experiences, her conversation with Jim, her anxieties about her â€Å"secret sin,† her religious drive converge and for a brief space are unifying, interlocking, affirming and redeeming. The mystical language employed reveals a kind of â€Å"interpenetration.† That this epiphany comes at the moment when she is discussing her own rape with the man that raped her shows the way in which she thinks about her experiences. Also, this passage shows how Jim speaks to her in ways that produce thoughts and feelings that she cannot seem to find words for annunciation. Her mystical language contrasts sharply with Jim’s straightforward sentences, recalling the title of the novel, Seraph on the Sewanee. After reading... ... complex allowing no passage to Jim or anyone else. The epiphany resulting from her sacrifice â€Å"under the mulberry tree† exemplifies how Jim talks to her, but she cannot respond in ways that he can understand, leaving her helpless to the world around her while Jim is continuously carrying her off over further horizons. Throughout the book she continues this movement upward and outwards into the world, though with the limits of her tongue. In the end, as she becomes reconciled with the world she discovers the â€Å"Resurrection† where â€Å"Human flesh was full of mysteries and a wonderful unknown thing†(350). If the epiphany at the conclusion of the novel marks point Omega, then the Alpha point comes in this passage in the middle of Chapter four at the moment she tries to place her relationship with Jim, and the suffering from the rape within her understanding of the Cosmos.