Winning is the Only Thing -- Book eview
oberts, . And Olson, J. (1989). Winning is the Only Thing- Sports in America Since
Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
For the American paradigm, winning World War II caused a domino effect of many changes in culture, politics, technology, sociology, gender, and certainly the way most American's perceived themselves and their relationship with the rest of the world. By 1946 the glow of the end of the war had faded a bit with the realization that a new war, a Cold War, between the United States and its former ally, the Soviet Union, was tantamount to a moral imperative to control the world
Similarly, the inrush of former GIs, a GI bill authorizing education and housing opportunities, the new automobile culture, suburbia, and in the 1950s, the television absolutely transformed America's leisure time and rabid fascination with the sporting world. Baseball had already become America's…...
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References:
Halpert, F.E. (1990). Business as Usual. The Nation. Cited in:
Winning is the Only Thing -- ook Review
Roberts, R. And Olson, J. (1989). Winning is the Only Thing- Sports in America Since
altimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
The end of World War II brought a number of changes to the United States. Culture, politics, civil rights, technology, gender issues, and certainly by 1949 a new cloud had formed over the world, the U.S./Soviet rivalry known as the Cold War. When one thinks about popular culture in America, one typically does not realize that within the sporting world, too, vast changes took place after 1945. Although baseball was integrated far earlier, after 1945 more lack athletes were allowed into football and basketball teams. This, combined with the era of televised sports, made a huge impact in American society. Sports in America is both a study of the evolution of popular culture in America post-World War II and a way of explaining the…...
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Both authors show their classical trained historical expertise when presenting both insightful and extremely well-researched arguments that, rather than a journalistic polemic, present facts that explore the manner in which big-business, especially in the personification of people like Roone Arledge, both expanded the idea of sports as a pastime and controlled the purse strings to the point that even teams seemed manipulated. Thematically, they show that the emphasis on money and national status may have turned such iconic games as the Olympics into "commercial extravaganzas financed by television and dominated by a show-business ethos" (pp. 209-10). Indeed, the authors' expertise in social history is shown by their analysis of the particular Catholic viewpoint from the early owners of the big football franchises who, until the late 1970s, limited their own franchise movements based on a particular moral and ethical template.
The book was received quite well in the fields of sporting history, social history, and American popular culture studies. One reviewer noted that the only serious limitation in the book was an almost complete lack of the significant changes the sporting world saw from 1960 on in the field of women's sports, feminist thought, and equal participation in the team sports (Adelman, Journal of Sport History, 17, Winter 1990, 390).
For the reader interested in more of an intellectual history of modern sports, the book is a perfect overall introduction. For the reader fascinated by the manner in which the intricacies of popular culture mimic larger cultural trends, the book is a fascinating insight into the way technology, business, and leisure studies merge into a single, unifying trend.
inning the Civil ar
The American Civil ar is considered the most costly of all the wars fought by this nation in terms of the human lives that were lost and the casualties which left young men mutilated, amputated, and barely able to carry on. Approximately 750,000 young men died by the war's end either from wounds inflicted in battle or from infection and lack of sanitation in hospitals.[footnoteRef:1] At the end, to warring sides were once again united as a single nation rather than two countries torn apart by ideological differences. Four years of bloodshed and violence officially ended at Appomattox Court House in Northern Virginia when Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. It is believed that the Union won the war because the nation was reunified; however this assumption is based on the belief that there can ever be a winner in warfare.…...
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Works Cited:
Alexander, Bevin. How the South Could Have Won the Civil War: the Fatal Errors that Led to Confederate Defeat. New York, NY: Crown Publishers, 2007.
Civil War Trust, "Robert E. Lee." Last modified 2011. Accessed November 14, 2012.
Winning the Lottery
Almost every individual has dreamed about winning the state lottery and having millions of dollars to spend. While some individuals have elaborate fantasies of what they would do if they won the state lottery, others have more generalized notions. Examples of common visions individuals have about winning the state lottery include buying new car or house, making donations to charities, quitting work, traveling, etc. However, few individuals are truly prepared for the drastic changes winning the state lottery will bring to their lives. This paper analyzes and examines the potential effects winning the state lottery would have on me.
EFFECTS OF WINNING THE LOTTERY
For the purposes of this discussion, it will be assumed that I won $30 million in the state lottery. Winning $30 million in the state lottery would most likely result in a plethora of emotional, financial, personal, and social changes in my life and the lives…...
Chinua Achebe presents an archetypal patriarchal warrior with the character of Okonkwo in the novel Things Fall Apart. Okonkwo is described as being “well known,” his fame being based on quintessential masculine feats like winning wrestling tournaments and having many wives. A round character, rather than a dynamic one, Okonkwo also epitomizes the classical tragic hero whose hubris and stubbornness prevent him from changing or recognizing what he could do to better lead his people. Achebe uses traditional storytelling methods and a straightforward narrative style to elucidate the main elements of his protagonist. The reader therefore gleans information about Okonkwo primarily through the narrator’s direct descriptions of the protagonist’s actions, reactions, and words. Motivated by the desire to maintain power and to fulfill patriarchal roles and norms in his society, Okonkwo ends up committing egregious ethical wrongs in order to achieve his egotistical goals, and in the end of the…...
Butterfly
David Henry Hwang's Pulitzer-prize-winning drama M. Butterfly is almost single-minded in its examination of the role played by preconceptions in the establishment of cultural expectations and stereotypes. Based on a true story, the drama to some extent lays out in clear precise terms the ways in which estern prejudices toward China can lead to results that would seem wildly implausible in a brief factual summary, but are nonetheless the foreordained results of taking such estern prejudices to their logical conclusion. It is crucial to note, however, that Hwang's ideas are couched largely in terms of gender: this is a play in which the difference between men and women is engaged intellectually for the reader or viewer as a way of complicating or underscoring certain preconceptions about the difference between East and est. It is worth conducting a deeper examination of the ways whereby Hwang constructs his story and to investigate…...
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Works Cited
Hwang, David Henry. M. Butterfly. New York: Plume Books, 1993. Print.
Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books, 1979. Print.
This belief, that gods intervened directly in human affairs, would also then influence their decisions to enlist the help of local gods and spirits, although this was a rarer occurrence than using altars for oman gods and goddesses.
The altar also shows a later tendency towards tolerance for foreign gods. This is evident in the many similarities among oman and Greek gods, and also in the later religious practices of the oman people. The gods of Egypt, especially, played an important part in ome when these countries were exposed to each other.
With this particular artifact, there is also the potential for confusion. One does not know, for example, if Marcus Firmus, in erecting this altar, was superstitious or if he was simply taking the religious fervor of his people somewhat to the extreme. In other words, he could simply have been protecting himself, perfectly in keeping with the philosophy and…...
Bentley, Jerry H., Ziegler, Herbert F., and Streets-Salter, Heather E. Traditions & Encounters: A Brief Global History. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2010.
If feminism is about civil rights, human rights, children's rights and the search for peace, then it is clear that a substantial amount of the descriptive narrative in the Road is clearly anti-feminine. This has nothing to do with gender rights, and everything to do with the rights of all humans to live in dignity and be allowed "...life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." The nights, McCarthy writes on page 129, were "...blinding cold and casket black and the long reach of the morning had a terrible silence to it. Like a dawn before battle." The feminist world is not a cold world at all and children are sheltered from suffering; death is not supposed to come to young and middle aged people and mornings are not silent. Mornings are supposed to be filled with the joyful sound of songbirds and the happy shrieks of children, and there is…...
Blues music however did not cross racial lines, with the majority of famous blues musicians still residing in New Orleans and various other well-known black music entertainment venues of the South.
Gospel music has been an African-American church tradition with influences from traditional African music and especially prevalent during the slavery era. Later (most likely because of those particular ignominious associations and all they implied, especially in the South) gospel music was strongly discouraged within mainstream society and actively suppressed.
Similarly, blues music represented a blending of black musical traditions with a centuries-long history originating from the earliest days of American slavery. Sammy Davis Jr. And Nat King Cole, were and remain today among the best-known of early black entertainers within the (then) up-and-coming rock 'n roll genre of the 1940's. Each had a heavy influence upon Elvis himself.
Obviously, though, the blending of Southern musical traditions was not started by Elvis…...
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Works Cited
African-American Musical Tradition." (June 9, 1998). Retrieved January 9, 2007,
Iago in Othello
Othello is one of the most important and popular Shakespeare tragedies where the playwright highlights the maliciousness of human nature and the way it can destroy some naive souls. Iago is the villain in this play who is presented as an epitome of deceit and malice. However this has been done while keeping the character wrapped in thick clouds of honesty and truthfulness. This is a strange paradox as the on the surface we are repeatedly told that Iago is an honest man and he also considers himself to be so, while beneath all this fake honesty, he is always trying to stab someone in the back.
Because of his crafty nature, this character can also be considered a true Machiavellian figure. Close reading of Machiavelli's work reveals certain link between Iago and Machiavellian prince. Yet despite all his slyness, the character repeatedly claims to be an honest person…...
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References
W.H. Auden on Iago, Accessed online on 11th May 2003:
My story being done,
She gave me for my pains a world of sighs:
She swore, in faith, twas strange, 'twas passing strange,
Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful:
She wish'd she had not heard it, yet she wish'd
That heaven had made her such a man: she thank'd me,
And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her, should but teach him how to tell my story.
And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake:
She loved me for the dangers I had pass'd,
And I loved her that she did pity them.
This only is the witchcraft I have used:
Here comes the lady; let her witness it.
Translation
Setting: The inside of the administrative building. Nighttime. Othello is wearing a suit, and is confronted by the school's president, 'Dr. B,' and several members of the administration in their pajamas.
John Othello: Look Dr. B, I know it's not easy when your little girl leaves you. Lord knows…...
Cook/Identity/Page Number
Of "Identity" to Diversity
Identity
Tyler Cook
Self-reflect on how your family affected your beliefs and values. Describe at least two specific examples from your memory. Also include reflections on how your family shaped your views, and how that affects your feelings about diversity-related issues.
Self-Reflections on Childhood, Family, and Family Attitudes about Diversity
In self-reflecting on how my family affected my present beliefs and values, and my current attitudes about diversity, my main recollections are of being from a relatively well-off family, but of also of being surrounded as a child by other families that were less well-off, and sometimes of diverse ethnic backgrounds. I am a Caucasian male, and was raised in a series of small Midwestern areas where there were many families with lower-than- average incomes, although my own family was fortunate enough to not be one of them. Still, I feel that based on that background, I know something about…...
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Works Cited
Child Development Institute. "Stages of Social-Emotional Development in Children and Teenagers." Child Development Institute. Retrieved October 15, 2005, from: .
Habke, Audrey, and Ron Sept. "Distinguishing Group and Cultural Influences in Inter-Ethnic Conflict: A Diagnostic Model." Canadian Journal of Communication (CJC). Vol. 18, No. 4 (1993). Retrieved October 15, 2005,
Destructors, by Graham Greene and "The Rocking-Horse inner," by DH Lawrence. Specifically, it will compare and contrast the two stories. Greed has always been a powerful motivator, and greed is one of the main themes in these two works that seem quite similar at first glance. However, a closer reading brings out the dissimilarities in these works, but ultimately points to greed as a powerful destructive force in our lives, and that society reveres money and possessions above all else.
Greed in Two Similar orks
Initially, these two short stories seem quite similar. They are both set in Great Britain, and they both have young boys as their main characters. At first glance, they seem as if they might be stories about growing up in different worlds than we are used to, but underlying this first look are some dark and disturbing themes about how greed can destroy, and how destruction…...
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Works Cited
Greene, Graham. 21 Stories. New York: Viking Press, 1962.
identity of the self usually involves success. That success may include cars, luxury items, mansions, beautiful kids, and a beautiful spouse. It varies from person to person. Some people view success through self-actualization as well, having the ability to harness one's potentials and talents and becoming something more than what they thought possible. In The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald and The Talented Mr. Ripley by Highsmith, men attempt to find success through illegal means in order to fulfill their need of self-actualization and material gain. To them, success and self-actualization came from being wealthy and living in extravagance, not from being uniquely talented or philanthropic.
Only Gatsby, the man who gives is name to this book, was exempt from my reaction= Gatsby, who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened…...
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Works Cited
Fitzgerald, FS. The Great Gatsby. Ware: Wordsworth Classics, 1993. Print.
Highsmith, Patricia. The Talented Mr. Ripley. New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 2008. Print.
Hill People Page
In 1997, when Kirk Watson was running for mayor, Austin was in the drunken throes of enjoying a decade-long spell of unprecedented, economic growth. Unemployment was on the downswing. Corporate relocations and expansions were on the upswing. Venture capitol and new business creation was rising to an all-time high. Office buildings, apartment complexes, new home subdivisions, retail centers, along with all the roads to support them, were sprouting up all over the city. As a consequence, the city populace had become polarized in their feelings about growth and had split into two political camps. There were the developers who welcomed Austin's transition to a large, thriving metropolis much like the mega-cities of Dallas or Houston, and there were the environmentalists who didn't want Austin to be a city at all, but wanted to go back to the hip college town that was the Austin they knew in the…...
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References
Fisher, R. & Ury, W. 1991, Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, Penguin, New York.
Susskind, L. 1989, Breaking the Impasse: Consensual Approaches to Resolving Public Disputes, Basic Books, New York.
The Hill People Page
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