From a classical perspective, Palin’s is the more compelling narrative. The obstacles that she must overcome to fulfill her destiny are many, varied, and real. Raised in the frozen outback by a schoolteacher father and a school secretary mom, Palin accomplishes nothing without a good deal of work, often under difficult physical circumstances.
Palin takes a semester or two off to pay for college. She works at a diner over the summer. She enters the Miss Alaska contest to help pay tuition and is awarded second runner-up and “Miss Congeniality.” She interns during other summers to become a sports reporter.
After college, Palin joins fiancé Todd on his Bristol Bay salmon boat. During slow salmon runs, she works “messy, obscure seafood jobs” until she can find a job as sports reporter, and even then she keeps returning to Bristol Bay when the salmon are in season.
Throughout this period, despite the hard work and harsh environment, Palin never loses her sense of wonder about the spectacular natural theater in which she is so very much at home. When asked about the state’s best attributes during a Miss Alaska pageant, Palin responds, “its beauty and everything that the great Alaska outdoors has to offer.” Prophetically, she also plugs the state’s “potential in drilling for oil,” which, even then, “Outsiders don’t understand.”
Back in Hawaii, either through his grandparents’ connections or by dint of affirmative action, Obama spends grades five through twelve at Hawaii’s poshest prep school. Like Palin, he plays basketball, but while she is leading her school to the state championship, he is a second stringer on a team whose wins and losses go unremarked. The only scores Obama shares are the imagined racial ones that need to be settled, a working out of his “pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against [his] mother’s race.”
In his recent book Barack and Michelle, Chistopher Andersen quotes a black friend who rejected Obama’s claimed reason for being benched in a particular game.
No, Barry, it’s not because you’re black. It’s because you missed two shots in a row.
Obama admits to “marginal report cards” in prep school, but his underperformance does not diminish his dreams. He hits the mainland in the late 1970s with the “diversity” movement in full flower. Diversity’s rationale is that people of varied cultures enrich the educational experience. Obama’s upbringing, however, has been thoroughly white and elitist. The diversity bean-counters couldn’t care less. His skin color improves their “metrics.” Obama will ride this pony far.
After two druggy, uninspired years at Occidental College, Obama transfers to the Ivy League — Columbia, to be precise. In Dreams, Obama dedicates one half of a sentence to a summer job on a construction site. Otherwise, he is silent on how his tuition might have been paid for. As to his grades and SAT scores, it would be easier to pry North Korea’s nuclear secrets out of Kim Jong-Il.
i have a packet to do for my government class and i’m struggling really bad…here are the questions, if you can help at all, please do, because its due tomorrow. Thanks!
1. Obama’s personal strengths:
2. Obama’s personal weaknesses:
3. Obama’s background, biography, narrative, or story strengths:
4. Obama’s background, biography, narrative, or story weaknesses:
5. Obama’s policy strengths:
6. Obama’s policy weaknesses:
7. Constituencies that support Obama:
8. Constituencies that don’t yet support:
9. Primary states won:
10. primary states lost:
11. Overall strengths:
12. Overall weaknesses:
13. What attributes will you look for in a vice presidential candidate to mitigate your candidates weaknesses?
Why do people not stick to the facts and judge on hearsay? I am not an Obama supporter, but guess what? I don’t support his health care plan–I believe that it still would leave too many Americans in misery….but I did do my homework. Please go to the link provided here:
What I liked about this one is that politics are kept out—only the facts.
What are your thoughts? And please, no hate rantings, just be factual…Thank you!!!
Famous for cutting off his ear, or were his paintings really that good?
Early Years
Vincent Willem van Gogh was born March 30, 1853, in Zundert, a small village in the Netherlands, to Anna Cornelia Carbentus and Theodorus van Gogh. He had two younger brothers, Theodorus, who became particularly important in his life, and Cor, as well as three sisters, named Elizabeth, Anna and Wil. His father was a minister of the Dutch Reform Church.
After an unsuccessful run as an art dealer in Great Britain, Vincent found himself turned towards religion, and pursued a life as a missionary for several years. Eventually, giving into pressure from his family, he joined his parents in Etten in the Netherlands. He was quickly overcome by wanderlust, however, and soon left again to pursue his art, scrapping by a meager existence as he traveled from place to place. During this time he began to develop the ill health that would plague him for the rest of his life.
Paris and After
In 1886 Vincent joined his brother Theo in Paris, with whom he had maintained a steady correspondence throughout his earlier life. It was here that he seriously committed himself to art, and studied at the studio of Fernand Cormon, and encountered Impressionistic artists such as Gaugin, Monet, and Pissarro. Vincent’s personally style underwent a drastic change at this time, turning away from the darker palette of his earlier work such as The Potato Eaters. Instead, he began to employ the short, thick brushstrokes, and bright, vivid colors for which he is most well known today. It was only then, in the last four years of his life, that he created the majority of his body of work, over 200 paintings.
Eventually, he left Paris for Arles, where he hoped to found an art school. He was eventually joined by Gaugin, but the two increasingly quareled. During an especially tense moment, Vincent cut off a portion of his left ear with a razor blade. Suffering increasingly ill mental and physical health, he was confined to an asylum in Saint-Remy for treatment, where he was visited by his brother Theo. There, some of his work became characterized by bold whorls and waves, including one of his most famous paintings, The Starry Night.
Death
In May of 1890, Vincent left Saint-Remy and moved to Auvers-sur-Oise. There he was cared for by one Dr. Gachet, who became the subject of another of van Gogh’s most revered pieces, Portrait of Dr. Gachet. His depression worsened, and on July 27, 1890, he shot himself in the chest. He died two days later, at the age of 37. His last words, as reported by his brother Theo, who stayed by his deathbed, were “La tristesse durera toujours” (French for “The sadness will last forever”). During his brief career, Vincent had only sold one painting, The Red Vineyard, and traded one other as a substitute for rent payment.
Legacy
Vincent van Gogh, despite his lack of success during his own lifetime, had gone on to be one of the most influential painters of all time. While partially fuelled by the publishing of his correspondence with Theo, which created his image of a tormented artists dedicated to his passion, the vibrancy and texture of his work influenced the aesthetic of many painters after him. His paintings are incredibly popular among collectors; one of the two versions of Portrait of Dr. Gachet was sold in 1990 $82.5 million, at the time the highest price ever for a single painting. Today, van Gogh and his work represents one of the most recognized and influential icons of art.
Famous For: Painting, drawing, ushering in Post-Impressionistic art, cutting off part of his left ear.
Key Accomplishments: Furthered aesthetic development of Impressionism into Post-Impressionism, posthumously recognized as one of the world’s greatest artists.
Significant Quote: “I tell you, if one wants to be active, one must not be afraid of going wrong, one must not be afraid of making mistakes now and then. Many people think that they will become good just by doing no harm— but that’s a lie, and you yourself used to call it that. That way lies stagnation, mediocrity.” (Letter to Theo van Gogh, from Nuenen)
Fun Quote: “Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.”
i have where he is from who his parents are who is his wife who are his children where he went to school at and which books he wrote and i want to know how many copies each book sold
Paul Robeson (1898 – 1976) was one of the most controversial African Americans of his time. He was also one of the most talented people of his time, of any race, something that would be attested to by historians and biographers of all races. Like Barack Obama he was a high profile figure around whom there was considerable controversy and fear. One might even hear those echoes using different words but the same theme as “who is Barack Obama” as recited by Sarah Palin and John McCain in McCarthy hearings about Paul Robeson.
Born of a runaway slave, Paul Robenson was a man whose talents and achievements were far ranging. He spoke out against the treatment of the African Americans throughout much of his life. He was an actor, singer, All-American football player, law graduate, orator and writer. Despite the openly racist and violent opposition he faced, Robeson became a twelve letter athlete excelling in baseball, basketball, football, and track. He was named twice to the All American Football team, received a Phi Beta Kappa from Rutgers University, and was the valedictorian of the graduating class of that institution in 1919. His brilliant singing voice, a resonant base, made him a high-demand concert singer both in the United States and abroad. He won high recognition for the film Emperor Jones made in 1925andhis stage performances in Porgy and Bess and Othello on the European stage. He also became known for the song “Ol Man River, the theme song of the play, Showboat, which later became a movie musical. Robeson’s spirituals became widely known and appreciated. By the 1930′s he often refused to sing before segregated audiences.
During his travels to Europe, where he lived for 11 years in the late 1920′s to the late 1930′s, Robeson visited Russia. There he won the International Stalin Peace Prize in 1952 during the McCarthy years, which brought him to the attention of the anti-communist committee hearings in the Senate during those years. Although Robeson declared that he was a socialist, as opposed to communist, but he was painted with the brush of the latter. Concert dates were cancelled, and Robeson became vilified to the extent that he was seldom given much press or recognition for later achievements. Robeson’s passport had been taken away from him in 1950 so that he had been unable to leave the country until the Supreme Court ruling on another case like his and his passport restored. By then he had lost his status and his money, became seriously depressed, and tried twice to commit suicide, according to a music historian who wrote about his life.
Robeson’s problems continued unabated. His biography, written in 1958, was not even reviewed by the major journals of the time. After living in Russia and Africa, and continuing his travels in Europe, he returned to the United States in 1963 . By the 1960′s and 1970′s he was virtually unknown, and his health deteriorated dramatically. Robeson died after suffering a stroke in 1976 in the Philadelphia area. His autobiography Here I Stand gives his life view and documents his beliefs and experiences to 1958. Despite his many accomplishments during the 20th century, and his recognition by many scholars connected with Princeton and Rutgers Universities as being perhaps one of the greatest geniuses of that century, he is seldom, if ever, shown in history books. Despite that omission, however, on January 20, 2004 a postal stamp honoring Paul Robeson was unveiled in Princeton, New Jersey and is now part of the Black Heritage Stamp Collection. The sad thing is that this great talent is largely unknown by young people of color let alone most white Americans living today. Still his legacy continues in the music he gave that provides some sense of immortality for him.
One of Paul Robeson’s songs shows the conviction that everyone can and should contribute equally in America, which Robeson believed and spoke about, despite his interest in political issues that forced him to live many years in relative exile. He wanted to perform equally, as he had found in Europe, and mourned the segregation in America. Like Barack Obama as a young man Paul Robeson believed in the virtues of America, despite the great prejudices of his time. He had a vision of unity in diversity. The song, “Ballad of America,” is a riveting example of the power of his voice in song and speech. Here are some of its words:
“–From her plains and mountains, we have sprung,
To keep the faith with those who went before. . . .
Our marching song will come again,
Simple as a hit tune, deep as our valleys.
High as our mountains, strong as the people who made it.
For I have always believed it and I believe it now and you know who I am.”
Carol Forsloff is a professional journalist with small town newspaper with hard copy and online editions and political and social blog. She has also written several books, one of which on Sarah Palin is on her website and soon available at Amazon.com. Carol is licensed also as a mental health counselor, certified as a teacher,has taught history, politics, reading and journalism. She is experienced over 40 years in multiple areas. See websites at http://www.thehouseofaloha.com/Books.html, http://sarahpalinsecretlife.com and blog at http://coffeewithcarol.blogspot.com
Out of the thousands of award winning designs and projects that he has authored, Milton Glaser is best known for a chosen few – the ‘I love New York’ Logo, his ‘Bob Dylan’ poster and the ‘Brooklyn Breweries logo. He also co-founded the now very famous ‘New York Magazine’. Now, let us look further into Milton Glaser biography.
Born on June, 26, 1929, Glaser started the path that would lead him to several successes at the then, New York City’s High School of Music & Arts and Performing Arts (Cooper Union Art School) and graduated in 1951. Under scholarship, he then attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna from 1952 to 1953.
Although blessed with such a great mind, his work is famous for the simplicity, directness and originality of it. With themes that range from ‘primitive’ to ‘avant garde’ he has designed several album covers, book jackets, illustrations for magazines, print adverts, etc. for too many clients all over the world.
Milton Glaser has also founded or co-founded many successful establishments in his lifetime. In 1954, together with his former course mates, he set up Push Pin Studios. In 1974, he started his own studio, Milton Glaser, Inc. With his new studio, he became involved in a wide array of projects. The famous ones are; an enormous mural for the Federal Office Building in Indianapolis and the design of his pet project, the New York Magazine.
In 1983, he collaborated with Walter Bernard to form a publishing design firm called WBMG. With many publications to vouch for it, this very famous, award winning company is a household name when it comes to Magazines and Newspaper Design in the US and even Internationally.
With a very long career in graphic design, he has almost become a legend when it comes to contemporary arts. His designs and illustrations are now famous case studies and this has won his numerous awards from prestigious art clubs, institutions, and societies.
Glaser was made an Honorary Fellow at the Royal Society of Arts in 1979; he was also made a member of the Alliance Graphic International. In 2009, President Barack Obama decorated him with the ‘National Medal of Arts Award.
Several of his work are displayed in various leading Arts Museums around the world, they include; Victoria and Albert Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, Musee d L’affiche in Paris, Israel Museum, etc.
As an icon who strived to pass on his legacy to the younger generation, he has lectured in the Cooper Union and the School of Visual Arts both in New York City. The legacies left behind by Milton Glaser are almost too generous to mention, his name is almost now synonymous with graphic design and illustrations.